Suzail is also one of the safest cities a traveler is likely to visit in Faerûn. The Crown vigorously suppresses thieves’ guilds and smuggling cabals, and the Purple Dragons are very much in evidence. Street patrols are common, and when trouble threatens, War Wizards may be seen accompanying the soldiers. Curfews are imposed when needed, though folk with lawful business after dark, such as unloading ships or delivery carts, can obtain license to be out. Such license comes with company, however, for at least three Purple Dragons keep close watch while the work is done.

At the gates, the guards are courteous to travelers, as befits a great trading city, but they are not fools. A War Wizard commonly watches unseen, speaking warnings into the minds of the guards if a Zhentarim agent, evil mage, disguised monster, or known traitor approaches. Telling an intentional falsehood to a guard on watch is an offense. A Cormyrean risks a fine and a year of being questioned carefully at gates, while an outlander may simply be barred from entering the city.

Citizenry

More than 129,000 registered citizens call Suzail home, though Purple Dragon estimates place the average headcount closer to 148,000. During the height of the summer trading season, the number of people within the city may rise to around 160,000. These crowds are defended by a garrison of 4,500 soldiers, the Imperial Navy of Cormyr, and 92 War Wizards known to reside in the city.

The city is predominantly human, as befits the capital of Cormyr, though visitors will encounter halflings, half-elves, dwarves, elves, gnomes, and other folk in its streets, markets, clubs, and docks. Suzail is large enough and busy enough that most travelers can pass through without causing comment, provided they obey the law and pay their way.

Defenders

Suzail is not merely wealthy; it is strongly fortified. Mighty curtain walls, some 80 feet high, guard the city on all landward fronts. The broad arc of the Promenade links the two main land gates, Horngate in the west and Eastgate in the east, while separating the Court precinct from the rest of the city. Citizens know that a particular four-note horn call means they must leave the Promenade as quickly as possible, and they are drilled in doing so several times a year.

The city garrison is based in the Citadel of the Purple Dragons at the southeast corner of Suzail. It is led by Sthavar, Lord Magister of the City. At any given time, some 300 Purple Dragons are assigned to civic street patrol duty, and those so employed are housed in auxiliary barracks around the city walls.

The Purple Dragons share their fortress with the Navy of Cormyr. Fourteen major ships and their crews, totaling more than 2,500 trained sea warriors known as the Blue Dragons, serve from Suzail. The largest vessel, the Crown of Cormyr, is a floating palace often used by the royal family when they wish to relax away from the eyes of the Court or entertain guests in secret.

The Crown of Cormyr and the Dragon, Cormyr’s largest warship, are well equipped with ballistae and firepot-hurlers. Their presence discourages Westgate and other maritime powers from harassing Suzail, but the smaller, faster coastal runners of the fleet, such as the Blade of Espar and the Lance of Wheloon, see action most often. They are almost daily at work against pirates in the Neck between the Sea of Fallen Stars and the Lake of Dragons.

Suzail also has private defenders of note. The wizard Maxer was accorded the title Defender of Suzail after slaying four dragons that attacked the city.

Magecraft

Suzail is a major center of magical learning and power. It is home not only to the secretive College of War Wizards and Vangerdahast, Royal Magician to the Realm, but also to the Council of Mages and such important wizards as Argûl, Baskor, Laspeera, Maxer, and Valantha Shimmerstar.

All mages of the fifth rank or greater who enter Cormyr must register before the next sundown with a king’s herald, a local lord, or at the Court. Once entered on the rolls, they are welcome at meetings of the Council of Mages. These evening gatherings are held in the Court in Suzail once every three rides, or tendays. Vangerdahast chairs them, or Laspeera does so in the rare event of his absence.

At such meetings, decrees of the Crown concerning magic are proclaimed, matters of interest to spellcasters are discussed, and mages may advertise their services or seek the aid of other mages or would-be apprentices. Many a starry-eyed apprentice comes to such gatherings in hope of advancement.

The War Wizards always have a recruiting representative present. Mages most loyal to the Crown may, by free choice and with Azoun’s agreement, swear a secret oath and become War Wizards in service to Cormyr. The oath is known to involve a geas cast by Vangerdahast, prohibiting War Wizards from working to the harm of Azoun, his family, or the good of his kingdom.

