Conomel (con-OH-mell)

The eastern country of Conomel is bordered by a curved mountain range that plays host to an expansive civilization of dwarves in the great stone cities of Twin Caverns. To their south is wilderness, terminating in a swampy, Lizardfolk-covered peninsula. Just west of the mountain range is another range, then the dry, unending desert of the Rolling Sands. Hidden beneath the shifting dunes are remains of a civilization long gone by and long forgotten. If you manage to cross the sands you reach the Rinnavren River on the western edge, a vital trading passage also colloquially known as the Long Swim. South of the desert are arid brushland, and even further south are mountains sheltering a jungle harboring the tribal elves of Nín between the dry midland and the wet, warm coastline.   Conomel is a mixed bag, home to settlers and pioneers as well as a number of dwarves who prefer the open sky over their extensive underground kingdoms. Traders come in their great ships along the coast once every few months in the sailing season, although they are a mixed bag in their own right - some are not the most respectable of folk, stopping at Conomel just to supply up before carrying their dubious cargoes north to Drekken.   Not all is hardship and doubt, however. Highly skilled dwarvish craftsmen give Conomel strong walls and sturdy buildings, while the relatively new race of gnomes lend their sharp wits and sharper intuition to solving complex problems.  

Origins

Nobody quite knows where the gnomes came from, and if asked you will likely get a shrug and a rapid change in subject. Few among them actually remember where they originated at this point, having traveled for many long years from place to place after some great calamity sent them into flight. They traveled to Aketi from some other continent, in battered ships kept together by some combination of their tinkering skills and sheer luck. Several ships were lost in the migration, leaving the surviving gnomes with battered feelings upon the sight of land not two weeks after a terrible storm that sent many of their friends and relatives to the bottom.   At docking however, that was not the end of their troubles. Their already weakened immune systems had little defense against a disease most of Conomel already had protection against without realizing - rash fever, something similar to smallpox.   The outbreak died out some fifty years ago, but the numbers of gnomes are still small and mostly localized. Some individuals and families fled the area when the epidemic began, scattering across the continent in a desperate hope to avoid the fate of so many unfortunate souls caught in the fever. Luckily for the populace at large, most infected died before making it to civilization, while the survivors integrated into society as best they could. Most of them disappeared into mixed urban areas so they didn’t stick out so much. Less vividly colorful gnomes are sometimes mistaken for halflings, but most of them are quick to correct you and prove their worth as engineers and craftsmen. In fact the chief engineer of Torthuil's City Engineers Guild is a gnome known as Drae Iwiji, and they sit on the city’s Council of 12 accordingly.   Today, you are likely to find gnomes solo, in small families in cities or even the occasional woodland, in homes packed full of bright trinkets whittling projects, toys, and drafts of things to build and craft and dream of.