Quick Overview
Gelbin Mekkatorque led Gnomeregan when a trogg invasion overwhelmed its defenses. On Sicco Thermaplugg's advice, he authorized the release of radiation intended to stop the attackers. The plan devastated the gnomes as well as their enemies. Mekkatorque led the survivors to Ironforge, carrying the burden of a decision that cost his people their capital.
Full History
Gelbin Mekkatorque rose to become high tinker of the gnomes, a people whose great city of Gnomeregan rested on ingenuity, machinery, and an elected tradition of leadership. Their close relationship with Ironforge had long joined gnomish inventors to the Bronzebeard dwarves. Yet engineering prowess gave Gelbin no ready answer when troggs burst into the lower reaches of the city and its defenders were pushed back through the tunnels.
The high tinker's adviser Sicco Thermaplugg urged a desperate plan: release toxic radiation to drive out the invaders. Gelbin authorized it, hoping to save his people from an enemy that seemed impossible to contain. The gases proved catastrophic. They struck gnomes as well as troggs, killing many and leaving others twisted by contamination. The attempted defense became a calamity far beyond the original invasion.
Gelbin withdrew with the unpoisoned survivors, who found refuge with the dwarves of Ironforge. Gnomeregan's fall exposed the limits of even its finest inventions and transformed the gnomes from an independent city's people into exiles. The decision to evacuate saved lives, but the betrayal tied to Thermaplugg's scheme left a harder task unresolved: how to recover a homeland without repeating the disaster that had nearly destroyed it.
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