Gnomes

About Gnomes

About Gnomes
The Gnomish Clans
Trouble Amongst the Clans

About gnomes: Since the dawn of creation, the gnomes (also called dwarves or brownies in human tales) have been miners, refiners, and creators of interesting tools, trinkets, and other unique, beautiful things. Many accuse them of using magic to make their creations, but most gnomes deny it, saying that they simply do what they do and that’s that.

Gnomes tend to be more hoity-toity than the human tales say, mainly because the humans always thought that since miners were rough and gruff, the gnomes, who also lived and mined in the mountains, must be the same. Nothing could be further from the truth. A good gnome can spend a day in the mines and emerge looking as though he hadn’t done any work. (Cherubians have yet to figure out how they do this.) A typical gnome will usually wear knickers, a white dress shirt, a vest, a long tasseled hat, and shoes with silver (or gold) buckles. They always wear jewelry that they themselves have fashioned. They keep their mustaches curled on the ends and their beards neatly trimmed just below their chins. They have large, dark eyes (from tunneling underground for so long) and rounded noses.

A gnome’s greatest weakness is his birth-name. Any non-gnome can control a gnome just by repeating his birth-name. Most humans may recall the time when a gnome named Rumpelstiltskin befriended a certain miller’s daughter who eventually became queen (largely due to the gnome’s ability to turn straw into gold). Rumpelstiltskin demanded her first born child as compensation for his services. She refused. After many evil occurrences, which the human tales do not recount, one of the queen’s soldiers learned Rumpelstiltskin’s name and commanded him to commit suicide. Gnome and human relations soured after that, which led to the gnomes’ banishment from Earth.

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Clans:
To understand the gnomes’ banishment and their history with the cherubians, one must first understand the gnomes’ clan structure. When the gnomes first arrived in Heaven’s Realm, the many family groups settled inside separate mountains in the Cragdern Mountain Range. Overtime, the family groups grew larger and joined together until five different clans emerged. Each of Cragdern’s mountains produced different types of ore, and the gnomes in each clan learned to refine and work with their particular ores. One can tell what clan a gnome belongs to simply by looking at the color of his or her clothing. Below is a list of the five gnome clans.

Gignos: The Gignos wear sky blue and grey. They are the wisest of the clans and the most kind. When they originally settled into Cragdern, they only found silver, diamonds, sapphires, and aquamarines. As they dug deeper into their mountain, they discovered aesirium, a metal harder than iron and bronze, but much lighter. Aesirium blends into its surroundings. It melts at a higher temperature than most ores, however, making it difficult to refine. Only the most skilled Gignos gnomes can work with it.
Luchorpan: Luchorpans are known for their fetish for the color green and the metal gold. Every article of clothing they wear is some shade of green (except for their shoes, which are black with gold buckles), and the only metal they will wear is gold. The Luchorpans are not known for their intelligence, but they are known for their brilliance when it comes to making shoes and boots. Their mountains are full of gold, emeralds, and peridots. Any non-green gem or non-gold metal that they find they sell to their allies, the Gignos. As their name implies, Ireland was once infested with thousands of members of the Luchorpan clan. (Why they chose Ireland, no one knows. Some cherubians suspect it was because the Luchorpans had a liking for good Irish whiskey. Others suggest they liked Ireland’s over abundance of potatoes, and still others say the Luchorpans love for green made them settle in Ireland. No one knows. One thing is for certain, the Luchorpans were not responsible for the blight that caused the potato famine, even though many cherubians still blame them for it.)
Mime: Mimes are known for trying to stay out of trouble with anyone. They take neutral to a new level, and (not surprisingly) found the Swiss mountains quite hospitable before the banishment. They wear different shades of purple, and their mines contain iron, silver, and amethysts.
Andavari: The Andavari are the most devious of all the clans. (Rumpelstiltskin was an Andavari.) “Never trust an Andavari,” is a popular gnome saying. They are close friends with the Nibelung clan, both of whom settled in Scandinavia before the banishment occurred. They wear burgundy, and their mountains produce opaline (an iridescent mineral resembling earthian opals, except stronger), silver, and garnets.
Nibelung: The Nibelung are the most numerous, and the head of their clan controls Cragdern as its emperor. Though not as evil or sly as the Andavari, they are more self-serving. They wear scarlet, and they are the richest of the five clans as their mountains contain iron, bronze, and all sorts of gems.

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Trouble Amongst the Clans:
The Gignos clan was the poorest of the five until they discovered aesirium. Once Ezzer heard of the material, he wanted it for his army, for a lighter metal would give the cherubians more speed in flight. Trade with Elysia soon made the Gignos wealthier than the rest of the clans, inciting the jealousy of the Nibelung, who controlled Cragdern.

The Nibelung searched for a way to stop the Gignos from trading with the cherubians, and they finally found one when Ezzer banished the gnomes from Earth (another long story having to do with a combination of the Luchorpans in Ireland and too much whiskey and the Andavari in Scandinavia). The Emperor imposed sanctions against the cherubians in response to the banishment, accomplishing two things. First, the Gignos’s aesirium mines shut down from lack of demand, and their income fell. Second, the Nibelung again became the richest of the clans as they could continue to trade with the other creatures in Heaven’s Realm.

Though the Emperor declares his neutrality, the cherubians still suspect that some of the gnomes—especially the Andavari—are trading more than just ore to the mornachts.

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Other Creatures in Heaven's Realm
Unicorns   Sprites   Hawks
Gnomes   Dragons   Fawns   Nymphs
Mornachts   Wolves   Sabers   Vultures

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