Sharn
There has been a major settlement on the Hilt of the Dagger River since before recorded history. The current metropolis, Sharn, has existed since the formation of the original Five Nations, about seven hundred years after humans rose to prominence on the continent. For more than two millennia, the towers of Sharn have grown, rising thousands of feet into the sky. This vertical expansion has given the metropolis its title: The City of Towers. A riot of architectural styles and designs play through the city's impressive skyline. From its deepest foundations to its highest spires, Sharn displays the continent's history for all to see. Heavy, oppressive goblinoid architecture provides the base for much of the city, its stonework reaching back when humans did not exist on this continent. Atop this ancient foundation, periods of civilization stack as the city reaches for the clouds. The City of Towers can be as impressive as it can be oppressive. The same skyscrapers of stone can make one person laugh with excitement and another weep from the size, weight, and impossible heights. Whatever emotion the city inspires, the place remains a bustle of activity at all hours of the day and night. With a tremendous array of cultural, culinary, and commercial delights to sample, and its position as the gateway to Xen'drik, Sharn attracts visitors and adventurers worldwide. It is a hotbed of activity known in equal measures for its wonders, crime rate, an amazing amount of corruption, and genuinely exciting atmosphere. Sharn rises from the cliffs overlooking the Hilt, a wide bay at the mouth of the Dagger River. This inhospitable outcropping of rock allowed the city to grow in only one direction—up. The ports at the base of the cliffs load and unload cargo and passengers from maritime vessels, raising and lowering goods and travelers alike on massive lifts operated by ropes and pulleys that travel through the neighborhood of Cliffside. This working-class region is built into and upon the cliffs overlooking the river and bay. At the top of the cliffs, the rock walls seamlessly blend into the earliest stonework laid in ancient times. Here, the city and its amazing towers begin. The City of Towers is rumored to sit atop a massive lake of molten lava. Those who work in the city's bowels, a subterranean region known as the Cogs, claim to feel the heat rising off the lava streams, but few have ever gone below the great furnaces and foundries of the city Cogs to seek for the fiery lake itself. In the Cogs, heat, and magic cooperate to allow workers to process ores and other raw materials needed to sustain Sharn's industrial machine. Also, within the depths, ancient ruins, labyrinthine sewers, vertical shafts, and forgotten chambers pile level upon level, climbing higher and higher until the inhabited regions are reached. These higher levels, made up of towers growing like trees in a forest of stone and brick, contain most of the city's residents and visitors. Poorer members of society live in the deeper portions of the towers, while those above gain wealth and status the higher up they live. The uppermost levels feature open-arched towers, balconies, bridges, and platforms that form a strange lacework of "solid" ground high in the air. Above all of this floats the neighborhood known as Skyway, where the most affluent citizens live and play. Sharn is situated within a manifest zone linked to the plane of Syrania, the Azure Sky. The manifest zone primarily enhances spells and magic items that permit levitation and actual flight. Outside the zone, most of these items either grow weaker or lose the ability to function altogether. Without the zone, the city's great towers and spires would crumble, its transportation systems would collapse, and the neighborhood of Skyway would plummet to the ground. Sky coaches slowly move from tower to tower, transporting people. Other ways to get around the city include walking (almost every tower can be reached by multiple bridges that connect the platforms and walkways at different levels), lifts that ride up and down and side to side along magical strands of light. Magebred animals are trained to carry passengers within the city's limits. There's a popular saying on the elevated streets of Sharn: "If it can be bought, it can be bought here." Shops and trading stalls abound, usually gathered in trade districts, open-air markets (called "exchanges"), or merchant halls (called "tower markets," often multileveled) found within many tower and building complexes. Some shops jut from the sides of walls and bridges, ramshackle structures of wood hastily thrown together or built around a crack in the stone. Others occupy prime space set aside for such purposes and leased from tower landlords. The tower markets present the most elaborate market exchanges, where shops selling different wares sit side by side and one atop the other inside the open cavity of a tower or multistory blockhouse. Beyond these more or less legitimate business ventures, Sharn boasts a thriving black market where everything from exotic fruits and animals to illegal spell components and stolen goods can be traded. Sharn's authorities do their best to curtail this activity if for no other reason than so proper taxes can be collected, but supply and demand make it next to impossible to control. This leads to another popular saying: "If someone wants it, someone sells it in Sharn." Morgrave University, with its glass walls and rough-and-tumble approach to scholarly pursuits, was founded in Sharn and to this day maintains its main campus in the City of Towers. The Institute of "learning, relic hunting, and grave robbing," as it is called by the administrators of the more respected University of Wynarn, provides many opportunities for adventurers new to the craft and calling, and it isn't hard to get a letter of marque from Morgrave to explore ancient sites. A competent group might also receive sponsorship or patronage from the university. The City Watch enforces the Galifar Code of Justice throughout Sharn. Still, in practice, residents are more likely to encounter a law officer among the higher spires than in the lower bowels of the city. Constables conduct regular patrols along the higher bridges, platforms, and walkways, venturing lower only when necessity or prudence warrants. Watchtowers can be found in every ward, though there aren't enough constables to serve and protect all of Sharn's populace adequately. The Watch, reluctantly, calls on agents of the King's Citadel (who maintain a presence in the city) when an incident appears to be more than they can handle. However, the Watch turns to adventurers when it needs additional deputies for a short amount of time. Many merchants and sailors who live or work in Sharn pick up some amount of the Sahuagin language due to the proximity of sahuagin settlements beyond the Straits of Shargon. While many of these tribes remain hostile to travelers, a few sahuagin settlements have made it a practice to trade with and sell their services as guides to those making the trip through Shargon's Teeth to reach Xen'drik. It helps in dealing with these tribes if one can speak their language, whether or not the guides can also speak Common. The criminal element thrives in Sharn. It's all about location, location, location, and the city serves as a crossroads for both legitimate and illicit trade. Indeed, some crime lords run extensive and respected legitimate businesses as cover for their illegal activities. A few of these enjoy the privileges of high standing in the community and even donate a portion of their wealth to various charities and charitable organizations. If the City Watch knows about their double lives (and many believe that it must), it is content to pretend that the good they do outweighs the evil. Other than one woefully inadequate attack from the sea that barely scratched the cliff walls rising from the bay, the Last War never reached Sharn—at least not in the sense of marching armies and occupation forces. The City of Towers did have to contend with spies, saboteurs, terrorists, and waves of refugees as the years of bloody conflict dragged on. Perhaps the worst event during those years occurred in 918 YK when unknown saboteurs (no one ever claimed responsibility for the act) caused the Glass Tower to fall from the sky, killing thousands.
Sharn rises from five distinct plateaus. While each plateau has its unique feel and personality, you must remember that the city also rises vertically into the usually cloud-filled sky. So, while the city is divided into horizontal neighborhoods, it is also divided and stratified vertically. Take a typical tower block in the Central Plateau. Starting at the uppermost level of the city, Skyway floats above the Central Plateau’s tallest towers that touch the ground. The Upper City sees the most light and enjoys the freshest air.
Consequently, the most well-to-do members of society live and work among the skybridges and platforms, and balconies that extend from the uppermost towers. Dropping down to the next section, we come to the Middle-City. This part of the city is a bit more enclosed than the section above it, but there are still open-air balconies and platforms here and there. A wide range of middle-class citizens lives and work in this region. Descending farther, we arrive in the lower city, where the poor must toil and struggle to survive. Few windows and only the occasional balcony or skybridge can be found among these levels. The tower foundations grow close together and seem to merge in ways almost unimagined in the higher sections of the city. Beneath the Lower-City, the weight of Sharn’s towers seems to crush all memories of the Depths. Sewer networks fill the upper regions of the Depths before giving way to the ancient ruins and forgotten levels of earlier ages. Passages and shafts are neglected. Many have collapsed over the centuries, but who knows what wonders and horrors roam these vaults that have been abandoned by those living higher in the city. At the very base of the city, beneath ground level, lies the Cogs, whose great foundries and massive forges fuel Sharn’s industrial economy. Shafts and tunnels that bypass the Depths lead directly to the Cogs. In all, it’s hard to tell where one vertical section of the city begins, and another one ends, and it certainly isn’t a uniform division from one ward to another.
Sharn, the largest city on the continent of Khorvaire and one of the defining locations of the nation of Breland, looms atop an inhospitable outcropping of rock near the mouth of the Dagger River. The City of Towers rises high into the cloud-filled sky, growing upward within the limited space available on a plateau bounded on the west and south by the Dagger River and its eastern tributary, the Hilt. To the north and east, cliffs define the city's boundaries. At the same time, deep chasms formed by volcanic action cut the plateau into five distinct regions: Dura on the west, Tavick's Landing on the east, Northedge to the north, and the Central Plateau and Menthis Plateau in the center. Along the Dagger River at the city's western edge, the neighborhood of Cliffside is built upon and into the steep riverside cliffs. Above the highest towers, the neighborhood of Skyway floats over the city. The city also extends underground, into sewers and long-forgotten ruins, and deeper to the furnaces and foundries of the Cogs. Sharn sits within a manifest zone linked to Syrania, the Azure Sky (see Chapter 5: Magic in the Eberron Campaign Setting). This manifest zone enhances magic related to flying and levitation, making many of Sharn's magical wonders possible. The vast majority of the magic items used within the city to facilitate flight only function because of the manifest zone and work less well or not at all beyond its boundaries. See Chapter 5: Heroes and Magic for more information about the manifest zone. Most of Sharn's neighborhoods are vertically stratified. For example, while Menthis Plateau is known as a center of entertainment, the type and quality of entertainment available vary among the different levels of the towers. The upper levels (usually referred to as "Upper Menthis") offer high art in the forms of opera, theater, and symphony, as well as housing Morgrave University and a thriving community of writers and other artists. The middle levels ("Middle Menthis") house a thriving theater district with more affordable shows, a large number of professional minstrels, acrobats, and similar entertainers, and a year-round circus complete with animals. The lower levels ("Lower Menthis") contain a very different theater district marked by burlesque shows, a red-light district, and many taverns for cheap and bawdy entertainment. A long wall rings the Central Plateau at its lowest level, interrupted by towers along its entire length. Inside the wall, structures rise higher and higher toward the tallest towers near the middle, creating a great artificial mountain at the city's heart. Mostly populated by the upper and middle classes, the Central Plateau houses the seat of the city's government, its wealthiest citizens, and its finest businesses. Embassies from other nations, important representatives of the dragonmarked houses, and banks are also found here. Menthis Plateau serves as the city's entertainment hub and is home to Morgrave University and a variegated quilt of different races. Certainly the most trendy of Sharn's quarters, Menthis is a popular tourist destination. No walls surround Menthis, though its tallest towers are spread along its outer rim. The enormous dome of Morgrave University, ringed by five tall, slender towers, stands near the center of the plateau. Northedge, the most residential of Sharn's quarters, contains everything from tower-top penthouses in the heights to tightly packed apartments on the lower levels. Aside from a marketplace district near the bottom of the towers, Northedge is a quiet neighborhood with little commerce and little crime. Dura, the largest quarter in Sharn, covers the great expanse of the western plateau from the cliffs overlooking the Dagger River to the crevasse of the Western Cog. It is also the poorest, excepting the Cogs, with even its topmost levels solidly middle class. Dura mixes various businesses and housing, never approaching a true residential district but holding several apartments, tenements, and (near the bottom) slums. The lower levels of Dura include a large population of immigrants from Darguun and Droaam, forming a neighborhood of goblinoids and other monstrous residents. Cliffside is a neighborhood perched precariously on the side of the cliffs above the Dagger River and Sharn's waterfront. It includes the waterfront businesses far below Dura and towers built up from the cliff face and a shantytown of caves dug into the sides of the southern cliffs overlooking the Hilt. The businesses of Cliffside are either directly related to shipping or cater to boat crews, adventurers, and other transients. Tavick's Landing, at the eastern edge of the city, is in some ways defined by being the terminus of the Orien lightning rail line and trade road. The lower levels cater to travelers and traders entering Sharn by rail and include an entire city district converted to provide housing for refugees from the Last War. The middle and upper levels are broader in their purposes, including a variety of trades, services, and residential districts. Skyway is magically suspended above the city on gigantic disks of force, like Tenser's floating disks taken to a great extreme. These disks are among the many magic items and effects in the city that work only because of the presence of the manifest zone linked to Syrania. Not a cloud palace but an actual extension of the city, Skyway includes some of Sharn's finest inns and restaurants, exotic and upscale trades, and several mansions belonging to the very richest citizens. The Depths is the generic name for everything that lies beneath the city's main plateau, except Cliffside and the Cogs far below. The upper levels give way to active and inactive sewers, some of which have their inhabitants and the mostly forgotten ruins of earlier settlements built long before the towers started to rise. Far below and accessed by well-maintained tunnels and shafts, the Cogs sit at the very base of Sharn and serve as an actively populated center of industry. The roots of modern Sharn's towers lie underground in some places, buried by the passing of centuries. The Cogs are the churning heart of the city, full of forges and foundries powered by steaming geysers, molten lava, and bound fire elementals. Extending far below the foundations of Sharn's towers and built along the banks of the great chasms that divide the city, the Cogs incorporate elements of ancient ruins and natural caverns.
