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 gnome s , 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 construct s designed to kill demon s .