The Westerlands

There are older houses in Westeros, and there are houses with longer martial traditions, and there are houses whose bloodlines carry more mystique. There is no house wealthier than House Lannister of Casterly Rock, and in the Seven Kingdoms that has always counted for more than most things.

 

The family is as recognizable in person as in reputation. Lannisters tend toward golden hair, green eyes, and a tall, comely bearing -- features that have bred true across generations and that Lann the Clever himself is sometimes said to have stolen from the sun along with everything else.

 

Their origins trace to Lann the Clever, the legendary trickster of the Age of Heroes who is said to have swindled the Casterlys out of their rock through cunning alone -- no blade drawn, no battle fought, just one man's wit against an ancient family's complacency. Whether the story is true in its particulars scarcely matters. The Lannisters have been at Casterly Rock ever since, and the gold has been there with them. The Rock sits atop the most productive gold mines in the Westerlands, possibly in all of Westeros, and the Lannisters have spent thousands of years turning that gold into power. Their sigil is a golden lion on crimson. Their official words are Hear Me Roar. Their unofficial saying -- a Lannister always pays his debts -- is the one the realm actually remembers.

 

They were Kings of the Rock until Aegon the Conqueror ended that at the Field of Fire, where King Loren the Last bent the knee and was allowed to remain lord of his seat. The Lannisters kept everything except the crown, which they have spent the years since demonstrating they did not strictly need.

 

During the Dance of the Dragons, the Lannisters backed the greens. Lord Jason Lannister marched into the Riverlands and was killed at the Battle of the Red Fork, his army subsequently destroyed at the Fishfeed. His twin brother Ser Tyland had served as master of ships then master of coin for Aegon II, and when the blacks captured him they tortured him for the location of the treasury he had divided and hidden. They blinded him, mutilated his tongue, and cut off his fingers. Tyland survived all of it, which says something about the man. He went on to serve as master of coin under Aegon III, then as Hand of the King, dying finally of the Winter Fever in 133 AC.

 

While Jason's army was dying in the Riverlands, the Westerlands coast was left almost undefended. Dalton Greyjoy, the Red Kraken, declared for the blacks and took full advantage -- sacking Lannisport, burning the Lannister fleet, seizing Kayce and Fair Isle, taking hundreds of women as salt wives. Jason's own mistress was among them. So were their natural daughters. Johanna Lannister closed the gates of Casterly Rock and held it, then donned mail herself to lead the remaining Lannister forces, routing ironborn beneath Kayce's walls. Her attempt to retake Fair Isle was betrayed to the ironborn and the fleet sent to do it was destroyed in ambush. Dalton was eventually murdered by one of his own salt wives. When the ironborn fell into a succession struggle afterward, Johanna led a punitive campaign into the Iron Islands in retaliation for everything they had taken. She brought Dalton's young son Rodrik back with her and had him gelded. He serves as a court fool for Lord Loreon.

 

By 140 AC, Lord Loreon Lannister holds Casterly Rock in name -- fourteen years old and years yet from his majority under the law, with Lady Johanna still firmly in the regent's seat. She has been managing the Westerlands for over a decade, first through the chaos of the Dance's aftermath, then through years of ironborn war, then through the long regency, and the gold has kept flowing through all of it. The lion on the banner is hers to speak for until Loreon comes of age, and the Westerlands has not suffered for it.

House Banefort sits at the northernmost edge of the Westerlands, their castle perched on fog-shrouded cliffs above the sea -- a dreary, wind-scoured posting that suits a family with their particular history. The name itself carries weight. Banefort does not sound like a place people go willingly, and for much of its early history it wasn't.

 

The Baneforts were petty kings of the Age of Heroes, claiming descent from a figure called the Hooded Man -- a vague and sinister ancestral presence whose face their sigil still refuses to show. A hooded man, black on grey, within a fiery tressure is not the heraldry of a family that wants to be approached without caution. The last of their Hooded Kings was Morgon Banefort, who fought Loreon I Lannister for twenty years and reportedly practiced necromancy of terrible power. When Morgon finally lay dying, he told the Lannister princes who had slain him that he would return from the grave to have his vengeance. King Loreon had his body hacked into pieces and buried separately. The Baneforts have been Lannister bannermen ever since.

