High Walls

"They call it High Walls because hope can't climb out."

High Walls is a district in Lower Tavick's Landing with a history written in suspicion and confinement. During the Last War, the city council grew gravely concerned with the threat of sabotage and terrorism—particularly after the destruction of the Glass Tower—and converted High Walls, then a residential district, into a ghetto for suspicious residents and travelers: a virtual prison camp where foreign nationals could be kept away from the rest of Sharn. All bridges to other districts were sealed behind massive spellbound gates and fortified guard stations, and the district was designed to function as a fortress if the need arose.

When the war ended, those gates were opened. High Walls was converted into a home for the many refugees of the conflict—mostly surviving Cyrans who no longer have a country, but also Brelish citizens whose villages or homes were destroyed, and those who had been interned in High Walls during the war and simply developed roots there. The guard posts remain. The city council still has its suspicions and fears, and the Sharn Watch keeps a close eye on the district. The gates are open at present, but High Walls was built to function as a fortress prison if the need arises, and everyone inside knows it.

The district is overcrowded and operating at the lower end of a squalid standard of living—one that residents maintain at no cost, which is often the only reason they stay. The buildings are in varying states of disrepair, and many have been vandalized. The people on the streets are haggard and worn, watching everything with suspicious eyes.

Authority and Order

The Guardians of the Gate closely supervise High Walls. This branch of the Sharn Watch came into being during the Last War to monitor the activities of foreign nationals and immigrants, and their duties have expanded considerably since the surge of refugees following the Mourning. The Guardians are chosen from among the best soldiers of the Watch and are devoted to the city's security—but many place the safety of Sharn ahead of strict adherence to the law, and complaints are raised against them periodically for unnecessary violence against refugees. Watch patrols are frequent, checkpoints remain operational at the gates, and the physical infrastructure to lock the district down entirely is very much intact. That being said, the City Watch are not actually terribly inclined to intervene when a refugee is breaking the law against fellow refugee; they're more concerned with ensuring the spoilage of the riffraff doesn't leak to the upper city, and will let the poor immigrants fend for themselves, so long as they keep it amongst each other. If the City Watch is drawn into a dispute down in High Walls, they make it a point that everyone involved regrets ever calling them down in the first place, regardless of whether they are innocent or guilty parties.

District Buildings