Every conversation operates on at least two levels — smile at the first, and watch the second
When the forces of Galifar advanced south toward the Howling Peaks, they expected another conquest. What they encountered instead were gnome negotiators — and by the time the lengthy discussions concluded, Galifar had recognised the region of Zilargo as the Grand Duchies of Korranberg, Trolanport, and Zolanberg, with terms that later proved to favour the gnomes considerably more than they had appeared to at the time. This was not an accident. This is what gnomes do.
Zilargo is a small nation on Khorvaire's southern coast that has maintained its independence for over a thousand years through the single most effective application of intelligence control on the continent. The gnomes did not fight Galifar — they talked to him. They did not fight the Last War — they allied with Breland early, provided essential services, and ensured that whoever won would need them. The Zil gnomes value information above all other currencies, treat intrigue as a national pastime, and have embedded the practice of layered communication so deeply into their culture that a conversation with a Zil gnome operates on at least two levels, and a perceptive listener may detect a third. The sweetest song, as the proverb says, is the name of a friend — but the most useful song is one that tells you what your friend is hiding.
The institution that makes this possible is the Trust — Zilargo's secret police, intelligence service, and quiet guarantor of social order. The Trust reports to the Triumvirate, the governing body that manages the nation's three grand duchies. It monitors, manipulates, and, when necessary, eliminates threats to Zil stability. It is not officially acknowledged. Everyone knows it exists. An estimated third of the population works for the Trust in some capacity, most of them simply passing information through dead drops. When the Trust identifies a genuine threat, it acts preemptively: a whispered warning delivered via message, a piece of information strategically shared, and — if subtler methods fail — poison, spell, or blade, applied so precisely that the target typically never sees the agent of their demise. Violence is the Trust's last resort, not its first, but it is a resort that has been tested many times and never found wanting.
Zilargo is not a tyranny. Its cities hold democratically elected councils; the Triumvirate governs by consensus; the Trust is genuinely popular among the Zil, who built the system and prefer it to every alternative. The streets are safe, crime is virtually nonexistent, and as long as you play by the rules — pursue your intrigues through cunning rather than violence, keep your schemes within the family, and never threaten the stability of the state — the Trust leaves you alone. Outsiders find this arrangement terrifying. The Zil find it perfectly reasonable and are mildly perplexed by the reaction.
Gnomes are the smallest of Khorvaire's common peoples — averaging around three and a half feet tall, with a wiry build that is lighter and less robust than a halfling's. Their features are sharp and expressive: large eyes relative to their face, prominent noses, and an animated quality to their expressions that makes a gnome's face remarkably easy to read for anyone who knows what to look for (and remarkably easy to misread for anyone who does not — a fact that gnomes exploit with enthusiasm). Gnomish skin ranges from light to tawny, and their hair grows in virtually every colour, including shades of auburn, honey, white, and, among some Zil families, unexpected pastels that may reflect latent fey heritage.
Gnomes reach maturity around forty and live approximately three hundred and fifty years — a lifespan comparable to dwarves but experienced very differently, because gnomish minds operate at a pace that makes even their long lives feel slightly too short for everything they want to know. Their curiosity is not merely cultural; gnomish cognition appears to be biologically wired for pattern recognition, information retention, and the rapid processing of social cues. A gnome in a conversation is absorbing and cataloguing details at a speed that other peoples find either impressive or unsettling depending on context.
Most Zil gnomes belong to the forest gnome subrace, which carries a biological gift for minor illusion — the ability to create small visual or auditory phantasms without formal arcane training. This innate magic is woven into daily Zil life so thoroughly that outsiders often fail to realise how much of what they perceive in a gnome's presence has been subtly adjusted. Forest gnomes also possess a natural ability to communicate with small animals, which the Zil use for message-carrying, scouting, and, in the Trust's case, surveillance.
