The Ivory Road is the vast overland trade route that binds the Celestial Empire of Cathay to the distant west, a ribbon of caravanserai and waystations winding across mountain, steppe, and desert. Along it flow silk, jade, tea, and porcelain, carried in armed caravans that may take years to complete a single circuit.
The road is no gentle passage. It skirts the edges of the Mountains of Mourn, where ogre tyrants exact their tolls in flesh, and crosses wastes prowled by beastmen and worse. Merchant-lords hire whole regiments of guards, and even then a caravan may vanish without trace, its bones left to bleach beneath a foreign sun.
For Cathay, the Ivory Road is both artery and shield, spreading the empire's riches while keeping the barbarous west at arm's length. Kislev and the Empire prize the exotic goods that trickle along its length, though few westerners have ever glimpsed the walled cities from which such wonders come.