The Gods of Old Valyria

The Gods of Old Valyria are numerous and convoluted in their stories and backgrounds, with their roles, responsibilities and personalities varying considerably between storyteller.

Despite this, they remain popular within the Black Walls of Volantis, and amongst those throughout the Known World who claim ancestry from the Valyrians of Old. They share their group name with the fourteen volcanoes that once surrounded the city of Valyria, and it is said that the Gods once resided within the great mountains themselves, before the Doom.

## The Fourteen Flames

* Arrax - Ruler of Gods, law, order, justice, governance and strength.
* Aegarax - God of all creatures that walk, run, swim or fly. Creator of the first dragon.
* Balerion - God of death and the Underworld.
* Caraxes - God of the sea, twin of Meraxes.
* Gaelithox - God of fire, stars, moon, sun and the dawn, rival of Meraxes.
* Meleys - Goddess of love and fertility.
* Meraxes - Goddess of the sky, twin of Caraxes.
* Shrykos - Goddess of beginnings, endings, transitions and doorways.
* Syrax - God of wine, fruitfulness, parties, festivals, madness, chaos, drunkenness, vegetation, and ecstasy.
* Tessarion - Goddess of music, arts, knowledge, healing, plague, prophecy, poetry, beauty, and archery.
* Tyraxes - Goddess of reason, wisdom, intelligence, skill, peace, warfare and battle strategy.
* Vermax - God of boundaries, travel, communication, trade, language, and writing.
* Vermithor - God of smiths, crafts and artisans.
* Vhagar - God of war.

## Creation

The creation myth of ancient Valyria holds that all the world, the stars, and everything that is was once contained within a single egg. This egg sat solitary within a void until one day it was struck by a bolt of lightning. The egg split cleanly into two pieces, and those two pieces were pushed away by the power of the lightning. One side of the egg held very little land, and after the first bit of land fell out, the egg kept going, spilling an endless torrent of water as it flew away. The other side of the egg held lots of land, and as it flew away, it kept on laying down more and more earth. The first side of the egg birthed Westeros and the Sunset Sea. The other side birthed Essos, and the endless lands of the east.

In addition to these lands and seas, out of the egg also came twelve beings of great and terrible power. Standing upright with a body like men, but with the wings and horns and tails of dragons. These twelve built a beautiful tower at the top of Mount Valyr, and called themselves the Valyrians. With their powers, they made all manner of beasts; of the sea, of the sky, and of the land. But first among these, both in power and in the gods favour, was the dragon, created in the image of the gods. For eons, dragons ruled the world as the stewards of the gods creation, but all was not well. The dragons, while powerful, were still little more than mindless animals, and they regularly burned and destroyed the world that they had been created to protect. The gods decided that they needed a new creation, one to be lord over the dragons themselves. Together, the gods created a creature with the wit and cunning to overcome the dragons. Thus, man was born. The gods rejected the bestial aspects of their own appearance to give form to a creature above beasts. The gods spread these men far and wide, to kill the dragons that terrorized creation.

However, in secret, the god Arrax, who pitied the dragons, created his own men, like the others, but he gave to them the blood of a dragon, so that these men would have a kinship with the dragons and not kill them like the other men. This had the effect of turning these men’s hair to the color of silver, and their eyes violet. For this, Arrax is seen as the father of the ancient Valyrian people, and is chiefly worshipped among the gods.

## Aerion, the First Dragon Rider

The first of the Valyrians, once created by Arrax, took shelter in the valley beneath Mount Valyr. As the rest of the men of the world rose up and killed their dragons, the Valyrians learned to live alongside them. Dragons were apex predators, and oftentimes a man wouldn't have eaten unless he stole his dinner from the leftovers of a dragons kill. The dragons recognized their kinship with the Valyrians and were much more tolerant of their presence, often not attacking unless provoked. Over the years, the Valyrians grew as a people and a culture, and where men grow populous, war often follows. No one knows if it was the first Valyrian war when Aerion took to the skies, but the one thing all agree on is that Aerions taming is the start date from which Valyria started counting their time.

As a boy, Aerion was always adventurous and inquisitive. One of his many adventures led him to a cave in which he found a large golden egg. He stayed with the egg day and night until it hatched into a dragon. Aerion, so taken by the beauty of the dragonling, forsook the company of men and instead spent his days with his dragon, to which he gave the name Karnax. Aerion and Karnax rested together, hunted together, and were in all ways inseparable. As Karnax grew, however, it became impossible for Aerion to keep up. In desperation to not be apart from his friend, Aerion one day mounted Karnax. Karnax, it is said, so loved Aerion that he allowed the mounting.

From then on, Aerion and Karnax took to the skies, flying all over Essos as they willed, but always they would return to the valley below Mount Valyr. One day, on returning to their valley, Aerion spotted from the air two large armies about to do battle, and his former village in flames. Conflicts between two rival groups had come to a head. Just before the two armies clashed, Aerion and Karnax landed in the field between them, and Aerion commanded them to lay down their arms. The men dropped to their knees, worshipping Aerion as Arrax himself made flesh. The spot of Aerion’s Landing became the city of Valyria. Aerion spent the rest of his days among the Valyrians, arbitrating disputes and ending conflicts with the help of Karnax, and teaching other Valyrians how to tame dragons. House Kipagon, one of the oldest and most powerful of the freeholder dragonlord families, claimed direct descent from Aerion the Rider.

With the power of dragons supporting them, the Valyrians went on to forge a mighty civilization that has yet to be equaled since.

## Dragon Dreams

The dragon dreams phenomenon were considered a blessing by ancient Valyrians by the goddess Tessarion. Tessarion, the goddess of prophecy, will share her visions of the future with those she deems worthy. Some Valyrians used to worship for hours, depriving themselves of food and nearly dying to prove their devotion to Tessarion and beseech her to bestow them with a vision of their future.

Such pleas were rarely, if ever, answered.

## Dragonbinder

The legendary Dragonbinder was said to be a creation of the god Vermithor. Jealous of the Valyrians prowess in the creation of fantastical works, Vermithor designed Dragonbinder to steal the dragonlords dragons from them. It is said that no mortal can blow the horn and live. For his attempt to disrupt the Valyrians, Arrax cut off Vermithor’s right hand, crippling the god of artisans and smiths and crafts. Vermithor found a way around the problem eventually, by fixing a smiths hammer to the severed limb.

## The Doom

Over the course of several thousand years, the Valyrians grew in power and pride, establishing an empire that ruled most of Essos, and the men who lived there. Their gods looked on as they saw what they had seen before beginning anew. The Valyrians, like the dragons before them, had become a destructive force that couldn't be controlled. The gods resolved to stop the Valyrians and the dragons and let the other men rule over the earth. However, Tessarion took pity on one girl, Daenys Targaryen, a noble girl from a small noble house of freeholder dragonlords. To Daenys, Tessarion sent dragon dreams of what was to come. Daenys convinced her father to move the family and their dragons to Dragonstone in Westeros.

Meanwhile, the gods began their plan. One day, the unsuspecting freehold and its capital of Valyria were awakened by a rumbling sound. Mount Valyr above them exploded in smoke and ash and fire. The tremors destroyed the beautiful architectural marvels and the fires destroyed the great works of art. When it was all done, the city laid in ruins. The dragons choked on the ashen air and died. Valyria was no more.