Overview
Gnomes are small, clever beings with an insatiable curiosity and a knack for invention and illusion. They are the world's tinkers, illusionists, and creative minds — and if your garden has started moving on its own, you already know.
Habitat
Gnomes live in the hollows — their home is The Tinker Hollows, a hollow of small workshops and odd gardens where the tinker is the only light and the scheme the only law. They need soft ground for the burrow, a stream for the waterwheels, and enough scrap that the hillside looks like a disaster from a mile off. They are settled, though their merchants travel with carts that are more machine than wagon.
Appearance
A gnome silhouette is a small, compact, slightly-too-wide shape — short-legged, broad-shouldered in proportion, with a head that is a full third too large for the body, like a lamp on a post. Males stand 91 cm to 1.02 m, 23 kg–32 kg, built dense and low, with thick forearms that do not match the rest of them; females 86 cm to 97 cm, 20 kg–29 kg, leaner, with quicker hands and a longer braid. Skin is a soft, warm peach to a pale cream, with a dusting of fine copper freckles across the nose and cheeks that no amount of washing removes. Hair is the crown: a thick, springy mass in impossible colors — iron-black, pale gold, and, in the older bloodlines, a true, living silver that has never once been dyed — usually worn in a single long braid that ends in a small, functional knot. Eyes are large, bright, and a clear pale violet to a warm honey-gold, with a quick, appraising blink and a glint when something interesting happens. The head is the tell: the goggles are the gnome, not the face. A pair of brass-rimmed goggles, perpetually pushed up on the forehead, is the single most reliable gnome identifier at any distance. Males are broader in the shoulders and carry more grease on the hands; females have finer lines and a longer braid. Elders are marked by a full silver head and hands that shake only when they are holding something small. Everyday wear: a leather apron over a soft green or saffron tunic, a tool-belt with more pockets than sense, and boots that have been modified at least twice.
Behavior
Disposition: curious, social, cunning, industrious. In peace, gnomes are cheerful, nosy, and absolutely incapable of leaving a thing unexamined — every lock, every seam, every "why does this work?" is an invitation. In war they do not fight head-on; they rearrange the battlefield. Strangers are met with a question about what they carry, and the answer decides whether the gnome offers tea or a demonstration. The social unit is the workshop-clan, ranked by invention, not by age. Two signature quirks: a gnome who has just had an idea will stop talking mid-sentence to stare at nothing, and a gnome who is lying will be noticeably, demonstrably more cheerful than usual.
Warfare & Markings
Tactics: ambush, misdirection, and machines — a gnome warband never attacks; it redefines the ground. Armor: light leather and chain, worn under the apron so the pockets stay free. Weapons: the thrown tinker (a weighted, multi-part gadget that arrives as three things), the short crossbow, and the whistle that calls something large and irritated. War markings: the Idea-Brand, a small, deliberate tattoo on the inner wrist — a one-line sketch of the invention that first marked the wearer as a gnome of their own; the Workshop-Ring, a single iron band worn on the right hand, filed with notches for each mechanism that survived its first test; and the Goggle-Strap Scar, a faint line across the forehead from the strap, worn as a mark of the long look. Post-battle: the gnomes do not bury their dead with their tools; they give the tools to the next gnome, and the dead get a eulogy of their best invention, read aloud.
Magic Alignment
Primary domain: stone-craft — gnomish magic is the making, the setting, the patient shaping of a thing into what it should be. Secondaries: illusion and conjuration. Named inborns: Gnome Cunning (a gnome's mind is a locked room; charm and confusion do not find the door), Illusion Affinity (a gnome can cast illusion cantrips without a focus, with their hands), Tinker-Sight (a gnome can see the stress-lines in any structure, glowing faintly amber). Signature power: the Working — a gnome can set a small mechanism to repeat one action forever, and the mechanism will keep faith. Limitation: gnomish magic only works on things with edges; a gnome cannot work a spell on a living thing, on water, or on a person's word.
Religion
Gnomes keep Urka, the Stone Mother as their primary god — every forge-lighting, every first ring of an anvil, every finished joint is a small offering to the mother below. Omnath, the Last Memory is honored at the workshop-archives; a gnome's invention is only as real as the record of it. Priestly class: the Keeper-of-Records, who keeps the workshop-ledger and reads the dead's inventions at the funeral. Heresy is not blasphemy — it is a stolen idea, and a gnome whose idea has been stolen will not fight the thief; they will simply make something better, and let the thief's name be remembered as the one who missed it.
Society
Gnome communities are vibrant, colourful, and often chaotic. They build gadgets, create illusions, and push the boundaries of what is possible. A gnome's workshop is a wonder — and sometimes a hazard. The workshop-clan is the whole of the law, because the scheme is the only clock and the tinker the only law, and a gnome who has not finished a working in a season is called "the one who left the seam open," and the leaving is the only kind the hollow remembers. No clan follows an age, it follows the invention whose edge holds longest, and the following is the whole of the rank, because a gnome does not measure a gnome in the years, it measures it in the working, and a gnome who has set a mechanism the clan forgot is the one the hollow calls the oldest. Outsiders in the hollow are either a demonstration or a distraction, and the distraction is the one the pocket keeps; a mortal who walks the hillside is not a guest, it is a question, and the question is the whole of the warning — the hollow owes a tea to the one who asks nicely, and the owing is the whole of the bond. Young are raised at the workshop, where the first mechanism is set, and a young gnome who has not set a working of their own is not given a goggle of their own. The one fact the surface keeps wrong: the hollow does not hoard the scrap — it keeps the scheme, and the keeping is the whole of the clan, and a mortal who is counted is a mortal who is owed, and the owing is the only kind the hillside keeps.
Home
They live in The Tinker Hollows, a hollow of small workshops and odd gardens, where the tinker is the only light and the scheme the only law.
Relations
Generally well-liked for their cheerfulness and inventiveness, and the well-liking is the whole of the treaty — the gnome keeps the scheme and it measures everything in the working, and the measuring is the whole of the law. Elves respect their creativity, and the respect is the whole of the bond, because the Elves of the wood measure the hollow in the edge, and a gnome who has set an illusion the elf forgot is the one the clan calls the kindred. The Dwarfs of Karn Dun, the Deep Delve respect their craftsmanship, and the respect is the whole of the courtesy — the dwarf cuts the joint and the gnome sets the working, and a thing that has both is the one the mountain and the hillside keep apart. The Humans of the camp find them either endearing or annoying, usually in the same afternoon, and the finding is the whole of the distance — the surface measures the hollow in the gadget, not in the scheme, and a mortal who has borrowed a tinker is the one the hillside calls the lesson. Below, the ground-folk of The Forgotten are the banished the hollow takes in, and the taking in is the whole of the bond, because the forgotten are the ones the pocket keeps, and the keeping is the whole of the promise.
In the Story
In the current story, the gnomes are the hillside around the camp — the hollow Uaellaen writes about when the working is worth more than the scheme. The Forgotten keep their distance at the workshop-line, and the distance has held for two seasons. This season a gnome came up the hill with a mechanism that had not been in the ledger — a working that is not in the scheme, and the not-listing is the whole of the warning, because the hollow keeps its record, and the record has started to move. The Keeper-of-Records is keeping the working, and the keeping is the page the camp has not been shown.
Never underestimate a gnome. They're small, but their ideas are enormous.