Page 48 - D&D - Player's Handbook

commerce- no matter one's heritage, everyone must filled by citizens, not the city) pierce the fog. Most locals
have coin in order to eat. There is but one nonhuman are wise enough to carry lanterns or lamps, and visitors
family among the patriars, the dwarven Shattershields, that have not learned to do so can usually hire a young
who have been in Baldur's Gate for long enough that Baldurian to guide them through the streets.
they are just as accomplished as their human peers at The Lower City was long ago walled in to benefit from
looking down on the rest of the citizenry. the protection of the city, but the divide between the two
A number of gates divide the Upper City from the wards is as stark as it has ever been. The Flaming Fist
Lower City, but the one to note is the famous Baldur's is responsible for keeping order in the Lower City, and
Gate, from which the city takes its name. Trade passes do so with brutal efficiency, deterring most from engag-
only through this gate, and is taxed by the city-despite ing in bold, public acts of theft, vandalism, or violence.
the fact that it was just such taxes that led to the city's Where merchants in other cities might hope to one
being overthrown by its first dukes and the Lower City day join the nobility, in Baldur's Gate the best one can
enclosed by its ring wall. The other gates exist solely for hope for is to become an absurdly wealthy and influen-
the convenience of the patriars and their retinues. Any tial merchant. Becoming a patriar is out of the question.
who aren't in the presence of a patriar, wearing a patri- Still, the wealthiest Baldurians live as much like the
ar's livery, or bearing a letter of proof of employment by patriars as they can, buying up adjacent properties in
a patriar must use Baldur's Gate to pass between the the hopes of demolishing them in order to build large
Upper and Lower Cities. Bear this in mind when trying homes to echo the manors of the Upper City. The
to sneak from one part of the city to the next. Bloomridge district has a number of such homes, and
some of the patriars grumble that these merchants are
LOWER CITY growing too comfortable with their new status.
Hard against the harbor lies the Lower City, where
stone, slate-roofed houses stand (sometimes unsteadily), OUTER CITY
and the folk who have long performed the real work of Outside the walls, there are no laws barring construc-
the city reside. Baldur's Gate depends on trade, and that tion or settlement, and so those who are too poor to
trade flows in and out of the Gray Harbor. The hands reside within the city or to purchase property have
that load and unload ships, that tally cargo and haul slowly built up a third ward of the city, living in the
goods, that repair keels and mend sails, all live here. shadow of its walls, paying its taxes, and covering both
The damp clings heavily in this portion of the city- sides of the roads leading into Baldur's Gate. Here, the
some say it's held in by the Old Wall-and lamps (lit and poorest of the poor live in the Outer City, but so too do

CHAPTER 2 I THE SWORD COAST AND THE NORTH