2.6. The Alchemists’ Guild
- The Alchemists' Guild makes wildfire (II: 47)
- The Guildhall of the Alchemists has cold, dank vaults that run deep under Visenya's hill (II: 225)
- Pyromancers wear striped black-and-scarlet robes (II: 226)
- Pyromancers call wildfire 'the substance' and title each other 'wisdom' (II: 226)
- The Pyromancers customarily hint at vast stores of knowledge that they do not really possess (II: 226)
- Once the Alchemists' Guild was powerful, but in recent centuries the maesters of the Citadel had supplanted them through most of the Seven Kingdoms. Now only a very few alchemists remain (II: 226)
- The pyromancers used to claim they could transmute metals, but as hard times have fallen upon the order they have stopped putting that forward (II: 226)
- The pyromancers made many jars of wildfire for King Aerys II. It was his fancy to shape the jars as fruits (II: 226)
- Many pyromancers were killed during the Sack of King's Landing. In fact, so many died that the few novices left were quite unable to take up the task of destroying the Aerys II's jars of wildfire before they became too volatile (II: 226)
- Many of the jars of wildfire made for Aerys II were lost, unable to be accounted for, because of the massacres of the sack of King's Landing (II: 226)
- Aerys II had at least 4,000 jars of wildfire prepared (II: 227)
- The pyromancers have trained acolytes prepare wildfire in a series of bare stone cells. Apprentices immediately carry the substance to the cold storage vaults once complete (II: 227)
- Above each workroom is a room filled with sand. Any fire in the room below will cause the floor above to collapse so that the sand can fall down and completely douse the blaze. The pyromancers claim that this is done through protective spells (II: 227)
- The last Hand to visit the Guildhall of the Alchemists' was a Lord Rossart, a member of their own order, in Aerys' day (II: 228)
- The Guildhall is imposing, a warren of black stone. Through many twists and turns one can reach the polished black marbled-walled Gallery of the Iron Torches, where black iron columns twenty feet tall are sometimes bathed in flaming wildfire to impress visitors. Wildfire is so costly, however, that such displays are ended as soon as the visitors are gone (II: 228-229)
- The entrance to the Guildhall is atop broad curving steps that front the Street of the Sisters, not far from the foot of Visenya's hill (II: 229)
- Flea Bottom is relatively near to the Guildhall (II: 438)
- A cache of wildfire from Lord Rossart's time was hidden in the Dragonpit, numbering over three hundred jars (II: 522)
- Lord Rossart was the last of King Aerys's Hand's, having the position only a fortnight before the Sack of King's Landing. He was killed by Ser Jaime Lannister before he went on to kill his king (III: 129, 130)
- The alchemists Rossart, Belis, Garigus aided Aerys in placing caches of wildfire throughout King's Landing, for the purpose of destroying the city should Robert sack it. Only a handful of master pyromancers did the task, their own acolytes untrusted (III: 418)
- Days after the Sack, Jaime hunted down Belis and Garigus, the two master pyromancers who with Rossart aided Aerys (III: 419)
- Master pyromancers can conjure up beasts of living flame to tear at each other with fiery claws (III: 677)
- Pyromancers using wildfire burned the bodies of the dead of King's Landing during the Great Spring Sickness at the command of the King's Hand, Lord Bloodraven (TSS: 121)
- A pyromancer claims that the guild can make a flaming hand burn in the sky above King's Landing (IV: 104)
Last revised February 04, 2007
PermaLink
2.6.1. Wildfire
- Wildfire is considered a treacherous substance (II: 47)
- The alchemists place wildfire in small jars of pottery, the clay roughened and pebbled to improve grip (II: 225)
- Wildfire is a murky green in color, and oozes slowly when thickened by cold (II: 225)
- Water cannot quench wildfire (II: 226)
- Once wildfire takes fire, the substance will burn until it is no more. It will sleep into cloth, wood, leather, and even steel so that they take fire as well (II: 226)
- A thin coating of wildfire on a sword can burn for an hour, although the blade will be ruined by it (II: 226)
- Wildfire will also seep into the clay jars it is generally held in, but it takes time (II: 226)
- The more volatile jars of wildfire are sealed in wax and placed in rooms pumped full of water (II: 226)
- Extremely volatile jars of wildfire (such as would have been made fifteen or more years ago) are dealt with carefully. They are moved from place to place only by night, in carts filled with sand to lessen any jostling at all (II: 226)
- Old wildfire is 'fickle.' Any flame, any spark can set them off. Too much heat - such as that caused by being exposed to sunlight for even a short time - could lead to blazing as well. Once the fire begins, the heat makes the wildfire explode violently which can lead to a vast chain reaction (II: 226-227)
- Making wildfire is a lengthy and dangerous process (II: 227)
- Certain steps in making wildfire work better and more efficiently now. A pyromancer speculates that this could have something to do with dragons, as an old Wisdom said to him once that the spells for making wildfire were not as effectual as they once were because dragons had gone from the world (II: 523)
- A massive explosion caused by a thousand jars of wildfire makes a tower of green flame fifty feet high (II: 610)
- Wildfire will burn even when floating on water (II: 610)
- Wildfire can burn so hot that flesh melts almost like tallow (II: 614)
- Wildfire will burn on a sword blade, but it will ruin the steel (III: 254)
- The pyromancers say that only three things burn hotter than wildfire: dragonflame, the fires beneath the earth, and the summer sun (IV: 183)
Last revised September 25, 2008
PermaLink