 

The relationship has settled considerably in the generations since. The Baneforts of 140 AC are loyal enough that the old blood between the houses is more history than tension -- a family that carries a grim past in their name and their sigil and has chosen, for now, to let it stay there.

 

No Dance-era specifics distinguish the house in the histories. They followed their Lannister liegelords and backed the greens.

 

By 140 AC, Banefort holds its cliff above the northern sea, the hooded figure still on the banner, the fog still on the water.

House Brax holds Hornvale in the hilly, mountainous eastern Westerlands near the headwaters of the Red Fork -- terrain that suits a family whose sigil is a purple unicorn on silver. The unicorn is not native to the Westerlands in any living memory, but something in the family's origins clearly demanded the image. The Braxes came out of the Andal invasion through marriages between Andal warlords and First Men dynasties, and somewhere in that mixing of bloodlines they took a creature of legend for their banner and have been carrying it ever since.

 

They are among the chief bannermen of Casterly Rock, a house whose loyalty to the Lannisters has been consistent enough to become part of their identity rather than merely their obligation. Lady Cerissa Brax married Lord Damon Lannister, the Grey Lion, and bore him the sons from whom the current Lannister line descends -- a connection that makes the Braxes not merely bannermen but part of the family's own blood history, however many generations removed.

 

During the Dance of the Dragons, House Brax followed their Lannister liegelords and backed the greens.

 

By 140 AC, Hornvale sits in its eastern hills, the purple unicorn on the banner, the Lannister loyalty intact.

House Broome is one of the older families in the Westerlands, their origins tracing to the golden age of the First Men, one of those houses whose roots predate the Lannisters themselves, however much the Lannisters prefer not to dwell on that. Their sigil is a silver helm crested with a sprig of broom on black and green checks, a heraldry that carries its own quiet history in the name of the plant the family chose to mark themselves by.

 

That history has not always been comfortable. When King Maegor I Targaryen moved against the Faith Militant, the Broomes were among the pious Westerlands houses who openly sided with the uprising. Maegor flew Balerion to the Westerlands in response and burned their castle alongside those of the other defiant lords. The family survived, submitted, and rebuilt. Lady Lucinda Broome's marriage to Lord Prentys Tully of Riverrun in that era speaks to a family maintaining connections across the realm even through the worst of it.

 

The Dance of the Dragons brought the family a more complicated legacy. Ser Alfred Broome had served in the garrison of Dragonstone since the reign of Jaehaerys I, and when Rhaenyra went to seize King's Landing he was the most senior knight remaining on the island. She named someone else castellan, passing him over, and Alfred nursed that slight through the months that followed. When Aegon II was smuggled to Dragonstone and began quietly assembling supporters among the garrison, Alfred was among those who turned. He opened the postern gate that let Aegon's men in, killed the castellan with his own spear, and led the escort that met Rhaenyra at the harbor when she returned to find her seat lost and her half-brother waiting for her. The house as a whole had followed their Lannister liegelords and backed the greens, but Alfred's story is rather more personal than a question of allegiance. Ser Benedict Broome later served as master-at-arms at Casterly Rock, the kind of position that speaks to a family that came through the war with its standing restored.

 

By 140 AC, House Broome holds its rebuilt seat and its place among the Lannister bannermen, carrying a sprig of broom on a helm that has seen more fire than most.

House Crakehall sits along the Searoad in the southwestern Westerlands, between the Sunset Sea and a large forest, a seat that Aegon the Conqueror himself visited on multiple royal progresses, which tells you something about the house's standing. Their words are None So Fierce, their sigil a brindled black and white boar on brown, and their legendary founder is Crake the Boarkiller, a name that sets the tone for everything that follows. The Crakehalls are a house of First Men descent, and they have been producing large, robust, ferocious knights since before the Andals arrived to give knighthood a name.

 

All men of the house are knights. This is not an aspiration. It is simply what has always been true of the Crakehalls, and the robustness the family is known for is the kind that gets written into the histories because it keeps being relevant on battlefields.

