I’m not going to lie — the only thing more fun than writing that letter from Pux was researching more about gnomes as they’re settled in Pathfinder. The more I learn about gnomes, the more I feel like I should play them more. This will probably upset My Husband, The Dragon to hear. But the section in the core rulebook on gnomish humor? That is *totally* my jam. I incorporated a little bit of exaggeration in the letter, but I also thought it would be a good idea to have Pux come across as friendly and encouraging through at least the first exchange. As he and Malcolm warm to each other (and I learn more about them), they should let out more of their distinctive personalities in the writing.
Here is Malcolm’s second letter to Puxineathas Goodfellow.
Dear Mr. Puxineathas,
Yo, thanks for the rose quartz! You cut that yourself? I’m really impressed, dude. It looks freaking dope! I brought it in to show my friends at the last RPG Club meeting in school. They liked it, but they said it didn’t come from no gnome and it was probably made in China somewhere. They might be right, but I don’t really care. I love it, and China’s all the way on the other side of the world, so it still came a long, long way.
Thanks for telling me about your Burrow and what you do and everything. It’s pretty cool that you have this job you really like, and that you’re really good at. I bet if I had like, 80 years to study one thing I’d be really good at it too! But we don’t live that long. Some of us don’t even make it out of high school; my friend’s sister got shot last year crossing the street, and about six months ago somebody pointed a gun in my face and tried to rob me. I didn’t get shot, but they beat me up a little bit. I was a little crazy after that. I got real jumpy about loud noises for a while, and I wasn’t sleeping good so I got mad at people really easy. I talked to a counselor at school and she taught me about breathing when I feel upset or scared and sometimes it helps, but not really though.
I don’t know why I’m writing that in this letter, to be honest. I guess it’s just…nobody’s ever given me anything like that before. You were really cool about it, and your letter made me feel a lot better than I felt in a long time. I’m sorry it took me so long to write you back, but I was kind of stressing that mine wasn’t going to be as good as yours and had to build up to it. But then I thought I should just…sit down and write what comes out, you know? So that’s what I’m doing.
Oh! So…I had to do a little research on Baltimore because you asked about it and to be honest I didn’t know that much about it. It was founded in 1729, which is 287 years ago, so like…it’s about as old as a pretty old gnome. What’s weird is that it’s one of the oldest cities in our country, but the United States is a pretty young country in the grand scheme of things, so.
We don’t live underground like you guys do or anything. We have a lot of buildings in different neighborhoods, which are like, little sections where the same kind of people live. It’d be like if all the poor people lived in one part of your Burrow, and rich people in a nicer part, but then you had like, I don’t know, gnomes of all one color living in an entirely different part and sometimes they spoke a different language. Baltimore’s like that. We each have our own little territories, and sometimes we go outside of them but most of the time we don’t.
I really like going to different places, though. One of my favorite places to go is downtown, especially the library. It’s this big, big building that you could just get lost in. Whenever I can, I try to spend the whole day there from the time it opens at 10 to when it closes at 5. I can only do that in the summer, because it gets dark too early otherwise and walking to the bus stop is kind of scary. But man, there are so many books there. I like reading a book and thinking about something else that sounds like it’d be cool to read about and finding whatever other book looks fun. I read a lot. I’m pretty sure I know the library by heart. It’d be cool to get a job there, but I don’t even know how that would happen. Maybe something in the summer.
Anyway, do you have any favorite books? How many do you have? I’ve got 37 books under my bed. They’re mostly role-playing books, but I’m getting a few novels now too. I’m saving up for a copy of Lord of the Rings, which is like, this big story about a bunch of people who have to throw a cursed ring into this volcano or else this bad guy is going to end the world or something. I saw the movies when they came out, and they were pretty tight, so I guess the book has to be better, right?
When I get some more money, I can send you my favorite book right now. It’s about this unicorn who finds out she’s the last one in the world, but she thinks it can’t be true so she goes out of her forest to find others and has all kinds of adventures along the way. She finds them in the end and they’re all free and stuff, but for some reason the ending is still really sad. I guess it’s because she found all these people who helped her and stuff, and now she has to go back to being alone. That sucks, going out and seeing all this stuff, and then coming back to your own little corner knowing that this is all there is for you forever. I don’t want to be like that.
But it sounds like you’re good where you’re at, and that’s cool. I’d really like to come visit where you live, but I don’t think that would work out too good. The ceiling is probably really low, and I’m pretty sure I can’t get to your Burrow anyway. But hey, maybe I can be a gnome in my next game or something, and you can give me pointers on how to act.
I hope you’re making awesome jewelry. I can’t wait for your next letter!
Sincerely,
Malcolm Williams
From the Desk of Jakebe T. Rabbit 