Since the province my PC's are currently in is pretty craggy and mountainous, how do you feel about leaving hidden shortcuts and such through the mountains or under a smallish bay.
My lore has the Gnomes as a fallen civilization, they used to be everywhere, tinkering with everything, making things explode with childlike glee. But their technology based civilization failed once the Ada-wel was found. It's basically the primordial wellspring that all magic in this realm flows from.
Once the Crimson Court started draining the ambient magic from the world, the Gods directly intervened to ensure the Ada-wel's safety by hiding it from man, beast and god alike. (My guess is they just forgot where they put it) I still want to use part of that great Gnomish civilization besides artificers that blow up stuff and dinky puzzle locks. I'm thinking of leaving a few of their underground access tunnels around to go through. You may even find rare Gnomish Archeotek or monsters that found that particular hole first.
This would be a great way to introduce trinkets and collectibles that look neat to the party. Someone might mess around with an item and accidentally find out how it works. It could be a boon for the character. Something bad might happen. And a wealth of known or unknown underground tunnels/shortcuts could come in useful. Might also be a good way to get them lost and introduce them to a part of the world/story that you are having a difficult time figuring out how to introduce to the game.
Heck yeah. Go for it. Be as creative and devious and mischievous as you like. I know I would.
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Thank you. ChrisW
Ones are righteous. And one day, we just might believe it.
I've also made these part of a way to get +1's or +2's on weapons and armor by finding ancient Gnomish metals and alloying instructions for them.
Once the players find a certain piece of lost tech, they can allay (not alloy) their weapons and armor by cutting grooves and ridges into it, heating these ancient magical alloys and pouring liberally over item. While still hot, drench or dunk the item in cold water, it glosses the metal across the whole item as a fragile shell. Then hit against or with something nice and hard, the shell cracks away; leaving you with a lovely bit of bronzed runnel work. There are two alloys for this: Ancient Gnomish Bronze its strong but light and fit for even reinforcing non-metal armor and weapons. this is the alloy for a +1 to your gear. Ancient Gnomish Tungsten requires more heat to make malleable (cuz you know, tungsten) so the easiest way is to get a friendly dragon to heat it with fire breath or take it into a caldera or magma flow. This is a dense metal, it can take lots of punishment but it's quite heavy. It's the +2 alloy. There are other ways to heat it though.
Special stones exist near areas of high volcanic or seismic activity that burn hot enough that a single one can melt several pounds of metal! These volcan stones are hotter at room temp than burning thermite! Handle with care!
Mountains with potential hidden shortcuts? If your players have ever read The Hobbit, add an area with a town of goblins living in a small cave on the trail. It would be a cool reference that the PC would (hopefully) enjoy. Also, the goblins in the books were tinkerers (if I remember, they had a lot of torture machines), so you could have them use lots of modified gnomish gadgets.
Oh yeah Rohan, those old halls and passages are very rarely uninhabited. The Gnomish Empire was founded several thousand years ago. It lasted roughly 2,000 years. So things, beasties, ghoulies, crawlies, creepies and critters have had about roughly 4-6 thousand years to find these abandoned foundries, cities and such and get cozy in there. As for the tech, it stays in fairly good shape given its age due to Gnomish alloy making techniques, much the same as the "Dwemer metal" found in the elder scrolls lore.
In fact, in my canon, red dragons produce so much internal heat that touching one's body with bare hands for all of two seconds can net you a very pretty 2nd degree burn set in a lovely scale pattern. As the gathering of wealth is a high priority for Reds, the ones here in Dys have learned to look for a dull green luster in metals that signifies its made of or at least made with Gnomish Tungsten. Imagine killing one of these greedy beasts and finding the treasure room, only to not find a single gold coin...Instead the floor would be littered with roughly hexagon shaped heavy green tokens. These are Ancient Gnomish Coins, they used tungsten coins due partly to their (and my) love for this ultra-dense metal, and partly because they could use them to PAY dragons to help or render some service, like digging a furnace into the topmost area of the Planetary Mantle. This is why Dys Reds gather hordes full of Tungsten Coin, weapons and armor made or enhanced with it and just all around love this metal.
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...Ehhh, whatever. It was a dumb idea anyways
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Since the province my PC's are currently in is pretty craggy and mountainous, how do you feel about leaving hidden shortcuts and such through the mountains or under a smallish bay.