Worship

Suzail houses two major temples and several lesser shrines. The Towers of Good Fortune, dedicated to Tymora, stand on the east side of the Promenade where it meets the Royal Ride. The Silent Room, venerating Deneir, stands on the west side of the Promenade at the eastern end of the ornate iron fence separating the street from the cobbled courtyards of the Royal Court.

For a fee of 5 gp per volume, anyone may peruse books at the temple of Deneir. Its library holds both histories of the Dragonreach lands and fanciful fiction concerning them.

The city also holds shrines to Lliira, Oghma, Malar, Tyr, and Milil. Lliira’s shrine stands on the north side of Stonebow Street between Torch Street and Blade Lane. Oghma’s shrine is on the west side of the Promenade just inside Eastgate. Malar’s shrine crouches on the north side of the Royal Ride a few doors west of Tyr’s shrine, and Tyr’s shrine is perched in the angle where the Promenade and Royal Ride meet. The shrine of Milil can be found on the west side of Coachwheels Way just north of Blade Lane.

Trade

Those with coin enough to spend can find almost as wide a selection of fine goods in the shops of Suzail as in fabled Waterdeep. Musical instruments, cloth, finished garments, sword blades, and armor are made in plenty within the city. From the docks, these wares are exported along with copper bars mined near Espar, grain sold in 25-pound sacks but priced by the quintal, and bone carvings from the uplands of the realm.

Most folk of other lands do not think of Suzail first as a source of fine armor and blades, though both are made here. They remember it more readily for good, durable everyday woolen clothing, often trimmed with leather produced in the city.

In earlier days, sail-making and shipbuilding were important industries in Suzail. Most such trade has now moved to Marsember and smaller coastal communities, as land in Suzail has become more valuable and the transport of lumber into the shipyards has grown slow and expensive. The Citadel of the Purple Dragons still uses its repair slips, and lumber bound there is often floated over the city wall by War Wizard spells.

Resident shopkeepers sometimes use tally sticks in their dealings, but visitors must pay in cash. In older days when coins were scarce, two sorts of trade tokens were used in Suzail. These flat wooden pieces were shaped and branded with a treasury stamp, and they are still honored. Suzailans can turn them in at the Royal Court at double face value when paying taxes.

The two tokens are the anvil and the wheel, shaped accordingly. Five anvils equal one wheel, and a wheel is worth 1 gp, making an anvil worth 2 sp. Neither has been made for thirty years, so their presence in found coin caches says something about the age of the hoard.

The Nobility

The noble families of Cormyr are a large, influential, and constant presence in Suzail. Their fashions, free-handed spending, intrigues, and entertainments set much of the city’s tone, particularly their costume balls, feasts, and hunts.

Most noble families have homes in Suzail, some quite modest and hidden away on back streets. Tradition and comfort matter more to the older nobles than open display, except among the recently ennobled and merchants trying to buy their way into noble society.

Suzailans see a side of their proud and mighty nobles that few others in Cormyr ever observe. The city hosts many noble parties in the Royal Court on fine evenings, and all too often these affairs become debauched revels spilling over into the Royal Gardens. Many trysts are kept, arguments begun, and insults and witticisms exchanged at such events.

Fashion

In the streets of Suzail, half-cloaks, full-sleeved shirts or bodices, slim jeweled blades, and ornate masks mark one as a noble or a wealthy would-be noble. Cormyreans like to dress as dashing adventurers. Even folk who have never held a sword in their lives may sport half-armor of everbright silver for formal wear or adopt the flared-boots, laced-leather-and-vest look of the reckless vivant.

As dress goes in Suzail, so goes fashion in the rest of the realm, from feathers in hats to glitterweave doublets. At present, regal blue and dusty beige are favored colors, so the finery is not too hard on a visitor’s eyes.

Fairs and Festivals

Most Suzailans have little energy left at the end of the workday for evening revelry. They meet with friends at a favorite local tavern, talk over a tankard or two, and stumble home to bed. This habit is why visitors bearing news are so popular, and good storytellers can earn a copper or two for a tale.

Those too drunk to be moved from their tavern seats are usually carted to a back room to snore off their drink. Almost every tavern in the city has such a snoring room, and tavernmasters who put customers in one are entitled to take from each sleeper’s purse the cost of one drink of the most expensive sort the customer consumed that evening.

