Baldur's Gate City
Infrastructure
City Landmarks
Today, Baldur's Gate is split into three districts: the wealthy Upper City on the hills above the docks, the bustling Lower City around the harbor, and the lawless Outer City (Which includes all neighborhoods outside the city walls). Regardless of what district one might be visiting, certain features are impossible to ignore, like the wash of Gray Harbor, the shadow of Dusthawk Hill, or the gates that contribute to the city's name.
The Gates
Nine Gates seperate the districts of Baldur's Gate, providing the only points of entry to pass from the Upper City to the Lower City, or from the walled city proper to the Outer City and the wider world beyond. Baldurians, particularly if they do not wish to reveal a crew or family affiliation to a potentially hostile audience, will often describe themselves as by the nearest gate to their homes. Terms like "Gondgater" and "Dragongater" are widely understood as neighborhood identities and are also understood as a way of eluding more troublesome connections. The Watch guards gates leading to the Upper City, while the Flaming Fist oversees the rest. Guards assigned to Baldur's Gate and Black Dragon Gate stay at sharp attention and seldom accept bribes. Those assigned to the smaller, more secluded gates however can be less attentive, particularly when distracted by the jingling of coins. Anyone entering the city must pay a nominal entry toll of 5 cp. While this is a small sum, it ensures that the truly destitute remain outside, consigned to the slums of the Outer City. Beggars and refugees crowd at the fringe of these slums, typically found around Black Dragon Gate and Basilisk Gate, pleading for money to pay the toll and hoping the guards won't drive them off for annoying the more prosperous travelers. When the city is not under lockdown, merchants pour through the external gates from morning till night, while peddlers, delivery carriers, and servants move in equally swift streams through the inner gates. Toll collectors work quickly and methodically to inspect incoming and outgoing trade goods, ensuring that commerce flows smoothly and the city gets its share at every turn. The city gates are closed at night. At dusk, The Watch evicts anyone from the Upper City who is not a Patriar, bearing a Patriar's livery or permission letter, or a Watch-issued token. The enforcement of this rule is one of the means by which the Upper City reinforces its snobbery over the other districts. More than one Lower City merchant visiting an Upper City restaurant or theater near sundown has been embarrassed by a Watch member's loud, public caution that the gates are about to close. While being seen hurrying toward the gates is an obvious embarrassment, being caught and escorted out would be far more bruising - both to one's ego and body. The nightly closing of the gates ostensibly keeps the patriars safe. Closing off the Upper City pushes street crime into the poorer neighborhoods, or out of the city altogether. In the Upper City, patriars can walk down alleys with relatively little fear, but beyond its well lit streets and tightly watched gates, the other districts become much more dangerous after dark.
Gray Harbor
One of the largest and deepest harbors on Faerun's western coast, Gray Harbor is also one of the busiest. The city's independence and general laisez-faire attitude towards the type of goods and people flowing through its port - so long as the government gets a cut - means that the harbor throngs with both honest captains conducting forthright trade, and pirate crews looking to fence their wares. Plenty of sailors also make their homes nearby in the Lower City. The harbor's most immediately striking feature is its machinery, with dozens of enormous cranes and countless powered scoops and cargo carts dramatically accelerating the loading and unloading process. Though designed by the Church of Gond, these marvels are run by the Harborhands, the most powerful crew in the city thanks to the dockworkers' ability to shut off the city's economic lifeblood with a strike. Managing the whole affair is Harbormaster Darus Kelinoth, a lawful neutral male Human noble who runs the port's operations and taxation from a small, heavily fortified brick building set well apart from the other structures. The Port itself is a tangle of piers, floating docks, and anchorages, from the massive Freighter's Finger pier catering to the heaviest barges to the more ordinary slips at Northtree or Commonsdock. Not actually attached to shore, the chaotic Flotilla is the city's cheapest long-term moorage option, where boats are welcome to raft together around common anchor buoys, and where some houseboats haven't moved in generations. A special division of the Flaming Fist called the Gray Wavers patrols the harbor, yet its no secret that the more expensive docks are the safer options. Sailors and even whole ships have been known to go missing in Gray Harbor, and while some assume such disappearances are the result of shore-based pirates, others speak of Ol' Cholms, a mysterious sea beast caoable of dragging ships down to the river's lightless bottom.
Dusthawk Hill
East of the city, high above the scattered slums and cut-rate inns that stretch along the trade road, rises the steep yellow granite of Dusthawk Hill. This cliff-skirted hill is one of the last known refuges of the Chionthar Dusthawk, a once-common raptor whose numbers precipitously declined over the last century as regional tormoil and the ever-spreading slums outside of Baldur's Gate consumed its habitat.
Districts
Upper City
The Upper City of Baldur's Gate is the enclosed haven of the city's nobility - the patriars. Sitting atop their hill, the patriars look down on the rest of Baldur's Gate om every real sense, weilding their wealth and influence to push the Council of Four to protect their lifestyle. Though at one time a wealthy merchant or powerful adventurer might hope to advance to the ranks of the patriars, there is no longer room, physically or otherwise, for the upper class of the Upper City to grow. Now, only those born into the patriar families inhabit the manors of this oldest part of Baldur's Gate. The poorest among these go so far as to sell furnishings and decorations from inside their himes in order to keep up appearances with their fellow patriars.
Lower City
Hard against the harbor lies the Lower City, where stone, slate roofed houses stand (sometimes unsteadily), and the folk who have long performed the real work of the city reside...
Outer City
Outside the walls, there are no laws barring construction or settlementm and so those who are too poor to reside within the city or to purchase property have slowly built up a third ward of the city, living in the shadow of its walls, paying its taxes, and covering both sides of the roads leading into Baldur's Gate.
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