Of Gnomes

Affectionately known as the little folk, few have ever raised complaint against the genteel gnomes of Volianor’s Third World.

Known to their close racial allies the fey as ‘reniil’, or ‘inner light’, the gnomes bear a remarkable physiology, with features ranging from natural camouflage to supernatural nervous systems. Their culture is deeply laced with ancestral laws, and their technology utterly unique within their societies.

Physical Appearances

Gnomes stand no taller than 68 centimetres and no shorter than 43 centimetres, averaging at 53 centimetres tall. They are humanoid, with two arms and two legs, ten fingers and eight toes. They have one mouth, a ‘gnose’ and typically two eyes, though rare genetic lines carry a code for three eyes, with the third placed just above the gnose. They have simplistic ears at either side of their heads with no auricles (skin flaps), though cartilage can build around the ear hole and create a protrudent bump at the side of the head. Rather than hair they grow clumps of fine cilia which can grow as long as 16 centimetres. Gnomes begin to grow tails at the age of 333 years, and their tails continue to grow until potentially reaching double an individual’s body height.

The Gnose:

The centre of a gnome’s face is taken up by a bulky construct referred to as a ‘gnose’ – an advanced organ used to process smells and ascertain their exact direction, and to safely expel mucus. Due to their wide nasal passages, gnomes rarely suffer from sinusitis and other infections within their nasal cavities.

The gnose forms around a central ridge which can often grow with several vertebrae, giving it a humped appearance and increasing its size with age. At either side of this ridge are two long vertical slits and two crescent slits, which routinely open and shut as a small muscle beside the nasal ridge flexes. Gnoses can be very sensitive, and when they are damaged too often they will grow a scaled carapace to protect themselves.

Skin:

Gnomes’ bodies are predominately covered in soft, hairless flesh which offers little natural protection. In areas prone to the sufferance of bumps and bruises they develop patches of minute, iridescent scales resembling those of fish rather than of reptiles. With age their skin loosens but does not wrinkle, rather spreading to cover ridges of crystallised bone which line the limbs and spine as they get older.

Their skin is transparent, but underlined with chromatophores capable of changing their colour to suit their environment. These chromatophores are also sensitive to a gnome’s emotions, causing them to change colour frequently when in a complex social cluster.

Cilia & Tail:

The minute cilia attached to the various nexuses of the gnomish form are at a distance indistinguishable from human hairs. They are incredibly fine, and transparent even when a gnome uses its natural camouflage. Though most gnomes will allow their cilia to grow – though growth is generally slow – those with a particular need for stealth or combat slice them off to harness a practical bodily economy. Cutting the cilia is painless, but will produce a small amount of fluid.

Gnommish cilia curl and flex at their own whim, probing surfaces and offering additional range for their owner’s quasi-electric nervous system.

A gnome’s tail is essentially a single large cilium, boneless and fleshy. They are usually 10 centimetres in diameter but can be much thinner and much thicker than average. Their tails are easily manipulated by a knot of muscles at their bases, and are used in place of walking sticks to assist older gnomes in moving around. Gnomes who grow three eyes also grow tails with three distinct tips.

Biology:

As with any magickal creature Gnomes rely on adaptive aethereal particles within their bloodstream to substitute metallic compounds natural races rely on. However, their adaptation to the reduced aethereal connectivity on Reltash has affected their former levels of dependency. On the Third World (Named Artash by their people) they would release their excess magick into their immediate environment and warp it to their wills, but on Reltash the dwindled excess cannot maintain any exterior structure. Rather, it is simply circulated within their bodies until it eventually settles in their bones, wizening their limbs and making them appear less human as they grow older.

Their nervous system is touched by magick to a much greater extreme than their brothers and sisters the fey. It reacts to quasi-electrical stimulation, giving them a ‘sixth sense’ rather than a true sense of touch. Practised gnomes can even feel pain before any actual damage affects their bodies and make moves to avoid it.

