The Century of Blood

The Century of Blood was the era of near-constant war that engulfed the lands of the former Valyrian Freehold after the Doom of Valyria, a cataclysm that destroyed the capital of the empire in a single day. In the chaos that followed, the Free City of Volantis, the oldest and proudest of the Nine Free Cities, saw itself as the rightful heir to Valyria and attempted to conquer the other Free Cities to reunite the empire under its dominion. This ambition led to a century of conflict that ultimately broke Volantis's power and reshaped the political order of western Essos.

The Rise and Fall of the Tigers

For almost a century after the Doom, the faction known as the tigers held sway in Volantis. The tigers favored conquest by the sword and pursued an aggressive policy of expansion. A Volantene fleet took Lys and a Volantene army captured Myr, and for two generations all three cities were ruled from within the Black Walls of Volantis. The tigers' success ended when they tried to swallow Tyrosh. Pentos entered the war on the Tyroshi side, along with the Westerosi Storm King. Braavos provided a Lyseni exile with a hundred warships, Aegon Targaryen flew forth from Dragonstone on the Black Dread, and Myr and Lys rose up in rebellion. The war left the Disputed Lands a waste, and freed Lys and Myr from the Volantene yoke.

The tigers suffered other defeats as well. The fleet they sent to reclaim Valyria vanished in the Smoking Sea. Qohor and Norvos broke their power on the Rhoyne when the fire galleys fought on Dagger Lake. Out of the east came the Dothraki, driving smallfolk from their hovels and nobles from their estates, until only grass and ruins remained from the forest of Qohor to the headwaters of the Selhoru. After a century of war, Volantis found itself broken, bankrupt, and depopulated.

The Rise of the Elephants

It was then that the elephants rose up. The elephants, the faction of merchants and moneylenders who advocated trade rather than war, had contended with the tigers for rule of the city since the Doom. With Volantis exhausted and ruined by a century of failed conquest, the elephants took power. They have held sway ever since. Some years the tigers elect a triarch, and some years they do not, but never more than one, so the elephants have ruled the city for three hundred years.

The Legacy of the Century

The Century of Blood left a lasting mark on the Free Cities. The Disputed Lands, the region between Myr, Lys, and Tyrosh, became a permanent battlefield where the free companies fought the endless, pointless little wars that became their livelihood. The Golden Company, founded by Bittersteel after the failed Blackfyre Rebellion, was one of many such companies that lived and died in the Disputed Lands, dreaming of the land their fathers had lost. The Century of Blood also demonstrated the limits of Volantene power and established the political framework that would persist for centuries: the rule of the elephants, the marginalization of the tigers, and the city's reliance on trade rather than conquest.