Editing A Song of Ice and Fire (section)

== Setting and History ==
Most of the series takes place on an South America-sized continent named Westeros, which stretches from pretty much the North Pole to the deserts of Dorne. It is populated by three main ethnic groups: First Men (the Northmen and wildlings aka not!Celts), Andals (pretty much everyone else aka not!Anglo-Saxons) and Rhoynar (Dornishmen). All of them came from Essos in waves: the First Men displacing the druids and giants, then came the Andals who pushed the First Men further north and assimilated the survivors, and finally by the Rhoynar, a matriarchal-ish society that fled the destruction of their homeland and finally found a home in Dorne. Ironborn (not!Vikings from the western islands) are also of note, since despite their First Men ancestry, they developed an entirely different religion and culture based off raiding due to the barren sea-rocks they inhabit ([[Deep Ones|and possibly also influenced by weird creepy things living in the water that lived on the islands before they did]])

For some thousands of years Westeros was an utter mess of seven-ish kingdoms vying for supremacy. But while they were busy banging rocks together, the eastern continent, Essos, was united by the <s>elves</s> magical dragon-riders powered by incest. The Valyrians expanded all over Essos, but their only presence in Westeros was a small island outpost (later named Dragonstone). At one point, however, the daughter of a minor noble family, Daenys Targaryen, had prophetic dreams about the death of her country, which caused her father to flee alongside his family and most valuable possessions (five dragons and some magic shit). His rivals in power laughed at him, but he turned to be right as a gigantic volcanic eruption obliterated Valyria and started the age of anarchy in Essos.

The Targaryens did fuck all for a little over a century, until the ambitious lord Aegon grew tired of sister-fucking and decided to forge his own kingdom in Westeros. Even though his army was tiny and he was facing off against the full might of an entire continent, he also had '''dragons''', which in ASOIAF can grow to comically large proportions, and allowed him to wipe the floor with anyone dumb enough to stand against him. Just to make a point, he burnt down *the* largest fortress in Westeros ''in a single night'', melting down stone walls with dragonfire and leaving it cursed for centuries. Though, because the Targs were so reliant on dragons, the only kingdom they couldn't conquer was [[Dune|Dorne]], who eventually [[Tallarn|mujahideen]]'d their way to a truce after killing one of the sister-wives' dragons with a ballista and (probably) threatening Aegon with the knowledge that they were willing to spend their entire kingdom's wealth to hire [[Callidus Assassin|magical assassins]] to end the Targaryen line. 

The Targaryens ruled for 280 years, but their rule was also marked by lots of shitty kings (because of the rampant incest), but also by rebelling bastards (who were the result of non-incest). Somewhere along the way, magic began to leave the world. Spells were no longer as effective and the price for such magic became steeper and steeper (which is why most magic in the "present" of the series requires blood or sacrifice of some sort). This was most evident with the dynasty's dragons, who became successively smaller and smaller over the years; it also probably didn't help that they raised them in a coliseum-style Vault and also only had 5 dragons to start with. The dynasty's fate was sealed in the "Dance of Dragons", a long and ugly succession conflict between two Targaryen factions and the last real war to include dragons and dragonriders. 

Their ultimate downfall came just before the beginning of the series proper, when Prince Rhaegar (supposedly) kidnapped Lyanna Stark, who was betrothed to Lord Robert Baratheon, and the Mad King Aerys killed her father and brother, who just wanted her back. This series of astoundingly stupid decisions triggered a rebellion that they lost and once again set the stage for a Seven Kingdoms free-for-all.