There comes a time in every gnome's life (the respectable ones, anyway) when he must quit the wider world and settle down and tend to his own garden. There is no race more wistful of eye and loose of tongue when the conversation turns to the cultivation of cabbages or the maintenance of a vineyard. To the dwarves belong the things beneath the earth, to the elves and the men, the things above it, but the gnomes forever inherit what lies between: the soil and its produce.

You have come to your own property a little earlier than others, perhaps even too early, for you are still in what they call your "gnomadic years", the time of wild roving and adventure. The plot of land, 3 acres in all, falls on the outskirts of a great town of men. It was formerly a part of the usual ponderous estate of some petty lord or another, which he had wagered and lost on a game of chance. Your uncle, a gnome of considerable wealth, and an occasional coordinator of such games (often serving as the bank when liquid tender had run dry) acquired the land in the course of his business, and, having no personal use for it nor being completely unsympathetic to your fatherless existence, sent you a dispatch to the effect that it was yours unconditionally and he would not hear another word about it.

To leave a field fallow is about as conscionable as trampling upon another gnome's cap, and so, you made the journey (a regrettably uneventful one) to your new property, to see what might be made of it.

Having been vacant for many years, it is in poor condition. Stones, detritus, weeds of all manner cover the grounds; dandelions, pigweed, thistle, foxtail. A lonely wooden shack overlooks the magnificent mess from a small hill, its thatch roof littered with unsightly gashes from which birds flit in and out. The plot is bordered west and north by a great foreboding wood, which crawls its way up to a distant misty peak. Some other farms lie to the east, and to the south wends the road to town.

It is a far cry from the warm hearth of the gnomestead in which you grew your beard. Yet, it is not altogether an unpleasant prospect. The only thing a gnommish youth loves more than liberty, after all, is a wheel on which to put his shoulder.

You will not lack for either here.

>Take a closer look at the shack, you'd like to see if it's safe to sleep in, or can be made as much before nightfall.
>Wander over to the adjoining farms, meet and greet the neighbors, see if they have any advice or tools to lend.
>Begin clearing the land near the shack. The weather is fair enough that you can probably sleep out under the stars tonight.
>Write-in