There I was, writing away on Book V,\u00a0 when something popped up that solved a mystery.\u00a0\u00a0 This should not be spoilerish, more like background material that we just haven’t seen yet.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 It was clear all along that there were more gnome princedoms than Aldonfulk and Gnarrinfulk, but those were the only ones who had inpinged on the story so far.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 My attempt to figure out where they were and who they were had foundered.\u00a0\u00a0 Until today.<\/p>\n
Now we knew gnomes had been involved in the creation of the elfane taig that the Lady finally abandoned in Kings of the North<\/em>.\u00a0\u00a0 But which gnomes?\u00a0\u00a0 Did they live nearby?\u00a0 Didn’t know.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 We knew gnomes had once lived in Blackbone Hill and dropped the rock on magelords chasing Gird’s peasants into the hill, from Surrender None<\/em>.\u00a0\u00a0 But which gnomes?\u00a0 And are any gnomes in that part of Fintha now?<\/p>\n The answers are slowly coming to light because of Arcolin’s\u00a0 “adoption” of the gnomes from Pargun and the coming conflicts in Aarenis.\u00a0\u00a0 At last I’ll be able to populate my personal map with the gnome princedoms (I still don’t have anything but one dwarf realm, and I know there are more.\u00a0 Lots more.)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Gnomes generally avoid contact with humans except the gnome traders–gnomes at home are not hospitable for the most part.\u00a0 They draw their line in the turf and expect no one to cross that line.\u00a0\u00a0 Underground is, from their point of view, their legitimate domain, and depending on the rock, they may extend their realms understone farther than their claim on the surface.\u00a0 So humans may live next door to gnomes (so to speak; it’s more vertical than horizontal) and not even know it.<\/p>\n Gnome princes are generally cooperative with one another, unless one thinks another is ignorant or contemptuous of Law….or is risking gnome welfare as a whole by angering dragons.\u00a0\u00a0 Not every gnome princedom has a clutch of eggs to guard, but those that do are expected to do the job for which they were “hired.”\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Gnomes are prolific, and they also have a fairly strong drive to spread the Law (they’ve given up on the hakken, dwarves, as being hopeless where Law is concerned, but they do try to influence\u00a0 humans legal systems, via trade agreements.\u00a0 They consider the Code of Gird, in the north, and the Guild League, in the south, to be their achievements, even though the results are so imperfect (from their viewpoint.)<\/p>\n New gnome princedoms appear when a tribe has saved enough to purchase stoneright (symbolically, if no one appears to own the stone, but also by bargaining with Dragon to guard a clutch, or with gold, “much red gold,” from the dwarves.)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Thus, colony by colony, gnome princedoms have spread along both flanks of the Dwarfmounts, and along the east side of the Westmounts.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 There are gnomes out on the Eastbight and gnomes in the Copper Hills in eastern Aarenis.<\/p>\n I know only a few names so far:\u00a0 Tarkatfulk, on the south side of the Dwarfmounts, probably north of Ambela (but maybe farther east); Varonfulk, of the Eastbight; and Kastinfulk, of the Copper Hills.\u00a0\u00a0 (I assume these three are going to interact with other characters soon, but maybe not…)\u00a0\u00a0 Humans generally think gnomes are few in number and not expanding, but that’s because they don’t share the same resources.\u00a0 Gnomes don’t farm in the conventional sense, although they can eat food humans eat, so they don’t seek farmland.\u00a0\u00a0 The rougher, rockier hills they prefer are not those humans prefer.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 At present, gnomes are more numerous than dwarves or elves–except for iynisin, the most numerous of the Elders.\u00a0 Yet their ambition is not to conquer the world, but to convert humans to the Law.<\/p>\n Among them, the prince of Aldonfulk would count as a “liberal” in human terms, compared to the princes of Tarkatfulk and Kastinfulk, neither of which would admit a human to audience under any circumstances (or so they think now.)<\/p>\n I also know some more stuff about gnomish anatomy and reproduction, but I don’t think it’s plot-relevant except in explaining why their populations can grow so fast.<\/p>\n Feels good to have Book V moving along.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 The big hangup now, which I still haven’t solved, is when the plot-river dives over the cliff.\u00a0\u00a0 I can hear the roar of the waterfall getting nearer and nearer, but where IS it?\u00a0\u00a0 (The answer is, of course, “Just keep writing.\u00a0 You’ll know when you get there.”)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" There I was, writing away on Book V,\u00a0 when something popped up that solved a mystery.\u00a0\u00a0 This should not be spoilerish, more like background material that we just haven’t seen yet.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 It was clear all along that there were more gnome princedoms than Aldonfulk and Gnarrinfulk, but those were the only ones who had inpinged […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[29,4,5],"tags":[108,106,107],"class_list":["post-1529","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-background","category-contents","category-the-writing-life","tag-background","tag-contents","tag-the-writing-life"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.paksworld.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1529"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.paksworld.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.paksworld.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.paksworld.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.paksworld.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1529"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/www.paksworld.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1529\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1530,"href":"http:\/\/www.paksworld.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1529\/revisions\/1530"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.paksworld.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1529"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.paksworld.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1529"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.paksworld.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1529"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}