TARGARYENS OF 110 AC

SUMMARY

The year is 110 AC. The Conciliator is dead, and King Baelon the Brave sits the Iron Throne. His reign is martial, and prosperous. Yet, beneath the King's unyielding strength, the House of the Dragon is a tapestry of quiet resentments and shifting alliances.

Following the tragic death of Princess Aemma in 105 AC, King Baelon forced his grieving heir, Prince Viserys, into a rapid political marriage with Lady Laena Velaryon. Now, the teenage Laena is the highest-ranking woman in the realm, riding Silverwing and raising Viserys's new trueborn sons. Princess Rhaenyra, entirely unburdened by the pressures of succession, navigates a court where she is free to live and flirt, watching her father's new family with detached, youthful rebellion.

Meanwhile, Prince Daemon is tethered to the Vale. Forced by his father to honor his vows to Rhea Royce, Daemon has produced a "Bronze Dragon"—a trueborn son he uses as leverage whenever he is permitted to visit the capital. With Ser Otto Hightower marginalized into irrelevance and Lord Corlys Velaryon firmly entrenched in royal power, the Red Keep is a powder keg of ambition wrapped in velvet.

TIMELINE

92 AC: Prince Aemon Targaryen is killed on Tarth. King Jaehaerys passes over Aemon's daughter, Rhaenys, and names his second son, Baelon the Brave, as the new Prince of Dragonstone. The decision severely alienates the Velaryon fleet, but firmly establishes absolute male primogeniture as the unquestioned law of the Iron Throne.

97 AC: Prince Daemon Targaryen is wed to Lady Rhea Royce of Runestone. Despising his bride and the Andal traditions of the Vale, Daemon leaves the marriage unconsummated. He lingers at court, banking on his father's leniency to eventually grant him an annulment.

100 AC: Good Queen Alysanne passes away. Her legendary mount, Silverwing, makes her lair on Dragonstone, riderless and waiting.

101 AC: Prince Baelon survives a burst belly. Because the Heir lives, the Great Council of 101 AC is never called. King Jaehaerys’s health, however, is rapidly failing. As Baelon assumes more control, his patience with Daemon’s delinquency vanishes. Recognizing that a Prince who refuses to consummate his marriage looks weak and invites mockery, Baelon orders Daemon to return to the Vale and do his duty. Daemon realizes an annulment will never be granted by his strict father. He complies.

102 AC: Lady Rhea Royce gives birth to a trueborn son, Prince Aemon Targaryen—named in a calculated, sycophantic move by Daemon to honor Baelon's beloved late brother. With her husband finally acting the part, Rhea’s public image drastically shifts. She no longer needs to be the "mannish" hunter compensating for an absent lord; as the mother of a royal Targaryen prince, she assumes the formidable, respected role of a highborn Lady of Runestone. Conversely, Daemon’s success places an immense, suffocating pressure on Prince Viserys and Princess Aemma, who only have young Rhaenyra. Viserys’s position as the eldest begins to look politically fragile compared to his brother’s trueborn male heir.

103 AC: King Jaehaerys I dies peacefully. Baelon the Brave ascends the Iron Throne. Baelon immediately names his eldest son, Viserys, as Hand of the King, ensuring the highest offices remain strictly within the royal family. Minor courtiers and administrators who might have risen in a power vacuum—such as Ser Otto Hightower—remain entirely marginalized and irrelevant to imperial politics. A castellan is appointed to govern Dragonstone while Viserys serves in the capital.

105 AC (The Tragedy): The escalating pressure on Viserys to secure his own line reaches a devastating climax. Princess Aemma Arryn dies in a grueling, bloody childbed trying to deliver a male heir. Viserys is psychologically broken and begs for time to mourn. However, King Baelon looks at Daemon’s growing son and the still-simmering resentment of Lord Corlys Velaryon. In a profound act of dynastic hypocrisy—having steadfastly refused to remarry after his own wife Alyssa's death—Baelon forces the grieving Viserys into an immediate political marriage with the newly flowered, thirteen-year-old Laena Velaryon.

106 AC: The teenage Princess of Dragonstone, Laena Velaryon, claims the riderless Silverwing. Laena Velaryon and Viserys have their first son together: Baelon the Younger. With the primary line now secure, Viserys's eldest daughter, Rhaenyra, is entirely relegated to the periphery. Unburdened by heir expectations, the young Princess enjoys vast social liberties, navigating the court as a carefree royal while remaining painfully aware that her teenage stepmother now commands the true power of the nursery.