Entertainment for Suzailans comes in day-long fairs and festivals. Most shops close for these celebrations, which include the usual seasonal feasts, such as Greengrass, Midsummer, Deadwinter Day, and the like, as well as hiring fairs in spring, summer, and fall. Hiring fairs gather journeymen skilled in a trade so prospective employers can choose new workers openly. This pleases employers and helps prevent desperate workers being hired unfairly cheaply in secret.

The Festival of the Sword

The Festival of the Sword is held on the fourth day of Kythorn and is unique to Suzail. It represents the importance of the arms trade to the city. The festival begins with a mounted parade of folk dressed in the best armor their shops make, galloping around the streets as fast as safely possible, and sometimes faster. They wave blades, bellow war cries, and sound horns as they thunder through the city.

When the bells of the Citadel toll, the riders race to the gates in the ornate fence of the Royal Court. There they enter the Court and are toasted with fine wine, sherries, and exotic liqueurs.

After thirsts have been slaked, these gallant armed folk look out through the fence into an area of the Promenade kept clear for the Triumph of the Sword. Many townsfolk gather around to watch a fully armored fighter combat and slay monsters. When the battle is done, the fighter casts the killing blade into the air and general feasting begins.

In old days, the monsters slain were people in costumes and the battle was play-acting. Later, real monsters were brought in, caged, and the battle became earnest and often deadly for the fighter. These days, captured jackals and leucrotta magically altered by War Wizards into monster shapes are slain. These beasts are not given time to become familiar with their new forms, nor do they command the special powers of the monsters whose shapes they wear.

Chasing the King

Suzail has another interesting festival: Chasing the King, celebrated on the sixth day of Marpenoth. It recalls Boldovar Obarskyr, who reigned briefly some centuries ago and was a wildbeard, or madman. Though usually calm, he would suddenly fly into berserk killing rages, seize a weapon, and set off across the city hacking and slashing at everything and everyone in his way until dusk.

Boldovar eventually perished after driving his blade through his favorite consort, who had tried to soothe him and stop one of his rampages. Her falling body dragged the king, who would not release his sword, over a parapet. He was impaled on upright lances bundled for transport on a cart below.

In the present festival, the unfortunate king is represented by a criminal already condemned to death. The miscreant is given a blunt sword, encased in full armor, and furnished with a belt of potions of healing. He is then let into the streets and is not allowed out of the city until sundown. Some have shed their armor and tried to escape by swimming the harbor or crawling through the sewers.

Anyone who wishes may attack the fleeing king, and he may do anything during his run without fear of reprisal. He is allowed to seize weapons raised against him and use them on their wielders. One fleeing king set several streets ablaze to distract pursuers, though he died trying to hide in the smoke. If the false king survives until dusk, he is fully healed by a priest of Tempus, given 50 sp, a good horse, food, and clothing, and set free. Several criminals have won freedom this way in recent years, though the Lord Chamberlain chooses who is asked to play the part.

There are at least two celebrations each month throughout the year. Each is an excuse for parades, drunken revelry, minstrelry, wrestling in the streets, and eating far too much. The day after each festival, all businesses except restaurants are closed while most folk visit family and friends and dine out.

A Look Across the City

The northern part of Suzail is all tall, narrow, grand houses complemented by the rolling greenery of the spacious Royal Gardens. The spectacular bulk of the Palace of the Purple Dragon and the Royal Court rise from this district. The oldest noble families almost all dwell north of the Promenade.

Westward, near the harbor around the open market, lies the rougher part of town, where some gentlefolk never venture. To the east stands the Market Hall, into which farmers from outside the city stream at dawn to sell fresh produce to sleepy-eyed servants. Also to the east are the Citadel of the Purple Dragons and the city jail, known as the Lock-Up.

Visitors often confuse the market at the west end of the city, where one buys tools, furniture, clothing, and gewgaws, with the Market Hall on the east side, where merchants meet and farmers sell food.

Between the far east and far west sides lie bustling, close-crowded shops, houses, and inns. These tend to be more expensive and taller near the Palace of the Purple Dragon, and cheaper, noisier, and more run-down as one nears the docks.

The docks are a whirlwind of activity and can be dangerous to the bystander. Overloaded carts and burden-bearers rush about, cursing each other and their loads. The harbor offers few entertainments, smells strongly of rotting fish, and is a fine place to watch gulls paint the countryside white. Aside from watching ships from distant ports arrive and depart, along with their exotic crews and the escorts who come to greet or bid them farewell, there is not much to do there.