What Brings You to Sharn?
ANTIQUITIES Whether characters are interested in viewing educational exhibits of the latest finds from Xen’drik or selling the items they find there themselves, Upper Menthis is the neighborhood to visit. Morgrave University’s Dezina Museum of Antiquities houses the finest collection of Xen’drik artifacts in the world. The uppermost level of Thurias Tower near the museum (in the Seventh Tower district), known as “Little Xen’drik,” thanks to the six competing dealers in antiquities that share that tower space.
BANKING Characters bringing large amounts of valuable treasure from their latest adventure can find the banking services they need in the Upper Central ward. House Kundarak operates the largest bank in the city, the Kundarak Bank of Sharn, located at the top of Kundarak Tower (in the Korranath district). The districts of Korranath and KorranThiven feature nine other banks and many moneychangers, lenders, and other financial services providers.
COMMERCE (GENERAL) Characters interested in carrying on trade can visit any of Sharn’s marketplace districts: Tradefair in Middle Central, North Market in Lower Northedge, the Bazaar in Middle Dura, or Tavick’s Market in Middle Tavick’s Landing. Merchants must purchase a permit permitting them to set up a booth or other presence in the marketplace. Merchants interested in buying goods in bulk for transport and sale in another city will likely find what they need in one of the city’s warehouse districts: Cogsgate in Lower Tavick’s Landing, White Tower, Precarious, or the Stores in Lower Dura. Each of these districts serves as a repository for goods coming into Sharn from river or Orien trade road or lightning rail and also offers warehouse rentals for local merchants collecting goods to ship.
Setting up Shop Characters might wish to purchase a business or other space in the city. A poor shop (for trades or services) including rough shelves, a sales counter, and a backroom for storage. An average shop costs including polished wood floors, handsome shelves, a picture window, and glass cases. An upscale shop costs and has marble floors, locked display cases, leather chairs, and various other luxuries.
Communication Sharn is a center for international trade, and communication is the lifeblood of commerce—not to mention being an essential commodity in its own right. The Speaker’s Guild of House Sivis specializes in swift communication. The most economical form of communication is the speaking stone. House Sivis has established message stations in most of the major cities and towns of Khorvaire, and for a fee, you can send a 1-page message to any of these stations. If you send a message to a large city, you can pay to have your message delivered to a specific address in the city; otherwise, the recipient must come to the message station to pick up the message. Sharn contains many message stations, as merchants and tradesfolk often send messages within the city. Message stations can be found in the following districts:
Central Plateau: Ambassador Towers, Boldrei’s Hearth, Dragon Towers, Korranath, KorranThiven, Highest Towers, Sword Point.
Dura: Clifftop, Daggerwatch, Precarious, Redstone, Highhold, the Bazaar.
Menthis Plateau: Den’iyas, University District, Warden Towers.
Northedge: Oak Towers, Holdfast, North Market Skyway:
Azure, Brilliant.
Tavick’s Landing: Copper Arch, Deathsgate, Terminus, Twelve Pillars, Wroann’s Gate.
The most significant message station is located in Dragon Towers, attached to the House Sivis enclave. This is the only place where a message can be sent via sending, though this service is often unavailable. Only two gnomes in the enclave bear the Greater Mark of Scribing, and even with dragonshard reservoirs, the power can only be used a few times each day. If a character is in a desperate hurry, he can try to get a House Sivis heir to use the whispering wind to relay a message to the nearest message station. Each heir has a three-word identifying code that must be included in the message so the station can track payment, so the whispering wind message is limited to twenty-two words. This service usually costs extra, on top of the cost of using the message station. Courier services provided by House Orien have stations in Azure, Dragon Towers, and Korranath. The cost to deliver a message or small package varies by the talents of the courier, and thus the speed at which the message is delivered. A courier with the dimension leap ability can often speed up delivery by teleporting across bridges and between levels. Overland flight and dimension door allow for far faster delivery. And at the top of the line, teleportation allows for near-instantaneous delivery. House Orien also maintains a mail service that runs through all major cities and towns connected by the lightning rail. However, mail sent in this manner is held at the Orien enclave. If the customer wants a message or parcel to be delivered to a specific address, he must add the usual courier costs to the price of the mail transport. Over the last few years, a new force has arisen to challenge House Orien’s monopoly over the courier trade. House Vadalis has built up a small but highly effective group of gargoyle couriers. However, there are only eighteen gargoyles in service, compared to eighty Orien couriers. The gargoyles roost in the Vadalis outpost in the Bazaar of Middle Dura, as well as on towers throughout the city.
COMPANIONSHIP Few people enjoy being alone in an unfamiliar city. Sharn offers a number of opportunities to find companionship, from paying for company to attending social clubs, guilds, and other places to meet people with similar interests. Sharn’s several red-light districts sell sex and companionship on the cheap, catering primarily to sailors, merchants, tourists, and other transients or outsiders. Sharn’s Welcome, in Cliffside, caters to waterfront customers but is crime-ridden and dangerous. Dragoneyes, in Lower Tavick’s Landing, is slightly more reputable. Firelight, in the lower part of the entertainment hub of Menthis Plateau, has a reputation as an acceptable location for an all-around good time. Subtler and far classier, a handful of escort services sell companionship at much higher rates in Middle Central’s embassy district, Ambassador Towers. Though they target wealthy diplomats who need educated, intelligent companions for public functions as well as private encounters, these services have customers in all of the wealthier neighborhoods of the city and attract well-off adventurers, merchants, and others with more discerning tastes in companionship. Companionship of a less carnal nature can be found as well. Adventurers might well find adventuring companions in Clifftop (in Upper Dura) or Deathsgate (in Middle Tavick’s Landing), two city districts that particularly cater to the adventuring crowd. Each features a guild of adventurers named after the district, and the two guilds have an ongoing rivalry that swings between friendly and violent. True to its name, the Deathsgate Guild tends to attract more violent, freewheeling adventurers, while the Clifftop Guild generally attracts people with more of a moral compass. Both guilds provide a fine source of adventuring companions and cohorts and refer their members to other services and hirelings as well. Dining clubs provide a popular form of social circle, particularly in upper-class neighborhoods. A large number of such clubs flourish in Upper and Middle Central, Upper Menthis, Upper Tavick’s Landing, Upper Dura, and Skyway. (Any district with upscale food listed among its buildings probably includes at least one dining club.) Dining clubs are open to members only, offering a fine dining experience among an intimate circle of social peers. Finally, characters can always find others who share their specific interests. Social groups based on racial, ethnic, or national origin exist in almost every neighborhood, trade and craft guilds offer social contact for their members, the dragonmarked houses offer extensive networking opportunities, and Morgrave University hosts academic societies with a wide variety of interests and specialties.
Criminal Purposes The reach of the law begins to fade as one travels down the levels of many of Sharn’s towers, and in some areas of the lower levels, it is almost nonexistent. It is a well-known fact that the City Watch is thoroughly corrupt, and the problem is nowhere more visible than in the Cogs and Lower Dura. Characters who come to the city in order to fence stolen goods, hire a burglar or an assassin, or engage in other criminal pursuits can usually find what they need in these wards, though criminal activity occurs everywhere. Most illegal activities in Sharn occur under the supervision of one of four criminal guilds or gangs, which also have fingers in legal but shady activities such as gambling and prostitution. The House Tarkanan criminal “family” has structured itself in mockery of the dragonmarked houses. Though mostly human, it includes members of all races. Its headquarters are in Dragon Towers in Middle Central. The Tyrants is an organization of changelings concentrated in the Dragoneyes district of Lower Tavick’s Landing. Its leaders are said to be doppelgangers. The Boromar Clan, a predominantly halfling organization, is strongest in Little Plains in Middle Menthis but very influential in Lower Menthis and Lower Dura as well—especially in the Hostelhome district. Though its leadership is almost entirely halflings with connections to House Ghallanda, members of all races work for the Boromars, knowingly or unwittingly. Finally, a gang called Daask, which includes a great number of monsters, has gained a strong foothold in the criminal underworld of the Cogs. Goblinoids, ogres, minotaurs, harpies, and a large number of humans work for this organization, which is rumored to have ties to Droaam. In addition to illegal activities, characters might find themselves turning to these guilds for such purposes as borrowing large sums of money to pay off a debt (particularly a gambling debt incurred in a casino with ties to the guilds), to find certain kinds of information not readily accessible elsewhere (such as secrets of prominent personages), to have spells cast that might arouse suspicion (such as having a nightmare spell cast on an enemy, or a curse removed that was acquired in the commission of a crime), or for help in hiding.
