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Forgotten Realms Campaign Setting #FR1
Waterdeep and the North
64 pages, Paperback
First published March 1, 1988
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90 people want to read
About the author
Ed Greenwood
364 books878 followersEd Greenwood is the creator of the Forgotten Realms fantasy world, which became the setting for his home D&D game in 1975. Play still continues in this long-running campaign, and Ed also keeps busy producing Realmslore for various TSR publications.
Ed has published over two hundred articles in Dragon magazine and Polyhedron newszine, is a lifetime charter member of the Role Playing Game Associaton (RPGA) network, has written over thirty books and modules for TSR, and been Gen Con Game Fair guest of honor several times.
In addition to all these activities, Ed works as a library clerk and has edited over a dozen small press magazines.
Invented the character Elminster from the popular Forgotten Realms RPG series. Currently resides in an old farmhouse in the countryside of Ontario, Canada.
Ed has published over two hundred articles in Dragon magazine and Polyhedron newszine, is a lifetime charter member of the Role Playing Game Associaton (RPGA) network, has written over thirty books and modules for TSR, and been Gen Con Game Fair guest of honor several times.
In addition to all these activities, Ed works as a library clerk and has edited over a dozen small press magazines.
Invented the character Elminster from the popular Forgotten Realms RPG series. Currently resides in an old farmhouse in the countryside of Ontario, Canada.
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Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
February 26, 2020
In later editions, Waterdeep ended up rather overdesigned and overbloated, with far more focus piled on it than almost anywhere else in the setting. But back in the day it wasn't so bad. This one offers a lot of plot hooks in the form of the noble and merchant families, in particular, as well as one of my favourite thieves' guilds around. Xanathar is a pretty cool guy. Just watch out for spike traps. Why do you have a spike trap in the corner of your evil lair, anyway?
November 12, 2013
There have been three main centers of activity in Ed Greenwood’s own Forgotten Realms campaigns. Two of them, Shadowdale and Cormyr, are in the central area well covered by the original boxed set. The third, the great city of Waterdeep, is a bit north of the focus area, and was the primary subject of the first setting supplement from TSR, FR1. It has appeared many times in the years since then, in adventures, such as part of the Avatar trilogy, later supplements (such as
City of Splendors: Waterdeep (Forgotten Realms)
) several novels, and even one of the Catacombs adventure books (
Knight of the Living Dead
).
It contains the usual 64-page sadle-stiched book, with a three panel separate cover, with a small map of Waterdeep on the third panel, and is backprinted with a schematic map of the wards of the city, the main sewer system, and some typical building interiors; this only takes up the two main panels, and the third is blank. Also included is a keyed poster-sized map of the city.
One of the first chapters in the book grants it it’s ‘and the North’ title, giving a rough guide to trade and important locations in the area. The North is generally defined as the area between the Sword Coast and the great desert of Anauroch from the latitude of Waterdeep on north. The problem is, that the geography talked about is more detailed than is available in the boxed set, and there’s no map in the module to guide you, making the entire chapter very confusing reading. The North: Guide to the Savage Frontier would eventually cover the same ground (and partially quote these entries), with a pair of poster-size maps covering the region in detail.
Dragon #128 includes the article “Welcome to Waterdeep”, which had been cut from the supplement and details the area near the city. The module would have been better off to cut the entire chapter on the North, and include this material instead. It would have better aided the focus of the rest of the text, and the map of the area would have easily gone on the blank interior cover panel. I have a feeling that the decision to cut it was already long made when layout of a map of the North advanced to the point that it was realized that the entire region doesn’t quite fit in one 30 mile/inch poster map. Also, the publication of The Crystal Shard may have caused TSR to decide to do a separate module on the North, that could also include the Icewind Vale area.
