EdGreenwood

LOST LORE OF THE REALMS #17

Added 2025-09-01 21:21:36 +0000 UTC

I made it back from GrandCon, so...

Through the dim recesses of my faded notes and failing memories I trudge, scooping up yet another grab bag of Realmslore!

Taxation, Fees, And Business In Waterdeep

Waterdeep’s annual taxes (as opposed to city-levied fees, like docking fees for ships, and annual business license fees) include:

Citizens belonging to guilds pay dues to the guild (and the guilds then pay a smaller “head tax” based on number of guild members to the Palace)

Property owners pay realty taxes—in the past, the hated window tax (covered in one of my long-ago Wizards website online columns), and more recently a variable-amount tax based on how large a building is; landlords pay this (so renters pay indirectly, through their rents). Those who don’t pay usually face property seizures.

The city provides a subsidy in the form of a per-head daily ‘credit’ against temple taxes (temples are buildings, and attract a realty tax like all other city properties) that in almost all cases wipes out annual taxes and leaves most temples in the black (they receive coins or more often trade-bars from the Palace coffers).

Because of these property taxes, buildings in Waterdeep had “roll numbers” (identifying them on the tax rolls) long before they started having street numbers, which came in gradually throughout the 1380s DR.

However, there’s no income tax for Waterdhavian residents. Avoiding charging income taxes is how busy mercantile trading centers avoid declining when nearby rival centers rise.

Those who grumble at paying taxes and fees are reminded that Waterdeep licenses (inspects and approves) construction work, wines and other consumables, and the operating fitnesses of coaches, wagons, and carriages (not handcarts) to maintain public safety. It also steps in to pay for emergency repairs when roof deterioration or some other cause threatens to result in the collapse of a private building (seizing the property if the owner won’t pay or can’t be found, and working out a slow-repayment-over-time deal, otherwise).

Noble houses can win tax deferrals in return for specific investments in civic works programs.

Builders must pay for building permits, which rise substantially if a street has to be blocked off for any length of time (they’re inconveniencing not just neighbours, but traffic flow and therefore commerce in the city).

Building costs are high—but then, they are in all cities where space is at a premium due to lack of room for expansion—or expansion within the city walls—or where guilds are strong and therefore rates are high, as well as in cities that have always been expensive, like Athkatla.

Realty taxes vary from ward to ward and even street to street in Waterdeep, in a crazy patchwork that “just grew” down the years. Most real-world cities have the same disparities that exist in Waterdeep: taxes vary from place to place within a city, and rates also vary with social class (political clout); i.e. the nobles, and temples, and guilds get themselves tax breaks, and wheeler-dealer wealthy individuals broker deals with the Palace (just as in real life): “I give you this land for civic purposes if you’ll give me a low rate on yon property over there.”

In Waterdeep, the annual realty tax (“property tax”) rate tends to be lower than 1 percent of the property price. Waterdeep doesn’t have “mill rates,” it has set taxes per property that get reviewed by the Palace (and always raised) on about a twenty-year cycle. (And the above brokering comes into play to win yourself delays in reassessment.) Waterdeep has always had a “flee south to warmer climes for the winter” problem that it has attempted to soften by keeping realty taxes low (as it has other sources of revenue like the gate taxes, docking fees, permit fees, etc.).

One can use a percentage of purchase price rate as a very rough guide to estimating probable taxes, but don’t make the mistake of thinking the city calculates taxes that way.

Those who dispute the amount of their taxes can complain to the Office of the Civic Treasury in the Palace: a seen-it-all desk clerk (lady in her sixties, face like a basset hound, named Thraea Vulhand) out front, tax collectors accompanied by bodyguards coming and going, and three overworked gnome and halfling tax assessors, who toil in offices piled high with ledgers and notes.

When a contract or trade agreement is being drawn up in Waterdeep, and a loan or surety or deposit is involved, the parties typically go to a city temple that will “hold” such monies, and also provide scribes to quickly draft the contract in quadruplicate (a copy to each party, plus a temple copy for the temple holding the money, plus a tax-record-remittance copy for the Palace).

Araksa

This is the smallest island off the coasts of Evermeet, a largely-smooth hump of bedrock with a shallow valley down the middle where all of the trees, shrubs, grasses, and inhabitants are. Once home to a vicious little colony of leucrotta who almost eradicated each other down the years, it was swept clean of them by the elves when they needed a place to crossbreed plants (notably captured starfly plants) without them “seeding wild” across Evermeet and possibly doing damage.

Such programs were soon abandoned when a skyship of unknown origins crashed on the island, exploded, and set everything afire. Wild magic was unleashed, and still drifts and swirls on the island today, despite successive elven attempts to destroy it and restore stability. One ill-fated attempt was a mythal intended to displace the wild magic offshore; the wild magic instead twisted the mythal, caused some living spells to come into being, and gave a home to a still-mysterious, unseen wraithform-like entity that whispers cryptic comments in Elvish and the Common Tongue; it's still not known what this being is, or where it came from.

