[Longetalos]

Fan based resources:

The Irongate Project, http://melkot.com/locations/irongate.html

[Longetalos]

by Gary Holian (aka PSmedger)

The City of Irongate is for DMs who want to run a campaign in a fundamentally good setting that is under siege. Irongate is a large fortified port city that was built centuries ago by an alliance of Men and Dwarves at the height of the Great Kingdom to give the Malachite Throne a presence on the Azure Sea. It was so well built, that it refused to fall to the forces of the Overking when the whole of the south went into rebellion over a century ago. This alliance was called the Iron League, after the rebel capital, and men and dwarves have held this city ever since.

Irongate is known as the City of Stairs. Its streets descend some seven levels below the surface. They have been carved deep into the high rock on which the city is built, with numerous stairs that travel up and down the city to connect all the levels. At the very bottom of the city is a portal known as the Deep Doors which allows Irongate access to the underdark. The surface is ringed in walls with numerous towers and keeps. Its most direct entrance from the outside is a precarious set of stairs on a flying bridge. A lower city exists at sea level to engage the fortified port. All strangers are challenged and closely scrutinized.

Irongate is the preeminent center for the manufacture of weapons and armor in the Flanaess. Its products are generally considered the best and the most commonly used for enchantment. It has a large community of mages dedicated to enchantment, as well as mages trained for battle, and numerous unique siege engines of mundane and magical construction.

Country specific resources:
Irongate: City of Stairs Dragon #351

Adventures in the realm include:
-Enchanters are always looking for rare and special ingredients and often employ adventurers to procure them.
-Various guilds of smiths engage in fierce rivalries in the city, sometimes ending in bloodshed.
-Mining in the nearby hills is a constant activity, but those efforts require protection and muscle to see them off successfully, especially when rare ores are found.
-Oerthblood is the most precious material in the city.
-Siren Keep in the southeast corner of the city, which houses a large compliment of the City’s Watch and a one of the tallest vantage points in the city, was won from three Suel Witches before the city was built. Rumors contend the sealed dungeons have never been explored.
-Beyond the Deep Doors in the wild underdark beneath Irongate there has been rumors of a growing menace whose vanguard appears to be Dark Folk.
-The Lord Mayor of Irongate, Cobb Darg, is a decades long mystery, some contend he is a polymorphed dragon, a rare human-dwarf hybrid, or some other kind of magic being.

Adventures in the nearby areas include:
-The nearby Kingdom of the Iron Hills is one of the most powerful realms of the Dwur in the Flanaess. As an ally, most Irongaters can expect a friendly welcome, but there is some enmity between the dwarven clan in Irongate and that which rules the hills.
-Sandwiched between two smaller states that have fallen to the Scarlet Brotherhood to some extent, Irongate exists in a precarious position. Irongate has many enemies, including Ahlissa and the Scarlet Brotherhood. Spies are constantly trying to infiltrate the city.
-West of the city, in the hills known as the Headlands, there are burial places of ancient Flan totemic warriors, which have often produced wondrous finds.