Talk:Ahghairon's dragonward

Fun fact: Waterdeep City of Splendors has a map that provides a scale of 4000 feet. Using that scale, the whole city is under the dome of the spell, unlike what the text states. LylaNikker (talk) 22:12, July 15, 2020 (UTC)

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Per this discussion with Eric Boyd on Facebook, the dome was always meant to cover the entire city's borders [Edit for clarity: which is what the text of both 3e books suggests after a careful reading]. Which makes me think the comment ("The southern reaches of Dock Ward are outside the effect because the city slopes down just beneath the ward’s coverage. This little-known fact is occasionally exploited by wyrms that swim into the harbor and meet with minions along the docks or in the southernmost sewers.") - is regarding the spell effect being a hemisphere in shape, and the part that's not protected is at too low of an elevation - it's below the dome. [Another Edit for clarity: Unlike what this wiki page said when I first found myself trying to figure out waterdeep and the dragon ward's scale - This article seems to have contradicted the original text, and the authors comments strongly support that this article misinterpreted that text.]

>How much of the city was the dragon ward's radius meant to cover? Eric Boyd: All of it, to 3.5e boundaries.

> So - this part: (The southern reaches of Dock Ward are outside the effect because the city slopes down just beneath the ward’s coverage. This little-known fact is occasionally exploited by wyrms that swim into the harbor and meet with minions along the docks or in the southernmost sewers.)" If I understand correctly - that's about elevation then, rather than distance from the center of the dome? - It's under the dome, but you would have to fly up to be affected because there's a gap? Eric Boyd: Think of Waterdeep as a slightly tipped board, sloping down to the water. The Dragonward is a half dome. So the southernmost end of the tipped board is just below the half-dome. Loopholes are important.

ValasRPGE 21:07, May 27, 2022 (UTC-3)

>"effect did not extend to the harbor" Was this mis-cited, or perhaps another reference to the bottom elevation of the dome? I couldnt find anything about this on the listed page in Dragon Heist
 * Hey there. Like any other designer that isn't Ed Greenwood, Eric Boyd's comments are unfortunately not considered canon&mdash;only what he's written in official sources is. As such, his input here is really of no consequence. If discounting his commentary helps resolve this apparent information conflict, I would advise doing so. Ir&#39;revrykal (talk) 10:22, 1 June 2022 (UTC)


 * Hey. Unfortunately it does not. The only related text on that page in the original source (City of Splendors page 20) says this:


 * "The effect is a mythal centered beneath Ahghairon’s Tower. Notable exceptions to its coverage include the halls of the Mad Mage below the city and the docks along the harbor. (The southern reaches of Dock Ward are outside the effect because the city slopes down just beneath the ward’s coverage. This little-known fact is occasionally exploited by wyrms that swim into the harbor and meet with minions along the docks or in the southernmost sewers.)"
 * This is the relevant line from the bookwhich seems to have been overlooked when this article was written: *slopes down* just beneath the ward’s coverage


 * Boyds comments in this case do nothing but confirm what the published text in the book already says. The reason part of the docks are not in the bubble is because they're underneath the bottom of the dragonward, not because they're outside it's area border. And then he went on to say that the area covered according to Dragons of Faerun extending beyond all of the city walls was deliberate (with the implication that it just does not go all the way down to sea level. If you read the text in City of Splendors, I have not been able to find any indication that the Dragonward doesn't extend beyond the city walls exactly as described in Dragons of Faerun.


 * I and someone else from that thread reached out to Greenwood on twitter for a clarification (I was making a map for my home games, which is what sparked me to look into this trying to find an official answer, after encountering multiple wildly different sizes for waterdeep, as well as the wiki seeming to contradict the book regarding the size of the dragonward) - and Ed's response to them gave dimensions for the city (which closely matched the 3e map east-west, but were significantly longer north south) but was not clear exactly where the borders of the dragonward were supposed to be, nor where the southern border of the city per his measurements was - I did not get a response when I asked for further clarification.
 * Unless there's another more authoritative source that contradicts those two published books, what it seems we have are clear printed indications that the entire walled portion of the city (at least at the elevation of Aghairon's tower) is inside the ward, and that some nonspecific 'southern reaches' of the dock ward are the only aboveground portion of the city underneath its floor. Along with the author confirming that that reading of the text is also the intention.


 * Which is a long way to to say: I think the original version of the article misinterpreted the published text in the book, and the author's commentary regarding the book seems to support that the wiki article did indeed misinterpret that book.


 * By all means, revert my recent changes if the book contradicts them, but so far as I can tell, my recent changes make the article match the text of the original source material, and the author's commentary on that source material indicates I did not misinterpret that original source material. The one line about 5e waterdeep and the docks I havent been able to find the source of (unless it's that same misinterpreted paragraph from 3e City of Splendors), which is why I asked what it was from on here.
 * ValasRPGE 21:05, June 1, 2022 (UTC-3)