City of the Dead of Waterdeep

Map Key

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The City of the Dead is a walled cemetery, strictly patrolled by the Watch. So one may live or even sleep overnight therein. It is kept in a beautiful, park-like open condition, and is used as a launching and meeting place by natives of Waterdeep at all hours.

City Buildings

Public Tombs

• Roads' End: Strangers & Travelers Tomb. This small, one-story tomb is the final resting place for travelers who die while in the city; any unclaimed possessions are interred with their remains (minus any outstanding debts including their burial costs). Of late, the tomb has been the site of many robberies (thieves are usually acting upon rumors of some rich adventurers buried with great magic and gold).
• House of the Homeless: Poor Tomb. This is a vast, two-story mausoleum with a row of low steps leading to its high metal gates. Anacaster’s gate (an opaque energy-filled arch at the end of the echoing, empty entry hall) leads to an apparently endless labyrinth of underground caverns. These caverns are lit by the Guild of Chandlers & Lamplighters, who are paid by the city for this service. Here lie all the dead of Waterdeep who do not merit, or do not own (by purchase or membership in a noble or wealthy family), a place in any other tomb. If their names are known, such are always cut into the rock above the hole where their cremated ashes are interred.
• Merchants' Rest ("The Coinscoffin"): Merchants' Tomb. Also known as “The Coinscoffin,” this tomb also contains one of Anacaster’s gates, which leads to a lightly wooded region with inset plaques on the ground marking the burial plots. This resting place is reserved for those who prepay for the honor of burial here (thus, its nickname).
• Hall of Sages: Sages' Tomb. This is a special tomb for sages, a small, dusty tomb with only about 80 sages interred inside. What makes it interesting to some illicit treasure hunters is the rumor that many of the sages rarest tomes and books were interred with their cremated remains (a false rumor maintained by Laeral and others to flush out dealers of forbidden lore).
• Lords' Respite: Lords' Tomb. This small, black marble tomb is the final resting place of those Lords who wish to be buried in state here. Its is fronted on three sides by statues of the Open Lords: Ahghairon stands on the north side, Baeron to the east, and Lhestyn on the south. There is no statue on its western face, but there is a door apparently made of the same smoky material as the Lords’ Helms, which prevents any from seeing or entering inside the tomb. Only one Lord has been buried here in the past 20 years, and their identities remain secret even in death, buried in full Lord’s regalia; the tomb was built with funds left by Lhestyn, and she was buried there with great ceremony after its construction.
• Hall of Heroes: Warriors' & Soldiers' Tomb. This is the official warriors’ tomb of Waterdeep, for fighters and all who fall in battle. Its blue marble walls enclose a trophy hall with many remembrances of the fallen, including the broken pieces of Warlord Lauroun’s ancient battle axe and the sword hilt of Raurlor (its blade long since turned into the skeleton of an asp). At the far end of the hall from the entrance is one of Anacaster’s gates to pleasant rolling fields on an “empty,” grassy plane, where the warriors are buried, row upon row.
• Mariner's Rest: Mariners' Tomb. Decorated with coral carvings and built of green marble, the Mariner’s Rest tomb is for all who drowned at sea, and all ship-captains, however deceased. Anacaster made this tomb a special gate to a plane with infinite burial space around the shores of a quiet, placid lake.

Private Tombs

• Deepwinter Vault: House Deepwinter (Extinct) Tomb
• Sultlue Vault: House Sultlue Tomb

Monuments

• Warriors of Waterdeep: This is a 60-foot-high impressive stone sculpture depicting a circle of three men and two women striking down trolls, orcs, hobgoblins, bugbears, and barbarians, all of whom are falling backward— outward— all around them.
• Ahghairon's Statue: This tall, marble sculpture is an incredibly lifelike sculpture of the bearded, robed mage in his prime (at a mere 70 winters). Ahghairon stands atop concentric steps, facing west with his hands outstretched to indicate the City of Waterdeep around him, and the statue has a smile on his face. The steps are lit by night with rows of torches, and are a favorite meeting-spot by day.

Watch Towers

• Beacon Tower: Sentry Tower
• Watchway Tower: Sentry Tower
• Guard Tower: Sentry Tower

Previous Eras

• 1354 DR