Sharn — Description
"You live up high, you can touch the sky. In the middle you can still see the sun. Down on the inside low, all we have is gloom and the constant drip, water and worse descending from the city above us." — A street urchin describing Sharn
The first thing any visitor to Sharn has to reckon with is scale. The city rises above the Dagger River on a cluster of ancient stone plateaus, its foundations sunk deep into layers of ruin far older than any human settlement on Khorvaire. The towers that grow from these plateaus are not the graceful spires the word might suggest — the core towers, the structural skeleton of the city, are so massive that their walls are thick enough to contain entire districts, with streets, shops, and residences built into the stonework itself. Smaller turrets and platforms sprout from their flanks, and a web of bridges, spans, catwalks, and platforms connects the great spires at every altitude, creating a three-dimensional maze of thoroughfares that newcomers find disorienting and residents navigate without thinking. Some bridges are wide enough for wagons and open-air markets — the major spans run twenty-five feet across with five-foot walkways on either side, and the largest bridges stretch fifty feet wide, with shops and stalls crowding the roadway down to a narrow lane between them. Others are five feet of cracked stone with a low railing over a drop that the mind declines to measure. Most towers are studded with balconies — many of them opening into public space — and riddled with windows, and the larger balconies serve as landing platforms for skycoaches, as open-air stages for street performers, or simply as places where the residents of interior districts can go to remember what wind feels like.
The streets of Sharn are not the winding alleys of a typical city. Most are broad thoroughfares — either suspended high above the ground, arcing around the exterior of a tower, or running straight through its interior. Horses, mules, and wagons travel them in a fairly normal fashion, though "normal" in Sharn means hauling a cart across a bridge a quarter-mile above the river. Magic lifts — vast floating disks, some up to thirty feet in diameter, ascending and descending along threads of mystical energy — move cargo and people between vertical levels. They have rails but are not enclosed, which makes them effective for freight and occasionally harrowing for passengers, particularly when a dispute breaks out mid-ascent. Skycoaches circle the upper reaches at all hours, their enchanted hulls flickering with light. Soarsleds dart between the towers like dragonflies. The city never stops moving, and it never goes fully dark.
The weather does nothing to help. Most of the year, Sharn's climate runs from hot and humid to hot and rainy, with brief, grudging intervals of warm and dry. It doesn't rain constantly, but it rains more often than not, and few days pass without at least some precipitation. The rain works its way down through the city — collecting on bridges, pooling on platforms, dripping from overhangs and gutters — so that the lower you descend, the wetter and more miserable the air becomes, even on days that the upper wards would call merely damp. The combination of rain, smoke rising from the Cogs, cooking fires, industrial vapors, and the sheer density of life packed into the towers gives each level of the city its own particular atmosphere — literally. The upper wards smell like rain and clean stone. The middle wards smell like food, people, and wet wood. The lower wards smell like all of the above, concentrated and soured, mixed with sulfur drifting up from the foundries far below.
Excerpted from A Newcomer's Impression, found in the personal journal of a Brelish traveler, circa 996 YK:
The first thing you notice is the noise — a solid wall of sound, layered and unceasing, that hits you a full minute before you can see anything clearly. Cart wheels on stone. Vendors shouting. The low groan of a magic lift descending under load. Then the towers resolve out of the rain and river haze like teeth in a jaw, more of them than you thought possible, growing taller and denser the further you look, until the upper reaches disappear into the overcast. A halfling bumps your elbow; an elf in a glamerweave cloak steps around you without breaking stride. Beyond them, a gargoyle watches from a high perch. A warforged laborer hauls carts of scrap. You gather your senses and keep moving. It's not until you reach the lift that you realize the halfling stole your purse.
The Anatomy of a Tower
"People hear 'towers,' they think of graceful little spires, the sort of thing you see poking up in the corner of your lord's keep. We've got those, and lots of 'em. But the foundation of the city is the core towers. The walls of these towers are so thick you could fit your lord's castle in one." — A Sharn native
Understanding what a tower actually is matters, because the answer is not what most visitors expect. A core tower in Sharn is not a single building — it is closer to a vertical city in itself. The exterior of a core tower supports outside districts, built on the bridges and platforms that connect one spire to the next, where residents enjoy open air and whatever light reaches their altitude. Smaller turrets are built on the core tower walls and along the bridges between towers, clinging to the infrastructure like barnacles on a ship. Inside the walls themselves, people live and work in chambers and corridors carved or constructed through the massive stonework — the interior districts, where the "sky" is the ceiling of the passage above and the light comes from torches or lanterns rather than the sun.
