The world's oldest and costliest guild of assassins keep a temple of masks in Braavos and serve a god of death worn under many faces. Here is what the books tell of their creed, their price, and the two words every reader learns to fear — valar morghulis.
What the Faceless Men are
The Faceless Men are the guild of assassins who keep the House of Black and White in Braavos, and no order in the known world is older or stranger. They do not kill for gold as a sellsword does, nor for a lord's whim; they kill as an act of worship, and call each killing a gift. To the world they are a rumour with a very sharp edge — the most feared and most costly killers alive, servants of a god the maesters have no name for.
The founding, as the priests tell it
By the tale the priests tell their acolytes, the order was born in the mines beneath the Fourteen Flames, in the deepest bondage of the Valyrian Freehold. There a single slave, hearing the ceaseless prayers of the dying who begged only for an end, understood at last that the many gods those thousands prayed to — the Stranger, the Lion of Night, the Black Goat, and a hundred more — were all one god, the god of death, wearing many faces. He gave the first gift, and the order followed. It is a good tale. Whether a word of it is true no maester can say, for the Faceless Men keep their history as closely as they keep their faces.
The Faceless Men hold that every people's death-god is the same god seen from a different pew — the Stranger of the Seven, the Lion of Night of Yi Ti, the Black Goat of Qohor, the drowned god's cold kiss, all of them one Many-Faced God. Death, they teach, is not to be feared but served, for it is the only mercy that comes to every living thing without exception. Their temple keeps the faces of all these gods and shows none of them a preference.
SourcesAFFC · Arya IIADWD · The Blind Girl
The gift of death
What the order deals is never called murder within the House. It is the gift — a death given cleanly, painlessly, and (they insist) mercifully, whether the one who receives it has begged for it or been sold it by another. The priests wash and comfort those who come to the temple pool to die willingly, and carry the same gift, uninvited, to those a paying petitioner has named.
SourcesAFFC · Arya IADWD · The Ugly Little Girl
To become no one
An acolyte who would serve must first surrender everything that makes a person someone — name, face, past, and the small hoard of loves and hatreds a person carries. Only a servant who is no one may wear the faces of the dead the temple keeps and carry the god's gift without the taint of a private grudge. It is the hardest price the order asks, and it is asked before any blade is ever put in the acolyte's hand.
SourcesADWD · The Blind GirlADWD · The Ugly Little Girl
Valar morghulis, valar dohaeris
In High ValyrianWord for wordWhat it means
Valar morghulis
All men must die
The signature words of the Faceless Men and a common farewell in Braavos, offered the way another city might say 'go with the gods.' Spoken with the iron coin the order gives, the words are a passphrase that buys a traveller safe passage across the narrow sea and admittance to the House of Black and White.
SourcesACOK · Arya XAFFC · Arya I
Valar dohaeris
All men must serve
The answer to valar morghulis, and its necessary other half: because all men must die, all men must first serve. It is what the servant of the Many-Faced God says in reply, and what greets a petitioner at the temple door. The two phrases are High Valyrian, survivals of the tongue the Freehold spoke before the Doom.
SourcesAFFC · PrologueAFFC · Arya I
The rules, and the price
A death must be bought
No Faceless Man kills for his own reasons, and none kills for coin alone. A death is given only when it has been asked of the god and paid for — the killing is an offering, not a contract, and the assassin is the instrument, never the buyer.
SourcesAFFC · Arya II
The price is what it costs you
The order's fee is famously not a number. It is measured against the one who asks: a poor man might pay all he owns and still fall short, a rich man a fortune, a king the ransom of a kingdom. And a petitioner with nothing to give may still buy a death — with his own, offered up when the deed is done. The Faceless Men will have their price, and they are never cheap.
SourcesAFFC · Arya IITWOIAF · Braavos (hedged)
No lie may be told in the House
Within the House of Black and White the servants of the god always know a falsehood, and an acolyte who lies is found out and punished. The temple is the one place in a city of masks where a face must be true — a discipline the order treats as the first lesson, long before the last.
SourcesAFFC · Arya IADWD · The Blind Girl
A girl in the House of Black and White
The coin at Harrenhal
A prisoner who named himself Jaqen H'ghar was owed three deaths for the three lives a northern girl pulled from a burning cage, and he paid them — a strangeness, a fever, and at last a whole garrison's throats, given as coolly as a maester lists ingredients. When his debt was settled he changed his face before her eyes, pressed a worn iron coin into her hand, and taught her two words to carry it across the sea: valar morghulis.
SourcesACOK · Arya VIIACOK · Arya IXACOK · Arya X
A girl has no name
The coin and the words at last carried her to the House of Black and White, where a kindly man and a stern one set about the slow unmaking of her name. She was made to lie, to beg, to sell cockles as another child, to be no one and then someone else again — and, when her wilfulness earned it, to be blind. What the order intends to make of her, and whether her own list of names will let it, is a question the books have not yet closed.
SourcesAFFC · Arya IAFFC · Arya IIADWD · The Blind GirlADWD · The Ugly Little Girl
Valar morghulis is High Valyrian for 'all men must die.' It is the passphrase of the Faceless Men and a common farewell in Braavos, spoken with the iron coin their order gives. Its answer is valar dohaeris — 'all men must serve' — because all who must die must first serve the god of death.
Who are the Faceless Men?
The Faceless Men are a guild of assassins based at the House of Black and White in Braavos. They worship the Many-Faced God — death seen under many names — and treat every killing as a religious offering they call 'the gift,' not a contract for hire. They are held to be the deadliest and most expensive killers in the world.
How much does it cost to hire a Faceless Man?
There is no fixed price. The fee is measured against the one who asks — a poor man may pay everything he owns, a rich man a fortune, a king the ransom of a kingdom. A petitioner with nothing left to give may still buy a death with his own life, offered once the deed is done. They are never cheap, and they always collect.
Who is the Many-Faced God?
The Many-Faced God is the single god of death the Faceless Men believe underlies every people's death-god — the Stranger of the Seven, the Lion of Night, the Black Goat of Qohor, and the rest. Their teaching is that all these are one god wearing many faces, and that death is a mercy owed to every living thing without exception.