Borthal

Borthal is a fictional city appearing in George R.R. Martin's A Song of Ice and Fire series. It is located in the central-western region of Essos, east of the Bone Mountains and north of the Painted Mountains, within the Dothraki Sea.

Borthal is described as a ruined city, one of the many ancient Ghiscari cities that fell to the Dothraki hordes. Unlike Vaes Dothrak, which serves as a gathering place for the Dothraki, Borthal is largely uninhabited and considered a cursed place by the Dothraki.

The city's ruins are rumored to be haunted, and the Dothraki avoid it, believing it to be unlucky to even pass near it. The specific reasons for its desolation and the nature of any potential curses are not explicitly detailed within the books.

While Borthal is mentioned in the main series, it does not feature prominently in the plot and is primarily used to establish the vastness of the Dothraki Sea and the destructive force of the Dothraki khalasars. Its existence contributes to the world-building of Essos and highlights the contrast between the nomadic Dothraki culture and the ruined civilizations they displaced.