Gnomes

Gnomes are small humanoids, no more than about a foot high, typically found in woods and sunlight light caves. They are tool users and have CHI scores in the 1-1.1 range and live about 500 years, generally more than Dwarves. In spite of this they are mainly hunters who live in naturally occurring tree hollows or caves with little by the way of civilization but do have elaborate family relationships allowing them to take care of the old, young, and sick. These families are made up of somewhere between 10 and 20 with the elders providing instructions and the younger ones doing the heavy lifting.

While it might seem like gnomes could get on well with dwarfs, who struggle with fine motor manipulation and also live mainly underground, few gnomes can stand the lack of sunlight. Gnomes also struggle to get along with humans who generally look down upon them and see them as grumpy (even though Cosmopolitan Gnomes are rarely so, only their Leaf and Stone cousins). However they can sometimes coexist well in joint human-dwarven cities (Gnomes' Bizare in Pleitsdorf is a sight to behold). In such cities they generally go into highly specialised careers in artistic areas and occasionally fine alchemy and engineering.

TB-Exch
TB-Exch, short for Trade Bar Exchange, is a banking company operated by a gnomic extended family. It uses small steel bars with very high stamp values to allow banks, governments, and large organisations to settle debts that have run into the hundreds or thousands of crowns conveniently and cheaply. As the crafting on it is incredibly intricate it is virtually impossible for any non-gnome to replicate without the help of magic.