Game of Thrones Lore

The Known World was first inhabited by the Children of the Forest — small, ancient beings with greensight and the ability to carve faces into weirwood trees. When the First Men crossed the land bridge from Essos (the Arm of Dorne, later shattered by the Children), thousands of years of conflict followed. The war ended in the Pact of the Isle of Faces — the First Men agreed to stop cutting down weirwoods; the Children ceded open land. The two peoples lived in fragile coexistence for 2,000 years.

A winter that lasted an entire generation descended on the world. During this darkness, the White Walkers — creatures of ice and ancient magic created by the Children of the Forest from a captured First Man — emerged from the far north and began killing everything in their path. The dead rose to serve them. Humanity nearly ended. A figure known as the Last Hero sought out the Children of the Forest, and the combined forces of men drove the White Walkers back. Bran the Builder — founder of House Stark — raised The Wall using ancient magic to prevent their return.

The centuries following the Long Night produced legendary figures — Garth Greenhand, Lann the Clever (ancestor of the Lannisters), Durran Godsgrief (builder of Storm’s End), and others who became mythologized into founding legends for every noble house. Then came the Andals from Essos — a new people who brought iron, horses, and the Faith of the Seven. They conquered the south of Westeros, smashed the weirwood groves, and slaughtered the Children of the Forest. Only the North, behind the Neck, resisted — the crannog men of House Reed held the causeway.

Far to the east on the Valyrian Peninsula, the Valyrian Freehold rose to become the greatest civilization in the Known World. Forty families of dragonlords — including House Targaryen — bonded with dragons and used them to build an empire that eventually dominated all of Essos and sent colonies westward. Valyrian steel, the Old Valyrian language, and dragon-bonding defined their culture. At their height, the Freehold’s dragonlords were the closest thing to gods the world had ever seen.

In a single cataclysmic event, the Doom of Valyria destroyed everything. The Fourteen Fires — a ring of volcanoes on the Valyrian peninsula — erupted simultaneously, shattering the land, boiling the sea, and killing every dragonlord and almost every dragon alive. The cause is still debated: a natural geological catastrophe, a magical experiment gone wrong, or deliberate sabotage. Twelve years prior, the Targaryen dragonlord Daenys the Dreamer had a prophetic vision of the Doom and convinced her father to relocate House Targaryen to Dragonstone off the coast of Westeros. They were the only dragonlord family to survive.

Aegon I Targaryen landed at the mouth of the Blackwater Rush with his two sister-wives — Visenya and Rhaenys — and their three dragons: Balerion the Black Dread (the largest dragon ever recorded), Meraxes, and Vhagar. Two years later, six of the seven kingdoms had bent the knee — either persuaded or burned into submission at the Field of Fire, where 4,000 men burned alive in a single battle. Only Dorne resisted, through guerrilla warfare and the deaths of both Rhaenys and Meraxes. Aegon founded King’s Landing, forged the Iron Throne from the swords of his defeated enemies, and ruled for 37 years.

When Rhaegar Targaryen rode off with Lyanna Stark (actually a secret elopement, though perceived as abduction), and the Mad King Aerys II burned her father and brother alive when they came to demand her return, Robert Baratheon raised a rebellion. The key houses — Stark, Baratheon, Arryn, and Tully — defeated the Targaryen loyalists at the Battle of the Trident, where Robert killed Rhaegar. The Mad King was then killed by his own Kingsguard member, Jaime Lannister — earning him the permanent name “Kingslayer.” Daenerys was born on Dragonstone during a storm the same night the castle fell. Jon Snow was born in secret at the Tower of Joy in Dorne moments before Lyanna died.