The Deep Hollows

A lightless immensity of root-caverns, worm-tunnels, and warm stone extending beneath a good third of the Kingdom. Gnome clans live in packed family hollows, hundreds strong, and there is no Gnomish king, duke, or governor — the Kingdom's attempts to install one have been politely absorbed and quietly ignored for centuries.

Geography

Measured by surface footprint, which understates it badly: the Hollows are a three-dimensional territory, and their deepest galleries lie beneath provinces that have no idea they are above anything. Warm, wet, and structurally sound, with deep waterways connecting most of the major clan-clusters.

The Motherstone

A cathedral-sized geode at the confluence of the deep waterways, ancient beyond reckoning and magically resonant enough that words spoken at its heart can be heard in every clan-hollow connected to the stone. Clans send elders there to argue, trade, and reconcile.

So do moles, worms, and beetles. The Motherstone moot is the one formal body in the Kingdom where non-Faeries hold seats, which the Eternal City considers an embarrassing provincial eccentricity and the Gnomes consider none of the Queen's business.

Relations

At their lowest reaches the Hollows run into the Kobold Deepworks. The two peoples have been trading, intermarrying by metamorphosis, and lying to their respective authorities about it for a very long time. It is the oldest warm relationship across the Faerie–Goblin line, and neither crown has been told.