Jzadirune, “the gnomish enclave”, is an underground substructure beneath Caldero, connected to the Malachite Fortress by intricate gear doors. Once a prosperous home of gnomish communities allied to El Fabuloso, it is now abandoned or partly inhabited.
| Type | Place (underground enclave) |
| Spanish entry | Jzadirune |
History
Mascor Blancarba records that “prosperous gnomish communities allied to the Fabuloso settled there, sheltered by certain magical credits and death towers (an inseparable signature of the ex-Boreal and Regulator)”, and that “those histories have known their fading and misfortune (keep investigating).” The enclave fell at some point in the previous cycle. During the Kazmojen period the Malachite Fortress operated next to it without fully entering it.
The gear doors yield to the keys in the vest of Keygan Ghelve, the surface gnome locksmith, who held them by family line or clandestine acquisition. When Ayrton executed him, the keys passed to the group. At the end of La Jabalina’s first mission, Ayrton, Sila and Tony crossed them — Ayrton saying “Esto apenas comienza” (“This is only beginning”) and looking back at the whispering masks with a half smile. What they found inside is not fully documented.
Magical credits and death towers
- Magical credits are an arcane financing operation, facilitated or managed by the Fabuloso, that lets minor communities survive under greater powers. Their exact nature is not documented.
- Death towers, kept by the Fabuloso around Jzadirune, both protected the gnomes from outside and watched them, ensuring their loyalty. They may retain residual function.
Present state (1824 AE)
- Reachable with the locksmith’s keys.
- Inhabited by residual presences: surviving gnomes, subterranean creatures that entered after the fall, possibly clandestine theosophist operatives.
- Residual magic of the Fabuloso’s old protection still works.
- A potential site of investigation for La Jabalina next cycle.
It is an active frontier on pause, claimed by no dominant pole.
Open questions
The cause of the fall is not specified. Proposed causes, not mutually exclusive:
- conflict with Underdark creatures the enclave could not contain;
- loss of the Fabuloso’s protection when he moved to other folds;
- action of the negative pole, which entered and depopulated it;
- a greater cosmology that withdrew its operating conditions.