Waterdeep, also known as the City of Splendors or the Crown of the North.
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Castle Ward
The Castle Ward is the heart and mind of Waterdeep, if not its soul. It houses the city's military forces, courts, government, and the Market-the largest market square of any city in the North. It encompasses the City Navy's docks in the Great Harbor and all of Mount Waterdeep, and it is home to six walking statues. Castle Waterdeep stands above the city on a great bluff that extends out from the mountain, its towers soaring hundreds of feet into the sky. Though not quite as large as the castle, the palace is far more comfortable and lavishly decorated, with many halls used by government officials, guildmasters, and nobles for meetings and court proceedings. Many other buildings in the ward are given over to city business, including several courts for magisters and the barracks of the City Guard. Blackstaff Tower is a squat black blot in the otherwise pretty ward. The Castle Ward's colors are blue and purple, and its mascot is a griffon, typically depicted in gold.
Castle Waterdeep
Castle Waterdeep was a castle located in the city of Waterdeep. It was the seat of the city's government. Its walls were 60-ft-thick (18 m) on average, and high enough that when banners were displayed in honor of visiting parties, they were visible from many areas of the southern city. Most of the castle's passageways were permanently lit by continual light spells. The castle held enough food to feed 50,000 people for ten days, and could accommodate up to 540 prisoners in 90 cells. The castle was garrisoned by 1,400 of the City Guard, who, along with members of the City Watch, were trained in its courtyard. Seventy warhorses were kept in the castle stables. The battlements of Castle Waterdeep were used for the hanging of non-nobles. Work began on the castle in the Year of the Thundering Horde, 963 DR, outside and to the north of the city walls.
City of Waterdeep
Waterdeep, also known as the City of Splendors or the Crown of the North, was the most important and influential city in the North and perhaps in all Faerûn. It was a truly marvelous cosmopolitan city of great culture that attracted the most talented artisans, artists, and scholars from across the Realms, as well as a commercial hub for financial interests along the coast and beyond. Given its size and influence, Waterdeep was a cosmopolitan city with a diverse population of citizens. While humans comprised the majority of its populace, it was home to large number of elves, predominantly moon elves, dwarves, lightfoot halflings, half-elves and gnomes. Waterdhavians tended to be social, stalwart and outspoken people who maintained a worldly perspective of the cultures throughout Toril. While they were proud of their realm's history, they typically kept from dismissing cultures from foreign lands.
City of the Dead
The City of the Dead is no drab cemetery. It is a great park of grassy hills, tended flower beds, artfully placed clusters of trees and bushes, beautiful sculptures, astounding architecture, and gravel paths that wend intriguingly through it all. Long ago, Waterdavians largely abandoned the practice of burying their dead, instead entombing them in mausoleums. For centuries, the major mausoleums here have each been connected to an extradimensional space where the dead are taken, mourned, and interred. Those who can afford it memorialize the departed with sculptures, making the City of the Dead an open-air museum that features some of the most stunning, haunting, mournful, and downright eerie statues ever crafted in marble or bronze. Nobles and wealthy merchants have competed to erect the grandest markers for their dead, leading to a wide variety of styles and concepts created by artists at the height of their skills.
Deepwater Harbor
Deepwater Harbor, also known as Waterdeep Harbor, was a natural basin of the Sea of Swords off the Sword Coast North that gave the city of Waterdeep its name. Thanks to continuous efforts by the Guild of Watermen and its merfolk population, the cold waters of Deepwater Harbor were exceptionally clean. Groups of locathah and merfolk visited the communities at Deepwater Harbor regularly to trade. Surface access to Deepwater Harbor from the Sea of Swords was controlled by mariners of the City Guard, who operated walls and retractable chain nets that could block the harbor if necessary. In exchange for protection and cleanup of the harbor, the Lords of Waterdeep paid the merfolk generously in the form of food, medical supplies, and trade bars. The small colonies of merfolk and sea elves from Tharqualnaar and T'Quession provided volunteers to patrol and clean Deepwater Harbor. The young bronze dragon Zelifarn moved into an underwater cave in the harbor.
