Gnomish History
This text was by Frederick Doughty, a Sage at The Imperial Library at Nareth, the Eastern Empire. Doughty is a member of Thomas Newgent's research team, a specialist in demi-human races, and has carried out extensive research into Gnomish history and culture. This is an abridged version of his many years work.
This document looks into the post-Disaster history of the gnomes, their plight and suffering in recent years, and provides an insight into the way of life in the modern gnomish settlements and delves of Arthea.
Background
Gnomes are a carefree and fun-loving race, with a love of the scientific and an ability to work with materials that is near legendary. Despite their love of laughter, their race has been blighted by invasion and conquest from The Underdark, leaving their numbers today dangerously low. The land of Arthea would be poorer without their creativity and humour.
Despite recent attempts by several of the senior Dwarfish delves, the tide of invasion has not been turned. It would seen the inhabitants of the depths see the gnomes as an easy target. Their low numbers and lack of battle-prowess certainly makes them an easier proposition than attacking an armed delve of dwarves, bristling with axes and battle-hardened warriors.
Coupled with this, the gnomes are renown for their use of magic and technology, and their propensity to play jokes and tricks on the unwary. This makes them less popular than their dour brethren the Dwarves in human circles. If only humanity would wake up to the contribution made by these wonderful people, maybe they could be helped more. The war with the Underdark is not yet engaged, but by protecting the gnomes it may be possible to stem the advance of creatures from the deep.
Post Disaster History
The First Two Centuries
The period immediately following The Great Disaster was met with a hard cold winter that lasted for many years. Other races, particularly humans, struggled to cope with these conditions, and even the dwarves had taken to living on the surface for a while. But the gnomes are an inventive people, and their scholars lead them southwards. It seems they already knew how to find the warmest climates and give their people the best chance of survival. The southern coastline of Arthea immediately after the Disaster was a bitter and barren wasteland, but it was far warmer than the north; the gnomes gathered in the south-west of the lands. Humanity seemed to have gathered around the south-east, and were separated from the gnomes at first by my many miles of icy wilderness.
The wintry conditions brought challenges to the gnomes that they had not seen before. Instead of building their usual delves close to the surface, they sheltered in woodland where there was some protection, and better sources of food. Without the tools to build delves, digging at first was impossible; and the migration to a warmer home had left them in a land where natural caves were scarce. The gnomes quickly began production of charcoal as a fuel supply, and used the woodland as a source of raw materials for their new dwellings. In these earliest of times the gnomes lived in simple constructions made mostly of wattles covered with thatch and sealed with various materials, often a mud, but this soon progressed to a kind of plaster made of ground up rocks and chalk. As they discovered new sources of metals, and as their tools moved from bronze to iron, they slowly migrated to underground halls. These proved much warmer, and at then end of the second century after the Disaster, the gnomes had spread northwards from the south-west, and were now seeking further north for any signs of their former homes.
Becoming Farmer, Fishermen and Traders
Small gnomish communities had grown up in the south, and through the third and fourth centuries the societies that lived in small buildings on the surface among the trees gradually changed and included communal halls and other shared facilities underground. By the end of the fourth century they had become societies that lived wholly underground once more. Before the Disaster, gnomes lived as hunters and fishermen above ground, and miners below. Now they had established farming and fishing communities on the surface, using their intelligence to find ways to bring the best crop yields out of the lands around them. During this time they established close ties with surrounding halfling communities. These people worked with the gnomes to provide mutual support and farming. These communities were well integrated, there was seldom any separation.
It was during the third century that gnomes began trading once again. At first trade was only with The Elves; aside from Halflings, the distances were too far for contact with other races. Elves sought to trade both knowledge and goods with the Gnomes, and always eager to learn the Gnomes obliged.
It was not until the mid to late fourth century that the gnomes re-established their ties with the dwarves. The gnomes had been moving northwards, searching for any of their people that had become lost and searching for signs of their former homes. When they met their close kin, many of the gnomish people moved northwards, re-colonising the north where the the climate was now much warmer. New gnomish delves were established close by the big dwarfish constructions. Many halflings took up the journey too, and established settlements of their people in the lower slopes and rolling wooded hills around the The Kathron Delve and The Bemiris Khinat Delve particularly.
The drive for this came through the need to trade. Traditionally dwarves and gnomes had lived close by each other, being more closely aligned with each other than with humans or elves. This relationship had historically seen gnomes provide ideas and common sense while the dwarves provided a drive for relentless effort and an uncanny ability to use tools.
The next two hundred and fifty years saw a new renaissance in this inter-dependence of the races. Gnomes improved both the tools and the techniques available to the dwarves and through this helped the expansion of the new delves pick up speed. In modern times, such delves are expanded only slowly, but here the problems of overcrowding were enormous at first. There has been no time since when the delves have been built at such a pace, and the credit for this is shared by both the endeavour of the dwarves and the cunning of the gnomes. Many ideas had managed to survive the Disaster, and had been handed down through gnomish generations by word of mouth. But now these ideas were brought forward and tried out in earnest. The need to build quickly brought about a rapid growth in quality and quantity of the methods employed by the delve cutters.
Alongside this growth in building quality came the use of magic. Gnomes have always had a tendency to be adept with certain types of magic, unlike their dwarfish brethren who have a reputation for being un-magical. This magic was brought out and assisted with some of the building works. While school of illusion has always been favoured by gnomes, they were required at this time to use much broader magical skills. The gnomes helped illuminate new works, and helped with the cutting of rock. Illusions were also employed to help design the more complex of constructions – providing visualisations of the work before any stone had been cut. Through these efforts, the gnomes quickly re-learned many magical skills and spells that had been lost.
The Building of the Delves
- Where
- how
- when
Technology Advancement and Sales
- sale of technology to dwarves and elves
Relationships with Human Lands
- Poor start because of connection to magic; gnomes turned away. Fear of technology also hurting relations.
- Acceptance by new empire politically, treated as an ally by the leaders, but still shunned by the people.
- Empire creates protected communities, halfling go up in arms, Dwarfs recommend against this 'Aparteid' approach.
- Relations fail completely, gnomes driven north as magic is forced from the empire.
- Irony| the gnomes fall-in with the people in the north, particularly what will become Caldonacia (the humand benefit enormously). Gnomes end up living near Dwarves and Humans, and are welcomed by both.
- Caldonacia becomes a safe haven for the gnomes until unification, despite the wars. Gnomes re-populate the southern delves now, but this is when the Underdark troubles start.
- Despite the Empire taking the first crown of a unified land, Caldonacia successfully lobbies for the gnomes to be treated as free and equal members of the lands.
Gnomish Legends
The Gnomes have many popular legends|