By the standards of some of their neighbors their culture is somewhat primitive, but they are very woodcrafty, with great knowledge of their terrain as well as of poisons made by local plants and animals in the swamps, which they often coat their weapons with. Crannogmen are typically short in stature. The crannogmen are a different offshoot of the First Men, separate from the Northmen who also descend from the First Men. However, the crannogmen do consider themselves to politically be "Northmen", in a general sense, because they have been ruled by the Starks of Winterfell for centuries.
The " Free Folk " is the name used to refer to themselves by the people who live in the lands beyond the Wall , still on the continent of Westeros but beyond the northern border of the Seven Kingdoms. The people of the Seven Kingdoms refer to the Free Folk derogatorily as " wildlings ". They were, essentially, the people unlucky enough to be living north of the Wall when it was constructed eight thousand years ago.
Besides this shared ethnic heritage, their common descent means that there are also many cultural similarities between the wildlings and the Northmen. The wildlings are much closer in lifestyle and habits to how the First Men lived thousands of years ago, as the North has come under some cultural influence from their Andal neighbors who invaded southern Westeros six thousand years ago, and particularly since the Seven Kingdoms were united into a single realm by the Targaryen Conquest three hundred years ago, further alienating and marginalizing wildling culture to those who live on the southern side of the Wall.
Ygritte , a wildling spearwife. Even in the lands of House Stark, there are some followers of the Faith of the Seven, often southern noblewomen who come to the North to secure marriage alliances. Beyond the Wall, however, the Old Gods are the only gods that are worshiped. The Free Folk consist of a wide variety of many fractious tribes and village-dwellers, some reasonably refined, others savage and hostile. Different wildling factions have very different cultures and practices, and may speak different languages.
They spend much of their time fighting one another over petty squabbles, aside from the times when they are unified by a King-Beyond-the-Wall - as they are now under Mance Rayder. The hill tribes or "mountain clans" are clans who live in the foothills of the Mountains of the Moon on the western fringes of the Vale of Arryn.
They reject and resist the rule of House Arryn , and harass travelers along the Eastern Road through the mountains. They are descendants of the First Men who originally occupied the Vale during the Age of Heroes and before. They were driven into the hill by the Andal invaders. The hill tribes are also sometimes derisively referred to as "wildlings", but out of context the term is usually understood to refer to the peoples living beyond the Wall , who refer to themselves as the " Free Folk " "wildlings" is used as a generic synonym for "barbarians" or "savages".
After many centuries, the Andals intermingled with the local First Men inhabitants of the lands they had conquered. Still, they became culturally "Andal", speaking their language and following the new religion the Andals introduced to Westeros, the Faith of the Seven, which became the dominant faith on the continent. The Andals carved out their own rival petty kingdoms when they conquered the First Men, and these tiny Andal kingdoms continued to fight each other for thousands of years.
Over time these tiny local kingdoms aggregated into larger ones, as the stronger ones absorbed the weaker ones, eventually dividing Westeros south of the Wall into seven large kingdoms - which became geographically known as "the Seven Kingdoms", even after they were unified by the Targaryen Conquest three centuries ago.
The Vale of Arryn often known as just "the Vale" was the first region of Westeros that the Andals invaded in their migration to the continent 6, years ago, and today the noble Houses of the Vale boast the purest Andal bloodlines. In other regions, the Andals heavily intermarried with the local First Men, so the Lannisters, Tyrells, and Tullys all have at least some First Men ancestry. Lady Anya Waynwood , a noblewoman of the Valemen.
The Vale is self-sufficient but not as rich as the Westerlands or as bountiful as the Reach. Their major advantage is their isolation: the Mountains of the Moon along the border prevent any major army from approaching by land, save through a few very narrow and heavily defended mountain passes which can repulse any attack. As a result, Valemen place great pride in their lineages, while maintaining a certain arrogance born of isolation. They may not possess the large armies of the Reach or expensively equipped armies of the Westerlands, but throughout the centuries those armies have broken like water on rock against the narrow choke points of the Vale's mountain passes.
Olenna and Margaery Tyrell , noblewomen of the Reachmen. The Andals may have begun their invasion in the Vale, but the fertile lands of the Reach soon became their cultural heartland, and remained so for thousands of years. The High Septon , leader of the Faith of the Seven , used to be based in the major city of Oldtown for centuries until moving to King's Landing about years ago.
The Reach is considered the heartland of chivalry in Westeros: the traditions of knighthood and chivalry are therefore taken very seriously in the Reach, as are associated cultural elements such as tournaments , as well as courtly love and romantic intrigue.
The noble courts of the Reach are the most sophisticated in Westeros. The customs of knighthood are most important to Reachmen, such as Ser Loras Tyrell. The Reach is also the most fertile region of Westeros, meaning that the Reach has the largest population and can field the largest army, nearly twice the size of any other kingdom though this balances out because the Reach also has twice as many bordering kingdoms as any other.