 

Their history has not been without its more dramatic moments. Ser Aubrey Crakehall defeated King Hagon Hoare of the Iron Islands in battle on behalf of the Lannisters -- and then, apparently deciding that victory entitled him to more than he had been offered, proclaimed himself King of the Iron Islands. The Ironborn drowned him for it within six months. His liege at Casterly Rock had already withdrawn support. Neither party was particularly sympathetic.

 

A century later, Prince Aegon Targaryen and his sister Rhaena sheltered at Crakehall when the Faith Militant uprising forced them to flee -- a mark of trust in a house that has always known how to keep its gates and its loyalties.

 

During the Dance of the Dragons, the Crakehalls backed the greens alongside their Lannister liegelords. Ser Clarent Crakehall was killed at the Battle by the Lakeshore, one of the many Westerlands men lost when the Lannister host was destroyed fighting in the Riverlands.

 

By 140 AC, Crakehall holds its seat on the Searoad, the boar still on the banner, the knights still coming.

House Farman holds Fair Isle -- a large island in the Sunset Sea separated from the Westerlands coast by the Straits of Fair Isle, with inland hills and a dockside that has been watching the western horizon since before the Andals came. The Farmans are among the oldest families in the realm, their roots in the Dawn Age, when they ruled as petty kings of the island and guarded the western coast against ironborn reavers with their own longships. Their hatred of the ironborn is not rhetorical. It has been earned across centuries of raids, occupations, and reprisals, and it runs through the family like a second bloodline.

 

Their sigil is three silver ships on blue with a border of crimson and gold. Their words are The Wind Our Steed. Both speak to a family that has always looked outward -- west across the Sunset Sea rather than east toward the court politics of the mainland.

 

The most remarkable figure in the family's recent history is Elissa Farman, daughter of Lord Marq, who became a close companion of Princess Rhaena Targaryen when Rhaena took refuge on Fair Isle. The maester of Faircastle speculated, with careful language, that Rhaena's marriage to Elissa's brother Androw had rather more to do with Elissa than with Androw. Whatever the truth, Elissa eventually left Fair Isle for Dragonstone with Rhaena, grew restless there, and before departing stole three dragon eggs from the hoard. She sold them in Braavos to fund the building of a ship she named the Sun Chaser, and sailed west into the Sunset Sea. No word has come back. Whether she found something or simply vanished into the ocean, no one in Westeros knows.

 

During the Dance of the Dragons, the Farmans followed their Lannister liegelords and backed the greens -- and paid for it. When Lord Jason's army marched into the Riverlands and the Westerlands coast was left exposed, Dalton Greyjoy seized Fair Isle. He took five of Lord Farman's daughters as salt wives for himself and his brother Veron. The island was held by the ironborn until Johanna Lannister's campaigns finally drove them out.

 

By 140 AC, Fair Isle is back in Farman hands, rebuilt and watchful, the ships on the banner sailing westward as they always have. The hatred of the ironborn has not diminished. If anything, it has reasons now that the older generations only had to imagine.

The Golden Tooth sits in the mountains at the eastern edge of the Westerlands, where the River Road passes through the only major gap in the range separating the Westerlands from the Riverlands. Any army moving between the two regions in any strength must pass through it. House Lefford holds it. This has been, across the centuries, either an enormous privilege or an enormous burden depending on how often someone has been trying to get through.

 

The family formed from the union of an Andal warlord and a First Men noblewoman when the Lannisters extended their domain east as far as the Golden Tooth -- the castle presumably given to the Leffords in exchange for holding it, which is the kind of arrangement that sounds straightforward until you count how many times the pass has been contested. Their sigil is a golden inverted pile on sky blue beneath a sun, a banner that reads like the mountain itself catching the light.

 

During the Dance of the Dragons, the Leffords backed the greens alongside their Lannister liegelords. The Westerlands host assembled at the Golden Tooth before marching east, and when Lord Jason Lannister was killed at the Red Fork and Ser Adrian Tarbeck fell near Acorn Hall shortly after, Lord Humfrey Lefford assumed command of the entire Westerlands army. He led what remained of it to the Battle by the Lakeshore, where he was killed. The house lost its lord and a significant portion of the Westerlands' fighting strength in a war that had already taken Jason Lannister from Casterly Rock.