Gnomes have evolved in such a way that the higher tier magicks of the multiverse cause minimal negative temperance to their minds, while somewhat hampering their reasoning and deference to the complexities of Reltash. Their brains are segmented into three distinct sectors each surrounding a neural ventricle and individually capable of basic consciousness. When awake and in a general state of rest these sectors function as one, usually under the guidance of the central sector. When a gnome loses consciousness as a result of magick, however, the sectors remain active individually until an aethereal overload shuts them down. In this way gnomes can discipline their minds into pushing past the limits of ordinary beings and craft a higher tier hex. The circulatory system within their skulls is also much more sophisticated, allowing crystal matrixes formed by magickal overdoses to disperse without any great mental detriment.

Their segmented brains are unfortunately also what causes them to lack the concentration, focus and intellectual drive demanded by the vagaries of Hexaemer. Their brains do not process information as quickly as humans or fey, and without practise a gnome cannot focus his or her consciousness within a single sector, causing them to temporarily forget what they are doing and start from scratch.

Vocally gnomes possess what have become known as ‘honeyed voices’. Their voice boxes are one of the primary sites for the secretion of excess aether, and when carried away on their words they generate an intoxicating vibration which is pleasant to the listener and considered mellifluous by other races.

The excess aether is also vented through their pores, providing them with a natural pheromone after using higher tier magicks. In ordinary circumstances this scent is negligible, but powerful gnomish magickers are known among their people to have a distinct and heavy perfume which follows them wherever they go.

The scales which patch sensitive areas of the gnomish form are grown from aethereal crystal compounds. When a gnome’s skin is broken, a sticky gel oozes through their bloodstream and within hours will solidify into a scale. When an area is frequently harassed, several layers of this crystallised gel mesh together into a notable carapace. Most gnomes will wipe off this gel to prevent bulky protrusions to their body, and leave a thin layer of shimmering scale behind.

Reproduction:

Much like the fey who they name their elfkin, gnomes reproduce my inception rather than pregnancy. A core idea forms the basis of the baby’s soul, while its body grows in an internal cavity and is born within a period of one year.

Gnomes differ from fey in that they have genitalia and can reproduce with a variety of other species. Females can give birth to a small number of faerie races, while males can reproduce with humans and dwarri. Cross-racial reproduction is generally successful, and children born from such occurrences host a wide range of genetic possibilities.

Growth:

Gnomes reach their full height by 33 years and achieve maturity at the same time. Their tails grow much later, as do their cilia, and scales may appear at any age. After four hundred years of age there is a noted decline in their health, and by five hundred they certainly die. Many races have found means to increase their longevity with magick, but such Hexes do not work on gnomes as the higher tier magicks erode the subtleties of the Art.

Reaction to Disease:

As a practically alien species to the world they inhabit, gnomes are susceptible to the worst natural diseases of Reltash. Their antibodies are equipped to fight off only magickal attacks, so while they resist strains of vampirism and handle Faerie Fire with greater fortitude than other races, a simple sniffle can quickly breed into a horrific bout of influenza. For this reason gnomes are wary of outsiders and carry one or two elixirs brewed from mushrooms native to their homeworld which, when ingested, purge the gnome’s system of general bacterial woes.

Culture:

Gnomes are idealistic creatures who uphold simple laws and simple customs. They shy away from the complexities of social interaction common among the races of the sixth world, dismissing them as superfluous and over-complicated. Their laws are ancestral and rarely suffer reform, though a somewhat lax attitude is given to vague and peculiar situations in which laws should apply but will obviously not suit the individual situation. This makes them open to interpretation and provides plentiful wiggle room.

Familial Structure:

Gnomes rear their own young, forming closely knit families who take on distinct roles in a household. The ‘Aema’ is the oldest female, who is responsible for ensuring arguments are seen through and harmony is maintained. The ‘Aena’ is the oldest male, who teaches the family’s young and records the family’s history.

Gnomes older than one hundred work as providers in the house, either earning the coinage required to purchase food and keep the burrows clean, or growing produce and doing routine maintenance themselves. Younger gnomes are given free rein to pursue their interests, assisted by the Aena where possible. Many gnomes use this time to travel and see the world, while others quest for a singular purpose to pursue for the rest of their lives.

Relation to other faeries:

Gnomes have considerable standing among the faerie nation, and are seen as the chief authority in matters of state and law. Gnomes have been the founders of ordered communities in the ancient past of Artash, and were responsible for the magick behind the Third World Exodus. They are often cared for by an assortment of faeries who respond well to their kindness, and gnome dwellings are usually attended to by four or five faeries content to do chores in exchange for food and shelter.