The bulk of the supplement focuses squarely on Waterdeep itself, and is very well done, with a few problems. It is obvious that Ed had a bunch of material to present for this, and efforts were made to fit it all in, with the main text being a smaller font than normal (about 9 point), with some parts being an extra-small 7 points. A brief history of the city is given, wrapping up with some current news, before turning to the nature of government. The main government is sixteen lords, whose identities are kept secret behind robes and (anti-magic) masks, except for a high-level paladin who serves as the primary public face of government. This is all too idealized to be really believable, with the lords honestly working for the overall benefit of the city with clarity and foresight, and the protected identities not only protecting them from plots in general, but allowing them to be recruited from all levels of Waterdeep society, keeping the government in touch with the needs of the lower classes. However, there are political maneuverings from the nobles (not detailed) and the guilds (better detailed), so not everything is ideal all the time.
A large section of the book is a key to nearly 300 buildings, giving the name of the establishment, the general type of place, with occasional other details. This accounts for perhaps 5% of all the buildings shown in Waterdeep (probably less), and leaves plenty of latitude for the DM to establish his own residences and businesses (and perhaps borrow a few from the CityBook series…). Along with the standard taverns and inns are guild houses, noble villas and fences.
The main problem with the approach taken is that while a DM can sit down with the book and map, and really study an area, and get to know the neighborhood the party is based in, it is horrible at questions such as ‘where is the nearest inn?’ There’s no easy list of such establishments, so a party randomly asking after something in a random location (which of course they will) has to be met with either a lot of looking up possibilities or just making up a nearby one (which is perfectly fine… but the purpose of a supplement like this one should be not to need to do this).
The biggest problem is the amount of flavor that is buried away, where it can be easy to miss. If you look through the listings, you will note that there’s a bunch of tanneries located in the southeast corner of the Dock Ward. Tanneries generally stank to high heaven, so they were forced to exist in one corner of medieval cities to keep stench away from the rest of the city. But none of this is pointed out in the book, so if you don’t know this bit of trivia (and most people don’t—I certainly didn’t in 1987), nor sit down with the map and key to see the pattern, a bit of the logical flavor of the city will be lost, never to emerge in play. The fact that wooden buildings are restricted to one story by law, and anything taller (as most are now) must be made of stone is buried in the description of the Guild of Stonecutters, Masons, Potters & Tile-Makers.
The best part of Waterdeep is that it physically feels right. The city stops at the city wall, which even with edicts against building against the walls seems unlikely, and the few hints of farms and the like outside the walls seem to include a village with no marked path to the main road. But inside the walls, the streets both run straight and branch off in random directions that feel right for a living, evolving city.
In all, this really is a good springboard for urban adventures, and feels like it’s possible to DM such a large and diverse city without it feeling completely foreign to the original intent. This is a tall challenge, and one not often tackled in fantasy RPG writing. Despite the problems, there’s a lot here, and it fits together well, and I have to think this is one of the better city supplements that has been done.
It contains the usual 64-page sadle-stiched book, with a three panel separate cover, with a small map of Waterdeep on the third panel, and is backprinted with a schematic map of the wards of the city, the main sewer system, and some typical building interiors; this only takes up the two main panels, and the third is blank. Also included is a keyed poster-sized map of the city.
One of the first chapters in the book grants it it’s ‘and the North’ title, giving a rough guide to trade and important locations in the area. The North is generally defined as the area between the Sword Coast and the great desert of Anauroch from the latitude of Waterdeep on north. The problem is, that the geography talked about is more detailed than is available in the boxed set, and there’s no map in the module to guide you, making the entire chapter very confusing reading. The North: Guide to the Savage Frontier would eventually cover the same ground (and partially quote these entries), with a pair of poster-size maps covering the region in detail.
Dragon #128 includes the article “Welcome to Waterdeep”, which had been cut from the supplement and details the area near the city. The module would have been better off to cut the entire chapter on the North, and include this material instead. It would have better aided the focus of the rest of the text, and the map of the area would have easily gone on the blank interior cover panel. I have a feeling that the decision to cut it was already long made when layout of a map of the North advanced to the point that it was realized that the entire region doesn’t quite fit in one 30 mile/inch poster map. Also, the publication of The Crystal Shard may have caused TSR to decide to do a separate module on the North, that could also include the Icewind Vale area.