Dining In Sharn, the saying goes, even the poor eat like kings, and good food is usually readily available. With the exception of purely residential districts, nearly every district in Sharn includes some number of dining establishments, usually at least one in a given tower. Nearly a thousand restaurants in all, not counting street vendors and inns that also serve food, offer an almost endless variety of dining options to natives and visitors alike. Among these many locations, Sharn offers a few unique dining experiences. Striking views enhance a meal, and for that purpose, no restaurant can compete with the dozen or so establishments in Skyway. Of those, perhaps the best known is the Celestial Vista Restaurant, a tourist attraction. In-the-know locals celebrate special occasions at the Cloud Dragon or the Azure Gateway, both of which have views as stunning as the Celestial Vista’s, food no less impressive, and generally smaller crowds. All three restaurants in Skyway serve all of their food purified by House Ghallanda. A very different, but no less striking, a view can be had at the Lava Pit, an up-and-coming restaurant in—of all places—Tavick’s Cogs, in the heart of one of the city’s industrial districts. True to its name, the Lava Pit overlooks a gigantic forge powered by molten rock, suffusing the place with lurid red light. The restaurant began as little more than a hole in the wall with an interesting location, serving a variety of barbecued meats in a Shadow Marches style. Its popularity has grown tremendously, allowing the restaurant to improve its facility and expand its menu (though spicy Marches barbecue remains its specialty), making it by far the most upscale establishment of any kind in the Cogs. For a variety of cuisine, no region of the city can match the Menthis Plateau with its diverse population. Culinary purists argue that the only place to sample halfling cuisine is in Little Plains, and likewise for the other racial neighborhoods in Menthis, but most people agree that the University district in Upper Menthis is the best place to sample the wide variety of cuisines Sharn has to offer. Halfling specialties, gnome delights, elf cuisine, Karrnathi fare, and even exotic Riedran food are all available in the University district. University students and faculty are fond of dining at the Commons, a large open-air plaza near the top of one of the Morgrave University towers where food vendors bring carts and wagons daily to serve up a smorgasbord of ethnic offerings. Of course, sometimes, the need for quality overshadows spectacular views and culinary variety. A few of the generally acknowledged best restaurants in Sharn include Sannid’s in the Platinum Heights district of Upper Central, known for its extensive wine collection; Galdin’s Garden in the Seventh Tower district of Upper Menthis, surrounded by a tower-top garden featuring roses and orchids; The Oaks in the Shae Lias district of Upper Northedge, serving elf and Brelish cuisine in an elaborate open-air pavilion surrounded by oak trees; and Olladra’s Arms in the Hope’s Peak district of Upper Dura, notable for its banquet-style seating and generous portions. Finally, as in many cities across Khorvaire, House Ghallanda offers heroes’ feasts in the city as often as demand allows. Ghallanda does not have a major presence in the city. Unlike in some eastern cities where such feasts occur weekly, in Sharn they usually occur no more than once a month, in rotating locations—in the House enclave in Dragon Towers (in Middle Central), in the huge Ghallanda Hall Inn in the Underlook district of Middle Dura, and in the open-air market in Little Plains (in Middle Menthis).
A Friend at the Bar Dozens of inns and taverns dot Sharn’s landscape. Some of these vary only in name. Others offer unique services or have unusual clientele, and these are highlighted in the descriptions of each district. Traditionally, many adventurers retire to the tavern between adventures, and a tavern is a time-honored place to meet with an employer. The PCs may choose to crawl from one pub to another, never settling in one place—but there are a number of advantages to be gained by declaring one tavern as your personal watering hole. When a character becomes a regular at a tavern, he makes friends and gets to know the locals. People talk over drinks, and he gets to know how people react to different situations. As a result, he gets a +2 circumstance bonus on all Gather Information or Knowledge (local) checks made in the same ward as the tavern, and he gets a +3 circumstance bonus on Diplomacy and Sense Motive checks made involving other characters or NPCs who are also regulars at the pub. Choice of tavern also affects the way that the characters are perceived and the type of work they are offered. A group that drinks on Lower Dura gets a chance at a lot of quick and dirty deals; it’s a good place to meet a pickpocket, but the Aundairian ambassador won’t be dropping by. On the other hand, Dragon Towers makes an excellent choice for characters who want to get involved in the intrigues between the dragonmarked houses. The PCs don’t have to spend all their gold at the same place; they can drink at Moraggan’s one night, and Shamuukar’s the next. But they can only receive the benefit of being regulars at one tavern—and the DM is always free to revoke those bonuses if they aren’t spending enough time at the bar.
Education Educational opportunities abound in Sharn, though not to the extent that they do in Korranberg, with its prestigious university and library. Morgrave University (as described in the Eberron Campaign Setting) is a second-rate university, apparently as interested in selling antiquities from Xen’drik as in studying them. Nevertheless, some prominent scholars sit on the faculty of Morgrave University, and it is an excellent resource for characters seeking educational opportunities. If your campaign uses the rules for training to learn skills and feats (from Chapter 6 of the Dungeon Master’s Guide), characters can find tutors to train them in Knowledge skills, Decipher Script, and Speak Language at Morgrave. In a less formal context, a patron from Morgrave might be able to serve as a trainer for field-useful skills such as Disable Device, Search, Survival, and Use Magic Device. Formal schooling in the remains of the Five Nations is considered a right and a necessary part of every child’s training. Children are encouraged to attend public schools from the age of 6 to the age of 10, though attendance isn’t mandatory. From the age of 11, the most common form of educational instruction in Sharn, as elsewhere, is apprenticeship. The best way to learn Craft and Profession skills is to practice them under the supervision of a mentor, and the guilds of Sharn monitor this formal process. The guildhalls in Dragon Towers are the headquarters of these guilds (some of which have connections to the dragonmarked houses, many more of which do not), and that neighborhood is thus the best place to discover such opportunities. Typically, a guildhall takes the name and contact information of a prospective apprentice and then polls its members to find a master willing to take on a new apprentice. The master then contacts the apprentice directly. Some practitioners of other skills (including stealthy or criminal skills such as Hide, Move Silently, Forgery, and the like) take on apprentices in a similar manner, though it is often more difficult to locate such a master. The criminal organizations discussed under Criminal Purposes, page 14, certainly offer such training opportunities but are not easy to contact unless one already has an in with the organization. In general, apprenticeship takes place from the age of 11 to 15.
Employment Much like education, finding employment often depends on connections to one of Sharn’s trade guilds. People seeking other kinds of employment, particularly of a more adventurous kind, might find leads at one of the adventurers’ guilds in Clifftop (in Upper Dura) or Deathsgate (in Middle Tavick’s Landing), at Morgrave University (in Upper Menthis), or the Wayfinder Foundation (in Upper Central). Another strong possibility is work for the Sharn Inquisitive, the city’s local chronicle. Haftak ir’Clarn, the chronicle’s publisher, frequently hires adventurers to bring him exciting stories. His residence and offices are in the University District of Upper Menthis.
Entertainment Whether a character seeks nothing more than a fun evening on the town or wants to witness a great performance by a renowned artist, Sharn offers abundant entertainment on a nightly basis. The hub of the entertainment industry in Sharn is Menthis Plateau, and from the tower tops down to the Cogs, this quarter is a bustle of activity from sundown to sunup. The Torchfire district in Lower Menthis occupies the bottom of the entertainment ladder in Menthis but remains a fine place to enjoy inexpensive entertainment. The Ten Torches Theater gives this district its name, and it has become something of an institution in Lower Menthis. Its offerings focus on the bawdy, with a strong dose of music and comedy, all presented in a crowded, smoky atmosphere. The low price of admission and the raucous entertainment of the shows combine to pack its seats every night. Gailan’s, a restaurant in Torchfire, enjoys a reputation for bringing the best up-and-coming talent to its stage—musicians, actors, and other performers who often go on to play more prominent venues in the higher levels of Menthis. The food is good but the entertainment—offered in the round—is the reason for going. The proprietor has claimed for years that he is looking for new cooks and planning to build up an impressive wine cellar, but such improvements remain for the indeterminate future. Across the plateau, in the tavern district of Downstairs, a new theater offers the Ten Torches its first dose of local competition in ages. Called the Diamond Theater, it features a large stage and spacious seating—at least compared to the Ten TorchesPerhaps more important, it claims a serious young playwright as its artist-in-residence, who lends an air of sophistication to the theater with her dramatic, sometimes tragic works. The plays of Luca Syara attract attention even in Upper Central, and a popular Menthis pastime is speculating on what upper-level theater will snatch her up when her contract with the Diamond expires. As with most things, offerings in Middle Menthis are a step above those in the lower levels, figuratively as well as literally. Middle Menthis’s theater district, called Smoky Towers, offers an ironic comment on the Torchfire district immediately below it. Performers who get their firstbigbreakatGailan’smoveontoany of several similar venues in Smoky Towers—dinner theaters such as Third Tier, the Starfire Dragon, or Mizano Rupa’s; recital halls such as Thovanic Hall or the Atrium; and the ornate Classic Theater. The theater scene in Smoky Towers labors under some controversy. The Classic Theater, the only major theater in the district, is devoutly committed to performing only the classics of dramatic repertoire, perhaps motivated by fear of being too closely associated with the likes of the Ten Torches. Its extremely traditional productions include no plays written since the start of the Last War. Many people appreciate this stance, looking to the ancient heritage of Galifar for strength and comfort in the wake of the Last War. Others seek more contemporary fare, including Luca Syara’s plays (several of which wrestle very seriously with issues derived from the war), in other districts. The entertainment offerings in Upper Menthis are concentrated in the University District and are in a class by themselves. The finest musical performances in the city occur in Kavarrah Concert Hall and in the Sharn Opera House. Four major theaters operate in Upper Menthis: the Art Temple (known for cutting-edge, avant-garde plays), the Grand Stage (presenting a mixture of classic repertoire and modern works in classical style), the Stargazer Theater (an open-air tower-top stage with an extensive summer season of classics), and the Khavish Theater (aimed at a more mainstream audience, incorporating more music, more risqué elements, and more comedy without sinking to the depths of the Ten Torches’ burlesque). With the exception of the Khavish, located in the gnome neighborhood of Den’iyas, these are all within a stone’s throw of Morgrave University.
EXOTIC SERVICES Exotic services include any service that is not commonplace in a Brelish city, such as Sharn. For example, it is traditional for halfling warriors from the Talenta Plains to recline in couches while servants rub scented oil into their hair, but a Talentan warrior cannot easily find a place in most Brelish towns that caters to that particular custom. In Sharn, however, he or she need only visit the Little Plains district in Middle Menthis and find the Rider’s Rest to feel right at home. Sharn’s racial and ethnic neighborhoods are the best locations to find these sorts of exotic services. These neighborhoods include Little Plains in Middle Menthis, Den’iyas (a gnome neighborhood) in Upper Menthis, Holdfast in Middle Northedge and Highhold in Upper Dura (two dwarf neighborhoods), Shae Lias (an elf neighborhood) in Upper Northedge, and Overlook, which includes an enclave of kalashtar as well as humans from Adar. Significant populations of Lhazaar, Karrnathi, and Cyran immigrants make Middle Menthis a particularly diverse ward, a large contingent of Karrns live in Graywall in Middle Tavick’s Landing, and a small Eldeen minority inhabits Skysedge Park in Upper Central.
Pricing Exotic Services: As a rule of thumb, assume that an exotic service costs about the same as a meal. A service offered in a luxurious setting in an exclusive neighborhood (such as Skyway) compares to an outstanding meal at the Celestial Vista. A service of fine quality is offered in a quality establishment in an upper-class neighborhood. A good-quality service in an ordinary establishment in a middle-class neighborhood is equivalent to a good meal, and so on.
Find Someone A city as large as Sharn offers plenty of places to hide; consequently, it also supports a sizable number of inquisitives who specialize in finding people who might prefer not to be found, or just people who don’t know someone who might be looking for them. There is no single district where inquisitives tend to set up shop; any given district can only support so many. Middle-class districts of a certain flavor are the most likely areas to find an inquisitive—places such as Underlook in Middle Dura, Deathsgate in Middle Tavick’s Landing, and Warden Towers in Middle Menthis. The best inquisitives—particularly when it comes to finding what’s lost—are those associated with the Finders’ Guild of House Tharashk. Four Tharashk inquisitives with the lesser Mark of Finding head agencies in different parts of the city: Kurt Karr’Aashta’s Investigations in Deathsgate, Information Acquisition in Underlook, Thuranne Velderan’s Investigative Services in Warden Towers, and Globe Information Agency in Dragon Towers. The dragonmarked heads of these agencies generally work only on the most important or difficult cases, but their staffs are among the best inquisitives in the business. Do-it-yourself types who don’t want to (or can’t) pay an inquisitive have other alternatives, ranging from amateur sleuthing to powerful magic.
