Gorge of Death

Five regions of the Western Continent in Trash of the Count's Family are marked forbidden, and the Gorge of Death is the only one of the five that people claim to understand at all. It is a vast tear in the land dividing the continent's North from its Central region, swept by winds that never stop and ranked the most dangerous gorge on the continent. Its shape does the real work: moving any large body of people through it is close to impossible, which quietly dictates the continent's politics, since the northern powers cannot simply march south. At its far end lies the Forest of Darkness, another of the forbidden five, so the two hazards together draw a wall across the map. Understood, in this case, means only that people know where it is and what it does to those who enter.