Do games have the lock on "Gnomepunk?"

[elfs]

The video game Warcraft II introduced a new fantasy genre: gnomepunk. In it, gnomes went from being tricksters to being the geniuses of blending engineering and magic, creating giant mage-powered machines that rolled over enemy forces and made a mess of the local ecology.

This genre has been expanded by Warcraft III, World of Warcraft, and more recently by the epic Lineage II game series, in which clanking magically-powered mecha stride across the terrain on their way to battle, stomping everything in their way.

But outside of these video games, I haven't seen a lot of gnomepunk. I've rarely seen it in written fiction, and I've long wondered why. Is there gnomepunk fiction, or is just too juvenile a combination to justify writing about?

Comments

[manawolf.livejournal.com]

The Dragonlance franchise/series took that slant on gnomes. Except their inventions are usually a hazard to anyone and everyone, not just the enemy.

[en-ki.livejournal.com]

And one can't forget the extension of Dragonlance gnomepunk to the Spelljammer universe!

[mouser.livejournal.com]

...and in this case AD&D absorbed the idea.

Not sure how far back it goes - all my AD&Dv1 stuff is in storage.