War for the Dawn

The War for the Dawn is the name given to the conflict in the North that interrupted the War of the Five Kings. The Others, also called the White Walkers, were considered creatures of legend until they returned for the first time in eight thousand years at the dawn of the Fourth Century AC. The strange, pale Others brought bitter cold, smothering darkness, and mists and snows along with their advance, bringing about the worst winter since the original Long Night. Though the forces of the living were able to defeat the Others and their army of risen dead wights, the conflict claimed the lives of six out of every ten men who fought in it, including many lords and famous knights. Its effects permanently reshaped the future of Westeros.

## Origins

The Others are a mysterious race of tall, gaunt creatures from the far north with flesh pale as milk. They have cold blue eyes that have been described as burning like ice, or being as bright as blue stars. Others have pale blue blood and shiny bones like milkglass. They were first seen eight thousand years ago during long and brutal winter known as the Long Night during the Age of Heroes. They were defeated at the Battle for the Dawn, and Bran the Builder erected Wall to stop them from returning. The events of the Long Night were considered nothing more than fanciful tales by the year 298 AC when the first signs of their return emerged.

Wildlings began fleeing south of the Wall in increasing numbers and Rangers of the Night's Watch encountered the Others and their army of risen dead, the wights, before the death of King Robert Baratheon. Further rangings beyond the Wall confirmed the return of the ancient enemy, as well as a mass migration of Wildlings under a King-Beyond-the-Wall. The Night's Watch feared this horde of Wildlings meant to invade the North, but they were in fact trying to get to the southern side of the Wall for protection from the Others. The Wildling army attacked the Wall, but the severely outnumbered brothers of the Night's Watch were saved by the timely intervention of Stannis Baratheon, who brought his army following the visions of his Red Priestess.

Jon Snow, the newly-elected Lord Commander of the Night's Watch made the decision to allow the Wildlings to pass South of the Wall in return for helping to defend against the Others when they arrived. This caused much outrage among the Black Brothers, many of whom had spent years fighting Wildling raids. The derelict castles along the Wall were staffed for the first time in many years with a combination of men of the Night's Watch, Wildlings, and Baratheon Troops. Stannis Baratheon took the bulk of his forces and marched south to Winterfell to deal with Roose Bolton, the new Warden of the North appointed by the Baratheon regime in King's Landing.

## The Long Night Falls

The army of the dead poured through the gorge at the western edge of the Wall near Westwatch-by-the-Bridge. The garrison of the Shadow Tower tried to seal the choke point and mounted a gallant defense, but were overwhelmed by the seemingly endless numbers of the army of the dead. The surviving defenders sent ravens to Castle Black and retreated, collecting the forces manning the castles on the western end of the Wall as they fell back towards Castle Black. With the castles on the Wall unequipped to face an assault from the south, Lord Commander Snow made the decision to abandon the Wall and retreat to Last Hearth. The Night's Watch sent ravens to Winterfell and King’s Landing, unaware the King’s Landing had fallen to Aegon Targaryen's invasion.

Stannis Baratheon's army camped at a crofter's village near Winterfell and Roose Bolton sent a force of Manderly and Frey soldiers out to meet them in an initial probing attack. The Manderly forces betrayed the Freys and joined the Baratheon army. Stannis laid siege to Winterfell, and Roose Bolton was content to wait for the winter weather to defeat his enemy for him. One of Stannis's archers shot down the raven bearing news from the Night's Watch, and Stannis abruptly abandoned the siege of Winterfell to reinforce Last Hearth. Baratheon forces on Dragonstone brought more men to the island to mine dragonglass in quantity to create daggers, spear tips, and arrowheads to ship to north to their King.

Roose Bolton sent his son Ramsay and his Bastard’s Boys on a scouting mission to determine what the Baratheon army was doing, in part to keep Ramsay away from his pregnant wife before she gave birth. They encountered a party of White Walkers along the way and returned to Winterfell with a captured wight. Roose Bolton sent ravens to the Casterly Rock and the Lannister army in the Riverlands for reinforcements, but his message was dismissed by Cersei Lannister as nonsense.

## The Long Retreat

The combined forces of Stannis Baratheon, the Night’s Watch and the Wildlings struck against small groups of White Walkers broken off from the main host but avoided the main body of the army of the dead. The Others swept along the Wall, then through the Gift, raising any dead bodies in the path of their advance. They did not move like a typical army trying to take strategic objectives or outmaneuver an opponent, but instead followed a slow and methodical course to annihilate everything in their path. The approach of the Others brought with it brutal cold, smothering darkness, and cold mists and snow that made the already harsh winter even worse. Refugees fled by the thousands south into the Riverlands or across the Bite into the Vale.

Stannis’s forces abandoned Last Hearth in 303 AC and relocated to Karhold as the Others closed in. The following year, they evacuated to White Harbor by sea. A combination of Northern and Frey forces set out to Deepwood Motte to defend it from the White Walkers, but were compelled to withdraw when they saw the scope of the enemy they faced. Bolton forces discovered the value of dragonglass after they intercept one of Stannis's supply caravans and Ramsay *interrogated* the guards. Roose Bolton continued to give Ramsay missions away from Winterfell to keep him away from his young son Edrick, and the former Bastard of Bolton was slain in the year 304 AC when the Others overran the Dreadfort.

