Balduran Looks Out to Sea
Balduran Looks out to Sea was a statue in the Tumbledown district of Baldur's Gate.
Description
This sculpture depicted the founder of Baldur's Gate, Balduran, looking out towards the River Chionthar to the west. The statue was located on a cliff southeast of the Cliffgate.History
Shortly after Balduran disappeared for the final time, this statue appeared on the cliffs of Tumbledown. Twice the size of the actual man, the statue bears an uncanny likeness to Balduran, squinting west over city and river. While its sudden arrival created something of a stir, most assumed it was simply a tribute to the great man — until one morning several months later when passersby noticed that one of the statue’s hands had risen to shade its eyes. Scholars immediately began studying the statue, learning that at sunrise on the first day of each new year, the statue flickers, changing its position in an eyeblink. Though it always looks west, the precise line of its gaze can change by up to thirty degrees, and it may peer through a spyglass, stand with hands on hips, point with an open hand, and so on. For centuries, the predominant theory was that Balduran still lived somewhere far to the west, and the statue tracked his movements. Yet a generation ago, a knight of Oghma vowed to follow the line of the statue’s gaze as far as necessary to learn the truth. His journey was shorter than expected. In a wood just a few miles west of the city, he came upon a cylindrical stone building, its open doorway revealing stairs leading down into the forest floor. Atop the building, a smaller statue of Balduran stared back the way he had come. Prevented from entering by a pattern of magical lights he couldn’t identify, the knight raced back to the city to gather additional scholars — yet when he returned, the structure was gone. Since then, the forested structure — which popular stories now refer to as Balduran’s Tomb — has been discovered three more times in the same fashion, each time in a different location, yet so far no one has been able to enter. In the Year of the Narthex Murders, 1482 DR, the hand of the statue of Balduran, as well as others, was severed by The Guild's rogues. Some time later, bored noble youths did the same to the Beloved Ranger. The Flaming Fist conducted a thorough search of the region for the hand, particularly stores known to purchase stolen goods, such as the Calim Jewel Emporium. However, nothing turned up. Horgold Hadru, a local potter, took in the noble youths who had vandalized the Beloved Ranger, as he owed one of the patriar families.
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