Eel’s End is a clot of ships at the eastern end of the Narrows on Old Korvosa, a tangle of five ships permanently moored to one of the longer piers there. With only a 20-foot gap between these ships and the wall to the south, Eel’s End effectively restricts entry into the Narrows from the east to all but the smallest vessels.

Although Eel’s End consists of five decommissioned ships of varying sizes, the entire area is referred to as one location by Korvosans—a location under the rule of a man named Devargo Barvasi, known to many as the King of Spiders for
his strange empathy with the long-legged creatures. The four smaller ships that comprise Eel’s End are the Goldenhawk (now a flophouse for drunkards and derelicts to sleep it off ), the Twin Tigers (a raucous gambling hall), the House of Clouds (a brothel), and the Dragon’s Breath (a drug den). The proprietors of these establishments pay significant rent to Devargo.

The largest of the five is Eel’s End itself, a decommissioned warship that serves as Devargo’s headquarters and the base of operations for his various underground pursuits. Devargo maintains just enough legality to keep the Korvosan Guard from interfering with all of the businesses in Eel’s End, but at the same time his regulations of what goes on here are far more strict (and his punishments far more severe) than anything the Guard themselves would enforce.