Game of Thrones: History & Lore (Webisodes)

Bran: In the Dawn Age of Westeros, before the coming of man

and the raising of castles and cities,

there were only the Children of the Forest.

Little is known of them now,

but it is said they were small in stature, dark and beautiful,

and no taller than children when grown to manhood.

They lived in the depths of the forests and hidden villages,

crannogs and caves.

They hunted with weirwood bows

and armed themselves with blades of obsidian.

Their wise men were called greenseers,

and were possessed of a powerful magic.

They worshiped nameless, faceless gods of the forest,

stream and stone.

According to legend, it was they who carved faces

in the great white trunks of the majestic weirwoods -

their deep-cut eyes were red with sap, and ever watchful.

12,000 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.

At long last, the two races sought an end to the years of horror and bloodshed.

They met on a small isle in the center of a great lake called the God's Eye.

It was there they forged the Pact.

The First Men would be granted dominion over the coastland,

the mountains, the high plains and the bogs,

but the deep forest would forever belong to the Children,

and no weirwood tree would ever again fall to man's ax.

To seal the pact before the gods,

the Children carved a face in every weirwood tree on the island,

which came to be known as the Isle of Faces.

But the pact could not withstand the coming of the Andals -

a race of tall, fair-haired warriors.

They attacked with fire and weapons of steel,

slaughtering the Children of the Forest wherever they could find them,

burning out their weirwood groves,

hacking away at the faces of the old gods,

and spreading their own religion through the land.

Centuries of war followed,

and the Andals conquered every kingdom in Westeros, save one -

the North.

The Kings of Winter were able to withstand the Andal invasion.

The descendents of the First Men dwell there to this day

and continue to worship the old gods.

As for the Children of the Forest,

those who survived the slaughter were said to have fled far north

and have not been seen again.

Most assume they're long dead,

and some don't believe they ever existed.

They live on only through song and legend,

and in the faces of the weirwood trees.

Bran: When Aegon the Conqueror invaded Westeros,

he had seven kingdoms to contend with -

the Kingdom of the North,

the Kingdom of the Mountain and the Vale,

the Iron Islands, the Kingdom of the Rock,

the Kingdom of the Reach, the Stormlands,

and Dorne.

These regions had been established by the First Men thousands of years before,

in the Age of Heroes.

One hero of this fabled age was Bran the Builder.

Bran raised the Wall and built the stronghold of Winterfell,

establishing House Stark

and reigning as the first king in the North.

Other legends tell of the Grey King in the Iron Islands.

Grey King took a mermaid to wife and defeated Nagga,

the first sea dragon.

House Greyjoy of Pyke - the current rulers of the region -

claim to descend from him.

House Casterly ruled the gold-rich Westerlands

from their mighty seat of Casterly Rock.

But their lands and power were swindled from them

by the legendary trickster Lann the Clever.

The noble house of Lannister is said to have descended from him.

The verdant and fertile lands of the Reach

were first ruled by House Gardener.

Its founder, known as Garth Greenhand,

wore a crown of flowers and vines.

He ruled from Highgarden as the first King of the Reach,

and was said to have made the land bloom.

Many noble houses trace their bloodlines back to him,

including the current lords of Highgarden, House Tyrell.

In the Stormlands, according to ballads of the age,

a warrior named Durran fell in love with Elenei,

whose father was God of the Sea

and mother was Goddess of the Wind.

She gave her maidenhead to him,

committing herself to a mortal life.

In rage, her parents called upon the winds and waters,

destroying Durran's bayside keep

and wiping out his wedding gift.

Durran declared war on the gods and rebuilt his keep,

which was also destroyed.

Four more castles he raised, each stronger than the last.

All fell to the power of the gods.

But Durran's seventh castle, Storm's End, withstood the gods' rage.

Durran became known as Durran Godsgrief

and reigned as the first Storm King.

There are countless other tales from the Age of Heroes,

too many to count.

These histories weren't recorded in a book,

but passed down from generation to generation

through story and song.

And while some of them may be dismissed as fairy tales,

every one of the Seven Kingdoms is defined by them.

Viserys: East of Westeros lies the Smoking Sea,

where no ship dare sail.

There are those who swear it to be demon-haunted,

and who's to say they're wrong?

For it was there, thousands of years ago,

that a cataclysmic event occurred,

destroying one of the great civilizations in history.

The precise details of their origins are lost to us,

but it is said the Valyrians were once a modest community of shepherds,

tending their flocks on a small peninsula

of the great eastern continent.

One fateful day, in a volcanic area known as the Fourteen Fires,

they made a shattering discovery -

dragons.

They were monstrous scaled creatures,

with massive wings, sharp claws and fiery breath.

They were also said to have a deep-rooted connection to magic.

In time, the Valyrians were able to tame the beasts.

Harnessing their immense power, they established a city of wonder

unlike any before or since.

They became skilled at sorcery and metallurgy,

creating uncommon weapons of spell-forged steel.

Wielding these weapons, astride their dragons,

the Valyrians conquered the surrounding lands

and slowly expanded west.

At the time, the Ghiscari Empire dominated much of the great eastern continent,

and tried to stop Valyria's expansion.

The Ghiscari legions attacked the Valyrians five times,

but could never defeat them.

Finally, the Valyrians marched on their capital - Old Ghis -

and obliterated it,

turning its streets and buildings to ash with dragon flame,

and wiping the Ghiscari people and their culture off the face of the earth.

The Freehold of Valyria, as it came to be known,

became the most advanced civilization in the known world,

with its own language, gods and culture.

The Valyrians' reach extended far and wide,

covering most of the continent.

Great cities were built and roadways paved,

all of which led back to Valyria.

The Freehold would prosper for nearly 5,000 years.

But it was not to last.

An event that became known only as the Doom

laid waste to the Valyrians,

their capital city and its surrounding lands.

The peninsula itself was shattered,

becoming what is now the Smoking Sea.

Every dragon was thought to be lost,

as were the Valyrians' spells, knowledge and recorded history.

Thus the mighty empire collapsed.

What caused this cataclysm?

No one knows for certain.

Some say it was a volcanic eruption.

Others say the Valyrians' own sorcery got the better of them.

In any event, the Doom's devastation of the Valyrian people was total...

with the exception of a small rocky island in the Narrow Sea -

Dragonstone.

For it was there that the Targaryens - the last of Old Valyria - dwelled.

They would lie in wait for another hundred years

before unleashing the fury of the dragon on another continent-

Westeros.

Mormont: Night gathers, and now my watch begins.

It shall not end until my death.

I shall take no wife, hold no lands, father no children.

I shall wear no crowns and win no glory.

I shall live and die at my post.

I am the sword in the darkness.

I am the watcher on the walls.

I am the shield that guards the realms of men.

I pledge my life and honor to the Night's Watch,

for this night and all the nights to come.

Legend tells of a winter that lasted a generation,

and of a vast and terrible darkness that fell across the land.

It came to be known as the Long Night.

In the midst of this darkness,

the white walkers emerged from the Far North.

With their armies of the dead,

they waged war against the living,

laying waste to villages and holdfasts,

leaving terror and destruction in their wake.

After years of brutal conflict and unbearable loss,

an alliance of the First Men and the Children of the Forest

managed to drive the walkers and their minions

back into the frigid northern wastelands from whence they came.

To prevent another invasion,

the First Men erected the Wall -

a massive fortification 700 feet in height,

stretching from the Frostfang Mountains in the West

to the Bay of Seals in the East.

It was a structure unlike any ever built.

Indeed, some maintain it could only have been completed

with the aid of giants,

or using the powerful magic of the ancient Children of the Forest.