108 AC: Viserys and Laena welcome a new son, Aegon, to the world. Daemon and Rhea have a daughter, Visenya, who Daemon names for the warrior queen.

110 AC (The Present): King Baelon's rule is an era of iron-clad stability, having already practiced governing the realm as Jaehaerys' Hand, and as the rider of Vhagar. But the Red Keep is a web of quiet resentments. Viserys is a tired Hand and a reluctant husband to the powerful Laena. Daemon, bound to the Vale, uses his eight-year-old "Bronze Dragon" as a political weapon whenever he is permitted at court, parading the boy to win Baelon's favor and taunt his weary brother. The Velaryons are triumphant, and the court waits to see where the dragons will fly. Rhaenyra grows into being a courtly flirt, with the pressure of performance placed firmly on Laena's shoulders.

COURT (NPCs)

King Baelon I: 53; The Brave. A hardened, beloved warrior-king who wields both Blackfyre (as King) and Dark Sister (his earned blade). He demands a strict adherence to duty from his sons that he never demanded of himself.

Prince Viserys: 33; Hand of the King and Prince of Dragonstone. An amicable but deeply tired man, harboring a quiet, buried resentment toward his father for forcing his hasty second marriage.

Princess Laena Velaryon: 18; Viserys's second wife and rider of Silverwing. The radiant, wildly wealthy peak of the female court, fiercely dedicated to her young sons and the Velaryon legacy.

Princess Rhaenyra: 13; The Realm's Delight. Unburdened by the throne, she is a free-spirited, romantic princess looking for love and agency outside the shadow of her stepmother's nursery.

Prince Daemon: 29; The Rogue Prince. Frustrated and bound to Runestone, he occasionally descends upon the capital to flaunt his trueborn son and taunt his brother.

Princess Rhaenys: 36; The Queen Who Never Was. The formidable matriarch who watches her blood finally secure the Iron Throne through her daughter Laena.

Lord Corlys Velaryon: 57; The Sea Snake. Master of Ships. Smug and victorious, having finally secured his family's path to royal supremacy.

Lady Rhea Royce: 31; Lady of Runestone. A woman of sharp Andal steel, commanding newfound respect as the mother of a dragon-blooded heir.

Aemon Targaryen: 8; Daemon and Rhea Royce's trueborn son. A quiet, observant child caught between his father's Valyrian supremacy and his mother's Andal steel.

Alicent Hightower: 22; Rhaenyra's lady-in-waiting. Stranded at court after her father's political irrelevance, she clings to her younger friend out of necessity and buried, anxious envy.

MAIN INTRO EXCERPT

"Your son has an excellent grip on his fork, Lady Rhea," Laena observed across the table, her voice a soft, melodic chime of absolute courtesy. "He will make a fine knight of the Vale one day."

Rhea offered a slow, measured incline of her head, completely unbothered by the subtle relegation of her son to a mere regional knight. "He learns discipline quickly, Princess. The mountains do not coddle their young."

Daemon’s smile widened just a fraction. "Indeed," he drawled smoothly. "Aemon already rides a courser without a saddle. But I suppose a soft courtyard is best for a child who has not yet learned to balance. We cannot all be born with strong backs."

Viserys’s grip on his goblet tightened. Laena did not frown; she simply offered Daemon a serene, glacial smile, reaching out to gently stroke the silver curls of Baelon the Younger.

At the end of the table, Princess Rhaenyra cut a piece of duck with far more force than necessary, the blade screeching faintly against her plate. *If he speaks of horses one more time, I will scream,* she thought, rolling her eyes toward Alicent Hightower, who sat beside her in anxious, rigid silence. Rhaenyra took a long drink of watered wine, entirely detached from the venomous, polite warfare being waged over the roasted fowl, waiting for the interminable evening to end.

INTROS

INTRO 1:
A masterclass in passive-aggressive warfare over roasted duck. At a routine family dinner, Lady Rhea Royce, Prince Daemon, and Princess Laena trade razor-thin smiles and plausible deniability while the rest of the table suffocates in silence.

INTRO 2:
A tense session of the Small Council. Lord Corlys demands Crown funding for a war in the Stepstones, prompting King Baelon to assert his absolute, martial authority and publicly override the cautious exhaustion of his Hand, Prince Viserys.

INTRO 3:
A sun-drenched afternoon in the Queen's Gardens. While Princess Laena holds a suffocatingly polite court as the triumphant matriarch, a carefree thirteen-year-old Rhaenyra rebelliously flirts with Ser Harwin Strong on the periphery.

INTRO 4:
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