My lore has the Gnomes as a fallen civilization, they used to be everywhere, tinkering with everything, making things explode with childlike glee. But their technology based civilization failed once the Ada-wel was found. It's basically the primordial wellspring that all magic in this realm flows from.
Once the Crimson Court started draining the ambient magic from the world, the Gods directly intervened to ensure the Ada-wel's safety by hiding it from man, beast and god alike. (My guess is they just forgot where they put it) I still want to use part of that great Gnomish civilization besides artificers that blow up stuff and dinky puzzle locks. I'm thinking of leaving a few of their underground access tunnels around to go through. You may even find rare Gnomish Archeotek or monsters that found that particular hole first.
...Ehhh, whatever. It was a dumb idea anyways
This would be a great way to introduce trinkets and collectibles that look neat to the party. Someone might mess around with an item and accidentally find out how it works. It could be a boon for the character. Something bad might happen. And a wealth of known or unknown underground tunnels/shortcuts could come in useful. Might also be a good way to get them lost and introduce them to a part of the world/story that you are having a difficult time figuring out how to introduce to the game.
Heck yeah. Go for it. Be as creative and devious and mischievous as you like. I know I would.
Thank you.
ChrisW
Ones are righteous. And one day, we just might believe it.
I've also made these part of a way to get +1's or +2's on weapons and armor by finding ancient Gnomish metals and alloying instructions for them.
Once the players find a certain piece of lost tech, they can allay (not alloy) their weapons and armor by cutting grooves and ridges into it, heating these ancient magical alloys and pouring liberally over item. While still hot, drench or dunk the item in cold water, it glosses the metal across the whole item as a fragile shell. Then hit against or with something nice and hard, the shell cracks away; leaving you with a lovely bit of bronzed runnel work. There are two alloys for this: Ancient Gnomish Bronze its strong but light and fit for even reinforcing non-metal armor and weapons. this is the alloy for a +1 to your gear. Ancient Gnomish Tungsten requires more heat to make malleable (cuz you know, tungsten) so the easiest way is to get a friendly dragon to heat it with fire breath or take it into a caldera or magma flow. This is a dense metal, it can take lots of punishment but it's quite heavy. It's the +2 alloy. There are other ways to heat it though.
Special stones exist near areas of high volcanic or seismic activity that burn hot enough that a single one can melt several pounds of metal! These volcan stones are hotter at room temp than burning thermite! Handle with care!
...Ehhh, whatever. It was a dumb idea anyways
Mountains with potential hidden shortcuts? If your players have ever read The Hobbit, add an area with a town of goblins living in a small cave on the trail. It would be a cool reference that the PC would (hopefully) enjoy. Also, the goblins in the books were tinkerers (if I remember, they had a lot of torture machines), so you could have them use lots of modified gnomish gadgets.
Oh yeah Rohan, those old halls and passages are very rarely uninhabited. The Gnomish Empire was founded several thousand years ago. It lasted roughly 2,000 years. So things, beasties, ghoulies, crawlies, creepies and critters have had about roughly 4-6 thousand years to find these abandoned foundries, cities and such and get cozy in there. As for the tech, it stays in fairly good shape given its age due to Gnomish alloy making techniques, much the same as the "Dwemer metal" found in the elder scrolls lore.
...Ehhh, whatever. It was a dumb idea anyways
In fact, in my canon, red dragons produce so much internal heat that touching one's body with bare hands for all of two seconds can net you a very pretty 2nd degree burn set in a lovely scale pattern. As the gathering of wealth is a high priority for Reds, the ones here in Dys have learned to look for a dull green luster in metals that signifies its made of or at least made with Gnomish Tungsten. Imagine killing one of these greedy beasts and finding the treasure room, only to not find a single gold coin...Instead the floor would be littered with roughly hexagon shaped heavy green tokens. These are Ancient Gnomish Coins, they used tungsten coins due partly to their (and my) love for this ultra-dense metal, and partly because they could use them to PAY dragons to help or render some service, like digging a furnace into the topmost area of the Planetary Mantle. This is why Dys Reds gather hordes full of Tungsten Coin, weapons and armor made or enhanced with it and just all around love this metal.
...Ehhh, whatever. It was a dumb idea anyways