 

By 140 AC, a new lord holds the Golden Tooth, the pass is open, and the River Road runs through it as it always has. The Leffords guard it as they always have. It is still, depending on the times, either an enormous privilege or an enormous burden.

House Lydden sits at the Deep Den on the Goldroad, between Hornvale to the north and Silverhill to the south, a seat whose name suggests something older and deeper than a simple castle on a trade road. The Lyddens came to the Westerlands as Andal adventurers, latecomers to a region that already had its lords and its kings, and they made themselves indispensable in the particular way that latecomers sometimes do, by marrying well.

 

Ser Joffrey Lydden married a daughter of King Gerold III Lannister, the last of the First Men kings of the Rock. When Gerold died without male issue, the lords of the west crowned his son-in-law as King Joffrey Lannister, the first Andal to rule the Westerlands. The current Lannister line descends from that marriage. House Lydden became a vassal of the dynasty it had briefly joined, which is either an irony or a point of pride depending on how the family chooses to remember it.

 

Their sigil is a white badger on per pale green and brown, an animal that burrows, that defends ferociously when cornered, that is harder to shift than its size suggests. The Deep Den suits the choice.

 

During the Dance of the Dragons, House Lydden followed their Lannister liegelords and backed the greens.

 

By 140 AC, the badger is still on the banner and the Deep Den still sits on the Goldroad, the family that briefly held the Rock now holding their stretch of the road that runs past it.

House Marbrand holds Ashemark in the hilly country of the central Westerlands, near the headwaters of the Tumblestone. A burning tree orange on smoke is their sigil, and Burning Bright their words, a heraldry that sits somewhere between glory and destruction depending on what is doing the burning and why. The Marbrands have carried it long enough that either reading has probably applied at some point.

 

They are one of the principal houses of the Westerlands, Lannister bannermen of long standing whose seat has hosted royalty on multiple occasions. Dowager Queen Rhaena Targaryen stayed at Ashemark during her progress of the Westerlands in 51 AC. King Jaehaerys I visited four years later. The tree was burning bright in those years.

 

The Dance of the Dragons put the family on both sides of the conflict simultaneously. The house followed its Lannister liegelords and backed the greens. Ser Lorent Marbrand, however, had served in the Kingsguard of Viserys I and sided with the blacks when the war began, joining Rhaenyra's Queensguard on Dragonstone. When Ser Steffon Darklyn died attempting to claim an unclaimed dragon during the Sowing of the Seeds, Lorent became the Queensguard's second Lord Commander. He did not hold the title long. He led a hundred knights and men-at-arms into Flea Bottom during the Riot of King's Landing and only sixteen came back. Whether that created tension within the family or whether the Marbrands had considered his Kingsguard service a useful hedge against whichever side won is not recorded. He did not survive to see the war's end either way.

 

By 140 AC, Ashemark stands in its hills, the tree still burning on the banner, the house still in good standing with Casterly Rock.

House Payne is one of the principal houses sworn to Casterly Rock, a family of indeterminate age and unclear origins whose arms tell a story nobody has yet thought to write down. Purple and white chequy with gold coins in the checks is their sigil, and there is apparently a tale behind those coins -- where they came from, what they represent, what someone did to earn them or lose them. The details are unknown. The coins remain.

 

They are a house of multiple branches, which suggests a family that has been present and reproducing in the Westerlands long enough for the lines to divide, even if the histories have not paid them the attention they might have preferred. What is recorded is that they are valued Lannister bannermen, consistent in their loyalty to Casterly Rock across the generations.

 

During the Dance of the Dragons, House Payne followed their Lannister liegelords and backed the greens.

 

By 140 AC, the coins are still on the banner and the story behind them is still untold.

House Prester holds Feastfires at the westernmost tip of a coastal peninsula in the Sunset Sea, southwest of Kayce and south of Fair Isle. It is about as exposed a position as a Westerlands lord can hold, sitting on a finger of land pointed directly at the Iron Islands with nothing between it and the ironborn but open water. The red ox on ermine and the word Tireless suggest a family that has made a virtue of the relentlessness their position demands.

