Castle Waterdeep
Waterdeep's great fortress is a thick-walled stronghold that frowns down on Castle Ward from the flanks of Mount Waterdeep. Pennants and banners are often hung and flown from its battlements to signal the arrival of this or that diplomat or the commencement of gathering for this or that ceremony; the great height of the castle walls make such signs readily visible in the southern half of the city. The castle's walls rise four hundred feet at their greatest height from the ground, and average sixty feet thick, with rooms and passages tunneled out of their great bulk. Many protective spells have been placed on the walls over the years, and they have never been breached in battle.
Castle Waterdeep's chambers can house 3,000 in comfort, and three times that number if every corner is used for accommodation and food storage. Its normal garrison is roughly 1,400 city guards. The many dungeon levels beneath it, excluding those in the Mount reachable by the castle, contain some 90 cells in all (at any one time, 30 or so will be in use), many large enough to contain six prisoners. The castles larders, by edict of the Lords, must contain an emergency food supply (preserved fish and meat, grains and vegetables) large enough to feed 50,000 people for a week; this state is maintained, with about two days extra viands, by senior guard officers.
The guard and watch both use the castle courtyard for training their members, and for training horses. Their main stables, containing seventy or so fully-trained and equipped warhorses, are located in the ground level interior of the castles south wall.
Signal beacons and horns, and mighty catapults capable of commanding the entire harbor of Waterdeep as far as Deepwater Isle and the Torchtowers, are kept ready on the battlements, and there is always a garrison unit of at least thirty armed soldiers of the guard on duty. The castle gates and all stations of the walls are always guarded, and just within the gates is a duty guardroom where a strike squad of twenty crossbowmen and two wizards can reinforce the guards at the gate in seconds, and anywhere else in or under the castle in minutes.
Its twisting passages (most permanently lit by continual light spells) are a warren of successive defensive pockets, suitable for holding off attackers from behind cover, and that there are extensive (known and guarded) secret passages allowing defenders to spy (and fire) upon intruders, and to withdraw into the caverns beneath Mount Waterdeep if necessary. Castle Waterdeep is a place of great age and indomitable strength.
