It can be a dangerous venture to trek across the lands of civilization.
Petty banditry or piracy are a common occurrence in even the greatest cities and ports,
giving pause to any would-be traveller. To journey beyond the meager protection of any city guard or
patrol is another thing entirely. Adventurers like Lomas Longstrider have become famous for their
travels simply by avoiding death and bringing back wonderous stories. Descriptions of the Golden
Empire of Yi Ti, the festival city of Chroyane, the ruined Mazes of Lorath, and a thousand other
wonders have inspired every manner of explorer to seek out fame and wealth in the uncharted places
of the world. Most find only disappointment. It is uncommon that reality meets the expectations
set by romanticized accounts or half remembered myths and legends. There is however a place where
the stories told are largely true, and it is for this reason that very few have ever sailed there.
Beneath the world dwells a land home to only disease and death, the continent of Sothoryos.
From the time that men first set forth across the oceans to map their world,
they have been aware of a vast and savage southern continent.
Only the width of the Summer Sea isolates Sothoryos from the ports of Westeros and
Essos - an arduous journey, but hardly an impossible one. And yet despite its relative
proximity to the ancient civilizations and great cities of the world, little is known of this land.
Even now, its true size remains a mystery. Maps found in Qarth showed it to be a great island,
but no ship has ever found the bottom of it. The Ghiscari believed it twice the size of Westeros,
but when the dragonrider Jaenara Belaerys flew further than any who had gone before,
she returned to Valyria three years later declaring Sothoryos to be a “land without end.''
Its interior is likewise a mystery, covered in an impenetrable jungle, marked only by enormous
swamps and sluggish, sun-baked rivers. The very air of these jungles is filled with a foul miasma.
Studies of travellers accounts from across the centuries would indicate that 9 of
10 Westerosi men to visit Sothoryos would contract some terrible ailment,
with half their number perishing from them. Blood boils, brownleg, wormbone,
sailor’s bane, pus eye, and yellowgum are just some of the diseases rampant here,
many so virulent they can wipe out entire ship’s companies or settlements.
Disease is hardly the only danger. The rivers and swamps of Sothoryos
are said to be filled with enormous crocodiles who have learned to overturn
boats and devour their occupants. Even gentle streams contain swarms of carnivorous fish,
able to strip the flesh from a man’s bones in minutes. Putrid flies, poisonous snakes,
and insects which lay their eggs beneath the skin of men and horse alike dwell in the trees above.
Basilisk Point, the westernmost peninsula of Sothoryos, is well named,
for it is home to huge numbers of the creatures, some small, and others twice the size of lions.
Further south are the territories known as the Green Hell, where even more dangerous
creatures are said to live. Pale white vampire bats who can drain a man of blood in seconds,
tattooed lizards that rip apart their prey with long curved claws, snakes 50 feet long, apes large
enough to crush elephants beneath them and spotted spiders whose webs can encase entire trees.
Most terrible of all are the Wyverns. With great leathery wings and sharp, protruding beaks,
they might easily be mistaken for dragons. Wyverns are smaller than their extinct cousins,
but much more ferocious. In Sothoryos, multiple varieties are present, from the distinct jade and
white Brindled Wyverns, to the larger, lumbering swamp wyverns, and the nocturnal shadow-wings.
With such overwhelming dangers, it is no surprise that every major settlement on Sothoryos has
failed. The Ghscari in the era of their old empire raised the walled city of Zamettar and grim penal
colony of Gorosh. Valyria thrice established colonies on Basilisk Point. In every case however,
these settlements have withered and died. Only Zamettar lasted longer than a generation,
but today it is now a haunted ruin, slowly being reclaimed by the jungles around it.
Only a smaller collection of meager trading towns cling to the northern coasts,
wet, humid, and full of misery. They are home mainly to adventurers,
rogues, and exiles from the free cities of Westeros, desperate to make their fortunes.
There can be no doubt that many riches exist in Sothoryos, but for every man who returns
with gold, gems, pearls, or precious spices, a hundred more are never heard from again.
Perhaps however, it is the mysteries of the continent that spur so many to
abandon their comfortable lives and trek into the darkest jungles of the world.
The ruins of Yeen are proof that a great civilization once resided here.
An enigma constructed entirely of an oily black stone, in blocks so large a dozen
elephants would be needed to move them. It has persisted in desolation for thousands of years,
yet the surrounding jungle has not touched it. Every attempt to resettle the city has
ended in horror, its settlers devoured by lizard men or eyeless cave dwellers.
No proof exists of such creatures, save the account of Nymeria, Princess of the Rhoynar
whose vast fleet of refugees sought safety in Sothoryos. A few of her people were said to have
settled in Yeen, only to endure constant attacks by bridled ghouls and cannibals from the jungles.
Their fate remains unknown, for the final ship sent down-river to aid them reported they had
vanished from Yeen entirely. And Nymeria named it a city so evil, that even the jungle will not
enter. And so the city waits, a mystery among many in the savage continent of Sothoryos.