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gameofmice · 1 month ago

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Ghiscari wars

← PREVIOUS NEXT → Coming of the Andals Gendel and Gorne’s invasion

INFORMATION

PLACE

Valyrian peninsula, Slaver’s Bay, Essos

OUTCOME

Decisive Valyrian victory

Destruction of the old Ghiscari Empire

Slaver’s Bay conquered and colonized by the Valyrian Freehold

Valyrian Freehold establishes itself as the dominant power of Essos.

“Five times did the Ghiscari contend with Valyria, and five times did they go down in defeat. For the Freehold had dragons, and the Empire had none. The best of their legions burned, the others broke. The brick walls of Ghis were pulled down, the streets and buildings turned to ash and the very fields sown with salt, sulfur and skulls.”

JORAH MORMONT

The Ghiscari wars were a series of five great wars in which the upstart Valyrian Freehold clashed with the ancient Ghiscari Empire to determine which would be the dominant power in the continent of Essos.

History

Five thousand years ago, when the Valyrians discovered and tamed dragons and began to conquer outwards, the Ghiscari Empire sought to put a halt to their expansion. The two great rivals vied to be the dominant power in Essos, and in a series of five major wars the massive Ghiscari legions marched against the Valyrians, but each time they were defeated by the Valyrian dragons. Much of the fighting took place in and around the Valyrian peninsula and Slaver’s Bay.

The Valyrians finally defeated the Ghiscari Empire in the fifth and final war, when their armies and their dragons attacked the Empire’s capital city of Ghis. The buildings and streets were burned to ash, and the Valyrians sowed the earth with salt so that nothing would grow again. Five thousand years later, Old Ghis is still a ruin.

In the books

In the A Song of Ice and Fire novels, the five massive wars between the Valyrian Freehold and Ghiscari Empire paved the way for five thousand years of Valyrian dominance of Essos, though it would be another four thousand or so years before they began expanding into the area of the Rhoyne River and modern Free Cities, displacing the Rhoynar people, whose refugees fled to Dorne.

The Ghiscari Wars were fought over a wide area, and even spread to overseas colonies and outposts they maintained. In the third war, the Valyrians conquered the Ghiscari city Gorgai, their main base in the Basilisk Isles, and renamed it Gogossos. In the fourth war, the Valyrians conquered the Ghiscari colony-city Zamettar, the only major city established on mainland Sothoryos. The Sarnori were also drawn into the conflict, a dark-skinned chariot-riding people whose cities were located east of the Free Cities and west of the Dothraki (centuries later after the Doom of Valyria they were wiped out by the Dothraki, becoming the western end of the Dothraki Sea). Independent Sarnori city-states allied with the Valyrians in the second and third wars, though in the fourth war different Sarnori city-states allied fought on either side.

The rivalry between the Valyrian Freehold and the Ghiscari Empire seems to be a narrative echo the Punic Wars between Rome and Carthage, particularly how the Valyrians sowed the fields of Old Ghis with salt so that nothing would grow again (which, according to legend, the Romans did after they destroyed Carthage).

#game of thrones #ghiscariwars #game of thrones lore #lore #history

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gameofmice · 1 month ago

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Coming of the Andals

←PREVIOUS NEXT → Unification of the North Ghiscari wars

INFORMATION

BEGINNING

5700 BC

END

Centuries after 5700 BC

PLACE

All of Westeros south of the Neck Andalos, Essos

OUTCOME

All of Westeros south of the Neck is conquered by the Andals

The North successfully repulses the Andals

Children of the Forest all but exterminated, handful of survivors free to beyond the Wall

“They attacked with fire and weapons of steel, slaughtering the Children of the Forest wherever they could find them, burning out their weirwood graves, hacking away at the faces of the Old Gods, and spreading their own religion through the land.”

BRAN STARK

The coming of the Andals, also known as the Andal invasion, was the migration of the Andals the continent of Westeros from their homeland of Andalos on the eastern continent of Essos, six thousand years before the War of the Five Kings. The migratory invasions of the Andals occurred in waves over many centuries, but by the end they had killed or conquered all of the First Men south of the Neck. By the end of the invasions, the Andals had displaced the First Men as the major ethnic and cultural group of Westeros, to the point that the peoples living in Essos frequently refer to Westeros as the Land of the Andals.

History

Prelude

Andalos in Essos.

