Gnome's Sweet Home

[ewayneself]

I need to know of a gnomish city/settlement/enclave/pile near Whitehorn.

Preferably, they'd be very insulated/cut off from the outside world.

Anyone?

[Spider Jones]

Major Centers of Worship: In the Cold Lands north of the Moonsea, a small mountain range runs east-west along the northern edge of the Border Forest, dividing the Tortured Land from the Ride. On the southern flanks of the White Peaks, as the snow-capped range is known locally, lies the small town of Whitehom. Like Ilinvur to the south and west, Whitehom is an outpost of Melvaunt and Thentia where the ore brought from nearby mines is crudely smelted before shipment to the cities to the south. Although individual gnome and dwarven miners are a regular, if infrequent, presence in Whitehom, the humans who make up the majority of the town's population believe they are simply a handful of isolated miners who eke out a living by trading ore for food and equipment. Unbeknownst to the merchants of the Moonsea, the White Peaks are home to a large city of gnomes (as well as a few dwarves) named Forham. Forham was founded over five centuries ago by an order of Flandalian priests after their leader, a gnome priest known only as the Arandhammer, discovered a massive vein of arandur in the heart of an ancient volcano. Begun as a temple-foundry consecrated to the Master of Metal, the Vitreous Forge has since grown into a city of over 10,000 gnomes and nearly 500 dwarves. Forham is ruled by the Hammers of Flandal, a ruling council composed of senior miners, master smiths, and the Arandhammer (the seventh high priest of Flandal to hold that title). Arandur from the city's mines is smelted and forged into iron-plated trade bars and then sold to allied merchant concerns in Whitehom by gnomes and dwarves pretending to be miners from isolated iron mines in the surrounding mountains. When Forham's trade bars reach Melvaunt or Thentia, they are repurchased discreetly by traders in the employ of gnome-owned trading companies and shipped to communities of the Forgotten Folk throughout the southern Realms. By this means, the followers of Flandal are able to ship great quantities of this legendary metal across the Realms from mines right under the nose of the Zhentarim. When the occasional caravan carrying the trade bars of Forham is lost, an elite company of gnome warriors and priests is dispatched to recover the lost trade bars before anyone discovers their arandur cores. A fact that would greatly alarm the human miners of Whitehom, if they only knew, is the presence of a young red dragon and an adult blue dragon in the catacombs of Forham. Raised from birth by the temple's clergy, both wyrms have reached a mutually beneficial agreement with the city's smiths in which they lend their breath weapons during the smelting of arandur in exchange for a significant tithe of the profits.

From Flandal Steelskin's entry in Demihuman Deities.