Page 64 - D&D - Player's Handbook

The rise of a dwarven city so close to the coastal
powers of Neverwinter and Waterdeep brings about its
own special opportunities and concerns. Surely, once
they get their forges going properly, the dwarves will sell
armor and weapons similar to the excellent pieces they soon- the priests and spellcasters of the city are work-
forged in the eastern cities of Old Delzoun, and this mer- ing on a means of containing the great heat emanating
chandise may lessen the demand for goods from more from the Fiery Pit where the being of pure flame is con-
distant dwarven settlements. In particular, Sundabar is tained, to harness the unquenchable fire as the dwarves
worried that its weapons will no longer be sought after of old did.
along the Sword Coast, and is looking southward for
lRONMASTER
new markets in Elturgard and elsewhere.
Beyond the great mithral doors of the city lies the I've never set foot in Ironmaster myself, but I fought
great Iron Tabernacle, the holy center of Gauntlgrym, beside Starn Skulldark, a young warrior-priest of
which the priests of all the Morndinsamman are metic- Clangeddin who was taking a sort of "vacation" from it
ulously restoring to honor the gods. Every portion of the in order to help reclaim Gauntlgrym. His descriptions
city has a road or passageway that eventually leads back of life in Ironmaster confirm much of what I've heard
to this site, a vast cavern of crisscrossing walkways and of the place, and so what I relate to you now is truth as
great stairs. In its lowest levels, the Tabernacle holds the solid as Moradin's anvil.
resting places of countless of Gauntlgrym's dead. Schol- The dwarves of Ironmaster don't want you there, and
ars have set about cataloging the lineages recorded they want little from the wider world that their traders
here, to give King Bruenor a more complete picture of can't bring back for them. Approaches to the vale in
the bloodlines of the city, and to determine whether any which their city lies are clearly marked with the symbol
of the living clans have relations or honored dead among of Ironmaster: an anvil on a diamond. Such a mark is
those interred. your only warning, and those ignorant of its meaning
Deeper still is the Great Forge of Gauntlgrym, where court death at the hands of dwarf patrols that will attack
in times past hammers rang off adamantine anvils to any interlopers. Some innocents have been spared and
forge wonders from every conceivable type of metal. turned back, but no one should rely on the mercy of a
Now the forge might be brought back to life again, and dwarf of Ironmaster.

CHAPTER 2 I THE SWORD COAST AND THE NORTH