The Andals were a tall, fair-haired race whose original homeland was located across the Narrow Sea on the western coast of the continent of Essos, in a region known as Andalos. According to Andal legend, the God of Seven revealed itself to them in the Hills of Andalos, and from this they developed a new religion, the Faith of the Seven. Not long afterward, spurred on by the zeal of their new faith, the Andals set sail across the Narrow Sea to conquer Westeros. Many Andal warriors displayed their devotion by carving the symbol of their faith, the Seven-Pointed Star, into their foreheads.

Invasion

The Andals first came ashore in the Fingers, in what would later be known as the Vale of Arryn. According to legend, Ser Artys Arryn, dubbed “the Winged Knight”, flew atop a giant falcon to the topmost mountain of the Vale and defeated the Griffin King, the last member of the First Men dynasty of the Mountain Kings.

The Andals defeated the First Men throughout the South.

From their initial landing in the Vale, the Andal migrations spread out in waves across Westeros, in a process lasting many centuries. At the time of the coming of the Andals, Westeros was a patchwork of hundreds of small kingdoms of the First Men. Therefore, they did not present a united front of resistance against the Andals, easing their conquest.

The First Men were armed with weapons made of bronze, but the Andals introduced iron and steel weapons to the continent for the first time. Andal military tactics focused on concepts of “knighthood”, producing elite warriors known as “knights” who wore full suits of iron armor while riding into battle on heavy horse. Therefore related concept of “chivalry” spurred on the knights, a code of knightly devotion tied to the Faith of the Seven. The First Men could not withstand the armored shock cavalry assaults of the Andals’ knights. As the Andals conquered the kingdoms of southern Westeros, they aggressively stamped out the worship of the Old Gods by the First Men they conquered, and forced them to convert to their worship of the Seven-faced God.

The Andals are repulsed by the Kings of Winter.

Over the centuries, the Andals conquered all of Westeros except for the North, where the Kings of Winter from the line of House Stark were able to resist their advance, as such, the North continues many traditions brought by the First Men. Any approach to the North has to go through the Neck, a narrow isthmus of land filled with swamps. The ancient fortress of Moat Cailin commands the only major road coming up from the south, making it an ideal choke point for the First Men of the North. For centuries, Andal armies smashed against Moat Cailin like water on rock, but to no avail, North remained unconquered.

The Andals burned the weirwoods and slaughtered the Children of the Forest.

The Andals viewed the magic of the Children of the Forest as an abomination before the God of Seven. They slaughtered the Children wherever they encountered them, and burned the sacred weirwood trees throughout southern Westeros. The Children were never really numerous to begin with, and during the Long Night fighting against the White Walkers they took heavy losses from which they never truly recovered. The coming of the Andals exterminated all but a handful of the few Children of the Forest that remained in Westeros, and after this point they dropped out of history, to the point that six thousand years later may believe they never existed at all. However, the very few survivors fled North of the Wall, into the Cave of the Three-Eyed Raven, out of sight for thousands of years until Bran arrives.

Due to their extra-legal status, the Night’s Watch on the Wall never became directly involved in the coming of the Andals. Partially this was also due to simple geography, as the Andals never reached that far north, but neither did the forces of the Night’s Watch march south to aid the First Men in fighting off the Andals trying to invade from the Neck. For their part, the Andals saw the value in supporting the Night’s Watch and its extra-legal status, to defend against the occasional wildling attack, but also as an outlet for their own younger sons, criminals, or the defeated soldiers in their own wars. The Night’s Watch is sworn to take no part in the petty politics occurring in the realms of men, and eagerly welcomed Andals who volunteered to join their order. Overall, the Night’s Watch was not significantly affected by the coming of the Andals, and the transition of power in the castles of the South troubled them little.

Aftermath

The Andals’ septons converted most of the First Men in southern Westeros to the Faith of the Seven.

After many centuries the “invasions ceased as the new Andal kingdoms carved out of southern Westeros stopped acting in a unified manner and began fighting each other. While wars between the North and southern kingdoms did sporadically take place for thousands of years after this, they were not “invasions” so much as “politics” as usual. The Andal-held Kingdom of the Rock in the Westerlands was just as likely to go to war against the First Men of the North, as they were to go to war against their fellow Andals in the Kingdom of the Reach. As for the South, the exact length of the invasions varied by region, based on how long it took the Andals to subdue an area. In most regions the invasions lasted at least several centuries. The Iron Islands are something of an exception, as they were conquered by the Andal House Hoare some two thousand years after the initial coming of the Andals. Owing to their isolated position off the western coast of the mainland of the last regions of the South to be conquered by the Andals.

After many thousands of years, the religions of the Old Gods and of the New Gods (the Seven) settled into a grudging co-existence. Wars of religion between the followers of the two have thus not occurred in thousands of years.