Gnomish darkvision is not as strong as dwarven darkvision but is sufficient for comfortable navigation in dim conditions, and their small size gives them a natural advantage in confined spaces — a trait that has practical applications in the mines and tunnels that feature prominently in Zil industry.
Two broad gnomish cultures exist, separated by geography but connected by family ties and a shared inclination toward the acquisition and use of information.
Zil gnomes are the inhabitants of Zilargo — raised from childhood in the arts of manipulation, deception, and social intrigue, and expected to have been involved in dozens of schemes and feuds by the time they reach adulthood. Zil society is organised into major houses, each composed of multiple families, and every gnome carries a three-part name: personal name, family name, and house name. Alina Lorridan Lyrris and Tallian Talius Lyrris belong to different families within House Lyrris. These names are long, lyrical, and frequently alliterative — a cultural aesthetic that reflects the gnomish love of language. Family is the bedrock of Zil society; in a nation shaped by intrigue, your family is the group you can trust without reservation, and family schemes can span generations.
Zil gnomes detest physical violence and prefer to solve their problems with words — a bard's persuasion, a wizard's incantation, a rogue's whispered threat. The soldiers of Zilargo include rogues, bards, wizards, and artificers; a Zil warrior who relies on brute strength is an oddity but not an impossibility.
The three major cities of Zilargo each have a distinct character. Korranberg is the oldest, home to the Library of Korranberg — widely considered the finest repository of knowledge in Khorvaire — and the gnome colleges, which draw aristocratic students from across the continent. The ancestral citadel of House Sivis stands here, along with the Codex Vault, Khorvaire's largest shrine to Aureon. Trolanport, the capital, is a port city of crisscrossing canals and flooded streets, the centre of the gnome shipbuilding industry and a nexus for maritime trade. Thurimbar draws musicians and artists from across Khorvaire with its legendary clubs and schools of music, and its artificers are pioneering arcane sound — the use of illusion magic to generate and manipulate music.
Five Nations gnomes have lived outside Zilargo for generations, often descended from the dissidents who left when the Trust was established. These gnomes can be identified by their naming conventions: a gnome who uses all three names (personal, family, house) considers herself Zil; a gnome who drops the house name is likely Five Nations-born with distant Zil blood ties. Five Nations gnomes share the Zil emphasis on the importance of family and the exchange of information, but they are generally less embedded in the web of intrigue that defines life in Zilargo. They are found in every profession — merchants, magewrights, scholars, barristers, and, inevitably, scoundrels — and their natural curiosity and social facility make them welcome in most communities, even if their tendency toward slightly-too-personal questions can be unnerving.
A third, much smaller group deserves mention. When the Trust was established, some dissidents took to the sea rather than submit. Most of their colonies failed — Tolanen in the Shadow Marches was later found completely depopulated, and New Zolanberg in Xen'drik tore itself apart in a week due to the Curse of Crowds. But the principality of Lorghalan in the Lhazaar Principalities survives and thrives: a community of gnome settlers who braved an island's elemental dangers, learned to live in harmony with them, and developed a new magical tradition of stonesinging that has created a symbiotic relationship between the gnomes there and the native elementals; the first of its kind. Lorghalan has a small but fierce fleet and maintains its independence from both the Lhazaar princes and the Trust.
PUBLIC SERVICE ANNOUNCEMENT — DISTRIBUTED ANONYMOUSLY TO ALL HOUSEHOLDS IN KORRANBERG, TWO YEARS AFTER THE FOUNDING OF ZILARGO To those who follow the proper path, we shall be as invisible as any ghost. Trust that we have your best interests at heart. Trust that we will act only when we must. Trust that we will always look after the needs of our great family, and that we need your aid as much as you need ours.
The Zil approach to religion is characteristically pragmatic and exploratory. The major cities of Zilargo maintain temples and shrines dedicated to every religion, and most Zil explore several faiths before settling on one — or practising multiple religions simultaneously, if the doctrines do not conflict. The Sovereign Host is widely observed, with particular reverence for Aureon (god of knowledge and law, naturally) and Kol Korran (god of trade and wealth). Boldrei receives attention from those who value community and family. The Codex Vault in Korranberg is a pilgrimage destination for followers of Aureon across the continent.