The city has a wealth of shops, inns, and taverns, and boasts some truly splendid restaurants. Eating out is a citywide pleasure and tradition. A fast-growing custom is to have gourmet meals run in, meaning delivered hot to one’s abode.

By night, continual faerie fire radiances light the Promenade in bright amber tones. These radiances also illuminate major cross streets at each intersection, though less frequently than on the Promenade. They make Suzail less smoky than some cities, since torches and candle lamps are fewer, and frequent Purple Dragon patrols render even the darkest streets relatively safe.

Landmarks

The Royal Court

Although Suzail is a busy port filled with sophisticated shops and eateries, its most important building is the Royal Court. The Palace of the Purple Dragon is more magnificent, but the Court is unique: a sprawling labyrinth of interconnected buildings erected and expanded over the centuries as needed. Turrets in one place may clash with sloping roofs in another, yet the assembled pile stretches along almost a quarter mile of the Promenade and is undeniably impressive.

The Court’s several thousand chambers are connected by arches, servants’ passages concealed behind tapestries, cross-galleries, balconies, and sweeping stairs. The Court has its own deep wells, its own streets in the cellars, and even enclosed glass-roofed courtyards where fountains gurgle softly and harpists are wont to play.

This grand structure houses the legal and administrative bureaucracy of Cormyr, from the offices of Alaphondar, Sage Most Learned of the Royal Court, to the rooms of Anzser, Lord Chamberlain of Suzail and Master of City Revels. Anzser oversees permits, licenses, city ordinances, and tax writs. Royal guides and escorts wait here, and royal surveyors work on maps and charts here. This is the heart of power and intrigue in Cormyr.

The Court even has its own fishpond, where salmon, trout, and silverfin swim until caught with dip nets for meals at the Court and Palace. Court cooks feed these fish daily and also tend a smaller eel pool. Freshwater eels have recently become a delicacy in Suzail, especially when served with exotic sauces.

The Court is so large and confusingly laid out that one can wander its chambers all day and fail to see everything, or fail to find a particular room or person. Guests at court are usually housed in apartments in the Royal Court. Only rarely, since assassination attempts have grown numerous, do even exalted guests stay in the Palace.

Upland Cormyreans speak of the Royal Court with reverence. It is their place amid the nobles’ halls and grand villas of the wealthy, second only to the Palace itself.

The Hall of Honor

At one end of the Court stands the Hall of Honor, where visitors may see the arms, armor, and relics of Cormyr’s heroes. These range from the pitchfork with which the farmer Jult of Waymoot defended an early queen of Cormyr from orcs, to the seven-foot-long boar blade wielded by the giant Baron Hlombur when he split the skull of the orc lord Aragh. The blade is displayed with the riven skull.

Everyone is welcome to see the glories of the past and take pride in the valiant deeds of Cormyr’s forebears.

The Promenade

Along the many south-facing windows of the Court runs the broad Promenade, the most important street in Suzail and one of the best shopping strolls in the world. Its arc links Horngate and Eastgate, and its magical amber lighting makes it one of the safest and most pleasant streets to walk after dark.

The Royal Gardens and Lake Azoun

On the far side of the Court, the rolling green beauty of the Royal Gardens stretches out in trees, lawns, mazes, fountains, and flower beds. These gardens run down to the glimmering waters of Lake Azoun, where in warm months pleasure sculls await and swans glide.

Vangerdahast’s Tower

At one end of the Court, across a small strip of cobbled court where three watchful wizards always stand guard, rises Vangerdahast’s Tower. This darkly slender tower is the abode of the Royal Magician to the Realm and Chairman Emperius of the College of War Wizards.

Many tales of magic, messages, maps, and inscriptions hidden behind the paneling of the Court’s rooms make the rounds in Cormyr, and most are true. Also true, though less often mentioned, is the rumor of diligent magical eavesdropping carried out constantly by loyal War Wizards in every chamber and back passage of the Court.

The Palace of the Purple Dragon

The Palace of the Purple Dragon rises out of the wooded Royal Gardens like a fairy-tale castle, all slender spires, balconies, and pennants. It houses private apartments for all four families of the blood royal: the ruling Obarskyrs, the Crownsilvers, the Huntsilvers, and the Truesilvers.

