The Iron Waste itself is a baking hot, totally arid region.  No water sources are known to exist there, and dehydration is a deadly risk to any who venture within it.  Beneath the sun-blasted earth, however, lurks a seemingly limitless supply of molten iron, which slowly seeps up to the surface, coagulating and cooling into black lumps of metal.  "Ironpickers" from the nearby town of Akhenatek often venture into the Iron Waste to gather these deposits, trade in which forms the basis of the town's economy.