In the 298th year after Aegon's Conquest, the continent of Westeros was enjoying the ninth year of a long summer.
March. The Westerlands. Lannisport.
Though called a "port," Lannisport was in truth a great and thriving city. A cadet branch of House Lannister governed it, and the port accounted for nearly ninety percent of all trade in and out of the Westerlands. It was also home to a Western fleet tasked with repelling pirates and the raiders of the Iron Islands.
Lannisport stood among the Five Great Ports of Westeros, alongside Blackwater Bay in King's Landing, Oldtown in the southwest, Gulltown in the Vale, and White Harbor in the North.
Oldtown, founded even before the Andals crossed the Narrow Sea six thousand years ago, remained the largest and oldest of them all. Blackwater Bay, outside the capital city of King's Landing, was the second largest. Lannisport ranked third, followed by Gulltown of House Arryn, and then White Harbor in the North.
Not far to the southwest of the famed Lannisport stood a modest stone castle.
Modest, at least, when compared to the grand keeps of high lords. But to the common folk, the place would still appear expansive and richly built.
The stone castle had three stories and a dozen rooms of varying size. A large courtyard lay at its heart, featuring training dummies stuffed with straw for sword practice, leather targets suspended for jousting drills, and three archery butts painted with red bullseyes neatly arranged along the southern wall.
The yard was large enough to ride a horse through, but when compared to the vast training grounds of great noble houses, it seemed meager. Their castles boasted sprawling practice fields where knights and guards drilled in full regiments, several times the size of this humble yard.
In the wealth-soaked Westerlands, such a plain fortress seemed laughably poor.
And yet, among the hundred or so noble families of the Westerlands, not one dared look down on this unassuming stone castle.
At its summit flew a fearsome banner: three black dogs on a field of gold.
The dogs stood one above the other in a straight line, teeth bared, claws out. The top and bottom dogs faced left, snarling; the middle one roared to the right.
It was the sigil of a rising house in the Westerlands: House Clegane.
This sigil was not born of ancient bloodlines, but of deed. It was granted by Lord Tytos Lannister himself, the father of the current Warden of the West, Tywin Lannister, in recognition of an act of rare heroism.
Clegane, once merely Lord Tytos's kennelmaster, had accompanied him on a hunt. When Tytos outpaced his escort and found himself alone in the forest, he stumbled upon a lion and was swiftly brought down. His horse fled, wounded. Just as the beast was ready to tear him apart, Clegane appeared with his three black hounds. At his command, the dogs leapt into battle with the lion. All three perished, but not before mauling the beast and saving Tytos's life. As the lion lunged again, Clegane threw himself into its path. He lost a leg but drove the lion off, and thus preserved his lord.
For this, Tytos knighted the kennelmaster, gifted him a small parcel of land, and raised a tower house upon it. He even took Clegane's son as a squire.
Clegane, illiterate and common-born, had no means to design a family crest or compose a house motto. So Tytos's maester did it for him: three black dogs on a golden field. The gold symbolized the mineral-rich lands of the Westerlands. The dogs were the three hounds who died fighting the lion.
As for a house motto, what need did a former kennelmaster have for lofty words? Many lesser houses went without, and no one thought less of them.
After Clegane's death, his modest title passed to his son, who died soon after in a strange hunting accident, snapping his neck in the woods. The lordship then fell to his own son: Gregor Clegane.
Born in the year 266 AC, Gregor Clegane was now thirty-two years old. He stood over eight feet tall, nearly three meters, and resembled a giant out of legend. His strength was monstrous. By the age of twelve, he was already taller and stronger than most grown men. By sixteen, he had become an unstoppable juggernaut, wielding a greatsword so massive that no ordinary man could lift it, let alone fight with it.
In 283 AC, seventeen-year-old Gregor Clegane followed Tywin Lannister during the sack of King's Landing. There, he butchered the royal family of House Targaryen, crushing infant Aegon, son of Prince Rhaegar, against a wall, raping Princess Elia Martell, and then smashing her skull with his bare hands.
Thus was born his infamous title: "The Most Feared Man in the Seven Kingdoms."
His size was beyond belief. Ordinary knights looked like children beside him. His shoulders were as broad as walls; his arms, as thick as saplings. In battle, he wore the heaviest plate armor in all the Seven Kingdoms, so weighty that no other man could even lift it. Beneath that, he layered chainmail and boiled leather.
His helm was a massive flat-topped thing, thickly masked to deflect arrows, with only slits for breath and vision. Atop it, an iron fist pointed defiantly at the sky.
His greatsword measured six feet long, and weighed dozens of pounds, far more than most knights could manage even with two hands. Gregor wielded it one-handed, as easily as if it were a dagger.
His reach with the massive blade rivaled that of a lance. With a single swing, he could cleave man and mail in two. His shield, fashioned from thick oak and rimmed with iron, bore the three hounds of House Clegane.
This terrifying titan, a warrior so infamous that his name sent shivers even across the Narrow Sea, had a secret shame.
At that very moment, in the famed Clegane Keep, the monster lay sprawled atop a vast stone bed.
"Raff, Dunsen, Polliver, get in here, now."
His three captains scrambled in, obedient as pups.
"Bring ropes. Tie me down. Tight. What are you gawking at? Unless you want your heads ripped off, move!"
The three men blanched and rushed off to fetch heavy ropes.
"Fuck your mother!," came a muttered curse. "I'm just a socially awkward engineering nerd, and I had to transmigrate into this goddamned butcher? Enemies everywhere, blood on every step. What the hell, man?!"
The voice dripped with rage, and came from somewhere far, far away.