The Vale

House Arryn is the oldest and purest line of Andal nobility in Westeros, a claim they make without apology and with considerable justification. Their descent traces to Artys Arryn, the Winged Knight, who legend says flew atop a giant falcon to the summit of the Giant's Lance, defeated the Griffin King in the Battle of the Seven Stars, and became the first King of Mountain and Vale. Whether the giant falcon is literal or legendary, the family has ruled the Vale ever since.

 

The Eyrie itself is the physical expression of that history, a castle built atop the Giant's Lance thousands of feet above the valley floor, accessible only by a series of switchback paths and sky cells that open directly onto nothing but air and a very long fall. It has never been taken by force. The Vale's natural defenses are formidable to begin with, and the Eyrie sits above all of them. The family winters at the Gates of the Moon at the mountain's base, but the Eyrie is their seat, their identity, and their most pointed statement about what they think of the world below.

 

During the Dance of the Dragons, Lady Jeyne Arryn, the Maiden of the Vale, backed the blacks. Her connection to Rhaenyra ran through blood as well as politics, Queen Aemma having been an Arryn. When Prince Jacaerys Velaryon flew to the Eyrie to secure the Vale's support, Jeyne gave it, sending men by sea through Gulltown to join Rhaenyra's hosts. The Vale did not commit its full strength to the conflict, the Mountains of the Moon and the Bloody Gate being their own defense and the Vale always having been able to choose how much of itself it sends beyond them, but Jeyne's loyalty to the blacks was genuine and consistent.

 

Lady Jeyne died of illness in Gulltown in 134 AC, naming her fourth cousin Joffrey Arryn as her successor in her last testament. The transition was not without contest. Arnold Arryn, Jeyne's first cousin whom she had imprisoned for twice attempting to depose her, had a son in Eldric who pressed the family's rival claim, while Isembard of the Gulltown branch mounted his own challenge from another angle entirely. Corwyn Corbray, acting for the crown, had Eldric executed to settle the matter on that front. By 140 AC Lord Joffrey holds the Eyrie, the succession resolved if not universally accepted, and the falcon flies as high as it always has.

House Arryn of Gulltown is the branch of the family that the rest of the Arryns do not discuss in polite company, and the branch that by 140 AC has the ear of the king. The split came during the reign of Jaehaerys I, when a cadet line of the Arryns settled in Gulltown, married into merchant families, went into trade, and became very rich. The ruling Arryns have never quite forgiven this. The Gulltown Arryns are considered uncouth, too commercial, too willing to soil the purity of Andal blood with coin and counting houses. They carry the same falcon on their sigil as the Eyrie branch, though Isembard himself was known to paint his falcon gold rather than sky-blue, which is either an honest acknowledgment of what he values or a deliberate provocation depending on who you ask.

 

Isembard Arryn, the Gilded Falcon, is the family's most consequential figure in living memory. When Lady Jeyne Arryn died in 134 AC and the Vale succession erupted into a three-way contest, Isembard stepped forward despite having the weakest blood claim of all the contenders. What he lacked in lineage he compensated for in gold, bribing lesser lords and hiring sellswords from across the Narrow Sea to press his claim. Ser Corwyn Corbray imprisoned Isembard and his sons early in the conflict, ruling for Joffrey Arryn, but House Grafton held Gulltown on Isembard's behalf regardless, and Isembard's sellsails kept the harbor closed until Lord Alyn Velaryon brought a fleet and broke it open. The fighting cost hundreds of men on both sides before Gulltown finally yielded.

 

He yielded. And then something surprising happened. Isembard Arryn was named master of coin for Aegon III, where he and Lord Torrhen Manderly reformed the realm's tax system and provided relief after the collapse of the Rogare Bank. The man who spent a fortune trying to steal the Eyrie ended up in the small council until Aegon III came of age to rule in his own right.

 

By 140 AC, Isembard Arryn sits in King's Landing managing the crown's finances. The Gulltown Arryns are rich, present, and useful, which may be the most the main branch has ever been willing to admit about them.

