I was reading through the Companion and was looking at gnomes. It said that all known gnomes are shamen. Does that mean that you cannot take a physical adept? I am guessing adepts are magical, but I would love clarification to be sure.

All known Gnomes.

Note the italicized part.

It's like saying all of one group of people are known to do this -- there are obviously going to be exceptions.

There are shamanic adepts.

Don't have it in front of me, but doesn't it say all gnome magicians are shamans? That is, there are also mundane gnomes. Am I mistaken?

Dread Polack

"All known magical gnomes are shamans."

Again, I'd put emphasis on the "known" bit, rather than the "all" bit.

In my game i have a gnome adept. I felt that discription was too "D&D" in my book. The char is a russian gnome who was in organized crime. To say he was a shamanic anything would be alittle weird.

I asked my GM if I could play a gnome hermetic mage, and it posed no problem.

I guess that 'most' of gnomes are shamans, but it doesnt mean every single one of them are.

"Known" is a damn pesky word when there's no point of reference. Known by anyone in the world? Known by the writer IC? Known by the writer OOC? (Think about it!) Known by mainstream society? That line's almost too vague to mean anything.