Gnome

The ancient and rare case of the gnomish person are at times thought to be a fabled creature in provincial towns, because gnomes are very few and very far apart. Most commonly, gnomes symbiotically immigrate into other societies, where this short, creative craftsman race simultaneously leeches culture, provides foreign goods and creates much of the society's art, and many of their tools, buildings and inventions.

Culture
[General Traits of the Culture]

Religion
In the case of gnomes, religion is usually a thing that is not part of gnomish mingling. This does not mean they are nonbelievers, however, as gnomes are known to take to the religions of the lands they already live in.

Technology
Gnomes have embraced technology from both the Haines and the Lanlen, often trying to combine the two, which the great technicians in Hain and Ngaiyen find to be absolutely morbid.

Gnomish inventions are not meant for war.

Magic
Magic is a very common, very big part of gnomish lives.

Society
Gnomish society is, in of itself, a rather a trivial topic. While two of the fourteen families of gnomes have established their own two very distinct cities, Tilker and Qsim, the remaining twelve have integrated themselves wholly into societies that were originally foreign to them. In that sense, few socities with gnomes in them are truly defined by gnomish presence, and in the case of Tilker and Qsim, both cities are not only exceptions, but also so different from each other that it becomes difficult to speak of their societies as inherently gnomish. This does not mean that gnomes are without community, however, as they are strongly tied with the dealings and interests of the families they belong to. Despite this, it is rather rare that gnomes come in more than a pair, whether partners, siblings or parent and child.

You may think this is because gnomes often rue their own kind, and while this certainly is true for some cynics out there, this is very much not the general case. Gnomes usually keep a distance between themselves and their relatives for another reason altogether. If you have ever met a gnome you would not have any trouble guessing why that is. It is because gnomes have things. Many things. Even if every thing they ever had or made was lovingly arranged in rows, stacks or pairs – which is often the case – they would still have too much stuff. Visiting a gnome's home you would typically find that there is barely any space to move in, even for the gnomes themselves. Gnomish interior design is, at its heart, a large collection of hallways where the walls are made up of cabinets, wardrobes, crates, pots, closets, drawers and drawers with drawers inside of them, just in case. One easily begins making sense of the many sayings amongst the gnomefolk that discourage nostalgia and the oft materialistic habits that come with it, for if they were to keep items for the sake of mere sentiment, why, there would be no room for gnomes in their own huts.

Each individual gnome may have their own reasons for their collection, but two general factors seem to play into it all: gnomes are a resourceful, practical and creative people that needs things to make other things, and, they grow quite old. Gnomes become venerable at the age of six hundred and rarely live past seven hundred, but in all those years they usually add to and maintain their collection of practicalities, of necessities. It is in age that Gnomes often find their greatest sense of community.

The eldest gnome in any of the fourteen families is typically expected to have the most stuff. This makes their storage the one that most gnomes will go to in order to trade or purchase what the eldest gnome is willing to let go of. Tediously, it is also the responsibility of the eldest gnome to sacrifice some space for the sake of a great meeting hall where the entirety of the clan-sized family can meet. Meetings are important, and many gnomes treat the long journeys to the hall of the elder gnome as a pilgrimage of a kind. The nature of the meetings are far from religious, however, and seem to be primarily based around trade, discovery, news and music. Trade, because the nature of gnomes is a mercantile one, as creative hands usually must be rubbed with money before they can embrace a product. Discovery, because the gnomish people remains curious about everything that surrounds them, and have for a long time been looking for a sense of meaning to their existence. News, because they are so far apart from each other, and there is no better way to gauge the lay of the land than to bring in a person who lives on it.

And at last, music, because, despite their remarkable craftsmanship, gnomes are incapable of creating a good tune. It is as if they were designed to never pick up a violin or run their fingers over a stage piano, as if cursed to walk the world without a song in their heart or rhythm in their step. This is why you will always see gnomes flock around bards, whose arts they are often at the mercy of. A lot of gnomish mingling revolves around talking about musicians, recommending some, getting into huge arguments about others and reminiscing about one of the great singers that the world lost. Sometimes promising bards are advised to play for gnomes because it can really kick off a career to have the short people speaking ones name in loving tones.