Only one historical record hints at a time when gnomes and other faeries did not co-operate with one another, long before the Third World Exodus. There was a long and fruitless conflict named ‘The Garden War’, which eventually ended in peaceful resolution.

Communal Structure:

It is rare for gnomes to live in societies with more than ten neighbouring families, living in burrows no closer together than a mile apart. These communes meet up monthly for social engagements within nearby mushroom circles, holding lavish parties with their finest produce and favourite music. These parties encourage young gnomes to form lasting relationships with partners outside their own families and allow elders to discuss local matters of significance.

Individual leaders do not exist within gnomish society. Gnomes believe in rationalising things on a personal level and making decisions based on relationships and necessity. If, for example, a gnome believes it is a good idea to build a bridge over a nearby river, he will approach his friends and convince them to help him build it. If another gnome believes that same bridge is causing unwanted travel through the area and has brought criminals to their lands from afar, he will convince his own friends to pull it down. A gnome’s popularity largely determines what results he is capable of achieving on a communal scale.

Criminal law:

Like most races, gnomes have no love of murder or thievery. An act of murder is tried by a community’s elders, and in the presence of a guilty sentence a private execution is performed, by method of magickal disintegration. An act of theft is dealt with between the families involved, and a guilty verdict is dealt with by house arrest until a period of 33 years or sooner closes*.

For obscure crimes, sentences tend to be harsh. Rape, assault and treason (against the race rather than an individual or state) have punishments ranging from execution to dimensional exile.

In Tri’vara, the presence of the Ocean Gates to Artash allow any sentence to be circumnavigated by one willing to serve a permanent exile on the Third World. As no true knowledge has been ascertained concerning that world’s fate – other than the leakage of ‘faerie dust’ – some consider this equal to a death sentence. It remains a popular choice for criminals facing execution.

Matrimonial Law:

Gnomes pair up in romantic partnerships under the presence of the Aema and Aena of their families, enacting an ancient ritual in which an acorn must be given from the male to the female, and a live dragonfly from female to male. While Artash Dragonflies are easy to come by in Gnomble, only certain oak trees exist within the country, and none exist beyond it. A male who wishes to marry will usually travel to Tri’vara and visit Mother Oak, explaining his desires to the tree and hoping for an acorn to fall.

Once bound to one another, gnomes are expected to produce a child as quickly as possible. The way they raise that child is seen to be a reflection of their synergy with one another and an indication of whether the relationship is feasible. Once the child reaches the age of one hundred, they may then consider separation. A separation ritual is very similar to a marriage. The male returns a dragonfly to the female, and the female returns an acorn to the male. Any non-essential property they owned during the marriage is prematurely destroyed.

Property:

Gnomes do not seek any great degree of wealth or beauty beyond what is required to keep their families comfortable. They will trade gems or interesting stones for food or pipe weed, and prefer a cellar full of wine to a pouch full of gold. While they enjoy wearing fashionable clothes, they consider comfort above the value of silk and the weight of jewellery.

After the 333^rd year of their life, gnomes no longer burden themselves with material wealth. They live in simple homes with a nest of bedding and little else. The young are expected to provide them with sustenance. Gnomes without families are attended to by their community in return for sagacity or magick.

Clarity Rituals:

Every 33 years, gnomes gather up the non-essential items they have collected and blast them into aether with their magick. While some claim this practise in unnecessary and destructive, gnomes maintain the belief that these ‘clarity rituals’ clear their minds and sharpen their focus for the years ahead of them. Approaching the clarity ritual ‘borrowing’ becomes a common habit, and even theft is not considered any particular infraction to the participant.

Coming of Age:

Gnomes hold marked celebrations for their fellows who reach 100 years, and a similar celebration marks 333 years, when they grow their tails.

At such celebrations, the gnome in question sits in a high chair at the end of a table and is approached by all others in his community, ensuring that he meets every one of them in turn. Speeches are made by his family and dances are had by all.

