#sothoryos

Make a ASOIAF game but where you can explore Essos, whats beyond Bone Mountains and Sothoryos and my life is yours

For those of you who need a recap of what Sothoryos is like (pulled directly from the ASOIAF wiki):

So mainly I was thinking of Barsoom for Hyrkoon - the sharp contrast between harsh environments and opulent cities, the ultraviolence between the Jogos Nhai and the Hyrkoon similar to the various Martian races, the dress code of the warrior women, the All Amazons Want Hercules approach to gender roles, the ultraviolent conflict between the Jhogos Nhai and the Hyrkoon is quite similar to the conflicts between the different Martian peoples, etc. (Although there's also some Moorcock and Howard there too.)

“Instead he had broken the great fleet into squadrons, and sent each by a different route to Slaver's Bay. The swiftest ships he gave to Red Ralf Stonehouse to sail the corsair's road along the northern coast of Sothoryos. The dead cities rotting on that fervid, sweltering shore were best avoided, every seamen knew, but in the mud-and-blood towns of the Basilisks Isles, teeming with escaped slaves, slavers, skinners, whores, hunters, brindled men, and worse, there were always provisions to be had for men who were not afraid to pay the iron price.” —ADWD The Iron Suitor

       by Shella Longclaw

It’s the home of wyverns, which are known to be vicious and considered the smaller cousin of dragons. There is a reason that ancient Valyria stuck to the isles and didn’t venture again onto Sothoryos. Wyverns aren’t the most dangerous creature native to there. They have enemies. The large crocodiles called suchus by the Ghiscari have been seen to devour wyverns. Suchus have also been reported to kill dragons though only medium to small ones. They are said to live in the Green Hell.  

The giant snakes, titans (their Valyrian name) can slay any size dragons. Emperor Chai Nui wrote down what happened to the Valyrian colony. He had a terrible argument with the dragonlords on the eve of the battle against the Brindled Men, so he refused to come to the aid of the Valyrians. The two dragonlords flew low to the ground to burn the Brindled Men. Unbeknownst to anyone, the Dapple Men coaxed the titans over. The monsters lunged at the dragon from great heights and coiled around the dragons’ necks. The dragons fell died to the ground. Their riders soon perished with them. When the Valyrians saw their dragons fall, they quickly fled, and they never returned.

I will not waste time discussing the better-known wyverns and basilisks. Instead, we’ll look at the white bats and tattooed lizard. Neither creature is dangerous or violent. The tattooed lizard, called goanna by the Summer Islanders, are simple scavengers that only consumed dead things. The white bats don’t drink a man’s blood. They do drink cattle’s blood and are deadly, since it is believed they spread sicknesses.

It is believed that some wasps and stinging flies are more deadly than basilisks because they easily spread illness. Very few travelers have survived to describe any deadly insect except for the unicorn fly.

But there were dragons in Westeros, once, long before the Targaryens came, as our own legends and histories tell us. If dragons did first spring from the Fourteen Flames, they must have been spread across much of the known world before they were tamed. And, in fact, there is evidence for this, as dragon bones have been found as far north as Ib, and even in the jungles of Sothoryos. 

— The World of Ice and Fire, Ancient History: The Rise of Valyria 

Warning, Spoilers Ahead…

   Garin’s forces have been annihilated by the Valyrians. Nymeria, the princess of Ny Sar, knew she needed to leave before the Valyrians arrived or her city would suffer the same fate.

Ny Sar no longer had any fighting men as they had left and died with Garin. Nymeria gathered all the remaining ships – large and small. Legends state the fleet consisted of 10,000 ships but there was no accurate count.

Nymeria led the fleet down the Rhoyne, “past ruined and smoking towns and fields of the dead, through waters choked with bloated, floating corpses.” Nymeria and her fleet used an older channel of the Rhoyne and emerged into the Summer Sea.

The fleet consisted of river crafts, skiffs, poleboats, trading galleys, fishing boats, pleasure barges, and rafts. Most weren’t seaworthy and were crammed full of women, children, and old men.

Many ships were lost in the voyage. Some sank in storms. Others turned back only to be captured and enslaved by the Valyrians. Others fell behind and were never seen again.

