Hundreds of years have passed since the defenders of the City of Greyhawk last faced a enemy army. Though the city triumphed then, it is far better prepared to repel an invasion should the same thing happen these days. The Old City’s walls have been reinforced to the standards of the New City’s walls, built just after Zagig Yragerne’s reign. The city walls are now 30 feet high along their entire length except at the gates, gate houses, and towers. Huge granite blocks were fitted tightly together by dwarf and human stonemasons, the walls measuring 18 feet wide at the base and 10 feet wide at the top. The top of the walls has a walkway for sentries, with an inside and outside parapet. Access to the top is permitted at each gate house, but secret compartments are placed along the inside wall every 300 feet, in which a dozen ladders are stored per compartment. The total length of the outside walls, excluding those of the Grand Citadel, is about 12,400 feet; the Grand Citadel is surrounded by about 2,800 feet of wall.

Two additional walls divide the city into three parts. The Nobles’ Wall to the north sets apart the High and Garden Quarters from the rest of the city, and the Black Wall (soot-stained by countless old fires from stoves, ceremonies, and mass conflagrations) separates the Old City (Thieves’ and Slum Quarters) to the south from the New City. The Nobles’ Wall is also called the Upper or New Wall, and the Black Wall the Lower or Old Wall. The Nobles’ Wall is almost 2,500 feet long, and the Black Wall just over1,800 feet.

In the daytime, one watchman of the Greyhawk Militia is placed every 300 feet along the top of the surrounding wall. At night, two sentries stand every 150 feet along the top, and torches are kept lit there by the Lamplighters’ Guild, alternating every 150 feet with the sentries (sentries thus have torches 75 feet to the left and right of them). In practical terms, about 65 sentries are on the wall during the daytime, give or take a dozen depending on circumstances. At night, this number rises to over 250. The exact numbers of sentries on the wall at any time is kept secret.

By law, no one can build a structure that uses a city wall as one of the structure’s walls. (This keeps anyone from tunneling through or otherwise harming a wall.) A minimum distance of 5 feet is required between the city walls and interior buildings.

Roger Moore. Greyhawk, The Adventure Begins. 1996

Gem of the Flanaess