Campaign guide plight of the tuatha (1) 12

Chapter One: The Lands of Aeliode
producing a muted shadow of past variance. Skin tones
tend towards standard human tones with only the occasional hint of green, blue, or reddish hue.

Society
Much of gnomish culture and society has been destroyed
over the past 500 years due to the race being hunted and
killed by the shape changing servants of Syn. Most gnomes
lead solitary lives hiding in dark burrows and forever traveling across the land. Gnomes may work together for short
periods of time, but they have learned that long-term
cooperation will likely lead to their death as Syn seems to
sense groups of gnomes.
Gnomes still marry and have children, but the couple
rarely stays at the same place for any length of time. It is
safer to limit meetings to a couple times a year. Children
born will spend their life with only one parent at a time.
When the parents meet they exchange the child.
Gnomes have begun a greeting ritual over recent
centuries. It is a combination greeting and test to prove
that the newly met gnome is not a shapechanger. As it is
believed that a shapechanger’s blood will always flow blue,
gnomes have taken to scratching themselves to show that
their blood is red and that they are truly gnome. This greeting is called “showing one’s color”. While not all gnomes
take part in this ritual, all at least know about it and it is
considered, at the very least, rude not to show your color.

Arts
Art has all but disappeared from gnomish practice, at least
in the sense by which most races identify art.
Gnomes have turned camouflage and calligraphy into
an art. Many gnomes are masters at weaving beautiful cloth

that can blend into most surroundings. Their skill at applying pigments to their skin in order to aid in their stealth is
a skill most other humanoids have liilte talent for. Gnomes
have applied these skills to their writing as well, crafting
letters and words so that they can hide on a page amongst
other words and letters. This calligraphy, though not magical, only becomes apparent when viewing the letters from
the correct angle.
Many gnomes also wear well-crafted rings they use in
their “showing one’s color” greeting ceremony. The rings
have at least one barb which is used to scratch skin enough
so that the color of blood can be been seen, but does so
while minimizing pain and scarring.

History
Many hundreds of years ago, prior to the 11700s AE,
gnomes flourished across the Issian Peninsula. They were

farmers and fishers, living beneath the hills in warm and
cheerful burrows. Great celebrations were held throughout
the year, most notably during midsummer. Gnomes would
welcome travelers, tinkerers, and visitors of all sort to their
celebrations as well as into their homes. Gnomish hospitality was known across the peninsula as a thing cherished and
always counted on.
Then, one summer, priests of Syn turned their attention to the fair hill folk. Some say that a cult of Syn, due to
their malicious ways, was turned away from a gnome community on a rainy night. Others say that Syn hated these
children of Mahte because of the gifts she gave them. No
one is completely sure when or why it began, but during
this fateful summer gnomes began disappearing from their
homes. They would retire for the evening, but in the morning they would not be found in their beds. Sometimes the
gnomes would be found huddled alongside a road, but
more often than not they would never be found. Slowly

the disappearances began to increase in number as gnomes
began to huddle together. Once they gathered to express
joy, but soon they began to gather out of fear.
Gnomes began to tell tales of strange travelers coming
to town, then the visitors would disappear and so would one
of the gnome villagers. Then suddenly the next summer the
disappearances stopped. But once winter came, the gnomes’
reprieve was replaced with bloody murders. Gnomes were
found torn apart, only pieces of their bodies found strewn
about their homes, all the while family members were
found to be the murderers. The celebrations ceased as the
number of deaths began to rise. No one understood, the
gnomes least of all, why these violent murders of family
members were happening.
Gnomes began to carry weapons at all times to defend
themselves. Family members became suspicious of each
other, and families fractured. Gnomes would go off alone
into small burrows and lock themselves in with hopes of
surviving till the morning.
After a third of the population had been killed or
gone missing, a gnome seer named Rainouart claimed that
Mahte had come to him in a dream and told him that
the priests of Syn had sent duplicates, doppelgangers, into
their midst in order to destroy the fair race. The seer was
soon found crucified mere days after telling others about
his dream.
Today, the gnome population is a quarter of what it
was five centuries ago. Gnomes have taken the warning of
the seer and have become paranoid xenophobes, obsessed
with security and identifying shapeshifters. Instead of

cheerful welcomes, travelers near gnome lands will only

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