Playable: Yes · Faction: Alliance · Homeland: Dun Morogh (Gnomeregan, lost) · Capital: (exiled to Ironforge) · Leader: High Tinker Gelbin Mekkatorque
Where They Stand
They have no home. Gnomeregan — the great subterranean techno-city beneath Dun Morogh — fell four years ago, and the story is worse than an invasion.
The survivors live in Tinker Town in Ironforge, guests of King Magni Bronzebeard, and are working on getting their city back.
How They Got Here
Nobody is entirely sure where gnomes came from, including gnomes, and they have historically been too busy to investigate. The Explorers' League has opinions. Gnomish scholars find the question less interesting than the machinery.
They built Gnomeregan and spent centuries in it — a sealed, self-governing, aggressively inventive city-state that traded with Ironforge and largely ignored the surface.
The Second War brought them out. Gnomish siege engines, submarines, and demolition work went to the Alliance, and gnomes discovered they enjoyed being indispensable.
Then the troggs came up. Dwarven and gnomish digging had gone deep, and something came back through the tunnels.
Then the radiation. In a single decision, the gnomes lost their city, four fifths of their people, and their confidence — and gained a refugee nation, a permanent grudge, and a project.
Who Leads Them
High Tinker Gelbin Mekkatorque — elected, not born to it, and re-elected since the disaster by people who could reasonably have thrown him out. That vote is the most interesting fact about gnomish politics.
Around him sits an advisory council of senior tinkers, whose authority comes from what they have built rather than from any office. A gnome with a working prototype outranks a gnome with a title.
Gnomish governance is genuinely, unusually meritocratic and consultative — proposals, review, iteration. It is also slow, which is why the plan to retake Gnomeregan has been in review for four years.
Where They Fit
Gnomes are the Alliance's engineers, and its guests. Every siege engine, every mechanical lift in Ironforge, every piece of clever infrastructure in Stormwind has gnomish fingerprints on it, and gnomes are cheerfully aware that this is the reason they are welcome.
They have no territory, no army worth the name, and no vote that anyone is obliged to count. What they have is usefulness, and they work at it — partly from gratitude, and partly because a people with no country cannot afford to be optional.
What They Just Survived
- The fall of Gnomeregan — eighty percent dead, in one decision, four years ago
- The irradiation, which is ongoing: leper gnomes are survivors, not enemies, and the distinction gets lost
- Becoming refugees in a mountain that was never built for them
What They Are Fighting Now
| Where | Who | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Gnomeregan | Troggs, leper gnomes, and the mad king in the middle | Their entire country, held by the thing that took it |
| Dun Morogh | Troggs, Frostmane trolls | Surface skirmishing around the sealed entrance |
| Everywhere | Goblin engineers | Not a war. A rivalry, conducted through sabotage, patents, and open contempt. |
What They Want
Retake Gnomeregan. That is the whole national project and everyone is signed up to it. What is disputed is how — decontaminate and reclaim, or seal it forever and build somewhere new. Mekkatorque wants it back. A quiet minority thinks the city is a grave and should be treated as one.
Deal with the leper gnomes, who are their own irradiated relatives and are treated, mostly, as a problem rather than as casualties. This is the gnomes' moral blind spot and it is not being discussed.
Stop being guests. Politely, gratefully, and with increasing urgency.
Character Traits
- Irrepressible — a gnome's optimism is a survival adaptation and it is load-bearing
- Precise — they measure things nobody asked them to measure
- Engineering, always — even gnome mages and warlocks tinker
- Quietly grieving — every adult gnome lost most of their family. They do not talk about it.
How They Talk
Fast, technical, and relentlessly upbeat in a way that is doing a lot of work. Gnomes reach for engineering vocabulary for everything, including feelings.
| Phrase | When |
|---|---|
| "Within tolerance." | It is fine. Also: I am fine. Used about injuries, grief, and structural failures alike. |
| "That's a rounding error." | Do not worry about it. Frequently said about things that are not, in fact, rounding errors. |
| "Measure twice, detonate once." | Proverbial. Somebody says it before every plan. |
| "It worked in the model." | Said at the wreckage, without embarrassment |
| "Before the Fall." | The war is the Second War. The Fall is Gnomeregan, always, and needs no clarification. |
| "Give it here." | A gnome taking your broken thing. You will get it back improved and slightly alarming. |
| "Cog and spring!" | Mild oath. Roughly good grief. |
What They Make of the Others
Humans — Kind, generous, and imprecise to a degree that causes gnomes physical discomfort. A human will say a bridge is 'about forty feet' and mean it as helpful.
Dwarves — Landlords, hosts, friends, and the reason there are still gnomes. The debt is enormous and freely acknowledged, and Ironforge has never once mentioned it.
Night Elves — They disapprove and will not say of what. Gnomes have tried adjusting several variables and have made no progress, which is the most frustrating experimental result available.
Orcs — Never fought them, never lost anything to them, and are therefore the only Alliance people who can be straightforwardly curious about orcish metalwork.
Forsaken — Fascinating and appalling in the same breath. Every gnome has privately wondered what is actually keeping one upright, and every gnome knows better than to say so.
Tauren — Have not met one. Deeply want to. The engineering questions raised by a nine-foot bipedal frame are, to a gnome, an unopened present.
Darkspear Trolls — Regenerative tissue is the single most interesting biological problem on the continent, and gnomes are aware that asking a troll to hold still while you measure is a poor opening.
Playing One
Gnome PCs have an unimpeachable motivation: retake Gnomeregan. Mekkatorque will personally back an expedition, which means a patron, funding, and a reason to be anywhere.
Four shapes worth taking:
- Survivor — you were in the city when the radiation came. You got out. You have opinions about who did not, and about the man who gave the order.
- Born after — you have never seen Gnomeregan and are slightly tired of hearing about it. Your home is Ironforge and you would say so if it did not upset the elders.
- Tinker on assignment — the council sent you out to gather something, and you are not entirely clear whether the assignment was real or a kindness
- Rogue or sapper — locks, traps, and demolition, all learned in a city that no longer exists
Questions worth answering at session zero: Who did you lose, and do you say their name? What are you building right now? Is there a leper gnome you knew?