Hiring an Inquisitive An inquisitive’s rates vary from person to person. In general, For exceptionally difficult or dangerous cases, inquisitives usually increase their rates by as much as 100% and insist on receiving an advance for several days’ work. An inquisitive who brings magical resources to bear in the course of a case charges typical rates for spellcasting:
Gateway to Xen’Drik Many adventurers come to Sharn solely to get someplace else, using the city as a launching point for an expedition to the ancient ruins and trackless jungles of Xen’drik. Morgrave University and the Wayfinder Foundation both send teams to Xen’drik on a regular basis, and Sharn hosts a thriving antiquities market that provides demand for items recovered from Xen’drik by both official and amateur expeditions. The Cliffside ward is a good place to find ship captains experienced in the passage to Xen’drik, who have contacts with the sahuagin of Shargon’s Teeth and can secure safe passage through those straits. The journey from Sharn to Stormreach is about 1,500 miles and takes a little over a month by sailing ship. The usual cost of passage is about 300 gp. It is sometimes possible to hire an elemental galleon for the journey, which takes only three or four days but costs 3,000 gp. A House Lyrandar sailing ship (without elemental power) can make the trip in 11 days and costs about 1,500 gp. Airships do not normally make the trip from Sharn to Xen’drik. Stormreach, a rough-and-tumble frontier community where giants often trade in the marketplace, is an essential stopover for most expeditions before proceeding farther into the wilds of Xen’drik.
Expedition Arrangements If a group of adventurers manages to secure employment on an expedition to Xen’drik, they can expect the following terms:
• The organizer of the expedition secures letters of marque for the characters.
• The organizer usually arranges for transportation to Xen’drik, though this is not always true.
• The organizer provides rations and mundane equipment, usually consisting of anything in the “Adventuring Gear” category of goods from Table 7–8 in the Player’s Handbook.
• The organizer has the right to claim any treasures that the adventurers recover on their expedition, presumably for research purposes or for display in the Dezina Museum.
The adventurers may keep or sell any items the organizer does not claim, and the organizer typically offers a guarantee of a minimum amount of gold.
• Sometimes, an expedition organizer, accompanies the characters on the expedition, while other organizers prefer to remain in the relative safety of Sharn. When the organizer accompanies the expedition, it is assumed that the adventurers give the highest priority to protecting the organizer’s life.
Guides As the gateway to Xen’drik, Sharn has a number of residents who sell their services to adventurers and prospectors planning expeditions to that mysterious continent. As with investigators, House Tharashk dominates this field, making use of their magical dragonmark abilities (know direction and find the path) as well as their extensive, if more mundane, skills and experiences. The house’s grand hall in Dragon Towers is its most prominent public face, but better deals and sometimes better guides can be found in their enclave in Clifftop (in Upper Dura). Sometimes visitors to Sharn need guides within the city itself. City guides are easy to find: they usually cluster around arriving Orien lightning rail coaches, airships, and river vessels, hoping to solicit business from newly arrived visitors. These guides—often very young individuals—are inexpensive and tend to highlight the great tourist attractions of the city, which is sufficient for many visitors’ purposes. City guides of a different caliber can be found in Ambassador Towers. Most of the escort services in this district emphasize companions who are knowledgeable about the city and its attractions as well as being an enjoyable company in other ways.
Healing House Jorasco operates houses of healing throughout the city, though they are concentrated in middle-class neighborhoods (any district that includes average services might include a Jorasco house of healing. The headquarters in Sharn is in Dragon Towers (in Middle Central), and characters in need of a heal spell or similar magic need to find their way to the main enclave rather than to one of the smaller houses elsewhere in the city. The clerics of Khorvaire are not merchants. Adepts devoted to Boldrei often work with House Jorasco, but adventurers who go into a church and treat the priest like a common merchant or healer will be thrown out; divine magic is a gift of the gods, not a commodity such as arcane magic.
Hiding One of the benefits of a large city is the anonymity it affords to those who live in it. It is much easier to lose oneself in Sharn than in a tiny farming village in rural Aundair, to lie low, avoid attention, or otherwise escape pursuit of any kind. Naturally, the best place to hide in the city is where searchers are least likely to look. Sometimes this means unobtrusively taking up residence in Lower Dura or the Cogs; sometimes, it means pretending to be a noble and living the high life in Upper Central. A booming business can’t be carved out of hiding; it’s mostly just something people do or try to do. However, certain of the criminal elements in the city do occasionally accept payment in exchange for helping people create new identities. Naturally, the changelings of the Tyrants, the criminal gang concentrated in the Dragoneyes district of Lower Tavick’s Landing, excel at this practice. For a (quite large) sum of money, they employ magically enhanced surgical techniques to permanently alter a client’s appearance, provide forged identification papers and other documents that might be needed to establish a new identity (a university diploma or professional certification, for example), and use their own agents to create at least a temporary cast of supporting characters in the drama, as needed. The cost for this unusual service varies depending on the new identity to be created.
Hired Help Adventurers seeking hired help in Sharn, on either a short-term or a long-term basis, should at least begin in the adventurers’ quarters of Clifftop (in Upper Dura) and Deathsgate (in Middle Tavick’s Landing). and hirelings in those districts are accustomed to working with adventurers. Professional services are clustered in Sharn into two districts in Upper Tavick’s Landing as well as the Dava Gate district of Middle Central.
Legal Aid Barristers (often called advocates or councilors) are among the hirelings commonly employed by adventurers, and barristers specializing in adventurers’ concerns keep shops in Clifftop and Deathsgate. From property disputes and charges of plundering (for bringing artifacts from Xen’drik without a letter of marque, for example) to robbery charges and wrongful death suits, these barristers are experienced with a variety of problems encountered by adventurers in the city. Rates may increase significantly for particularly difficult or high-profile cases. The most expensive and high-powered barristers in Sharn—many of them connected to House Sivis—have offices in Dava Gate (in Middle Central), near the edge of the Dragon Towers district. They work closely with most of the dragonmarked families, embassy personnel in Ambassador Towers, and the financiers of Upper Central.
Magic Items, Buying or Selling Sharn boasts some dozen magic item dealers of various specialties located in various areas throughout the city. Dealers in Everbright are far more willing to buy used or salvaged items than those in Platinum Heights and Seventh Tower, which cater to wealthy but not necessarily adventurous collectors. A feature unique to Platinum Heights, however, is a magic item auction house, Aurora Gallery.
News The Sharn Inquisitive, the city’s local chronicle, is the best source of local news. The Inquisitive appears weekly on Sul and is distributed via city mail. Its publisher, Haftak ir’Clarn, is a distant cousin of Lord Ruken ir’Clarn, a member of Breland’s parliament who often expresses viewpoints and opinions in opposition to King Boranel. Haftak’s position on his cousin’s radical politics aside, you can find critics who claim that the Inquisitive goes out of its way to support or attack the Brelish crown. Readers generally turn to the Inquisitive for local news (which some say reads more like idle gossip) and the opinion pages, which regularly feature heated debates on important city issues. For news from beyond Sharn, most educated citizens rely on the Korranberg Chronicle.
Keeping up with the News A subscription to the Sharn Inquisitive can be bought on a yearly basis. Though the publication is not normally available for sale by single issues, it is usually easy to find a discarded copy a few days after publication.
Paying Taxes Characters who come to Sharn from the surrounding region to pay their annual taxes owed to the king can do so in any of four locations. There are tariff offices in Cogsgate (in Lower Tavick’s Landing), Grayflood (in Cliffside), Precarious (in Lower Dura), and Warden Towers (in Middle Menthis). These offices collect tariffs and duties on trade as well as other annual taxes.
Pilgrimage Destinations Sharn doesn’t draw pilgrims the way that Flamekeep draws followers of the Silver Flame, but the city contains a few attractions for those of pious inclination. Three sites sacred to the Sovereign Host exist in the city: the Pool of Onatar’s Tears in Khyber’s Gate (in the Plateau Cogs), the Great Hall of Aureon in the University District (in Upper Menthis), and the Korranath in the district that bears its name (in Upper Central). The Shrine of Fathen the Martyr in North Market (in Lower Northedge) attracts those devoted to the Silver Flame. During the church’s crusade against lycanthropes in 832 YK, Fathen was torn to pieces by wererats in the middle of North Market; the shrine rests on that site. Kalashtar and human followers of the Path of Light from across Khorvaire often visit Sharn to see Enlightened Havakhad, a powerful monk who lives in a small shrine in Overlook (in Upper Dura). Believed to have oracular powers, the Enlightened One’s tremendous wisdom grants him deep insight that helps those seeking guidance.
Places to Live For a city of over 5,000,000 inhabitants, Sharn has plenty of housing. From apartments in its business districts to townhomes and estates in quieter residential neighborhoods, Sharn has places to live to match most tastes and every budget. Northedge has a reputation as the most residential of Sharn’s quarters, and its topmost levels (including the districts of Oak Towers, Crystal Bridge, and the elf neighborhood of Shae Lias) include some of the finest townhomes in the city. Middle Northedge has quiet townhomes that are less expensive than those in the upper districts, and Oakbridge contains some of the nicest middle-class housing in Sharn. Even the apartment districts in Lower Northedge are more pleasant than their lower-class status would indicate, maintaining something of a small-town feel within the bustle of the city. For those who prefer to live closer to the heart of the city, Mithral Tower (in Upper Central) features spectacular townhomes, and Platinate (in Upper Menthis) housing rates as only slightly less grand. Housing in the Highwater district (in Upper Dura) comes in as very affordable, while Ocean View (in Upper Tavick’s Landing) provides the most desirable and exclusive housing on the east side.
Places to Stay For those planning shorter stays in Sharn, the city offers abundant inns, hostels, and boarding houses. No less than five inn districts provide lodging in all areas of the city, all concentrated in the lower levels. Hostelhome in Lower Dura, High Walls and Dancing Shadows in Lower Tavick’s Landing, Boldrei’s Hearth in Lower Central, and Underlook in Middle Dura together offer over six hundred inns and hostels to travelers and other visitors. That said, almost every business district in the Sharn has some type of inn, and upscale districts such as Platinum Heights and Highest Towers (in Upper Central), Seventh Tower (in Upper Menthis), and Skyway feature the best lodging in the city. House Ghallanda offers secure shelter, a lodging option popular among adventurers. The dragonmark heirs of the house establish these shelters in North Market (in Lower Northedge) or The Bazaar (in Middle Dura) whenever demand requires. As described in the Eberron Campaign Setting, these shelters cost 280 gp, or 35 gp per person if the maximum of eight people share a shelter. Adventurers should note that city law prohibits erecting a Leomund’s secure shelter within 1 mile of Sharn without a permit, and House Ghallanda holds the exclusive permit. Characters without money to pay for lodging can find shelter in one of the many almshouses located in the city’s poorer districts (primarily slums and tenement districts in Lower Dura and the Cogs). Though lodging here is free, such places are notoriously dangerous.
Research Sharn’s Morgrave University, while not the most respectable institution of higher learning in Khorvaire, has an extensive library with definitive collections in certain fields, particularly arcana, dungeoneering, geography, and history. Characters seeking knowledge in any field should be able to find resources in the library to assist their search. The university is an excellent resource for hiring sages on a short- or long-term basis. Even sages with no connection to the university tend to cluster around it, establishing their homes and businesses in the University, Den’iyas, or Ivy Towers districts of Upper Menthis. Another important resource for certain kinds of research is the City Archive in the Highest Towers district of Upper Central. The Archive contains exhaustive historical records of Sharn; birth, death, and marriage records; and copies of legal documents such as identification papers and letters of marque issued in the city. Access to these records is more limited than access to the Morgrave library, however. Characters pursuing more hands-on research might find what they seek in the Depths, where sewers and tunnels snake through the ruins of two ancient cities. Similarly, the crypts of the necropolis might be a source of relevant historical information.
