yeen Archives - History of Westeros

Nymeria: Part 2 – Ten Thousand Ships

GRRM’s version of the Odyssey is here! We’ve got Brindled Men, wyverns, killer diseases, ancient cities, corsairs, dark gods. Plus characters like Daenerys, Missandei and her brothers, Victarion, Barristan Selmy and his new knights. See our previous episode in our Nymeria series here. Special thanks to Michal Schick of Vassals of Kingsgrave podcast and Hypable for the voices.

Legend tells us that Nymeria took ten thousand ships to sea, searching for a new home for her people beyond the long reach of Valyria and its dragonlords. Beldecar argues that this number was vastly inflated, perhaps as much as tenfold. Other chroniclers offer other numbers, but in truth no true count was ever made. We can safely say there were a great many ships. Most were river craft, skiffs and poleboats, trading galleys, fishing boats, pleasure barges, even rafts, their decks and holds crammed full of women and children and old men. Only one in ten was remotely seaworthy, Beldecar insists.
Nymeria’s voyage was long and terrible. More than a hundred ships foundered and sank in the first storm her fleet encountered. As many or more turned back in fear, and were taken by slavers out of Volantis. Others fell behind or drifted away, never to be seen again. The remainder of the fleet limped across the Summer Sea to the Basilisk Isles…
– The World of Ice and Fire

The Great Empire of the Dawn

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JfDBq1c7LdA

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7YcOOzIWwtM

The Long Night, Azor Ahai, strange stone, dragonlords & ancient bloodlines; this episode on The Great Empire of the Dawn, with Lucifer Means Lightbringer of Mythical Astronomy of Ice & Fire has it all! GRRM gave us all a lot to think about with regard to the (way)back-story provided in TWOIAF on top of what was already present in ASOIAF proper. Here we attempt to cover as much of it as possible in one place. We also recorded a Q&A episode where we answered the questions you submitted!

Credits
Our introduction, stone animations, and the awesome new Essos map were created by Michael Klarfeld (Klaradox), with the cyvasse pieces created by dutchmogul. Check out the episode on YouTube or the Acast player below to see those images, as well as art by Ed Scheer.
The Reader (Martin Lewis of Echoes of Ice and Fire).
Durran Durrandon’s “Daenerys is the Amethyst Empress Reborn” Essay.

The primary topics in this episode:

Part 1 – Legacy of the Ancients
Part 2 – The (Old) Long Night
Part 3 – Strange Stone
Part 4 – The First Men of the Dawn
Part 5 – The (New) Long Night
Outro

“In ancient days, the God emperors of Yi Ti were as powerful as any ruler on earth, with wealth that exceeded even that of Valyria at its height and armies of almost unimaginable size. In the beginning, the priestly scribes of Yin declare, all the land between the Bones and the freezing desert called the Grey Waste, from the Shivering Sea to the Jade Sea (including even the great and holy isle of Leng), formed a single realm ruled by the God-on-Earth, the only begotten son of the Lion of Night and Maiden Made-of-Light, who traveled about his domains in a palanquin carved from a single pearl and carried by a hundred queens, his wives. For ten thousand years the Great Empire of the Dawn flourished in peace and plenty under the God-on-Earth, until at last he ascended to the stars to join his forebears.”
– The Bones and Beyond, TWOIAF

How long the darkness endured no man can say, but all agree it was only when a great warrior – known variously as Hyrkoon the Hero, Azor Ahai, Yin Tar, Neferion, and Eldric Shadowchaser – arose to give courage to the race of men and lead the virtuous into battle with his blazing sword Lightbringer that the darkness was put to rout, and light and love returned once more to the world.
– The Bones and Beyond, TWOIAF

“Yet the great empire of the Dawn was not reborn, for the restored world was a broken place where every tribe of men went its own way, fearful of all the others, and war and lust and murder endured, even to our present day. Or so of the men and women of the further east believe.”
– The Bones and Beyond, TWOIAF

“Ghosts lined the hallway, dressed in the faded raiment of kings. In their hands were swords of pale fire. They had hair of silver and hair of gold and hair of platinum white and their eyes were Opal and Amethyst, Tourmaline and Jade. “Faster,” they cried. “Faster, faster!””
– Daenerys IX, AGOT

“Even more enigmatic to scholars and historians is the great square fortress of black stone that dominates that isle. For most of recorded history, this monumental edifice has served as the foundation and lowest level of the Hightower, yet we know for a certainty that it predates the upper levels of the tower by thousands of years.”
– The Reach, TWOIAF

“If indeed this first Fortress is Valyrian, it suggests that the dragonlords came to Westeros thousands of years before they carved out their outpost on Dragonstone, long before the coming of the Andals, or even the First Men.”
– The Reach, TWOIAF

“The dragonlords of Valyria, as is well known, possessed the art of turning stone to liquid with dragonflame, shaping it as they would, then fusing it harder than iron, steel, or granite.”
– The Reach, TWOIAF

Book Discussion: World of Ice and Fire Overview

In this discussion episode, we give our first impressions of The World of Ice and Fire. We discuss all of the immediate revelations, and the latter half of the episode contains discoveries more related to the ‘current events’ of the series.

Special attention is paid to the Kingdom of Sarnor, other ancient cultures, and the mysterious oily black stone that keeps popping up. There is, of course, a lot of discussion on House Targaryen as well. We also talk at length about the sections on Dorne. The mystery of Asshai’s children is also debated.

“On the Isle of Toads can be found an ancient idol, a greasy black stone crudely carved into the semblance of a gigantic toad of malignant aspect, some forty feet high. The people of this isle are believed by some to be descended from those who carved the Toad Stone, for there is an unpleasant fishlike aspect to their faces, and many have webbed hands and feet. If so, they are the sole surviving remnant of this forgotten race.”

Such questions abound even to this day. Before the Doom of Valyria, maesters and archmaesters oft traveled to the Freehold in search of answers, but none were ever found. Septon Barth’s claim that the Valyrians came to Westeros because their priests prophesied that the Doom of Man would come out of the land beyond the narrow sea can safely be dismissed as nonsense, as can many of Barth’s queerer beliefs and suppositions.”

“For scholars and students of history, the fall of Sallosh by the Silver Shore was especially tragic, for when that City of Scholars burned, its great library was not spared, and most of the history of the Tall Men and the peoples who had gone before them were lost for all time.”

“Florys the Fox, the cleverest of Garth’s children, who kept three husbands, each ignorant of the existence of the others. (From their sons sprang House Florent, House Ball, and House Peake).”

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