House Belmore is one of the older families in the Vale -- older than the Arryns themselves, as First Men who were already settled at Strongsong when the Andals came. They allied with Robar II Royce against the invading Andals at the Battle of the Seven Stars and lost, then bent the knee to Artys Arryn along with the handful of other First Men houses whose lines survived the conquest by yielding gold, lands, and hostages. They have been Arryn bannermen ever since, and they have made the best of it.

 

Their seat at Strongsong sits near a series of lakes within the Mountains of the Moon, a position that is both scenic and defensible in the particular way that Vale geography tends to produce. Their sigil -- six silver bells on purple -- gives their castle its resonance, the name Strongsong suggesting a place where something rang out and was heard.

 

During the Dance of the Dragons, House Belmore followed their Arryn liegelords and backed the blacks.

 

By 140 AC, Belmore is one of the more powerful houses in the Vale -- old blood that has outlasted the conquest that should have ended it, reliable Arryn bannermen with a seat in the mountains and a history that predates the kingdom they serve.

House Corbray is an old and poor house of the Vale, Andal in origin, holders of Heart's Home since the coming of the Andals, and possessors of one of the most celebrated Valyrian steel swords in the realm. Lady Forlorn is a longsword with a history as complicated as the family that carries it, passed through conquest, lost to rivals, reclaimed through blood, and carried into more fights than most houses see in a century. The Corbrays have always been a family that settles things with steel.

 

Their founding story says as much. The first Corwyn Corbray came to Westeros as an Andal warlord, hired by rival petty kings of the Fingers to fight each other, and killed them both instead, taking their wives, their lands, and the great heart-shaped ruby that sits the pommel of Lady Forlorn. He took for his sigil three ravens carrying three hearts, in honor of the prizes he claimed. It is not a subtle origin story, and the Corbrays have never been a particularly subtle house.

 

During the Dance of the Dragons, the Corbrays followed Lady Jeyne Arryn and backed the blacks. Lord Leowyn Corbray and his younger brother Ser Corwyn commanded the ten thousand men Jeyne sent south from Gulltown, arriving in time to see the war's end and participate in the Hour of the Wolf. Leowyn was named Protector of the Realm during Aegon III's regency, a position from which Ser Tyland Lannister quietly accumulated most of the actual power, but a position nonetheless. Leowyn died of the Winter Fever in 133 AC.

 

Ser Corwyn carried the family's story further still. Named a regent after Leowyn's death, he was sent to the Vale in 135 AC to settle the succession crisis that erupted when Lady Jeyne died. He imprisoned Isembard Arryn and his sons, executed Ser Eldric, and ruled for Joffrey Arryn. Before that, during the regency years, he had wed Princess Rhaena Targaryen as his second wife, an extraordinary match for an old but modest Vale house and a mark of the standing Corwyn had earned through his service to the crown. For a family that has always been richer in steel than in gold, a royal marriage was the kind of distinction that no amount of coin could buy. The mad Ser Arnold escaped him and fled to Runestone, where Lord Gunthor Royce gave him sanctuary. When Corwyn pursued Arnold there, a crossbowman on the battlements put a quarrel through his breast as he drew Lady Forlorn. Striking down a regent was an act of treason. The Vale went to war again.

 

By 140 AC, Lord Quenton Corbray holds Heart's Home and Lady Forlorn, the house's story still unfolding in a Vale that has not quite settled from everything the last decade brought to it.

House Egen is one of the principal families of the Vale, their sigil a yellow sun, white crescent moon, and silver star on blue and white -- a banner that reads as a promise of constant readiness, which is more or less what their words confirm. By Day or Night is the motto of a house that does not intend to be caught sleeping.

 

They are closely tied to the Arryns by proximity and tradition, their keep situated near the Gates of the Moon, the ancient winter seat of the ruling house. That closeness has defined them -- a family whose identity is bound up in service to the Eyrie, whose most notable members have tended toward the kind of reliable, unglamorous loyalty that keeps great houses functioning rather than the kind that gets written about in songs.