Spellcasting As with magic item dealers, spellcasters-for-hire offer their services throughout the city. Spellcasters experienced with providing for the needs of adventurers can be found in abundance in Clifftop and Deathsgate. These spellcasters usually have spells prepared that are useful to adventurers, including remove curses, remove disease, break enchantment, divination, and similar spells. Magewrights and adepts of all levels can be found throughout Sharn, but there are only a handful of other spellcasters of 9th level or above, and these powerful individuals rarely sell their services for gold.
Storage House Kundarak’s role in the financial world takes a back seat to its role in providing security for warehouses, businesses, and private locations who can afford their services. Foremost among the secure storage facilities they provide in the city are the Vaults that occupy the lower levels of the Kundarak Bank of Sharn in Upper Central’s Korranath district. The Vaults, designed primarily to store small items of great value, feature unparalleled security. House Kundarak also guarantees the security of a number of warehouses in Lower Dura and Lower Tavick’s Landing, which are convenient to the major trade routes through the city
Transportation New visitors find that getting around Sharn provides almost as much entertainment as the many sights and wonders the city has to offer. Skycoaches— resembling small boats that range from rowboat-sized skycars to longship-scale tour coaches—dart through the air of the city, transporting people from place to place. Skycoaches can be found at the Orien lightning rail station in Cogsgate (in Lower Tavick’s Landing), at the waterfront in Cliffside, and at the airship docks in Highest Towers (in Upper Central). Skycoaches can also be summoned from larger balconies on towers throughout the city. Other ways to get around include soarsleds, flying disks that flit rapidly through the air, and glidewings brought to the city by Talenta halflings living in Little Plains (in Middle Menthis). A few citizens ride more exotic flying mounts, ranging from griffons and hippogriffs to giant eagles and owls, but these are hard to stable in most areas of the city. (Skyway is the only ward with ample accommodations for large flying mounts.) Of course, not all travel in Sharn involves flying through the air. Magic lifts move people vertically from the Cogs to the Upper-City. Mule-drawn wagons carry loads along the suspended roads and skybridges that crisscross the city. Horses move among the towers, either carrying riders or pulling carriages, and many people walk from place to place whenever possible.
There are many ways to speed up travel in Sharn. House Orien manages a system of coaches; taking an Orien coach cuts travel time in half and costs. Flight is the preferred way to get through Sharn, cutting travel down to a sixth of the usual time.
Weather Most of the year, Sharn’s weather varies from hot and humid to hot and rainy, with brief periods of warm and dry conditions. It doesn’t constantly rain in the City of Towers, but it certainly rains more often than not, and few days pass that boast no precipitation at all. Rain aside, Skyway and the Upper-City enjoy more pleasant weather, and a cool breeze blows across these levels most of the time. The Middle City and below feel the brunt of the hot, humid conditions that regularly visit the region.
Worship Temples can be found in every quarter of Sharn, though not in every district. This abundance of temples dedicated to every deity guarantees the citizens of the city a place of worship close to their homes. Most of these temples are little more than small shrines dedicated to a single deity, but the four temple districts of the city all contain great houses of worship dedicated to the Sovereign Host (as a pantheon) and the Silver Flame. Shae Lias (in Upper Northedge) contains a number of shrines to the Undying Court.
Sharn rises from five distinct plateaus. While each plateau has its unique feel and personality, you must remember that the city also rises vertically into the usually cloud-filled sky. So, while the city is divided into horizontal neighborhoods, it is also divided and stratified vertically. Take a typical tower block in the Central Plateau. Starting at the uppermost level of the city, Skyway floats above the Central Plateau’s tallest towers that touch the ground. The Upper City sees the most light and enjoys the freshest air.
Consequently, the most well-to-do members of society live and work among the skybridges and platforms, and balconies that extend from the uppermost towers. Dropping down to the next section, we come to the Middle-City. This part of the city is a bit more enclosed than the section above it, but there are still open-air balconies and platforms here and there. A wide range of middle-class citizens lives and work in this region. Descending farther, we arrive in the lower city, where the poor must toil and struggle to survive. Few windows and only the occasional balcony or skybridge can be found among these levels. The tower foundations grow close together and seem to merge in ways almost unimagined in the higher sections of the city. Beneath the Lower-City, the weight of Sharn’s towers seems to crush all memories of the Depths. Sewer networks fill the upper regions of the Depths before giving way to the ancient ruins and forgotten levels of earlier ages. Passages and shafts are neglected. Many have collapsed over the centuries, but who knows what wonders and horrors roam these vaults that have been abandoned by those living higher in the city. At the very base of the city, beneath ground level, lies the Cogs, whose great foundries and massive forges fuel Sharn’s industrial economy. Shafts and tunnels that bypass the Depths lead directly to the Cogs. In all, it’s hard to tell where one vertical section of the city begins, and another one ends, and it certainly isn’t a uniform division from one ward to another.
Sharn, the largest city on the continent of Khorvaire and one of the defining locations of the nation of Breland, looms atop an inhospitable outcropping of rock near the mouth of the Dagger River. The City of Towers rises high into the cloud-filled sky, growing upward within the limited space available on a plateau bounded on the west and south by the Dagger River and its eastern tributary, the Hilt. To the north and east, cliffs define the city's boundaries. At the same time, deep chasms formed by volcanic action cut the plateau into five distinct regions: Dura on the west, Tavick's Landing on the east, Northedge to the north, and the Central Plateau and Menthis Plateau in the center. Along the Dagger River at the city's western edge, the neighborhood of Cliffside is built upon and into the steep riverside cliffs. Above the highest towers, the neighborhood of Skyway floats over the city. The city also extends underground, into sewers and long-forgotten ruins, and deeper to the furnaces and foundries of the Cogs. Sharn sits within a manifest zone linked to Syrania, the Azure Sky (see Chapter 5: Magic in the Eberron Campaign Setting). This manifest zone enhances magic related to flying and levitation, making many of Sharn's magical wonders possible. The vast majority of the magic items used within the city to facilitate flight only function because of the manifest zone and work less well or not at all beyond its boundaries. See Chapter 5: Heroes and Magic for more information about the manifest zone. Most of Sharn's neighborhoods are vertically stratified. For example, while Menthis Plateau is known as a center of entertainment, the type and quality of entertainment available vary among the different levels of the towers. The upper levels (usually referred to as "Upper Menthis") offer high art in the forms of opera, theater, and symphony, as well as housing Morgrave University and a thriving community of writers and other artists. The middle levels ("Middle Menthis") house a thriving theater district with more affordable shows, a large number of professional minstrels, acrobats, and similar entertainers, and a year-round circus complete with animals. The lower levels ("Lower Menthis") contain a very different theater district marked by burlesque shows, a red-light district, and many taverns for cheap and bawdy entertainment. A long wall rings the Central Plateau at its lowest level, interrupted by towers along its entire length. Inside the wall, structures rise higher and higher toward the tallest towers near the middle, creating a great artificial mountain at the city's heart. Mostly populated by the upper and middle classes, the Central Plateau houses the seat of the city's government, its wealthiest citizens, and its finest businesses. Embassies from other nations, important representatives of the dragonmarked houses, and banks are also found here. Menthis Plateau serves as the city's entertainment hub and is home to Morgrave University and a variegated quilt of different races. Certainly the most trendy of Sharn's quarters, Menthis is a popular tourist destination. No walls surround Menthis, though its tallest towers are spread along its outer rim. The enormous dome of Morgrave University, ringed by five tall, slender towers, stands near the center of the plateau. Northedge, the most residential of Sharn's quarters, contains everything from tower-top penthouses in the heights to tightly packed apartments on the lower levels. Aside from a marketplace district near the bottom of the towers, Northedge is a quiet neighborhood with little commerce and little crime. Dura, the largest quarter in Sharn, covers the great expanse of the western plateau from the cliffs overlooking the Dagger River to the crevasse of the Western Cog. It is also the poorest, excepting the Cogs, with even its topmost levels solidly middle class. Dura mixes various businesses and housing, never approaching a true residential district but holding several apartments, tenements, and (near the bottom) slums. The lower levels of Dura include a large population of immigrants from Darguun and Droaam, forming a neighborhood of goblinoids and other monstrous residents. Cliffside is a neighborhood perched precariously on the side of the cliffs above the Dagger River and Sharn's waterfront. It includes the waterfront businesses far below Dura and towers built up from the cliff face and a shantytown of caves dug into the sides of the southern cliffs overlooking the Hilt. The businesses of Cliffside are either directly related to shipping or cater to boat crews, adventurers, and other transients. Tavick's Landing, at the eastern edge of the city, is in some ways defined by being the terminus of the Orien lightning rail line and trade road. The lower levels cater to travelers and traders entering Sharn by rail and include an entire city district converted to provide housing for refugees from the Last War. The middle and upper levels are broader in their purposes, including a variety of trades, services, and residential districts. Skyway is magically suspended above the city on gigantic disks of force, like Tenser's floating disks taken to a great extreme. These disks are among the many magic items and effects in the city that work only because of the presence of the manifest zone linked to Syrania. Not a cloud palace but an actual extension of the city, Skyway includes some of Sharn's finest inns and restaurants, exotic and upscale trades, and several mansions belonging to the very richest citizens. The Depths is the generic name for everything that lies beneath the city's main plateau, except Cliffside and the Cogs far below. The upper levels give way to active and inactive sewers, some of which have their inhabitants and the mostly forgotten ruins of earlier settlements built long before the towers started to rise. Far below and accessed by well-maintained tunnels and shafts, the Cogs sit at the very base of Sharn and serve as an actively populated center of industry. The roots of modern Sharn's towers lie underground in some places, buried by the passing of centuries. The Cogs are the churning heart of the city, full of forges and foundries powered by steaming geysers, molten lava, and bound fire elementals. Extending far below the foundations of Sharn's towers and built along the banks of the great chasms that divide the city, the Cogs incorporate elements of ancient ruins and natural caverns.
What Brings You to Sharn?
ANTIQUITIES Whether characters are interested in viewing educational exhibits of the latest finds from Xen’drik or selling the items they find there themselves, Upper Menthis is the neighborhood to visit. Morgrave University’s Dezina Museum of Antiquities houses the finest collection of Xen’drik artifacts in the world. The uppermost level of Thurias Tower near the museum (in the Seventh Tower district), known as “Little Xen’drik,” thanks to the six competing dealers in antiquities that share that tower space.
BANKING Characters bringing large amounts of valuable treasure from their latest adventure can find the banking services they need in the Upper Central ward. House Kundarak operates the largest bank in the city, the Kundarak Bank of Sharn, located at the top of Kundarak Tower (in the Korranath district). The districts of Korranath and KorranThiven feature nine other banks and many moneychangers, lenders, and other financial services providers.
COMMERCE (GENERAL) Characters interested in carrying on trade can visit any of Sharn’s marketplace districts: Tradefair in Middle Central, North Market in Lower Northedge, the Bazaar in Middle Dura, or Tavick’s Market in Middle Tavick’s Landing. Merchants must purchase a permit permitting them to set up a booth or other presence in the marketplace. Merchants interested in buying goods in bulk for transport and sale in another city will likely find what they need in one of the city’s warehouse districts: Cogsgate in Lower Tavick’s Landing, White Tower, Precarious, or the Stores in Lower Dura. Each of these districts serves as a repository for goods coming into Sharn from river or Orien trade road or lightning rail and also offers warehouse rentals for local merchants collecting goods to ship.
