House Lannister

House Lannister of Casterly Rock is one of the Great Houses of Seven Kingdoms, and the principal house of the westerlands. Their seat is Casterly Rock, though another branch exists in nearby Lannisport. Their sigil is a golden lion on a field of crimson. Their house words are Hear Me Roar!

However, their unofficial motto, equally well known, is  'A Lannister always pays his debts.' The Warden of the West is a Lannister by tradition. Their gold mines have made the Lannisters the wealthiest of the Great Houses.

Traits
Lannisters have a reputation for being comely with fair, golden hair and emerald green eyes.

First Men Kings
The Lannisters suddenly appear as First Men in historical records of the Age of Heroes, ruling large portions of the westerlands from Casterly Rock just as the Casterlys vanish from the chronicles. They claim descent from Lann the Clever, the legendary figure who tricked the Casterlys from Casterly Rock.

According to a semi-canon source, members of lesser branches of the family left Casterly Rock and developed a nearby village into the city of Lannisport, forming House Lannister of Lannisport. Meanwhile, the Lannisters of Casterly Rock grew to become Kings of the Rock. The first known King of the Rock was Loreon I Lannister, although Lann the Clever has posthumously been called by the same title. Loreon gained House Reyne as his vassals and defeated the Hooded King, Morgon Banefort.

Andal Kings
During the coming of the Andals to Westeros, King Tybolt Lannister initially fought the invading Andal warlords and adventurers who ventured into the westerlands, but Kings Tyrion III and Gerold eventually took a policy of arranging marriages between them and the daughters of the local First Men houses. They also took Andal sons and daughters as wards and fosterlings at Casterly Rock to prevent betrayals such as those that had happened in the Vale. In time, the Lannister kings also wed their children to Andals, and when King Gerold III died without male issue, a council crowned the Andal husband of Gerold's only daughter, Ser Joffrey Lydden, who took the Lannister name. Thus the Lannisters became an Andal house, though their First Men name lived on.

Cerion extended his rule to the Golden Tooth, and Tommen I gained Fair Isle. Lancel I and Lancel IV fell while campaigning against the Kings of the Reach from House Gardener, while Gerold the Great raided the Iron Islands.

Hagon Hoare, King of the Iron Islands, allowed his mother, the dowager queen Lelia Lannister, to be mutilated by the Shrike. Her nephew, the King of the Rock, began a war which left the Iron Islands impoverished.

House Lannister possessed an ancestral Valyrian steel greatsword called Brightroar, but it was lost when King Tommen II Lannister went on a quest to Valyria and never returned. The Lannisters have been looking for a replacement ever since, though they have not stopped looking for their own lost ancestral sword.

Aegon's Conquest
When the Wars of Conquest began and Aegon the Conqueror swept through the land, Loren I, King of the Rock, sided with Mern IX Gardener, King of the Reach, against the Targaryens. The two armies met in the Reach, where the combined might of the Reach and the Rock broke Aegon's army. Their army, dubbed by historians 'The Host of the Two Kings', numbered fifty-five thousand men; five thousand of them mounted knights, while the Targaryens had only ten thousand men, many of uncertain loyalty and reliability. With their smaller force severely weakened and in danger of routing, Aegon and his sisters deployed all three dragons at once; the only time this happened during Aegon's Conquest. Their combined fires scoured the battlefield, immolating more than four thousand men (including King Mern and his heirs) and giving the battle its name: The Field of Fire. After he was captured, King Loren the Last bent the knee and was allowed to remain Lord of Casterly Rock and became the first Warden of the West.

The Dance of Dragons
The Dance of the Dragons left the Westerlands plagued by Ironmen. From the Banefort to Crakehall the longships of the Isles reigned supreme, and Fair Isle remained a captive property. It would not be until Lady Johanna’s Westermen defeated the Ironmen at Kayce and took back Fair Isle that the tides would turn. In 134 AC, the Westermen would sack the Isles and take the young Rodrik Greyjoy back to the Rock, and make of him a eunuch and a jester.