Nymeria’s fleet first arrived in the Basilisk Isles only to battle the corsair kings of Ax Isle, Talon, and the Howling Mountain. Nymeria lost twoscore ships and hundreds of Rhoynar were carried off into slavery.

The corsairs offered Nymeria a deal: The Rhoynar would be allowed to settle on the Isle of Toads if they gave up their boats and sent each king thirty virgin girls and pretty boys yearly as tribute. Nymeria refused and took her fleet to sea again.

Nymeria’s next stop was “the steaming jungles of Sothoryos”. “Some settled on Basilisk Point, others beside the glistening green waters of the Zamoyos, amongst quicksands, crocodiles, and rotting, half-drowned trees. Princess Nymeria herself remained with the ships at Zamettar, a Ghiscari colony abandoned for a thousand years, whilst others made their way upriver to cyclopean ruins of Yean, haunt of ghouls and spiders.”

Sothoryos has a few benefits – gold, gems, rare woods, exotic pelts, queer fruits, strange spices – but the Rhoynar did not flourish. The heat was sullen and oppressive. The stinging flies brought one disease after the other: green fever, the dancing plague, blood boils, weeping sores, and sweetrot. The Zamoyos River was infested with carnivorous flesh, and “tiny worms that laid their eggs in the flesh of swimmers”.

The towns on Basilisk Point were raided by slavers, the populations either killed or carried off by the slavers. Yeen suffered attacks from the “brindled ghouls of the jungle deeps”.

Most of the afflictions are typical of tropical areas – especially for people unused to the climate. The dancing plague intrigues me – was it like the dancing plague of Europe? And the ghouls – are they actual supernatural creatures or simply strange animals?  

The Rhoynar lasted a year in Sothoryos before they reached their breaking point. One day a boat from Zamettar arrived at Yeen to find that every member of the town had vanished without a trace. Shades of Roanoke? Despite the mystery surrounding Roanoke, the most likely theory is the citizens of Roanoke assimilated with a nearby native tribe to avoid death by starvation. Where did the natives of Yeen go? Were they taken by a mass ghoul attack and turned into yum-yums? Did slavers abduct the entire population? Did they decide to ditch the rest of the Rhoynar and head out to sea?

Nymeria summoned her remaining people and returned to the sea.  They spent three years sailing the southern seas.

They landed on Naath, the Isle of Butterflies. The natives were a peaceful people who welcomed the newcomers. The Naath gods, however, were all “nope” and struck down the Rhoynar with a “nameless mortal illness”. Back to the ships!

The Rhoynar next settled on an “uninhabited rock off the eastern shore of Walano”, which became known as the Isle of Women. Unfortunately, the stony soil yielded little food, and many died from starvation.

By this point, the Rhoynar were desperate and frustrated. Nymeria commanded a return to the boats and a portion of the group decided to follow Druselka, a priestess who felt Mother Rhoyne was calling her children home. Druselka and her followers returned to Rhoyne only to encounter the Valyrians. They were hunted down, slain, or enslaved.

Nymeria decided to sail towards Westeros.

There is a possibility of HBO ordering a Ten Thousand Ships series based on Nymeria’s travels.  The fans’ reception to the idea seems lukewarm. I admit it’s not the highest spot on my list of potential adaptations but here are my benefits of a potential show:

·         The demonstration of the entitlement of the destruction fueled Valyrian Freehold. The series should begin with the final destruction of the Rhoynar. There is a perception that Valyria was a mythical place of wonder. The reality is it was an empire based on slavery, blood magic, colonization, destruction, and genocide that annihilated the actual mythical place of wonder. Dany’s (poorly written) show finale in King’s Landing is a typical Valyrian response to defiance: destroy everything in sight, damn the innocents caught in the crossfire. “Fire and Blood” is more than the Targaryen house words – it’s a Valyrian way of life.

·         An exploration of Nymeria beyond “mythical warrior woman”.  What was the reality behind the legend?

·         Pirate battles!

·         The horrors of Sothoryos!

·         Naath. Just to see show-only fans go “Wait, wasn’t that where Grey Worm and the Unsullied went to?”

·         I assume the last season of the show would be Nymeria’s arriving in Dorne and marrying Mors Martell.  Show--fans will finally have a non-irritating Dornish storyline.