Setting up Shop Characters might wish to purchase a business or other space in the city. A poor shop (for trades or services) including rough shelves, a sales counter, and a backroom for storage. An average shop costs including polished wood floors, handsome shelves, a picture window, and glass cases. An upscale shop costs and has marble floors, locked display cases, leather chairs, and various other luxuries.
Communication Sharn is a center for international trade, and communication is the lifeblood of commerce—not to mention being an essential commodity in its own right. The Speaker’s Guild of House Sivis specializes in swift communication. The most economical form of communication is the speaking stone. House Sivis has established message stations in most of the major cities and towns of Khorvaire, and for a fee, you can send a 1-page message to any of these stations. If you send a message to a large city, you can pay to have your message delivered to a specific address in the city; otherwise, the recipient must come to the message station to pick up the message. Sharn contains many message stations, as merchants and tradesfolk often send messages within the city. Message stations can be found in the following districts:
Central Plateau: Ambassador Towers, Boldrei’s Hearth, Dragon Towers, Korranath, KorranThiven, Highest Towers, Sword Point.
Dura: Clifftop, Daggerwatch, Precarious, Redstone, Highhold, the Bazaar.
Menthis Plateau: Den’iyas, University District, Warden Towers.
Northedge: Oak Towers, Holdfast, North Market Skyway:
Azure, Brilliant.
Tavick’s Landing: Copper Arch, Deathsgate, Terminus, Twelve Pillars, Wroann’s Gate.
The most significant message station is located in Dragon Towers, attached to the House Sivis enclave. This is the only place where a message can be sent via sending, though this service is often unavailable. Only two gnomes in the enclave bear the Greater Mark of Scribing, and even with dragonshard reservoirs, the power can only be used a few times each day. If a character is in a desperate hurry, he can try to get a House Sivis heir to use the whispering wind to relay a message to the nearest message station. Each heir has a three-word identifying code that must be included in the message so the station can track payment, so the whispering wind message is limited to twenty-two words. This service usually costs extra, on top of the cost of using the message station. Courier services provided by House Orien have stations in Azure, Dragon Towers, and Korranath. The cost to deliver a message or small package varies by the talents of the courier, and thus the speed at which the message is delivered. A courier with the dimension leap ability can often speed up delivery by teleporting across bridges and between levels. Overland flight and dimension door allow for far faster delivery. And at the top of the line, teleportation allows for near-instantaneous delivery. House Orien also maintains a mail service that runs through all major cities and towns connected by the lightning rail. However, mail sent in this manner is held at the Orien enclave. If the customer wants a message or parcel to be delivered to a specific address, he must add the usual courier costs to the price of the mail transport. Over the last few years, a new force has arisen to challenge House Orien’s monopoly over the courier trade. House Vadalis has built up a small but highly effective group of gargoyle couriers. However, there are only eighteen gargoyles in service, compared to eighty Orien couriers. The gargoyles roost in the Vadalis outpost in the Bazaar of Middle Dura, as well as on towers throughout the city.
COMPANIONSHIP Few people enjoy being alone in an unfamiliar city. Sharn offers a number of opportunities to find companionship, from paying for company to attending social clubs, guilds, and other places to meet people with similar interests. Sharn’s several red-light districts sell sex and companionship on the cheap, catering primarily to sailors, merchants, tourists, and other transients or outsiders. Sharn’s Welcome, in Cliffside, caters to waterfront customers but is crime-ridden and dangerous. Dragoneyes, in Lower Tavick’s Landing, is slightly more reputable. Firelight, in the lower part of the entertainment hub of Menthis Plateau, has a reputation as an acceptable location for an all-around good time. Subtler and far classier, a handful of escort services sell companionship at much higher rates in Middle Central’s embassy district, Ambassador Towers. Though they target wealthy diplomats who need educated, intelligent companions for public functions as well as private encounters, these services have customers in all of the wealthier neighborhoods of the city and attract well-off adventurers, merchants, and others with more discerning tastes in companionship. Companionship of a less carnal nature can be found as well. Adventurers might well find adventuring companions in Clifftop (in Upper Dura) or Deathsgate (in Middle Tavick’s Landing), two city districts that particularly cater to the adventuring crowd. Each features a guild of adventurers named after the district, and the two guilds have an ongoing rivalry that swings between friendly and violent. True to its name, the Deathsgate Guild tends to attract more violent, freewheeling adventurers, while the Clifftop Guild generally attracts people with more of a moral compass. Both guilds provide a fine source of adventuring companions and cohorts and refer their members to other services and hirelings as well. Dining clubs provide a popular form of social circle, particularly in upper-class neighborhoods. A large number of such clubs flourish in Upper and Middle Central, Upper Menthis, Upper Tavick’s Landing, Upper Dura, and Skyway. (Any district with upscale food listed among its buildings probably includes at least one dining club.) Dining clubs are open to members only, offering a fine dining experience among an intimate circle of social peers. Finally, characters can always find others who share their specific interests. Social groups based on racial, ethnic, or national origin exist in almost every neighborhood, trade and craft guilds offer social contact for their members, the dragonmarked houses offer extensive networking opportunities, and Morgrave University hosts academic societies with a wide variety of interests and specialties.
Criminal Purposes The reach of the law begins to fade as one travels down the levels of many of Sharn’s towers, and in some areas of the lower levels, it is almost nonexistent. It is a well-known fact that the City Watch is thoroughly corrupt, and the problem is nowhere more visible than in the Cogs and Lower Dura. Characters who come to the city in order to fence stolen goods, hire a burglar or an assassin, or engage in other criminal pursuits can usually find what they need in these wards, though criminal activity occurs everywhere. Most illegal activities in Sharn occur under the supervision of one of four criminal guilds or gangs, which also have fingers in legal but shady activities such as gambling and prostitution. The House Tarkanan criminal “family” has structured itself in mockery of the dragonmarked houses. Though mostly human, it includes members of all races. Its headquarters are in Dragon Towers in Middle Central. The Tyrants is an organization of changelings concentrated in the Dragoneyes district of Lower Tavick’s Landing. Its leaders are said to be doppelgangers. The Boromar Clan, a predominantly halfling organization, is strongest in Little Plains in Middle Menthis but very influential in Lower Menthis and Lower Dura as well—especially in the Hostelhome district. Though its leadership is almost entirely halflings with connections to House Ghallanda, members of all races work for the Boromars, knowingly or unwittingly. Finally, a gang called Daask, which includes a great number of monsters, has gained a strong foothold in the criminal underworld of the Cogs. Goblinoids, ogres, minotaurs, harpies, and a large number of humans work for this organization, which is rumored to have ties to Droaam. In addition to illegal activities, characters might find themselves turning to these guilds for such purposes as borrowing large sums of money to pay off a debt (particularly a gambling debt incurred in a casino with ties to the guilds), to find certain kinds of information not readily accessible elsewhere (such as secrets of prominent personages), to have spells cast that might arouse suspicion (such as having a nightmare spell cast on an enemy, or a curse removed that was acquired in the commission of a crime), or for help in hiding.
Dining In Sharn, the saying goes, even the poor eat like kings, and good food is usually readily available. With the exception of purely residential districts, nearly every district in Sharn includes some number of dining establishments, usually at least one in a given tower. Nearly a thousand restaurants in all, not counting street vendors and inns that also serve food, offer an almost endless variety of dining options to natives and visitors alike. Among these many locations, Sharn offers a few unique dining experiences. Striking views enhance a meal, and for that purpose, no restaurant can compete with the dozen or so establishments in Skyway. Of those, perhaps the best known is the Celestial Vista Restaurant, a tourist attraction. In-the-know locals celebrate special occasions at the Cloud Dragon or the Azure Gateway, both of which have views as stunning as the Celestial Vista’s, food no less impressive, and generally smaller crowds. All three restaurants in Skyway serve all of their food purified by House Ghallanda. A very different, but no less striking, a view can be had at the Lava Pit, an up-and-coming restaurant in—of all places—Tavick’s Cogs, in the heart of one of the city’s industrial districts. True to its name, the Lava Pit overlooks a gigantic forge powered by molten rock, suffusing the place with lurid red light. The restaurant began as little more than a hole in the wall with an interesting location, serving a variety of barbecued meats in a Shadow Marches style. Its popularity has grown tremendously, allowing the restaurant to improve its facility and expand its menu (though spicy Marches barbecue remains its specialty), making it by far the most upscale establishment of any kind in the Cogs. For a variety of cuisine, no region of the city can match the Menthis Plateau with its diverse population. Culinary purists argue that the only place to sample halfling cuisine is in Little Plains, and likewise for the other racial neighborhoods in Menthis, but most people agree that the University district in Upper Menthis is the best place to sample the wide variety of cuisines Sharn has to offer. Halfling specialties, gnome delights, elf cuisine, Karrnathi fare, and even exotic Riedran food are all available in the University district. University students and faculty are fond of dining at the Commons, a large open-air plaza near the top of one of the Morgrave University towers where food vendors bring carts and wagons daily to serve up a smorgasbord of ethnic offerings. Of course, sometimes, the need for quality overshadows spectacular views and culinary variety. A few of the generally acknowledged best restaurants in Sharn include Sannid’s in the Platinum Heights district of Upper Central, known for its extensive wine collection; Galdin’s Garden in the Seventh Tower district of Upper Menthis, surrounded by a tower-top garden featuring roses and orchids; The Oaks in the Shae Lias district of Upper Northedge, serving elf and Brelish cuisine in an elaborate open-air pavilion surrounded by oak trees; and Olladra’s Arms in the Hope’s Peak district of Upper Dura, notable for its banquet-style seating and generous portions. Finally, as in many cities across Khorvaire, House Ghallanda offers heroes’ feasts in the city as often as demand allows. Ghallanda does not have a major presence in the city. Unlike in some eastern cities where such feasts occur weekly, in Sharn they usually occur no more than once a month, in rotating locations—in the House enclave in Dragon Towers (in Middle Central), in the huge Ghallanda Hall Inn in the Underlook district of Middle Dura, and in the open-air market in Little Plains (in Middle Menthis).
A Friend at the Bar Dozens of inns and taverns dot Sharn’s landscape. Some of these vary only in name. Others offer unique services or have unusual clientele, and these are highlighted in the descriptions of each district. Traditionally, many adventurers retire to the tavern between adventures, and a tavern is a time-honored place to meet with an employer. The PCs may choose to crawl from one pub to another, never settling in one place—but there are a number of advantages to be gained by declaring one tavern as your personal watering hole. When a character becomes a regular at a tavern, he makes friends and gets to know the locals. People talk over drinks, and he gets to know how people react to different situations. As a result, he gets a +2 circumstance bonus on all Gather Information or Knowledge (local) checks made in the same ward as the tavern, and he gets a +3 circumstance bonus on Diplomacy and Sense Motive checks made involving other characters or NPCs who are also regulars at the pub. Choice of tavern also affects the way that the characters are perceived and the type of work they are offered. A group that drinks on Lower Dura gets a chance at a lot of quick and dirty deals; it’s a good place to meet a pickpocket, but the Aundairian ambassador won’t be dropping by. On the other hand, Dragon Towers makes an excellent choice for characters who want to get involved in the intrigues between the dragonmarked houses. The PCs don’t have to spend all their gold at the same place; they can drink at Moraggan’s one night, and Shamuukar’s the next. But they can only receive the benefit of being regulars at one tavern—and the DM is always free to revoke those bonuses if they aren’t spending enough time at the bar.
