House Rogare

House Rogare was a powerful Lyseni banking and trading dynasty whose fortunes briefly reached across the narrow sea into the finances and royal family of Westeros. Its rise rested on wealth, commerce, and political connections; its collapse exposed how quickly those same connections could turn into liabilities when confidence in its bank failed.

Origins and sources of power

House Rogare was an old family whose bloodlines were said to reach back to Valyria before the Doom. Its holdings included the Rogare Bank and the famous pillow house called the Perfumed Garden, giving it influence in finance and commerce as well as ownership of prominent businesses. The house’s authority, however, did not work like a hereditary monarchy: although the family could pass property and wealth to its children, Lysandro Rogare’s offices could not be inherited.

The dynasty’s reach extended beyond Lys. Its ships and trading interests linked the city to Westeros, while its banking business attracted deposits from lords and merchants. During the Dance of the Dragons, the Crown’s gold had been divided among several locations for safekeeping: one portion was entrusted to the Iron Bank of Braavos. In the later settlement that secured Prince Viserys’s return, the Iron Throne agreed that funds held there would instead be entrusted to the Rogare Bank. That transfer placed the family at the center of royal finance as well as private trade.

Viserys and the family’s ascent

House Rogare’s connection to the Targaryen dynasty began through Viserys Targaryen, who had been held captive in Lys after being taken from the Gay Abandon. When his first captor, Bambarro Bazanne, died in 132 AC and creditors seized his property, Viserys passed into the possession of Lysandro Rogare. Lysandro initially considered ways of profiting from the striking young captive, but changed course after learning that he was a Targaryen prince. He married Viserys to his youngest daughter, Larra Rogare, later known in Westeros as Larra of Lys.

The marriage became part of a negotiated return. A chance meeting between Alyn Velaryon and Drazenko Rogare at Sunspear opened the way for talks, but Alyn had to travel to Lys and agree terms with Lysandro. He accepted a ransom of one hundred thousand golden dragons, a promise that the Iron Throne would not take up arms against House Rogare or its interests for a hundred years, lordships for three of Lysandro’s younger sons, and the transfer of funds from the Iron Bank to the Rogare Bank. Most consequentially, he swore that the marriage of Viserys and Larra would not be set aside. Viserys returned to Westeros in 134 AC, aged twelve, with Larra, then nineteen, as his wife.

Under Lysandro’s leadership, the family’s wealth coincided with a wider period of prosperity. The Rogare Bank paid rich returns, encouraging more lords to deposit their money with the Lyseni. Trade expanded through King’s Landing and other ports, while ships brought goods from across the Free Cities and farther afield. The family’s political position also rose when Drazenko married Princess Aliandra Martell of Dorne and became her Prince Consort and Lord of the Stepstones. Lysandro adopted the title First Magister for Life, and contemporaries began calling him Lysandro the Magnificent. The family’s ascent was therefore financial and dynastic at once: banking, trade, and marriage all carried its influence beyond Lys.

Inheritance and the bank’s collapse

Lysandro’s children received distinct parts of the family estate. His daughter Lysara inherited his palace; his son Drako received his ships; Fredo received the Perfumed Garden; and Marra received his library. His children, including his bastards, also shared in the wealth represented by the bank, although the bastards received smaller portions than the trueborn children. Effective control of the bank, however, went to his eldest son, Lysaro Rogare.

Lysaro sought political rule in Lys but lacked his father’s patience for accumulating power over time. He bought one thousand Unsullied for his protection, secured election as gonfaloniere through lavish entertainments and bribes, and then diverted money from the bank when his personal fortune ran out. His plan was to provoke a short, victorious war against Tyrosh or Myr, gain the prestige of conquest, and use the spoils to replace the stolen funds. Instead, rumors that the bank was unsound spread through Lys. Depositors demanded their money in growing numbers, and the stream of withdrawals exhausted the bank’s reserves. Lysaro fled at night with a hundred Unsullied, servants, and bed slaves, leaving his wife, daughters, and palace behind. The city’s magisters seized the bank and found it empty.

Ruin in Lys and Westeros

The collapse destroyed more than the bank. Lysaro’s siblings were suspected of complicity; Drako escaped to Volantis, and Marra sought sanctuary at a temple, while the others, including the family’s bastards, were seized for trial. The family’s possessions and properties were taken, its trading ships and cargoes were lost, and its members were sold into slavery when their assets could not cover even a fraction of the debts. The daughters of Fredo and Lysaro, who had once played in the Perfumed Garden, later returned there as bed slaves rather than proprietors.

The losses crossed the narrow sea with the family’s creditors. Westerosi lords and merchants discovered that the money they had entrusted to the Rogare Bank was gone. Moredo Rogare surrendered his command in Gulltown and sailed for Braavos; Lotho was arrested while trying to leave King’s Landing, and his letters, ledgers, and remaining valuables were seized. Lord Roggerio was taken from the Mermaid and imprisoned with Lotho in the Tower of the Hand. Their marriage connection to Viserys’s wife spared them, for a time, the black cells, but not the legal consequences. Though not convicted of high treason, murder, or conspiracy, the brothers still faced accusations of fraud and theft, and the scale of the bank’s failure meant that their royal kinship did not shield them from trial and punishment.

Lysaro himself was captured in Volon Therys while trying to cross the Rhoyne. Only twenty of the Unsullied who had accompanied him from Lys remained; they died defending him. After Drako refused to buy him back from the Triarchs of Volantis, Lysaro was returned to Lys as a captive. At his trial he identified magisters he had bribed, but those men joined the vote condemning him. He was sentenced to be scourged by those who had lost money, with the number of lashes assigned according to each person’s losses. He died during the first day. The family’s end thus reversed its rise: bank, estate, trade, and political standing all failed together, while the financial damage reached far beyond Lys.