Unlike the other major kingdoms, however, their rulers House Tyrell were never kings, but raised up by the Targaryens as the new regional rulers - ahead of other families in the Reach who actually had better claims to Highgarden.
The result is that there has always been a considerable amount of court intrigue in the Reach, and negotiation of marriages to secure political alliances.
Reachmen pride themselves on the knightly values of martial prowess and honorable conduct though of course, this varies from individual to individual. Their gold mines enrich the realm, and are famous even far across the Narrow Sea.
While Valemen pride themselves on their lineages and isolation, and Reachmen pride themselves on knightly conduct and valor from their large armies, Westermen pragmatically value whoever has the most gold. For thousands of years, the wealthiest family in the Westerlands have been their rulers, House Lannister of Casterly Rock.
Because their kingdom is the richest in precious metals, and also useful metals such as iron, Westermen armies tend to be the best equipped in Westeros, with even their infantry wearing large amounts of plate armor and full-visor helmets in contrast to the resource-poor Northmen, who often have to make do with chainmail. Because they do not value lineage or knightly conduct so much as they value wealth, Westermen nobles such as the Lannisters have come to be calculating and pragmatic in politics, often defeating their enemies not through valor but simply hiring larger armies.
King Robert Baratheon and his younger brother Renly , Stormlanders. As a result, to defend their territories Stormlanders have had to develop the strongest martial tradition of any of the Andal kingdoms. Some of the greatest warriors in the history of the Seven Kingdoms have been Stormlanders, such as Robert Baratheon , who slew Rhaegar Targaryen in single combat during the Battle of the Trident. The warrior-woman Brienne of Tarth is also a Stormlander though her behavior is unusual even for noblewomen from the Stormlands.
Stannis Baratheon , middle brother of Robert and Renly. Stormlanders are also often skilled and battle-hardened commanders of armies on land and fleets at sea, such as Robert's younger brother Stannis. The borderlands in the southwest of the Stormlands are known as the Dornish Marches , because they are along the mountainous border with Dorne to the south, though they have also been contested by the Reach from the west.
The Marcher lords of the Stormlands have always been the first line of defense in constant border disputes over the centuries, resulting in them possessing an even stronger martial tradition than the rest of the Stormlands. The champion archer Anguy is also a Stormlander from the Dornish Marches. Edmure Tully , new head of House Tully , a Riverman. Located in the middle of the continent, the Riverlands have long been a contested borderland between the more powerful kingdoms.
Before the Targaryen Conquest , the Riverlands were conquered and held by the Stormlands for three centuries. Three generations before the Targaryen Conquest, the Iron Islands in turn drove out the Stormlanders and conquered the Riverlands themselves.
When Aegon Targaryen and his sisters invaded Westeros, the Rivermen saw them as liberators from brutal ironborn rule, and assisted them in a popular uprising led by House Tully.
For this reason the Riverlands didn't have a king at the time of the invasion, and the Riverlands are not technically counted as one of the "Seven" Kingdoms instead essentially making up the eighth "kingdom".
However, for administrative purposes, the Riverlands and their rulers are equal to any other region of the realm. Edmure and his uncle Brynden , Rivermen. Because the Riverlands had not ruled themselves as a unified independent kingdom for thousands of years, but were border territories which shifted between control of neighboring kingdoms, the Rivermen are more diverse than other Andal kingdoms, with less of a unified identity.
House Blackwood and House Bracken loathe each other, and have been feuding for thousands of years. House Frey is a newer House that rose about six centuries ago by exacting tolls on their bridge crossing, but are looked down upon by the other older Rivermen Houses as greedy and selfish upstarts. Walder Frey and his new wife Joyeuse , Rivermen. In the other Andal kingdoms vassal Houses generally try to emulate the lead House, often in clothing styles and manners. Because House Tully never ruled as kings and the Riverlands were not unified for thousands of years, however, some of their vassals see no particular reason why they should be ruled by the Tullys of Riverrun and do not respect them as much the only comparable situation was with how the Tyrells were raised to rule the Reach despite never being kings, but at least the Reach had been a unified kingdom for thousands of years before that.
Therefore, there really is no set appearance or clothing style for Rivermen - the Freys in particular dress nothing like the Tullys, instead of emulating them, because they chafed under Tully rule. Different Rivermen Houses can also have very distinct local customs, such as how the Tullys conduct funerals by ceremonially burning their dead on pyre-boats in the Trident River.
Therefore, if the defining characteristics of Reachmen are their fertile fields and chivalry, of Westermen their gold and riches, of Stormlanders their martial prowess, and Valemen their proud lineages and isolation, the defining characteristic of the Rivermen is their diversity.
