Gnome

In the past, until the opening of the elven portal in Cymbar, the gnomes were a minor race living in the shadows of the Khelish human kingdoms. Though within them, the gnomish communities were independent in practice. Reclusive and few in number compared to the humans, the gnomes lived between the spheres of fae and civilization. Often, a village of gnomes would form around a powerful wildland fae, and the gnomes would protect the fae from civilization while benefiting from the fae’s power over nature. The more powerful fae creature occupied a space between a temporal lord, a protective spirit, and a god.
The gnomes used little technology and needed very little land thanks to the blessings of the fae. Sometimes they would bargain with humans to keep them out of the forests where the fae resided. Gnomish society was simple and decentralized. Equal in deference to their fae protectors, they held nature sacred and acknowledged no god except the greater fae they built their communities around.
The arrival of the Exodite elves changed this. Upon learning of the fae communities in the Khelish wilds, the elves engaged on a campaign of extermination. Paying bounties for the heads of gnomes and the hearts of greater fae, the gnomes were attacked not just by the elves but by many of their former neighbors. Some gnomes ran, but for the fae tied to the land itself there was no escape. Many gnomish villages fought to the last man, woman, and child to protect their patron fae.
It has been 200 years, and the gnomish remnant has scattered in every direction. No survivor of those times lives anymore, but the loss of their ancestral way of life affects them nevertheless. Cut off from their protectors, the gnomish diaspora has tried to integrate into the settlements of other races. Many have ended up in cities, something that used to be abhorrent to them. Others have tried to restart their forest communes, but without help of greater fae patrons, they find this difficult.

Related Myths

• Helkah