Although technically a dead language, High Valyrian lives on in scientific documents and has a limited number of speakers, such as scholars, Red Priests and Targaryen family members. Many of the original colonies continued to exist, such as the nine Free Cities on the west coast of Essos, and the cities of Slaver's Bay to the east. Little more remains of Old Valyria today than a series of ruins in the Smoking Sea, said to be cursed territory where no one dares to enter. Although they had never shown much interest in Westeros before, the destruction of their homeland prompted the Targaryens to launch an invasion 100 years after the Doom, and unite the Seven Kingdoms under one King. The prominent Valyrian family of the Targaryens and their dragons had already moved to the Westerosi island of Dragonstone years before, and were thus spared when the Doom occurred. Of its people, one important group remained. In the wake of its capital's destruction, the Valyrian realm collapsed: its outlying cities and colonies split up into independent city states that battled each other for dominance, while Dothraki hordes, no longer impeded by Valyrian dragons, plundered and took back much of the interior land. The volcanoes on the Valyrian peninsula suddenly started to erupt, and together with violent earthquakes, the entire peninsula was shattered, taking most of the city, its inhabitants, their dragons, knowledge and recorded history with it. However, all this came to an end nearly 400 years ago, in an event called the Doom of Valyria.
At its height, the Valyrian Freehold directly or indirectly controlled almost the entire continent, established great cities and constructed a huge network of roads. The Valyrians finally marched on the Ghiscari capital and razed it to the ground, completely wiping out their civilization.
Their expansion got them into conflict with the Ghiscari Empire to the east, who declared war on them, but proved to be ill-equipped against their dragons in a series of five wars. They eventually got as far as Essos' west coast, where they put many colony cities under their rule. They managed to tame them, and with the dragons, together with their talent for magic and manufacturing weapons, they greatly expanded their territory to the surrounding lands. Starting from the city of Valyria on the southern end of the continent, the Freehold became extremely powerful nearly 5,000 years before the start of the series, after discovering dragons in the volcanoes in the Valyrian peninsula. The Valyrian Freehold was one of the greatest civilizations in the Known World, and the dominant culture on Essos for nearly five millennia.
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