The opulence of its tapestry- and painting-hung chambers is legendary. It is rare for an ordinary Cormyrean to be invited inside, and in upland villages the words “He’s been to the Palace!” are uttered with awe.

The Royal Treasury beneath the Palace is also famous, though very few visitors have ever seen it. The vaults are said to be heavily guarded by magic, traps, and monsters, and to hold great wealth and magical treasures. These rumors have been confirmed by many archmages over the years, including the Zhentarim magelord who tried to seize all he could and was blown to bloody mist before the Cormyrean court when a stolen device he carried went off.

Statues and Carved Beasts

Suzail boasts many impressive statues. Even at intersections not guarded by such offerings, carved beasts can be found on building corners. The gargoyles at the meeting of Dragonfall Alley and Ustor’s Street are particularly fine, and like several such specimens around the city, locals swear they can fly off to fight in defense of Suzail if one gives the right command.

Places of Interest in Suzail

Shops

As well as the large, signboarded shops, countless small businesses dot the streets of Suzail. The traveler should look at doors for chalked messages such as “Mushrooms Sold” or “Herbs.” Many women who keep to the home make cloaks or fruit cakes or keep milk cellars, and many lads can be hired on the street for loading or unloading carts or ships at the docks.

Suzailan shopkeepers sometimes use tally sticks when dealing with each other rather than cash. These tally sticks are wands notched by passing Purple Dragons in a particular way. The Royal Court oversees such exchanges and metes out sentences for the dishonest.

A miscreant shopkeeper may be chained to a stone chair in the Market Hall for a day. Not only does he lose a day’s takings, but defective wares are hung around his neck or burned at his feet. Bad produce, wine, ale, or scent is poured or smeared over him. Visitors committing such crimes are punished the same way, suffer confiscation of all goods, and are exiled outside the realm for the season as quickly as the next Purple Dragon road patrol can escort them.

Belaeron’s Best Bread

Baker

This small, aromatic shop on Low Lantern Lane produces bread for customers for 3 cp a loaf the morning after they bring in their dough. It is typical of the turn-your-dough-into-loaves quickshops found here and there in most cities around the Inner Sea.

Belaeron also bakes his own wares: hard biscuits, wheel loaves, and tarts. He sells them for a flat 1 sp per basket. A basket holds roughly 50 biscuits, three loaves, and nine mince tarts, and the buyer keeps the flimsy wicker basket.

The Ring of Coins

Pawnshop

This pawnshop on Torch Street is known for the variety of wares it offers. It is where bailiffs, next of kin, and adventurers bring oddities they cannot be bothered trying to peddle elsewhere.

As a result, one can find many sets of thieving tools, outdated furniture, wild costumery, canes that fold into stools, lamps carved to look like leaping lions, and the like. The selection is always interesting, but some of what is offered for sale may be stolen goods.

Tavernant’s Tellings

Printer

Printers are still a rarity in the Dragonreach lands, and they command high prices. Lady Tavernant, the elderly and eccentric last of her line, loves to give parties where she can befriend young and dashing noblemen. Growing tired of the time and expense of having handwritten invitations prepared for each occasion, she started her own print shop, where linen rag paper is made and printing is done.

To manufacture a printed invitation or broadsheet, paper is made page by page by dipping trays with mesh bottoms into pulp. The paper is then dried, the sheets removed from the trays, and the edges trimmed. Metal is poured into molds engraved by a hired goldsmith to form individual letters. These letters are assembled by hand in wooden frames, along with woodcuts for illustrations. The frames are laid in recesses in stone and inked, whereupon sheets of paper are slid into the press and screwed down onto the inked pages.

A single sheet of type takes a day or more to compose, costs 5 gp, and every copy costs 1 sp thereafter. Copies must all be ordered within a tenday. After that, the wooden form is stripped so the type can be reused.

Books bound and covered by the printer cost 1 gp per page, plus any costs for exotic substances used on the cover-boards, such as tooled copper, gems, or dragonhide.

Lady Tavernant’s shop is roaringly popular, and several merchants are scrambling to set up competing shops. Almost every business in town has had advertising broadsheets, notices about new or seasonal wares, or menus printed and posted. The first lost-and-found and items-wanted postings are beginning to appear on walls and posts. Owners of stone buildings have even taken to coming out with torches and burning off unwanted notices, giving rise to the Suzailan expression “scorched news.”