The gnomish relationship with the Dark Six is nuanced. The Traveler — god of change, cunning, and deception — occupies a complicated space in Zil culture; the Zil do not openly worship the Traveler, but the god's values of adaptability and misdirection are so deeply woven into Zil daily practice that the distinction between cultural habit and religious devotion is not always clear. Cults of the Traveler operate within Zilargo, some of them connected to the Trust, some independent, and their relationship with the Triumvirate is not publicly discussed.
The Mark of Scribing appears among the gnomes of House Sivis, and the house's influence is so pervasive that most Khorvairians interact with Sivis services more often than they realise. Speaking stones — magic items that allow a Sivis heir to transmit short messages between stations — form the backbone of long-distance communication across the continent. Sivis notaries apply the arcane marks that authenticate documents, validate Kundarak letters of credit, and serve as the standard of legal identity verification in the courts of every treaty nation. Sivis barristers argue cases in courtrooms across Khorvaire. Sivis interpreters translate between languages. Sivis scribes, cartographers, heralds, and bookbinders handle virtually every professional activity that involves the written word.
House Sivis was among the first gnomish institutions to leave Zilargo and operate in human lands, and it has cultivated a reputation for impartiality and secrecy that is essential to its business model. Trust in Sivis is not optional — the entire legal and financial infrastructure of modern Khorvaire depends on Sivis arcane marks being incorruptible and Sivis mediators being neutral. The house maintains this reputation with the same meticulous care that the Trust applies to maintaining order in Zilargo, and for similar reasons: if people stop trusting Sivis, everything built on that trust collapses.
Within the house, the different families engage in the subtle schemes and feuds that are natural to any gnomish institution. Doyenne Lysse Lyrriman d'Sivis ensures these intrigues never threaten the house's public integrity — a task that requires constant vigilance and a gnome's instinctive understanding of which secrets can be tolerated and which must be quietly eliminated.
A gnome in the Five Nations is welcome everywhere and trusted cautiously. The stereotype is well-established: gnomes are clever, friendly, intensely curious, helpful to the point of being intrusive, and engaged in at least one scheme that you will not discover until it is too late. This stereotype is not entirely unfair, which is why it persists. The average gnome has a love of knowledge that borders on obsession, a curiosity that admits no limits, and a mental catalogue of potentially useful information about every person they have ever met. The cheerful, chatty gnome who wants to know where you're from, what you do for a living, and how you feel about the Korranberg Chronicle's latest editorial is simultaneously filing every answer in a mental storehouse that may one day provide important leverage.
That said, most gnomes are genuinely warm and generous with their time and knowledge. The manipulation is not hostile; it is cultural. A Zil gnome does not see a conversation as a transaction to be exploited — they see it as a game to be played well, and the game is more fun when everyone at the table is competent. A Five Nations gnome raised outside Zilargo may have softened this instinct, replacing the web of intrigue with a simpler network of professional and social connections — but the family emphasis endures, and a gnome who needs a favour can usually call on someone who knows someone who knows someone.
Gnomes are concentrated in professions that reward intelligence, communication, and social facility. Barristers, librarians, chroniclers, merchants, diplomats, translators, alchemists, and artificers are all common gnomish occupations. The Korranberg Chronicle — the leading newspaper in Khorvaire — employs gnome reporters across the continent, and a Chronicle correspondent is a familiar figure in every major city: notebook in hand, questions on the tip of the tongue, byline guaranteed to reach every breakfast table in the Five Nations within a week.
