Gauros

Gauros is a relatively poor tharch with no major cities. The River Gauros flows down from the heights of the Sunrise Mountains and through northeastern Thay before tumbling over the edge of the First Escarpment to carve out the great Gorge of Gauros. From there, it flows into Lake Mulsantir on the nation’s northern border.

Gauros is rocky, rugged, and forbidding, a wild land of dry pine forests and high, barren mesas. Swift, shallow snowmelt rivers from the Sunrises rush through the land, but by midsummer they are reduced to dusty rivulets. Most of the folk in the district are Rashemi woodcutters and goatherds. Ruined towers and empty keeps crown many of the barren hills, the remnants of ancient Raumathar’s foothold on this part of the Thayan plateau. The nearby mountains harbor dangerous monsters, including athachs, chimeras, and bands of feral gnolls.

The ruler of Gauros is Tharch Azhir Kren (NE female human Ftr15). An aggressive general, she is itching to lead Szass Tam’s legions into battle. The zulkir’s fascination with developing trade does nothing but frustrate her. Kren’s troops constantly patrol the Gorge of Gauros, looking for any excuse to launch an invasion of her nation’s northern neighbor, Rashemen. Kren only needs the thinnest of pretexts, and if she doesn’t stumble across one soon, she’ll manufacture the necessary evidence.

Daggertooth Pass

One of only two passes through the Sunrise Mountains, Daggertooth Pass follows the Gauros up to its headwaters and crosses a high saddle to come down in the upper vale of the Murghol, a tributary to the Clearflow of the Endless Wastes. To one side of the main track a knifelike peak looms, the mountain that gives the pass its name. The top of the pass is 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.