Iltkazar

Iltkazar (small city): Conventional (Monstrous); AL LG; 15,000 gp limit; Assets 5,625,000 gp; Population 7,506; Mixed (shield dwarf 78%, gold dwarf 9%, rock gnome 5%, svirfneblin 4%, human 3%, urdunnir dwarf 1%).

Authority Figure: King Mith Barak, or Mithbarakaz (LG male silver great wyrm).

Regency Council: Fenyl Arnskull (NG female shield dwarf aristocrat 11); Torth Blackensteel (LG male shield dwarf expert 9); Ruvan Stoneshoulder (LN male shield dwarf aristocrat 5/expert 4); Chemcol Stoneshoulder (LG female shield dwarf fighter 8); Gromi Arnskull (CG male shield dwarf fighter 2/cleric 5/runecaster 2); Sturvis Riftsong (CG male shield dwarf fighter 5/bard 3); Vrona Ironledger (N female shield dwarf expert 2/wizard 7); Elern Riftsong (LG female shield dwarf cleric 8 of Moradin).

Important Characters: Sorni Arnskull (N female shield dwarf expert 8), Master of the Forge; Dorna Riftsong (LG female shield dwarf expert 7/wizard 3), Chief Librarian; Bresk Stoneshoulder (LN male shield dwarf fighter 12), Warmaster of Iltkazar; Anthan Diamondblade (LG male shield dwarf cleric 9 of Moradin), High Soulsmith.

Clerics of the Ancient Forge: The Temple of Moradin in Iltkazar numbers more than 30 clerics, including 6 of 4th level or higher.

Gate Guardians: Iltkazar’s best warriors are assigned the prestigious duty of guarding the city’s gates. This contingent includes more than 60 clerics and 400 fighters and warriors, of whom about 300 are 1st-level warriors.

The last surviving kingdom of Deep Shanatar, Iltkazar has been in a long, slow decline for more than thirteen centuries. The scholarly dwarves who live here keep scrolls and books filled with dwarven secrets of architecture, engineering, armor and weaponsmithing, archaeology, history, and carving runestones.

Less than 2 miles under the Omlarandin Mountains of Tethyr sits Iltkazar, a city on the edge of a bloodless coup. The king, Mith Barak the Clanless, spends 75 out of every 100 years sitting still as a solid mithral statue on his throne. During this time, the Regency Council of Iltkazar rules the city, carrying out the edicts and commands of their sleeping king. The Regency Council sees its stewardship role as one of preservation, not leadership, so they avoid making new policies and defer any major decisions until King Mith’s next awakening.

The council’s ironclad devotion to waiting for the sleeping king stagnates the city, but it was tolerable to the deeply traditional dwarves until recently. Five years ago, in 1367 DR, King Mith failed to awaken on schedule. Since then, the Council has dithered on substantial issues while the citizens have grown restless.

Iltkazar is called City of Mithral for its legendary smiths, most of whom work in rare, magically active metals. Mithral is most common of these, but even rarer metals are routinely worked here. Hidden mines in the surrounding Underdark hold a wealth of hizagkuur, zardazil, and other rare minerals, and the Iltkazar dwarves make good use of these. But Iltkazar’s hold on trade in these metals does not depend upon maintaining control over their source. Even if the enemies of the dwarves stumbled across these deposits or discovered the metals elsewhere, the knowledge of how to smelt and work them to full effect is known only to Iltkazaran smiths.

Faintly glowing, silvery-blue lichen on the ceiling lights the whole city, which is spread over a couple of dozen caverns connected by wide tunnels to create the effect of one large cavern. The River Dhalnadar and its tributary, the Deepflood, meet within one of the central caverns, providing plenty of water. The civil engineering of the city is a marvel—the river drops about 60 feet as it flows through the city, turning dozens of waterwheels that power hundreds of machines around the caverns. The water also feeds into each home through an intricate aqueduct system.

