(of the prospectors guild) Karr-karroan Takkrakatakkte-takakak (meaning the loaded sound of potential great fortune, or woeful disaster)
 
The svirfneblin were born of the race of gnomes, but are entirely distinct now. Gnomes once all dealt within the ancient forests, often reclusive and shy, and those that knew of them tended to think of gnomes as little higher than the beats and animals that they lived amongst. But some great and ancient calamity drove the gnomes from their ancestral grounds, and in great fear entire clans were driven underground into the hostile and barely hospitable Underdark. Several clans perished of disappeared into those cavernous maws, and hidden dangers lurked behind every corner and in every shadow. The clans that survived turned to strict militarized merchantilistic organisations, each gnome dependant on one another as a potentially weak link in a vast and unbroken chain. These clans were reforged as great guilds, devoted to manufacture or prospecting or mining. They would trade with those that would have them, and often held great fiefdoms under the ground. But they were always wary of those they treated with, and aware that the greater cities of the drow and deep dwarf could, if roused, wipe a guild out without too much trouble. So the svirfneblin were forced to be circumspect even as they traded and bartered in the markets of the Underdark and beyond.
 
Takk was one such gnome. Born to a relatively prosperous family, he was nevertheless something of an oddity. The ancient saying of the gnomes holds that the first child works the foundry, the second works the pick, and the third works their belly. As the heir to his family, Takk was to take over the family business and control the fortunes of the guild Karr-karroan, but he showed little interest in the deals and the trade, in the ledgers and the accounts. He tried to attach himself to the farthest-ranging prospecting teams, always a job for the disinherited and the poor and the dangerously deranged (who who would willingly subject themselves to dangerous and unknown parts of the Underdark, far from the safer fields and mines of the svirfneblin?). But his interest, it quickly became apparent, was not in finding vast new seams of gems or precious metals. Instead he delved into ancient tombs and crumbling cities. He sought out all of the works he could find on long-past civilisations and the earliest days of the deep gnomes as they fled their ancestral holdings above ground. If pushed, he couldn't really say why, but Takk was obsessed with uncovering the wider history of the gnomish race. He devoted himself religiously to this task, and found himself almost accidentally inducted into one of few temples to the gnomish god of death, of the wealth of the earth, of the passing of time and nature - Segojan. The temples were one of the few neutral grounds and wider Underdark links between the gnomish guild-clans, and had records not permitted to outsiders. The temptation was entirely far too much for a young gnome in search of mystic answers.
 
This induction proved a step too far for Takk's family, and his was finally disinherited, his place as heir to the guild granted instead to his sister. While not exactly banned from his familial home, social pressure is a strong thing in a society where a lack of care and attention can lead to the death and destruction of dozens in a stroke. He was seen as lackadaisical, as whimsical even, or - even worse - wasteful. Takk found the slight, while expected, more painful than he had foreseen. He still had some fri nds both within the guild and without, and with their help he undertook his most daring and far-ranging adventure yet. Resolving to discover the mystery of what drove his race below the surface so many aeons ago, Takk ventured onto the surface world in search of answers.
 
A little over 3 feet, pleased to meet people but with that natural wariness of his kind. He has long hair tied into plaits, and a beard styled in oiled ringlets. He carries a small ruby chit, barely bigger than a finger ail, as his holy symbol, embedded into a pendant that he wears at all times. He also wears a pair of smoked glasses to help alleviate some of the pain of the light outside