The Bone Mountains

The Bone Mountains, often shortened to just the Bones are a mountain range that stretched through central Essos, forming a natural barrier between the Free Cities, the ruins of Old Valyria, Slaver's Bay and the Dothraki Sea and the exotic lands of the Far East.

## Geography

The Bone Mountains stretch longitudinally across five hundred leagues, beginning east of Qarth in the south by the Summer Sea. The southernmost Bones are called the Dry Bones because of their lack of water. The Bones north of the Steel Road are known by the Dothraki as the Krazaaj Zasqa. This section extends north through the Realm of the Jhogwin to the Shivering Sea. The Bones cross one hundred leagues from east to west.

The Bones contain rivers, canyons, caverns, and subterranean seas, although few beyond the residents of the three fortress cities of Kayakayanaya, Shamyriana and Bayasbhad have ever mapped them in any great detail.

## Roads

The Bone Mountains present thousands of winding paths and tracks to explorers and traders, but only three roads of any great size truly exist.

* The Steel Road - The Steel Road is the northernmost of the roads that pass through the Bone Mountains. It runs east from Vaes Dothrak, then travels through the Bone Mountains and the Krazaaj Zasqa to the city of Kayakayanaya, which lies on the eastern side of the mountain range. It then travels around the Great Sand Sea and south to Trader Town, west of the Shrinking Sea. The Steel Road is named after the many battles which have occurred in its vicinity.
* The Stone Road - The Stone Road is the central of the three roads that pass through the Bones. Originating in Vaes Dothrak, it runs from the ruined cities Adakhakileki and Vaes Jini through the northern Bone Mountains to Shamyriana, which lies on the eastern side of the mountain range.
* The Sand Road - The Sand Road passes through the southern Bone Mountains. It travels north from Qarth through the desert of the Red Waste, and next heads east through the Dry Bones to the fortress city of Bayasabhad, which lies on the eastern side of the mountain range. It then travels around the Great Sand Sea to Tiqui. The Sand and Steel Roads meet at Trader Town, west of the Shrinking Sea.

## Cities

Each of the main roads is guarded by a fortress-city, build by the Patriarchs of Hyrkoon, rulers of the eponymous empire that existed around the fertile region now marked on maps as the Great Sand Sea. Each of the fortress cities was built to guard the western lands of Essos from the savages, cannibals and demons rumoured to live beyond.

* Kayakayanaya - Positioned on the Steel Road, its walls black basalt, black iron, and yellow bone.
* Shamyriana - Found on the Stone Road, the city's wall are grey, carved into the very rock of the mountains it defends.
* Bayasabhad - The southernmost of the cities and found upon the Sand Sand, the fortress is made of a mixture of white sandstone, grey rock and bronze.

## People

The cities are known for their warrior maids who wear iron rings in their nipples and rubies in their cheeks who defend their cities out of the belief that only those who give birth are permitted to take life at will.

The three cities are ruled by the Great Fathers. Their daughters learn to ride and climb before they learn to walk and are trained in the arts of bow, spear, knife, and sling from the earliest age. Meanwhile, ninety nine of every hundred boys, the sons of the Great Fathers, are gelded when they reach the age of manhood and live out their lives as eunuchs, serving their cities as scribes, priests, scholars, servants, cooks, farmers, and craftsmen. Only the most promising males, the largest, strongest, and most comely, are permitted to mature, breed, and become Great Fathers in their turn. Maester Naylin in his *Rubies and Iron* speculates on the circumstances that led to such customs.

Over the centuries the city has faced countless assaults from the Jogos Nhai, a result of an ancient war between the Patrimony of Hyrkoon and the zorse-riders of the plains, which saw thousands of Hyrkoon carried off into slavery and many more Jogos Nhai sacrificed to the gods of Hyrkoon.

## Recent History

Rumours of a number of trading caravans being set upon as they pass through the Sand Road have started to spread on the lips of the Qartheen, and from there the ports and harbours of the Known World. Those more sensible assume that the merchants fell foul to bandits and raiders hiding within the crags, but the devastation and burning wreckages suggest otherwise, according to some.