#stygai

I LOVED making this - based around the belief that dragons originated in Asshai & that the current state of Stygai was caused by the first failed attempt to blood bind dragons to humans.

We’ve got the infamous oily black stone, green and black tendrils for decay & the cursed river, Ash; bones and ‘dragon’ shed for blood magic, necromancy, and dragon binding.

I STILL have one gold locket available in my shop.

Unseen Westeros is a 150-page artbook created in 2015-8 by 40 artists, many who worked for Game of Thrones. They beautifully illustrated areas of Westeros and Essos, castles and cities and faraway lands throughout the world of ice and fire. For example, this is Stygai, a "corpse city" in the Shadow Lands northeast of Asshai, illustrated by Dziga Kaiser:

And here's the Lonely Light, by Sven Sauer:

The city of the night, the haunted Stygai is located north of Asshai deep within the mountains of the Morn.

"And in the caves that pockmark the cliffs, the demons and dragons and worse make their lairs. The farther from the city one goes, the more hideous and twisted these creatures become. Stygai, the corpse city at the Shadow’s heart, where even the shadowbinders fear to tread."

    By Shella Longclaw

It’s astonishing to believe the ancient kingdoms of Asshai and Stygai were known for their lush vegetation. Sea Green Emperor Jar Han demanded hundreds of pounds of grain and fruits from Asshai as tribute. Legends claim that Stygai turned dark during the Long Night.

“From their metal spilled out poison and their roofs created black clouds, which choked men to death, the lords of Stygai have caused their own downfall. Their hubris had been that if they could wear clothes untouched by hands, they could breathe life back into corpses.” A quote from the wife of Har Loi, the first Gray Emperor. Many Yi Tish scribes believe this to be the reason for the darkness.

The Lengii believed magic gave birth to the Shadowlands. Ulthos corsairs had been raiding Asshai and the filth from Stygai had been ruining their crops. Supposedly, they turned to magic for an easy solution, and magic always comes at a cost. The large kingdom was reduced to a mere city. Stories said that the ghost grass sprung from all the sacrificed townspeople.

It still wasn’t enough blood. Reavers came from the Shadowlands to steal babies and children from Yi Ti. Thankfully, the Maroon Emperors were able to stop them and drive them back. Only Jinqi is under attack occasionally from the reavers today. A child survivor stated that reavers kidnapped children in order to extend their own lives. No one wishes this to be true.

As for the other rumors about the Shadowlands concerning monsters, I’m afraid to say those words are true. I have seen one of their monsters with my own eyes. The Shadowlands are not the birthplace of dragons. Sphinxes dwell there. I’ve seen images of the Valyrian sphinx. Apparently, they’re not Valyrian at all. The soldiers of Jinqi have mentioned mammoth sized crabs, though they seemed to assault mainly the lands east of the Shadowlands.

THE SHADOWLANDS

…IN A WORLD OF ICE AND FIRE…

Rhaelyana asked:

Hello Butterfly I love so much your blog and your metas! I was wondering about Asshaï by the shadow, and more precisly about Stygai. When I read the passage where it’s mentioned in TWOIAF, I was extremely creeped out about this “city”, its alleged demons and dragons, and I would love to hear your theories about that. What is Stygai, some kind of R'lyeh? Maybe it’s tied with the great empire of dawn, I’ve heard some theories who placed the Great Empire of the Dawn at the west of Westeros, across the sunset sea. It could make sense because it was said that after the horrors committed by the Bloodstone Emperor, the Maiden-Made-Light turned her back upon the world. Maybe it’s not tied at all, but the fact that this lands are in a perpetual shadow or darkness make sense to me. I’m sorry if I’m not understandable, English is not my first language. Have a nice day!

