The houses of the wall
Six houses keep three hundred miles of ice
Each house holds one stretch of the wall and one job that the others cannot do without. Their banners tell you who they are before they say a word.
02 · Reading the arms
A banner is a sentence. Read it top to bottom.
Every banner on the wall follows three rules. Learn them once and you can name a house from a mile away.
Rule 1
First, the field
The background colour, or two colours split by a line. House Coldmere is split across the middle: blue over white, the lake over the ice.
Rule 2
Then the division
How the field is split: across (per fess), diagonally (per bend) or like a roof (per chevron). Brannoch’s red and black roof means a forge.
Rule 3
Last, the charge
The object in the middle, and the words stitched under it. A key for the gate, a bell for the bell-ringers, an anvil for the smiths.
03 · The six
Choose a house.
Chapter I · The Gatekeepers
House Varrow
We keep the gate
The oldest house on the wall. Varrow holds the only gate that still opens, and decides who comes through it.
Sable, a pale glacier, a key or
Chapter II · The Foresters
House Esker
Rooted in the rime
Foresters and trackers who live in the pine belt south of the wall. They know every path, and every path's price.
Vert, a chief argent, a pine tree argent
Chapter III · The Fire-Tenders
House Brannoch
Kindle, then hold
They keep the beacon fires along three hundred miles of parapet. When a beacon is lit, every house answers.
Per chevron gules and sable, a flame or
Chapter IV · The Lake Wardens
House Coldmere
Still water, deep ice
Keepers of the lake that feeds the wall. Coldmere decides how thick the ice grows, and so who stays safe.
Per fess azure and argent, three waves argent
Chapter V · The Bell-Ringers
House Tarrant
Ring once for dawn
They ring the watch bells that carry news along the wall faster than any rider, and they hear everything first.
Purpure, a bordure or, a bell or
Chapter VI · The Smiths
House Ashgrove
What is struck stays true
Smiths, miners and engineers. Every chain, stair and spike in the wall came out of an Ashgrove forge.
Per bend argent and sable, an anvil gules
04 · The council
Six votes, one gate, no tie-breaker.
The houses meet at the gate once a year. Every decision about the wall needs all six. It has not happened in a century.
houses on the council
beacons on the parapet
gates, ten of them sealed
years since a unanimous vote
“We do not own the wall. We owe it.”
Words carved over the council door
Follow a house