Prologue - From the Desk of the Clockwork Commission

Greetings Honoured Contractors,

On behalf of the Elysium Senate I thank you in advance for your service to Elven society. Know that if you perish in this endeavour, your names will be given the extreme honour of being forever recorded in the annals of Elysium’s records\*.

As Minister of Foreign Affairs, and Commissioner of the Gnomish Society & Technologies Research Commission (henceforth known as “the Commission”), it is my sincere pleasure to furnish you with all the information you’ll need to meet all the terms of your contract while retaining the majority of your limbs in what promises to be a challenging but rewarding venture. You may refer to the 703-page document *On Gnomish Society & the Violent Harms That Hath Befallen Them* the scribes of the Commission have prepared and generously copied for each of you, but in the event that you cannot read Courtly High Elven I will summarize the prescient points.

Communication with isolationist Gnomish society has been sparse since first contact in 1112 EE. Two decades ago, Elysium Directorate scouts in the Malexian hinterlands discovered a single Gnomish refugee, Kein Oppenmeier, a weaponsmith and mechanist of the Gnomish city Galwan G’don. The Gnome was malnourished and near death, and so the scouts rightly escorted him to Elysium where he could be properly cared for and share the knowledge of Gnomish culture while learning of the marvels of Elysium’s elves under protection of the Commission, a most propitious partnership!

Elysium has learned much from Lord Oppenmeier, although we believe there is more yet to learn from the city the honourable Gnome left behind--we are told there was some modest mass genocide involved although the Gnome is not forthcoming with details. Lord Oppenmeier is not able (or unwilling) to describe an exact location, but we are led to believe it is somewhere southeast of the Hellas Sea. Although Lord Oppenmeier is, again, not forthcoming with details, we are also lead to believe he arrived in some sort of horseless, mechanized, non-magical vehicle, if it can be believed, which he left abandoned somewhere in the hinterlands south of Victor. Although scouts have been unable to find it, the Commission advises you that this may be a starting location to finding the city.

Lord Oppenmeier was similarly not forthcoming as to the dangers that await you within his home city of Galwan G’don, but we are led to believe that there are numerous protections of a most gruesome, debilitating nature, and so the Commission wisely advises caution should you locate the city.

Should any of you return, the Commission requests that any gnomish artifacts or schematics be presented to our liaison (the honourable High Secretariat Maiquis of House Aleaundlin) at the Magisterial Court in Victor, where you will also submit a mandatory report to fulfill your contractual obligations. If our liaison is satisfied with your findings, you will be paid 5000 pentacle pieces per survivor--complete or partial corpses will receive no payment. And again, those who perish will be doing so in the name of Elven culture, so know that their lives will not be lost in vain.

Commissioner Luten of House Tyrvalsa,

Esteemed Minister of Foreign Affairs

1 Highsummer, 1499 EE

\*granted notice of your death(s) are received, appropriate fees are paid in full and the requisite forms are signed and filed with a Scribe of the Lower Elysium Hall of Records