Education Educational opportunities abound in Sharn, though not to the extent that they do in Korranberg, with its prestigious university and library. Morgrave University (as described in the Eberron Campaign Setting) is a second-rate university, apparently as interested in selling antiquities from Xen’drik as in studying them. Nevertheless, some prominent scholars sit on the faculty of Morgrave University, and it is an excellent resource for characters seeking educational opportunities. If your campaign uses the rules for training to learn skills and feats (from Chapter 6 of the Dungeon Master’s Guide), characters can find tutors to train them in Knowledge skills, Decipher Script, and Speak Language at Morgrave. In a less formal context, a patron from Morgrave might be able to serve as a trainer for field-useful skills such as Disable Device, Search, Survival, and Use Magic Device. Formal schooling in the remains of the Five Nations is considered a right and a necessary part of every child’s training. Children are encouraged to attend public schools from the age of 6 to the age of 10, though attendance isn’t mandatory. From the age of 11, the most common form of educational instruction in Sharn, as elsewhere, is apprenticeship. The best way to learn Craft and Profession skills is to practice them under the supervision of a mentor, and the guilds of Sharn monitor this formal process. The guildhalls in Dragon Towers are the headquarters of these guilds (some of which have connections to the dragonmarked houses, many more of which do not), and that neighborhood is thus the best place to discover such opportunities. Typically, a guildhall takes the name and contact information of a prospective apprentice and then polls its members to find a master willing to take on a new apprentice. The master then contacts the apprentice directly. Some practitioners of other skills (including stealthy or criminal skills such as Hide, Move Silently, Forgery, and the like) take on apprentices in a similar manner, though it is often more difficult to locate such a master. The criminal organizations discussed under Criminal Purposes, page 14, certainly offer such training opportunities but are not easy to contact unless one already has an in with the organization. In general, apprenticeship takes place from the age of 11 to 15.
Employment Much like education, finding employment often depends on connections to one of Sharn’s trade guilds. People seeking other kinds of employment, particularly of a more adventurous kind, might find leads at one of the adventurers’ guilds in Clifftop (in Upper Dura) or Deathsgate (in Middle Tavick’s Landing), at Morgrave University (in Upper Menthis), or the Wayfinder Foundation (in Upper Central). Another strong possibility is work for the Sharn Inquisitive, the city’s local chronicle. Haftak ir’Clarn, the chronicle’s publisher, frequently hires adventurers to bring him exciting stories. His residence and offices are in the University District of Upper Menthis.
Entertainment Whether a character seeks nothing more than a fun evening on the town or wants to witness a great performance by a renowned artist, Sharn offers abundant entertainment on a nightly basis. The hub of the entertainment industry in Sharn is Menthis Plateau, and from the tower tops down to the Cogs, this quarter is a bustle of activity from sundown to sunup. The Torchfire district in Lower Menthis occupies the bottom of the entertainment ladder in Menthis but remains a fine place to enjoy inexpensive entertainment. The Ten Torches Theater gives this district its name, and it has become something of an institution in Lower Menthis. Its offerings focus on the bawdy, with a strong dose of music and comedy, all presented in a crowded, smoky atmosphere. The low price of admission and the raucous entertainment of the shows combine to pack its seats every night. Gailan’s, a restaurant in Torchfire, enjoys a reputation for bringing the best up-and-coming talent to its stage—musicians, actors, and other performers who often go on to play more prominent venues in the higher levels of Menthis. The food is good but the entertainment—offered in the round—is the reason for going. The proprietor has claimed for years that he is looking for new cooks and planning to build up an impressive wine cellar, but such improvements remain for the indeterminate future. Across the plateau, in the tavern district of Downstairs, a new theater offers the Ten Torches its first dose of local competition in ages. Called the Diamond Theater, it features a large stage and spacious seating—at least compared to the Ten TorchesPerhaps more important, it claims a serious young playwright as its artist-in-residence, who lends an air of sophistication to the theater with her dramatic, sometimes tragic works. The plays of Luca Syara attract attention even in Upper Central, and a popular Menthis pastime is speculating on what upper-level theater will snatch her up when her contract with the Diamond expires. As with most things, offerings in Middle Menthis are a step above those in the lower levels, figuratively as well as literally. Middle Menthis’s theater district, called Smoky Towers, offers an ironic comment on the Torchfire district immediately below it. Performers who get their firstbigbreakatGailan’smoveontoany of several similar venues in Smoky Towers—dinner theaters such as Third Tier, the Starfire Dragon, or Mizano Rupa’s; recital halls such as Thovanic Hall or the Atrium; and the ornate Classic Theater. The theater scene in Smoky Towers labors under some controversy. The Classic Theater, the only major theater in the district, is devoutly committed to performing only the classics of dramatic repertoire, perhaps motivated by fear of being too closely associated with the likes of the Ten Torches. Its extremely traditional productions include no plays written since the start of the Last War. Many people appreciate this stance, looking to the ancient heritage of Galifar for strength and comfort in the wake of the Last War. Others seek more contemporary fare, including Luca Syara’s plays (several of which wrestle very seriously with issues derived from the war), in other districts. The entertainment offerings in Upper Menthis are concentrated in the University District and are in a class by themselves. The finest musical performances in the city occur in Kavarrah Concert Hall and in the Sharn Opera House. Four major theaters operate in Upper Menthis: the Art Temple (known for cutting-edge, avant-garde plays), the Grand Stage (presenting a mixture of classic repertoire and modern works in classical style), the Stargazer Theater (an open-air tower-top stage with an extensive summer season of classics), and the Khavish Theater (aimed at a more mainstream audience, incorporating more music, more risqué elements, and more comedy without sinking to the depths of the Ten Torches’ burlesque). With the exception of the Khavish, located in the gnome neighborhood of Den’iyas, these are all within a stone’s throw of Morgrave University.
EXOTIC SERVICES Exotic services include any service that is not commonplace in a Brelish city, such as Sharn. For example, it is traditional for halfling warriors from the Talenta Plains to recline in couches while servants rub scented oil into their hair, but a Talentan warrior cannot easily find a place in most Brelish towns that caters to that particular custom. In Sharn, however, he or she need only visit the Little Plains district in Middle Menthis and find the Rider’s Rest to feel right at home. Sharn’s racial and ethnic neighborhoods are the best locations to find these sorts of exotic services. These neighborhoods include Little Plains in Middle Menthis, Den’iyas (a gnome neighborhood) in Upper Menthis, Holdfast in Middle Northedge and Highhold in Upper Dura (two dwarf neighborhoods), Shae Lias (an elf neighborhood) in Upper Northedge, and Overlook, which includes an enclave of kalashtar as well as humans from Adar. Significant populations of Lhazaar, Karrnathi, and Cyran immigrants make Middle Menthis a particularly diverse ward, a large contingent of Karrns live in Graywall in Middle Tavick’s Landing, and a small Eldeen minority inhabits Skysedge Park in Upper Central.
Pricing Exotic Services: As a rule of thumb, assume that an exotic service costs about the same as a meal. A service offered in a luxurious setting in an exclusive neighborhood (such as Skyway) compares to an outstanding meal at the Celestial Vista. A service of fine quality is offered in a quality establishment in an upper-class neighborhood. A good-quality service in an ordinary establishment in a middle-class neighborhood is equivalent to a good meal, and so on.
Find Someone A city as large as Sharn offers plenty of places to hide; consequently, it also supports a sizable number of inquisitives who specialize in finding people who might prefer not to be found, or just people who don’t know someone who might be looking for them. There is no single district where inquisitives tend to set up shop; any given district can only support so many. Middle-class districts of a certain flavor are the most likely areas to find an inquisitive—places such as Underlook in Middle Dura, Deathsgate in Middle Tavick’s Landing, and Warden Towers in Middle Menthis. The best inquisitives—particularly when it comes to finding what’s lost—are those associated with the Finders’ Guild of House Tharashk. Four Tharashk inquisitives with the lesser Mark of Finding head agencies in different parts of the city: Kurt Karr’Aashta’s Investigations in Deathsgate, Information Acquisition in Underlook, Thuranne Velderan’s Investigative Services in Warden Towers, and Globe Information Agency in Dragon Towers. The dragonmarked heads of these agencies generally work only on the most important or difficult cases, but their staffs are among the best inquisitives in the business. Do-it-yourself types who don’t want to (or can’t) pay an inquisitive have other alternatives, ranging from amateur sleuthing to powerful magic.
Hiring an Inquisitive An inquisitive’s rates vary from person to person. In general, For exceptionally difficult or dangerous cases, inquisitives usually increase their rates by as much as 100% and insist on receiving an advance for several days’ work. An inquisitive who brings magical resources to bear in the course of a case charges typical rates for spellcasting:
Gateway to Xen’Drik Many adventurers come to Sharn solely to get someplace else, using the city as a launching point for an expedition to the ancient ruins and trackless jungles of Xen’drik. Morgrave University and the Wayfinder Foundation both send teams to Xen’drik on a regular basis, and Sharn hosts a thriving antiquities market that provides demand for items recovered from Xen’drik by both official and amateur expeditions. The Cliffside ward is a good place to find ship captains experienced in the passage to Xen’drik, who have contacts with the sahuagin of Shargon’s Teeth and can secure safe passage through those straits. The journey from Sharn to Stormreach is about 1,500 miles and takes a little over a month by sailing ship. The usual cost of passage is about 300 gp. It is sometimes possible to hire an elemental galleon for the journey, which takes only three or four days but costs 3,000 gp. A House Lyrandar sailing ship (without elemental power) can make the trip in 11 days and costs about 1,500 gp. Airships do not normally make the trip from Sharn to Xen’drik. Stormreach, a rough-and-tumble frontier community where giants often trade in the marketplace, is an essential stopover for most expeditions before proceeding farther into the wilds of Xen’drik.
Expedition Arrangements If a group of adventurers manages to secure employment on an expedition to Xen’drik, they can expect the following terms:
• The organizer of the expedition secures letters of marque for the characters.
• The organizer usually arranges for transportation to Xen’drik, though this is not always true.
• The organizer provides rations and mundane equipment, usually consisting of anything in the “Adventuring Gear” category of goods from Table 7–8 in the Player’s Handbook.
• The organizer has the right to claim any treasures that the adventurers recover on their expedition, presumably for research purposes or for display in the Dezina Museum.
The adventurers may keep or sell any items the organizer does not claim, and the organizer typically offers a guarantee of a minimum amount of gold.
• Sometimes, an expedition organizer, accompanies the characters on the expedition, while other organizers prefer to remain in the relative safety of Sharn. When the organizer accompanies the expedition, it is assumed that the adventurers give the highest priority to protecting the organizer’s life.
Guides As the gateway to Xen’drik, Sharn has a number of residents who sell their services to adventurers and prospectors planning expeditions to that mysterious continent. As with investigators, House Tharashk dominates this field, making use of their magical dragonmark abilities (know direction and find the path) as well as their extensive, if more mundane, skills and experiences. The house’s grand hall in Dragon Towers is its most prominent public face, but better deals and sometimes better guides can be found in their enclave in Clifftop (in Upper Dura). Sometimes visitors to Sharn need guides within the city itself. City guides are easy to find: they usually cluster around arriving Orien lightning rail coaches, airships, and river vessels, hoping to solicit business from newly arrived visitors. These guides—often very young individuals—are inexpensive and tend to highlight the great tourist attractions of the city, which is sufficient for many visitors’ purposes. City guides of a different caliber can be found in Ambassador Towers. Most of the escort services in this district emphasize companions who are knowledgeable about the city and its attractions as well as being an enjoyable company in other ways.
