Tahziri Tribe (Burrowcarver Gnomes)

Overview

The Tahziri Tribe are a wandering gnomish people who traverse the Brimstone Badlands—a cracked expanse of sulfur-stained hills, jagged ridges, and mineral-rich ravines. Unlike other nomads, they travel beneath the land as much as across it, using their giant badgers to dig shifting tunnel-roads and drag their rumbling burrow caravans from one discovery to the next. Renowned as master alchemists and mineral prospectors, the Tahziri supply the desert with rare reagents, peculiar concoctions, and knowledge pulled from the very bones of the earth. Friendly, eager traders, they nonetheless carry a mischievous streak—especially when chasing a new formula, reaction, or experiment.

Appearance

Burrowcarver gnomes are compact and sturdy, standing barely 3 feet tall but built with strong legs and long, nimble arms perfect for digging and climbing. Their skin carries earthy shades—red clay, dusty beige, slate gray, or sandstone brown—with freckles or patches reminiscent of lichen or chipped stone. Their hair is thick, wiry, and often tied back in messy knots or braids, holding bits of dust, twigs, or herbs collected during travel. Their eyes are bright and expressive, typically amber, moss-green, or garnet-red, glowing with restless curiosity.
Their clothing is practical: layered leather aprons, reinforced vests, and belts overloaded with pouches, vials, mortar-stones, and tinker tools. Everything they wear seems stained by minerals, soot, or plant dyes.

Culture and Society

The Tahziri build no permanent homes; instead, they live within burrow caravans—wood-and-hide wagons designed to be dragged partially underground. Every caravan is effectively a moving workshop, filled with alembics, ore-crushers, drying racks, and scribbled recipe tablets. They place enormous value on curiosity, innovation, and the sharing of discoveries. Young Tahziri are encouraged to apprentice under alchemists, herb-hunters, or tunnel-scouts, each learning to balance delicate craft with survival in an unforgiving landscape.

While typically cheerful and welcoming, the Tahziri possess the infamous “gnome tinker’s obsession.” When an alchemist nears a breakthrough, the entire caravan may halt for days or weeks, all hands helping solve the problem—sometimes unwisely. Their playful tricks and chaotic experiments have led to minor explosions, glowing fogs, and one legendary incident involving a runaway phosphor badger.

The tribe is currently guided by Marzin Copperflare, an elder alchemist whose caravan has uncovered some of the rarest reagents in the Badlands.

Territory and Camps

The Tahziri roam the Brimstone Badlands, rarely lingering in one place. Campsites are dug into hillsides or carved into shallow cave clusters, often abandoned after a few days once minerals are harvested or roots are collected. Surface markers—color-coded stone piles and carved sigils—warn other caravans of unstable tunnels, aggressive wildlife, or especially rich alchemical finds.

They maintain a loose network of “mixing circles”: communal meeting grounds where multiple caravans gather to trade recipes, perform demonstrations, and celebrate new discoveries.

Resources and Sustenance

The Tahziri flourish thanks to their mastery of mineral extraction, alchemy, and subterranean foraging. Their giant badgers unearth ore veins and expose roots found only in deep-packed soil. They gather sulfur blooms, petrified lichen, crystalfungus, and rare metals that no surface race could obtain safely. Their alchemical goods—smoke bombs, tonics, adhesives, firepowders, and experimental brews—are highly sought after by desert tribes and distant cities alike.

Food comes from hardy root vegetables grown in portable soil troughs, small game flushed out by badgers, and fungi cultivated in cooled burrow chambers.

Military

Though not a warlike people, the Tahziri defend themselves with cleverness and terrain mastery. Their warriors fight alongside giant badgers, which can erupt from the earth to scatter enemies and collapse tunnels behind them. In battle, the Tahziri employ alchemical mixtures—blinding powders, sticky globules, smoke-belchers, and unstable firebrews—rather than traditional weapons. Their tactics combine ambushes from below, hit-and-run strikes, and the full fury of an alchemist’s ingenuity.

While underestimated by outsiders, a prepared Tahziri caravan can turn the battlefield into a shifting maze of collapsing earth, noxious vapors, and explosive surprises.