Lower City
The Lower City, a great crescent of steep slopes descending to the docks, is packed tight with conjoined, slate-roofed buildings that are made of stone and feature window boxes and stout shutters in vibrant hues. The Lower City’s narrow alleys access interior courtyards and other streets. Stone buttresses often span its roadways, literally holding apart the upper floors of structures that face each other. Even though some of these narrow supports act as pedestrian bridges, they are most often used by pigeons, gulls, rats, and cats. Lower City citizens are accustomed to their noisy, cramped existence. As the long-ago sage Asturgel of the Gate wrote, “In the Lower City, we live and work atop each other untidily.”
Dark and Foggy Streets: Since the damp clings to the entire city, the Gate’s cobbled streets are typically slick underfoot. When traction becomes a real problem, the locals spread straw or river gravel on the cobbles to help folk find their footing.
Communally maintained streetlights dot various crossroads and light the darkest spots beneath the Lower City’s many stone support arches. Oil-andwick copper bowls, whose copper wing reflectors direct radiance, partially illuminate the Lower City’s nicer districts. Glassless, tin candle lanterns throw light into its rougher neighborhoods. Both types of lighting are solidly constructed and mounted. Citizens who live near the lanterns light them at dusk and, if wind or rain have not yet extinguished them, blow them out at sunrise.
The open doors of inns, taverns, and late-to-close cafes spill some light into the streets, but most folk carry lamps or hire lamp lads and lamp lasses. These youths carry many-candled lanterns on long poles and, for a few coppers, guide customers through the streets at night.
Defences
Flaming Fist: The Flaming Fist mercenary company functions as the city’s de facto police force and army. At any given time, about three thousand of its six thousand members are out on campaign. Baldur’s Gate has long maintained its neutrality in conflicts in the region, but the city profits from them all the same. Even though Baldur’s Gate has become more prejudiced since refugees flooded the Outer City, the Flaming Fist continues to draw its members from all walks of life.
The Fist polices the Lower City and Wyrm’s Rock, and its soldiers stand sentry on the Lower City’s eastern and western walls. Their presence, both on and off duty, deters bold crimes. Although some Flaming Fist soldiers live in barracks in the Seatower of Balduran or Wyrm’s Rock, most have Lower City homes.
The Council of Four renews its contract with the Flaming Fist annually, so the mercenary company is nominally under the dukes’ control. The Fist earns income, aside from the contract, from its share of the taxes collected at the harbor, Basilisk Gate, and the Wyrm’s Rock drawbridges.
Infrastructure
Trade is king in this section of Baldur’s Gate. Craftwork, repairs, and buying and selling consume the lives of the tradesfolk, shopkeepers, and day servants who dwell here. Commerce in shops and crowded streets begins before sunrise and continues until after dark. By day, each shop’s shutters are flung open. At night, they’re firmly fastened shut, regardless of whether their windows have iron gratings. Aside from inns and taverns—which are open, well lit, and employ “trusties” to guard against vandals, drunkards, arsonists, thieves, and brawlers—the Lower City is largely dark and shuttered after sundown.
Tourism
Gray Harbor
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.
These impressive homes are mostly found in Bloomridge, a fashionable Lower City district dotted with cafes, flower shops, and artisan boutiques. The district’s main street runs steeply up from the harbor to the Old Wall. Numerous structures have exterior staircases and open terraces built into or against the wall.
The only blight in this otherwise upscale area is Mandorcai’s Mansion. This structure appeared out of nowhere, fully built and staffed, overnight on a vacant lot. For several tendays afterward, citizens gossiped about Mandorcai, the eccentric, magic-wielding builder of the place, and influential residents courted him, eager to retain the services of such a powerful wizard.
Mandorcai then vanished from public life. No one heard from him except through invitations he sent to various individuals. These peculiar missives were written in silver atop black paper folded into the shape of a pentagon. Those who entered the mansion to keep their appointments were never seen again. After a handful of such disappearances, a Flaming Fist squad invaded the building. Only two of its members emerged, and they spoke of shifting rooms, oppressive chants, and blood-soaked chambers. The Council of Four would like to have the mansion torn down, but no laborers are willing to touch the place. Since the building does not appear to be dangerous as long as no one goes inside it, the dukes have not pressed the issue. Mandorcai and his servants are still missing, but the odd little black invitations occasionally appear on people’s doorsteps when no one is looking.
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