Healing House Jorasco operates houses of healing throughout the city, though they are concentrated in middle-class neighborhoods (any district that includes average services might include a Jorasco house of healing. The headquarters in Sharn is in Dragon Towers (in Middle Central), and characters in need of a heal spell or similar magic need to find their way to the main enclave rather than to one of the smaller houses elsewhere in the city. The clerics of Khorvaire are not merchants. Adepts devoted to Boldrei often work with House Jorasco, but adventurers who go into a church and treat the priest like a common merchant or healer will be thrown out; divine magic is a gift of the gods, not a commodity such as arcane magic.
Hiding One of the benefits of a large city is the anonymity it affords to those who live in it. It is much easier to lose oneself in Sharn than in a tiny farming village in rural Aundair, to lie low, avoid attention, or otherwise escape pursuit of any kind. Naturally, the best place to hide in the city is where searchers are least likely to look. Sometimes this means unobtrusively taking up residence in Lower Dura or the Cogs; sometimes, it means pretending to be a noble and living the high life in Upper Central. A booming business can’t be carved out of hiding; it’s mostly just something people do or try to do. However, certain of the criminal elements in the city do occasionally accept payment in exchange for helping people create new identities. Naturally, the changelings of the Tyrants, the criminal gang concentrated in the Dragoneyes district of Lower Tavick’s Landing, excel at this practice. For a (quite large) sum of money, they employ magically enhanced surgical techniques to permanently alter a client’s appearance, provide forged identification papers and other documents that might be needed to establish a new identity (a university diploma or professional certification, for example), and use their own agents to create at least a temporary cast of supporting characters in the drama, as needed. The cost for this unusual service varies depending on the new identity to be created.
Hired Help Adventurers seeking hired help in Sharn, on either a short-term or a long-term basis, should at least begin in the adventurers’ quarters of Clifftop (in Upper Dura) and Deathsgate (in Middle Tavick’s Landing). and hirelings in those districts are accustomed to working with adventurers. Professional services are clustered in Sharn into two districts in Upper Tavick’s Landing as well as the Dava Gate district of Middle Central.
Legal Aid Barristers (often called advocates or councilors) are among the hirelings commonly employed by adventurers, and barristers specializing in adventurers’ concerns keep shops in Clifftop and Deathsgate. From property disputes and charges of plundering (for bringing artifacts from Xen’drik without a letter of marque, for example) to robbery charges and wrongful death suits, these barristers are experienced with a variety of problems encountered by adventurers in the city. Rates may increase significantly for particularly difficult or high-profile cases. The most expensive and high-powered barristers in Sharn—many of them connected to House Sivis—have offices in Dava Gate (in Middle Central), near the edge of the Dragon Towers district. They work closely with most of the dragonmarked families, embassy personnel in Ambassador Towers, and the financiers of Upper Central.
Magic Items, Buying or Selling Sharn boasts some dozen magic item dealers of various specialties located in various areas throughout the city. Dealers in Everbright are far more willing to buy used or salvaged items than those in Platinum Heights and Seventh Tower, which cater to wealthy but not necessarily adventurous collectors. A feature unique to Platinum Heights, however, is a magic item auction house, Aurora Gallery.
News The Sharn Inquisitive, the city’s local chronicle, is the best source of local news. The Inquisitive appears weekly on Sul and is distributed via city mail. Its publisher, Haftak ir’Clarn, is a distant cousin of Lord Ruken ir’Clarn, a member of Breland’s parliament who often expresses viewpoints and opinions in opposition to King Boranel. Haftak’s position on his cousin’s radical politics aside, you can find critics who claim that the Inquisitive goes out of its way to support or attack the Brelish crown. Readers generally turn to the Inquisitive for local news (which some say reads more like idle gossip) and the opinion pages, which regularly feature heated debates on important city issues. For news from beyond Sharn, most educated citizens rely on the Korranberg Chronicle.
Keeping up with the News A subscription to the Sharn Inquisitive can be bought on a yearly basis. Though the publication is not normally available for sale by single issues, it is usually easy to find a discarded copy a few days after publication.
Paying Taxes Characters who come to Sharn from the surrounding region to pay their annual taxes owed to the king can do so in any of four locations. There are tariff offices in Cogsgate (in Lower Tavick’s Landing), Grayflood (in Cliffside), Precarious (in Lower Dura), and Warden Towers (in Middle Menthis). These offices collect tariffs and duties on trade as well as other annual taxes.
Pilgrimage Destinations Sharn doesn’t draw pilgrims the way that Flamekeep draws followers of the Silver Flame, but the city contains a few attractions for those of pious inclination. Three sites sacred to the Sovereign Host exist in the city: the Pool of Onatar’s Tears in Khyber’s Gate (in the Plateau Cogs), the Great Hall of Aureon in the University District (in Upper Menthis), and the Korranath in the district that bears its name (in Upper Central). The Shrine of Fathen the Martyr in North Market (in Lower Northedge) attracts those devoted to the Silver Flame. During the church’s crusade against lycanthropes in 832 YK, Fathen was torn to pieces by wererats in the middle of North Market; the shrine rests on that site. Kalashtar and human followers of the Path of Light from across Khorvaire often visit Sharn to see Enlightened Havakhad, a powerful monk who lives in a small shrine in Overlook (in Upper Dura). Believed to have oracular powers, the Enlightened One’s tremendous wisdom grants him deep insight that helps those seeking guidance.
Places to Live For a city of over 5,000,000 inhabitants, Sharn has plenty of housing. From apartments in its business districts to townhomes and estates in quieter residential neighborhoods, Sharn has places to live to match most tastes and every budget. Northedge has a reputation as the most residential of Sharn’s quarters, and its topmost levels (including the districts of Oak Towers, Crystal Bridge, and the elf neighborhood of Shae Lias) include some of the finest townhomes in the city. Middle Northedge has quiet townhomes that are less expensive than those in the upper districts, and Oakbridge contains some of the nicest middle-class housing in Sharn. Even the apartment districts in Lower Northedge are more pleasant than their lower-class status would indicate, maintaining something of a small-town feel within the bustle of the city. For those who prefer to live closer to the heart of the city, Mithral Tower (in Upper Central) features spectacular townhomes, and Platinate (in Upper Menthis) housing rates as only slightly less grand. Housing in the Highwater district (in Upper Dura) comes in as very affordable, while Ocean View (in Upper Tavick’s Landing) provides the most desirable and exclusive housing on the east side.
Places to Stay For those planning shorter stays in Sharn, the city offers abundant inns, hostels, and boarding houses. No less than five inn districts provide lodging in all areas of the city, all concentrated in the lower levels. Hostelhome in Lower Dura, High Walls and Dancing Shadows in Lower Tavick’s Landing, Boldrei’s Hearth in Lower Central, and Underlook in Middle Dura together offer over six hundred inns and hostels to travelers and other visitors. That said, almost every business district in the Sharn has some type of inn, and upscale districts such as Platinum Heights and Highest Towers (in Upper Central), Seventh Tower (in Upper Menthis), and Skyway feature the best lodging in the city. House Ghallanda offers secure shelter, a lodging option popular among adventurers. The dragonmark heirs of the house establish these shelters in North Market (in Lower Northedge) or The Bazaar (in Middle Dura) whenever demand requires. As described in the Eberron Campaign Setting, these shelters cost 280 gp, or 35 gp per person if the maximum of eight people share a shelter. Adventurers should note that city law prohibits erecting a Leomund’s secure shelter within 1 mile of Sharn without a permit, and House Ghallanda holds the exclusive permit. Characters without money to pay for lodging can find shelter in one of the many almshouses located in the city’s poorer districts (primarily slums and tenement districts in Lower Dura and the Cogs). Though lodging here is free, such places are notoriously dangerous.
Research Sharn’s Morgrave University, while not the most respectable institution of higher learning in Khorvaire, has an extensive library with definitive collections in certain fields, particularly arcana, dungeoneering, geography, and history. Characters seeking knowledge in any field should be able to find resources in the library to assist their search. The university is an excellent resource for hiring sages on a short- or long-term basis. Even sages with no connection to the university tend to cluster around it, establishing their homes and businesses in the University, Den’iyas, or Ivy Towers districts of Upper Menthis. Another important resource for certain kinds of research is the City Archive in the Highest Towers district of Upper Central. The Archive contains exhaustive historical records of Sharn; birth, death, and marriage records; and copies of legal documents such as identification papers and letters of marque issued in the city. Access to these records is more limited than access to the Morgrave library, however. Characters pursuing more hands-on research might find what they seek in the Depths, where sewers and tunnels snake through the ruins of two ancient cities. Similarly, the crypts of the necropolis might be a source of relevant historical information.
Spellcasting As with magic item dealers, spellcasters-for-hire offer their services throughout the city. Spellcasters experienced with providing for the needs of adventurers can be found in abundance in Clifftop and Deathsgate. These spellcasters usually have spells prepared that are useful to adventurers, including remove curses, remove disease, break enchantment, divination, and similar spells. Magewrights and adepts of all levels can be found throughout Sharn, but there are only a handful of other spellcasters of 9th level or above, and these powerful individuals rarely sell their services for gold.
Storage House Kundarak’s role in the financial world takes a back seat to its role in providing security for warehouses, businesses, and private locations who can afford their services. Foremost among the secure storage facilities they provide in the city are the Vaults that occupy the lower levels of the Kundarak Bank of Sharn in Upper Central’s Korranath district. The Vaults, designed primarily to store small items of great value, feature unparalleled security. House Kundarak also guarantees the security of a number of warehouses in Lower Dura and Lower Tavick’s Landing, which are convenient to the major trade routes through the city
Transportation New visitors find that getting around Sharn provides almost as much entertainment as the many sights and wonders the city has to offer. Skycoaches— resembling small boats that range from rowboat-sized skycars to longship-scale tour coaches—dart through the air of the city, transporting people from place to place. Skycoaches can be found at the Orien lightning rail station in Cogsgate (in Lower Tavick’s Landing), at the waterfront in Cliffside, and at the airship docks in Highest Towers (in Upper Central). Skycoaches can also be summoned from larger balconies on towers throughout the city. Other ways to get around include soarsleds, flying disks that flit rapidly through the air, and glidewings brought to the city by Talenta halflings living in Little Plains (in Middle Menthis). A few citizens ride more exotic flying mounts, ranging from griffons and hippogriffs to giant eagles and owls, but these are hard to stable in most areas of the city. (Skyway is the only ward with ample accommodations for large flying mounts.) Of course, not all travel in Sharn involves flying through the air. Magic lifts move people vertically from the Cogs to the Upper-City. Mule-drawn wagons carry loads along the suspended roads and skybridges that crisscross the city. Horses move among the towers, either carrying riders or pulling carriages, and many people walk from place to place whenever possible.
There are many ways to speed up travel in Sharn. House Orien manages a system of coaches; taking an Orien coach cuts travel time in half and costs. Flight is the preferred way to get through Sharn, cutting travel down to a sixth of the usual time.
Weather Most of the year, Sharn’s weather varies from hot and humid to hot and rainy, with brief periods of warm and dry conditions. It doesn’t constantly rain in the City of Towers, but it certainly rains more often than not, and few days pass that boast no precipitation at all. Rain aside, Skyway and the Upper-City enjoy more pleasant weather, and a cool breeze blows across these levels most of the time. The Middle City and below feel the brunt of the hot, humid conditions that regularly visit the region.
Worship Temples can be found in every quarter of Sharn, though not in every district. This abundance of temples dedicated to every deity guarantees the citizens of the city a place of worship close to their homes. Most of these temples are little more than small shrines dedicated to a single deity, but the four temple districts of the city all contain great houses of worship dedicated to the Sovereign Host (as a pantheon) and the Silver Flame. Shae Lias (in Upper Northedge) contains a number of shrines to the Undying Court.
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