While the First Men of the North successfully resisted the Andals, in all other areas the Andals became the dominant ethnic and cultural group of Westeros.

The effect of the coming of the Andals upon the indigenous First Men populations varied from region to region. In the Vale of Arryn, which the invasions began, the First Men were practically exterminated (though there are a few exceptions, such as House Royce, which claim descent from the First Men). For thousands of years afterwards, the inhabitants of the Vale would be held to have the purest Andal bloodlines. In the North, of course, the First Men remained independent and the dominant ethnic group, though thousands of years of dynastic marriages with Andal noble houses from the South blurred this to a degree.

In most other regions, the Andals conquered the First Men instead of completely exterminated them, and the Andal nobility ruled over a peasantry of First Men. Over the course of six thousand years of ethnic intermingling these class lines have heavily blurred. Moreover, over thousands of years various Andal noblemen have fallen on hard times and become peasants, while “lowborn” First Men families have worked their way up the social ladder to become noble houses in their own right (either by being wealthy merchants, success in war, etc.). Indeed, many of the original Andal invaders intermarried with the local First Men nobility when they conquered new regions to solidify their claims, so the intermingling was going on from the start. Such as the case in the Westerlands, the Riverlands, the Stormlands, the Reach, and in Dorne. Even Great Houses such as House Lannister possess some First Men blood, through the female line, as the Andal invaders married the descendants of the legendary Lann the Clever. Major noble houses such as House Tully and House Tyrell possess some First Men blood, though they are largely thought of as Andal Houses, particularly because they follow the culture and religion of the Andals.

The Iron Islands are somewhat of an odd case, in that the Andals who conquered it “went native” and just assimilated into the distinctive “Ironborn” culture of the First Men who were already living there, which is created on seafaring and piracy. They even abandoned worship of the Seven and adopted the local religion of the Drowned God. Thus the Ironborn are ethnically similar to the Andal/First Men mix that the rest of the South possesses, but they are culturally distinct. For practical purposes, the coming of the Andals didn’t greatly affect the harsh lifestyle of the Iron Islands, though this did lead to them adopting a few cultural influences from the Andals—such as their language, if not their religion.

Regardless of some local variation and the successful resistance of the First Men in the North, the Andals became the overwhelming dominant ethnic and cultural group living in Westeros. Even the independent First Men living in the North eventually abandoned using their original language, the Old Tongue, and adopted the language of their Andal neighbors, which became used so pervasively throughout Westeros that it is now known simply as the “Common Tongue”. Andal ethnic and cultural influence is so pervasive in Westeros that people living on the eastern continent of Essos now refer to it generically as “The Land of the Andals”.

In the books

When the Andals arrived in the Riverlands, they were divided up into several local kingdoms of the First Men, including ones ruled by House Blackwood, House Bracken, and House Mudd. House Tully also dates back to the time of the First Men, though they did not rule as kings. When the Andals arrived, House Mudd fought against them but in the end was completely destroyed, and their castle left a ruin. Meanwhile, the Blackwoods, Brackens, and Tullys intermarried with the Andals invaders. Indeed, this only served to further the Blackwood-Bracken feud: the Blackwoods tenaciously clung to their worship of the old gods, but the Brackens converted to the religion of the Andal invaders.

The Andals did conquer the region of Dorne, but they did not unify it. Dorne remained a patchwork of dozens of small independent fiefdoms for thousands of years. As in many other regions of Westeros, in Dorne petty Andal kings ruled over the First Men populations, with whom they intermingled and merged ethnically. Five thousand years later the Rhoynar invasion radically reshaped Dorne’s ethnic and cultural makeup, but the Dornishmen inhabiting the inner mountains of Dorne are still primarily descended from the Andal invaders and the First Men.

The Andals introduced the first writing system to Westeros, as the First Men only had oral tradition and a simple set of runes for marking graves. The result is that written history in Westeros only dates back to the coming of the Andals six thousand years ago, and accounts of everything before that—the Age of Heroes, the Long Night—comes from less reliable, half-legendary oral tradition. Of course, “history is written by the winners”, and the history books that the Andals wrote of their “migration” to Westeros makes the Andals the heroes of their own story. For example, Ser Artys Arryn is considered a folk hero by the Andals of the Vale, for valiantly killing the last king of the First Men that used to live there. The accounts of the First Men who survived in the independent North tell a decidedly different story, emphasizing that the Andal invaders slaughtered many of the First Men in their path, conquered the survivors, and crushed their culture by imposing the Andals’ religion of the Seven.