Ser Dontos of House Hollard , a Crownlander. The Crownlands are the newest region in the Seven Kingdoms, created only three hundred years ago as a result of the Targaryen Conquest , carved out of territory from neighboring kingdoms to make a new capital region. As a result, it does not have much of a distinct "cultural identity", so much as it is shaped by its distinction as the region containing the capital city, King's Landing , which Aegon I Targaryen ordered built there after his conquest.
Davos Seaworth , born in King's Landing, though he later moved to the Stormlands. Culturally and historically, the Crownlands were primarily an extension of the Riverlands for thousands of years, but with cultural influences from neighboring regions which periodically captured territory in the region. The greatest of these was the conquest of all the Riverlands by the Stormlands, which lasted for three centuries.
The Stormlanders were ultimately driven out when the ironborn invaded the Riverlands from the west, under Harren Hoare 's grandfather. Harren's father then conquered the area of the future Crownlands, though Harren later died during the Targaryen Conquest. Lollys Stokeworth : House Stokeworth is one of the major noble families from the Crownlands, who lived there for centuries before the Targaryens even created "the Crownlands".
The Crownlanders are an ethnically disparate mix of former Rivermen, former Stormlanders, holdout First Men, and even some Valyrians, divided into basically five geographic sub-sections: King's Landing itself, the main farmlands north of the Blackwater River and west of Crackclaw Point, the pine barrens of Crackclaw Point, the strip of land on the southern coast of Blackwater Bay running from the Blackwater River to Massey's Hook, and the islands in Blackwater Bay. Rosby , Duskendale , and Stokeworth are part of this group.
Crackclaw Point is a wooded backwater that was rarely held for long by outsiders, and thus has a greater descent from the First Men, though they have intermarried with powerful Andal families over the centuries. The southern strip including Massey's Hook was actually still part of the Stormlands during the Targaryen Conquest, but the Stormlords of the region had already developed closer ties to the Targaryens and openly joined them at the beginning of the invasion.
These began as Valyrian trading outposts, and later became refuges after the Doom destroyed Valyria. King's Landing itself, meanwhile, is practically another category unto itself. When the Targaryens built their new capital city from the ground up, it was a boom town quickly populated by artisans, merchants, and commoners who came from all over the rest of the Seven Kingdoms. As the largest port on the east coast of Westeros, a large number of foreigners from the Free Cities and beyond also live in the city such as the master-blacksmith Tobho Mott , from the Free City of Qohor.
Above them all for three hundred years were the Targaryens, who were ethnically Valyrian, though in such small numbers that they did not constitute another demographic group. Due to their presence there is not really one custom "Crownlander" style of clothing and appearance, so much as local lords and courtiers imitate the fashions set by the royal family.
For example, when Eddard Stark arrives at court, most of the ladies at court dress in a style imitating the styles worn by Queen Cersei. Balon Greyjoy , of the ironborn. Yara Greyjoy and a crew of ironborn warriors.
However, the few Andals that invaded the isles actually converted to their way of life and worship of the Drowned God , and heavily intermarried with the local population. The Andal invasion really had only a minimal impact on the Iron Islands.
In modern times, the ironborn generally think of their distinct culture as stretching back without interruption to the Dawn Age , long before the Andals arrived. Even back then, however, their culture had developed so differently from their First Men cousins who were on the mainland that the ironborn only consider themselves to have truly "originated", culturally, on the Iron Islands themselves.
The modern ironborn have chafed under the Iron Throne 's unified rule ever since the Targaryen Conquest three centuries ago, which they resent as domination by the mainland. Fleeing defeat and enslavement by the Valyrians in Essos, thousands of the Rhoynar fled by ship, migrating across the Narrow Sea to Dorne , a large and arid peninsula in the southeast of the continent.
They were the third and last major ethnic group to migrate to Westeros, arriving in Dorne about one thousand years before the War of the Five Kings. The Rhoynar allied with local rulers in Dorne and combined forces to conquer and unite the rest of Dorne for the first time, which had previously been divided between multiple rival petty kingdoms. The Rhoynar intermingled with the local First Men and Andal inhabitants over the centuries, resulting in the modern "Dornishmen".
Daemon Sand , a Stony Dornishman. For the next thousand years, the Dornishmen remained physically isolated from the rest of Westeros by the Red Mountains along their western border, and the harsh rolling-sands deserts of central Dorne. This allowed their culture to remain very distinct from the rest of the Seven Kingdoms.
While they were separated from everyday contact, the Dornishmen have had frequent border wars and skirmishes with the fertile lands of the Reach to the west, and with the Stormlands to the north. For centuries, the main flashpoint in these conflicts have been in the hills and valleys of the Dornish Marches , a rough border region in the southwestern Stormlands.
The Rhoynar did not settle evenly across Dorne when they migrated to Dorne: instead, they primarily focused around the coasts and river valleys in the east, with their numbers gradually thinning out proceeding west towards the interior deserts and mountains of the west.
