Hi @TheEdVerse what does the Yawning Portal look like from the outside?
— Lou Anders BLACK LIVES MATTER (@LouAnders) November 30, 2020
1)
Right, here we go…
The Yawning Portal fronts on Rainrun Street in Castle Ward, and rises from its cobbles four floors (ground floor, and three above). It’s been rebuilt several times after various fires and adventurer-caused… 2)
…damage, gaining a new uppermost floor in the process, and is now (1490s DR) all of mismatched, gorgon-mortared (so no teleportation through the walls) gray (unpainted) fieldstone, with three-foot-thick walls, and a…#Realmslore— Ed Greenwood (@TheEdVerse) December 1, 2020
4)
…ten feet south out into Rainrun Street, and has doors at both ends, opening into a vestibule with bootjacks, a cloak and coat-hanging rack along the inside S wall, and a reception desk with a hostess and three “housejacks”…#Realmslore— Ed Greenwood (@TheEdVerse) December 1, 2020
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…(bouncers) behind it along its N side, with an opening to pass on into, or out of, the main inn at the E end of this desk.
The shape of the building can most clearly and accurately be seen on the 2e CITY OF SPLENDORS boxed set…6)
…map (it’s Castle Ward feature 48, near the top edge of the southernmost page of the big foldout map): looked down on from above, it’s roughly a rectangle with the long axis E-W, an E wall that’s diagonal SE to NW, and a… #Realmslore— Ed Greenwood (@TheEdVerse) December 1, 2020
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…slightly slanted (to the NW) W wall. The S wall is thirty-five feet long from its western corner to the 40-foot-long central bumpout, then runs on E for another 40 feet past the bumpout to its other end.
The N wall has a… 8)
…thirty-foot (measuring west to east) W end, then jogs slightly E of due S, S about 15 feet to the back door/deliveries door/kitchen door of the inn, which is double-width and barred (it can be unbarred, opened up, and the…#Realmslore— Ed Greenwood (@TheEdVerse) December 1, 2020
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…bolts that anchor it down into the cibbles and up into its upper frame shot back, to fling it open wide enough for a low wagon or a full-width cart to be pushed in or pulled out, for kitchen and pantries and furniture… 10)
…access, though this is very rarely done).
This door access part of the N wall is sixteen feet wide, E-W, then runs due N twelve feet or so, to turn E and form the longest run of the inn’s N wall.
There are no windows at all on…#Realmslore— Ed Greenwood (@TheEdVerse) December 1, 2020
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…the ground/street floor, but heavy-wood-shutter-protected (and almost always closed) windows on the S wall of the floor above, on either side of the central bumpout.
On the floor above that are smaller, also… 12)
…wooden-shuttered, windows all along the S wall, at the S end of the W wall (looking down into the alleyway), and in the center of that long easternmost run of the N wall (looking down into the interior of the city block, …#Realmslore— Ed Greenwood (@TheEdVerse) December 1, 2020
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…behind the inn).
On both floors above that, and the attic, are small windows looking due E, in the southern end of the E wall, looking out over the roof of the inn stables (which is the long, slender building adjoining the… 14)
…Yawning Portal, butting onto its E wall and running E along Rainrun Street to touch Lankathla’s Bakery, the shop on the corner, which is only two floors tall, the uppermost being where Lantkathla Dree and her all-female…#Realmslore— Ed Greenwood (@TheEdVerse) December 1, 2020
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…[two wives and four daughters] live, above their baking floor).
The inn has two stone chimneys rising up past its roofpeak ridge, out of both angles where its walls head N on either side of the back door (the kitchen… 16)
…chimneys), a central chimney stack that warms the main taproom and [via sub-hearths] rooms above, and additional chimneys rising out of the center of the western N wall, the W wall at its SW corner, and the S end of the…#Realmslore— Ed Greenwood (@TheEdVerse) December 1, 2020
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…diagonal E wall (in the “point” angle of the wall, and also offering warmth to the adjacent stables).
Aside from the shaft down into Undermountain, the inn has cellars (mainly used for food, ale, and wine storage), but these… 18)
…don’t extend farther than the outer walls of the inn, except for a certain narrow secret passage running north that’s still NDA.
And lastly, the Yawning Portal has a jutting signboard (as seen on the cover of WATERDEEP, the…#Realmslore— Ed Greenwood (@TheEdVerse) December 1, 2020
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…concluding book of the Avatar trilogy) on a pole projecting from the floor above the ground floor, out into Rainrun Street. This old sign has been salvaged through several inn rebuilds. There’s also a weathervane crowning… 20)
…the center of the E-W roofpeak, and lightning rods jutting up at both ends of said roofpeak. Locals recall a memorable night during which Mirt perched on it, singing bawdy songs, but he was likely drunk at the time.#Realmslore— Ed Greenwood (@TheEdVerse) December 1, 2020
Mirt. Always has been and always will be my favorite realms’ personality.
-Ramke Hrafneldur The main character in my earliest Realms short stories. Before I even knew it was the Realms, and a good eight years before there was anything called D&D. My golden childhood, he said, bathed in the glow of nostalgia.#Realmslore— Ed Greenwood (@TheEdVerse) December 1, 2020