Deepwinter Vault

The Deepwinter Vault was a mausoleum in the City of the Dead in Waterdeep that belonged to the defunct noble Deepwinter family. It was also one of the entrances to the former lair of Artor Morlin, the vampire lord of Waterdeep, and was the reason his subterranean structure was called the Dungeon of the Crypt.

Location
The City of the Dead was a sprawling walled cemetery on the eastern edge of Waterdeep. The Deepwinter Vault was located in the northern part of the cemetery near the wall that separated the burial grounds from Zendulth Street, set back from the main path by a short walkway.

Structure
Deepwinter Vault was approximately square with two large wooden doors bound in iron in the center of the south wall, atop a wide, shallow staircase of five steps. As of the, the one-story white marble structure showed signs of age with cracked masonry, lichen stains, and ivy-covered walls. The ivy hid carvings of landscapes covered in deep snow and the doors had broken locks and stood slightly ajar.

Interior
The mausoleum was divided into three sections of equal measure: a forechamber, the Deepwinter crypts, and the Hall of the Patriarch.

Forechamber
The double doors led into a grand chamber the full width of the structure and about deep. Its walls were filled with stone frescoes that revealed scenes of Deepwinter triumphs interspersed with symbols of the church of Auril. At any time of the year, the walls were coated with a thin film of ice and minor icicles hung from the ceiling—the remnants of a magical trap placed on the room in the days when the Deepwinters still thrived—that kept the room temperature at. Around the perimeter of the room were at least thirty short pillars once used as pedestals for displaying family heirlooms, but by 1372 DR most of them had been vandalized by treasure hunters looking for hidden caches. In the center of the floor was the crest of the Deepwinter family, a snow-capped mountain with a large, stylized snowflake above and to the left of the peak. The only other exit was a narrow door in the center of the north wall.

Deepwinter Crypts
The middle third of the mausoleum was filled with individual crypts. A passage led from the forechamber to the Hall of the Patriarch and  down this corridor were two narrow passages that branched off to the left and right containing the resting places of the Deepwinters. The tombs were once sealed with stone plaques marking the name of the noble and their death year in Northreckoning, but by 1372 DR most of the seals were broken and scattered on the floor along with bones from the ransacked tombs.

Hall of the Patriarch
About beyond the intersection with the crypt walk was the grand Hall of the Patriarch. The room was about deep by  wide with a large stone sarcophagus sitting on a raised altar in the center. Openings to similar but smaller tombs exited the room through the center of the east and west walls. More crypts lined the south wall of all three chambers.

The lid of the main sarcophagus was carved with the outline of a human in full armor and helm, clutching a greatsword to its chest and covered in snow, with the head to the east and feet to the west. The lid could be moved easily on hidden tracks toward the feet until the coffin was two-thirds open. It contained the desecrated skeleton of a Deepwinter patriarch and nothing else. If the lid was positioned only from fully closed, it allowed the entire sarcophagus to be rotated until the head of the effigy on the lid pointed north. This revealed a narrow stair going down and west for and then turning north and widening out to a long stone stairway  wide that descended some  vertically and  horizontally (well under Mhalsymber's Way on the surface) to the foyer of the Dungeon of the Crypt.

Atmosphere
Despite the fact that nothing of much value was left in the mausoleum from the original owners, it was apparent that the building got frequent but irregular traffic. The coldness of the forechamber tended to prevent any visitors or gatherings from staying more than a brief time. During the day when the City of the Dead was open to the public, entering the structure likely caused any onlookers to mutter about "tomb robbers", and exiting the building sometimes attracted the attention of curious children that wanted scary tales or trinkets. At night, the City was closed and patrolled, but this did not stop any number of clandestine organizations from entering or exiting the Dungeon of the Crypt.

Activities
The Deepwinter Vault was often used for quick, hushed meetings, as a message drop point, a cache for temporarily hiding stolen goods, and a convenient place to dispose of a dead body.

Defenses
As of 1372 DR, the wards on the Deepwinter Vault had mostly faded away because no one renewed them. The chilling effect in the forechamber was the last breath of an ancient trap set for intruders.

History
The resting place for the noble Deepwinter family was built in the when the clan had great wealth and influence. Unbeknownst to them, the surveyor they hired to place the vault was under the domination of the vampire Artor Morlin and he used his influence to get the structure built over the entrance to his extensive underground lair and then killed anyone who had knowledge of it.