 

During the Dance of the Dragons, House Egen followed Lady Jeyne Arryn and backed the blacks.

 

By 140 AC, House Egen continues to serve the Eyrie as they always have -- present, dependable, and the sort of house that the Vale depends on without thinking too much about why.

House Grafton rules Gulltown, the only true city in the Vale, a port on the Bay of Crabs that handles most of what flows into and out of the region by sea. Controlling Gulltown means controlling Vale commerce, and the Graftons have been doing it since the coming of the Andals.

 

Their founding story has the particular quality of Andal history in the Vale, which is to say it involves betrayal, marriage alliances that proved more useful to one party than the other, and a crown changing hands under circumstances that the victors have always described as unfortunate accidents. Ser Gerold Grafton came to Westeros from Andalos as an ally of King Osgood Shett of Gulltown, fighting alongside him against House Royce. He married his daughters to Osgood and his heir, took Osgood's daughter as his own wife, and bound the two families together under the Faith. Osgood did not survive the battle against the Royces. Some say Gerold struck him down himself. When Ser Gerold returned to Gulltown, he took the crown and disposed of Osgood's son. The Graftons have ruled Gulltown ever since, and the burning tower on their banner has never quite stopped looking like the scene of a crime.

 

During the Dance of the Dragons, Gulltown followed Lady Jeyne Arryn's lead and backed the blacks, sending men south by sea to join Rhaenyra's hosts. The Graftons held the city and its commerce throughout. What their personal sympathies were during the war is a matter the chronicles do not record with any clarity.

 

The succession crisis that followed Lady Jeyne's death in 134 AC brought Gulltown back into contention. After Ser Corwyn Corbray imprisoned Isembard Arryn, House Grafton held the city on Isembard's behalf regardless, their control of the harbor making them the most practically significant piece of the losing faction. They kept Gulltown closed against the crown's authority until Lord Alyn Velaryon arrived with a fleet and broke the harbor open. After Isembard submitted, so did Grafton.

 

By 140 AC, House Grafton holds Gulltown, manages its trade, and collects its considerable revenues, chastened but not broken, and still the most commercially significant house in the Vale regardless of how the last decade's politics played out.

House Hersy is one of the principal houses of the Vale, their seat at Newkeep and their sigil a white winged chalice on pink -- an unusual banner in a region full of falcons and mountains, and one that has prompted more commentary than most. A chalice suggests hospitality, ceremony, the Faith; wings suggest something more aspirational. The Hersys have never felt the need to explain it.

 

They are an old Andal house, sworn to the Arryns since the Kingdom of Mountain and Vale was established, and their history in the Vale predates most of what is currently written about them. What survives in the records is a family of consistent loyalty to the Eyrie, present at the great moments of Vale history without having generated the kind of dramatic story that gets copied into the maesters' archives.

 

During the Dance of the Dragons, House Hersy followed Lady Jeyne Arryn and backed the blacks.

 

By 140 AC, Newkeep holds its place among the Vale's principal houses -- old, steady, and carrying a sigil that raises questions the family has answered to its own satisfaction for generations.

House Hunter is among the oldest families in the Vale, First Men who were already seated at Longbow Hall in the eastern Vale when the Andals arrived, and who resisted them long enough to earn a place in the histories. When King Robar II Royce rallied the First Men houses against Artys Arryn's invasion, the Hunters joined him, after Robar bested Lord Hunter in an archery contest to win their allegiance, a story the Vale has told in several versions, some of which suggest Robar cheated. The First Men lost the Battle of the Seven Stars regardless. The Hunters submitted to Artys Arryn, gave up gold, land, and hostages, and bent the knee to a new king. The five silver arrows on their banner are a reminder of what they were before that day.

 

Their seat name and their sigil say the same thing: this is a family of archers and hunters, with a long tradition of producing some of the finest bowmen in the Vale. Longbow Hall in the eastern foothills south of the Fingers is not the most glamorous posting in the region, but it is theirs, and they have held it through conquest and submission and everything since.

