Gnome

Gnomes are a very upbeat race of short elves. Optimism is intrinsic to their nature, and it’s helped them survive the harsh conditions of the Iron Isles. Their primary deities are Gabriel and Trebor Nostaw, as they often view the world through an optimistic and curious lens.

## Gnome

Hoppipolla Glimmerglint, a rock gnome artificer played by Xyalon in the Shadowed Dawn Campaign

## Biological Information

### Abilities

* Gnome Cunnin
* Stone Camouflage (Deep Gnome)
* Natural Illusionist (Forest Gnome)
* Speak with Small Beast (Forest Gnome)
* Artificer's Lore (Rock Gnome)
* Tinker (Rock Gnome

## Sociological Information

### Planes

* Fell
* Mechanus

### Language

* Common
* Gnomish
* Undercommon (Deep Gnome)

### Notable Members

* Hoppipolla Glimmerglint
* Archimedes Tinkerpop

When living amongst other races, they often make themselves useful in any way possible, although they speak too quickly for most races to be able to understand them.

## Appearance

Gnomes are small humanoids belonging to the elf family of species. Gnome skintones are as diverse as human skin tones, ranging from a pale white to a dark brown. They average in height at around 3ft tall.

## History and Society

Gnomes originated on the Iron Isles, desolate floating islands made of iron ore. Due to the resident's advanced intelligence, they built a robust society, excavating titan ruins under the sea below them and reverse engineering their technology to a much lesser degree of their prime. Subsisting mostly on seafood diets, the gnomes built a hardy society between the many floating island of the Iron Isles, mining the ore beneath their feet to aid their constructions.

Guided by their patron god Tebor Nostaw, the gnomes of the Iron Isles built airships, achieving rudimentary steam technology over 1000 years before the Hymsgardian Empire would unlock the same technology.

Beneath the sea below the Iron Isles are ancient Titan ruins, mostly facilities dedicated to building warforged. Many warforged were awoken by their expeditions and joined their society, aiding them as servants. The Iron Forged Alliance - a faction that acts as a form of government over the Isles - managed to reverse engineer the ancient Titan foundries. Unfortunately the technology had degraded and the software programming that gave the warforged sentience no longer worked. Despite this, the Iron Forged Alliance managed to recover enough information to make a rudimentary AI software. Installing this software onto a newly forged robot yielded a robotic servant who could understand and follow commands, but had no will of its own and could not learn. These robots are known as the Reforged and are considered lesser replicas of the Warforged.

Gnomish society across the isles is very tightly knit. Everyone is expected to do their part and often those who choose to remain idle are shunned and resources are allocated away from them until they make themselves useful in some fashion or choose to leave. This often leads to treatment of people who have disabilities most would consider questionable at the very least by most standards. Missing a limb is often fixed with rudimentary robotic prosthetics, however deeper physical disabilities that affect motor function or otherwise cannot be fixed with prosthetics alone will often result in an individual's soul being taken out of their body and placed into a soul crystal, before being placed into a Reforged, granting the struggling gnome a new, functioning body to contribute to their community. Mental illness and disabilities are treated with more kindness. Often, gnomes struggling with mental anguish of any kind will be studied by specialists and treated to the best of their abilities. Many within gnomish societies would argue that people suffering from mental illness or disability contribute to their communities by aiding specialists in understanding their ailments and how they might alleviate their struggles.

Despite the pressures of their society, most gnomes are optimistic and upbeat, even during tough times like famine or war. They value knowledge and truth above all else, often engaging in rigorous and passionate debates in public settings, and it is often considered a sport. The gnomish language itself is almost perfectly built for debate, having syllables that are easy to pronounce clearly, but also quickly. As a result, most gnomes speak other languages at a much faster pace than is considered normal for the average native speaker. Their language is quite unique among Fell's languages, using the old Titan alphabet, which allows them to work with Titan technology at a much more successful rate than any other society has done.

While not outwardly xenophobic, the gnomes of the Iron Isles are wary of outside nations and are largely isolationist, viewing the other races as covetous of their technology. As a result, gnomish society is quite homogenous and very few gnomes opt to leave the Iron Isles. Despite this, there are gnome populations outside of the Iron Isles. Often these gnomes will find themselves in positions of authority when it comes to arcane study, often serving as tutors for nobles and their children.