The bulk of the supplement focuses squarely on Waterdeep itself, and is very well done, with a few problems. It is obvious that Ed had a bunch of material to present for this, and efforts were made to fit it all in, with the main text being a smaller font than normal (about 9 point), with some parts being an extra-small 7 points. A brief history of the city is given, wrapping up with some current news, before turning to the nature of government. The main government is sixteen lords, whose identities are kept secret behind robes and (anti-magic) masks, except for a high-level paladin who serves as the primary public face of government. This is all too idealized to be really believable, with the lords honestly working for the overall benefit of the city with clarity and foresight, and the protected identities not only protecting them from plots in general, but allowing them to be recruited from all levels of Waterdeep society, keeping the government in touch with the needs of the lower classes. However, there are political maneuverings from the nobles (not detailed) and the guilds (better detailed), so not everything is ideal all the time.
A large section of the book is a key to nearly 300 buildings, giving the name of the establishment, the general type of place, with occasional other details. This accounts for perhaps 5% of all the buildings shown in Waterdeep (probably less), and leaves plenty of latitude for the DM to establish his own residences and businesses (and perhaps borrow a few from the CityBook series…). Along with the standard taverns and inns are guild houses, noble villas and fences.
The main problem with the approach taken is that while a DM can sit down with the book and map, and really study an area, and get to know the neighborhood the party is based in, it is horrible at questions such as ‘where is the nearest inn?’ There’s no easy list of such establishments, so a party randomly asking after something in a random location (which of course they will) has to be met with either a lot of looking up possibilities or just making up a nearby one (which is perfectly fine… but the purpose of a supplement like this one should be not to need to do this).
The biggest problem is the amount of flavor that is buried away, where it can be easy to miss. If you look through the listings, you will note that there’s a bunch of tanneries located in the southeast corner of the Dock Ward. Tanneries generally stank to high heaven, so they were forced to exist in one corner of medieval cities to keep stench away from the rest of the city. But none of this is pointed out in the book, so if you don’t know this bit of trivia (and most people don’t—I certainly didn’t in 1987), nor sit down with the map and key to see the pattern, a bit of the logical flavor of the city will be lost, never to emerge in play. The fact that wooden buildings are restricted to one story by law, and anything taller (as most are now) must be made of stone is buried in the description of the Guild of Stonecutters, Masons, Potters & Tile-Makers.
The best part of Waterdeep is that it physically feels right. The city stops at the city wall, which even with edicts against building against the walls seems unlikely, and the few hints of farms and the like outside the walls seem to include a village with no marked path to the main road. But inside the walls, the streets both run straight and branch off in random directions that feel right for a living, evolving city.
In all, this really is a good springboard for urban adventures, and feels like it’s possible to DM such a large and diverse city without it feeling completely foreign to the original intent. This is a tall challenge, and one not often tackled in fantasy RPG writing. Despite the problems, there’s a lot here, and it fits together well, and I have to think this is one of the better city supplements that has been done.
July 10, 2015
An indepth look at a fantasy city
29 August 2013
Well, I am almost to the end of the list of books that I have wanted to comment on but not particularly read again because either: 1) I didn't like them in the first place, 2) I did like them but am not really interested in reading them again because my tastes have changed, and 3) they are roleplaying books and I either did not read them in the first place, or if I did, I am not going to waste my time reading them again. Obviously that does not include any of the Fighting Fantasy books, or the spin off products, but that is another story.
The first time I heard of this particular product was when a friend of mine, who worked in the fresh food section of the local Woolworths supermarket, lived with his parents, pined over girls that were not interested in him, and spent all of his money on roleplaying products, showed this to me and began to sprout out all of the wonderful rubbish that he would sprout out when it came to roleplaying products. Hey, at the time I was a geeky teenager (and now I am a geeky adult) and he was older than me, so I thought he was wonderful (particularly since we were both geeks, it was just that he worked and I didn't).