As a result, there are actually said to be three kinds of Dornishmen in modern times:. The Rhoynar ancestors of the Dornishmen did convert to the Faith of the Seven when they migrated to Westeros, but in many ways they simply picked and chose which rules they wanted to follow while ignoring those they disagreed with.
As a result the religion is interpreted more loosely in Dorne than in the other Seven Kingdoms though they are no less devout , with several unique variations and local customs. The Rhoynar also abandoned use of their original language and adopted the Common Tongue of the Andals when they migrated to Westeros.
However, the lingering influence of their old language has given Dornishmen a distinctive accent to their speech. In the rest of the Seven Kingdoms, the Dornish have a reputation for being hot-blooded and sexually licentious. Indeed, Dornishmen have more "relaxed" views towards sexuality and love than the rest of Westeros.
Paramours are not shunned or kept in secret: instead they are held in a similar status as a lawful wife or husband, and it is not unusual for noblewomen to have paramours.
The Dornish also have no particular stigma against homosexual behavior. Similarly, bastards do not carry the stigma of being born out of wedlock and are raised along their trueborn siblings and cousins, though they are still considered poor matches for marriage due to their inability to receive inheritance. Dorne was the only one of the Seven Kingdoms that managed to maintain its independence during the Targaryen Conquest , three centuries before the War of the Five Kings, during which Aegon I Targaryen forged the other six kingdoms into one unified realm under the Iron Throne.
The Dornishmen achieved this by resorting to guerrilla warfare: realizing they could not fight the Targaryen dragons or hold out in siege , the Dornish melted away into the deserts to hide when a dragon arrived at one of their castles, then as soon as it left, ambushed Targaryen soldiers and harassed their supply lines. Eventually the Targaryens lost so many men from attrition that they had to abandon their invasion, and focus on reining in the other six kingdoms.
Dorne eventually did come under the authority of the Iron Throne - but they joined the realm through peaceful marriage-alliance, only one century before the War of the Five Kings. As a result the Dornishmen were allowed to keep various local laws and privileges, such as referring to their regional ruler as a "Prince" instead of a "Lord Paramount". The combined effects of this geographic, ethnic, and political isolation has made the culture of the Dornishmen very unique in Westeros.
They were accompanied by several minor vassal families who also settled on nearby islands. The Targaryens also possessed the world's only surviving dragons.
For the next hundred years, while the former Valyrian Freehold tore itself apart in the Century of Blood , the Targaryens remained on Dragonstone, consolidating their strength.
At the end of the Targaryen Conquest, Aegon took the swords of his fallen enemies and forged them into the Iron Throne using dragonflame. The Targaryens then founded a new capital city, King's Landing , and carved out territory from the neighboring kingdoms to form a new administrative region: the Crownlands , to be ruled directly by the Iron Throne. Over time the tradition was established that while the current monarch ruled in King's Landing, the heir apparent to the throne would rule the ancestral Targaryen territory on Dragonstone, holding the title " Prince of Dragonstone ".
Viserys Targaryen has inherited the physical traits of his Valyrian ancestors and the unstable mindset of his family: House Targaryen. The Targaryens and their vassals actually had a minimal impact on the ethnic makeup of Westeros: their numbers were and remained so low that they are not even considered a major ethnic group after the First Men, Andals, and Rhoynar, or even the ironborn.
A major reason for this is that the Targaryens maintained their Valyrian ancestors' traditions of heavily incestuous marriages, marrying brother to sister whenever possible in order to "keep the bloodline pure".
As a result they did not heavily intermingle with other major noble families in Westeros, and their numbers remained quite small - and also severely reduced whenever civil wars broke out amongst the Targaryens themselves. There were a few intermarriages over the centuries - so as with House Martell and later House Baratheon - but on the whole, except for a few distant cousins, by the time of Robert's Rebellion , the Targaryen family solely consisted of the Mad King, his sister-wife, and their three children and also Rhaegar's children, later murdered, and the Mad King's daughter Daenerys who was born after his death.
Following the war, and subsequent death of the Mad King's second son Viserys, the sole surviving member of the family is Daenerys Targaryen not counting the Mad King's uncle Maester Aemon , who joined the Night's Watch decades ago and took an oath of celibacy.
Due to their heavy inbreeding, the Targaryens retained the classic Valyrian features of very pale skin, silver platinum blonde hair, and brightly colored eyes. The Targaryens abandoned the old Valyrian religion and converted to the Faith of the Seven when they came to Westeros, largely as a political expediency - though they ignored the Faith's basic rule against incest, feeling that their royal status set them above the rules of others.
Rather than try to force High Valyrian onto the entire continent, the Targaryens also shifted to speaking the Common Tongue of their subjects in Westeros though many Targaryens still learned High Valyrian in private.