Given that the author George R.R. Martin has said that the story loosely parallels the War of the Roses in fifteenth century Britain, the coming of the Andals is loosely comparable to the Anglo-Saxon invasion of Britain. Just as the First Men were able to stop the Andals from expanding to the North in Westeros, the Celtic people living in Scotland were able to repulse Anglo-Saxon expansion from the south. However, the real-life Anglo-Saxon invaders followed a polytheistic religion and destroyed the Christianized Romano-British society that existed in Britain up to that time. In an inversion, the coming of the Andals introduced the pseudo-Catholic Christian “Faith of the Seven” which supplanted the polytheistic, nature-worshipping religion of the old gods.

#game of thrones #comingoftheandals #lore #history #game of thrones lore

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gameofmice · 1 month ago

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Unification of the North

←PREVIOUS CONCURRENT NEXT → Thousand Years Fall of Night’s Coming of the War King Andals

INFORMATION

PLACE

North

OUTCOME

House Stark victory

The North is unified under the domain of Winterfell as the Kingdom of the North

“Thus the Starks took it upon themselves to unify the North… under them. They drove the pirates out of White Knife, and claimed the eastern coast. And married the Marsh King’s daughter for the Neck. A Stark wrestled for Bear Island and won. Or so they say… Silly stories all. Blood and steel won the North… and the Starks had the most of both.”

ROOSE BOLTON

The unification of the North was a process that lasted for approximately two millennia, in which House Stark gradually reppelled Ironborn invaders and subdued Northern rivals, particularly House Bolton. The countless wars saw the birth of the Kingdom of the North, which would last until Aegon’s Conquest more than 6,000 years later.

History

Wars

Following the Stark victory against the Barrow Kings in the Thousand Years War, the North was divided between several petty kingdoms. The Winter Kings of Winterfell and the Red Kings of the Dreadfort were the most powerful of them all, and their rivalry resulted in countless wars over a period of several centuries. These wars were decidedly indecisive and the Boltons killed several Starks in this period. The Boltons also earned themselves a sinister reputation for flaying their enemies, a practice that eventually made itself to their sigil, which displays a flayed man hanging upside down from a cross.

Internal Northern wars had the effect of opening the North for pirates and raiders as well. King Jon Stark drover Sistermen pirates from the White Knife, and his son Rickard Stark defeated the last Marsh King and brought the Neck into the fold.

Not all parts of the North were brought under Stark dominion by military means. House Manderly, an exiled house from the Reach, was given land by the White Knife in exchange for loyalty. King Rodrik Stark won Bear Island from the Ironborn in an arm wrestling match with a leader of House Hoare; the Island was subsequently gifted to House Mormont. The fealty of House Umber was won by helping them fight off wildling raiders. House Karstark came to be when Karlon Stark was given Karhold in return for putting down a rebellion.

The Red King of the Dreadfort marches on Winterfell.

Due to their inferior numbers vis-a-vis the Starks, the Boltons were eventually defeated. The last Red King Rogar Bolton bent the knee to House Stark who later banned their gruesome practices. This marked the birth of the Kingdom of the North.

Aftermath

The Boltons bent the knee just in time for the North to face the coming of the Andals united. The Starks, the Boltons and other Northern houses faced Andal invaders at Moat Cailin countless times, until the Andals eventually gave up their attempts to conquer the North. This joint effort did not result in harmony between the Northern houses; the Boltons rebelled against Stark rule several times, though the Starks put down every revolt.

The bad blood between the Starks and the Boltons persists 6,000 years later. The Boltons helped orchestrate the Red Wedding, which saw the fall of the newly-reborn Kingdom of the North and the death of King Robb Stark. The Boltons were defeated for good in the subsequent Battle of the Bastards, in which the remainder of the Stark family retook Winterfell and killed Ramsey Bolton, the last Bolton alive.

In the books

A full political map of the North, labeled with the locations of all major noble Houses, even those not mentioned by name in the TV series.

The unification of the North began soon after the Long Night 8,000 years ago and ended just as the coming of the Andals was beginning 6,000 years ago. The Boltons were the last House to submit, just as the first Andals were landing on the eastern coasts. Nonetheless, the “rule” of the Starks over the North at that time was still more of a loose hegemony, and it took thousands of years to fully solidify their hold over the rest of the region as absolute monarchs—comparable to how the other Great Houses were slowly centralizing their own rule in the rest of the Seven Kingdoms.