In the Vale, Sansa Arryn convinced her husband Lord Harrold Arryn to send troops to the North to aid in the fight against the Others. Bolstered with these fresh reinforcements, Stannis Baratheon moved to defend Hornwood. And though he considered Aegon Targaryen to be yet another usurper to be put down, the reality of the situation meant that Stannis could not ignore a possible source of aid. Owing to the neutrality of the Night's Watch from the political affairs of Westeros, Lord Commander Snow was chosen to lead a diplomatic mission south to Harrenhal.

In the year 305 AC, Aegon Targaryen pulled his forces in the Riverlands back from their positions and sent them north to White Harbor. Jon Snow and Ser Davos Seaworth worked tirelessly to keep relations between the two kings civil, if not warm. Queen Regent Cersei Lannister ordered Ser Jaime Lannister to pursue the Targaryen army and destroy them. She sent an army from the Reach led by Lord Randyll Tarly to reinforce her brother, but the Kingslayer and the Huntsman defied her orders and instead marched to meet Roose Bolton at Moat Cailin, to which he'd withdrawn after the fall of Winterfell. Black Walder Frey attempted to press his claim on the Lordship of the Twins by garrisoning the castle with men loyal to him as the Golden Throne's forces marched over the bridge, but Lord Tarly informed him that he'd be leaving his skull behind to guard the castle if he tried to divert any men fit to fight from the army over a family squabble. The different factions of Frey troops were housed at opposite ends of the camp and warned not to antagonize one another under pain of punishment from Roose Bolton. The armies at White Harbor and Moat Cailin opened discreet lines of communication with one another to coordinate their final stand against the Others outside of White Harbor.

## The Battle of White Harbor

Varys the Spider's agents discovered Aerys II Targaryen's secret caches of wildfire that had been hidden beneath King's Landing. Jon Connington ordered the casks of volatile liquid loaded up and shipped--slowly and carefully--to White Harbor. The wildfire was concealed in the snow in the army of the dead's expected path of advance. When the armies of the living joined battle against the Others, balls of flaming pitch were launched from catapults to ignite the few casks that had been left exposed as targets. The ensuing explosion and inferno of green flame temporarily drove back the mist and darkness that accompanied the Others' presence and incinerated thousands of wights. The army of the dead continued its relentless advance trough the flames, showing no hesitation even as more wights were consumed by flames as they marched toward the living.

Archers fired volleys of dragonglass-headed arrows into the army of the dead, and formations of pikemen with dragonglass spearheads braced for contact with the Enemy. The army of the dead fell in heaps, creating mounds of corpses that the wights needed to scale in their advance, but even that did little to stem the endless tide. It seemed that the battle lines of the living were on the verge of breaking when Stannis Baratheon led a desparate cavalry charge into the heart of the Other's lines. They struck deep, even as their comrades fell around them and rose as wights, and drove their way into the presence of the Night's King. Stannis leapt from his horse with his flaming sword Lightbringer held aloft and struck down the Enemy, even as he was impaled through the heart by the Night King's icy blade.

## Aftermath

Funeral pyres burned for weeks along both sides of the White Knife after the battle. Six out of every ten men who had joined the coalition of the living had died during the campaign. And of the remaining living, many were ill, wounded, or suffering the effects of frostbite. Ser Jaime Lannister was among the fallen, as were Roose Bolton, Mance Rayder, Yohn Royce and many other lords and knights. Lord Randyll Tarly took the remnants of his army south to the Riverlands.

Aegon VI Targaryen agreed to wed Shireen Baratheon and unified their claims to the throne, a match that Davos Seaworth had tried to arrange for over a year against Stannis's objections. Aegon and Shireen named Rickon Stark, returned from Skagos, as the Lord of Winterfell and Warden of the North. Aegon released Jon Snow from the Night's Watch to serve as Regent of the North until Rickon reached his majority. The young Lord Edrick Bolton, son of Roose Bolton by Walda Frey became a ward of House Manderly at White Harbor until he reached the age of majority.

The with both sides too exhausted to continue the war in the wake of the Battle of White Harbor, the division of the Seven Kingdoms became formalized. The Reach, Westerlands, and Riverlands recognized Tommen Baratheon as the rightful King, while the North, the Vale, the Stormlands, Dorne, and the Crownlands bent the knee to Aegon VI Targaryen and Shireen Baratheon. The Iron Islands remained independent under King Euron Greyjoy.

Cersei Lannister went mad with grief when Jaime Lannister's bones were delivered to Casterly Rock and demanded that Randyll Tarly be imprisoned and stripped of his lands and titles for disobeying her command to destroy the Targaryens. King Tommen, now having reached his majority, refused his mother and dismissed her from his presence. This began the final decline of the Queen Mother, and when her body was found in her bedchamber two moons later, it remained uncertain whether her death was an accident brought on by too much wine followed by sweetsleep or a poisoning by parties unknown.