© Daniel S. Wall, November 11, 2026.
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“You want wands? I can do wands. You want magic swords? I can do those too. You want magic shields, special arrows, armor that’ll stop anything, scrolls – well, I can’t do scrolls yet, but soon – how about magical dice? I can do magical dice? You’ll win every time. I can make normal stuff too. Don’t even have to get out the voodoohoodooyoudoo, …but she don’t. Haw! Just joking, I make great stuff. Folks say the guy that invented the wheel musta been back there in my ancestry somewhere, you know, like great, great, great, great Grampa Rounder made it up way back when, you know. Rounder? Ha! No, that’s not in the family line. I’m jokin’ again. What do you want anyway? I got special potions too. Didn’t make them. Potions are damn tedious. No, I traded some special toys for the potions, but I got a good deal, I can get potions like nobody’s business. You want more’n I got, gimme a bit and I’ll have more. Hey, do you like…”
– Kin-Sgigle Scheinesterdreme, Master Craftsman
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At first glance a Gnomish glade looks a bit like a Halfling village. All the homes are underground, usually located in shallow hills with just enough slope to justify a door. The main difference lies in the subsistence strategies pursued by the local residents. Few if any of the Gnomes in a given village will farm or otherwise engage themselves in the growth of foodstuffs. Gnomes typically devote themselves to a range of crafts, making items for their own use and for trade with others. Gnomes then get their food and a good many of the necessities of life by trading these goods with other kindreds. As trade is critical to the survival of gnomish communities, one can usually find a shrewd merchant or two in every Gnome glade.
Gnomes do not usually content themselves with the creation of mundane items. Gnomes will often combine their natural gifts for the magical arts with the creation of simple objects to generate magic items of immense power. So great is the quantity of output from these magical craftsman, that many of the magic items in any given cache are sure to be Gnomish in origin. It is in the creation of such objects that the magical pursuits of Gnome-kind intersect with their mechanical skills to produce the true Legacy of this great and powerful kindred.