Rainoga

The four Patriar Gates—Gond Gate, Heap Gate, Manor Gate, and Sea Gate—form a discreet network of private access points threading through the Lower City’s walls, designed solely for the elite class of Baldur’s Gate. Constructed after the Lower City’s fortifications, these gates were bankrolled by the city’s wealthy patriars as both a matter of convenience and status. They allow direct, swift passage from the opulent Upper City to favored business holdings below, bypassing the congestion and security of public thoroughfares. Their use is officially restricted to patriars and their envoys, bearing liveried symbols or written approval. Yet whispers abound of quiet bribes and silent nods, of guards who know which palms to grease and which faces to ignore. For many in the Lower City, these gates embody the unspoken divide—a gilded shortcut they’re forbidden to tread, even if it lies only steps from their doors.

Standing apart from the grit and grime of the Lower City, the Patriar Gates shimmer with quiet authority. Each is a marvel of refined stonework: pale granite carved with house crests and celestial motifs, trimmed in decorative wrought iron gilded to resist the city’s salt-stained winds. Polished archways bear copper lanterns enchanted to burn with a steady azure glow, casting noble hues across cobbles swept cleaner than the streets around them. Uniformed Watch officers in lacquered black breastplates guard these thresholds with an unsettling stillness, their spears upright and eyes sharp. Onlookers from the Lower City—merchants, dockhands, and street children alike—often linger nearby, watching privileged carriages roll smoothly through as though crossing into another world. The air near these gates feels cleaner, colder, touched by wealth’s invisible hand.