A map showing the location of the nine Free Cities in the continent of Essos. The Free Cities were founded as colonies of the Valyrian Freehold, but over the centuries their inhabitants intermingled with other peoples, so in many cases they no longer closely resemble the Valyrians.
Large slave populations in several of the cities also contributed to a more diverse makeup. As their name implies, the Free Cities are much more cosmopolitan than Westeros: In the Seven Kingdoms, the smallfolk are usually tied to the land and don't move around as much to seek their fortunes.
By contrast, many of the Free Cities rely heavily on international trade, with classes of professional merchants forming a core subset of the population. International commerce forms a significant part of the economy in each of these cities, and they are all heavily involved in the slave trade slaves outnumber freeborn in Volantis, and in the other cities.
Of the four northern Free Cities, Braavos is in a class by itself: It was not founded by the Valyrians themselves, but by escaped slaves fleeing from the Freehold. These slaves from many different ethnic backgrounds and that diversity has endured in Braavos ever since.
Norvos, Qohor, and Lorath were founded by religious dissidents from the Freehold who wanted to remove themselves from the centers of power to conduct their own affairs.
These cities do practice slavery, but not nearly as much as the southern cities, and Braavos does not practice it at all. Qohor is also the exit point for overland trade caravans heading east across the Dothraki Sea to Vaes Dothrak , where they meet with merchants heading west from Yi Ti , so it is actually one of the more exotic Free Cities despite not being on the coast and involved in sea trade.
Lorath and Pentos are unique in that they are believed to have been inhabited before the Valyrians came. Lorath was home to a lost civilization of maze-makers, who died out centuries ago but left ruins behind. Ibbenese and Andal settlers followed them, but they were eventually wiped out in wars and Lorath was uninhabited for a time.
Lorath in its present form was re-founded as a colony by religious dissidents from Valyria; their faith did not believe in slavery, so Lorath became a safe haven for escaped slaves, making it ethnically diverse. Pentos is really the only one of the Free Cities which might have been both previously existing and continuously inhabited from a time before the Valyrians.
It may have been the location of an old Andal kingdom - given that the lands of Pentos are immediately south of Andalos - or perhaps cousins of the Andals. Whatever the case, modern Pentoshi do consider themselves to be descended from the Valyrians, but in appearance they are fairly close to the Andals of Westeros i. Illyrio Mopatis is played by a Northern European actor, just like most characters seen in Westeros. A number of distinctive trends can be observed in the ethnic and racial makeup of the Free Cities:.
Razdal mo Eraz , a slave-master from Yunkai. Some of the ancient bloodlines and traditions of the Ghiscari Empire lived on in their colony-cities in Slaver's Bay , which were conquered and ruled by the Valyrians for the next five thousand years, until reasserting their independence after the Doom of Valyria.
The great cities of Astapor , Yunkai , Meereen , and New Ghis became the central hub of slavery and the slave-trade in the known world: capturing slaves in war and raids and breeding them during peace, and exporting them to the Free Cities and other lands. The modern Ghiscari do not actually have a very strong ethnic or cultural connection to the ancient Ghiscari, though their rulers like to boast that they do.
After the Doom of Valyria, the peoples of Slaver's Bay tried to re-assert their independence by championing their descent and cultural heritage from the old Ghiscari Empire now that their Valyrian overlords were gone. In reality, however, five thousand years of domination by the Valyrians took their toll, and present-day Slaver's Bay only has certain scraps of culture and traditions which date back to the Ghiscari Empire itself.
Hizdahr zo Loraq , from an old aristocratic family of Great Masters in Meereen. Much like the local peoples in the Free Cities, once the Valyrians were gone they developed their own romance dialect of High Valyrian; however the Low Valyrian of Slaver's Bay is quite different from the dialects in the Free Cities, because it contains many borrowings from the older Ghiscari languages, i. Still, in terms of basic structure, the language is really a derivation of High Valyrian with some Ghiscari influence, and the language of the old empire is largely extinct.
The region's current inhabitants are really a mixed race, descended from the small surviving Ghiscari population which intermingled with dozens of other enslaved peoples under the Valyrians over the centuries, many of them brought in from far away regions.
Similarly, Kraznys mo Nakloz has the more or less most common "Ghiscari" appearance, but the other Good Masters of Astapor are a wide range of ethnicities.
Exemplified in this crowd shot of Meereen , both slave-masters and slaves are each from a wide variety of ethnicities. As a result, even the aristocratic classes among the slave-masters have a very diverse ethnic background.
The current slave populations are even more diverse, some brought in from the far corners of the known world. Slavers frequently raid across the Summer Sea to take captives from Sothoryos , Naath , and the Summer Islands , and in some cases their descendants remained enslaved in cities such as Astapor for generations.