The Wedding Knight

Fine Clothes

This stiffly expensive shop on the Street of Staves sells finery to nobles, fops, and others desperate for just the right look, so long as the desired look is overdone and visibly expensive. Brushed velvet and cloth-of-gold are everywhere. Glittering gems adorn most hems, and the flash and sparkle of minor lighting spells can be seen as the models employed by the shop drift silkily around the carpeted aisles.

The Wedding Knight is a provisioning place for those who want to make a scene at a scene, as the old saying goes.

Clubs

Suzail is a city of clubs. Just about everyone, from the people who run the manure carts of night soil to dungyards well north of the city to the haughtiest old-blood nobles, belongs to at least one of these gathering places. A rule common to most such places is that a member may bring just one guest.

Most clubs serve food and drink and provide sleeping rooms for members who would rather not stay at an inn or their own homes for various reasons, from lack of coin to wishing to go about unobserved to domestic strife.

Bindle’s

The club to be seen in this season, Bindle’s is a nose-in-the-air establishment where one eats berry-filled and savory tarts, drinks from extensive cellars, and chats with friends. Spells convey soft singing and minstrelry around the rooms to ensure conversation can be heard only from close by.

The waitresses are clad in illusions of leaping flames. Their blazing limbs provide the best sources of light, since faintly glowing tables are the only ever-present radiances, so waitresses asked to stand near customers are not always being asked to do anything improper.

Merchants have adopted this club as a place to conduct serious business and sign agreements. Lately, these businessfolk have begun hiring actors to pose as drunks. The false drunks persistently annoy young nobles whose rowdy carousing makes dining unpleasant or dangerous for the merchants until the rowdies leave. The once-haughty owners are learning that merchants pay better than nobles.

The Osculatory

The Osculatory, or the Osco, is a meeting place for single Suzailans avidly seeking companionship. Its name means kissing club. This noisy, crowded place is a dimly lit labyrinth of secluded tables and curtained booths. Seating is clustered around one dance floor or another, and each floor has its own merry minstrels.

The Osco is apt to become wild when the hour is late and many tankards have been emptied. Public displays of affection are everywhere. Those interested can find it behind the purple door at the north end of Dancing Druid Lane.

The Society of Stalwart Adventurers

Home to explorers and adventurers, this exclusive club is housed in an old, luxurious mansion boasting many fireplaces and stuffed monsters’ heads. The heads are usually hung with caps and items of personal clothing as a result of revelry.

The Society also has an extensive library of old adventurers’ journals, both members’ writings and other tomes aggressively purchased from all over Faerûn or copied from originals at Candlekeep.

The stews are excellent here and, I was assured, do not consist of monster kills. If any of the serving staff has fangs, horns, claws, or occasionally tentacles, that is because the ranks include a few dopplegangers given to pranks or to impersonations for practical reasons.

Seek the lantern-flanked dragonstone archway on Swordstars Lane. Nonmembers are challenged at the door. Do not be surprised if the butler looks less, or more, than human. Guests are allowed only into two anterooms off the entrance hall.

The Stag Transfixed

The haunt of archers, crossbowmen, and hunters who use darts, this dim, smoky place is just the place to go if you want to hire lads and wenches who can put a shaft through your least favorite foe’s left eyeball by night and from around a corner.

That is, it is the right place if you have coin enough to make them break off their endless tales and quaffing of strong stout to listen. Seek the green door at the south end of Lonesome Lane. All weapons must be checked with Clarella at the entrance.

Restaurants

Suzail has many restaurants, and many come and go with the seasons. Some reappear only for the warm-month trade rush under new names and in new places, exploiting the tax break the Lord Chamberlain gives to new businesses. A wide variety of services go by the title of restaurant, from shuttered dockside windows serving hot fish rolls and watered ale to haughty establishments where each diner has a personal waiter.

The Old Boot

The name of this establishment refers defiantly to the conservative elderly patrons who frequent it. They like peace, quiet, good food, warm and private rooms to eat in with friends, and short waits for hot meals. The Boot delivers all of these.

