Valyria

Valyria is a ruined city in the eponymous region of Essos. It is a long-dead city of wonderment, and was once the capital of a great empire called the Valyrian Freehold. It was destroyed by a cataclysmic event known as the Doom of Valyria over four-hundred years ago.

Whilst the Velgaerons, Dalnarises and Calgarises have colonised much of the peninsula, the efforts have not reached Valyria itself, and it is presumed that the ruins are still colonised in some sense, although those few seen from afar are queer-looking and misshapen, with dark skin and piercing yellow eyes.

## The Empire of New Valyria

Many years after the Century of Blood, explorers seeking the riches famed to remain within the cities surrounding the Smoking Sea arrived at the cities of Oros and Tyria, carrying back tales of odd-looking figures with thick dark skin and yellow eyes clad only in rags occupying the ruined cities. With increasing curiosity, more and more journeys towards the Smoking Sea took place, for not only the Free Cities but from further afield.

In 180AC, the Lyseni Pirate-Explorer Lazos Irnel set out for the ruins with a fleet of three dozen warships, seeking to use the supposedly fertile lands to build an Empire of his own, away from the interfering reaches of those who did not desire another Kingdom in the Stepstones. Lazos lost near a third of his vessels, and the men and provisions upon them during the journey east, and another half once they reached the Smoking Sea. Lazos landed into the territory of the ruined city of Oros, submitting to the will of those few that still inhabited it.

To his surprise, however, the Lyseni and the few remaining men who had accompanied him were welcomed by the residents of the city. Having long watched the visitors of the isles with curiosity, they had grown interested in the world around them. Lazor, confused at the unexpected situation he found himself in, provided maps and charts, and his advisors taught the natives of agriculture, the basics of construction and management. The self-styled Patriarch of Oros, Aegalon Tarreos, contented with what they had learned from the outsiders, seized control one night, having all of Lazor's men put to death, including the Lyseni Pirate himself, and started to put his provisions to use.

The people of Oros learned once again how to sail, and with it sought out others like them, finding the cities of Tyria and Elyria, and the few isolated groups that lingered within them, cut off from the Known World by limitations of both topography and knowledge. Aegalon know considered himself the Patriarch of the Smoking Sea, and sought to rebuild what the ruined murals and masonry depicted.

A decade before the turn of the century, the explorers of New Valyria heard tales of a great city to the north of their territory, which had survived the Doom largely unscathed. Seeking out the city, Aegalon Tarreos and his warrior-scouts found themselves looking upon the walls of the city of Mantarys, built upon the northern tip of the Sea of Sighs. But it was not just the explorers of Valyria who had heard of their counterparts. The most powerful of the eight great families of Mantarys, the Velgaerons, deemed the queer-looking people approaching from the south demons and spirits of those killed by the Doom, and fell upon them with sword, spear and axe. The Patriarch of the Smoking Sea was slain, and his men butchered, much as he had ordered of the Lyseni a decade prior.

The Velgaerons, accompanied by the men of the Dalnaris and Calgaris families, sought out the lands from whence they had come, fearing that they would return in greater numbers to seek out revenge. The mighty families of Mantarys set out into the lands ravaged by the Doom, finding the fledgling settlements build within the ruins of Oros, Tyria and the island nation of Elyria. The demons they found were put to the sword as they tended to crops, managed their cattle and constructed buildings of stone and wood, and their bodies pilled and burned to prevent their return. Once the smoke ceased to spill from the great pyres they had built, the soldiers of Mantarys found themselves awed by what remained of the cities, and the heads of the three families began to reminisce of the tales of their ancestors. Reminded of the glory of Valyria at the height of its power, they elected to rebuild what the Doom had left behind.