THE VOICE OF BRELAND — EXPOSÉ
"KORRANBERG CHRONICLE EXPOSED! Who really pulls the strings behind the ostensibly unbiased news coverage of the Korranberg Chronicle? The Chronicle's publisher, a wily Zil gnome named Cassia Lorridan Claddik, is the most public face of its leadership, and her connection to Korranberg's ruling Council of Nine is well known. But she is not the ultimate authority determining what gets printed and what does not. No, that honour goes to the shadowy board of the Chronicle's owners. Voice reporters have uncovered the names and positions of several members of this board, and the results are nothing less than shocking. The Trust — the shadowy secret police who maintain order in Zilargo — is well represented on this board. Worse still, several of the wealthiest and most influential members are associated with the Aurum. Whose interest, then, does the Chronicle serve?"
The gnomes are liked and mistrusted in roughly equal measure, and they consider both reactions to be working as intended. To the Five Nations, Zilargo is a useful, slightly unsettling ally — a nation that has never been conquered, never been occupied, never fought a war it didn't choose, and whose streets are suspiciously clean. The Trust is the element that converts mild unease into genuine anxiety: the knowledge that a nation's secret police operates not only domestically but across Khorvaire, that Trust agents endlessly search for secrets useful to Zilargo, and that the Zil consider knowledge to be the greatest weapon of all — these facts produce a particular kind of wariness in anyone who deals with gnomish interests at scale.
Among the dragonmarked houses, House Sivis's reputation for neutrality makes it a trusted partner — but the house's gnomish nature means that the trust is layered, conscious of the fact that the gnomes who authenticate your documents and mediate your disputes are culturally trained in the art of knowing more than they reveal. House Kundarak's close alliance with Sivis is partly practical (Kundarak letters of credit require Sivis notarisation) and partly strategic: the two most trusted institutions in Khorvaire are run by the two peoples most culturally invested in the value of secrets.
The Zil view the Five Nations with a mixture of affection, contempt, and strategic interest. Humans are useful, entertaining, and charmingly direct — they say what they mean, which makes them easy to read and occasionally endearing. The Last War confirmed what the gnomes always suspected: the nations of Khorvaire are perfectly capable of destroying themselves without outside assistance, and the best strategy for Zilargo is to be indispensable to whoever survives.
Zilargo's stability is its greatest asset and its most interesting vulnerability. The Trust maintains order by eliminating threats before they materialise, but the system depends on an assumption that the Triumvirate's interests align with the nation's. If that alignment breaks — if the Trust is infiltrated, if the Triumvirate is compromised, if a faction within the Trust decides that the current order is no longer worth preserving — the consequences would cascade through every institution the gnomes have built, from the Library of Korranberg to the speaking stone network to the courts that depend on Sivis notarisation.
The relationship between the Trust and the Korranberg Chronicle is a live tension. The Chronicle is the most widely read newspaper in Khorvaire, and its claim to objectivity is a crucial part of its value. The Voice of Breland's exposé alleging Trust representation on the Chronicle's board — and Aurum influence alongside it — has not been addressed by the Chronicle or the Triumvirate. If the Chronicle is a propaganda instrument for Zilargo, then the information supply of the entire continent is compromised. If it is not, the Trust has a problem it has not yet resolved. Either way, the question is one that a party of adventurers with investigative inclinations might find irresistible.
The elemental binding industry is another point of pressure. Zilargo's gnomes developed modern binding techniques by studying ancient Sul'at League devices recovered from Xen'drik, and the six major binding families consider these techniques a vital national resource — one they are unlikely to share with anyone who is not a gnome. This puts them in an escalating competition with House Cannith (which wants the technology), House Lyrandar (which depends on it for airships), and the Sulatar drow (who consider the techniques stolen from their ancestors). The gnomes control a bottleneck in the continent's most important emerging technology, and everyone who depends on that technology has a reason to want to break the gnomes' monopoly.
For a gnome, the tensions are woven into the fabric of everyday interaction. You carry a cultural instinct for information management that shapes every relationship you form. You know things about people that they have not told you, and you are deciding — constantly, automatically — what to share, what to withhold, and what to file away for later use. The question is not whether you are playing a game; the question is whether the people around you know the rules.