Deep Gnome (Svirfneblin)
The deep gnomes are the closest thing the gnome family has to "black sheep." Many surface dwellers count the deep gnomes along with their evil neighbors, the drow and the duergar, believing them to be little more than dark reflections of the friendly rock gnomes with whom they are more familiar. fn fact, the svirfneblin are just as good-hearted as their sunnier kin. However, after centuries of dealing with the everyday perils of living in the Underdark, they have become understandably distrustful of all outsiders.
Compared to their better-known kin, the rock gnomes, the deep gnomes are as gray and lifeless as the subterranean caverns in which they choose to make their homes. They keep to themselves out of fear of outsiders - a fear born from numerous poor experiences with such people. To a deep gnome, the only people you can trust are other deep gnomes from your village, and preferably from your family. All others are best avoided.
With strangers, most deep gnomes are sullen, reserved, and suspicious, almost to a fault. However, when they are alone with their own kind, they are friendly and respectful to each other. Few people from outside a svirfneblin community have ever seen this more pleasant side of the deep gnomes. For their part, the deep gnomes would be horrified to find themselves observed by outsiders, and they find such a person staring at them - or even looking directly at them - quite rude.
Deep gnomes are gnarled and callused folk, with little fat at all on their wiry bodies. Their skin is the color of the rocks among which they live, almost as if they sprang directly from the stones themselves. They have dark gray eyes, tending toward black. Their hair is of a similar color, although it's only seen on the woman, as the men are entirely bald and beardless.
Deep gnomes are short-lived for gnomes. Like their lives, svirfneblin are also short and hard. They stand between 3 and 3 1/2 feet tall on average. They are thinner than their surface cousins, but they weigh just as much about 40 to 45 pounds - due to the density of their muscles. They are little more than wiry sinews and rocklike bones.
History
While most gnomes have little use for history, tending to prefer living in the moment, deep gnomes are the worst of the lot. They do not have a formal calendar or any way to tell the turning of the days. Living far from the light of the sun, the very idea of night or day is foreign to them. Dozens of svirfneblin cities lie scattered throughout the Underdark of Faerûn, and dozens of more have surely risen and been abandoned over the years, but of all these settlements and refuges the story of only one is widely known to non-deep gnomes: Blingdenstone.
Blingdenstone was founded in -690 DR by several clans of deep gnomes fleeing west from the Underdark beneath Netheril, which had fallen into the power of the dreadful phaerimms. Despite the proximity of a powerful drow city (Menzoberranzan) and an equally strong duergar city (Gracklstugh), the deep gnomes established their city at its site because of the rich veins of arandur and other exotic metals and minerals. For almost two thousand years, the deep gnomes carried on their mining and smithing, avoiding their evil neighbors and strengthening Blingdenstone's defenses against the day their enemies would come against them.
That day came in 1338 DR, although King Schnicktick and Queen Fricknarti could not have anticipated how it would come about. Drizzt Do'Urden, a renegade drow noble, arrived at Blingdenstone's doorstep after years of exile in the Underdark, and received sanctuary among the deep gnomes. Although Drizzt remained among the deep gnomes for only a short time, the events of his exile eventually led to a full-scale drow attack against the dwarven citadel of Mithral Hall in 1358 DR. The invasion route passed close to Blingdenstone, and the deep gnomes chose to abandon their city. After the drow army passed, Belwar Dissengulp and other deep gnome wardens convinced King Schnicktick to join their forces to those of the defenders of Mithral Hall. The deep gnomes and their allies inflicted a great defeat on Menzoberranzan in the Keeper's Dale, and the Menzoberranyr never forgot that the svirfneblin had contributed to their humiliation.
In Marpenoth of 1370 DR, the Matron Mothers of Menzoberranzan exacted their vengeance. Calling up dozens of powerful demons and bebiliths, they unleashed a plague of murderous fiends that overran Blingdenstone. Thousands of gnomes died in the fall of the city, and thousands more were captured by drow slavers waiting outside the city gates. A small number of the deep gnomes managed to escape to Mithral Hall and Silverymoon as refugees. Driven from their old homes, these svirfneblin have found a warm welcome among their former allies, but the prospect for returning to their old home looks bleak at best.
Outlook
Dour and cynical, deep gnomes are resigned to their lot in life. They spend their days scratching out a living in the subterranean passages near their home. The males mostly mine for precious gems, while the females - who are rarely seen outside their villages - gather food, care for the children, and keep house. Few aspire to do anything other than live out their lives quietly focusing on doing their jobs the best that they can.
The svirfneblin literally have little or no light in their lives. To avoid detection by others in the Underdark, they often refuse to use fire for cooking or warmth whenever possible. Instead, they rely on their darkvision whenever possible, seeing the world only in black and white. The deep gnomes live and work in the eternal darkness out of their overwhelming love for gems. Most males spend almost their entire lives trying to chip precious stones out of the earth. They favor rubies most of all.
