History of Zilargo
"The gnomes didn't conquer anyone. They didn't need to. When the armies came, the gnomes talked. When the talking was done, the armies left, and the gnomes kept everything they'd had before — plus a few things the armies hadn't realized they'd given away." — Provost Kallen ir'Soras, Morgrave University, Lectures on the Southern Nations
Pre-Galifar Origins
The origins of the gnomes remain genuinely uncertain — a fact Korranberg scholars find both irritating and delightful, since it gives them something to argue about at faculty dinners. They were present in the region south of the Howling Peaks during the Age of Dhakaan, but they were not a power. While the goblinoid empire ruled Khorvaire for millennia, the gnomes survived by hiding — in the depths of the Shimmerwood Forest, in the dark corners of the Seawall Mountains, in places the dar considered too small, too wild, or too strange to bother claiming. Whether the gnomes originated on the Material Plane or drifted in through Thelanian manifest zones remains an open debate, complicated by the existence of Pylas Pyrial, the feyspire in the Shimmerwood whose population is largely gnomish and whose connection to the gnomes of Zilargo predates any written record.
The Shimmerwood was then, as it is now, dense with manifest zones tied to Thelanis. These fey-touched forests may have shaped gnomish culture more profoundly than any single historical event — teaching the gnomes the power of illusion, the love of stories, and the instinct that cleverness is always more valuable than strength.
When the daelkyr invaded and the Empire of Dhakaan shattered, the gnomes' patience was finally rewarded. Two daelkyr inflicted devastating linguistic assaults on the region around what is now Korranberg — the Dhakaani seat of the Imperial Archives and the greatest college of the Duur'kala bards. Belashyrra released a curse that caused written text to evolve and shift into unique ciphers. The Crawling Queen, Valaara, unleashed wasp-like creatures called volaaganti — "word eaters" — whose venom replaced a victim's language entirely. The result was communicative chaos: libraries rendered unreadable, communities unable to speak to one another, centuries of accumulated knowledge locked behind ever-shifting codes.
In the centuries following Dhakaan's collapse, the gnomes emerged from their hiding places and claimed the ruins. Three distinct city-states rose — Korranberg, Trolanport, and Zolanberg — each an alliance of powerful gnome houses built on goblinoid foundations. In Korranberg, House Sivis claimed the subterranean complex called Raat Tohesh, the former college of the Duur'kala, whose vaults held invaluable Dhakaani knowledge — all warped by Belashyrra's shifting script. The wordsmiths of House Sivis became specialists in picking apart these ciphers, a skill that would define the house for millennia. House Korran, the greatest power in the city, claimed the ruins of the Imperial Archives, which the loremaster Dorius Alyre ir'Korran used as the foundation for what would become the Library of Korranberg.
Approximately 2,800 years ago, the gnomes of House Sivis manifested the Mark of Scribing — the third dragonmark to appear in the world. Sivis recognized the treasure immediately, consolidated all marked bloodlines within its house, and parlayed the mark's power into services that made them indispensable across the region.
"House Korran had the Archives. House Sivis had the ciphers. Korran could read any Dhakaani text — once Sivis translated it. Sivis could translate any text — once Korran located it. They needed each other desperately, and they hated each other for it." — Tallian Talius Lyrris, historian of the Library of Korranberg, Notes on the Founding Period
The Founding of Zilargo
The gnome city-states spent centuries growing, scheming, and feuding — a period of internal competition that honed the Zil instinct for intrigue but left them vulnerable to external threats. The Ghaal'dar goblinoid tribes of the Seawall Mountains raided Zil settlements regularly, and kobold clans contested the mountain passes. When human warlords began pressing southward along the coast, the three city-states recognized that survival required unity.
The founding of Zilargo — the name means "Home of the Wise" in Gnomish — formalized an alliance that had been developing for generations. Trolanport, Korranberg, and Zolanberg created a unified government: the Triumvirate, with a representative from each city. The precise date of founding is debated — gnome historians disagree over whether the formal founding occurred before or after the creation of the Trust, since the two events are closely intertwined and the gnomes who orchestrated them may have considered them a single project.
Two years after the formal founding, citizens across Zilargo awoke to find mysterious pamphlets explaining the existence of the Trust and the role it would play in the nation. The tract praised the shared virtues of the Zil and declared that friendly competition would be accepted — crime would not. It concluded: "To those who follow the proper path, we shall be as invisible as any ghost. Trust that we have your best interests at heart."
Not everyone embraced the new order. Some demanded accountability; others called it a coup. But few spoke out for long — deadly accidents and unlikely misfortunes silenced dissenting voices with unsettling efficiency. Most of those who could not accept the Trust chose to leave rather than fight it. Some immigrated into the Five Nations and abandoned their Zil identity. Others took to the sea and founded colonies in distant lands. Tolanen was established in the Shadow Marches; years later, a trading vessel arrived to find the town completely depopulated, with no signs of conflict. New Zolanberg was built on the coast of Xen'drik and prospered for decades — then, within the span of a single week, its people tore the town and each other to pieces, a devastating example of the curse called the Du'rashka Tul. Only the island community of Lorghalan, in the Lhazaar Principalities, survives to this day.
Integration into Galifar
When the armies of Galifar I advanced south beyond the Howling Peaks, they were met not by gnome soldiers but by gnome diplomats — a delegation bearing an elaborate array of offers, enticements, and proposals. After lengthy discussions, Galifar recognized the region as the Grand Duchies of Korranberg, Trolanport, and Zolanberg, nominally part of Breland but functionally autonomous. The gnomes surrendered nothing of consequence and gained the protection of the most powerful state on the continent. Many of the terms were later discovered to favor the gnomes considerably more than they had appeared at first reading. This surprised precisely no one who had dealt with the Zil before.
