Gimrune

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Late in the Dawn Era, Callarduran created the Gnome race. Their civilization began on the Bal-Kriav continent of Hezmort. Their first great settlement was Kraarion.

In the Demon Spawn War (8972 GE - 9493 GE), Hezmort was invaded by the demon lord Jurusalax. The gnomes were so hard-pressed by the demons that Callarduran fought in the battles to stem the tide. This "attachment" to his creations was of some concern, Callarduran was treating his creations as his own children. This was counter to mainstream Creationist thinking which looked at these matters practically. Bruh Kreniik, the father of creation on the Covenant side, had told his disciples, you have a seemingly infinite expanse of space, innumerable worlds to populate with new and old lifeforms, you create them, then leave them to make it on their own. If the species fails to thrive, then try a different model.

At the time of the demon invasion of Hezmort, there were rifts scattered across Bal-Kriav. Fiends of the Abyss flooded out of them, attacking, killing, murdering, and seizing land as their own. As a result of their being so many battle fronts, commanders like Ares, Athena, and Naraz-Nâru agreed that they could not save every area of the realm, with Ares putting it aptly, "Some must be given up so we can win the war and not just a battle."

One hundred fiends against every Covenant soldier. We cannot save every area, some must be sacrificed for ultimate victory.

- Ares, quote from the Thuaxor Keozhal - "Strategem 11"

Ares sent his brilliant commander Asmodeus to Hezmort with orders for all angelic forces to pull out. Callarduran, first great leader of the Gnomes, refused to abandon his creations, battling to demons pouring through the Núlananya Rift. There were two camps under Callarduran, around 5,000 gnomes staying and fighting, hoping to win, and those that adhered to Covenant orders of pulling out. The first group that stayed behind, those that would become known as the Gimrune, ended up under the lash of their new demon masters. Those that retreated split up, one group of 4,000 or so fled into the Krephus Sink. They would become known as the Svirfneblin. The last group, terrified of eking out an existence underground, were taken away by Covernant dirigible airships; they became known as the Forstneblin.

Many of Callarduran's people that did not make it out of Hezmort were captured or killed by the demon forces under Jurusalax. The captured became slaves, put to doing tasks of building weapons and supplies for the demon armies. Their industry and intelligence so impressed Jurusalax that he made it a death sentence for any who killed one of his "Gimrune"; an Abyssal word for tinker. After a century, these workers had become more like indentured servants than beholden slaves. The demons indoctrinated them, teaching them the Abyssal language, and forbidding the use of the Gnome language; as a result, the Gimrune of today speak Abyssal as their natural language.

At their 120th year of servitude to the demons, some Gimrune were serving as advisors to the demon lord Jurusalax. A few were heads of successful businesses with demons working for them. The most profitable of these enterprises were those creating weapons, armor, and devices. Jurusalax, a trained engineer, took great interest in the inventions of the Gimrune and even educated those he particularly liked in more advanced topics of mathematics and engineering. After Silvanus defeated Jurusalax at Logor, the Gimrune were interviewed to determine if they were too far gone to demon influence. Those that were disappeared. The rest were allowed to remain in sector Honmin.

During the Feeding of Kezgihr, Gimrune civilization was nearly lost to vampires. The Shi'gah, those who had taken refuge in the Primus Hexaconta, turned the tide on the vampires. These half-clockwork Gimrune liberated the holds and then sent out packs of constructs to destroy the vampires. By 1798 HE, the Feeding of Kezgihr was at an end. The liberated Gimrune and the Shi'gah did not get along well, with the former seeing their lost kin as abominations with all their machine grafts. On the other hand, the Shi'gah saw them as inferior and lacking in the improvements to do twice the work with half the effort.

In the First Epoch, a group of refugees made it to the island Angvild. In the Year 66, they founded the settlement Mechantus. This place is the first Gimrune settlement of Midrêth.

The Gimrune have spread to other areas of the realm usually by accident. The best example being those that founded As'lumix. Early in the Third Epoch, several hundred Gimrune went to Azrik, joining the Torgilm Confederacy (1475 - 1719).

Gimrune civilization is quite advanced. In some small way, they were fortunate to serve the demons. Their knowledge of engineering and mathematics was centuries ahead of other civilizations after the Demon Spawn War - thanks largely to Jurusalax and his policies towards them. The intellectual base of the Angvild's gnome was bolstered even more when they found advanced weaponry and relics pertaining to science. These items were found in the Auhtai ruins scattered across the Hive region. These explorations and findings changed the course of history for the people. For the most part, the Gimrune explorers did not act out of greed and self-interest, they instead took their findings back to Angvild and shared them with the various science and engineering institutes. At the time, these schools, labs and guilds were small. They grew quickly as more relics and rune stones were brought back from Hive's ruins.

The Gimrune are a friendly, competitive, insightful, not too pragmatic, risky, and inquisitive people. They have a storied history of trade and exploration to the south and across Morwuld Briin. They have generally avoided going east because of a seemingly endless expanse of rough sea.

The largest population of Gimrune can be found in the empire Engineen. This empire was the first nation the Gimrune established after leaving Hezmort.