This also makes the Boot ideal for the weary traveler who wants a good feed without hassles or surprises. The staff’s tendency to put outlanders in their own rooms so as not to offend the haughty regulars is ideal for someone who merely wishes to enjoy a meal. The experience is like dining in one’s own mansion, if one’s mansion has a competent but uninspired cook. Do not expect strong seasonings.

The Puffing Jester

The Puffing Jester has a service that delivers gourmet meals to your door. The delivery runners dress in belled caps like the jesters of old and are often out of breath when they arrive. The food may or may not be hot, but it usually began its brief life as something worth eating.

A former bread shop, the Jester offers no sit-down eating. Some folk love to come and stand by the door to smell the cooking and watch the sweating, cursing crews, in those caps, wrestling trays of savory tarts or long spits of roast fowl around the steaming kitchen.

Taverns

Suzail is well furnished with watering holes, just as it is with restaurants. If the evening is fine, a stroll down the city’s back streets in search of a new tankard toss is always worth the time.

The Golden Goblin

The Golden Goblin is the strutter’s thirst-drowner. Here angry men come looking for fights, and folk who want you to think they are as tough as stone statues stand, drinks in hand, acting as tough as stone statues.

This is amusing to watch if one is writing a book about swaggering adventurers, but it is a bit much for an old shopkeeper who wants to put his feet up with a tankard. A huge statue of a goblin leers from a perch on a shelf behind the bar. It lights the place with a golden continual light radiance. It is not a magical statue, so do not bother it.

The Laughing Lass

The Laughing Lass is a cozy, orderly place kept that way by a polite but alert and large staff of bouncers. Purple Dragons and War Wizards know they are not welcome here when in uniform and on duty, since sailors, hireswords, and adventurers gather here to drink and make deals.

The tavern’s name reflects its other use as a makeshift festhall. Veteran adventurers know that the best way to fence stolen goods, make contact with outlaws, or arrange shady deals in the city is with the help of one of Suzail’s professional escorts in a stout-walled room upstairs at the Lass. True veterans even remember to finish their drinks.

Inns

Suzail has many inns, and frugal folk may also find upper rooms rented by the tenday by Suzailans with space to spare. Notices may be found at the Market Hall and at both city gates. Most inns rent rooms by the month between the Feast of the Moon and Greengrass. Prices range from 25 to 65 gp, with most around 50 gp.

The Dragon’s Jaws

Formerly Suzail’s most famous tavern, this popular establishment recently began renting rooms and so must now be considered an inn. Situated at the southwest corner where the Promenade and the Street of Staves meet, the Jaws is handy for visitors entering the city by Eastgate. It is a favorite place to stay in Suzail, even if one is apt to meet dangerous folk in the taproom.

To Suzailans, the Jaws is a place to meet for business, gather gossip, and sit watching competitions and visitors. Its good wine cellar and even better food are justly praised, and it is almost always crowded when open.

An artfully placed stone of silence keeps the din of the taproom away from folk trying to sleep in the back inn wing. The Jaws’s dining room is open from dawn to dusk only; tavern hours are from dusk until dawn.

Much of the enjoyment patrons derive from a visit comes from the swift, anticipatory hospitality of the dwarf bartender Milo Dudley. Milo sees all and is ready for any patron’s need, whether it be a refill, a bodyguard, or a place to sleep off overindulgence, before the need becomes imminent.

If Milo is the perfect friend and servant, the gnome owner Gnorm is the life of the party in the evenings, greeting regulars by name and with a new bad joke. A retired adventurer, he is the inn’s resident champion at the frequent eventide tale-telling or axe, knife, or halfling tossing bouts. Gnorm does not serve patrons. If asked why, he explains that he is retired, after all.

Many adventurers and sightseers seek the Jaws because it is the site of two famous battles. The adventurer Samhrin once unmasked, fought, and slew a mind flayer in the taproom. The same chamber was largely destroyed when the evil Dramordugas of Thay picked a fatal quarrel with a saucy young female mage who turned out to be a gold dragon. She apologized afterward and donated most of the dead Red Wizard’s wealth to repairing the place.

The money paid for an expansion along with the repairs that made possible the Dragon’s Jaws’s change into an inn. The latter encounter also gave the tavern its present name and led Vangerdahast to implement security measures to protect the nearby Royal Court and Palace of the Purple Dragon. At the time of the incident, it was known as the Red Sword.

