MOTOR PROPULSOR

Temples

This prosperous temple is visited by many nonworshipers of Deneir.

Some doubtless are spies sent to get as close as possible to the Harper doings in the surrounding Hall, but most are folk with money enough to consult the widely respected High Scrivener, Althune Dembrar, about the meaning, origin, and effects of images they’ve found or seen. Consul-tations with her require a donation to the temple coffers of 50 gold pieces per audience. If magic is involved, the fee doubles.

The Ready House of the Right Strong Hand

This holy house of Helm is a large acad-emy of arms, wherein many of the war-riors who serve in Berdusk’s gauntlets

(patrol units) are trained, as well as The Inner Chamber is a complex of library rooms and dorters (monastery dormitories) opening off a central sanctum wherein dances a floating, glowing light image: an ever-shifting display of various runes, symbols, and images. The High Scrivener of the tem-ple can halt this display at a particular image, cause it to display a symbol on demand, and even defend herself or the temple by causing it to display magical glyphs or symbols whose dis-charges she can direct and control.

enclosed by its own low (2 to 4 feet high), undulating stone wall. In times of attack, magical walls of force aug-ment this ornaaug-mental barrier. At night, the gates of Twilight Hall can readily be seen. They’re flanked by two pillars topped with stone eyes that hold magical everburning candles.

warrior-knights who serve Helm throughout Faerûn. The stern reputa-tion of this god is borne out by the vigi-lant guard surrounding the temple at all times, and by the energetic clangor of arms heard from its inner court-yards constantly

Wounded caravan guards and war-riors of all faiths can receive healing here at any time. Training, shelter, and tending to the hurts of those not faithful to Helm must be paid for by donating at least 25 gp to the temple for every night each guest stays. Clergy of Helm will firmly insist that injured folk rest at the temple until they are completely healed. Folk unable to offer up such moneys must remain at the Ready

The Falcon, Skyherald, and Evensong Tower

House until they have performed some service—usually participation as part of the escort-guardianship of a temple wagon or messenger along the roads to another city, but sometimes as wit-nesses sent to openly watch and report back to an agent of Helm on a meeting, event, or state of affairs elsewhere.

Predictably, this temple resembles a ready-armed keep. I’ve never seen so many grim, alert people in full armor gathered in one place at a time (I try to avoid battlefields), and a guest is always watched, all the time. On more than one occasion the Zhen-tarim have sent in a female agent who tried to work magic while in the pri-vacy of a garderobe (jakes) stall, only to be pounced upon by a watching knight of Helm who leaped out from behind a nearby panel so swiftly that her spells were ruined!

The leader of the faith in the Ready House, Tathlosar Brimmerbold, is a famous war leader of Sunset Vale, known for his successes against trolls, orc hordes, and the forces of Dark-hold. His formal title is Vigilant Gods-eye, but he’s more widely known as

“Sleepless Teeth,” a name his follow-ers gave him after he told them they must sweep down on foes by night,

“like wolves with sleepless teeth.”

Evensong Tower

This many-spired temple to Milil is the site of many a dignified revel attended by the haughtiest of the first folk, the wealthiest merchant families ambitious to rise in social circles, and visitors to the city who can seem rich or impor-tant enough to impress the clergy at the

temple gates. Revels are evening par-ties, gatherings to dance, drink, mur-mur insults or boasts to the nearest fellow revelers, and to listen. About two of them are held per tenday. Social climbers in Berdusk view these revels as battles of wit, demeanor, and sneer-ing but to the visitor they provide some of the best entertainment anywhere.

A fast-paced, varied program of bal-lads, recitations of poetry, and orations goes on in various antechambers opening into the main chancel of the temple. This main chancel serves as a dance-and-chat floor during revels.

Most of the poetry recitations are long, rolling, and incomprehensible to all save scholars—in short, bad. Many orations are performances of famous speeches of the past, the texts recre-ated with the aid of stone tell or legend lore magics. Most of them are stirring and entertaining in the extreme. Revel-ers wander freely from venue to venue, taking in what they want.

From the outside, the temple resembles the fancy-tale view of a cas-tle. It’s a cluster of very tall, very slen-der stone towers studded with brattices (wooden parapets), linked aloft by flying bridges—which must be perilous indeed in icy winter weather or even mere high winds—and topped by high-pointed conical roofs bristling with masts that sport many-hued ban-ners and attract many-hued lightning strikes in stormy weather.

Admission to one of these revels requires a donation of 14 gp to the temple coffers, a noble manner, and expensive clothes—so the entertain-ment isn’t free, but it is splendid.

The young Chantmistress of the Tower, Uluene Maertalar, whose face is as smoothly controlled as those of the best veteran card and dice gamers in Waterdeep, disapproves of serving food in the temple, but the clergy make and serve excellent mead and Halurskan wine (thick, black, nutty-tasting mushroom wine devised long ago in Berdusk by the baker Halurska the Fat). Drinks are an extra 1 gp per glass, payable on the spot—so beware pickpockets on the dance floor.