The Season 6 Histories & Lore video on “Northern Alliances to House Stark” claims that the Starks used to be vassals of the Barrow Kings, but they later led the North in a revolt against them because they didn’t defend them during the Long Night when the Starks did. Actually, the exact words of the World of Ice and Fire sourcebook (2014) simply say that the Barrow Kings claimed overlordship over all the First Men (due to their supposed descent from the First King)… but doesn’t confirm if they ever functionally held such a position, or if it was just an empty boast.

The Starks have never been described as “vassals” of the Barrow Kings in such specific terms—though overall descriptions of this time period are brief and vague. In the present day, Winterfell and Barrowton are stated to be the only settlements in the North large enough to be called “towns” (White Harbor is even larger as a small “city”, but it didn’t exist until thousands of years later).

Some of the Starks’ vassals in the present day used to be petty local kings, just like the Starks. They were either forced into submission or joined the Starks willingly (through marriage-alliance, etc.) to unite against common threats. These included: House Dustin (who descended from the ancient Barrow Kings), House Umber, House Glover, House Locke, and House Bolton (who descend from the defeated Barrow Kings). “House Flint of Breakstone Hill” also used to be petty kings—this may refer to the “First Flints” pf the mountain clans. House Locke hasn’t appeared prominently in the TV series: their lands are southeast of White Harbor.

There were several other petty kings who refused to surrender and thus were totally destroyed. One of the most notable among these was the Warg King at Sea Dragon Point (who was allied with a group of Children of the Forest, according to legend). The Greenwoods, Ambers, Towers, and Frosts were also local kings in the ancient past, but nothing is remembered of them other than their names.

Other Northern vassals were confirmed to have never been kings, but were given their lands by the Starks. House Mormont was given Bear Island after the Starks took it back from the Ironborn. House Manderly was awarded land to build White Harbor after being exiled from the Reach. House Karstark was a cadet branch of House Stark itself, given lands after putting down a rebellion (probably by the neighboring Boltons). House Reed actually doesn’t descend from the last Marsh King—they were a separate family of the crannogmen that were raised up to rule the rest after King Rickard Stark killed the last Marsh King and took his remaining daughter to wife.

The status of the remaining major Houses during this unification period is unclear, whether they used to be petty kings or are vassals the Starks rewarded with lands later. The include House Cerwyn, House Hornwood, House Tallhart, and House Ryswell—of which only the Cerwyns and Hornwoods have prominently appeared in the TV series. The Ryswells currently rule the Rills, and it is mentioned that in ancient times there was a “House Ryder” of the Rills, but they may have died out later and been replaced by the Ryswells. There is also apparently two branches of “House Flint”: House Flint of Widow’s watch in the southeast, and House Flint of Flint’s Finger on Cape Kraken west of the Neck. Both of these are actually cadet branches of the “First Flints”, a relatively minor mountain clan northwest of Winterfell—if the First Flints do indeed descend from “House Flint of Breakstone Hill”, their cadet branches could also claim a distant ancestry of petty kings.

The Red Kings of House Bolton were always the Starks’ greatest rivals, with legends saying they were fighting each other since the Long Night itself, and they were the last to be subdued. The Bolton kings ruled larger sections of the eastern parts of the North than in the present day, as it is said old lands were taken away from them in punishment after various rebellions: possibly most of the lands between the Last River to the north (bordering the Umber kings), and the Yellowknife river to the west (boarding the Starks at Winterfell and the Marsh Kings of the Neck). The Boltons might to have ruled as much territory as the Stark kings, but the Starks had to divide their resources to fight Ironborn reavers on their western coasts, while the Boltons did not. The Boltons even succeeded in burning Winterfell more than once over the centuries, but the Starks always rallied and recovered. The last Red Kings bent the knee for the Starks just as the Andals were beginning to attack the eastern coasts—which may explain why the Starks preferred to keep the Boltons alive as vassals and allies against this new external threat rather than exterminate them.

After the North itself was unified, it still faced attacks from without. They were defended by the Wall to the north and impassable Moat Cailin to the south, yet the Starks continued to fight off invasions on both coasts. To the west, the Ironborn often captured Bear Island, Cape Kraken, and Stony Shore, and Sea Dragon Point—lands which traded hands back and forth between the Northern Ironborn multiple times. To the east, they faced attacks by pirates and slavers from the Free Cities targeted at the mouth of the White Knife River, the main waterway of the North (which relied on it more than roads, as the Kingsroad hadn’t been built yet). Worse, to the east of the North often warred with the Vale of Arryn over the Three Sisters islands, and when the fighting went against them the Vale would attack the mouth of the White Knife as well. Except for the Boltons, all of the Northern Houses are fiercely loyal to the Starks for leading their defense against these outside threats since the coming of the Andals.