Deepwater Isle
Deepwater Isle, occasionally known as Deepwatch Isle, was a fortified island in the Sea of Swords off the Sword Coast North. Deepwater was the largest in a ring of islands that enclosed and protected Deepwater Harbor. Part of the heavily fortified Deepwater Wall ran along the island's ridge. The Isle was encompassed by the magical wards that protected Waterdeep. Underneath the island were flooded caverns. Every year on Ches 30, the second day of the Fair Seas Festival, clerics from all the temples in Waterdeep and members of the city's sea-related guilds traveled to Deepwater Isle and spent the day on it fasting and praying. The island's fortifications were manned by the City Navy of Waterdeep. The flooded caverns of the island were garrisoned by a rotating force of sixty willing merfolk, sent from southern waters ever since -458 DR.
Dock Ward
The Dock Ward was long considered the most dangerous district in the city, but the Field Ward has since taken that title. Warehouses, poorhouses, and tenements dominate much of the area. Streets are steep throughout, and few have space alongside for pedestrians. Streetlamps don't fare well in the Dock Ward. Their candles, oils, and glass are too regularly stolen or smashed. The Guild of Chandlers and Lamplighters makes a halfhearted attempt to repair the streetlamps at the start of each season, but for most of the year, locals are forced to carry their own light when traveling these streets at night. The colors of the Dock Ward are burgundy and orange, and its mascot is a swordfish that has always been depicted as green for reasons lost to time. The folk of the Dock Ward take competition seriously, and they frequently draft their champions from the rough-and-tumble sailors who come to the city.
Field Ward
This district was once a caravan yard between Waterdeep's two northernmost walls, kept free of settlement to serve as a killing field in times of war. As refugees from various calamities settled there after not being allowed into the city's wealthy northern neighborhoods, the area has grown up into a lawless town of its own. Though not an official ward of the city, the Field Ward is commonly referred to as one. The Watch doesn't patrol this area, however, and many crimes go uninvestigated. The City Guard oversees the Field Ward from the walls around it, but its members get involved only when folk moving into or out of the city are threatened. The area is a muddy mess, populated by the poorest people and those who take advantage of those folks' desperation. It has no sewer system and isn't served by the Dungsweepers' Guild. The Guild of Butchers operates several slaughterhouses, smokehouses, and leather-making facilities in the area.
Mount Waterdeep
Mount Waterdeep was the name of the mountain on and around which the city of Waterdeep was built. It was a rough, rocky mountain and stood some 700 feet (210 meters) above the sea level, to the west of the city. Beneath the mountain was the notorious Undermountain. The whole of Mount Waterdeep was considered to be in the Castle Ward. Mount Waterdeep shielded the city from the worst coastal storm winds. Inside the heart of the mountain there was a freshwater spring, that once spewed out and down its seaward rocks and into the sea below. Later on this spring was redirected into large-cistern caverns that were built into the upper reaches of the mountain, which then went down pipes into the city's sewer system. There was a ballad that spoke an ancient city sunk into the sea and the gods raised a head stone for it to mark the grave. That was Mount Waterdeep. Mount Waterdeep was once home to the underhalls of Melairbode, a shield dwarf hold.
North Ward
Waterdeep's quietest ward is also one of its wealthiest. North Ward is home to most of the middle class and lesser noble families. This ward has few notable landmarks other than the Cliffwatch, and it all but shuts down at dusk. Here, the plateau upon which Waterdeep sits features cliffs so steep and high that the city wall is interrupted to either side of them. Some of the most lavish residences and most luxurious taverns and inns of Waterdeep stand along this space, boasting terraces and balconies that allow one to take in the beautiful sight of the countryside to the east. Yet you need not pay their high prices, for a public walkway along the cliff's edge offers pedestrians ample opportunity to enjoy the view. The North Ward's colors are green and orange, and its mascot is the gentle white dove, depicted in flight. Many North Ward homes have dovecotes on their roofs, and the great flocks of the birds that circle over the city at dawn and dusk are a delight to behold.
Piergeiron's Palace
The Palace of Waterdeep, also known as the Lords' Palace and previously often called Piergeiron's Palace, was the residence of the Open Lord of Waterdeep. The white marble palace was located at the foot of Mount Waterdeep at the intersection of the Street of Silks and Waterdeep Way. The palace featured a Lantanese "golemwork clock" called 'Timehands' that comprised dials on three faces of its highest tower. A deep well could be found in the prisons and dungeons of the Palace. The Palace served multiple functions for the administration of the city. It was the main office for many of the city's officials including City Watch, City Guard, and city clerks. The Lords' Court also met in a large chamber on the second floor. There were embassies here from many other countries and cities, although they were not required to be on the palace grounds. Guest quarters for foreign dignitaries without embassies were also available.
