Ashanath
With the exception of the trade-town of Kront at its north end, this plain is completely uninhabited by humanoids. Grassy with rich dark soil and a few small herds of wild oxen and ponies roaming its length, the Ashanath is an untouched breadbasket. Resources are so plentiful in this area that they easily could support a large city-state such as those along the Moonsea, but people do not settle here because of the frequent tornadoes that tear up the earth for miles at a stretch. Regardless of the season or ambient weather conditions, this territory experiences dozens of tornadoes a year—sometimes as often as once a tenday.
The Red Wizards of Thay use magic to ensure good weather for their slave-farmed crops, and many believe the strange storms in the Ashanath are a side effect of this artificial weather, or an attempt by nature to balance out the magically induced tranquility in Thay. In any case, the Rashemi avoid this area and do not consider it part of their territory. The only time they cross the River Mulsantir and go through the Ashanath is when traveling to Thesk. Theskian druids have imbued large boulders on the plain with spells that detect turbulent weather, so they have a limited awareness of when the storms are active. Fortunately, it is very rare for the tornadoes to reach the Golden Way or cross Lake Ashane.
About twenty miles north of Kront, on the shores of the lake, lie the ruins of a great city. Known locally as the City of Weeping Ghosts, this place was once Shandaular, capital of the petty Nar realm of Ashanath. The Nentyarch of ancient Tharos destroyed Shandaular almost two thousand years ago, the final step in the unification of ancient Narfell. The place is haunted by many dangerous undead, including at least one nightshade.
Ashanath consists of the high, windswept plains leading up to the eastern border of Thesk, Lake Ashane. This region is almost entirely empty of habitation, even though it has the potential to be the most fertile land in all the Unapproachable East. Monstrous windstorms and cyclones (born of the Red Wizards’ manipulation of the weather to moderate the climate of the Plateau of Thay) roar through the region in all seasons of the year, preventing all but the most foolhardy from putting down stakes here.
Two towns frame the Ashanath, one to the north and another to the south. In the north, Kront stands where the Great Road meets the Cold Road. The people here make their living by serving the needs of travelers who pass through. Destructive storms hammer the town at least once or twice a year, but every building features a cellar into which the place’s inhabitants escape when an incoming tornado is spotted.
Life is much the same in Two Stars to the south. Built where the Golden Way meets the Cold Road, Two Stars is literally the crossroads of commerce in the East. The crossing to Rashemen lies only twenty miles east of the town, and in spring, when the River Mulsantir’s ice has not yet broken but has grown too dangerous to attempt, eastbound caravans fill the inns and hostels of the town to bursting.