The slavers will also basically slap chains onto anyone they can catch, often through piracy, so at the same time it is not unusual for other slaves in the same area to be blonde-haired and blue-eyed descendants of slaves taken from Lys or the other Free Cities. Moreover, over the centuries some slaves have won their freedom and risen in social rank, while the aristocrats from the losing sides in wars were sold into slavery, etc. The Dothraki are nomadic horse-mounted warriors, who inhabit the vast central plains of Essos, known as the Dothraki Sea.
They are said to be born, fight, and die in the saddle. Most of their society is centered around their horses: even their name for themselves in their own language, "Dothraki", literally means "riders".
The Dothraki are divided into several nameless clans known as khalasars , led by a single leader, the khal. The khalasars roam the Dothraki Sea, always on the move looking for new pasture lands and new targets for plundering. The Dothraki frequently raid neighboring regions, such as Lhazar to the southeast or the Free Cities to the west. The Dothraki live by taking what they need including supplies, valuables, and new captives to serve them as slaves.
The Dothraki respect force, and thus only respect those who are able to successfully resist them, while conquered slaves deserve only contempt. Long ago the Free Cities decided that it was often less destructive to just give the Dothraki massive tributes in gold, finished products, and slaves, than to try to fight them off though a Dothraki horde might still attack if they find the gift insufficient, or if they just haven't had a good fight in a while.
Kovarro , a Dothraki warrior, holding an arakh. The Dothraki traditionally fight with curved swords known as arakhs , and also employ bolas, daggers, and whips, or huge, recurved bows with impressive range and striking power that can be fired from horseback. They also shun armor, considering speed and freedom of movement to be more important in battle. Warriors braid their hair and only cut it when defeated, so the world may see their shame.
As light cavalry, their attacks are extremely fast and deadly, but they are vulnerable to archers and on the ground they are less effective against armored infantry despite their speed. However, they seldom attack on foot except for individual combat, so they usually retain the advantage. Irri , a Dothraki handmaiden in service to Daenerys Targaryen. The only Dothraki city is Vaes Dothrak , located to the far north-east of the Dothraki sea. It is ruled by the Dosh khaleen , crones and wise women who were once the wives of now dead khals.
All Dothraki commerce with fellow Dothraki and other Essos peoples is done in the marketplaces of the city, and all sacred rituals are conducted there. Drawing weapons or shedding blood is forbidden inside Vaes Dothrak. Dothraki do not trust salt water, because their horses cannot drink it. The literal term for ocean in the Dothraki language is "poison water".
They refuse to sail in ships over the oceans. Thus they are not considered a threat by the Westerosi because they will not cross the Narrow Sea. Mirri Maz Duur , a Lhazareen healer and "maegi". The Lhazareen are a race of peaceful shepherds established in Lhazar , a hilly land south of Vaes Dothrak , north of the Red Waste , and northeast of Slaver's Bay. Lhazar is separated from the slaver-cities by large coastal mountains. The Skahazadhan River flows through the middle of Lhazar, then west through the coastal mountains and into the sea: the slaver-city Meereen is located at the mouth of the river.
Mirroring the importance of shepherding in Lhazareen culture, their deity is known as the " Great Shepherd ". Due to their non-martial culture they are a favored target of Dothraki raids when the mounted hordes are looking to acquire new slaves. The Lhazareen can put up little significant resistance against the Dothraki, who derisively call them the "Lamb Men".
The Spice King , a Qartheen man. The city of Qarth is a major trade hub far to the east in Essos, the furthest east that trading ships from Westeros regularly travel. Qarth is located adjacent to the narrow straits that separate the Summer Sea from the Jade Sea , and control of these straits has made the city fabulously wealthy. Merchant vessels from everywhere between Westeros to Asshai put in at Qarth's port.
Protected to the north by the vast desert known as the Red Waste , Qarth does not fear raids from the Dothraki, and was never part of the Valyrian Freehold.
Due to its location on a peninsula controlling vital shipping straits, Qarth is somewhat like real-life Constantinople, though in other respects it is somewhat like India - in the sense that it is even further east than the Middle East analogue Slaver's Bay, and is perceived by people from Westeros to be filled with exotic riches. Several members of the Thirteen , the ruling council of Qarth. Daenerys, dressed in Qartheen fashion, attends a gathering of Qartheen social elites.
Yi Ti is a region located in the far east of Essos. It is located at the eastern limits of the known world , beyond the Jade Sea and to the east of even Qarth. It is sometimes mentioned in the same breath as Asshai as an extremely remote part of the world from Westeros [11]. Merchant ships from Yi Ti and Asshai regularly visit Qarth to conduct trade.
Asshai is port city in the far east of the Jade Sea , even further east than Yi Ti. It is so far away from Westeros that it half-legendary to its inhabitants, and infamous as a city of sorcerers, warlocks, and other practitioners of the dark arts.