Courting Rituals:

When one gnome takes interest in another, they show their affection by privately approaching the Aema of their partner’s family and making their intentions known to her. She then must cautiously make sure the partner takes notice of the gnome’s advances and notify him or her of any feelings the partner may express. Positive reactions lead to marriage. Negative reactions are left to the Aema to resolve.

Funeral Rites:

When a Gnome dies, two courses of action are likely to follow. Around Tri’vara the deceased is placed within shrouds and a memorial ceremony is held at the Ocean Gates. The surviving members of the Gnome’s family are permitted to touch the corpse in farewell, after which the body is put through an Ocean Gate and shares the unknowable fate of Artash.

Elsewhere, it is considered too dangerous to allow the body to remain intact. The Aena of the family oversees the family’s ceremony (these functions are, in most cases, private affairs, and are not attended by other families in the area) and is charged with the responsibility of disintegrating the corpse. Any residue left behind after the cremation is shared amidst the family and carried by them in ‘origami’ leaf wrappings. Several of these wrapping designs exist and are used to show the carrier’s relation to the deceased, whether mother, father, sister, brother or other relation.

Attitude to Death:

Most Gnomes tell their children that death is transitory – a long time spent waiting to be received by another world. In this other world they believe they will be born anew knowing everything they did before they died, and their bodies will be old and frail. They are told that in this new world their life will be spent forgetting everything they knew and growing to be strong and young again, up until they become babies and die a second death. After this second death, they live the same life they had before, oblivious to everything that has transpired in the past. Since the Third World Exodus, theories have arisen that death is actually a return to Artash at the height of its glory, at a time when gnomes managed to bend the fabrics of reality and force time to work backwards, ensuring their own immortality. Such theories are, of course, only theories, and no definitive evidence has confirmed these suppositions.

Premature deaths are considered matters of grave misery, as they cast gnomes out of their cyclic rebirth forever and will ultimately end in the extinction of the race. For this reason gnomes are particularly cautious of dangerous situations and will avoid them whenever possible.

War:

While gnomes have held no firm position in any war on Reltash other than the Mortal War, they have an honour code applied to any battle that impedes them. First they undertake defensive preparations. Then, if possible, they enter diplomatic relations. If those fail they will launch a ‘prevention strike’ upon an enemy’s resources, hoping to nullify any ability to prolong conflict. Lastly, they resort to hostile strikes, seeking to eliminate the most powerful agents of the enemy with minimum casualties.

As one might expect from their size and camouflage, gnomes can make particularly talented assassins. While the main body of a faerie strike force engages in guerrilla warfare, select task forces will infiltrate enemy ground in order to eliminate targeted troops. Honourable servicemen will leave the body of their target in a respectable position unlikely to generate anger or prejudice towards their race.

No chain of command exists within their martial practice, though delicate information is freely withheld from those who may unwittingly spread it. Strategists are trusted with this information, and form their own task forces to deal with problems as they see fit.

Names:

Gnomes place great importance on their names, and avoid using them where possible so as to increase their value. In ancient times so much as knowing the name of a gnome would condemn him or her to servitude, so compelling where the ties to secrecy around them. They do, however, prefer to use others’ names with alarming frequency, forgoing pronouns in conversation.

When asked, a gnome will first reveal their family name, which they expect to be called by outside of Gnomble. Within their homelands, they use numeric titles depending on their age, often altering the consonants within the number’s name to suit personal taste. Birth names cannot be changed, and are typically only known by the Aena, Aema, parents and spouse of the gnome in question. Friendly tomfoolery between siblings involve different means of trying to guess, bribe or blackmail a first name from one another – a habit which has made parents uneasy about revealing a name to their child until the age of fifteen.

There are certain occasions when the choice of a name has made it possible to divine it by keen observation. Gnomes love to name their children after the flowers and animals native to their homeworld, and after virtues translated into an archaic tongue.

Magickal Inclination:

Gnomes are regarded as Artash’s supernaturally selected pinnacle of evolution. Their magick is ancient and powerful, and the tasks they set them to rarely fail. Just as magick affects their biology, so too does it affect their culture.

General Use:

Unlike magickers of other races, gnomes cannot set their powers to regular use in minor activities. They are discouraged from using their abilities at a young age and only after overcoming any emotional urges do their elders offer to teach them how to harness their aethereal energies. Before then, random accidents can occur. Thankfully young gnome’s brains are not fully developed enough to fuel overly destructive acts of magick.