House Manderly only moved to the North about 1,000 years ago, after being exiled from the Reach. The Manderlys then built White Harbor at the mouth of the White Knife, the North’s only true city. They soon become the wealthiest family in the North and staunch defenders of the eastern coasts. Thus the Manderlys were themselves Andals, and didn’t fight against the actual invasions at all. The Season 6 Histories & Lore Short “Northern Alliances to House Stark” contains an inaccurate line that the Manderlys helped fight off the Andal attacks: this contradicts information given in other videos, and was apparently referring to the much later attacks of the Vale.

#game of thrones #unificationofthenorth #notes #lore #game of thrones lore

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gameofmice · 1 month ago

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Fall of Night’s King

← PREVIOUS CONCURRENT NEXT → Thousand Unification of the Coming of Years War North Andals

INFORMATION

BEGINNING

Age of Heroes

PLACE

Nightfort, Wall

OUTCOME

Defeat of Night’s King and his corpse queen

Release of the Night’s Watch from slavery

“Lucky for you southerners, the Free Folk rallied to a King-Beyond-the-Wall, as we will when need be, and marched on the ancient castle he’d taken for his own: the Nightfort. With the help of the Starks, we killed the demon and cleansed your precious watch. Then they thanked us, and kicked us back across the Wall, as you always have.”

YGRITTE

The fall of Night’s King was a battle that took place in the Age of Heroes.

History

Prelude

Night’s King and his corpse queen enslaved the black brothers and performed human sacrifices.

The thirteenth Lord Commander of the Night’s Watch found in the Haunted Forest a cold woman with bright blue eyes, seemingly a female White Walker. He brought her back through the Wall and declared himself “Night’s King” and her his Queen. For thirteen years they ruled over his brothers in the Night’s Watch, making human sacrifices.

Battle

The death of the corpse queen at the hands of Brandon the Breaker.

The Free Folk rallied behind Joramun, the King-Beyond-the-Wall and marched against the Nightfort, which Night’s King had taken as his seat, defeating him with the aid of King Brandon the Breaker and House Stark.

Aftermath

The Free Folk were unceremoniously forced back Beyond the Wall and the Night’s King and Queen were most likely killed for the crimes they committed, releasing the Night’s Watch from their dominion.

In the books

In the A Song of Ice and Fire novels, the Brandon the Breaker (said to be Night’s King’s brother, according to some alternate versions of the tale) and Joramun, the King-Beyond-the-Wall formed an alliance to defeat Night’s King and free the Night’s Watch from his rule. After his fall, when it was discovered that he had been sacrificing to the Others (possibly in a similar way to Craster), all records of him were destroyed and his very name was forbidden.

After the defeat of Night’s King, the rule was enforced that the castles of the Night’s Watch along the Wall should never be fortified against approach from the south, so that they cannot oppose the lands south of the Wall which they are meant to defend. The downfall of Night’s King also resulted in the strict enforcement of the rule that the Night’s Watch is meant to be politically neutral, as guardians who do not “rule” the Wall but who serve the realms of men.

#game of thrones #game of thrones lore #lore #history #notes #fallofnight’sking

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gameofmice · 1 month ago

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Thousand Years War

←PREVIOUS NEXT → Long Night Fall of Night’s King

INFORMATION

BEGINNING

8000 BC

PLACE

North

OUTCOME

House Stark victory

House Stark ascends to dominance in the North

State of the unification of the North

“In those days, the Starks were not the greatest House in the North, and Winterfell was not the greatest castle. Barrowton was the oldest, dating to the First King, and the Starks fought the Barrow Kings for a thousand years.”

ROOSE BOLTON

The Thousand Years War was a conflict before the Unification of the North which was fought between the Kings of Winter of House Stark and the Barrow Kings of the Barrowlands.

In the books

In A Song of Ice and Fire, the conflict dubbed by singers as the Thousand Years War was probably a series of separate conflicts in a span of two hundred years. It finally ended when the last Barrow King surrendered to Winterfell and gave his daughter to the Stark king for marriage. Afterward, the Barrowlands became ruled by House Dustin, bannermen to the Starks that boast decent from the Barrow Kings.

#game of thrones #game of thrones lore #notesofloreandhistory #notes #lore

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gameofmice · 1 month ago

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War of the First Men and the Children of the Forest

NEXT EVENT →

Long Night

INFORMATION

BEGINNING

11700 BC

END

11200 BC

PLACE

Westeros

OUTCOME

The Pact

Peace is established between the Children of the Forest and the First Men

The White Walkers are created from captured humans as part of an Children effort to combat the First Men and

“Twelve thousand years ago, the First Men came from the eastern continent, crossing a land-bridge called the Arm of Dorne. Riding their great horses and wielding weapons of bronze, they cut down the Children’s forests and weirwoods. A terrible war raged between the Children and the First Men that lasted for centuries.”