Thanks so much! And don’t worry, you’re perfectly understandable. :)

Stygai is not R’lyeh, Stygai is most likely a reference to Stygia, from Robert E. Howard’s Conan. In GRRM’s Dreamsongs, there’s an essay about his introduction to fantasy:

It was five years after Have Space Suit, Will Travel that I stumbled across the book that would give me my first real taste of fantasy: a slim Pyramid anthology entitled Swords & Sorcery, edited by L. Sprague de Camp and published in December of 1963. And quite a tasty taste it was. Inside were stories by Poul Anderson, Henry Kuttner, Clark Ashton Smith, Lord Dunsany, and H. P. Lovecraft. There was a Jirel of Joiry story by C. L. Moore and a tale of Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser by Fritz Leiber…and there was a story titled “Shadows in the Moonlight,” by Robert E. Howard. “Know, O prince,” it opened, “that between the years when the oceans drank Atlantis and the gleaming cities, and the years of the rise of the sons of the Aryas, there was an age undreamed of, when shining kingdoms lay spread across the world like blue mantles beneath the stars—Nemedia, Ophir, Brythunia, Hyperborea, Zamora with its dark-haired women and towers of spider-haunted mystery, Zingara with its chivalry, Koth that bordered on the pastoral lands of Shem, Stygia with its shadow-guarded tombs, Hyrkania whose riders wore steel and silk and gold. But the proudest kingdom of the world was Aquilonia, reigning supreme in the dreaming west. Hither came Conan, the Cimmerian, black-haired, sullen-eyed, sword in hand, a thief, a reaver, a slayer, with gigantic melancholies and gigantic mirths, to tread the jeweled thrones of the Earth under his sandaled feet.”

The worldbuilding of Conan, the random name drops and hints to mythical and wondrous lands and cities that the reader may never see, is distinctly an influence on GRRM’s worldbuilding of ASOIAF.

Also, I’m afraid you’re a bit confused about Stygai.

On its way from the Mountains of the Morn to the sea, the Ash runs howling through a narrow cleft in the mountains, between towering cliffs so steep and close that the river is perpetually in shadow, save for a few moments at midday when the sun is at its zenith. In the caves that pockmark the cliffs, demons and dragons and worse make their lairs. The farther from the city [Asshai] one goes, the more hideous and twisted these creatures become… until at last one stands before the doors of the Stygai, the corpse city at the Shadow’s heart, where even the shadowbinders fear to tread. Or so the stories say. –TWOIAF

Stygai: Known as the City of the Night, it sits within the Vale of Shadows, where it is said that no light falls except at noon. Legends claim that it is haunted, and little is known of it by outsiders. – WOIAF app

So Stygai itself is not where the demons and dragons live, those reportedly live in the caves of the cliffs of the Mountains of the Morn. Stygai is a “corpse city”, most likely a necropolis, a city of the dead (per the Conan reference). The near-perpetual darkness is creepy, yes, and the fact that even shadowbinders don’t want to go there is unnerving, but it’s not that supernaturally weird. The endless darkness is not because of some curse by the Bloodstone Emperor, but because the mountain cliffs are so high that the valley is always in shadow. And if it is a necropolis, it’s a good reason why nobody wants to hang out there, most people don’t like visiting cemeteries, especially city-sized ones, reportedly haunted ones even less.

Note: the city of Stygai makes for a nice Watsonian explanation for why the word “stygian” exists in ASOIAF, a world without the River Styx or Greek mythology. :)

Though if you do want R’lyeh-like cities in ASOIAF, there’s K'Dath (Lovecraft’s Kadath) and Carcosa (The King in Yellow), Ib (Lovecraft’s The Doom that Came to Sarnath), Sarnath (ditto), and Leng (Lovecraft’s Plateau of Leng). GRRM borrowed from everywhere when building his world, but especially Lovecraft and Howard. As for the city of horrors itself, the city of Great Old Ones, of monsters diametrically opposed to humanity and indeed all living things… look no further than what lies beyond the curtain of light at the end of the world, the home of the Others.

Also, I’m not sure who’s theorizing that the Great Empire of the Dawn was to the west of Westeros, but it isn’t. It was to the far east of Essos, between the Bones and the Grey Waste, where Yi Ti is today. The Great Empire is a Yi Ti legend, for goodness sake. Furthermore, “Dawn” suggests “east”, not west. Oh, I mean, technically, it is to the west of Westeros, because the world is round, but there’s the unknown unmapped “New World” continents in the way.