Guided meditation starts at an early age, facilitated by both the Aena and the Aema of a gnome’s family. Adult gnomes continue to meditate solitarily, and elders are known to meditate almost constantly, lapsing into quiet contemplation at every dull moment.

The clarity rituals are undertaken personally, and consist of nothing more than a blast of pure force or elemental energy. Executions are undertaken by multiple participants striking with equal and united conviction.

In dire situations, gnomes use magick reflexively to stay alive. These hexes are often so colossal they destroy the gnome as quickly as they do his or her enemies.

Gnommish Magickers:

Gnomes are naturally fascinated by the Sixth World, even without seeing their homeworld Artash and the true extent of its nature. When a gnome decides to pursue magick as a discipline, they generally devote some years to contemplating the vagaries of Hexaemer and practicing its use. They never truly master it as well as a fey, just as the fey never truly master the higher tiers.

Gnomes with a talent for using Hexaemer can create incredibly powerful higher tier enchantments, long-lasting and long-reaching. They use their magick to aid their communities or to establish small holdings of their own. Many construct towers in the manner of fey, while others reside in trees or mushrooms with unbound spatial housings.

Technology:

Architecture:

Gnomes live in burrows, using magick to hold the earth around them steady before tunnelling extensively below ground. They line the walls with moss and flowers, keeping the tunnels bright with crystallised light. Whole families live within a single burrow, including their faerie accompaniment. Permanent dwellings will also have an antechamber on the surface of their home, made of monoliths and megaliths recovered while tunnelling. When these structures are roofed or walled, a thin crystal lattice serves to keep out rain and wind.

Gates:

The best known work of the gnomes is in the dimensional gateways they used to escape Artash. Spanning the wills of thousands of gnomes working in consort – often sacrificing their own lives in the achievement of their families’ exodus – the gates are debatable the single greatest achievement of ANY race.

The gates function off an annihilation of the barrier between Reltash’s universe and that of the Third World. Reasons as to why these universes were more closely bound to one another than to their neighbours are linked up to Demani, god of dreams, and his experiments with the core limitations of Hexaemer.

At the points of the barrier’s demolition, shards of Artash collided with the sixth world, allowing millions of faerie to pass through from the transitory dimension that had kept them alive for countless years in limbo.

Structurally the gates continue to exist, though the Lineage have made efforts to reduce a collapse of universal structure entirely. Third World Rifts exist as portals which appear to lead directly across to Artash, but appearances are deceiving. Though the dimensional doorways are in effect joining points between two separate worlds, they are also portals to completely different times. When a portal is used, an amount of time passes for the user without any measurable quantity. The transferral may spend as much as a million years and none would know until walking into Artash and back to Reltash without pause. Even then, it is supposed that the stasis fluctuates in length.

Tools:

Gnomes have learned to use crystal to channel magick in the same way as magickers of other races, and do not hesitate to create crystallised light when they need it. Refined use of magick is more difficult, and to do so they have developed filters with which to better control their energies.

A gnomish filter is a stone device pitted with gemstones. It is shaped almost the same as a conch shell, with a curved tunnel bored through its centre. When undertaking acts demanding exactness and focus a gnome will hold this tool up to their face or rest it against their forehead, using it to funnel their energies and keep them closely together before launching them out as a hex. These filters are kept close at hand by magickal architects and spellcasters, sometimes attached to their wrists or worn as a headpiece.

Resources:

When faced with physical tasks, Gnomes make frequent use of water. Tunnelling is only undertaken with the aid of a hose and water tank, as are similar activities concerning boring and working stone. They use live vegetation rather than dead wood when performing carpentry, spending as long as a hundred years guiding the growth of a tree to suit their purposes.

Gnomes never use metal in any of their machinations, as its very presence causes damage to the magick they depend on. The hardest material they will ever use is granite, when they find it, and this will substitute for most of the purposes they could put metal to.

