One autumn night, the long tables in the back of the workshop had been cleared of tools and covered instead with boards, cards, pieces, mugs, and a growing pile of rule sheets that no one quite understood anymore. Lanterns hung low from hooks in the beams, and the air smelled faintly of oil, sawdust, and apple cider.
They had been playing for nearly two hours. And they were definitely doing it wrong.
Brindle Ironhammer squinted at the board and said, “I’m fairly certain that move was legal. Or illegal. One of the two.”
Pip Thistlewick flipped through the instructions again, turning them upside down to see if that helped. “It says something about Phase Three, but we never figured out when Phase Two ended.”
Jeannie Gearwhistle leaned back on her stool. “Normally this is the part where Hobb explains it and we all nod like we knew it already.”
They all paused.
“Oh,” Pip said. “Right. Where is Hobb anyway?”
No one answered right away.
Finally, Jeannie said, “He’s at the Tool Guild again. Some kind of competition. Best wrench design this year, I think.”
Brindle sighed. “Of course he is. So we’re stuck arguing about turn order while he’s off winning medals for adjustable spanners.”
There was a moment of quiet irritation, broken only by the sound of dice rolling across the table… and promptly knocking over a miniature figure.
Pip stared at the mess. “You know,” he said, “every guild has these competitions. Best tool. Best gear. Best whatever. We don’t have anything like that.”
Brindle snorted. “What would we even compete over? We already make board games. Seems unfair to everyone else.”
Jeannie picked up the fallen dice and turned them in her fingers. “Well… we don’t actually make these.”
That got their attention.
Pip looked down at his hand. Brindle looked down at his. Every one of them was holding dice.
“We design boards,” Pip said slowly.
“We build pieces,” Brindle added.
“We invent rule systems that require flow charts,” Jeannie said proudly. “But the one thing we use in every single game… we never change at all.”
There was a thoughtful silence.
Then Brindle’s eyes lit up. “What if we didn’t use the same ones?”
Pip sat up straighter. “You mean… redesign the dice?”
“Not just redesign,” Jeannie said. “Compete. Quietest dice. Smallest dice. Dice you can’t lose. Dice that won’t roll under benches or knock over towers.”
Brindle grinned. “Dice that actually behave.”
Pip laughed. “We could finally have our own contest.”
Jeannie raised her mug. “To the First Annual Gnomish Dice Making Contest.”
Brindle clinked mugs with her. “Winner gets bragging rights, naming rights, and the good cider.”
“And Hobb has to play with whatever wins,” Pip added.
By the time they realized they still hadn’t finished the game, the contest already had categories, judges, and three completely unreasonable design sketches drawn on the back of the rules sheet.
And that was how the gnomes, after losing both the rule expert and the dice under the table, decided that if they couldn’t improve their understanding of the game rules… they could at least improve their dice.
Over the years, the contest grew, and so did the designs - some practical, some ridiculous, and a few surprisingly brilliant. Most stayed right there in the workshop, talked about for a season, and then quietly rebuilt into something else. But every now and then, a design proved so useful, so clever, or so oddly satisfying that the gnomes agreed it deserved to be shared beyond game night. Those are the ones that found their way into our shop.
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