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Khôltar, the Iron City, was founded in the, and earned its nickname by the iron cladding added to the outer stone walls, and secondarily for the ironmongery the city produced. This predominately human settlement was located adjacent to the Great Rift in south Faerûn on the Dunsel Trail which connected it to the Golden Road at Shaarmid and the Trader's Way at Eartheart.

Space was at a premium inside the jagged double walls, and buildings were typically five to nine stories tall. The merely wealthy built upwards until they reached the limit of structural stability and then connected adjacent towers with swaying bridges. The obscenely wealthy went on to build small, ornately decorated mansions in a bid to outshine their peers.

The Iron City was a no-nonsense, business-oriented community that valued hard work and had little tolerance for laziness or any strife that had an economic impact. Thieves and swindlers were reviled, and citizens did not hesitate to take matters into their own hands and then explain to the (usually sympathetic) authorities later. Indeed, all the laws on the books could be summed up as "don't interfere with business". Beggars were not welcome in Khôltar. The work ethic was so strong in this place that toiling until you died on the job was frequent enough to no longer be surprising.

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