The made things of the realm
A cabinet of the objects the chronicles set store by — crowns and coin, the pyromancers' green fire, the black glass of the elder world, and the great books in which the realm keeps its memory.
Crowns of the kings
Before and after the Conquest, each crown was made to be read at a glance.
What the kings wore
The crowns of the old kings
Before Aegon's Conquest welded the realm together, each of the Seven Kingdoms crowned its own king, and each crown told the story of the people who forged it. The Kings of Winter wore an open circlet of hammered bronze and black iron, its points cut in the shape of longswords — a hard, plain crown for a hard, cold land. The Kings of the Rock crowned themselves in gold, as befit lords who sat above rivers of it, and the Storm Kings and the Gardener Kings of the Reach each kept their own.
- Aegon the Conqueror, for all his dragons, wore no grand thing but a simple circlet — the chronicles remember it as far plainer than the gaudier crowns his heirs would later favour.
- A crown, in the old wisdom, is meant to be read: the metal, the shape, and the sigils upon it declare at a glance whose head it sits on and by what right.
SourcesThe World of Ice & Fire · A Game of Thrones
These partings name deaths, endings, and roads not yet ridden in the books. Unveil them only if both roads are known to you — or if you do not fear to know.
These partings name deaths, endings, and roads not yet ridden in the books. Unveil them only if both roads are known to you — or if you do not fear to know.
Wildfire and the Alchemists
The pyromancers' art, and the green fire that can save a city or ruin it.
The pyromancers' art
The Alchemists' Guild and the substance
The Alchemists' Guild is an ancient order of King's Landing whose members style themselves wisdoms and claim descent from the sorcerer-scholars of old. In the days of the dragons their influence was great; in leaner times they were reduced to conjurer's tricks and the selling of love-potions. Their one true art is the making of wildfire — a substance they call simply 'the substance' — a jade-green fluid so volatile that a jar of it will burn through stone, cling to whatever it touches, and burn even upon water.
- Wildfire is said to grow more potent, and more treacherous, as it ages, so that the guild's oldest stores are the ones most feared.
- The wisdoms guard the recipe jealously and speak of spells in its making; a maester would sooner name it a rare and dangerous chemistry, but the effect is the same either way.
SourcesA Clash of Kings · The World of Ice & Fire
These partings name deaths, endings, and roads not yet ridden in the books. Unveil them only if both roads are known to you — or if you do not fear to know.
Obsidian and dragonglass
Frozen fire — the black glass of the children of the forest.
Frozen fire
Obsidian, or dragonglass
Obsidian is the black volcanic glass the smallfolk name dragonglass and the men of the Watch have older names for still. It can be knapped to an edge sharper than any steel, though it is brittle and shatters where good steel would only bend. The children of the forest, who knew no metalwork, armed themselves with it — arrowheads, blades, and daggers of chipped obsidian — and it lies in plenty on the smoking isle of Dragonstone, which sits atop a mountain of the stuff. The oldest tales of the north hold that dragonglass has a virtue against the cold things that walk in the long dark, a claim the Watch has had grim cause to weigh anew.
SourcesA Game of Thrones · A Storm of Swords · The World of Ice & Fire
The realm's coin
Dragons, stags, and coppers, named as ever for the beasts of rulers.
The realm's coin
Dragons, stags, and coppers
The coinage of the Seven Kingdoms is reckoned in three metals, and named — as so much in the realm is — for the beasts of its rulers. Gold is the dragon, silver the stag, and the base metal the copper, and men count their fortunes and their debts in the three.
- The golden dragon is the coin of great sums — dowries, ransoms, and the wages of war.
- The silver stag serves for the middling business of a prosperous household.
- Coppers — pennies, stars, groats, and half-groats — are the coin the smallfolk actually handle from one year to the next. Exact rates of exchange the chronicles give only loosely, and a maester does well not to pretend to more precision than his sources allow.
SourcesThe World of Ice & Fire · A Clash of Kings
The great books
The tomes in which the realm records its knights and its bloodlines.
The realm's great tomes
The White Book of the Kingsguard
In the White Sword Tower of the Red Keep is kept the White Book, in which the deeds of every knight ever to wear the white cloak are recorded — his arms, his lineage, the day he took his vows, and the great acts and failings of his service, down to the day of his death. It falls to the Lord Commander to keep the pages current, and a man's entry is his memorial, be it a page of glory or a bare and shameful line. No knight of the Seven Kingdoms carries a heavier judgement than the one written of him there.
SourcesA Clash of Kings · A Feast for Crows
The Lineages and Histories of the Great Houses
Grand Maester Malleon's great genealogy — its full title runs to a small paragraph of its own — sets down the bloodlines of the noble houses of the Seven Kingdoms across the centuries: their marriages, their issue, and the traits that ran true in them from one generation to the next. It is a dry and ponderous book, the sort that gathers dust in the Red Keep's library, and yet such a record can hold more than blazons and begettings. Read closely by a careful eye, a book of bloodlines can answer questions its author never thought to ask.
SourcesA Game of Thrones
Dawn, a blade apart
Not every marvel-sword of Westeros is Valyrian steel.
A blade apart
Dawn, the sword of the morning
Not every marvel-blade of Westeros is Valyrian steel. House Dayne of Starfall keeps an ancestral greatsword named Dawn, pale as milkglass and said to have been forged from the heart of a fallen star — a metal, if metal it is, older than the dragonlords' art. It is borne only by a knight of the house judged worthy of the title Sword of the Morning, and it passes not to an heir but to whoever earns it. For the full account of Dawn among its stranger cousins, and of Valyrian steel itself, see the chronicle's study of the great blades.
SourcesA Storm of Swords · The World of Ice & Fire
What is wildfire in Game of Thrones?
Wildfire is a volatile jade-green substance made by the Alchemists' Guild of King's Landing, who style themselves pyromancers. It burns hotter than ordinary fire, clings to whatever it touches, and burns even upon water. It is said to grow more potent and more treacherous as it ages; the chronicle keeps its consequential wartime uses behind the spoiler veil.
What is dragonglass?
Dragonglass is the smallfolk's name for obsidian, the black volcanic glass that can be knapped to an edge sharper than steel, though it is brittle. The children of the forest, who worked no metal, armed themselves with it, and it lies in plenty on Dragonstone. The oldest tales of the north hold that it has a virtue against the cold things that walk in the long dark.
What money do they use in Westeros?
The coinage of the Seven Kingdoms is reckoned in three metals named for the beasts of rulers: the gold dragon for great sums, the silver stag for middling business, and the copper — pennies, stars, groats, and half-groats — for the everyday dealings of the smallfolk. The exact rates of exchange the books give only loosely.
What is the White Book of the Kingsguard?
The White Book, kept in the White Sword Tower of the Red Keep, records the deeds of every knight ever to wear the white cloak of the Kingsguard — his arms, his lineage, his vows, and his service down to the day of his death. The Lord Commander keeps it current, and a man's entry is his memorial, be it a page of glory or a bare and shameful line.