Downshadow

Downshadow was a cavernous area in the south-east corner of Undermountain's first level, below the Dock Ward of Waterdeep.

Description
Downshadow was home to hundreds of people, functioning as an unofficial ward of Waterdeep, but the population and borders changed constantly, as safe ground was lost or gained as adventurers fought through Undermountain. In addition to common Waterdhavian inhabitants such as humans and dwarves, the Downshadow folk included less-common races such as half-orcs, half-ogres, and hobgoblins. The many fires used for cooking and lighting meant that the cavern ceiling was obscured by a constant haze of smoke, which escaped though cracks in the stone and caused inexplicable smoke clouds in the streets above. Most of the structures that the people of Downshadow lived and worked in were makeshift shanties made of scavenged materials and mushroom wood from Undermountain, and whatever construction materials that could be brought from the surface.

History
In the years after the Spellplague in the, the vast cavern of Downshadow turned into a sort of village made of dirty tents, curtained-off areas, and crude shacks made from salvaged materials. It was inhabited by outcasts, criminals, and down-on-their-luck adventurers exploring the lower levels. The cavern even had crude taverns and merchants who sold questionable goods, most famous of which was the Shadow.

As of 1479 DR, the top levels of Undermountain were mostly cleared of monsters, although some creatures still roamed the halls and many magical traps remained active.

By Mirtul of the, however, Downshadow was largely depopulated, abandoned by its inhabitants. A mysterious illness had erupted in the slums, killing many residents and prompting the rest to flee to Waterdeep proper. This in turn contributed to a growing crisis of homelessness in the city, as the poorest of the city had also been driven out of the Field Ward and Mistshore slums when they were destroyed. The disease seemed to strike suddenly and lethally, killing the victim overnight and leaving their tongue shriveled and blackened. Open Lord Laeral Silverhand suspected that rather than a natural disease, it might have been a plot by the masters of Skullport to keep unwanted visitors from interfering with their business in Undermountain. Regardless of the cause, monsters began prowling Downshadow once again because of the abandonment, and murderers in the city above took to hiding their victims in the tunnels.

During this period, the assassins Tasheene Melshimber and Darleth Drake frequently used the tunnels of Downshadow to move about Waterdeep unseen. During one such journey, they came across a drow scouting party that was patrolling the now-empty tunnels. In the same month, reckless cellar excavation by the Cellarers' & Plumbers' Guild was blamed for a sinkhole forming in the Castle Ward which caused three shops and a home to collapse into Downshadow.

Knight n' Shadow
The Knight n' Shadow was a two-story tavern that straddled between Undermountain and Waterdeep. The upper level was on the corner of Fish Street and Snail Street in Dock Ward, built on the site of the Sea Knight tavern, which was destroyed in 1425 DR with conflicting accounts blaming a wizard's duel or the Spellplague. In the following years, an ambitious miner excavated the ruin and the cellar below, discovering a tunnel down to Undermountain. He rebuilt the Knight on the surface, and constructed the Shadow, the lower story of the tavern in Downshadow.

Connected to the surface with ladders and stairs, the Downshadow section was fortified against monsters and bandits from Undermountain, becoming a favored spot for criminals and adventurers to meet and find work. By 1479 DR, it had supplanted the Yawning Portal as the most popular point of access into Undermountain. Despite the unscrupulous activity that took place in it, the reputation of the Knight was still good enough that members of the City Guard would stop by for meals and drinks.

Grim Statue
The Grim Statue was a magical statue in Downshadow. It was a twenty-foot tall stone statue of a humanoid man, with the head and hands broken off. The stumps of its hands often crackled with tiny arcs of lightning, and it would randomly unleash bolts of green-white lightning at the area around it.

The statue was originally part of a small Undermountain chamber used as a magical trap, blasting intruders with lethal lightning blasts. The Spellplague altered its function and caused it to fire lightning constantly in a circle around itself for years, eventually reducing the stone walls and dungeon constructions around it to rubble. It ultimately cleared a 100-foot radius circular plaza around itself that intersected with the area of Downshadow, but by 1479 DR the statue's magic had significantly weakened and would only activate on rare occasions.

Most Downshadow residents avoided the statue whenever possible due to the constant threat of the lightning. They refused to build homes or set up tents within the rubble-strewn radius of the statue, and even then the nearby area was considered a dangerously risky place to live. Particularly foolhardy individuals would prove their bravery by approaching the statue as closely as they dared, using the large chunks of broken stone around it as cover from potential lightning bolts.

Although the lightning blasts were usually random and infrequent, the statue would immediately attack magical items and spells that were used nearby, making it incredibly dangerous for the spellslingers and well-equipped adventurers of Undermountain.

In 1479 DR, there was a portal directly above the statue's missing head, which led to the Timehands clocktower in the Palace of Waterdeep. It is unknown whether the portal was an intrinsic function of the Grim Statue, caused by the Spellplague, or had some other origin.

Appearances

 * Novels
 * Downshadow