Is it untoward in the opinions of fantasy writers and readers alike, to use a title like "gnomes" and redefine what a "gnome" is in your world? I intend them not just to be short people with carious "gnomish" traits, instead i intend them to be any sort of person with a psychological or physical deformity... I don't want to offend years of established lore by attempting something that may be considered offensive to the genre.
I personally think it is a clever idea. but of course it is, it is my idea.
I say go with it.
I do this sort of thing all the time. For example, my most used MC (who has appeared in more than 30 stories now and has his own website,
http://www.myspace.con/etioleswanzen) is a Siren (an evil vampire-like type of mermaid from ancient myth). There is a story behind his creation:
I've always loved mermaids. How often do you see mermaids? All the time. How often do you see mermen? Not too often, but they do show up.
Now, how often do you see female sirens? Rarely. How often do you see a male siren? Never. Okay, that bothered me. I mean, what are they, amebeas? There has to be male sirens around somewhere in order to keep the race going, right?
Now here's the biggie: How often do you see mermaids and sirens as they were originally potraied: evil blood-thirsty water sprites, that feed on human flesh, and caused great storms when angry? Never. Never! Everyone writes about cute cuddly lovey dovey happy mermaids that grant wishes and over all are way to human in mentality. This too bothered me, because sirens are not human, and they should not be expected to act or think or rationalize like humans.
Well, I created an entire "universe" based on this theory alone, and in the end, I developed a race of Sirens that, though they still somewhat reselmbed sirens of myth, they were now a totally unique race, created by me.
Well, for me, I just snubbed my nose at years of tradition and made my sirens to be the way I wanted them to be. Of course, I didn't stop with changing just sirens either: My griffons are not griffons as tradtion knows them, neither are my Phookas, or my wizards for that matter.
As for your gnomes... I like your ideas, I say go with it.
If I recall, until Lord of the Rings, if you said 'elves' everyone would think of the little people who lived in mushrooms.
So go bananas.
and as I only just discovered LOTR from the movies... I was stunned to see elves that were not of the tiny, Santa's toy shop variety. Whenever I write about elves, they are less than 2 feet tall and live in hallow trees or Santa's workshop. Tolkien's elves are just too foriegn and unelf like to me. I don't like them.
Of course I did grow up on a heavy dose of The Smurfs too, so blue skinned elves living in mushrooms is my other thought when I think elves.