BRAN STARK

The war of the First Men and the Children of the Forest was a centuries-long conflict between the non-human Children of the Forest and the First Men who migrated to Westeros twelve thousand years ago.

History

Prelude

The Children of the Forest.

The vast continent of Westeros was originally inhabited by a diminutive non-human race known as the Children of the Forest. Aboriginal and few in number, they were nonetheless very woodcrafty and their wise men wielded powerful magic abilities. Twelve thousand years ago the first humans to live on Westeros, known as the First Men, migrated to Westeros from the eastern continent Essos, across a land bridge known as the Arm of Dorne. The arrival of the First Men marked the beginning of the “Dawn Age” of Westeros.

War

The First Men cut down weirwoods.

The First Men began encroaching on the forests of the Children, cutting and clearing land to use for agriculture. The First Men cut down the Children’s sacred weirwood trees, infuriating them. The Children fought back against the tide of the First Men’s migration throughout Westeros, in a series of conflicts lasting two thousand years.

The First Men battle with the Children of the Forest.

The Children of the Forest were never numerous, and they did not possess much technology, wielding blades and arrowheads made out of obsidian stone, while their woven bark armors were no match for the First Men’s bronze weapons. However, the Children remained fierce fighters who knew their woods well and they did possess one advantage that men knew nothing of: magic. Using these powers, they unleashed beasts of all kinds against the First Men, but even that was not enough to turn the tide.

The greenseers of the Children of the Forest used their powerful magic to shatter the Arm of Dorne, and the ocean rose up and swallowed most of the land bridge. The few remnants became an island chain between Westeros and Essos known as the Stepstones. However, the destruction of the Arm of Dorne ultimately did not stop the advance of the First Men.

As the First Men moved up north, the Children of the Forest attempted once again to use the ocean to halt their advance. They called upon the “hammer of waters” to shatter the Neck and break the continent in two. However, the Children only succeeded in flooding the land, filling it with bogs and swamps, but not enough to submerge it beneath the sea.

At some point during the conflict, a group of Children of the Forest decided on a new deterrent against the advancing First Men. Utilizing powerful, untested magic, the Children of the Forest captured a First Men to utilize him in the creation of the first White Walker. The Children would utilize these powerful now former-humans in the war to turn the tide. At some point before or after the conclusion of conflict the Pact, the White Walkers broke free from the control of the Children of the Forest and disappeared into the Land of Always Winter.

The Pact

The two races join hands in peace.

After two thousand years of conflict, the two sides had fought to a standstill. The two races tired of the centuries of bloodshed, and representatives of both groups come together on an island in the middle of a great lake in central Westeros, known as Gods Eye. There they forged a lasting peace known as the Pact: the open lands were granted to humanity, while the deep forests were to remain the undisturbed domain of the Children. The First Men were forbidden from ever cutting down a sacred weirwood tree again. To commemorate the Pact, the Children of the Forest carved a face into every weirwood tree on the island (making each a heart tree), and forever after the island has been known as the Isle of Faces.

The peace between the two races would endure another four thousand years, even enduring the invasion of the White Walkers two thousand years later. However, six thousand years ago the Andals invaded Westeros, conquering the First Men and killing the Children of the Forest whenever they encountered them, and converted most of the people of Westeros into the religion of the Faith of the Seven.

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gameofmice · 1 month ago

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Long Night

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War of the First Men and the Thousand Children of the Forest Years War

INFORMATION

BEGINNING

7700 BC

END

7700 BC (lasted a generation)

PLACE

Westeros

OUTCOME

Decisive victory for the living

White Walker invasion defeated and driven back to the Land of Always Winter

Construction of the Wall

Foundation of House Stark

Formation of the Night’s Watch

“Thousands of years ago, there came a night that lasted a generation. Kings froze to death in their castles, same as the shepherds in their huts; and women smothered their babies rather than see them starve, and wept, and felt the tears freeze on their cheeks… In that darkness the White Walkers came for the first time. They swept through cities and kingdoms, riding their dead horses, hunting with their packs of pale spiders big as hounds.”

OLD NAN TO BRAN STARK

Eight thousand years before the War of the Five Kings, a winter known as the Long Night descended upon the world, which lasted an entire generation.

