The Wide
By law, all commercial buying and selling not done in a licensed and taxed establishment must be conducted in the Wide, the city’s most prominent civic space and public market. Every morning sees an influx of vendors setting up their stalls and taking deliveries from a small army of porters. Every sunset, vendors cart their unsold wares back out, or pay exorbitantly expensive warehouse storage fees.
In the hours between, the Wide hosts a vibrant, crowded market where fortune-tellers and con artists sit beside dealers hawking spices, fish, furs, perfumes, and every other luxury good to be found across the continent and beyond. Despite its crowds, the Wide is well regulated, the Watch keeping a sharp eye out for pickpockets. Street musicians are forbidden on pain of heavy fines and expulsion from the market, so the Wide proves more subdued than the chaotic markets of the Outer City. Quiet performers, such as puppeteers and sleight-of-hand tricksters, are common.
Jedren Hiller, the Bailiff of the Wide, is a lawful evil male human bandit who assigns stall placements to merchants each morning. Longtime regulars and merchants who reside in the Upper City get most of the prime placements, while those who are less established—or stingy with Hiller’s expected bribes—get undesirable places in the less trafficked corners. The bailiff’s corruption is legendary in Baldur’s Gate, but few merchants see any alternative to greasing his palms, particularly as the profits from a good day’s trade vastly outweigh the losses.
Statue of Minsc and Boo. For years the Wide hosted one of the city’s most cherished landmarks: the Beloved Ranger, a statue of a powerful warrior in plate mail wearing a cheerful grin and cradling a hamster in his hands. Recently, though, the statue was revealed to be the Rashemi hero, Minsc, and his “miniature giant space hamster” companion, Boo, trapped under the effects of petrifying magic. When the magic was dispelled, it freed the heroes to walk the world once more but robbed the Wide of a bit of its charm. The merchants complained loudly, and a replacement statue of Minsc and Boo was promptly commissioned and set atop the pedestal where the actual heroes stood for years.