#thegnomehands

"I said I would buy Neeshka a hellhound puppy for her birthday, Grobnar. I'm not quite so certain you can handle the responsibilities of a pet, and the construct doesn't count - you cannot feed, bathe, or clean up the wastes of a construct, and it cannot show you adoration." Sand narrowed his eyes. "Or have you forgotten the disaster concerning Ser Gillmore and Ser Finnsley, the two goldfish that you were supposed to be taking care of?"

ship: ew / nonono / maybe / ship it / aww / otp / MY HEART

((XDDD No. Just no.

For Ophelia Grobnar is adorable and all that, but he’s too immature. While I my bard might appear as a totally light-hearted, charming lass, she does have a darker side: take her hate towards Bishop or adrenaline addiction, for example. Grobnar wouldn’t understand those, even if he tried. He’s too innocent for that.

As friends, I still stick to what I said a long time ago: I can picture them having similar relation as Safiya and Ophelia, but this time it is Ophelia, who’s a mentor and the more rational one in the pair. Still, my bard is far from thinking lowly of him: she still remembers that he is the one responsible for fixing the golem, that he helped her win the bard contest in Blacklake and in my playthrough I passed a final influence check and Grobnar fooled Bishop, so Ophelia loves him now to death. While she finds some of his ideas extremely naïve, she knows that under that impression of extravagance and carefree optimism lies a good, kind heart and a very bright mind.

She would totally play like a child with him, but I doubt she would talk about her problems.

He is a bard too. Need I say more? While Ophelia is sometimes… embarrassed by Grobnar’s eccentricity, she beliefs that there is a method in every madness, and that rule applies also to Grobnar. She thinks highly of him as a composer (not so much as a singer) and she still remembers that he is the one responsible for fixing the Construct. As for Wendersnavens, she doesn’t believe in them personally, but since Grobnar arguments were pretty convincing, she simply decided to let it go. She’s seen enough things to learn that ‘never say never’.

In my playthrough I passed an influence check for Grobnar, so he had a sparkling moment of awesome, when he made Bishop an idiot by getting the Construct back on our side. I’ve never felt more proud that I play a bard, seriously. As confusing and childish Grobnar can sometimes be, he’s also one of the smartest characters in the game, just like Aldanon. I love them both.

Look above. Grobnar became an unquestionable hero of the whole team before the confrontation with Black Garius. I’m sure that even Sand had been rendered speechless. He made Ophelia feel less alone, sharing her passion for singing and composing. He also helped her won the bard’s contest in Blacklake. Ophelia practically plays the same role for Grobnar as Sand and Safiya play for her – an occasional voice of reason when things starts to get dangerously out of hand.

"Gnomehands has a spare guitar string?"

"Why, yes. Somewhere in here, I’m sure I don’t know where they all go, maybe the Wendersnaven borrow them…" Grobnar burrowed through one of his drawers, fishing out snail shells, plectrums, a few cogwheels, a dirty piece of underwear and an orange feather before finally finding the box of guitar strings and tossing it at Deekin.

Deekin caught it and grinned toothily. “Thanks!”

"It’s no trouble!" Grobnar grinned back. Why, the kobold was just the best roommate he’d ever had, he couldn’t understand why the other music students had complained about him so much. Maybe they didn’t like the way he picked his teeth with a dagger, or maybe it was all the posters of the Boss (they went nicely with Grobnar’s Wendersnaven posters which some of the student had insisted were only landscapes or blank pieces of paper), or the way he snored and shed scales everywhere… some people were strange.

Who couldn’t appreciate Deekin’s latest composition, Doomy Dooms of Doom? Or his previous one, Doomful Doom, or his first, Doom? One day, Grobnar hoped, he’d catch something of Deekin’s genius in the same way he’d caught a variant of Deekin’s foot fungus.

"Deekin, did you eat the last of the pasta?"

"No, Deekin leaves it for Gnomehands," the kobold replied. "Gnomehands wants a beer with it? And we watches The Sound of Music again? Deekin is going to paint his claws purple.”

As with so many of the Keep’s stranger happenings, it was very difficult to tell exactly how it had come to this - ten events, Grobnar against Safiya, a panel of judges that included Sand, Agengi, Deekin and Knight-Captain Isolde. Safiya had won the golem-crafting, arcane display, riddles, and, to nobody’s surprise, the wet clothing contests. Grobnar, on the other hand, had won the arm-wrestling, story-telling, thumb war, and pie-eating contests. The musical challenge had finally considered a draw: Grobnar’s playing was clearly superior, but almost everyone preferred Safiya’s voice. The fact that one was singing about sunrise in Rashemen and the other about an exotic species of navel-fungus might have also swayed the judges.

“So it all comes down to this,” the Knight-Captain announced dramatically. Deekin helped the drama along by providing a drum roll. Sand just rolled his eyes. “Monty Python and the Holy Grail! You will alternate lines, and the first to miss one in word or inflection will lose!”

“Wait…” Safiya said. “I’ve never heard of the play.”

“Automatic forfeit!” Isolde said. “Really, Safiya, I expected better of you. Your sentence: I will say Ni at you until you die, or until I’ve had enough.”

“I’ve never heard anything so ridic-“

“Ni!”

“Iso-“

“Ni!”

“B-“