Unapproachable East.pdf - The Forgotten Realms

a little more than 9,000 feet above sea level, and heavy snows
linger on the shaded northern sides of the peaks all year long.
In some years, the Daggertooth is completely impassable.
The narrow and steep track is unsuitable for anything approaching
the size of an army, which is why the Tuigans have
never troubled the Thayans by this route. The zulkirs maintain
a sinister fortress called Chur-Gathos a little way down
from the saddle on the Thayan side. This cold, lonely outpost
is reserved for those soldiers unlucky enough to earn a posting
in one of the worst spots in the land.
GORGE OF GAUROS
Well over 100 miles in length, the Gorge of Gauros cleaves
the First Escarpment in a maze of deep, narrow canyons, dividing
the plateau of Thay from the Mulsanyaar Plateau in
Rashemen. Here the river Gauros joins a number of smaller
streams racing down from the heights of the Sunrise Mountains.
The northeast corner of the Plateau of Thay is more
than 4,000 feet above sea level, and the Mulsantir basin has
an elevation of about 1,500 feet, so the gorge averages half
a mile or more in depth. It is about twenty miles wide for
most of its length, its floor divided by numerous side-canyons,
nameless cascades, and crumbling plinths of rock scoured by
ancient floodwaters.
The Gorge of Gauros blocks all north and south travel east
of Lake Mulsantir, except for a narrow strip along the foot
of the escarpment right by the lakeshore. It is one of Rashemen’s
most effective defenses against Thayan attack. The
gorge is home to a number of monsters, including a very old
female red dragon named Magrevystala, who lairs in a dry
hanging valley somewhere in its heart.
High Thay
Also known as the Plateau of Ruthammar or (mistakenly) the
Thaymount, High Thay is that portion of the country above
the Second Escarpment and below the Thaymount proper.
Little is known of this land outside of Thay: Foreigners are
not permitted to travel there except under the direct escort
of a Red Wizard, and the Red Wizards do not bring outsiders
to this portion of their land without very good cause.
While the center of High Thay is dominated by the ice-clad
volcanoes of the Thaymount, a ring of cool, fertile highlands
surround the smoking mountains. This higher plateau is only
a dozen miles wide on its eastern side, but in other places it
is a broad, lightly forested highland almost 100 miles across.
Like the Plateau of Thay below, the land consists of low mesas
separated by broad, rolling plains, but High Thay is cooler and
more humid than the lands below and supports pine forests,
vineyards, and great orchards of fruit trees. High Thay climbs
steeply upward as one travels toward the Thaymount, and the
foothills could be called mountains in any other land.
For centuries, High Thay has been the refuge of the land’s
masters. Mulan noble families, high clerics of the faiths of
Bane, Cyric, or Kossuth, and of course prominent Red Wizards
THAY
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own vast estates on this high plateau. The Thayans do not
build great cities here, although a number of well-ordered
towns populate the southern and western regions of the
plateau. Most of these powerful Thayans are absentee landlords,
spending their time in the cities of greater Thay and
only retreating to their estates to escape the late-summer heat
of the lower plateau.
Portions of High Thay, particularly the foothills and the
northerly and eastern reaches downwind of the Thaymount,
are quite barren, covered with ash falls from the volcanoes.
These lands are unsettled except for the occasional Red
Wizard determined to raise a tower in a particularly desolate
spot. Wild gnolls, orcs, and other humanoids haunt these lands,
mostly because the Red Wizards find them useful stock for
their armies and have not made any concerted effort to exterminate
them.
Lapendrar
Hezass Nymar (NE male human Clr8 of Kossuth) is the tharchion
of Lapendrar. This tharch begins at the southeastern
edge of the Second Escarpment and rolls down to the borders
of Thesk and Aglarond. This territory features many important
cities, including Nethentir, Nethjet, Amruthar, and Escalant.
The River Umber flows through this territory before
reaching Aglarond, while the River Lapendrar forms the
tharch’s southern border until it empties into the Wizards’
Reach. The Eastern Way, one of the two major roads connecting
the southern portions of Thay, bisects this tharch.
Lapendrar is one of the least strongly held of all the
tharchs. Its border with Aglarond is constantly disputed, and
its largest city, Amruthar, is nominally independent of Thay.
This suits Nymar, who craftily maintains a compassionate and
generous manner unknown in the other tharchs. Many of his
fellows condemn Nymar as a well-connected weakling, but in
truth he is a master of treachery—most of his victims don’t
even realize it was he who orchestrated their downfall. Nymar
rules his tharch from an elegant palace of white marble in the
city of Escalant (the most recent addition to the Thayan
Empire) although he spends much of his time in Eltabbar,
scheming against his peers.
Plateau of Thay
The Plateau of Thay includes everything within the First Escarpment,
a long line of sheer cliffs surrounding the interior
portion of the country, although the lands above the Second
Escarpment—High Thay and the Thaymount—are distinctly
different. The distance between the First and Second
Escarpments ranges from little more than twenty miles on
the western edge overlooking Nethentir to nearly 200 miles
in the southeast and northeast reaches.
The First Escarpment guards Thay from attack and has
daunted many who contemplated invasion. The natural walls
are a better defense than any army. The cliffs are honeycombed
with tunnels, barracks, and fortresses carved directly