Westgate

Westgate is the major trading city on the Sea of Fallen Stars. It wields enough economic clout to make it the third major trading power of the Inner Sea after Sembia and Cormyr.

The "anything goes and everything has a price" reputation of the Dragon Coast is directly attributable to Westgate, whose citizens are not ashamed of its reputation. On the contrary, they pride themselves on Westgate's status as an open city—open to all races, open to all faiths, and open to all coins. Westgate's noble rulers, all descended from rich merchant houses, believe that personal ethics may be fine for private life but have no place in business.

Willingness to cut any deal has helped the city grow into a major economic power, but it has also created an environment in which thieves view their activities as extensions of normal business by other means. A thieves' guild known as the Night Masks controls nearly as much of Westgate as its official rulers do. The Night Mask assassins, extortionists, enforcers, and spies are for sale to any, meaning that the noble houses who ostensibly oppose the thieves' guild are frequently their best clients.

Temples or shrines to evil deities, including Beshaba, Malar, Shar, and Talona, are sometimes "unmentionable" in polite Westgate society, depending on the fashion of the moment, but there's no doubt that they exist. They have as many devotees as the aboveground temples of Ilmater, Gond, and Loviatar (a favorite of several of the decadent noble houses).

The newest addition to Westgate's parade of novelties is a gladiatorial enterprise named the Quivering Thumb, which fled from the collapse of Unther to the city whose rulers would pay the best for bloody circuses. The Quivering Thumb's new sandpit arena is popular with nobility, merchants, commoners, and even with slaves, because the Thumb promises freedom and a thousand gold pieces to any slave who can survive a year in the pit. The Thumb is regarded as a "fair-fight" enterprise, in which no side of any given battle is meant to be massacred.

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