Worst of all are shadowbinders , who alone venture into the neighboring Shadow Lands in the Mountains of the Morn, seeking arcane riches, and relics such as dragonbone. But even the shadowbinders fear to travel further northeast into the heart of the Shadow Lands, where can be found Stygai, the dread corpse city, and strange city-state of Carcosa, ruled by its Yellow King. What little is known about Asshai from travelers' reports say that its enormous land walls enclose an area so vast that it could contain King's Landing, Oldtown, Qarth, and Volantis - but its current population is no bigger than that of a large market town.
Asshai is located at the mouth of the Ash River, whose waters are poisonous. Absolutely nothing grows in Asshai, except for glowing Ghost grass , which is inedible to anything. All food, and even all basic drinking water, has to be imported to Asshai by foreign merchant ships - in exchange for gold, gems, and dragonglass, which Asshai has in abundance.
There are no horses, or even wild animals, in the city. Animals such as horses and dogs who are brought to Asshai by ship soon die. There are no children in Asshai.
Even the very fumes of the Ash River or some other malign presence seems to render people sterile who live there for prolonged periods of time. The people of Asshai are known as Asshai'i. Because there are no children in Asshai, its culture "reproduces" by purchasing foreign slaves and raising them as the next generation of Asshai'i.
As a result, there is no set ethnic appearance for Asshai'i, who could have been born into slavery in the Free Cities, the Summer Islands, or Yi Ti before being taken to the city. Thus Yi Tish culture has endured unbroken longer than any other civilization on record. Yi Ti's religion includes several gods but is focused around two primary deities: the Maiden-Made-of-Light and the Lion of Night.
Yi Ti is inspired by China and the Far East from real-life history. Elio Garcia and Linda Antonsson, who run Westeros. Martin , have confirmed this. It lies at the far eastern edge of the known world to the peoples of Westeros , though they are in trade contact with it - albeit indirectly - via the long shipping circle around the Jade Sea. This term does not exist in Westeros: instead the collective term they consistently use for Yi Ti and the other distant lands east of the Bone Mountains or around the Jade Sea is "the Further East" specifically spelled with a "u", even though "farther" with an "a" is more typically used to connote large geographic distance.
Yi Ti is tropical in climate, with immense jungles just inland and stretching across great swaths of the landscape. Centuries of human civilization, however, have carved out vast patchworks of green farmland from the verdant rainforest; its climate and agricultural patterns are somewhat similar to southern China.
Few Westerosi has ever traveled all the way to Yi Ti, though a handful of adventurers have made the long journey. He sailed to Yi Ti nearly years before the War of the Five Kings and brought back enough rare and valuable spices to make the Velaryons , for a time, one of the richest families in Westeros.
The famed explorer Lomas Longstrider also traveled to Yi Ti. A few Westerosi have traveled to Yi Ti and it is known to be a real place, but most people know very little about it, and it is still semi-legendary to people living in Westeros much more so than Qarth , but not nearly as much as feared Asshai. Even the maesters only know a basic outline of its history and culture - in part because Yi Ti's scholars greatly prize their delicate, millennia-old historical scrolls, so they do not share them with outsiders.
Its western border is a few hundred miles east of Qarth, on the opposite side of the immense Bone Mountains which run from the southern to northern coasts of Essos. Its eastern border is adjacent to the " Shadow Lands ", the mountainous peninsula that runs northeast from Asshai. The Jogos Nhai are nomadic people who follow the religion of the Moonsingers. Ships traveling east to Yi Ti and lands beyond have to pass through the Jade Gates, also known as the Straits of Qarth because they are near and controlled by Qarth.
Qarth has amassed great wealth by using its fleet to exact tolls from east-west shipping passing through the straits. A round-trip journey from the Free City of Volantis to Asshai lasts about two years, so a round-trip journey between Volantis and Yi Ti must be somewhat shorter than that.
This is only the as-the-crow-flies distance in a straight line, however: a ship can go straight from Yin to Qarth, but the impassable Red Waste lies between Qarth and Astapor, so ships have to travel around the Ghiscari peninsula to approach Astapor from the west.
As a result, a journey between Qarth and Yin is probably shorter than the one Daenerys made from Qarth to Astapor. Yi Ti is on the north coast of the Jade Sea , but the earlier TV map shown here inaccurately depicts it extending north from Qarth.
Later book-continuity maps clarified that the Jade Sea extends south from Qarth. The TV series was given an early draft of the world map by Martin at the beginning of Season 2 before he made several major revisions to the geography of the eastern regions.
The subsequent official map book, however, revealed that Qarth is actually at the extreme northern end of the Jade Sea, and as one proceeds east the shoreline gradually curves to the south, not sharply to the north.
In the book-continuity, this means that Yi Ti's capital city Yin is slightly south of Qarth, roughly near the same latitude as Old Valyria. The HBO Viewer's Guide, however, was not updated to take into account the new official maps produced for the book-continuity: instead, Season 3 onward continued to simply re-use the previous map designs used since Season 2.
It is not clear if this is a conscious choice, and that world geography is officially different in the TV continuity from the book continuity, or if this is simply an oversight. As a result, however, it cannot be said with certainty if Yi Ti in the TV continuity is in the same geographic area as it is in the book continuity. The map artist who made the original TV map pointed out that the map contradiction could easily be waved aside by the TV continuity at some future point to update them to the new official maps for the book continuity by simply saying that earlier maps were incorrect in-universe , because knowledge of lands far away from Westeros is sketchy compare to medieval European maps depicting distant China, which were also wildly inaccurate.
Similar to the real-life concept of yin and yang , the people of Yi Ti believe in at least two major deities: the Lion of Night , a destructive male figure who punishes the wicked, and the Maiden-Made-of-Light , a female figure who preserves and defends the good. The people of Yi Ti also worship their emperors as living gods: while there have been different dynasties over the millennia, they believe that the very first emperor eons ago during the Dawn Age was the only son of the Lion of Night and Maiden-Made-of-Light, known as God-on-Earth.
Yi Ti is known for its merchants who wear hats made from monkey tails, and representatives from Yi Ti come to trade at the eastern market of Vaes Dothrak. Daenerys Targaryen even spots some Yi Tish merchants in the market during the first novel. While she briefly notes these merchants, no named characters from Yi Ti have "appeared" in the novels so far. Vaes Dothrak is the main hub for overland trade between Yi Ti and the Free Cities - those wishing to avoid the heavy tolls on sea travel that Qarth exacts from any who pass through the Straits of Qarth use this overland route.
Typically traders from the Free Cities leave from Qohor , the easternmost of the Free Cities, giving it somewhat more regular though often indirect trade contact with the Yi Tish and making it the most exotic of the Free Cities. The Dothraki do not take part in this trade, as they do not really understand or deal with the ways of commerce. Merchants from the Free Cities come to Vaes Dothrak from the west, merchants from Yi Ti come from the east, then use the city as a meeting place to trade with each other - and both groups just give the Dothraki a regular tribute to be allowed to operate there.
Yi Ti's most famous export is saffron , which travels along with trade networks all the way to Westeros, where it is a very expensive spice that only very rich noblemen can afford. Davos Seaworth mentions that saffron is worth more than gold when it reaches Westeros, due to the extreme cost of shipping the spice from such a faraway land.
Davos only tasted saffron once during a feast on Dragonstone , when King Robert sent him half a fish seasoned with saffron. The region produces its own wines: when Tyrion Lannister flees to Pentos, he notices a flask of Yi Tish wine in the home of Illyrio Mopatis it isn't clear how objectively good the quality is compared to other wines, or if Illyrio just got it as a prestige item because it is so expensive to import wine from such a distant land.
Yi Ti is one of the oldest civilizations in the known world, extending at least as far back as the Long Night 8, years ago. Several civilizations have rival claims to be the eldest, particularly Yi Ti, Qarth, and the Ghiscari Empire. Of these, only the Ghiscari Empire has a written record extending far enough back to serve as reliable proof that it was eldest. The Ghiscari Empire originated before the Long Night and was still young at the time of the cataclysm. Yi Ti claims that it had an even older empire for many thousands of years before that, during the Dawn Age, but which was destroyed during the Long Night and had to be rebuilt.
The tales of this Great Empire of the Dawn as it is known are grandiose and apparently mostly legend, filled with emperors who lived for centuries and warred with the gods. Still, only a few generations separated the confirmed founding of both; Old Ghis slightly before the Long Night and Yi Ti slightly after - yet Old Ghis was destroyed 5, years ago by the rising Valyrian Freehold. In contrast, the Golden Empire of Yi Ti is by far the oldest continuous civilization in the world, both at present and throughout recorded history, with culture and accurately transmitted historical record stretching back 8, years, to the end of the Long Night.
In comparison, the Ghiscari Empire lasted about 3, years and the Valyrian Freehold about 5, years. The civilization of Yi Ti is therefore extremely advanced because while it has had its share of civil wars, its society never truly collapsed in the way that western Essos did after the Doom of Valyria , or experienced an effect as the Andal Invasion had on Westeros.
Lomas Longstrider described Yi Ti as "the land of a thousand gods and a hundred princes, ruled by one god-emperor. The real power has come to reside in strong regional princedoms, numbering about a hundred or so but nominally all part of the same empire.
Yi Ti's original capital city after the Long Night was Yin, a major port on the southern coast at the mouth of a large river.
The capital shifted around to different cities over the millennia depending on which dynasty was in power, and at times was in the cities of Tiqui and Jinqi.
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