@TheEdVerse if there are sewers in Waterdeep, does that mean there are toilets too?
— RPG Match – connecting TTRPG players (@RpgMatch) October 13, 2021
1)
So, the quick answer is that clubs, eateries, and the homes of the noble and wealthy have garderobes (toilets), that flush with foot-treadles; the water comes from rooftop rainwater cisterns that can be filled in dry weather… 2)
…by pumping. Hand-pumps serve most washbasins adjacent to them, and everyone has a standing-right-by ewer for pouring water to flush, and for carrying water elsewhere or dumping it over your head while washing hair.#Realmslore— Ed Greenwood (@TheEdVerse) October 14, 2021
3)
And everywhere has a bumstick and a sluices-stick (they go by various politer regional names, such as “athorn” and “dollurd,” respectively, in Waterdeep). You use the former to scrub your behind, and the latter to clean the… 4)
…toilet seat and area; both otherwise reside in receptacles of pleasantly-scented water that submerges their “business ends.” Both are stout short sticks with old towels, handcloths, or scraps of clothing affixed to one end.#Realmslore— Ed Greenwood (@TheEdVerse) October 14, 2021
5)
They’re normally made to look clearly different from each other, so one won’t be mistaken for the other, but otherwise tend to be of similar construction and form.
Less affluent addresses may lack a cistern, or access to it… 6)
…for all garderobes. When that access doesn’t exist, the facilities will still have the two sticks and the ewer (and a by-the-sink handpump, unless it’s elsewhere and the water is brought to the garderobe by ewer), and the…#Realmslore— Ed Greenwood (@TheEdVerse) October 14, 2021
7)
…water from the ewer is poured down the garderobe to flush it. Busy garderobes may have a row of filled ewers, with “house rules” about taking down an emptied one and returning it filled, if you poured it. 8)
Most rooftop cisterns are screened to keep dead birds and critters and leaves from clogging the water-flow, and they drain roof slopes into the cistern, which has its own overflow into any rooftop garden or greenery, and then…#Realmslore— Ed Greenwood (@TheEdVerse) October 14, 2021
9)
…another overflow into downpipes, which take excess rainwater down to balcony plantings or windowboxes, and then the street (where drainage gutters should carry it away, often using alleys for this rather than major streets). 10)
Really poor addresses, and garderobes or servants’ sleeping areas, may use chamberpots (metal or ceramic vessels, without or without lids, but usually having stout handles) for facilities; these have to be carried and emptied…#Realmslore— Ed Greenwood (@TheEdVerse) October 14, 2021
11)
…into a nightsoil bin (often a water-filled cistern, to keep the smell down, out of which solids are “dipped” with a giant ladle that hopefully doesn’t get used for anything else, into a nightsoil wagon to carry it away. 12)
In the Deep, that “away” destination is usually the Rat Hills, well to the south of the city.
Many nobles buy stable waste, and the manure of their own stables, for wagon-carting as fertilizer to their own country…#Realmslore— Ed Greenwood (@TheEdVerse) October 14, 2021
13)
…estates, up “the Amphail Road.” They would very rarely trust dung from any other source for this purpose.
One last note: some older garderobes flush with pull-levers on the wall, rather than foot-treadles.#Realmslore— Ed Greenwood (@TheEdVerse) October 14, 2021
So this covers running water (there are pumps across most neighborhoods) and sewers (fed by springs and ocean tides) but what about toilets, @TheEdVerse ? #importantqeustions AND are there canonically any poorer areas where there are cesspools, simple latrines, or even areas where night soil is thrown out of chamber pots down into the street? Are there any laws preventing this? #wheredoesthepoopgo
— RPG Match – connecting TTRPG players (@RpgMatch) October 13, 2021
Oh, yes. This has all been covered, multiple times. (There's even a scene in Cormyr in one of my novels where a character is paying to empty her chamber pot into the regular nightsoil wagon.) TSR did tend to censor graphic details of garderobe/privy/jakes use.#Realmslore
— Ed Greenwood (@TheEdVerse) October 14, 2021