If it's Gnomish baseball, I take it all the extreme violence is actually illusory.
That's what the gnomes want you to think. They use the "harmless illusionist"-act to hide that they are really, really nasty. That makes the "harmless illusionist"-act a illusion. I'm sure they are aware of the irony.
"If it lives it can be killed.
If it is dead it can be eaten."
Ronkong Coma "the way of the bookhunter" III Catacombium
(Walter Moers "Die Stadt der träumenden Bücher")