For these reasons, the elves now shun Araksa, except as a navigation aid (it’s due east of Evermeet, and northeast of the island of Sumbrar, where Evermeet’s navy is based).

Moneylending

In daily operations in the Realms, moneylenders-moneychangers usually deter thoughts of swindles and robberies by making sure “everyone” knows they have hired mages present and vigilant. Also, many moneylending-changing operations, especially rural, are temples. Angering clergy is seldom prudent, and monies lost mean the community as a whole suffers (isn’t there to be used for work, like wells for clean water and irrigation, the temple-to-temple item and message delivery service (equivalent of Post Office), and so on. So “bank robbers” are seldom folks who value civilization, or see a personal future need for some of its rules and services. (In the Realms as elsewhere, there is an interconnectedness of all things. Which back when I went to school, was usually put to us as “consider the consequences.”)

No Sumptuary Laws In The Realms

There are a very few places in the Realms where certain badges, hues of clothing, or items of apparel are restricted to the ruling family or nobility, and impersonating a member of the City Watch, military, or priesthood will get you swift grief, but there are no widespread sumptuary laws. And, so long as you wear the “commanded” uniform (often a badged surcoat or shoulder-flag “colors”), few restrictions on personal armor when going into battle.

Adoption In The Realms

Adoption is administered by temples (and shrines, and traveling priests). They determine matches, and give guidance to (and watch) adoptive parents. Slavers are what they worry about most. In some places, guilds are allowed to adopt orphans to become apprentices, but the priests set obligations: no dumping someone who shows no talents for the tasks needed. (Some guilds have traded “useless” apprentices with each other.)

Dwarf Clan Tribunals

A typical dwarven tribunal is a gathering of clan elders, matriarchs and patriarchs, all voting. Any matriarch’s vote counts as double, versus a patriarch’s vote.

The head of the tribunal will state what they want to happen to a dwarf on trial or a policy proposal or a plan for the future, and the elders will debate and demand any evidence they want brought, or want to hear. Then they’ll vote; a majority vote is needed to change the status quo.

There are no longer any universal laws or codes regarding dwarf behavior; too many clans have had to do too many things just to survive. In general, dwarves cleave to their family over others, their clan over others, and dwarves over non-dwarves, but after that...things differ. For what things used to be like in the “good old days” (that of course weren’t good, for the most part) see my 2e Realms sourcebook Dwarves Deep.

How Possible Future Officeholders in Waterdeep Are Asked To Serve

The Open Lord approaches candidates privately or secretly, after the existing Lords choose the shortlist in closed-door (private from the rest of the city) debate. (In other words, it’s like a closed-membership club, with blackballs, etc.) Just as there are laws established in the real world for how officeholders get chosen in extraordinary circumstances (like all the Masked Lords being wiped out, for example) Waterdeep has them, too: certain Guildmasters, notably the head of the Watchful Order, and Noble Lords, and the Open Lord and Lord Mage (Blackstaff) of the city, if they've survived, too, choose the “snortlist” to repopulate the Masked Lords. (Or so the written rules run; it’s never actually happened.) By “noble Lords” in this particular case, I mean that the heads of twelve specific noble families (Argent, Belabranta, Brokengulf, Estelmer, Helmfast, Jardeth, Melshimber, Piradost, Ralnarth, Silvertor, Tesper, and Thongolir) have the duty to meet and choose.

Accepting a Lordship (Masked Lord) is always voluntary, but sometimes life applies intense pressure to accept or decline.

And that “snortlist” isn’t a typo. In the home (original) Realms campaign, that was my players’ nickname for the secret roster of folks to be approached, alluding to derisive snorts that would greet unpopular choices. The in-game term for such candidates is “our Chosen” (the “our” to distinguish them from the “Chosen” mortal servants of various gods).

Tolerance Of Relationships Between Species In The Realms

Mixed-species couples are more common than most folk in the Realms notice, or believe. As high as twenty percent in some places. How they’re viewed varies widely, with the viewers. More rural = more accepting of the status quo, whatever it is (usually little mixing, except humans-elves in forest areas), but in cities, attitudes are more tolerant (“not my business, so long as their coins are good and they offer me no violence”). In some city-states, the rulers/ruling class “set the tone” (and the general populace usually accepts whatever it is, rather than being at odds). Rural homesteaders, prospectors, foresters, miners, explorers, and adventurers are the most tolerant of all (“we all forge our own roads, and judge not the roads of others”).

These are generalizations, and may not hold true in any specific case. But the Realms is not our real world: humans in the Realms are used to truly mixed-race society. Which doesn’t mean there aren’t racial mistrusts (few trust orcs, and no one sane trusts a drow or illithid).

And the "wouldn't fit" tags this time are:

#Silvertor (noble family)

#skyship

#snortlist

#Sumbrar

#sumptuary

#taxation

#tax assessors

#tax collectors

#temples

#temple taxes

#Tesper (noble family)