Megagame Makers

We Gnomes are the Dwarves who have the most fun, characterized by our short length, propensity for wearing glasses, big noses¹⁾ and inquisitive nature. While the rest of the world leans heavily on tradition when it comes to magic, we are innovators. The other Dwarven kingdoms find us strange. They are very stuffy, stuck up and full of themselves (especially the Longbeards) and sometimes need to be taken down a peg. This explains a lot about the names of our governmental institutions. About 2000 Gnomes live in the Gnomish Confederacy in and under Mount Central Heating, a not quite dormant stratovolcano. We maintain very friendly ties with the city of Urr, which is another reason why the other dwarf kingdoms consider us nuts. Our head of state is called the God Empress and Her council called the The Extremely High Council. We export our inventions (music boxes, steam&sterling engines, clockwork servants, that sort of stuff) and a nice range of wines and fruit preserves.

  1) This helps iron out the bumps in Gnome/other dwarf diplomacy as every **real** man loves the sight of a girl with a big nose.

There are three entrances to Mount Central Heating. One is protected by the option of pouring hot lava onto any invading force. Another has a specific door that can be jammed and the last one is protected by an H₂S gaspipe. Moreover, there are lots of carefully designed traps along the passages, stairs and (steam driven) escalators in the mountain. Various engineering units protect and control these.

The gnomes need to spend 2 food tokens every week (8 tokens for turn 1 of 4 weeks). If they receive guest from Ur they need to spent one extra token for every 1000 guest.

The list of available food at the start of the game:

• Emergency reserves: 10
• Normal stocks: 10
• On the mountain: 25

The harvest on the mountain is expected to grow to 100. You can harvest it now but quality and quantity will be very low. It's still need to ripe for a few weeks.

Available gold:

• Gold: 80
• Jewels: 80

You really don't care much about this. Live is there to enjoy.

• The Steam Artillery unit
• Two Giant Hamster Cavalry units
• The Breach Gnomes (regular infantry)
• The Mattress Jaeger (regular infantry, they also have super fast travel via the magic rules)
• The Gnomish Steam Archers (archery unit)
• Three raider forces:
  • The Wrath of the Goddess (Her personal Guard)
  • The Trap Unit
  • The Gnomish Air Marines (Using them requires casting a Strategic Turn magic ritual)

The Longbeards are a noble (if full of themselves) branch of Dwarves, characterized by their somewhat longer length (for a Dwarf) and usually long beards. They are governed by a High King. At this moment this is King Durin XIII. His council is known as The High Council. They live under what we call The Breasts and they call Mount Emerald & The Mithril Mountain. They export art, expensive kitsch really. The crowns of the kings of this world, the signet rings of richest merchants, the gold plated armor for noblemen with more money than sense, the emerald ring to conquer the heart of the noble lady whose firm, sculpted buttocks have conquered your 'heart'. That kind of stuff. They make fine armor and weaponry as well.

These Dwarves have a normal length and usually red beards. They are governed by a Commissjun that is presided over by a Comrade-Prince. After long deliberations, the Prince passes new edits and laws (known as Moshuns in Dwarvish). The rules concerning the wording and structure of these moshuns are immensely complicated and unintelligible to the rest of the world, with the possible exception of the Longbeards. About 6000 Redbeards live in (and under) the Green hills. There is also a large group of Redbeards living in Urr. The Redbeards proudly make high quality normal stuff that people actually use. This is our description of their economic output, but we know they agree. They make good armor and weaponry.

This is your basic generic evil regime that exists on one side of the mountain range we call home. Now they want to extend their reach to our front door. Right in front of our front door lies the The Free City of Urr. We happen to have a longstanding alliance with them. We are friends. The Prince of Darkness and his minions will regret trying to harm our friends….

A brutal human like species. They call themselves the Free folk. They raid, pillage and enslave people as a way of life, making that name highly ironical. We unleash our forces on them every time their antics escalate beyond stealing of some of our fruit.

The city of Urr is our trade hub and its inhabitants are our friends. Urr is a representative democracy. We are especially close to the Illuminati party, which funds and participates in some of our magic research.