Waterdeep Skullport Sea Trade

- THO 12/12/12, responding to query about how guards know what's on ships going into caves The Guard has a few of its own sorcerers (wild-talent spellcasters) and wizards (non of whom reveal their power publicly and willingly), AND at all times it has two or more "on duty" members of the Watchful Order of Magists & Protectors working with it (I'm just speaking of the Guard here, not the Watch). There are "telltale" hanging ropes attached to alarm-gongs, merfolk sentinels, city wards (magical fields) and other, still secret ways of detecting the passage of anything larger than a lone man swimming, that passes into or out of the "elevator" waters. The wards detect all artifacts and other magic items of considerable and lasting power, too. When a ship is detected, the on-duty wizard does a swift ESP-type "thought reading from afar" spell, and "sweeps" the minds aboard, concentrating on the captain or helmsman, if possible. If anything arouses the suspicions of the mage (including the presence of cloaking magics, or any reaction to/detection of the scan), the wizard calls in reinforcements from the Order and alerts the Guard officers. Yes, there are searches and seizures if need be - - but in general, the Guard (and the Watch) ignore cargo and shipments if they don't perceive a real threat to the surface city (any mind flayers, drow, beholders, lots of explosives, or powerful magic would be seen as a "real threat"). Otherwise, they watch from afar rather than stepping in openly. The usual procedure for "incoming trouble" is to alert the spies they have in Skullport to watch and see what happens/what is done with the dangerous individiuals or material. Slaves in or out don't attract much attention unless a city noble or official has been kidnapped and the authorities are looking for him or her, or unless the breed/nature of the slaves points at coming trouble (battle-equipped and -trained large brute monsters, etc.) or the slavers (neogi, for example), hints at impending trouble.

Ed 30/12/13, responding to query about how ships going in are unnoticed The short answer is: Ships AREN'T passing unnoticed by the Guard.

Ships are descending through the sea cave "elevator" as part of Waterdeep's "ghost fleet" of secret naval protectors, as far as the Guard is concerned. That is, ships that tirelessly patrol the Sword Coast near-Waterdhavian harbors to deter tireless pirates and smugglers, who for centuries have awaited the slightest breakdown in this vigilance, so as to pounce on Waterdhavian shipping and bring about the starvation and beggaring of the great City of Splendors. Or so the story goes. At the highest ranks, some individuals know what's going on, and maintain either a "nudge nudge wink wink" attitude or grim gritted teeth, but everyone else in the Guard believes that Skullport is kept from boiling up into the city above in a relentless tide of pillaging and murderous mayhem by the very presence of a Waterdhavian naval base down there, "right on top" of Skullport, inhibiting and deterring day and night. Most ships make the ascent or descent cloaked in disguising spells that give the ship insignia and an overall "look" (of decks, rigging, and crew) that will prevent any vessel from being individually recognized by someone who's seen it recently. Moreover, the journey you describe (from harbor straight to sea caves) almost never occurs. What does happen is this: Vessels with Skullport-bound cargo anchor in the calmest seas they can find off Port Llast (or elsewhere; increasingly, fears of piracy or aquatic monster attack have led individual seacaptains to find their own different favored rendezvous spots, at sea) and transfer cargo (by, yes, the Faerunian equivalent of modern real-world cargo containers; in the Realms, these take the form not of long metal boxes that fit on transport trucks, but are large rectangular wooden crates of massive build, with inset holes "around" a short section of exposed framing-beam at each corner, for hooks, ropes or chains to be fastened or run through; these crates, known as "fastnesses," will JUST fit two to a large wagon, if the wagon is cleared to a flatbed) into small "coaster" boats that meet them, then make the trip into the sea caves (and the at-sea transfer is usually two-way; these coasters usually "give back" cargoes from Skullport or Waterdeep for the vessels to take aboard), and the vessels then sail away or come into Waterdeep's harbor legitimately, and never go near the sea caves. In some cases, this fiddle is absolutely necessary, because the seagoing vessels are too long to fit down the shaft. Note that this also allows non-contraband cargoes from Skullport to arrive on the docks in Waterdeep as legitimate wares. The ships that unload said cargoes of course provide paperwork that says the cargo comes from shippers in other ports (for centuries certain Athkatlan shippers have made good side incomes by providing papers but no wares at all from their dockside warehouses). Increasingly, ocean freighters operating up and down the Sword Coast have cranes aboard to facilitate swift unloading at wharves (but also to make possible the transfer of cargoes at sea). A transfer on the waves is always dangerous, but usually works like this: one or both ships involved has a mast-boom crane—that is, a diagonal spare mast affixed into a rotating collar around the base of the vertical in-use sailing mast. A chain links the two masts, to hold the diagonal mast in position, as a boom, and the diagonal mast has a pulley at its top end, with a chain or strong cable and hook depending from this. Almost all transfers, even in calm seas (and most salts will tell you there's really no such thing; even calm Sword Coast waters have a breeze blowing east or southeast, onto the land, and an everpresent swell), occur by means of the fastnesses slung from these booms but also enclosed in thick (multi-layered) bags of fishing nets (even small amounts of crates and barrels will be put inside a fastness, and padded with spare nets, for such transfers). Some ships also have "tongues" (think of the proverbial pirates' gangplank, only thrice as long and wide, so thick that it can take a huge amount of weight, and secured right across the width or beam of the owning ship by means of many guy-cables) that a cargo can be placed upon by the transferring ships' crane. Scampering crew members affix multiple hooks to the net bag, and by means of lines attached to these hooks, the crew of the receiving ship drags the fastness onto the deck. Waterdhavian Knowledge - Ed 23/1/13 As for Skullport, EVERYONE in Waterdeep "knows" about it. But what they know, for most individuals, is a wild mix of speculation and fanciful stories about some dark subterranean hellhole where beholders float above drow and mind flayers who are busy flogging human slaves plucked from Waterdeep in the dead of night - - and in many cases flaying the skin right off those slaves so they can be eaten alive. While dragons hatch and liches collect skulls to craft winegoblets from (and collect blood to make wine from). And so on. A few traders, adventurers, Masked Lords, Palace officials, and nobles know more - - and more than a few City Guard and City Watch members know more. The trick will be finding someone who knows a direct way down into Skullport without running afoul of those in Waterdeep who get VERY interested (in a bad way) in anyone asking about Skullport... Mythal - THO 26/5/11 Skullport has a mythal. Ed should know; he created the place and first detailed it. (It may also have a mythallar, but note: if the two are contiguous or overlap at all, they CANNOT be independent, because the field of the one latches onto the anchor points of the other. It's like trying to pour a stream of water out of a watering can into a fast-running stream, and somehow keep the two water flows separate; can't be done. Books about Skullport - Ed 24/1/13 There are very few formal books about Skullport, but there are all manner of cheap, swiftly-produced, lurid, sold-on-the-streets chapbooks about Skullport, usually colorful accounts of this or that adventuring band's exploits. A few purport to impart partial maps, warnings about traps, and so on, and these swiftly disappear - - but the Yawning Portal and at least two "adventurers' clubs" in the city have collections of them that can be perused for a fee. The PUBLIC libraries of Waterdeep (deposit collections endowed by the Palace and by wealthy benefactors, usually nobles who like to place books that show nobility in a good light) contain nothing useful on Skullport, because any tomes with anything more than a passing referene get stolen. Fast.