THE GNOMES

The Gnomish villages of Mirithar are commonly found just beyond the gates of Dwarven mines. This arrangement has led careless travelers to assume that the Gnomes are dependents, servants, or unusually cheerful accessories to Dwarven civilization. The Gnomes will generally correct this error before offering tea.

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Their villages are independent communities of small houses, gardens, greenhouses, workshops, mills, libraries, laboratories, communal halls, and carefully engineered waterworks. Gnomes provide much of the farming, arcane study, engineering, and specialized craft that supports the neighboring mines. The Dwarves, being larger and more heavily armored, provide protection when something unpleasant emerges from the mountains. Both peoples consider this division sensible.

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Gnomes govern themselves through public meetings, collective debate, voting, and elected offices. Their system has been described as an egalitarian democratic meritocratic gerontocracy—a phrase that would collapse beneath its own weight in nearly any other language. Age is respected, but grants no automatic authority. An elder must demonstrate knowledge, judgment, useful experience, and competence before being elected. An official who becomes dishonest, incapable, or persistently foolish may be removed by the same neighbors who appointed them.

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They possess no hereditary clans. A Gnomish household may include relatives, spouses, apprentices, adopted children, elderly friends, lodgers, and long-term workshop partners. Such households are often identified by a painted sign above the door: the Copper Kettle, the Laughing Wren, the  Kneeling Stag, or the Three Acorns. Move to another household and the sign attached to your identity may change with it.

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Their personal names are equally attentive to ordinary wonders: Thimbletack, Bramblefoot, Mossflower, Pebblewink, Glintleaf. Foreigners sometimes mistake this warmth for frivolity. Gnomes use such names because they consider gardens, tools, birds, books, kitchens, and well-made household objects worthy of notice—not because they lack the imagination to name themselves after weapons.

They worship Stonethistle, God of Gnomes, and hold both Dwarves and Elves in high regard. Their villages rarely produce conquerors, dynasties, or monuments intended to frighten posterity. They produce harvests, engineers, teachers, healers, democratic arguments, and water systems that continue working after everyone has gone home.

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Many peoples measure civilization by the height of their towers. The Gnomes ask whether every garden receives water and whether everyone was permitted to speak at the meeting. I have come to prefer their standard.

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—Lantern of the Thirteenth Word