Location from A Song of Ice and Fire by George R.R. Martin
The shattered ruins of the greatest civilization the world has ever known — the Valyrian Freehold, where dragonlords ruled with fire and sorcery until the Doom consumed them in a single catastrophic day.
Old Valyria is the cautionary tale that no one in the current age is cautious enough to heed. The Freehold mastered dragons, Valyrian steel, sorcery, and an empire that spanned half of Essos — and the Doom erased it in hours. Fourteen volcanoes erupted simultaneously, the land itself split apart, and the sea rushed in to fill the wounds. Every dragonlord died except the Targaryens, who had relocated to Dragonstone years earlier based on a prophetic dream. The ruins are considered cursed and deadly. Greyscale runs rampant in the shattered streets. Stone men — victims of the disease driven mad — haunt the waterways. Treasure hunters occasionally brave the ruins seeking Valyrian steel, spellbooks, or dragon eggs, and almost none return. Euron Greyjoy claims to have sailed through Valyria and survived, and if true, whatever he found there may be worse than what he left behind. The Doom is proof that no empire, however powerful, is permanent — and that dragonfire, which built the world, can just as easily unmake it.
A hellscape of twisted, half-melted towers rising from a smoking sea where the peninsula itself was shattered into islands by volcanic eruption. Rivers of molten rock still glow between ruins. The sky above is perpetually hazy with ash and sulfur. Demon roads of fused dragonstone lead into the ruins but no one who follows them returns.
Also known as: Old Valyria, Valyria, the Freehold, the Doom