Malar’s Throat is a slum district located outside Port Nyanzaru’s main walls, characterized by its dramatic geography and precarious living conditions.
Geography and Layout
The district occupies a deep ravine flanked by two sheer, jungle-draped ridges. Ramshackle buildings cling precariously to the ridge sides, stacked atop one another in haphazard construction. During heavy rains, runoff flows down the ravine, through Ubtao’s Jaws (the large gate facing the district), and down to the harbor—often carrying baskets, dead animals, and occasionally unfortunate residents with it.
Rope and bamboo footbridges span the ravine, some stretching over 200 feet in length and swaying 100 feet above ground. Skilled thieves use these bridges to their advantage, dropping hooks on thin lines to steal purses from victims below.
Population and Living Conditions
Approximately half of Port Nyanzaru’s population lives outside the main walls, including those in Malar’s Throat. Residents are constantly exposed to attacks by carnivores and undead. A volunteer citizens’ brigade watches for danger, sounding warning horns to signal when residents should flee to the Market Ward or Merchants’ Ward for safety.
The district is one of three slums outside the walls (along with the Old City and Tiryki Anchorage), and is generally regarded as the city’s primary slum district.
Temple of Tymora (Location 24)
The district’s only refuge is the Temple of Tymora, a sturdy blockhouse built of heavy stone. Though not architecturally elegant, it serves as a critical safe haven when floodwaters surge through Malar’s Throat or when alarm horns announce approaching undead. Residents don’t consider themselves particularly lucky, but they attribute what fortune they have to the Lady’s presence among them.
Black Market
Malar’s Throat is one of three locations where characters can access Port Nyanzaru’s secretive black market (the others being the Old City and Tiryki Anchorage). The merchant princes harshly crack down on competitors, making the black market highly clandestine. Contacting black marketeers requires half a day and a successful DC 15 Charisma (Deception) check.
The guides River Mist and Flask of Wine, tabaxi siblings working with the Zhentarim, prefer to meet potential clients only in Malar’s Throat or seedier houses in Tiryki Anchorage, avoiding the more regulated parts of the city.