Gray Harbor

One of the largest and deepest harbors on Faerûn's western coast, Gray Harbor is also one of the busiest. The city's independence and general laissez-faire attitude toward the types of goods and people flowing through its port—so long as the government gets its cut—means that the harbor throngs with both honest captains conducting forthright trade and pirate crews looking to fence their wares. Plenty of sailors also make their homes nearby in the Lower City.

The harbor's most immediately striking feature is its machinery, with dozens of enormous cranes and countless powered scoops and cargo carts dramatically accelerating the loading and unloading process. Though designed by the Church of Gond, these marvels are run by the Harborhands, the most powerful crew in the city thanks to the dockworkers' ability to shut off the city's economic lifeblood with a strike. Managing the whole affair is Harbormaster Darus Kelinoth, a lawful neutral male human noble who runs the port's operations and taxation from a small, heavily fortified brick building set well apart from other structures.
The port itself is a tangle of piers, floating docks, and anchorages, from the massive Freighter's Finger pier catering to the heaviest barges to the more ordinary slips at Northtree or Commonsdock. Not actually attached to shore, the chaotic Flotilla is the city's cheapest long-term moorage option, where boats are welcome to raft together around common anchor buoys, and where some houseboats haven't moved in generations. A special division of the Flaming Fist called the Gray Wavers patrols the harbor, yet it's no secret that the more expensive docks are safer than the budget options. Sailors and even whole ships have been known to go missing in Gray Harbor, and while some assume such disappearances are the result of local shore-based pirates, others speak of Ol' Cholms, a mysterious sea beast capable of dragging ships down to the river's lightless bottom. (Baldur's Gate: Descent into Avernus, 2019)

Purpose / Function

Baldur’s Gate has one of the largest, busiest harbors on Faerûn's western coast. The city’s independent status and tolerant nature appeal to many sea captains, who settle their families in Lower City homes. As a result, the Gate handles a wide variety of cargoes. Many pirates looking to fence their latest prizes also regularly tie up in the Gate.
Visitors are often impressed by the harbor’s sheer size and level of activity, marveling at its seventy-six enormous cranes and its scoops and cargo carts, which run on rails of steel along the docks and make loading and unloading an efficient process. The dock equipment is operated by Balduran’s Honorable Company of Harborhands. but the priests of Gond devised and built it. Thus. Gond’s High House of Wonders receives 1 cp out of each fee paid for the use of a cart or a crane. All fees and ship manifests are taken to the Harbormaster’s Office, a tiny building with thick walls and barred windows that stands apart from other city structures.
The Water Queen’s House is also a solitary structure. It dominates the end of a pier and descends on one side into the harbor. Waves have lapped against this temple of Umberlee for generations. Sailors and their families make frequent small offerings at it to buy the Bitch Queen’s favor. Its priestesses can often be seen descending the temple’s outside staircase to walk offerings into the river, where they disappear beneath the waves and climb back up empty-handed. What happens to the offerings is a mystery no one in Baldur’s Gate has ever dared to investigate, and the wrath of the whole city would surely fall upon anyone who did. (Murder in Baldur's Gate, 2013)

Type

Seaport