The grand ducal titles — held by the ir'Korrans, ir'Trolans, and ir'Zolans — became symbolic almost immediately. The actual positions of authority were the elected councils and the Triumvirate. The Zil treated the Galifar period as an opportunity: they traded information with humans across Khorvaire, built the Library of Korranberg into the foremost repository of knowledge on the continent, and established House Sivis as an essential service provider to the entire kingdom.
In 793 YK, a gnome scholar named Byrnid Dojurn uncovered texts from Xen'drik in the Library of Korranberg describing techniques for binding elementals to objects. A Zil expedition to Xen'drik — which amounted to something closer to a raid — acquired the foundational knowledge, and by 805 YK the gnomes had unlocked the secrets of elemental binding. This became a national industry and one of Zilargo's most closely guarded advantages.
EXCERPT — The Gnome Negotiation, a play by Talliana Taranath Dalian, first performed in Thurimbar, 846 YK
GALIFAR: You ask for autonomy, trade rights, exemptions from levies, access to our roads, protection from your enemies, and a seat at the table of a kingdom you did not help build. What do you offer in return?
ZIL DIPLOMAT: (smiling) Your Majesty, we offer you the only thing more valuable than an army. We offer you the knowledge of what your enemies are planning before they plan it.
GALIFAR: (pause) ...Go on.
The Last War (894–996 YK)
When the kingdom fractured in 894 YK, Zilargo did not immediately take sides — the gnomes watched, assessed, and waited. The city-states had always operated with functional independence from Breland, and the Triumvirate initially sought to maintain that neutrality.
962 YK — Zilargo formally aligned with Breland, cementing an industrial partnership and intelligence-sharing relationship that would define the rest of the war. The gnomes committed few troops — the Zil have never been a military power in the conventional sense — but what they provided was arguably more valuable. Zil alchemists produced devastating weapons: alchemical compounds, elemental munitions, and experimental devices that gave Brelish forces a significant battlefield edge. And the Trust's espionage network fed intelligence to the Brelish crown that shaped campaigns across the continent.
The war was not fought entirely beyond Zilargo's borders. The Ghaal'dar tribes of the Seawall Mountains — the same goblinoid raiders who had plagued Zil settlements for centuries — escalated their attacks during the conflict. And in a dramatic escalation, Aundair launched a covert strike against Zilargo during the war, targeting a facility in the Shimmerwood that was producing alchemical weapons for Breland. The attacking force — ground troops, siege staffs, and a team of bombardiers on skystaffs — made it up the Glamerwind River but mistook the feyspire of Pylas Pyrial for their target. The spire withstood the assault but sustained real damage before vanishing back to Thelanis.
969 YK — The hobgoblin chieftain Haruuc Sharaat'kor united the Ghaal'dar tribes and seized the southern Cyran territories, founding Darguun. This removed a persistent goblinoid threat from Zilargo's eastern border but replaced it with a new nation whose long-term intentions remained uncertain.
994 YK — Cyre was destroyed in the Mourning. The cataclysm did not directly affect Zilargo, but it sent shockwaves through every nation's strategic calculus and accelerated the path to peace.
From the private journal of Tasho Mol Doras, Zil Ambassador to Breland: "We spent three days composing a letter of condolence to the Brelish crown regarding the destruction of Cyre. In the end we settled on four words: We share your grief. Everything else was intelligence."
The Treaty of Thronehold (996 YK)
The Treaty of Thronehold formally recognized Zilargo as a sovereign nation — a status the Zil had enjoyed in practice for centuries, now made official in international law. The grand ducal titles became even more toothless than before; the ir'Korrans, ir'Trolans, and ir'Zolans still compete cheerfully for the ceremonial title each year, hold extravagant coronations, and repeat the whole process twelve months later. The actual authority rests, as it always has, with the Triumvirate, the Councils of Nine, and the Trust.
The treaty also recognized Darguun, formalizing the Seawall border that had been a contested frontier for as long as anyone could remember.
Postwar Zilargo (996 YK–Present)
Zilargo emerged from the Last War in a stronger position than most nations — its cities were undamaged, its industries were intact, and its intelligence apparatus had spent a century expanding its reach across the continent. The Breland-Zilargo alliance remains the defining pillar of Zil foreign policy, sustained by deep economic interdependence and a complex intelligence-sharing relationship that both sides manage with exquisite care.
Three pressures define the postwar period. The elemental binding industry — Zilargo's most valuable economic asset — faces a dual threat from the Power of Purity movement, which opposes the binding of sentient elementals on moral grounds, and from House Cannith, which continues to invest in research that could break the Zil monopoly. The Trust treats both as national security concerns.
The Darguun border remains tense. The Ghaal'dar tribes no longer raid openly, but Lhesh Haruuc's grip on his nation is personal rather than institutional, and the Trust operates on the assumption that his death could destabilize the entire region.
And the Trust itself faces the challenge of operating in a postwar Khorvaire where Zil interests now extend far beyond the nation's compact borders. The domestic surveillance network is a marvel of efficiency, but projecting that same level of awareness across the Five Nations, Xen'drik expeditions, and the intrigues of a dozen dragonmarked houses is a considerably larger undertaking — one the Trust would prefer no one realize is still a work in progress.
Scrawled in elegant Gnomish calligraphy on the wall of a Trolanport alehouse, never painted over:
WE SURVIVED DHAKAAN. WE SURVIVED GALIFAR. WE SURVIVED THE WAR. THE ONLY THING THAT COULD DESTROY US IS OURSELVES.