Then, of course, there is the exception of Gnepolo, the greatest (albeit only) gnomish musician of all time, who so happens to be the head of Tilker's town council, where he shares the word with Aloville, Stholar and Pimtlep. Qsim, on the other hand, is led by Looma, who is often referred to as chieftain. This may be the nature of the land in which Qsim was built, namely that of the Tall Mountain Name, where the Kip-ip Tain, Z'pirax and Balmir live, all of which prefer a single ruler as well.

There are approximately 230.000 gnomes in Heera.

Language
Gnormsk contains a vowel that is impossible to pronounce for all other races, although the broad range of Actias come closest to mimicking it. It is akin to the sound of an igniting flame.

Consonants:

Sth

Tl

Gn (pronounced 'ny', where the 'y' sounds like the one in 'you')

Gn (Pronounced 'n')

Gn (Pronounced 'gn')

Gn (Pronounced 'guh-n')

Food
Gnomes do not like nor make spicy food.

Naming
Gnomes are given a single name and a family name. It is very rare that two gnomes have the same first name, which is a reach for distinction by a race that contains such large families and so few people.

Appearance
Gnomes have one universal skin colour, a powdery and clean white that, despite behaving like skin, shares many similarities with porcelain - it is smooth to the touch, able to retain paint and similarly cracks when damaged. It has become common tradition to the gnomish people to earn markings on their skin as a reward, and the brush is often held by their leaders. It is expected that a leader is a capable artist, and while this is often true, it is not always the case. In fact they are quite, quite awful at the whole painting thing sometimes.

To a person who has never met a gnome before, they may seem fragile - but one soon grows wiser. They are a remarkably sturdy people, sustaining punishment as if they were made of rock. This could be no further from the truth, of course, as the inside of gnomes are quite soft and fluid, veins running red hot with fiery blood. Their white hide protects spongy organs ranging from coal black to ash grey, strongest of them all being the liver, which has yet to succumb to any poison. On that note, we advise against hiring gnomish food tasters.

Since the dawn of its discovery, the gnomish race has evolved enough that we distinguish between gnomes and what has come to be known as wood gnomes. Wood gnomes all reside within Theudgard and exhibit behaviourisms that are comparatively far more barbaric than that of any other gnome. These gnomes are said to have more in common with the fey of the Theudgardian landscape than gnomes themselves. Additionally they seem particularly fond of what we hesitate to call mushroom fashion.

Easiest to distinguish from gnome to gnome is their face, which varies in much the same way as human faces, bar a strange consistency in the shape of noses between bloodlines. In fact, we have been lead to believe that no two gnomish families have a nose that looks similar. This suggests that all gnomes sharing a nose with a vertically elongated nose bridge are somehow related. Gnomish heads and male faces are often dressed in hair colours ranging from red to brown, brown to black, even if wood gnomes are famous for colouring their hair in colours even the human spectrum cannot encompass. The way to gauge a gnome's age is by reading their eyes. Pupils have a white center gradually expanding, until the pupil has gone entirely white, at which point the irises washes out into the rest of the eye and the gnome dies. Eye colours range from blue to green, and the entire gradient in between. Gnomish ears are large and rounded, often jutting out from their head.

One of the most defining features of gnomes is that they are all precisely the same height, as if they had all been mathematically measured before they were allowed to call themselves one. In fact, this astounding accuracy was so remarkable that for an embarrassingly large pocket of time in Heera's history, it was a common job for a Gnome to become a ruler. Hence, the gnomeric system has become the dominant method of measurement throughout the entire world, save for those in Outstan, who seem stuck with some primitive creation they call 'the metric system'. So, for the sake of our readers in Outstan, I will here inform you that a Gnome is, in fact, seventy five centimeters tall, which corresponds to 170.5 grasshoppers of average size stacked atop one another.

Some scholars have suggested that the Balmir and Skav Ghest from the Ralska region are in fact related to gnomes, but there is an abundant lack of any real proof, despite physiological similarities.

Fashion
One of the common gnomish sayings, 'a twig behind the ear will not make you hear the forest', insinuates that nostalgia blinds people, but due to the slip of some tongues a few decades ago, and the attention of naive minds, wearing twigs behind ears became a distinctly gnomish fashion. Since then the idiom and several of its variations have become ways to talk about someone who is easily tricked, or blindly mimics their neighbour gnomes.

Gnomes have always held large hats in high fashion. Despite centuries of extensive research, neither researchers nor gnomes seem to have any clue why that is.