Almorel

Almorel was a cosmoplitan yet primarily human trade city on the Golden Way.

Geography
Almorel was located on the southeastern shores of the Lake of Mists where the Golden Way ran alongside it. It was the last caravan stop before entering the Endless Waste.

Structure
Almorel was a sprawling town, buildings were almost all built out of wood and designed to be low and wide, with most households having attached stables and barns (so it wasn't necessary to go outside during the cold winters) as well as gardens and workshops. It was extremely rare for any building to have more than two stores. Wealthy families erected stockades around their properties.

The gold dwarves of Almorel lived in a series of tunnels beneath the city. Traditionally, humans were not allowed down in the tunnels but the dwarves had set up small guest houses to receive human visitors. The dwarves did not speak openly about their underground homes which elicited much rumormongering of the secrets the dwarves kept down there.

Defenses
Almorel possessed wooden walls and an ancient six-story wooden tower fortress called the Raumkreml which was painted black and served as the city's seat of government. The city was also defended by a force of Watchmen. Almorel enjoyed being mostly ignored by the Tuigan but that didn't stop a plan to improve the city's static defenses so that they were made out of stone, to be built by the city's dwarf population.

Government
In 1338 DR Almorel was governed by a council called the Gospoda. The leader of the Gospoda was known as the Mechnik. The last recorded Mechnik was named Nikitsky.

In 1375 DR, Almorel was governed by a Mayor who had absolute authority. Beneath the Mayor were three Keepers and a Lakemaster, who served as advisors. The Keepers each appointed a successor who would inherit the position upon their death.

As of 1375, the Lakemaster was a powerful raumviran druid named Valin Orov. One of the Keepers was known to be a capable warrior-woman named Evari Ruyost who was also in command of the city watch. They served under Mayor Mavnor Dyorn.

Population
Almorel's citizenry was mostly made up of raumviran humans with significantly smaller populations from other ethnicities found in or near the region. Almorel also had several smaller populations of other species, most notably gold dwarves as well as river spirit folk, who came from the Lake of Mists after emigrating there in -160 DR. There were around the same number of people with gray orc blood living in Almorel as there were spirit folk, with the number of full-blooded orcs being outnumbered five-to-one by their half-orc kin. Rock gnomes, presumably expatriates from Songfarla, made up the last hundred or so citizens.

History
Almorel was founded in -280 DR by the Raumathar Empire who brought in dwarven workers to build it, and allowed them to stay when they were finished. It survived the Empire's fall due to its importance as a trade center, and became an important site for nomads to meet traders where they could barter for things that they couldn't make or take themselves. The dwarves of the town were noted copper and steel smiths, making high quality items using ore from Rashemen mines, and the Mountains of Copper. Several magical items were made by the dwarves, but they kept those for themselves.

It was completely ignored by the Tuigan during the Horde War as they moved west toward Rashemen. In 1369 DR Faerûnian merchant interests from Neverwinter, Sembia and Waterdeep began setting up trade outposts in the city.

Rumours
There was a lot of gossip on the surface about what went on in the dwarven tunnels. Some thought that there were many more dwarves living under Almorel than were ever seen, others that the tunnels themselves were much more extensive than anyone thought, while still others worried that the dwarves had unearthed some ancient horrors unleashed in the war between Raumathar and Narfell and were at war with them. What those who scoffed at such claims didn't know is that there was some truth to this last rumour, insomuch as the dwarven tunnels came quite close to an ancient Raumathari complex stocked with mechanical constructs designed to kill demons.