Blue Winter

The Second Scarlet Winter, often called the Blue Winter, was a cruel season that credited its name to an economic depression. Three years of relentless blizzards buried the realm beneath feet of snow and ice as far south as the Dornish Marches, and blanketing frosts for a day’s ride further still. The Blue Winter began in 425 AC and had proven an echo of the Scarlet Winter by its end in 428 AC, bringing sickness and effectively slowing trade across the realm and ultimately to an utter halt in the Vale and the North.

The North
The North looked onward to yet another harsh winter with a most familiar, stoic pessimism- however well prepared they were. Lord Jon Stark had ensured a plentiful harvest in its expectation, and the Northmen were well familiar with their world of ice. From the Wall to the Neck, the North quickly became frozen and entirely embanked with snow.

The Wall had become desolate during the Second Scarlet Winter. Sickness had claimed the lives of many Rangers of the Night’s Watch and that of their Lord Commander, too. What few hundreds remained were disarrayed, and so a decree was issued from Winterfell. This decree, penned by the hand of Jon Stark in 427 AC, would be known as the Black Draft among smallfolk and nobility alike- a cursed thing that seemed only to further season resentment in the North. It was paired with letters sent to the Lords Paramount of the realm and the Crown, imploring for more men to be sent to the Wall rather than killed or imprisoned in the name of justice.

The same year that the Black Draft was issued, Jon’s heir, Ellard, succumbed to the same sickness.

The Vale
The onset of winter was a light frost that blanketed the mountaintops of the Vale of Arryn and heavy, pelting rains had turned the High Road to an icy slush. However, as the cruelty of the season harshened, so too did the road and soon it became impassable by wagon. Those that attempted to ascend such altitudes afoot were easily lost in rains that had frozen with the temperatures and become relentless, blinding blizzards. With halted trade, the Vale relied again on its own.

Supplies dwindled by the end of the first year, and food was scarce early on in the second. Maesters record this time as the Valeman’s darkest eve, with those that perished to the cold and starvation alike numbering in the thousands. In mid 427 AC, Visenya Silvermoon toured the Vale, bringing relief and lending aid to the smallfolk.

The Iron Islands
The Ironborn stubbornly braved the winter and by doing so, toed a dangerous line by heeding not the wrath of the cold, black seas. Instead, they persisted strong against the shivering winds, placing their fates into their Drowned God. Storms had reached the isles but few had withdrawn into their holds.

Along some of the isles, the banks had frozen so solid that people were able to walk where once there was water. A moderately sized gathering was held near Pebbleton, following this discovery- the congregation a celebration of strength, its attendees comprised of the most fearless captains and people of Great Wyk. During an axe-throwing competition, the ice caved in beneath their weight and swallowed some in the frigid waters below.

The West and the Riverlands
As winter progressed in the West and the Riverlands, trade caravans grew to become scarce and scarcer sights to behold. Only with gold could merchants bribe their way out of an attempted heist, with the roads having been ensnared by the threat of bandits’ blade. Oftentimes, the outlaws were clever enough to know the cargo they carried was worth far more than the mere gold they sought to offer for having secured safe delivery of the goods aboard, however cheap. With horses and supplies stolen, wagons were left behind and soon buried beneath feet of ice and snow.

Rumor had it that this band of thieves were of the Whispering Wood, and controlled much more than only the Goldroad, but the whole of the River Road and much of the Kingsroad as well. These bandits that sought to take advantage of the kingdoms were eventually vanquished following a series of skirmishes that ended in their once-controlled village of Wendish Town, which was put to the torch in an effort to lose the Darry soldiers sent to dispel the threat.

The Reach
Crops had fallen with the temperatures before they could be harvested for winter. The lords of the Reach would share the burdens of their birth as the cold harshened and smallfolk suffered. A meeting was called to be had at Highgarden just before the height of the season. There, it was decided that preparation would be in order for what the maesters predicted to be the second coming of the Scarlet Winter.

None could have prepared for a winter so especially grueling. The Reach had more mouths than food to feed them, and many peasants starved with their villages. Such hunger was not limited to only smallfolk, however; these deadly pangs were felt by noble households, as well. The Second Scarlet Winter, as it is known in the Reach, greatly contributed to a trembling economy in those years thereafter- and took several more to fully recover.

The Crownlands and the Stormlands
As winter set in, slow snowfalls draped the capitol in white. The ice that hardened beneath it, however, would chill King’s Landing and Storm’s End both when a great freeze solidified the rivers and the sea and many ports and villages were made unreachable. Soon after, smallfolk and nobility alike succumbed to a cold sickness that spread quickly through densely populated areas and consumed holds and villages much smaller.

Dorne
The Dornish Marches were encompassed by a light frost and the chill of Northern winds that grasped even at Starfall. The blaze of the Dornish sun chased away the biting cold during the day, but at night the people of Dorne knew this Blue Winter, and knew it well. Many Dornish men and women were lost to the merciless climate after evenfall, when the sun had fallen below the horizon and no longer shielded them from the chill. It was not uncommon for the streets of Planky Town and other villages to empty before sunset, as merchants and smallfolk sought the warmth of an hearth, lest they perish to the freeze.