Okay, so I need to ask for some GM intervention here and details.  What did you intend for us to do when you introduced this scenario, because to me, all indications from the start were the gnomes were BAD.  And now it seems you've backtracked to change that.  So rather than fight and argue, I just want to know where the GM wants us to go.  I'll just find a reason to change my IC inclination.  I don't want to cause a problem if this was misreading something.