 

They are a principal house sworn to Casterly Rock, loyal Lannister bannermen across the generations, and their seat's location has made them perennial participants in the ongoing western coast struggle with ironborn raiders.

 

During the Dance of the Dragons, House Prester backed the greens. When Dalton Greyjoy seized Fair Isle and Johanna Lannister gathered what fleet she could at Feastfires to retake it, Lord Prester was given command of that ragtag collection of cogs and fishing boats alongside Lord Tarbeck and Ser Erwin Lannister. The plan was betrayed. Ironborn longships ambushed the westermen fleet before they reached Fair Isle. Lord Prester was killed in the fighting, and his head was sent back to Casterly Rock.

 

By 140 AC, a new lord holds Feastfires. The ox is still on the banner. The ironborn are gone from Fair Isle, at least for now, and the word on the Prester banner has never been more apt.

House Reyne is the second most powerful house in the Westerlands. They will tell you this themselves, which is part of what makes them what they are. Their seat at Castamere was built into and beneath a hill, its grand halls and ballrooms and bedchambers carved from the mines that made them wealthy -- a subterranean castle as much as an above-ground one, its depths full of the silver and gold that put a red lion on the Reyne banner and kept it there across centuries of Westerlands politics.

 

They are an ancient line, First Men who made Castamere their seat in the Age of Heroes and joined the Kingdom of the Rock when King Loreon I Lannister wed a Reyne daughter. The marriage established the relationship between the two houses -- Lannister suzerainty over Reyne wealth, a lion on gold and a lion on silver, the same animal in different coats. Queen Rhaena Targaryen visited Castamere in 51 AC. King Jaehaerys visited four years later. Ser Alastor Reyne was master-at-arms at Casterly Rock and champion of the Westerlands in that same period. The Reynes have always been close enough to the top of Westerlands power to make their ambitions legible.

 

During the Dance of the Dragons, the Reynes backed the greens alongside their Lannister liegelords. Lord Reyne was killed at the Battle by the Lakeshore in 130 AC, one of the many Westerlands lords who died in a campaign that cost the region its finest host.

 

By 140 AC, Castamere is the grandest seat in the Westerlands after Casterly Rock itself, its halls carved deep into the hill, its lords as wealthy and as proud as any Lannister bannerman has ever been. The red lion looks up at the golden one from a position of comfortable confidence. The mines run. The halls echo. The Reynes are very much at home.

House Serrett chose a peacock in full pride on cream for their sigil and I Have No Rival for their words, which tells you most of what you need to know about how the family sees itself. They are one of the principal houses of the Westerlands, their seat at Silverhill in the hilly country south of Deep Den where a river runs past Goldengrove toward the Reach, and they have held it long enough to feel entirely entitled to the opinion of themselves their banner advertises.

 

They formed from the union of First Men and Andal nobles during the coming of the Andals, which places their origins in the same broad period as several of their Westerlands neighbors. What distinguishes them is less their history than their manner -- a house that has cultivated wealth and a certain elevated sense of station across the generations and made no particular effort to be modest about either.

 

During the Dance of the Dragons, House Serrett followed their Lannister liegelords and backed the greens.

 

By 140 AC, the peacock is still on the banner and the claim still stands, which by Serrett standards constitutes a perfectly satisfactory state of affairs.

House Swyft holds Cornfield in the southern Westerlands, their seat in fertile country northeast of Crakehall where the land begins to shade toward the Reach. A blue bantam rooster on yellow is their sigil, and Awake! Awake! their words, a banner and a motto that both speak to alertness, readiness, the kind of house that prides itself on never being caught sleeping.

 

Their most celebrated ancestral connection predates the Targaryen dynasty entirely. Ser Addison Hill, the Bastard of Cornfield, was among the original seven knights of the Kingsguard formed by Aegon I Targaryen, a founding brother of the most celebrated martial order in the realm who eventually rose to Lord Commander. A bastard born at the Swyft seat, not of their blood but of their land, achieving that distinction says something about the kind of men Cornfield has always produced. The Swyfts have carried the association with quiet pride ever since, even if the man himself was never truly theirs to claim.