The Leaning Post

This quiet, good inn offers few frills, only quiet surroundings, simple but good furnishings and service, and secure stabling. “No headaches” is the motto of the staff.

The Post stands on the north side of Garth Street where it meets the Hunt Bide and is owned by Barandos Hawklin, an important deal-maker in Suzail and head of the Hawklin noble family. It reflects his unflinching standards for no-nonsense quality.

The Nightgate Inn

Standing hard by Eastgate and just outside the city walls, the Nightgate is the only lodging accessible to travelers arriving after the city gates are shut at dusk. It looks like a fort and boasts stone walls fully as thick as the Citadel. This makes it damp and gloomy year-round, but roaring fires keep the cavernous common room toasty even at the height of winter gales.

The same cannot be said for guest rooms. The canopies are on the four-posters for a reason. Be sure to take your bedmate with you: it is a pull-cart whose wheel comes off, leaving a cloth-wrapped bundle of bricks warmed by the fire. Undo the ties at top and bottom to get two bags of bricks, lay them on either side, and one can sleep in warmth and comfort until creeping cold awakens one just before dawn.

The food here is adequate and the stable care superior, but for the prices, they had better be.

Shaliber’s Ship

This unusual accommodation is a leaky merchant cog moored more or less permanently at Bolliver’s Wharf across from the foot of Court Close. It is a floating inn owned by Maerun Stoutbold, marine merchant. The vessel was seized from Shaliber, a debtor who could not pay. Shaliber is said to be scheming to get it back, probably by sneaking a crew aboard and trying to sail it out of the harbor, sleeping guests and all, some dark night.

Payment for a night’s stay is in advance, but Maerun asks no questions of his guests. If one wants to have a brawl in one’s room or carry aboard a bound, struggling captive, this is the place to stay. By a curious series of ongoing coincidences, the chamberpots are usually emptied down the gangplank by the enthusiastic hurl method just as Purple Dragon patrols show up to look in on guests.

The Ship is apt to be noisy and to house nonpaying rodent guests, but it is not without its own seedy charm.

The Six Candles

Situated in the angle where the Promenade, the Hunt Bide, and Mayhap Lane meet, the Six Candles, or Sixer as Suzailans call it, can be entered on foot from any of those streets. Its stables stand in the center of the block of shops and residences of which the Sixer is part, entered off Windever Street.

Once one has found the place, it proves a pleasant, large, and bright sleeping house. Its ample interior light is due to many double-paned, well-caulked windows.

The dining room at the Sixer serves adequate fare, but it seems to be the permanent home of a variety of old men always sitting over game boards in a back corner. If approached properly, one can discover that they are all contacts for the infamous Saszesk.

Saszesk is a stealthy smuggler of both goods and people. Some rumors claim he owns the Sixer and lives in rooms somewhere in its extensive cellars. The cellars certainly exist, and their constant echoing drip of water would cover many other sounds. The Sixer is a good place, whatever the truth about the smuggler. The name has no connection to the older Sixcandles Inn in Hultail; Saszesk seems to have chosen it to confuse customs inspectors.

The Wailing Wheel

Situated in the southwestern angle where Windever Street and the Promenade meet and facing Horngate, the Wailing Wheel stands at the other end of the same Promenade-fronting block as the Six Candles. It is the quietest, least known of Suzail’s large inns, and for good reason. It is always cold and dirty, the dining room fare is meager, and service is almost nonexistent.

Still, prices are low, especially if one takes the three-nighter, a deal yielding a suite of rooms for 5 gp plus 1 sp more per beast stabled and per person to cover meal costs. The place is very well built, so one hears little noise from other guests snoring or celebrating in the wee hours.

If one wants cheap lodging where one is left alone to sleep in peace, and one does not care about food, or if the gods look down and one likes greasy stews, bland cheese melted over stale toast, and watery ale, this may be the place. Its size means rooms are almost always available on the floor and side desired, unless something unusual is happening in Suzail, such as a fair, festival, or trade gathering.

The Wheel is owned by the merchant Thentias, a calm, calculating investor and landlord who owns many buildings in Suzail and in the Sembian city of Yhaunn. Those wishing to rent or buy a house, warehouse, or shop in Suzail can speak to one of the Wheel’s faceless, ever-changing staff to secure a swift meeting with Ramkzorn Sharlin or Alasgar Thurym, the two Suzailan agents of Thentias.