Outsiders often think of deep gnomes as irredeemably sullen and suspicious. While there is some basis for this, these are the outward results of survival techniques that these gnomes have had to adopt to endure their harsh and unforgiving environment. Sounds of any kind - especially voices - travel in strange ways in the Underdark, and they have a tendency to attract visitors. In the experience of most deep gnomes, such outsiders have only the worst of intentions, so when a svirfneblin encounters a stranger who is actually friendly, they are normally too suspicious to even consider responding in a like manner. They may eventually warm to a svirfneblin from another town, but even this can take time.
While deep gnome adventurers are rare, some deep gnomes succumb to gnomish curiosity about the world outside the caverns and mine shafts of their daily lives. This is especially true for those deep gnome illusionists who crave to learn more about the nature of their chosen school of magic, but who lack for instruction in the insular villages in which they live. Svirfneblin prospectors are also occasionally encountered in the Underdark far from their homes, questing for promising new veins to mine for their beloved rubies.
Deep Gnome Society
Deep gnome communities are subterranean settlements deep beneath the surface of Toril. The central part of the city is usually set in a single large cavern with all sorts of other caverns, rooms, and even buildings attached to the main section by a complex system of narrow corridors and spiraling staircases. When a town is first settled, the top-ranking members of the svirfneblin clan usually grab the largest stalagmites in the cavern and carve homes out of them. Most people, however, must carve their homes out of the cavern floors or walls.
For gnome communities, deep gnome towns are large, usually comprising around one thousand people. However, these places are normally far more isolated than even the most remote surface gnome town. Most svirfneblin go their entire lives without ever traveling to another deep gnome town, much less actually seeing daylight. Because of the relatively crowded conditions in a deep gnome town, svirfneblin families typically crowd into a single, small room. Children often stay with the family until they are married, at which point they need to either find or make a new home for themselves.
Deep gnome children are treasured greatly. It's rare for a family to have more than six children in it, and most have less than four. Deep gnome mothers dote on their children during their childhood. Once the children reach adolescence, they are immediately put to work in apprenticeships for whatever kinds of jobs they expect to have in adulthood. Deep gnomes don't celebrate the transition to adulthood the way their sunlit kin do. Instead, they know they've reached adulthood when they start working at the job of a real adult in earnest.
The great majority of male svirfneblin work in their town's mining operations, extracting precious gems and metals from the earth. Most of the rest spend their time processing and finishing the raw materials the others pull from the earth. By contrast, female svirfneblin spend their time gathering and preparing food, raising children, and keeping house. There is a strict division of labor along gender lines, and it's rare to see it crossed: The female gnomes rule in the home and the males outside it. Most deep gnomes work until they literally drop dead at their jobs. There is no concept of retirement in deep gnome society. Those who are able must pull their own weight as best they can, since no deep gnome wishes to be a burden on their family and community.
In keeping with the svirfneblin concept of equal division of labor, every svirfneblin town is governed by both a king and a queen, each of whom holds the position for life. The king oversees the community's mining operations and is responsible for managing the place's defense. The queen ensures that the town has an adequate stock of both food and water, and she handles the town's daily affairs. Each is supreme in his or her sphere, though each usually advises the other. The two are rarely married (at least, not to each other). When either monarch dies, the other chooses a successor for the deceased monarch by deciding on a contest that can be entered by any eligible member of the community. Usually eligibility is based on gender and status. The winner of the contest becomes the next monarch.
The staples of the deep gnome diet are a number of different kinds of fungi found or even farmed in the Underdark. To this they sometimes add blind fish or occasionally a deep, rothé, goat, or sheep. Svirfneblin do not often cook their food, preferring instead to preserve it by means of salting. These foods are salty that most outsiders cannot stomach them.
Besides water, svirfneblin drink a salty, intoxicating brew made of fermented fish parts, which is best described as an acquired taste. On special occasions, they drink a wine called Gogondy, said to contain powdered ruby (among other mysterious ingredients ).
Svirfneblin have only two holidays universally celebrated by all deep gnome communities, both in honor of Callarduran Smoothhands, their favored god. The Festival of the Ruby celebrates the mythical time when Callarduran hid rubies and other gems in the earth for the deep gnomes to find; it is considered a lucky day for seeking and finding. The Festival of the Star celebrates the continued protection the Deep Brother provides to svirfneblin. Deep gnomes mark the holy day by assembling on the shore of a subterranean lake or pool to watch small patches of a specially bred species of phosphorescent fungi in the cavern roof light up like stars, creating an illusion of the night sky reflected in the waters below. This ceremony reaffirms the deep gnomes' ancestral ties with the surface world, and reassures them that they have not been abandoned in the deep places of the world.
Langauge and Literacy
Svirfneblin speak Gnome, Undercommon, and whatever tongue is used by those on the surface of their region. Those who deal with outsiders often pick up a bit of Common as well. Given the nature of their closest neighbors in the Underdark, it's not uncommon for deep gnome linguists to also learn languages like Draconic, Dwarven, Elven, Illuskan, and Terran.
