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280 players · since 1996

// the world

Thirty-eight doors. One keyboard. Choose which one you walk through tonight.

Across four million two hundred thousand hand-built rooms, between the harbor lanterns of Saltspire and the quiet geometry of the Outer Planes, the world of Waterdeep has been growing since a Tuesday in March 1996 — one corridor, one NPC, one quest at a time. Below: the map as it stands this week.

players_online:287 world_uptime:28y 11m 14d zones_active:38 / 38 LIVE
> create_character— press enter

No install. No subscription. Free to enter since 1996.

// on reading a map

The map is a manuscript, and no two travelers ever read it the same way.

Most maps are pictures. Ours is a list — a directory you scroll the way you would scan the table of contents of a borrowed book, wondering which chapter will swallow you first. The names below are not brand assets. They are rooms. Some were written by a builder named Ferric in 1998 who quit to raise goats and never came back; others were committed last Thursday by a nineteen-year-old in Lyon who has played for six years and wanted somewhere quiet to put her first quest.

When you log in, the world will not greet you with a cutscene. It will greet you with a single line of text, in your own terminal, on a corner of a street you have never visited, in a city that has been visited before by seventeen thousand four hundred other people — each of whom remembers it slightly differently, because the rooms here are made of language, and language bends a little every time it is read.

What follows is the index. Skim it. Pick a name that catches you. The door will still be there in an hour.

— from the preface, unpublished

// zone_directory — read-only

Where you could go tonight.

Thirty-eight zones, four million two hundred thousand rooms, one connected plane-network. Listed in the order a new player would encounter them — starting at the harbor, ending where the sky stops.

waterdeep://world/zones.tree
  1. [01] Saltspire — Harbor & Old Town 412 rooms · starter · coastal
  2. [02] The Crooked Lantern District 318 rooms · taverns · thieves guild
  3. [03] High Ward & The Open College 601 rooms · arcane · faction
  4. [04] Castle Ward & The Palace Maze 224 rooms · political · questline
  5. [05] Dock Ward & The Sunken Stalls 387 rooms · smugglers · underwater exit
  6. [06] The South Gate Road 512 rooms · wilderness · caravan
  7. [07] Ardolin — City of Bridges 1,140 rooms · trade hub · neutral
  8. [08] The Vellish Marshes 806 rooms · wetlands · druidic
  9. [09] Mt. Eiren & The Glass Mines 934 rooms · mountain · crafting
  10. [10] The Sunken Cathedral of Vell 211 rooms · dungeon · underwater
  11. [11] Forest of Tarn & The Hollow Oak 1,022 rooms · woodland · fey exit
  12. [12] Ruins of Old Askavar 478 rooms · archaeological · questline
  13. [13] The Drowned Library 96 rooms · planar exit · scholar
  14. [14] Karthos — Dwarven Hold 1,408 rooms · underground · faction
  15. [15] The Ember Wastes 744 rooms · desert · planar gate
  16. [16] The Black Linn Caverns 523 rooms · dungeon · dark
  17. [17] Veyran Keep & The Shattered Stair 289 rooms · siege · questline
  18. [18] The Salt Roads (overland) 2,011 rooms · travel · open world
  19. [19] Pillars of Heaven — Archipelago 612 rooms · islands · sailing
  20. [20] The Green Sepulchre 144 rooms · undead · dungeon
  21. [21] Mirefen — The Bog Town 276 rooms · swamp · trade
  22. [22] The Wandering Bazaar 188 rooms · planar · merchant
  23. [23] Citadel of the Argent Order 402 rooms · faction HQ · lawful
  24. [24] The Smiling Garden 71 rooms · fey · planar exit
  25. [25] The Pale — Wastes of Ash 988 rooms · planar · dangerous
  26. [26] The Forge of First Names 156 rooms · planar · crafting
  27. [27] The Halls of Quiet Reckoning 204 rooms · planar · afterlife
  28. [28] Aevum — The Silver City 1,317 rooms · planar · questline
  29. [29] The Glass Sea 233 rooms · planar · travel
  30. [30] The Library at World's End 112 rooms · planar · scholar
  31. [31] The Court of Tides 164 rooms · planar · sea-fey
  32. [32] The Hollow Star 88 rooms · planar · endgame
  33. [33] The Workshop of Forgotten Hours 102 rooms · planar · time
  34. [34] The Velvet Threshold 58 rooms · planar · fey
  35. [35] The Bone Orchestra 76 rooms · planar · undead
  36. [36] The Garden of Static 44 rooms · planar · strange
  37. [37] The Unwritten Wing 31 rooms · planar · builder zone
  38. [38] The Edge of the Map 1 room · planar · end

38 zones listed · ~4,210,400 rooms total · still growing

// world.metrics — last_calibrated_today

The world, in numbers.

4.2M+

explorable rooms

across 38 hand-built zones

1,200+

authored questlines

written by players, reviewed by staff

280

concurrent players (peak)

weekend surges above 500

28y

continuous uptime

since March 1996 · no reset

17,400 registered accounts · 140 active volunteer builders · 1 free-to-enter world.

// first_nights — two ways to begin

Two doors, opened by people who remember their first night.

A lantern-lit harbor at dusk, the way Saltspire appears to a new player logging in for the first time.

zone_01

Saltspire — your first hour, above ground.

You will log in on a salt-stained pier, with the smell of fish and wet rope described to you in a single line. A fisherman named Halric will ask if you have eaten. He remembers seventeen thousand other first nights, and will not comment on yours, but he will offer you a job carrying crates to the Crooked Lantern District — and the rest of the evening is yours to lose.

  • starter_safe yes — level 1 friendly
  • signature_quest "The Lantern That Would Not Light"
  • leads_to Crooked Lantern · High Ward · South Gate Road
An ethereal library suspended in violet void, the Library at World's End — a planar destination reached only after long travel.

zone_30

The Library at World's End — your first hour, between planes.

Six months later, maybe a year. You will have heard a rumor in three different taverns, from three different NPCs, about a library whose shelves contain the unwritten endings of stories that did not happen. The planar gate is unguarded. The librarian will speak to you once, and only once, and will never repeat what she says.

  • access planar — requires gate item or high arcane
  • signature_quest "The Book That Reads You"
  • leads_to The Hollow Star · The Garden of Static

// ready

Stop reading about it. Walk through.

One command. No download. No subscription. A character will be made, and the world — all thirty-eight doors, all four million two hundred thousand rooms — will be waiting on the other side of the enter key.

> create_character— press enter

Free since March 1996. Sustained by donations since 2003.