The House of Inspired Hands was a temple of Gond in Waterdeep.
Description
The temple of Gond is open and abuzz with activity during daylight hours, then closes from sunset until sunrise. At night, acolytes retire to their private quarters to work on pet projects.
The temple was located in the Sea Ward on the south side of Shark Street, at the corner with Seawatch Street.
This temple was three-stories tall.
Construction
The House of Inspired Hands consists of a complex of four main structures enclosed by a high wall of ancient fitted granite blocks covered with the black ash of old burning and the lush growth of crawling ivy and moss.
The wall is pierced in three places, the Main Gate, on Seawatch Street, is the ceremonial entrance to the main cathedral of the temple, and the most used by the general public and vistors. The South Postern Door opens onto Gondswatch Lane, and is the most heavily used by the acolytes and crafts-folk that frequent the inner courtyard, and the Trades Gate is the large, double wooden-beamed entrance for the heavily laden wagons of wood, stone, and metal ingots used in the temple's active creative ventures.
The Exhibition Hall
By far the largest and most impressive structure of the temple is the so-called "Exhibition Hall", the main cathedral of the holy complex. A regular pentagon shaped building, it's eastern and south-eastern faces form the outer wall of the complex on those two sides. The most memorable feature of the outer wall of this structure is facade surrounding the Main Gate.
Unlike the rest of the temple, which is composed of a combination of grey granite, black marble, and speckled gray marble, this wall, enclosed by a portico of heavy Doric columns, is composed entirely of a single sheet of transparent glass-steel, within which spin thousands of brass cogs and gears in an intricate and perpetual dance. The cogs range from the simple to the ornate, as well as from the tremendous (60' across), to the tiny (1/16" across). The enormous 40' tall brass doors are likewise fitted with perpetually spinning gears and cogs on both sides, and are opened and closed remotely.
The floor of the chamber is tiled in black and gray marble depicting a complicated pattern of whorls and arcs set within a circle bounded by the columns at the corner of the pentagon. The light of the sun shines through a weather-shrouded gap in the upper dome and is focused upon an ever moving point along the swirls and arcs upon the floor. The circle around the room is inscribed with numbers and degree inscriptions, allowing the astute mathematician or cartographer to discern that the whole floor is a massive time-piece for determining the exact time in any point on Eridil should one know the cartographic coordinate system.