The Seat of Lore

The temple of Oghma in Berdusk is a dusty, dignified old stone house crammed with books, scrolls, maps, and reading tables and lit by a swarm of obedient magical glowing globes. It

is a center of study that specializes in the tales of yesteryear and in news and tales of the here-and-now rather than the more usual focus on geneal-ogy, treaties, laws, and records.

The current news and tales are gathered by the energetic High Lore-master of the temple, the gnome Bran-suldyn Mirrortor, a former adventurer who delights in donning one of his many disguises and shambling forth into Berdusk or into the Vale beyond to wander and listen. He’s devised sev-eral spells that allow him to record what he hears, edit it in his mind, and then transcribe—from afar—what he wishes into books laid out ready in the temple. Often, awestruck young novices can be seen gathered around a tome that is busily writing itself by those few able to gain access to the inner chambers of the temple.

The Seat does not pay for verbal information or lore, although faithful who bring such information as part of an offering will be warmly received. It does pay for books—moreover, the clergy here value diaries, fancy-tale chapbooks, and other fancies of rumor and lore that other scholars belittle or sneer at. Such tomes typi-cally fetch the seller at least 100 gold pieces from the temple. In a typical tenday, the Seat may acquire three or four such volumes. Magical tomes or any writings from long-lost Netheril command prices in the range of tens of thousands of gold pieces.

Lesser clergy of the Seat copy out This crammed shop on the Gollahaer passages from temple writings (75 gp is a favorite stop for caravan mer-per page or part thereof), something chants trying to fill special orders. It the faithful and guests alike are forbid- specializes in one-of-a-kind, rare, or

den to do. Copying magic requires many more coins and senior priestly permission.

Homes

The House of

the Hungry Merchant

This former shrine to Waukeen offers poor visitors and beggars of the city a warm bed and a meal. The meal is usually thick beef-and-carrot stew, enlivened by anonymous lumps of chopped meat and vegetables.

The House is a big, drafty barn of a place run by merchant donations.

Traders of either sex and most races are allowed to stay here. The House is staffed by the city guard, who keep a close and constant watch on guests to prevent brawls, thefts, muggings, and the like. All weapons must be surren-dered to the staff during a visitor’s stay.

By city law, six nights at a stretch is the longest a person can stay in the House. Guests who are found to have more than 4 gold pieces’ worth of coins on their persons are ejected from the House because it is consid-ered that they can afford their own meals and accommodations.

Shops

Alamather’s by the Water Unusual and Unique Weapons

unusual weaponry, often gadgets that conceal weapons or devices that seem more suited to the worship of Loviatar or decadent arena battle than real war. Telescoping sword canes are steady sellers at 125 gp each, with a choice of reach, appear-ance, and blade-plating. Also popular are the aforementioned gauntlets whose fingers are fitted with silver dagger blades. They cost 25 gp each.

Barbed-wire whips are another favorite item at 35 gp each. Such whips are not allowed by drovers in Berdusk. No one talks about the fact that they’re a symbol and tool of the underground slave trade.

Professional killers can select from among a varied line of trapped gob-lets. Unless the goblets’ handles are

gripped in a certain manner, spring-propelled blades thrust out from the goblets’ bases to slash the throats of drinkers when the goblets are raised and tipped. Other trapped items for sale run from coffers to snuff boxes.

Most drive poison needles into those handling them in any but a particular safe way. Buyers must supply their own poison. By law, no shop or con-cern in Berdusk can sell venoms or refined or magically created toxins.

Ondraer's Fine Pages Bookseller

This shop on the Gollahaer sells books—a small selection of useful books (such as, ahem, my own

guide-books to the Realms), and a large selec-tion of new, blank books, scrolls, frames of vellum, and reams of parchment.

These new materials come in a vari-ety of sizes, bindings, and formats, from simple unadorned paper-cov-ered chapbooks to dragonskin-bound tomes half as tall as an adult human male with locks, travel cases, gilt-edged pages, and sewn-in silk book-marks. All of them are expensive. The cheapest bound volume in the shop is 12 gp, and the most expensive is priced at a thousand times that.

Mages, priests, limners, scribes, cartographers, and apprentices to all of these professions come or are sent here to purchase just the right vol-ume for their needs. Powerful fire-proofing enchantments leak out of this shop. Don’t be surprised if your lantern, torch, or pipe goes out as you approach.

The proprietor, fat old Ondraeas Ondraer, spends most of his days doz-ing in a tankard house, leavdoz-ing his shop in the hands of three sons and two apprentices—all thankfully as able as Ondraeas himself. They can advise you on the right paper to be used with specific bindings, or in a particular clime, or for a particular purpose.

The Dawn of Any Day Minor Magical Items

Lute Street, the Minstrelride,

Danathar’s Street, and Amble Lane—

all in an area south of Castle Hill and west of Twilight Hall. The distinctive sigil of the shop—the rays of the sun rising over a harp, which stands atop a lute—appears on otherwise plain wooden doors when they offer access to the shop. At other times, these same doors seem to lead into houses that have been divided into private apartments. I’ve been told this is part of the ward that protects the shop—a ward linked to a guardian ghost (probably a spectral Harpist, but pos-sibly a watchghost), a series of Evard’s black tentacles spells triggered by thieving activities, and more mysteri-ous guardian beasts. Dweomers of all sorts glow with a faint light when in this shop—even to the skins of those who’ve received a healing spell recently!