 

During the Dance of the Dragons, Lord Swyft backed the greens alongside the Lannisters and was killed at the Battle by the Lakeshore in 130 AC, one of several Westerlands lords who died in that disastrous engagement.

 

By 140 AC, the Lord of Cornfield holds the rooster banner and the words remain urgent. The bantam rooster on yellow flies over fertile southern country as it always has, and the house watches the Reach border with the particular attentiveness their words demand.

House Tarbeck is an ancient house and Maester Yandel calls them honorable, which is the kind of thing that gets written about families when there is little else spectacular to say. Their seat at Tarbeck Hall sits in the northwestern Westerlands, their sigil a seven-pointed star parts silver parts blue on a silver and blue field, a Faith-marked banner for a family of Andal origin whose history with the Seven goes back to the beginning of their line.

 

That history has been eventful in the worst ways. Lord Alyn Tarbeck died fighting for Prince Aegon the Uncrowned against Maegor the Cruel at the Battle Beneath the Gods Eye in 43 AC. His wife Jeyne Westerling was pregnant when he died, bearing his posthumous son a few months later. Four years on, Maegor summoned Jeyne to court and took her as one of his three Black Brides, bringing her young son along as a hostage to ensure she complied. Jeyne bore Maegor a child that came three months early, armless and legless and of indeterminate sex, and died not long after. Her son was returned to Tarbeck Hall as Alyn's heir and sent as a ward to Casterly Rock.

 

During the Dance of the Dragons, Ser Adrian Tarbeck assumed command of the Lannister host after Lord Jason Lannister fell at the Red Fork, leading what remained of it until he too was killed at the Battle at Acorn Hall. Then, during Johanna Lannister's desperate attempt to retake Fair Isle from Dalton Greyjoy, Lord Tarbeck was given command of the ragtag fleet of cogs and fishing boats gathered at Feastfires, and was killed in the ironborn ambush that destroyed it, his death coming only a few years after Ser Adrian's.

 

The house has buried a great deal in a short span of years. By 140 AC, Tarbeck Hall stands in the northwestern hills, the star still on the banner, but the house is quieter and poorer than it was a generation ago. The decline is not yet spoken of openly. It has barely begun.

House Westerling is an ancient house, First Men whose roots go back to the Age of Heroes, and they carry that antiquity the way their words suggest, with pride in what they are rather than appetite for what they might acquire. Honor Not Honors is a distinction that says something about a family's self-conception: they are not interested in titles or rewards. They are interested in conducting themselves correctly. Whether that has always served them well is another question.

 

Their seat, the Crag, sits on the northwestern coast of the Westerlands, a castle that has known better days and knows it. The family's mines have been slowly failing for generations, their best lands quietly sold or lost across the years, and the Crag itself requires more maintenance than the Westerlings can comfortably provide. They are, as the saying goes in the Westerlands, a house of more pride than power. This has not yet become an embarrassment. It is becoming one.

 

Their history is distinguished regardless. Lady Jeyne Westerling was married to Lord Alyn Tarbeck before he was killed fighting for Prince Aegon the Uncrowned at the Battle Beneath the Gods Eye. She bore him a posthumous son. Four years later, Maegor I summoned her to court and made her one of his Black Brides, bringing her young son along to ensure her compliance. Jeyne gave Maegor a child that came three months too early, armless and legless and of indeterminate sex. She died not long after. The Westerlings remember this.

 

Ser Harrold Westerling served as Lord Commander of the Kingsguard under Viserys I, by every account a paragon of chivalry who had served since the days of Jaehaerys I. He died in 112 AC during Viserys's reign, succeeded by Ser Criston Cole. His exact relationship to the current line of Westerling lords is unknown, but his name is still spoken with pride at the Crag.

 

After the Dance, Lord Roland Westerling was named to the original council of seven during Aegon III's regency, a mark of the house's standing even as its fortunes quietly contracted. And Lady Johanna Lannister, the regent of Casterly Rock, was born a Westerling, the house that produced the woman who held the Westerlands together through the ironborn wars carrying no small amount of consequence regardless of what condition the Crag's walls are in.

 

By 140 AC, the Westerlings hold their seat with the particular dignity of a house that has seen better days and refuses to say so.

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.