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
forged in the eastern cities of Old De lzoun, and this m er-
cha ndise may lessen the demand for goods from more
distant dwarven settle ments. In pa rticular, Sundabar is
worried that its weapons will no longer be sought after
along the Sword Coast, and is looking southward for
new markets in Elturgard and elsewhere.
Beyond the great mithral doors of the city lies the
great Iron Tabernacle, the holy center of Gauntlgrym,
which the priests of all the Morndinsamman are metic-
ulous ly restoring to honor the gods. Every portion of the
city has a road or passageway that eventually leads back
to this site, a vast cavern of crisscrossin g walkways and
great stairs. In its lowest levels, the Tabernacle holds the
resting places of countless of Gauntlgrym's dead. Schol-
ars have set about cataloging the lineages recorded
here, to give King Bruenor a more complete pi cture of
the bloodlines of the city, and to determine whether any
of the living clans have r elations or honored dead among
those interred.
Deeper still is the Great Forge of Gauntlgrym, where
in times past hammers rang off adamantine anvils to
forge wonders from every conceivable type of metal.
Now the forge might be brought back to life again, and
CHAPTER 2 I THE SWORD COAST AND THE NORTHsoon- the priests and s pellcaster s of the city are work-
ing on a means of containing the great heat em a nating
from the Fiery Pit where the being of pure flame is con-
tained, to harness the unque nchable fir e as the dwarves
of old did.lRONMASTER
I've never set foot in Ironmaster myself, but I fought
beside Starn Skulldark, a young warrior-priest of
Clangeddin who was taking a sort of "vacation" from it
in order to help reclaim Gauntlgrym. His descriptions
of life in Ironmas te r confirm much of what I've heard
of the place, and so what I relate to you now is truth as
solid as Moradin's anvil.
The dwa rves of Ironmaster don't want you there, and
they want little from the wider world that their traders
can't bring back for them. Approaches to the vale in
which the ir city lies are clearly marked with the symbol
of Ironmaster: an anvil on a di amond. Such a mark is
your only warning, and those ignorant of its meaning
court death at the hands of dwarf patrols that will attack
any interlopers. Some innocents have been spare d a nd
turned back, but no one s hould rely on the mercy of a
dwarf of Ironmas ter.