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The World of Iron Realms
A continent of a hundred quarrels, older than the memory of its maesters. These are the lands you will fight over, the powers that shape them, and the deep mysteries that stir beneath the snow. Eleven regions, 191 contestable Seats of Power between them, and one throne above them all.
The shape of the realm
The known world is a long continent that runs from a sun-warmed south to a frozen, wall-guarded north. Great rivers cut it into regions, each with its own temper: golden farmland and old gold-mines, storm-lashed coasts and drowned isles, deep forests where the old gods are still heard, and the white silence of the far North. Where you settle your keep decides the terrain you fight on, the weather you weather, and the neighbours who will test your walls.
The regions
There are eleven. Nine are the Seven Kingdoms, each ruled by a Lord Paramount from their own seat. The tenth is the Wall, which answers to no crown and votes in no council. The eleventh is Essos, a second continent across the Narrow Sea — and as of this release its twenty-one seats can be taken, which is why the realm now fights over 191 contestable holds rather than 170. They are not taken the same way: an eastern seat is reached by ship, so the road to one begins at your own harbour. The counts below are the map's own, checked against it on every build.
The North
House Stark, from Winterfell. 21 holds, and the coldest of them — the Watch's own castles are their own region now.
The Iron Islands
House Greyjoy, from Pyke. 12 holds scattered over water — hard lords who count a shipwreck a fair harvest.
The Riverlands
House Tully, from Riverrun. 19 holds at the centre of the continent, which is why so many wars are fought across them.
The Vale of Arryn
House Arryn, from the Eyrie. 16 holds in the eastern mountains, easy to defend and awkward to reach.
The Westerlands
House Lannister, from Casterly Rock. 18 holds, and the old gold-mines beneath them.
The Crownlands
The Iron Throne, at King's Landing. 15 holds around the apex seat of the realm — the prize every great alliance covets in the Conquest Season.
The Reach
House Tyrell, from Highgarden. 25 holds of broad farmland and fat granaries — the largest region on the map, and the breadbasket that feeds a war.
The Stormlands
House Baratheon, from Storm's End. 17 holds on a coast that earns the name.
Dorne
House Martell, from Sunspear. 19 holds in the hot south, the last of the realm before the map runs out.
The Wall
The Night's Watch, from Castle Black. 8 holds along the ice and beyond it — the one region that takes no part in the realm's wars, holds no council chair and grants no charter.
Essos
The Free Cities, from Braavos. 21 holds across a second continent — nine Free Cities, the Rhoyne and the grass beyond — reached by sea from your own harbour and worked for twice the seam. Contestable by sea: every eastern seat can be stormed by a lord whose harbour and hulls can carry the host. None is worth a throne point — the Iron Throne is a Westerosi quarrel.
The seasons turn
Iron Realms keeps no idle calendar. A season lasts seven real days, and each reshapes the world beneath your keep — the map dresses in spring green, high-summer gold, autumn rust, and the white of deep winter. The sky even mirrors the real weather of the world outside your window.
The dread of them all is the Long Night: winter's deepest watch, when the cold bites hardest, movement slows, and the wilds grow bold. The lords who prepared press their advantage while the unready hunker down. When the season turns, the White Ravens of the Citadel fly to herald it — and leave a gift for the attentive.
Powers of the realm
The Great Houses
Player alliances and NPC dynasties alike, each a banner with its own war-titles, forts, and ambitions.
The Citadel
The order of maesters — keepers of the ravens, the seasons, and the realm's long memory.
The Ironvault
Braavos-that-isn't: a bank that will fund a war… at interest. Leverage is a blade with two edges.
The Faceless
A guild of masks and quiet deaths, whose coin is secrets and whose service is never cheap.
The Free Companies
Sellswords and NPC lords who raid, seize seats, and band together — the realm fights back even between player wars.
The Dragonkind
Wyrms raised from egg to warbeast — the oldest power of all, and the rarest edge a lord can bring to a field.
Seats of Power
Scattered across the map stand the Seats of Power — fortified holds that pay an alliance-wide bonus to whoever holds them, marked by more or fewer stars for their strength and prestige. Taking one is a night's coordinated siege — its defence ground to nothing and a Takeover blow landed before the breach closes; holding it is a season-long vigil against every rival who wants it back. The grandest of them all is the realm's throne, the heart of every Conquest Season.
Mysteries beneath the snow
The realm keeps secrets its maesters only half-believe. Valyrian-steel blades that hold an edge no forge can match. Weirwood trees with faces that are said to watch. Wargs who slip their skins to run with wolves. A faith of Seven and older gods besides. None of it is idle decoration — each is a system to discover in play, a thread of the deeper world for the lord who goes looking.