Iltkazar is probably the best-defended city in the Underdark. Each of its three main entrances has nine doors, each 10 feet square and 3 feet thick. The first two are solid iron; the next six are iron sheathed in 2 inches of hizagkuur, and the last is pure mithral, immune to magic. Strong grates block all waterways in and out of the city. These defenses are usually reinforced with blade barrier, dismissal or holy word, and fireball spells, which can be triggered by the warden on watch. Runes that cover the other surfaces of the cavern at 25-foot intervals usually contain maw of stone and repulsion spells that turn burrowers away. These last runes are unique to Iltkazar because they are triggered by an innate tremorsense rather than sight. Thus, any movement within 120 feet of such a rune triggers it.

King Mith Barak

Though many suspect the truth about the king, none know it for certain. King Mith is actually Mithbarazak, a silver great wyrm who came to the dwarves decades ago to help them guard their immense knowledge. Mithbarazak may also have had other, more subtle reasons to watch over the last kingdom of Deep Shanatar, such as needing an extremely safe place to keep his body during his travels in the Astral Plane. When the dragon sleeps, he travels astrally and has frequent audiences with powerful extraplanar creatures. But twenty years ago, his astral form was captured by a servant of Tiamat. Mithbarazak has been imprisoned on the Astral Plane ever since, and he cannot free himself.

Brief History

When Deep Shanatar ruled most of the southwestern Upperdark, Iltkazar was a relatively small but important part of the overkingdom. This subkingdom was the center of scholarship and smithcraft in the realm. When the overkingdom collapsed after the Kin Clashes against the duergar, Iltkazar survived, but its citizens continued to fight off assaults from beholders, drow, illithids, and duergar over the next several hundred years, losing ground each time.

In 66 DR, a dying king and greatly reduced holdings made for bleak prospects. On his deathbed, the last dwarven king of Iltkazar named Mith Barak the Clanless his successor. Since his ascension to the throne more than 1300 years ago, Mith Barak has led the city wisely and secured the kingdom’s borders. Unfortunately, his long sleeps do not allow the dwarves to contemplate any great new projects for decades at a time. The council is absorbed in fine interpretations of their sleeping king’s dictates, and its members are fixated on maintaining the city rather than taking initiative.

Every time the king awakens, he spends much of the next twenty-five years overseeing attempts to rebuild the city to the point where he left it seventy-five years earlier. King Mith has never complained about or even addressed that problem, in the same way that no one ever questions his mysterious seventyfive- year sleeps. In his waking years, he rules justly and wisely. In his sleeping years, the council rules in good faith but with undue legalism.

In 1367 DR, the unthinkable occurred: King Mith did not awaken at the appointed time. He continued to sit, unmoving, despite his followers’ attempts to rouse him. For several years, the dwarves argued over the appropriate course of action. At last, just this year, some of the dwarves have become sufficiently desperate in the absence of their king to act. One faction, which calls itself the Unfurling Movement, has decided on a radical course of action: seeking help from the surface to rouse their king. The entire Regency Council hotly opposes this expedition, and some have likened it to treason. Nonetheless, the leader of the movement, Joshiah Stonefriend (NG male human Expert 6), plans to appeal for help on the surface with or without the Council’s approval.

Surrounding Area

Most of Iltkazar’s surroundings consist of ruined dwarven holds. Each time that waves of enemies have surged closer to the city, the dwarves have retreated, abandoning their holdings. Iltkazaran patrols still appear in these areas, but they don’t have the numbers or military might to actually occupy them, so all kinds of other Underdark denizens are free to roam in their abandoned halls.

Kazardaern

These tunnels are nearly the last of Iltkazar’s defended holdings outside the city itself. Located about 2 miles from the city, these mostly empty hizagkuur mines provide the easiest access to Iltkazar from the surface or the west. The dwarves patrol these passages rigorously and construct deadly and clever traps to discourage unwanted visitors, so coming through this area without a guide is a foolhardy proposition. Of late, patrols of gold dwarves from the Great Rift and gray dwarves from Dunspeirrin have become increasingly frequent visitors in this area, and clashes between these two groups threaten full-scale warfare at Iltkazar’s doorstep.

The Spiderstalkings

Though the drow in the region tend to stay in Guallidurth these days, spiders of all sorts thrive in the outposts and strongholds left over from the Night Wars in the Omlarandin Mountains, directly above and to the north of Iltkazar. About once a year, the dwarves send a few regiments up to beat them back, but far more spiders infest the area than the dwarves could possibly hope to eradicate.