This shop is run by a mysterious veiled lady known only as Darth-1eene.³ She sells items that bear minor enchantments—in particular, musical instruments. A persistent rumor in Berdusk insists that these minor magics—such as daggers that glow with faerie fire upon command, stones that change hue when

immersed in poison or tainted liquids or that alter their color when their surroundings reach a certain temper-ature, scabbards and sheaths that banish rust, feather tokens, and heal-ing potions—have spells laid on them that let certain Harpers know where they are at all times.

This small, shuttered shop seems to front on several streets, including

3Elminster was unwilling to give details of this shop’s wards, wares, or proprietress. He did confirm that the rumor about magical Harper tracing of many items is true—and he also let slip that Darthleene is an archlich!

adventurers into daring and danger—

but he was very drunk at the time.

The veiled proprietress herself told me the shop’s name is another way of saying that adventure can begin any time in your life if you only look for it.

Perhaps she serves some as-yet-unre-vealed god or goddess of adventure.

Thunderwood Forays Adventuring Gear The shop is small and dim, and

many of the wares are used and par-tially broken. They are usually dis-played in small glowing spheres of air that float in a slow, aimless dance in the center of the room while the pro-prietress stands watching them from the background. If she’s asked for an item, she will step forward and take it out of the sphere, ignoring the other spheres, which shift out of her way. I’ve seen bold buyers try to grasp items and have the globes simply float through them, item and all, as if the people were themselves phantoms. Only Darthleene seems able to free items from this magic. She will give some information about the past of some items if pressed—many seem to have seen service with adventuring bands who are no more—but doesn’t volun-teer details, in hopes of making a sale.

Adventurers can usually count on getting some healing potions and glow-on-command items whenever they visit (400 to 500 gp each), but all other items are only available from time to time. The shop’s stock seems small. More than one buyer has remarked that these rarer items are not only much dearer—4,000 to about 12,000 gp—they all seem linked to various curses, conditions, or spells that plunge their buyers into unin-tended adventures.

The shop never seems to close.

Whenever a door into it can be found, Darthleene’s waiting within. One man I met in Berdusk even said that the shop must be a ploy of the goddess Tymora (present as the veiled Darth-leenel in order to plunge prudent

This unassuming shop looks like a very narrow, tall, old stone house with dark green trim and crumbling stonework. Inside, it’s all one huge, high room, with catwalks, balconies, and stairs leading to side galleries where the upper floors used to be. In this cavernous space hang rows of complete suits of armor, ropes dan-gling like a giant beaded curtain, chains, sledges, wagons and spare wheels, weapons of all sorts, and so on—a huge assortment of adventur-ing gear, from winches to metal belt flasks. It’s all warded, of course, to prevent theft of the weapons, and not only does breaking the ward alert nearby Harpers and city guard posts, it also frees the helmed horror guardians to act. The helmed horrors are also assisted by something worse, a monster that Olbrimsur

Thunder-refused to make wood, the proprietor,

known to me.

Olbrimsur is a ranger who spends his spare time scouting the Vale area, particularly the Far Hills. When he identifies the lairs of giants, goblinkin, and other perils, he plans an

expedi-tion to deal with them—and puts out word around the tankard houses, inns, and taverns so visiting adventur-ers in town will hear.

Olbrimsur sponsors adventuring bands by giving them discounted prices on gear. He sometimes throws in a potion of healing for the group—

or on especially dangerous forays, one for each member of the group.

He furnishes directions, tips on what to do or watch for in various locales, and can put his finger on several known caverns, ways down into the Underdark, hidden valleys often used by brigands or monsters for shelter, and so on. A firm friend of the Harpers, Olbrimsur is viewed as an ally and inspiration by many adven-turing bands in the Coast lands.

Taverns

The Flourished Flagon

This tavern is a favorite of adventur-ers—in particular dwarves, gnomes, and halflings. On most nights, their rowdy carousing can be heard up and down the street as they dance, sing hurl flagons at each other (hence the tav-ern’s name), and generally have a good time. The walls are adorned with paint-ings—often inept and amateurish—

done by patrons, proudly depicting heroic highlights of their adventuring careers. It looks like a child’s drawn-on nursery wall full of slaughtered orcs, drow, dragons, liches, beholders, and mind flayers, with a lot of short, plump, bearded folk posing dramatically, chests

swollen, in between or on top of all the dying monsters.

This tavern is a good place to join up with adventuring bands, though humans and elves aren’t made all that welcome. The 10 or so gnomes who own the place—all of whom answer to the name of Marklo—are rumored to hide or invest coins brought in by adventurers, and perhaps even fence stolen goods—but I was unable to learn if this was true. If you’re a dwarf, gnome, or halfling, try asking.

The Running Stag

This establishment is mainly a drinking spot, but has a few rooms to let upstairs.

Guests in these rooms can eat in the kitchens, but there’s no dining room, and little escape from the good-natured noise and bustle of the taproom.

The decor in the Stag’s taproom

The decor in the Stag’s taproom