Dock Watch

The City Watch of Waterdeep is a eclectic organization based on the ward in which each group is posted. While the Castle Ward Watch is made up of well organized watchmen and high scale facilities, the Trade Ward is made up of Watchful and clever watchmen whos barracks are as much filled with trade reports as they are with spears.
As for the Dock Watch, as those of the Dock Ward are called, they are made up of a special type of guard.
Usually in most wards, overly aggressive and violent guards are frowned on by the citizens of those wards. Those that don't follow protocol and use unusual methods are held at arms length by their commanding officers, as they don't want loose ballista under their command who will do what they want more than listen to orders. These watchmen are, if not fired or brought under control, found to be transferred to the Dock Ward.
To live in the Dock Wards can be a dangerous prospect, but to be a watchman there has been said to be more dangerous than being on the front lines in war. Fresh watch who find themselves in the district have a low survival rate. The numbers are the worst for them than they are anywhere else in the city, by quite a margin. If they can survive their first month, however, the mortality rate drops considerably. A season, it shrinks by half, and after a year, it is rare for a hardened watchmen to be found dead without taking down a small gang with them.
Survival is reliant on being both tough as well as adaptable. Many of the watchmen are ex-criminals in some capacity, using the work to pay off jail time for past crimes (none that are so severe that the guard pose more of a threat to the common citizens than they are worth), or they are those that couldn't keep themselves in check in other wards and were transferred. Its rare that a recruit is brought directly into the Dock Watch.
That being said, the common citizens, those rarities that have no connection to crime and are just eking out a living in the dangerous ward, appreciate the hardened watchmen. They see them as necessarily tough to keep any semblance of order in their district, and it's rare to hear a bad word about the watch on a commoner's lips.
Since Defender of the Harbor Defender of the Harbor Jeroth Gallsmoor came to power in the Ward, they have gotten even more organized in their disorganization. Though "Keeping Order" has never been a realistic goal of the Dock Watch, having an ex criminal be in charge of the watchmen for the first time has made it an attractive choice for the future. Knowing how a criminal thinks from the top brass of the area has brought a kind of cunning to the watch of the area that criminals have had to adapt to, and the casual murders in broad daylight have decreased dramatically since his ascension. Though he still has a long way to go, his unorthodox way of guarding the streets has brought a small amount of hope to the people of the area that they haven't had ever. He also has sympathy for the criminals, at least those who fall into it with little choice beyond the life, so he has been known to bend the rules in circumstances to let those who prove themselves off from any hard criminal charges, assuming they stop their activities and find better lines of work. Those that abuse this leniency, however, find themselves in a deeper trouble than when they started.
In fact, during the War of Tyranny, the Dock Ward was much less touched by the destruction than the rest of the city. The Defender rallied his men to recruit any criminal willing to be paid to protect civilians and keep them out of harms way, as well as to harass hostile forces in any way they could. The costs of this ended up being quite a burden on the City, but the tactic proved fruitful, even though things headed right back to the status quo as soon as the fighting was over.

Type

Civil Services