Wards of Waterdeep

Waterdeep, also known as the City of Splendors or the Crown of the North, is the most important and influential city in perhaps all of Faerûn. It’s a truly marvellous cosmopolitan city of great culture that attracts the most talented artisans, artists, and scholars from across the Realms, and it’s a commercial hub for financial interests along the Sword Coast and beyond.
You’ll find no city half as civilised as Waterdeep. It’s maintained by two separate armed forces, the City Guard and the City Watch. The City Guard serves as Waterdeep's soldiery and its members staff garrisons and guard the city gates. The Watch, on the other hand, is the local police force, acting as a constabulary within the city.
It’s not just the law of the land that makes the city civilised, it's also the comforts that life here provides. In Waterdeep, many buildings are connected directly to the sewers, and public outhouses can be found near markets and city squares. Areas without such direct access are maintained daily by members of the Dungsweepers’ Guild. The city also has an extensive water system of public fountains and wells, so clean water is plentiful.
Waterdeep is also a city of light. Continual flame spells illuminate many signs and street lamps in the wealthier parts of the city. Elsewhere, the Guild of Chandlers and Lamplighters keeps most of the streets lit.
Lastly, no city in the world is as literate as Waterdeep. Priests from the Font of Knowledge offer free instruction in reading to all who desire it, and the city has over thirty publishers and book printers.

THE WARDS

The city is divided into wards and each ward has its own history, legends, and traditions based around who lived there in the past, famous or infamous events.These shared stories and traditions impart to each ward a different culture, just as much as distinctions of class and wealth. Yet nothing drives residents to identify with their wards as much as festivals and sport. Nearly every race and parade in the city features a competition between wards as part of the festivities. On such days, homes and businesses fly the colours of their wards, trot out their mascots, and sing rousing songs that celebrate where they live.

Sea Ward

The Sea Ward stands proud on the high ground above Mount Waterdeep’s sunset shadow. The rich and the powerful reside or run their businesses here. When the warlords and pirates of years gone by gained enough gold, they built fortresses on what used to be fields of grass. You can still see the remains of some of those old castles incorporated into the palatial homes of the noble families that dwell in the Sea Ward.

North Ward

Many nobles live in the North Ward, but the character of this ward is more peaceful than that of the Sea Ward. Though it has taverns and shops to suit a variety of tastes, the tenor of the area is more reserved and polite. Most streets are lined with row houses inhabited by the families of prosperous people of business, investing, and civic service.

Trades Ward

Shopping, eating and drinking, or lavish accommodations, or fine art, or legendary parties; these are what define the Trades Ward. The Market in the Castle Ward may be the largest market square in the city, but the Trades Ward is like a market town in itself — and is easily three times the Market’s size. This ward bustles day and night with activity, both on the street and on balcony walkways that run the length of blocks, and are sometimes layered five stories high.

Southern Ward

The Southern Ward (not the South Ward) hosts most of the travelling merchants who visit the city, and is made up of many enclaves, blocks, and streets primarily occupied by citizens of other realms. As a district of labourers catering to travellers, many of its homes and businesses are built above stables or around inn yards, near to where visiting wagon trains are housed.

Dock Ward

This is where most of Waterdeep’s poor reside. Its taverns are inhabited by habitual drinkers, and far too many inns charge by the hour. The residents of the Dock Ward often work the hardest while living under the harshest conditions. Warehouses, poorhouses, and tenements dominate much of the area. Streets are steep throughout, and few have extra space for pedestrians. Wandering through the ward can be a bewildering journey without a guide. Except in the immediate vicinity of the piers, shop signs and advertising of any kind are rare, and warehouses and other businesses often have no sign at all. You either know where you are going and have reason to be there — or you are lost, and a likely mark for pickpockets or worse.

Castle Ward

The Castle Ward is the heart and mind of Waterdeep, if not its soul. It houses the city’s military forces, courts, government, and the Market — the largest market square of any city in the North. It encompasses the City Navy’s docks in the Great Harbor and all of Mount Waterdeep.
Castle Waterdeep stands above the city on a great bluff that extends out from the mountain, its towers soaring hundreds of feet into the sky. A last bastion of defence should the city be attacked, the Castle is actually not where Waterdeep’s rulers reside, nor from where it is governed. For well over a century, the ruler of Waterdeep has occupied the Palace of Waterdeep; a far more comfortable and lavishly decorated building, with many halls used by government officials, guildmasters, and nobles for meetings and court proceedings. Blackstaff Tower is also found in this ward.
There are further environs outside the city walls, including the Field Ward (not an official ward of the city), an unruly place of slaughterhouses, smokehouses, and leather-making facilities that the City Watch does not patrol; Undercliff, an area of rolling grassland and wooded areas focused on farming and animal husbandry; and the Undermountain, the largest and deepest dungeon in the world.