Thousands starved as the crops and fields lay buried under dozens of feet of snow. In the darkness and cold of the Long Night, the White Walkers descended upon Westeros from the farthest north, the polar regions of the Land of Always Winter, seeking to bring an end to all life and to cover the world in an endless winter.

History

Prelude

The invasion of Westeros by the First Men and their encroachment into the lands of the Children of the Forest, the natives of Westeros, led to a long period of warfare between the two people for control of the continent. As the Children grew desperate, a group of their greenseers, resorted to dark magic, capturing one of the First Men and turning him into the first of the White Walkers, whose purpose was to protect the Children from the First Men. However, the White Walkers grew beyond their creators’ control and became a threat to anyone living, as the most feared creatures in the known world. Recognizing the danger, the Children and the First Men reached a peace known as the Pact.

War

None knew why the White Walkers came when they did, 2,000 years after the signing of the Pact and 8,000 years before Robert’s Rebellion, but they killed all in their path. The White Walkers reanimated the dead as wights to kill the living at their command, and soon as the White Walkers and their hordes of undead were sweeping across the continent.

The dead raised as Wights.

The First Men drove back the White Walkers to the furthest north.

Eventually the First Men and the Children of the Forest formed an alliance and rallied to defend themselves in the Battle for the Dawn. The White Walkers were defeated and driven back into the uttermost north, where the far northern lands become known as the Land of Always Winter.

The Wall, a massive fortification standing seven hundred feet high and stretching from one side of the continent to the other, was constructed by the First Men, Children, and giants along the northernmost isthmus of northern Westeros to bar the Walkers’ return. Legend says that the Wall was infused with powerful magic spells by the Children of the Forest that prevent the White Walkers from crossing it. The ancient order of the Night’s Watch was founded to defend the Wall should the White Walkers return to invade the realms of men once more.

Aftermath

The Wall was constructed to defend against any return of the White Walkers

With the passing of the centuries and the coming of the Andals, memory of the Long Night and the Walkers faded into myth. In the present day, most believe the Long Night to be nothing more than a children’s story, and the White Walkers, Children of the Forest, and giants nothing more than legends. Belief in them survives only in the North, and even there they are presumed extinct. Certainly, none of very few were seen for the next eight thousand years between their supposed defeat and the time of Robert’s Rebellion.

The Night’s Watch was founded to man the Wall.

As the War of the Five Kings begins, disturbing reports have come back from the scouts of the Night’s Watch saying that, after an abnormally long summer, winter is returning and the White Walkers with it. There is a danger of another Long Night, but given that the great lords of Westeros and short-sightedly more concerned with their petty power struggles, most have simply ignored the warnings. The situation leaves only the under-supported and under-manned Night’s Watch to stand between the White Walkers and the realms of men.

Game of Thrones: Season 1

After Catelyn leaves for King’s Landing, Old Nan sits by Bran Stark’s beside to watch him. She suggests the story of Duncan the Tall and Bran replies that he hates her stories—he prefers the scary ones. She retorts that he is a “sweet summer child” who knows nothing about fear, and tells him that fear is for the winter and for the Long Night, a winter season thousands of years ago that lasted a generation, in which those who didn’t freeze to death had to face the White Walkers, who ventured south for the first time and swept through Westeros.

Game of Thrones: Season 5

During Stannis’s march to Winterfell, the weather turns for the worse and a snow storm delays his army. In order to better their chances for winning the upcoming battle in the snow which they both saw in the flames, Melisandre tries to convince Stannis to sacrifice more King’s blood—this time, Stannis’s own daughter, Shireen. Stannis is visibly shocked and disgusted by the suggestion, asking her if she has lost her mind. She insists that Stannis must be the undisputed king when the Long Night comes, but he rebuffs her and orders her to leave his presence.

When Lord Commander Jon Snow and the wildling envoy Tormund travel to Hardhome to convince the Free Folk sheltered there to come back with them to Castle Black in order to settle south of the Wall, Jon Snow argues that the Long Night is coming and the dead come with it—and only together they can give the White Walkers a fight, and maybe even beat them back. Snow’s words prove immediately prophetic, as during the process of taking the wildlings to the ships the White Walkers arrive with thousands of wights and massacre most of the Free Folk.

Game of Thrones: Season 7

While autopsying the body of Maester Weyland, Archmaester Ebrose tells Sam that despite the widespread skepticism of his colleagues, Ebrose believes that the Long Night cannot be pure fabrication, since numerous unconnected sources all describe similar events. He maintains however, that if another, similar event is about to occur, that Westeros and its inhabitants will find a way to survive it.

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