A Year & A Day: Nisser
Changeling: the Dreaming
Homebrew Rules
Character Creation Guide Download: Nisser.pdf
Quoth the Nisser:
“Perhaps you didn’t hear me; I said…. YOU’RE WELCOME! Now, what are you are supposed to say before I say that?”
Kith Excerpt:
While not necessarily a dark Abstammung by any means, the Nisser are serious when it comes to their own world. For every dark-primeval forest that has stories of strange-goings on, the Nisser are their providing maintenance. They are found in every Scandinavian country, every Balkan country, and every German settlement in the world. South America boasts a large community, as does Canada, and all through the American Midwest. All those varied region’s inhabitants have one rule concerning the Nissen: “Watch your back.”
A Nisser is also called a Nisse, Niðsi, Tomte, Tomtenisse, Tonttu, Jultomte, Julenisse, Tomtarna, Vetter, Tusser, Haugkall, Haugebonde, Trädgårdstomte, Havenisse, Hagenisse, or even Garden Gnomes in the modern parlance. Although to do so to their faces requires more cajones than anything. One sees a Nisser’s bright red and conical cap and conjures happy images of jovial woodland creatures that maintain little gardens and aid tiny woodland creatures from deep within their wooden burrow-homestead. Such suppositions will get you hurt.
While it is true that they do protect dark forests, aid wooden critters, and, yes, keep gardens, it is also true that they use guile, guerilla tactics, and violence as tools to maintain their way of life. This isn’t the usual candor or straight-forwardness that is recognized amongst the other Wechselbalg (Changelings), but then again, the Nisser aren’t your average Wechselbalg.
Flavor
“Gnomes live ten times faster than humans. They’re harder to see than a high speed mouse. That’s one reason why most humans hardly ever see them. The other is that humans are very good at not seeing things they know aren’t there. And, since sensible humans know that there are no such things as people four inches high, a gnome who doesn’t want to be seen probably won’t be seen…” – Terry Pratchett
