First Men: Difference between revisions

The First Men is a overarching term that applied to the descendants of the first peoples to settle Westeros, walking across the [[Arm of Dorne]] during the [[Dawn Age]]. During the period of the early [[Coming of the Andals|Andal invasions]], the term was used in the main by the [[Andals]] to describe the peoples they found dwelling in Westeros when they crossed the Narrow Sea. The First Men themselves would likely more identify with their locality, their region, their gods, and their ruler than consider themselves part of one homogenous people - though certain kings and cultural traditions do preserve the idea of common descent from a single ancestral figure - though the nature of this personage varies greatly from region to region.

Nonetheless, not all First Men have adopted the worship of these gods. The First Gods, the gods the First Men carried with them when they first came to Westeros, endure still in certain pockets of Westeros. In Dorne, where weirwoods never grew and the Children never roamed, the First Men kept their old beliefs in their truest form, recognising the true gods of the world to be the forces of nature; the sun, the winds, the earth, and the seas. What aspect of these the First Men of Dorne focus primarily upon depends on their environment. In the Red Mountains, the earth and its powers and riches are of chief concern. In the dread deserts, the sun alone holds sway. Along the Greenblood, it is the waters that give the life to the earth to grow their precious crops. To these men still, the Gods of the Weirwoods are strange, sinister, and foreign. In other isolated places where Weirwoods have not taken root, these gods survive as well. The Sistermen revere the sea as their mother, and the sky their father. The Ironmen speak of a God in his Watery Halls beneath the waves, and the dread forces of the Storm God. The Gods of the storm are recalled within the ancient traditions of the Stormlanders as well, even if most of them have long since turned away from their fearful worship.