The Gates

Each gate has its own name, and no two are alike in the amount and types of traffic that uses them. However, they have certain similarities in design and function.

Each gate comprises a pair of huge wooden portals, each at least 12 feet high, eight feet wide, and one foot thick. Made from tough roanwood, heavily reinforced with iron, the gates can endure a tremendous pounding before they fail. Four gates-Black, Highway, Garden, and Cargo-are larger than the others, reaching 16 feet in height and a total entrance width of 24 feet. In all other respects mentioned here they resemble their smaller kin.

Each gate is backed by a massive portcullis of iron bars two inches thick in a closely intertwined pattern. A very small child might squeeze through, but not a youth, or even an adult hallling. The portcullis is usually left open even when the gates are closed. If some flaw with a gate's door renders it temporarily inoperable (they require a significant amount of maintenance), the gate is propped open and the portcullis used to close the entry way when necessary.

Each gate is contained within a small gate house, consisting of a pair of towers flanking the gateway itself, and an enlarged, enclosed area over the gateway. The tower tops and connecting block house are well equipped with arrow slits and ingenious methods for delivering boiling oil (straight down) or other liquid attack forms.

Each gate house tower connects to the city through a door in its base, and to the wall top by a door in its side. The towers contain three platforms, beginning at the top of the wall and extending upward. Each of these can shelter and provide a firing platform for a squad of 40 archers.

These towers serve in peacetime as shelters and resting places for the city watch. Each gate house is normally garrisoned by a standard patrol of the watch (see Ch2 FFF). Most of the guards are stationed in the central passage of the gate house, but there is always a sentry somewhere in each tower. This guard complement is in addition to the guards on duty at the gate itself: the latter guards are outside. patrolling the actual gate passage.

The two gates within the city- Black Gate, leading from the Old to the New City, and Garden Gate, leading from the upper district of the city into the Foreign Quarter and Clerksburg in the more crowded central district-divide the city, in function if not necessarily by intent, into three classes. The Garden Gate remains open except in rare instances of emergency, such as riots or panic. The Black Gate, on the other hand, is closed during the deepest hours of the night.

All persons passing through these gates are subject to signing a written roster. Illiterate users sign their "X," together with a brief description written by the guard.

Those passing through these gates are not asked to explain their business, nor are they detained or turned back (unless, of course, one is a wanted fugitive who gets recognized).

The gates connecting the city to the outside world, however, are maintained a little more diligently. For one thing, all except two of these outside gates (the Highway and the Cargo Gate) are closed from dusk until dawn. They are opened during the hours of darkness only for a traveler who pleads the urgency of his case, and who can produce a written message from the Lord Mayor or Captain-General of Greyhawk. or the head of state of some other nation. In the latter case, the guards make sure that the traveler is harmless before they open the gates.

All of the gates. when they are open, keep a roster of those passing through. In addition, those arriving in the city are asked their business. If this business is recreation, or if the guard has any other reason for being suspicious (20% chance just for the heck of it; more if a PC is belligerent) the guard notes the nature of the character's business beside his or her name.

If it is later proven that the character has misinformed the city, that character is subject to barushment and confiscation of all wealth acquired within the city. A long list of individuals, as well as citizens of states currently hostile to the Free City, are not welcomed at the gates.

Should one such persona non gratis arrive, he or she is sent quickly away. If such a character is discovered trying to sneak into the city, the punishment is immediate arrest, sentence to a workhouse for 2d12 months, and then banishment from the city.

The information contained on the gate rosters is stored in the Great Library of Greyhawk (location C2). Officially, only the directors of the city and the officers of the watch have access to this information. It is rumored (correctly) that certain powerful guild masters have also been able to make use of this roster information.

The City Gates

Greyhawk has a number of gates along its walls, all of which are permanently guarded by rotating shifts of Watch patrols. Most gates remain open from sunrise to three hours past sundown; three of them — Cargo Gate and Highway Gate on the outer wall, and Garden Gate inside the city — are open at all times except during dire emergencies. Anyone approaching a gate when it is closed cannot gain entry unless the traveler convinces the sentries of the urgency of his need to pass, perhaps producing a letter or writ from Greyhawk’s Lord Mayor, Captain-General, or the like. In any event, the traveler must be searched and adjudged to be harmless before being allowed through.

