Soren was planning something.
However, even as he was plotting and laying out schemes for certain matters, deep down in the Underdark, the Spider Queen also began to make her moves.
This evil goddess started tightening the giant web she had woven, gradually turning her spearhead toward the chief god of the elven pantheon. The flames of vengeful anger had accumulated in her heart for a long time, and she was so eager to exact revenge upon her former husband, Corellon, the chief elven god.
The Time of Troubles was a stage.
The human pantheon stepped onto this stage first, because humans were the most numerous and also the most widely distributed across every corner of the world.
Yet as the Time of Troubles progressed, deities of other races also began to gradually appear. Not long after the outbreak of the Undead Scourge, a pantheon that was neither very common nor exceptionally rare on the Material Plane began to slowly emerge, and that was the gnome pantheon.
Gnomes were popular artisans, alchemists, and inventors. Despite their widely recognized technical skills, most gnomes still preferred to live with their own kind in comfortable burrows beneath rolling hills rich in animal life. Gnomes loved animals, beautiful gems, and all sorts of jokes. They possessed a strong sense of humor, loving puns, jests, games, and even practical jokes—the more complexly designed, the better. Fortunately, their dedication to craftsmanship did not fall short of their love for mischief. Gnomes liked to ask questions and discover things through firsthand experience, sometimes bordering on recklessness. Curiosity made gnomes skilled engineers, as they were always searching for new ways to build things. Sometimes a gnome would engineer a practical joke simply to see what kind of reactions other people would have.
These were a group of mischievous