 

During the Dance of the Dragons, House Hunter followed Lady Jeyne Arryn and backed the blacks. When the Vale succession crisis erupted after Jeyne's death in 134 AC, the Hunters declared for Joffrey Arryn alongside Houses Corbray, Crayne, and Redfort, forming the core of the loyalist faction that kept Joffrey's claim alive through the fighting that followed.

 

By 140 AC, Longbow Hall sits in its eastern foothills, the arrows still on the banner and the tradition still in the blood.

House Melcolm holds Old Anchor on the eastern coast of the Vale, where a river meets the Narrow Sea south of Longbow Hall and north of Runestone across a bay. It is not the Vale's most celebrated posting -- that distinction belongs to Gulltown -- but Old Anchor has its own quiet significance as a coastal seat watching the waters between the Vale and the east, and the Melcolms have been watching them for a long time.

 

Their sigil says as much: a rusty anchor on turquoise beneath a yellow chief with three blue plates. The anchor is not bright iron but rust-eaten and salt-worn -- the heraldry of a family that has been at the water's edge long enough for the metal to corrode. There is a certain pride in that, the kind that comes not from glory but from persistence.

 

House Melcolm is one of the principal houses sworn to House Arryn, reliable in the particular unremarkable way that coastal houses tend to be -- present, steady, and focused on the sea road rather than the politics of the valley.

 

By 140 AC, Old Anchor holds its place on the eastern shore, the anchor still on the banner and the salt still in the air.

House Redfort is among the oldest families in the Vale, First Men who were already building in stone before the Andals arrived and have been doing it ever since. The Redfort itself sits southeast of the Eyrie in the southern valley, an ancient red-stoned keep whose foundations are said to be of First Men origin and sturdier than anything built since. A red castle on white within a red embattled border is a sigil that announces exactly what the family values: the seat, the stone, the permanence. Their words confirm it. As Strong as Stone is not a promise of cleverness or ambition. It is a promise of endurance.

 

They paid for that endurance at the Battle of the Seven Stars. The Redforts allied with King Robar II Royce against the Andal invasion and lost. Torgold Tollett cut Lord Redfort's arm from his body during the fighting. The Redforts submitted to Artys Arryn afterward, gave what was asked, and bent the knee to the new order. They have served the Arryns faithfully ever since, which in the Vale is considered more or less the same thing as having always done so.

 

During the Dance of the Dragons, the Redforts backed the blacks. Ser Adrian Redfort served in Rhaenyra Targaryen's Queensguard, as direct a statement of allegiance as a house can make. The family's connection to Lady Jeyne Arryn ran deeper still. Jessamyn Redfort was Jeyne's dear companion throughout her rule, the kind of closeness that the histories record with careful language and knowing silence. Lady Jeyne died in Jessamyn's arms in 134 AC. Whatever the Redforts felt about that loss, it was not the grief of distant bannermen.

 

By 140 AC, the Redfort stands in its southern valley as it always has, red stone against the Vale sky, as strong as it has ever been.

House Royce was ruling the Vale before the Arryns arrived. That is not a boast. It is simply what the histories record, and the Royces have made sure no one forgets it. They are the last of the Bronze Kings, First Men whose ancestors united the Vale against the Andal invasion under King Robar II Royce at the Battle of the Seven Stars, and lost. They submitted. They bent the knee. They gave up their crown and took a lord's seat instead. But they kept everything else: the bronze armor etched with runes of the Old Tongue, the sigil bordered in First Men script, the castle named for the stones their ancestors carved, and the words that announce exactly what kind of family this is. We Remember.

 

The rune-etched bronze armor deserves a note. The lords of Runestone ride to battle wearing it, and the runes are said to protect the wearer from harm. Maester Denestan has speculated that the armor is far less ancient than it appears, and the number of Royces who have died wearing it is, as he notes, daunting. The Royces wear it anyway.

