> [!infobox|right] > #### WATERDEEP > ![[5e_waterdeep2.png]] > > ##### Location Information > | | | > |---|---| > | ![[ICON - bookmark-etch-solid-full.svg]] **Type**: | Metropolis,<br>Free City | > | ![[ICON - chess-rook-piece-sharp-solid-full.svg]] **Location**: | Northwestern Faerûn,<br>[[Sword Coast]] | > | ![[ICON - question-solid-full.svg]] **Status**: | Active | > | ![[ICON - hourglass-duotone-solid-full.svg]] **Founded**: | Unknown | > | ![[ICON - hourglass-duotone-solid-full.svg]] **Age**: | Ancient | > > #### Governance > | | | > |---|---| > | ![[ICON - eclipse-solid-full.svg]] **Leadership**: | [[Laeral Silverhand]] | > | ![[ICON - sparkle-solid-full.svg]] **Realm**: | Independent City-State | > | ![[ICON - sparkles-solid-full.svg]] **Forces**: | City Guard & Watch,<br>Griffon Cavalry | > | ![[ICON - person-limbs-wide-solid-full.svg]] **Population**: | Massive | <a href="https://dioctionary.net/THE+DIOCTIONARY/HOME/Home" class="dioctionary-ribbon-2"> HOME </a> <div class="dioctionary-ribbon">A Brief History</div> - [[Waterdeep]], often called the City of Splendors, is easily one of the largest cities I have ever seen. The place is enormous enough that entire districts feel like cities unto themselves, and almost anyone can disappear into the crowds if they want badly enough. - The city is divided into several wards, including the Castle, Sea, North, Trades, Dock, and Southern Wards. Each has its own character, from wealthy estates and government buildings to crowded streets, markets, docks, and neighborhoods where considerably fewer questions are asked. - [[Laeral Silverhand]] serves as the Open Lord, though Waterdeep is also governed alongside the hidden Masked Lords. Between the City Watch, Guard, and griffon riders circling overhead, Waterdeep has considerably more structure than its size first suggests. - [[The Yawning Portal]] is one of the places I know particularly well. During a few of my earlier lives spent here I stayed above the tavern under the name [[Ronan Blackfen]], and for a time Waterdeep gave me something I badly needed: somewhere large enough that nobody cared who I had been before arriving. - Beneath the Yawning Portal lies the entrance to [[Undermountain]], an enormous maze beneath the city associated with some wizard I've heard of called "[[Halaster Blackcloak]]"? I never needed to explore its depths to understand that plenty of people enter looking for fortune, and considerably fewer return looking pleased with the decision. - I also came to Waterdeep in an earlier cycle while searching for an escape [[Beshaba]]'s curse. That search eventually brought me before Laeral herself. She recognized what had been done to me but could offer no simple solution, telling me in the end that there are limits to what mortal power can undo when a goddess has decided otherwise. - In another life, returning to Waterdeep in 1493 DR was stranger than I expected. At one point Laeral passed close enough for me to recognize her, but there was nothing in her expression suggesting she remembered me at all.