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New Tinkeron

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BySuraia Silverbell

The Clockwork Volcano of the Gnomes

Overview

New Tinkeron is a small island at the south-western edge of the Xaverion Islands, a once-bare volcanic cone that has been transformed into what many sailors simply call “the Gnome City.” To most visitors it appears as one vast city built on and into a burned-out volcano, all smoke stacks, pipes, walkways and clattering contraptions.

It is the primary home of both Estonian gnomes—renowned tinkerers and engineers who fled Estonya about a century ago—and many Xaverion gnomes whose original home island was devastated in the tragedy known as the Last Gnome Settlement.

Location & Geography

  • Position: “In the south west of the nation of islands,” standing slightly apart from the main clusters of the Xaverion archipelago.

  • Origin: A burned-out volcano that once jutted from the sea as little more than black rock and a hollow caldera. For a long time the island remained uninhabited, considered useless for farming or ordinary settlement.

New Tinkeron’s most striking features:

  • A central caldera basin, now filled with tiered platforms, towers and housing rings.

  • Steep outer slopes carved into terraces, platforms and docks.

  • Vent shafts and steam chimneys that still channel the volcano’s remaining heat.

There is almost no natural countryside here. Any patch of green is usually a carefully constructed garden, rooftop plot, or experimental field, with bulk food still coming from Tonkor and other islands.

Founding & History

Flight from Estonya

Roughly a hundred years before the present day, Estonian gnomes fled Estonya during the invasion of the Witches of the East. With little welcome on the mainland and no lands of their own in Xaverion, they sought somewhere that no one else wanted.

They chose the empty volcanic island now called New Tinkeron.

  • The gnomes sent emissaries to the Xaverion Islands, negotiating formal ownership of the volcano in return for pledges of loyalty and trade.

  • Once recognised as their territory, they began building a settlement at the base and inside the caldera.

Using the hot steam still rising from the volcano’s heart, the gnomes powered their earliest gadgets—pumps, lifts, tools, and crude engines. What started as a desperate refuge slowly turned into a city built around experimental machinery, small workshops expanding into entire tiers of industry.

Arrival of the Xaverion Gnomes

The gnomes of the Xaverion Islands had long lived on the small island of Tonkor, farming and herding livestock. When Tonkor was “mostly uninhabitable” after the catastrophe remembered as the Last Gnome Settlement, many of these farmer-gnomes moved to New Tinkeron, joining their Estonian cousins.

  • Those who remained on Tonkor rebuilt only a small portion of their island.

  • New Tinkeron became the largest and busiest gnome centre in the entire Xaverion realm.

From that point on, New Tinkeron was no longer only a refugee haven; it became the shared capital and workshop-world of both gnome branches.

The People of New Tinkeron

Estonian Gnomes – Engineers of Eonil

Estonian gnomes are “real tinkerers” and widely regarded as the best engineers on Eonil.

Defining traits:

  • Exceptional skill with gadgets, machines, and experimental devices

  • Notoriously poor aptitude for magic compared to other races

  • Remarkably fast and quiet when they wish to be—often joked to be because they “have to steal half their supplies” for their inventions

  • Deep pride in their creations and in their ability to live independently by their own work

To outsiders their pride can look like arrogance, but among themselves it is simply the confidence of a people who survived exile by building something entirely new.

Xaverion Gnomes – Farmers Turned City-Folk

Xaverion gnomes originally came from the more pastoral island of Tonkor. They are described as “farmer oriented,” preferring crops and livestock over gears and engines.

After the devastation of their home, many moved to New Tinkeron, bringing:

  • Knowledge of food production, animal keeping, and practical survival

  • A more grounded outlook that sometimes tempers the Estonian gnomes’ wilder experiments

Together, the two groups form a single people with complementary strengths: one side dreams in gears and steam, the other makes sure there is bread, ale, and livestock to support it all.

Government & Elections

Gnome society recognises leaders who might be called “kings” of the gnomes along with other high-ranking families, but these positions are not hereditary in the traditional sense.

Instead:

  • Important roles are decided by elections of popularity, held roughly every five years (or longer/shorter depending on the office).

  • Any gnome who wishes may stand as a candidate.

  • Before elections “anything more or less goes as long as you don’t get caught when it’s not entirely legal,” making election seasons on New Tinkeron chaotic, boisterous, and legendary.

Because New Tinkeron is now the densest and most influential gnome settlement, many of these elections and councils are held here, turning the island into the political heart of gnomekind in the Fifth Era.

City & Technology

New Tinkeron’s defining feature is its integration of city and machine:

  • Steam vents and pipes run through workshops, public baths, lifts and forges.

  • The steep terrain is negotiated with gear-driven lifts, crank-operated platforms, and narrow stairways cut into basalt.

  • Workshops line the terraces, each humming with experiments in runes, metalwork, alchemy, and strange hybrid devices—though true magic use among gnomes remains rare.

Visitors commonly remark that:

  • The island sounds like a constant low clatter—hammering, hissing steam, chattering voices.

  • The sky above the caldera is often veiled with thin plumes of steam and smoke, lit at night by countless lanterns and furnaces.

Safety standards are… variable. New Tinkeron’s citizens have a saying:

“If it hasn’t exploded yet, it’s still in testing.”

Relations with the Rest of the Xaverion Islands

New Tinkeron is formally recognised by the Xaverion realm as gnome-held territory, settled after negotiation and bound to the wider islands by trade and law.

Key ties:

  • Trade:

    • Exports: experimental devices, precision tools, engineered parts, and occasionally entire steam-powered constructs.

    • Imports: foodstuffs (especially from Tonkor and other farming islands), raw metals and rare components.

  • Politics: Gnome envoys and elected leaders are known to appear before the Xaverion Senate when issues touch on gnome territory or inventions that might affect the wider realm.

  • Reputation:

    • To merchants: a treasure trove of devices you cannot buy anywhere else.

    • To more conservative islanders: a dangerous place of mad experiments and questionable safety practices.

Despite their quirks, the gnomes of New Tinkeron are valued as builders, shipwrights, and engineers, especially in an age where the seas are dangerous and technology can mean the difference between survival and ruin.

New Tinkeron in the Present Day (Year 22, Fifth Era)

By Year 22 of the Fifth Era, New Tinkeron stands as:

  • The largest gnome city in the known world

  • A symbol of gnome resilience, forged from exile, disaster, and stubborn invention

  • A crucial source of technology and practical devices for the Xaverion Islands

Ships bound for New Tinkeron rarely carry pilgrims or nobles. Instead they bring merchants, scholars from the Wanderers League, Xaverion investigators needing specialised tools, and the occasional foolhardy adventurer hoping to commission something impossible.

For the gnomes who live there, the island is more than a city; it is proof that even a burned-out volcano can become a thriving home in the right hands, with enough gears, steam, and stubbornness.

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