Each city gate has a huge pait of wooden doors, each about 12 feet high, 8 feet wide, and 1 foot thick, made of iron-banded roanwood. Four gates — Cargo and Highway on the outer wall, and Garden and Black on the two inner walls — are larger, with each door measuring 16 feet high and 12 feet wide. Behind each gate’s pair of doots is a huge iron portcullis whose bars are 2 inches thick, intertwined so that only a very small child could squeeze through them. A portcullis is usually kept raised, and is lowered only during emergencies or when the gate doors require maintenance.

Each gate is contained within a gate house consisting of two 40-foot-diameter, 40-foot-high towers with a wide walkway between them, running above the gate. All of the usual means for attacking intruders exist (arrow slits, murder holes, and so on), plus a few new tricks added by engineers and spellcasters from across the Flanaess over the centuries. The gate house towers each have a door into the city at their base, and a door on either side at the top leading to the walkways over the walls. In addition, three wooden platforms are built stacked over each tower, covered by a cone-shaped peaked roof, allowing up to 40 archers per level to fire down on attackers at the gates. In peacetime, which is nearly all the time, these platforms are used by the City Watch as resting spots and storage. Every gate has at least two Watch patrols, one standard patrol stationed in the gate house itself while the others guard the gate passage and surroundings.

The two internal walls, Black and Nobles’, divide the city into three districts : by economic class. The extremely crowded Old City at the south is largely inhabited by the working poor, long-time residents and recent immigrants alike. The Old City’s inhabitants can gain access to the “Middle City” of Clerkburg and the Foreign, River, and Artisans’ Quarters through the Black Gate. Access is usually automatic during the proper hours. The flourishing middle class of Greyhawk, made up of merchants and tradesmen of every sort, inhabits the “Middle City” and can move with considerable freedom into the “Upper City” of the High and Garden Quarters through the Garden Gate, which is kept open nearly all the time. The aristocracy of Greyhawk can move as desired into any quarter of the city, though few go to the Old City or River Quarter except as necessary. However, anyone entering the High and Garden Quarters will quickly be escorted out if he or she appears to be loitering, involved in criminal activity, begging, and so on.

Passage through any gate requires the traveler to sign a roster, which is annotated by the senior sentry present with his initials, a coded note describing the person briefly if unfamiliar to the guards, and the approximate time (taken from a nearby sundial, mechanical clock, timekeeping spell, or other). Illiterate persons — that is, most in the lower class but far less than half of the middle and upper classes — must sign with a simple X rune and their names are appended by the sentries. Many residents and familiar folk can pass through by signing only their initials, as the guards recognize them easily. Every morning before dawn, the rosters for each gate are collected and brought by courter to the Great Library of Greyhawk, where they are stored. What happens to these (by | now very many) documents has not been revealed. Some say that the Directing Oligarchy and officers of the Watch are the only persons supposed to have access to this information, but rumors say that others (such as certain guildmasters and perhaps the Circle of Eight) have access to E this data as well.

No one is asked to explain his or her business or reason for passing through one of the two internal gates, an old “hands-off” tradition that people here appreciate. However, anyone arriving at the city’s outside gates must explain his business and is examined with some suspicion, particularly in these troubled times when spies, assassins, saboteurs, foreign thieves, and other troublemakers from the lands of Iuz, Turrosh Mak, the Scarlet Brotherhood, and so forth are much feared.

Not everyone is automatically allowed entry to the city through its outer gates. Citizens of countries hostile to the city are barred, and nearly all humanoids and monsters are turned away (assuming they ask for entry and do not try to force their way in). Any known citizen of the Scarlet Brotherhood, the Empire of Iuz, or Turrosh Mak’s Orcish Empire of the Pomarj is prohibited from entering the city. A long list exists in each gate house of other perceived enemies of the city who are not allowed entry, particularly persons belonging to evil cults, traitors, major criminals, and beings of hated races such as the drow, derro, ogres, orcs, lizard men, and so on, A gray area exists for unusual beings such as centaurs or pixies, who are not hated but aren’t viewed with a great deal of trust, either; fast talk, a pleasant and patient manner, and the usual bribes may help here if normal documents do not suffice.

The penalties for lying to the City Watch, entering the city unlawfully, smuggling, and so forth are given in the section, “Criminal Code of Greyhawk.” Bribery is not uncommon, but usually only well-known individuals can get away with it. Unfamiliar, suspicious-looking individuals who offer bribes are likely to be arrested.

Brief notes on each gate follow, moving in a clockwise fashion from the northernmost gate.