And then there are those who live on the inside — in districts contained entirely within the hollow well of a great tower. Standing in Callestan, deep in the interior of a Lower Dura core tower, and looking up, you do not see sky. You see a mile of bridges and platforms crossing the well above you, twinkling with the lights of the wards stacked overhead. Those lights are not stars, and that darkness is not night. It is the weight of an entire city, built above you, going about its business while you go about yours in its shadow.
The boundaries between vertical sections are not clean. It is hard to tell, physically, where one ward ends and the next begins — the transition is gradual, a matter of the light growing dimmer and the stonework older as you descend, the watch patrols thinning out, the everbright lanterns giving way to everburning torches and then to stretches of unlit corridor. You feel the shift in altitude more than you see it: the air changes, the temperature rises, and the sounds from above grow muffled. By the time you notice you've crossed into a lower ward, you already have.
The Upper Wards
"It starts to drizzle. A well-dressed elf glares at the sky and snaps his fingers. The rain around him immediately stops." — Encounter observed in Upper Central
The upper wards are bright, open, and meticulously maintained — which is another way of saying that a great deal of money is spent ensuring that the residents never have to think about what holds the city up. Towers at this altitude are capped with terraces, rooftop gardens, broad balconies, and docking platforms for airships and skycoaches. The streets are wider and the bridges sturdier than anywhere else in the city, paved with polished stone or even silver-veined flagging, as in the shopping district of Silvergate, where the streets gleam under the everbright lanterns that keep the major thoroughfares lit at all hours. Wind and sunlight reach these heights freely, and the air is noticeably cleaner — the fumes of the Cogs and the cooking smoke of the middle wards rarely climb this far. Buildings favor polished stone, glass, worked metal, and decorative sigils over raw function; in the elven-influenced district of Oak Towers in Upper Northedge, most of the towers are formed of polished densewood, and private gardens stretch out on walled balconies between manors.
Security is visible but carefully calibrated to avoid looking like security. The Sharn Watch patrols actively and efficiently in the upper wards, motivated less by civic duty than by the fact that the wealthy residents and the criminal organizations that serve them are already paying well for the service. Private guards and House enclaves maintain their own protection, and magical wards — from arcane lock to more exotic defenses — supplement physical security on the estates of the affluent. Major bridges in the upper wards are enchanted with feather fall effects that trigger automatically, so that even the hazard of falling is something the upper wards have largely solved for themselves. A person who stumbles off a bridge in Upper Central drifts gently downward. A person who stumbles off a bridge in Lower Dura hits whatever is below them.
The upper wards are not unfriendly, exactly, but they are watchful. An adventurer in travel-stained gear walking through Platinum Heights will draw glances, and probably a polite but pointed inquiry from the nearest Watch officer. Those who maintain a wealthy or aristocratic lifestyle move through these districts without friction; those who don't will find the friction subtle but persistent — a shopkeeper's smile that doesn't reach the eyes, a doorman's regretful shake of the head, the distinct sense that the city would prefer you conducted your business elsewhere. The wealthy do not build their neighborhoods a mile above the ground because they love the view. They build them there because altitude is the most reliable form of gatekeeping ever devised.
"Can I help you? Are you sure you're in the right ward?" — A member of the Sharn Watch, to a party of adventurers in Platinum Heights
The Middle Wards
From the classified advertisements of the Sharn Inquisitive, Sar 14 Olarune, 998 YK:
ROOM FOR LET — Middle Dura, Tumbledown district. Cozy chamber in shared tower. South-facing window (partial). Sound construction (mostly). Convenient to Bazaar, lift station, and three taverns. Locks recently replaced. Current tenant relocating involuntarily. 4 gp/month. Inquire at the Cracked Mirror, ask for Dalgo. Do not ask why Dalgo is renting the room. Do not mention the stain.
