In the same vein, we can also look at Mike Schley’s map of the city used for the Lords of Waterdeep board game: But although not strictly accurate (following the map, there should be an alley on the east side of the building), it’s (a) a 3-floor C-class building and (b) its shape is remarkably similar to that shown on the FR1 map (which is quite possibly the version the artist was working from if the City System cartography hadn’t been completed yet). I’m not certain if the artist actually knew they were depicting the Yawning Portal here. Although only depicting the southern end of the city due to perspective, its execution is meticulous: You can track specific streets and navigate through the city’s depiction.Īnd if you navigate to Soothsayer’s Way and then drop down to Rainrun Street… there’s the Yawning Portal: However, in addition to its prodigious poster maps, the City System boxed set also included a poster depicting an aerial view of Waterdeep. Obviously Waterdeep is somewhat abstracted here (they could only model so many three-dimensional buildings), but the Yawning Portal resembles its rectangular presentation in the City System boxed set. First, the Descent Into Undermountain computer game featured a navigational splash screen that identifies a specific building as the Yawning Portal: In addition to these maps, there are two other interesting depictions of the Yawning Portal along similar lines. The first is a slight variation of the City System map (with a new building directly to the east of the tavern):Īnd the second seems to be more of a variation on the FR1 shape: You’ll notice that this map features a new outline for the Yawning Portal, although I think it can actually be interpreted in two different ways. This map was never reproduced at a large scale (nor was it made for such) and is more or less useless for our purposes.įinally we have the 5 th Edition poster map produced for Waterdeep: Dragon Heist: I am fairly certain that the next map of Waterdeep was found in the 4 th Edition Forgotten Realms Campaign Guide. You may notice that the shape of the building reverted to the original FR1 map, with a few slight differences. It shows a rectangular building, although give the style and scale of the map I wouldn’t read too much into that.Ī new map of Waterdeep was created for 3 rd Edition’s City of Splendors sourcebook, and featured the Yawning Portal as building C48: A version of this map in red scale was also reproduced in the manual for the first Eye of the Beholder video game: In 1990, the Forgotten Realms Atlas by Karen Wynn Forstad. FRE3 Waterdeep makes the map even smaller and colors the whole city gray. The map in Volo’s Guide to Waterdeep, similarly, is simply a re-scaled version of the same map. The next map of Waterdeep is found in TM4 City of Waterdeep Trail Map (1989), which is simply recolored version of the FR1 map. The orientation of the map has also been rotated. The Yawning Portal is still Building #4 and it still appears in the same general location (on Rainrun Street between Cook Street and Beinimbra’s Street), but the shape of the building has changed to a simple rectangle: The next exterior map is from the City System boxed set. I’ve enhanced the shape of Building #4 (Yawning Portal) here to make it clear, since the only available scan was done with a potato. ![]() But to fully understand these interior maps, we first need to take a look at the exterior maps of the inn, starting with the Waterdeep city map from FR1 Waterdeep and the North: The first official map of the Yawning Portal’s interior appears in the City System boxed set. Now that we’ve walked through the textual history of the Yawning Portal, let’s take a peek at how the location has been mapped over the years.
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