d12 What Your Secret Gnome Mastermind is up to

Yes evil gnomes are spying on your party.
Possibly 1920s Rupert books taught me about gnomes.
Not everyone has a wise old goat wizard to bail them out. 

d12 Why Do Gnome Agents Run Adventurers?
1 Support adventurers returning ancient wealth into the economy and killing people, gnomes happily want to be dead
2 Try to send the party to eliminate any villains who disagree with gnome supremacy
3 Help party destabilise humanoid populations and dungeons
4 Get party to eliminate criminals who increase liability in gnome financial schemes
5 Gnomes require ancient locations to be scouted for relics or enemies
6 Gnomes require areas cleaned out of monsters or undead
7 Sending adventurers on missions is cheaper, and they take the blame if anything goes wrong

8 They require adventurers to be hothoused so they can get some giants murdered later

9 Need adventurers to kill rival gnome agents and adventurer dupes in some chess-like conflict. The gnomes are bored and play adventurers as a game 

10 Gnomes use adventurers to eliminate an organisation like slavers, cults, crime syndicates, guilds or evil wizards schools 

11 Gnomes want adventures to enter the underworlds to destroy enemy civilisations

12 Gnomes encouraging humanity to wipe out a humanoid species and use bards to spread propaganda

d12 Gnome Spy Methodology
1 Spy sent to be close to the subject
2 Someone close to the subjects was paid to report on the activity

3 Animal Spy is not what it seems

4 Concealed magic viewing spy-eye in art or the ceiling

5 Shrunken person or brownie-sized house spirit in the walls

6 Bard hired to follow the party, flattering them, if spurned, starts a slander campaign

7 Patron offering party jobs or information is a gnome agent with secret goals

8 Noble invites the party to manor to stay and eat, and offers them a sponsorship deal

9 Home or inns infested with gremlin burrows

10 Invisible spirits employed or local spirits interrogated by a gnome exorcist

11 Invisible gnome spies with mentalist spells and gadgets

12 Use a cult as a middleman to keep the party further away

d12 Gnome Operations
1 Merchant offering special deals and some magic items tries to get involved in adventurers' businesses and property 

2 Bankers guild contact party offering huge, cheap loans in return for property, superior prices or a cut of profits with long-term contracts

3 Have adventurers meet ruinous vice peddlers who try to get adventurers into their club. Starts with wild parties, but over time, increasing crime and vice are revealed, and the vice cult works to implicate the party with membership and are seen in public, benefiting the party

4 Hire a gang of sexy bards to search and seduce the party or their followers to pump them for information and secrets. Some aim for a quick marriage to cement the connection

5 Thieves guild specialising in gambling offers adventurers to play and let them win, then use drink and courtesans to push the hero into debt. They might also drug food and drink to enslave party

6 Support adventurers with mechanised artillery vs some faction, the gnomes want to decline

7 Doppelganger agents sent in, possibly to replace followers or employees of adventurers. They might also destroy something before the party reaches it if they want it covered up

8 Flesh golem agent made to be hero's love interest and use ESP to customise its features to adventurers' desire

9 Plant a working but shut-down or damaged automaton before the heroes so they adopt it. Seems friendly and loyal. Very useful and everything it perceives the gnomes know

10 Gnome mentalists sent to meddle in the dreams of heroes to encourage them into certain actions and plant information in their minds

11 Gnome cleaning team go over properties, rooms and anything heroes disregard so it can be examined with psychometric history magic for information

12 Gnome runs a team of shapeshifter agents to follow party and get close to them

d12 Gnome Assets
1 A secret office with files, 1in6 includes a single staff member

2 Team of thieves or Assassins

3 Network of message ravens or bats for agents to communicate

4 Crystal Ball some with sound capacity

5 Pet monster with secret lair

6 Panic room or secret door escape hatch

7 Secret Bunker with quarters, storage and command centre

8 Secret lab for poison, drugs and monster making

9 Allied Spirit acts as invisible spy

10 Invisible stalker 

11 Automaton or Golem killing machine

12 Operations room where workers process and record every detail of heroes' lives. Includes maps, artwork and analysis staff always predicting targets actions