The middle wards are the functional heart of Sharn, and they look it — dense, uneven, loud, and alive in a way the upper wards never quite manage. Towers crowd together more tightly here, narrowing the channels through which light and wind can pass, so that a street which enjoys full sun in the morning might be in deep shadow by afternoon as the angle changes. The quality of streets varies wildly from one bridge to the next: a well-maintained span lit by everbright lanterns and lined with shop fronts gives way, a hundred yards on, to a cracked and damp crossing where the railing is rusted through in places and the lanterns have burned out or been stolen. Buildings are layered with generations of additions, repairs, and makeshift expansions — a balcony converted into a shop, a shop converted into a residence, an alley roofed over with salvaged timber and turned into a covered market. The architecture reflects pragmatism rather than planning: things are built where they fit, using whatever materials are at hand.
Markets, taverns, tenements, workshops, temples, and offices are everywhere, pressed up against one another with little regard for zoning. A magewright's shop selling minor enchantments shares a wall with a boarding house; a shrine to Boldrei sits across a bridge from a gambling hall. The constant traffic of people — on foot, by carriage, on soarsleds, leading pack animals — fills the thoroughfares from early morning until well past dark. Lighting is inconsistent; the everbright lanterns that the city provides are maintained in the busier commercial districts but neglected in the residential towers, where residents rely on their own torches, candles, or the occasional paid magewright to keep the corridors lit. Weather runoff from the wards above is a constant nuisance, dripping from overhangs and pooling in low spots, carrying with it the grime and refuse of the city's upper tiers.
The feather fall enchantments that protect the upper wards are present on the major bridges here as well — this is, after all, where most of the city's population lives, and the council would prefer not to lose its tax base to gravity. But the coverage is not universal. Minor spans, pedestrian bridges, and the narrow catwalks that connect residential turrets are unenchanted, and the Watch does not consider it a priority to post warnings. Residents of the middle wards know which bridges are safe and which require caution, the same way they know which taverns water the drinks and which intersections to avoid after dark. It is local knowledge, acquired through experience, and newcomers are expected to learn it on their own terms — or pay the tuition in bruises, lost coin, and the occasional terrifying fall interrupted by a lower bridge.
The Lower Wards
"The Silvermist Theater in Callestan was built to entertain nobles. The ward boasted manors, temples, and a garrison for the watch. All of these edifices were abandoned long ago, and now most are home to nothing but squatters and vermin." — From a city council report
The lower wards are dark, cramped, and oppressive at any hour — not figuratively dark, but actually dark, because the towers above block the sun entirely. No natural light reaches these depths. In the lower interior districts, residents looking up see not sky but a mile of bridges, platforms, and faintly twinkling lights descending from the wards above — the view from the bottom of a well, if the well were a city. Everbright lanterns, the standard lighting in the upper and middle wards, give way here to everburning torches, which cast a harsher, more uneven light and are spaced further apart; in the worst neighborhoods, many of the torches have been smashed or stolen, leaving stretches of corridor in near-total darkness. The ward shows its age everywhere — cracked and worn streets, walls covered with mildew and decades of layered graffiti, the crumbling outlines of buildings that were grand once and have been repurposed, gutted, or simply abandoned.
Buildings are older, damaged, or half-vacant, with entire neighborhoods hanging beneath bridges or clinging to tower undersides like settlements in a cave. The architecture is not uniformly decrepit — some structures are old but solid, the stubborn remnants of an era when these wards were the heart of the city — but maintenance is a luxury, and most landlords who own property in the lower wards live far above them. Air is thick with smoke and steam rising from the Cogs below, mixed with the runoff descending from every ward above: water, waste, and whatever else the upper city discards. The temperature is warmer than the surface, heated by the Fernian lava flows deep beneath, and the humidity is oppressive. In some corridors, visibility is measured in feet rather than yards.
No feather fall enchantments protect the bridges of the lower wards. The Sharn Watch rarely patrols in force, and when officers do appear, they tend to be operating on behalf of a specific interest — collecting a debt, delivering a warrant, or simply collecting the bribes that make their presence worthwhile. The peace, such as it is, is maintained by the criminal organizations that have filled the vacuum: the Boromar Clan and Daask, each holding territory, collecting tribute, and enforcing their own rough order. For the residents, this is not corruption — it is the only civic infrastructure they have. The lower wards are not lawless. They are governed by different laws, enforced by different authorities, and the price of protection is paid in different coin.
Graffiti observed in Lower Dura, freshly painted over the faded seal of the Sharn Watch:
THE WATCH DOES NOT WATCH. DAASK WATCHES.