before 72 AC — no earlier year survives, though he was already grown to rideable size when Prince Aemon Targaryen first claimed him that year
Died
130 AC, over the Gods Eye, of wounds taken killing Vhagar
Size
Large by any measure but built long, lean, and serpentine rather than broad — a shape better suited to speed and savagery than to matching bulk with the likes of Vhagar, which made his final duel with her a mismatch he did not survive.
Temperament
The ugliest dragon of his generation by the chroniclers' own account, and the most battle-hardened; where gentler dragons were kept for pageantry, the Blood Wyrm spent decades in actual war, and it left him, like his rider, more comfortable with violence than with peace.
Caraxes earned his name honestly. Where most dragons of the Dance spent their early years chained in a pit or flown for pleasure about Dragonstone, the Blood Wyrm went to war young, carrying Daemon Targaryen through the Stepstones campaign that first made the Rogue Prince's reputation and, not incidentally, gave him a claimed crown over a stretch of pirate-haunted islands no one else particularly wanted. Decades of that kind of use left him scarred, foul-tempered, and entirely unsentimental — a working dragon in a stable that mostly kept ornamental ones.
When the Dance came, Caraxes and Daemon simply resumed a partnership that had never really stopped. Their end suited the beginning: locked in the air above the Gods Eye with Vhagar, oldest rivalry meeting oldest rival, the two dragons fell together into the lake, and neither rider walked away. The Citadel notes, with the sort of dryness the subject invites, that the Rogue Prince and his ugly, vicious mount went out exactly as they had spent their lives together — fighting something larger than themselves and not counting the cost until after.
The fate of Caraxes
This carries how the dragon's story ends in the published novels. Read on only if you do not fear to know.
Went down locked with Vhagar above the Gods Eye and did not long survive the fall — the last blow struck in a rivalry between rider and dragon both that had simmered since the Stepstones, ended at last in a shared grave beneath the lake.
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.
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Riders
Who was Caraxes?
Caraxes earned his name honestly. Where most dragons of the Dance spent their early years chained in a pit or flown for pleasure about Dragonstone, the Blood Wyrm went to war young, carrying Daemon Targaryen through the Stepstones campaign that first made the Rogue Prince's reputation and, not incidentally, gave him a claimed crown over a stretch of pirate-haunted islands no one else particularly wanted. Decades of that kind of use left him scarred, foul-tempered, and entirely unsentimental — a working dragon in a stable that mostly kept ornamental ones.
Is Caraxes from the books or the show?
Book canon. This entry follows George R. R. Martin's novels and histories, and notes where the television series diverges rather than following it.