Sea Ward
The Sea Ward stands proud on the high ground above Mount Waterdeep's sunset shadow. The rich and the powerful (or those who wish you to think such of them, and can afford the rent) reside or run their businesses here. When the warlords and pirates of early Waters Deep gained enough gold, they built fortresses on what used to be fields of grass tousled by sea wind. You can still see the remains of some of those old castles incorporated into the palatial homes of the noble families that dwell in the Sea Ward. For the best all-around view of the glittering homes enshrouded by garden walls, go to where Diamond Street and Delzorin Street cross, nigh to Mystra's House of Wonder, and simply spin in a circle. Blue and gold are the Sea Ward's colors in competitions, and the ward's mascot is the sea lion-a fanciful combination of fish and feline. The beauteous House of the Moon has the tallest tower of any temple in the city, rising some seventy-five feet above the street.
Sea of Swords
The Sea of Swords was a region of the Trackless Sea that separated the western coast of Faerûn (known as the Sword Coast) from the Nelanther Isles and the Moonshae Isles. The major island chains of the Moonshaes and the Nelanther Isles and the jutting Tethyr Peninsula formed a rough boundary for the Sea of Swords. However, various authors have described the Sea of Swords as extending around the peninsula to meet the Purple Cliffs (the western edge of the Purple Hills in Tethyr). On the northern end, at least one author placed the island of Ruathym in the Sea of Swords, and another added the island of Gundarlun and even the Purple Rocks. It was not unusual for the Sea of Swords to be considered extending as far north as Luskan. At least one kingdom of sea elves, known as Nindrol, claimed the waters around the island of Toaridge-at-the-Sun's-Setting just north of the Nelanther (or the northernmost island of that group, according to some maps).
Southern Ward
It is called the Southern Ward, not the South Ward. Waterdavians are peculiar about this, and if you insist on referring to it as the South Ward, expect to be corrected or thought a fool. The name derives not merely from its southerly location in the city, but from the southerners who settled in this district as the city grew. Today, the ward still hosts most of the traveling merchants who visit the city, and is made up of many enclaves, blocks, and streets primarily occupied by citizens who trace their ancestry to other realms. One can indulge in the finest halfling food here, enjoy the best singers of Calishite music, and examine the most stunning works of dwarven crafting-but the first challenge is finding where these treats are housed. Residents of the Southern Ward take pride in their legacy as overland travelers and hardworking folk, so it should be no surprise that the ward's mascot is the mule.
Trades Ward
Given over almost entirely to commerce, Trades Ward lacks the feeling of community found in the more residential wards, but retains the hustle and bustle of a marketplace throughout the day and night. This ward bustles day and night with activity, both on the street and on balcony walkways that run the length of blocks and are sometimes layered five stories high. Shop signs appear to leap out from buildings, whose sides are plastered with advertisements all vying for the attention of the eye. Glove shops, shoe shops, jewelry stores, perfumeries, flower shops, cake shops, taverns, cafés, tea shops, inns, row houses, boarding schools, offices, dance academies, grocers, pottery stores, armor vendors-as long as it's not illegal, you can find it in the Trades Ward. The City Watch has a heavy presence in this ward, in the form of both open patrols and officers working out of uniform. As befits a place of so much business, many guilds have their halls in this ward.
Waterdeep
Although Waterdeep is younger than many cities of the South, its history stretches back milleania. Humans have dwelt along the shores of Deepwater Bay for at least two thousand years, in settlements such as Safgauth, Blackcloak Hold, Bloodhand Hold, Nimoar's Hold, and Skullport, and their traditions, culture, and law form the foundation of Waterdhavian culture and society. In the current age, the City of Splendors serves as the Gateway to the North, accessible by road, ship, Underdark passage, or magical portal. Almost anything can be bought, sold, or found in its thriving markets and long-forgotten dungeons. Most adventurers worth their salt eventually make their way to Waterdeep in search of excitement, danger, or great reward. The trick is surviving and thriving in the grandest city of Faerûn.