Caught some similar themed stuff here:
http://keith-baker.com/firearms-in-eberron/
Paragraphs of text justifying why 'for reasons' the firearm equivalents in the setting are still not quite good enough to make fighting with bows and swords by PC's obsolete...
If he had just said:
"Because D&D" it would have saved him a lot of typing.
Firearms took quite a while to obsolete melee weapons and bows.
He also goes into detail on how DMs can use the setting conceit that industry is magical, rather than technological, and specifically how that might mean that the Eberron crossbow is much more advanced with magically crafted reloading mechanism and more powerful arms, or any number of other things, but none of it is necessary to make the setting believable.
Between the:
Griffon Cavalry - Elite airbourne division of the City Guard, led by Lord Moedt.
City Guard - Waterdeep's army, patrolling the city and the surrounding countryside.
City Navy - The force assigned to protect the seas around the city and the busy merchant shipping lanes.
City Watch - The police force of the city, with powers of arrest over its citizens.
Gray Hands - An elite force of adventurers answering directly to the Lords of Waterdeep, for those who need a more powerful option.
Waterdeep is a city with a standing army. It makes no sense that the undermountain would be allowed to remain a hazard to the city and its tax paying citizens.
Literally only Force Grey and the like would even
survive a trip into Undermountain.
And here’s the thing.
In real life, about 3 million people live with 20 miles of Mt. Vesuvius. It
will explode again, and that event
will result in thousands of completely avoidable deaths.
Because people ignore danger that isn’t in their face. Every day. Throughout history, in every region of the world, regardless of culture. So you are claiming, presumably with a straight face, that it is
unbelievable that a city would ignore the danger of a thing that they never see, that rarely actually threatens the city, and that actively makes the city money?
Really!?
I’m flabbergasted. You’re objectively wrong. Absolutely they would largely ignore under mountain.
They’d have to throw most of the lives of all the forces you listed to do anything permanent about it, it threatens the city very rarely,
and it’s one of the main reasons there are so many adventurers in the city in the first place.
I just cannot fathom the idea that anyone could find it unbelievable that people would be illogical and shortsighted, en masse.