The Lion's Path is a route that runs through the poison forest from Ur to Last Home. It begins at the Lion Gate of Ur, and then turns Counter, running through thick jungle, before turning Daywards to climb the slopes towards Last Home. Along the way it connects many smaller villages and settlements.
The Lion's Path has a grand beginning, and a grand end. Each extremity of the route is metalled with flagstones, and flanked by a dozen pairs of carved Lions arranged on plinths. These are known as the Lion's Sentries, and it is believed that they will come to life to protect the city should an invading army aver attempt to use the road.
The middle section of the route is less auspicious. It crosses countless water channels, and although there are wooden bridges along some of these stretches, much of the road is waterlogged, muddy, or actually a hand's breadth under the water. When the One River floods the road is often entirely impassible, and slave gangs from Ur are constantly dispatched into the Jungle to re-erect the bridges, a thankless task that often leads to casualties.
Indeed, the road is so bad, that most merchants prefer to bypass the bulk of it, taking their cargo by boat between Ur's docks and Lion's Elbow.
The unimpressively named Lion's Elbow is little more than a hamlet in the depths of the Poison Forest. It's claim to fame is that it forms the port closest to Last Home on the Lion's Path. Merchant's routinely use it to load and unload cargo on its way between Last Home and Ur so as to bypass the muddy treachery that is the Lion's Path.
Last Home sits on the edge of the Plateau of the Twilight Lands, overlooking the Drylands, at a point where the cliff down to the plains is particularly shallow. This is, naturally, the route that most travellers take down to the plains. Tax expeditions set out from here towards Darkin, Hellgrass Reach and Harradum. The town is heavily geared towards travellers, with many inns and corrals for Crdlu, as well as a thriving market where Twilight Merchant Satraps exchange goods with plains Caravans. The walls here are of earth reinforced with wood, forming a broad circle around the town. Gatehouses of dressed stone guard the roads in and out of town, while farmland presses close. The heart of the town is the crowded Suk, while temporary rulers and Bonded Ones make their home in the House of the Setting Sun.
Two main routes enter Last Home from the Nightwards, the Corn Road that leads across the plateau to Nistray and the Lion's Path that runs down into the forest and turn turns towards Ur. Ningaur's Steps run Counter-Daywards towards Darkin, while, The Lesser Road runs parallel to the One River, through the Plateau lands. Once The Reachway ran Turn-Daywards towards Hellgrass Reach, but most now join the road upriver at Sword Landing.
Last Home is the main gateway to the Drylands for most traffic from the river valley, and as such is ruled by the Orders of all four great cities. The town is overburdened with officials, Mages and Bonded-Ones, who devote far more time to jockeying for power with each other than they spend on running the town. So long as they do nothing to upset the public appearance of calm and the trade through the town the local Merchant Satraps can do much as they wish. Defence of the city is generally relegated to the town's own force of soldiers, distinctive with their white shields and capes, although armed forces from each of the Cities serve as a supplementary guard for the nobles and Mages. These out-town soldiers change every season, rotating through the four cities over the course of a Short Year.