This is one of the first of the many products dealing with Waterdeep. In fact one product was simply a bunch of massive maps, a couple of thin booklets with tables in it, and some cardboard buildings that you could pop out and assemble (and priced at almost twice as much as many of the other roleplaying products around). At least this product included a somewhat thicker book, no cardboard popout buildings, and a small section on a region known as the North, a section so small that I still wonder why they actually added the words 'and the North' at the end of the title to this product.
Anyway, Waterdeep is a major port city in a completely ludicrous spot in a world which could only have come out of the head of a teenager. However, I have already commented on the absurdities of the Forgotten Realms, and I do not feel that I need to repeat myself here. However, the city is ruled by a bunch of Lords who wonder around the city dressed in cloaks so that nobody knows who they are (which is not all that spectacular or unusual since I suspect that most of the nobility in the medieval world wondered around cities in cloaks so that nobody would know who they were). Also, there is an unofficial thieves guild (as if thieves' guilds were official – I can't think of any place in the real world where thievery is actually a legal profession – though some people would argue that a taxation office fits the bill) that is run by a beholder (don't ask), a drow (see elsewhere), and I think a dwarf. I remember having an adventure where the players ended up killing them, but then these guys were set up simply so players could kill them (and there was even a computer game called Eye of the Beholder which involved, well, killing them, which ended up spawning two sequels which had, guess what, nothing to do with Beholders).
Anyway, this product is pretty much obsolete and out of print so good luck getting a copy of it (though I am sure you can find one on ebay).
29 August 2013
Well, I am almost to the end of the list of books that I have wanted to comment on but not particularly read again because either: 1) I didn't like them in the first place, 2) I did like them but am not really interested in reading them again because my tastes have changed, and 3) they are roleplaying books and I either did not read them in the first place, or if I did, I am not going to waste my time reading them again. Obviously that does not include any of the Fighting Fantasy books, or the spin off products, but that is another story.
The first time I heard of this particular product was when a friend of mine, who worked in the fresh food section of the local Woolworths supermarket, lived with his parents, pined over girls that were not interested in him, and spent all of his money on roleplaying products, showed this to me and began to sprout out all of the wonderful rubbish that he would sprout out when it came to roleplaying products. Hey, at the time I was a geeky teenager (and now I am a geeky adult) and he was older than me, so I thought he was wonderful (particularly since we were both geeks, it was just that he worked and I didn't).
This is one of the first of the many products dealing with Waterdeep. In fact one product was simply a bunch of massive maps, a couple of thin booklets with tables in it, and some cardboard buildings that you could pop out and assemble (and priced at almost twice as much as many of the other roleplaying products around). At least this product included a somewhat thicker book, no cardboard popout buildings, and a small section on a region known as the North, a section so small that I still wonder why they actually added the words 'and the North' at the end of the title to this product.
Anyway, Waterdeep is a major port city in a completely ludicrous spot in a world which could only have come out of the head of a teenager. However, I have already commented on the absurdities of the Forgotten Realms, and I do not feel that I need to repeat myself here. However, the city is ruled by a bunch of Lords who wonder around the city dressed in cloaks so that nobody knows who they are (which is not all that spectacular or unusual since I suspect that most of the nobility in the medieval world wondered around cities in cloaks so that nobody would know who they were). Also, there is an unofficial thieves guild (as if thieves' guilds were official – I can't think of any place in the real world where thievery is actually a legal profession – though some people would argue that a taxation office fits the bill) that is run by a beholder (don't ask), a drow (see elsewhere), and I think a dwarf. I remember having an adventure where the players ended up killing them, but then these guys were set up simply so players could kill them (and there was even a computer game called Eye of the Beholder which involved, well, killing them, which ended up spawning two sequels which had, guess what, nothing to do with Beholders).
Anyway, this product is pretty much obsolete and out of print so good luck getting a copy of it (though I am sure you can find one on ebay).
August 5, 2018
A brilliant insight into Waterdeep that's useful even in today's 5th Edition world.
June 28, 2023
A masterclass in urban fantasy worldbuilding and a valuable resource for any GM running a campaign in a fantasy city.
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews