Old Valyria

 

The Valyrian Freehold was the empire established by the Valyrian civilization in the continent of Essos, centered around the city of Valyria in the eponymous peninsula. At its height, the Valyrian Freehold covered over half of the known world.

 

Thought to initially be a modest community of shepherds, the Valyrians rose to prominence five thousand years ago after they discovered dragonsliving in the Fourteen Fires, a string of volcanoes in the mountains of their homeland. After taming the mighty beasts, the Valyrians used them to conquer surrounding lands and began expanding outwards.

The Ghiscari Empire, however, sought to halt Valyrian expansion and declared war on their neighbors from the opposite shore of Slaver's Bay. Massive Ghiscari slave-legions marched against Valyrian in a series of five major wars, but each time they were defeated. The Freehold's forces then marched on the Ghiscari capital of Ghis and laid waste to it, leaving little more than a smoldering ruin behind and nearly erasing Ghiscari people and culture from history.

Afterward, the Valyrian Freehold became the dominant civilization in the known world, with its own language, religion and customs. The Freehold founded a number of colony cities, connected by a network of roads all of which led back to the capital city. House Targaryen established onDragonstone, off the coast of a new continent: Westeros

 

For nearly five thousand years, Valyrian supremacy remained uncontested. However, a cataclysmic event known as "The Doom" laid waste to the Valyrian capital, its people, and the surrounding lands. The Valyrian peninsula itself was shattered and the ocean came sweeping in, becoming theSmoking Sea. Dragons, as well as Valyrian recorded history, spells, and knowledge were lost. With its center of power destroyed, the empire collapsed. Of the mighty families of dragonlords who ruled the Freehold, only House Targaryen survived as it had established far away, years before the Doom.

 

The surviving colonies of the Valyrian Freehold split up into rival independent city-states. In the west, they became the Free Cities. In the east, the conquered Ghiscari cities of Slaver's Bay reasserted their independence, but five thousand years of Valyrian domination had swept away most of their original culture.