The Wide
Bailiff of the Wide
Someone has to the record the names and goods of sellers, manage disputes over stall space, and schedule the Wide’s nighttime use to balance the concerns of competing patriars. These and many other unenviable tasks falls to the bailiff of the Wide.
Each morning, Baliff of the Wide Jedren Hiller wakes before dawn, meets his officers and assistants around the Beloved Ranger for a quick discussion of the changes for the day, and then heads to Baldur’s Gate. While the assistants scatter across the Wide to mark out stall placements with chalk, half the officers line up around the inside of Baldur’s Gate to hand out stall-marker chits while the other half goes to the Black Dragon Gate. Bailiff Hiller then squeezes out through the gate and begins assigning stall space to the merchants who have come for the day.
Merchants who live in the Upper City receive their stall markers early each day by nighttime doorstop deliveries, and they begin setting up as soon as the stalls are chalked. Anyone who forgot to request a stall on the previous day must wait for Bailiff Hiller to pass through the Wide on his way to Black Dragon Gate after he finishes making the Baldur’s Gate assignments. The bailiff gives out stall assignments according to a complicated formula that accounts for similarity of goods, the length of time a merchant has been selling in the Wide, one’s past infractions such as crossing a stall boundary, and rotating the best sellers through the best locations for fairness. Of course, everyone knows that a little something extra can improve your standing in the Registry, the ledger of the Wide’s market and social activity that is Bailiff Hiller’s constant companion.
The bailiff of the Wide works under the auspices of Haxilion Trood, the city’s purse master. Trood is a meticulous coin-counter, so Hiller has been obliged to turn down cash bribes. But giving him and his hungry crew some samples of food, or making deliveries to his home of various goods “for inspection” is still quite welcome (and often necessary if a merchant doesn’t wish to languish in a less traveled area or some other unfortunate locale). What a shame it would be for the Registry to dictate that a perfumer ended up next to someone selling roast meat?
Purpose / Function
During the day, the steamy aroma of roasted, spiced meats mixes with the wet, earthy smell characteristic of Baldur’s Gate. Bright, multicolored awnings cover stalls in which tools, textiles, foods, luxuries, oddments, silks, scarves, tobacco, Shining South spices, and all manner of creature comforts from every corner of Faerûn are bought and sold. Prices are lower in the Wide than elsewhere in the Gate, which means negotiations are usually sharper. Not all merchants here are in the commodities trade. Tattoo artists, fortune tellers, sages, hedge wizards, astrologers, and poets also work in the Wide. At tables throughout the market area, Baldurians mingle to debate city affairs, philosophize, gossip, and conduct business and trade.
Meanwhile, strong, young delivery-makers bull through the shoulder-to-shoulder crowds heading to and from stalls. If not for the tall poles they wear strapped to their backs and shoulders, the goods carried by these young males and females would be easy targets. Atop the poles, out of a human-sized person’s reach, swivel and sway baskets and crates full of goods. Seldom do these top-heavy poles collide and become entangled. But when they do, a row inevitably ensues. As soon as pole-carters leave the open air of the Wide and enter less crowded city streets, they lower their merchandise to street level lest enterprising bandits lean out second-story windows to strip them of their wares.
The Beloved Ranger statue is the only permanent structure in the marketplace. All others are collapsible, movable, pitchable, or temporary. Competition for the best stall locations is fierce. Upper City merchants have the upper hand, of course, as do those with plenty of cash to grease the palms of the bailiff of the Wide, his officers, Watch soldiers who provide security, and the dozens of other outstretched hands bearing permits, charters, and signet rings of office. A prime location in the Wide can turn so much profit that almost any amount of graft is justified in obtaining it.
The Wide’s market area constitutes nearly half of the district that bears the same name. High-class shops, well-heeled merchants’ residences, trading and insurance offices, the sages’ and traders’ guildhalls, the Undercellar’s public entrance, and Ramazith’s Tower fill out the rest of the district.
Tourism
Beloved Ranger
A statue of a powerful warrior in plate armor stands in the Wide. Far from being the typical grim guardian, this warrior wears an enthusiastic grin and cradles a hamster in his hands. The late Orburt Lewel, an eccentric textiles merchant, erected the statue about seventy years ago. According to legend, the featured figure is Minsc, a dull-witted but brave warrior of Rashemen who saved Lewel’s life from some forgotten danger. The hamster is Boo, a pet that Minsc referred to as a “giant pygmy space hamster.”The quirky statue is a favorite landmark and meeting spot in the ever-changing sea of market stalls, both because it’s easy to spot and because Baldur’s Gate loves its peculiar characters.
Entering the Undercellar
A clearly marked entrance to the Undercellar beckons on the Wide’s southern rim. Most Baldurians view the Undercellar as a seedy yet unique underground tavern and festhall. Its cobbled, vaulted chambers were once the storage cellars of various buildings, many of which still conduct business today. Over decades, the judicious addition of arched doorways and freshly dug, narrow tunnels has strung the cellars together, forming a sizable network of passageways and chambers.
The Undercellar is much more than an idiosyncratic festhall. Its unmapped tunnels are more extensive than most city residents imagine. Dozens of access points reach it. Most of them are unmarked, and owners and overseers of more than a few such sites purposely keep them secret. The Guild directly controls some entrances; others are privately owned but made available for the Guild’s use in exchange for coin.
Only a few people know the whole of the Undercellar’s pathways well enough to act as guides, and only a fool would enter the jumbled, lightless spaces without a knowledgeable escort. With a guide, it’s possible to travel beneath almost the entire Upper City. While neither swift nor comfortable, such a journey can be made in complete secrecy
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