Stillsong Enclave
Stillsong Enclave
The Stillsong Enclave is a small gnome state hidden within the Stillsong Pines. It survives through planning, secrecy, and control of water infrastructure. The Enclave’s main power is technical, not military. Other realms tolerate it because gnome seals, pumps, and valves keep cities alive. Other realms fear it because the Enclave can also deny service, expose fraud, or collapse a rival’s reservoir schedule with a single inspection report.
Core Purpose and True Method
Public purpose: keep water moving safely through wells, cisterns, and sealed storage systems.
True method: control by engineering. The Enclave decides what “safe” means, who gets trained, and which designs become standard. It uses scarcity to demand treaty protection, strict travel corridors, and harsh penalties for theft of tools, plans, or skilled workers.
Territory and Settlement Pattern
The Enclave does not present clear borders. It uses false roads, dead-end trails, and controlled clearings to mislead travelers. Workshops and water stations sit off-route, under cover, and are linked by narrow service paths known only to locals. Food is limited and practical: small orchards in protected pockets, fungus halls, and imported grain paid for by craft exports. Water comes from stabilized wells and sealed cistern vaults. Every vault has keyed valves and audited levels.
Government and Key Offices
The Enclave is governed by a practical council built around infrastructure outcomes. Titles vary by district, but the structure is consistent:
Reservoir Wardens: control well maps, cistern schedules, and emergency ration protocols.
Sealmasters: certify valves, gaskets, cask fittings, and storage locks; they also investigate counterfeit parts.
Route Planners: set caravan timing, safe corridors, and decoy movements; they coordinate with treaty escorts.
Workshop Heads: run production quotas, apprentice placement, and quality punishment.
Council legitimacy comes from survival metrics: leak rates, reservoir stability, convoy loss rates, and winter failure counts. Leadership changes when systems fail, not when bloodlines argue.
Water Engineering Doctrine
The Enclave’s defining craft is “sealed continuity.” Their systems aim to prevent loss, theft, and contamination. Common standards include:
Well stabilization: shoring, lining, and pressure control to prevent collapses and tainted seep.
Pump discipline: maintenance cycles enforced by written schedule, not convenience.
Cistern sealing: layered seals, humidity control, and tamper marks that reveal entry.
Leak detection: measured drop tests, wick strips, and inspection stamps that track drift over time.
They treat neglected maintenance as a crime. They treat sabotage as a form of mass murder. Enclave doctrine assumes every system will be tested by greed, panic, or siege conditions.
Economy and Trade Controls
The Enclave exports precision parts and the people who can install them: valves, filters, pump assemblies, locking mechanisms, and storage hardware. It also sells audits and training under strict contracts. Trade runs through scheduled caravans with sealed manifests and narrow permitted routes. The Enclave avoids open markets. It prefers treaty depots and controlled handoffs. Payment is taken in grain, metals, rare resins, and legal guarantees. Coin matters less than enforceable clauses and escort commitments.
Security, Secrecy, and Enforcement
The Enclave avoids field battles. It uses layered denial instead: traps, misdirection, and controlled chokepaths. Security is built into civil life. Every workshop is a hardened site with lock discipline, counted tools, and controlled exits. Common enforcement practices include:
Apprentice bonds: skilled workers are tracked, housed, and protected, but also restricted.
Plan custody: key designs are split across multiple archives so no single theft is complete.
Treaty leverage: if a realm violates protection terms, the Enclave can halt service, refuse parts, or withdraw inspectors.
Punishments are severe and practical: exile into human territory without papers, labor forfeiture, and permanent craft bans. Public executions are rare. The Enclave prefers removal and silence.
Position on Magic and Faith
Magic is rare and treated as a hazard to systems. Unlicensed spellwork near wells and cisterns is treated as potential sabotage. The Enclave will cooperate with licensed adepts when needed, but it demands written limits and witness marks. Faith is present, but controlled. Temples are allowed, yet they do not run water policy. Life blessings are welcomed for endurance and healing. Death rites are enforced to prevent rot and undead risk. Fate worship is treated carefully, because contract culture attracts devils and debt cults.
External Relations
Eastern Ledger-State: strong trade relationship and constant suspicion. The Ledger-State wants Enclave standards, but also tries to bind them with debt and exclusive charters.
Northern Crown: respects Enclave engineering, but pushes for registry access, audits, and legal submission.
Elven realms: tolerate limited trade if it does not expand logging, roads, or outsider traffic through forest corridors.
Dreadhorn dwarves: steady but hard bargaining. Dwarves want reliable valves and sealed storage hardware; gnomes want metal and deep salt.
Border threats: raids focus on kidnapping skilled gnomes and stealing parts. The Enclave answers by vanishing routes and tightening movement rather than pursuing revenge wars.
Internal Tensions and Failure Risks
The Enclave’s greatest weakness is that skill is portable. A single stolen engineer can empower a rival. This creates constant internal pressure: tighter controls, harsher screening, and paranoia around outsiders and even neighboring gnome districts. Scarcity also creates quiet cruelty. When supplies run low, the council prioritizes infrastructure over comfort. The sick, the old, and the unskilled are protected only as far as they do not break the system. In a bad year, the Enclave can survive while becoming smaller, colder, and more controlled.