Chemistry:

Many gnomish families are renowned for the recipes passed down within them, by which they can apothem many unique potions and dishes enkindled with the supernatural effects of Artash’s native vegetation. Pick-me-ups are commonly kept in stock to fight off colds and fevers, though many more exotic beverages exist. Philtres are passed down with reluctance, though they continue to exist and cause all manner of troubles, and metamorphic tinctures are occasionally used by those who wish to pass themselves off as human.

True examples of studied chemistry are rare – as gnomes do not use metal – and are avoided by most. Rather there are those who consider themselves alchemists, capable of turning ordinary specimens from the entangled worlds into marvellous mixtures surpassing natural limitations.

Machines:

Gnomes are considered remarkable among the human race for constructing not even the most simplistic mechanical devices. Such things as mills, pulleys and winches are never even considered as necessary amendments to physical toils.

While unnecessary and unimplemented, they have no particular qualms about using machines. If, for example, a human has moved out of the country and left a mill in working order, a gnome will operate it for his own purposes until it eventually breaks, upon which time he leaves it to fall into further disrepair.

One exception exists in gnomish history, telling of how a young gnome sought the aid of faeries to achieve flight. He built a machine which would be known to later generations by the name ‘Ingenium’, powered by hot air and legwork, and directed by the angling of leather wings. Ingenium was lost long ago in The Third World Exodus, though it remains a popular bedtime story for young gnomes, and is a subject of fascination for historians. If its existence were ever proved, it would make several curious suggestions concerning the gnome’s distant past, particularly as gnomes are currently believed to have eschewed any investigation into scientific principles.

  

Famous Gnommish Persons:

Armadillo Set:

BM 699 - BT 266

Armadillo spent his youth in the Gardens of Artash, ages before the widespread consumption by faerie fire throughout that world. It was his intention after his first century of self-discovery to become a master of Gnommish Magick. He was apprenticed to an elder of Clan Pelo (at that time a legendary bloodline of gnommish sorcerers) and began instruction in the field of Ectomancy, a popular choice given the slow reintegration into eternity the Third World faced and the heroic possibility of saving it.

Armadillo Set was among those chosen to facilitate the matters of the Third World Exodus from the inside of the limbo-bypass. He was seen as too valuable a student to offer up as a mana-sacrifice and not trained enough to deal with any disasters on the Artash-side of the gateway.

Once the Exodus arrived on Reltash, Armadillo disappeared amidst the general confusion of the landing. Like others in his position he is believed to have spent years reuniting with family and friends he had separated from during the event. The Sets are now recorded to have landed not far from Tri’vara and settled by the ocean in the south of Gnomble, though no record of Armadillo appears until BM 858, when he presides over the Shuwwir festival in the area.

Armadillo is believed to have assisted the fey in their ectomantic restoration of Reltash’s wards in Tri’vara, and while doing so it is suspected that he first became exposed to Hexaemer. He took a strange path for one of his kind in that he thereafter devoted himself to the study of Sixth World magick, learning its intricacies with an eager mind. None quite know when or how he became famous for his skill, but it was immediately sought after by the fey at the dawn of The Mortal War.

Armadillo was assigned to facilitate extra-dimensional communications when the war began, though after they lost their first battle Armadillo took the place of the fallen fey commander Keiras’Ccay’Vvint. Armadillo proved himself a tough adversary, using his powers to track dwarri scouts through the subterranean caves of Stragenthor back to their cities. After successfully holding up a blockade between Flamewatch and Central City for several weeks he and four of his fey compatriots vanished, taken prisoner by the dwarri.

The dwarri do not like to share information about The Mortal War or the tactics they used to interrogate prisoners, but those who eventually returned to daylight were tight-lipped and changed by what had befallen them. Such was Armadillo when his release was negotiated at the end of BT 10. He returned to his family for no longer than one Shuwwir before vanishing entirely for several hundred years.

The fey Tharian’Set is credited with finding Armadillo living as a hermit in the swampy Raj’jik Delta. The pair became attached by a scholarly bond which did much to heal Armadillo’s mind in his veterancy. Once he returned to Li’amora, Tharian reported that Armadillo had died in BT 266, making him 499 at the age of his death, the oldest gnome in the whole course of history up until this very day. Amidst speculation by gnommish scholars and the Set family Tharian begrudgingly revealed that he knew Set’s first name, a fact that was quickly verified and shared with the genealogical community.