 

Their history under Targaryen rule has not been without complication. Prince Daemon Targaryen wed Rhea Royce in 97 AC, an unhappy match by every account, and one that Daemon made no secret of despising, calling her his bronze bitch in a mockery of the family's ancient armor. Rhea died in 115 AC after a hawking accident in the Vale, her horse throwing her and her skull cracking on a stone. She lingered nine days, and those who attended her believed she might recover before she rose from her bed, collapsed within the hour, and died. Daemon flew from Bloodstone when he heard the news, claiming it was to put his wife to rest. What he actually wanted was her lands, castles, and incomes. Lady Jeyne Arryn dismissed the claim and told him his presence in the Vale was unwelcome. The Royces have not forgotten any of it.

 

During the Dance of the Dragons, the Royces backed the blacks alongside Lady Jeyne Arryn. The succession crisis that followed Jeyne's death in 134 AC brought fresh trouble to Runestone's gates. Lord Gunthor Royce gave sanctuary to Ser Arnold Arryn, the mad claimant who had escaped custody, when Corwyn Corbray pursued him there. A crossbowman on Runestone's walls put a quarrel through Corbray's breast as he drew Lady Forlorn. Striking down a regent was an act of treason, and the Vale went to war over it. What Lord Gunthor's precise culpability was in Corbray's death is a question the histories have not settled, and one that Runestone has not been eager to answer.

 

By 140 AC, the matter is formally resolved and Joffrey Arryn confirmed as lord of the Eyrie. House Royce holds Runestone as it always has, the oldest family in the Vale watching a world that has changed considerably since their ancestors put the runes on the stone.

House Templeton is not a lordly house. The head of the family holds no lordship, commands no city, bears no title beyond Knight of Ninestars yet has more influence than half the lords in the Vale. The Templetons are one of the most powerful families in the region despite, or perhaps because of, the distinction they have maintained since the very beginning: they are landed knights, and they have always chosen to remain so.

 

Ser Luceon Templeton fought at the Battle of the Seven Stars under Artys Arryn when the Andals broke the First Men coalition in the Vale. He was rewarded with land enough to make him a lord. He declined. He would not, the story goes, wish a deed done while Artys was still a knight to raise himself above that station. The family has kept the title ever since -- Knight of Ninestars, generation after generation, in a land full of lords who command less.

 

Nine stars on a gold saltire on black is their sigil: one of seven points for the Faith, eight of six points for something older, the whole arrangement suggesting a family that has been counting things carefully for a very long time.

 

During the Dance of the Dragons, House Templeton followed Lady Jeyne Arryn and backed the blacks. When the Vale succession crisis erupted after Jeyne's death in 134 AC, the Templetons supported Joffrey Arryn's claim -- the right side of the dispute, and consistent with a family whose loyalty to the Eyrie has never wavered since Ser Luceon rode under Artys's banner.

 

By 140 AC, the Knight of Ninestars holds his seat and his title, neither lord nor lesser, and the Vale continues to treat him accordingly.

House Waynwood is one of the great families of the Vale, their seat at Ironoaks named for the ancient ironwood forest that no longer stands there -- the trees gone before the Andals arrived, the name kept anyway, which says something about how the Waynwoods approach their history. A black broken wheel on green is their sigil, which has invited commentary across the centuries. A broken wheel is not a working wheel. The Waynwoods have never felt the need to explain it, which is also something about how the Waynwoods approach their history.

 

They are known for two things above all: pride and ceremony. Not the showy, bellicose pride of houses that need to prove something, but the quiet, structural pride of a family that has always known exactly who it is and expected the world to treat it accordingly. Their insistence on ceremony is genuine -- they are a house that does things properly, that observes forms, that considers the correct conduct of affairs a matter of substance rather than decoration. Members of the family tend toward horse-faced features and brown hair, which they carry with the same dignity they carry everything else.

 

During the Dance of the Dragons, House Waynwood followed Lady Jeyne Arryn and backed the blacks.

 

By 140 AC, Ironoaks stands in its vale, the broken wheel on the banner as it has always been, the ceremony observed, the pride intact.

The following houses are the remaining vassal houses of the Crownlands. Please click a house's box for additional known information such as existing characters (canon or custom), house words, and who a house's liege lord might be.