Summer's heat can be stifling in the lower six parts of the kingdom (I: 34)
Peasants have been known to sell misshapen offspring into slavery, or leave them to die (I: 103)
Small communities have holdfasts of wood or stone to defend them (I: 99)
The oversight of the daily needs of castles is generally given over to stewards (I: 107)
Castles keep captains of the guard and masters of horse (I: 108)
Silver coins are named stags (I: 112)
Golden coins are named dragons (I: 128)
A silver stag as a gift to each oarman for rowing quickly is very generous (I: 139)
A royal tournament might have a purse of 40,000 dragons to the winner of the joust, 20,000 dragons to the man who comes in second, 20,000 dragons to the winner of the melee, and 10,000 dragons to the winner of the archery competition (I: 163)
The crown is more than six million dragons in debt. Three million to the Lannisters is the largest part of it, but the Tyrells, the Iron Bank of Braavos, Tyroshi trading cartels, and the Faith are also involved (I: 163)
Some twenty-five years before, there was a short and cruel three year winter. Since then, there have been eight or nine summers (I: 175)
Summer has lasted nine years at the outset of the book (I: 175)
Maekar's summer lasted seven years. It broke suddenly and led to a short autumn and a terrible long winter (I: 211)
A hundred dragons make a typical wager for high lords (I: 261)
Freeriders are mounted mercenaries who are not knights (I: 22, etc.)
Sellswords are swords for hire, unmounted mercenaries (I: 29, etc.)
Hedge knights are knighted men of no particular house with no lands to their name (I: 247, etc. )
Not all people are literate. Of those, some hold writing in disdain, while others reverence the written word as if it were magical (I: 349)
The hot, humid days towards the end of a summer are called spirit summers, (I: 467)
In the Seven Kingdoms, it is seen as looking for death to bare steel against one's liege lord (I: 480)
The armies of Westeros are made largely of smallfolk, lleavenedwith undisciplined freeriders and sellswords (I: 504)
There can be false springs and spirit summers which present unusual variations in the seasons (I: 526. II: 189. SSM: 1)
A man might ask three coppers for a tart if he was suspicious of the prospective buyer (I: 599)
A silver coin can buy four mugs of ale, bread, lamb, roast duck, and butter pease and still get back a fistful of coppers in change (THK: 461)
Since the last dragon died, summers are believed to be shorter and winters longer and harsher (THK: 465)
A copper can buy a sausage (THK: 465)
A new hauberk of mail, gorget, greaves, and greathelm made by a good smith can cost 800 silver stags (THK: 466)
Offering to trade old armor to be salvaged for metal can lower the price by 200 stags (THK: 466, 467)
A riding palfrey of good quality might sell anywhere in the range of 700 stags (THK: 476)
700 stags plus the bargained cost of a good saddle convert to three gold pieces and a handful of stags (THK: 477)
Golden dragons bear the face of the king in whose time they were minted in, as well as his name (THK: 477)
Shaving gold from the edge of a coin means another few silvers and a fistful of coppers to make up the weight lost (THK: 477)
One can live well for a year on three gold dragons (THK: 477)
A Lysene pirate prince with two dozen ships under his command might command 23,000 gold dragons a month for his service as a sellsail (II: 115, 116)
Goods such as jewelry can be pawned (II: 146)
There are sometimes bountiful spirit summers before the cold fully sets in in autumn (II: 189)
There are hedge wizards who attempt to divine the future, including how the weather shall be (II: 189)
The cheapest sort of whores can provide their services for a clipped copper (II: 194)
There are three royal mints (II: 200)
Admirals of fleets in Westeros are given the title Lord Captain or Lord High Captain (II: 284, 600)
A lord might show give a warrant to a servant who has to carry out some important action, often using a ribbon in the color or colors of a house bearing a wax seal (II: 326)
The Ice Dragon (its name may be different outside of the North) is a constellation used to help mark direction, because the blue star in the rider's eye points the way north (II: 381)
A soldier's tent would be of heavy canvas (II: 449)
Men living near bogs and mires can sell leeches they collect at twelve for a penny (III: 5)
The narrow sea is often wet and rainy in the autumn (III: 55)
Freeriders and hedge knights are always attaching themselves to royal processions, seeking employment (III: 83)
The narrow sea is often stormy (III: 87)
Commoners who have turned to outlawry because of harsh circumstances, such as war, are known as broken men. Many are deserters (III: 122. IV: 374-375)
The autumn storms on the narrow sea make sea travel hazardous, so much so that most travel seems to end. Winter storms on the narrow sea are even worse, but less frequent (III: 213, 286. IV: 217)
Shires exist (III: 252)
There have been no slaves in Westeros for thousands of years (III: 264)
Six coppers for a melon, a silver stag for a bushel of corn, and a gold dragon for a side of beef or six skinny piglets are all shockingly high prices (III: 354)
Thirty golden dragons is enough to take passage to the Free Cities and make a long, comfortable sojourn there, at least for a singer (III: 356)
Three hundred dragons is a fair ransom for a knight (III: 503)
The Ice Dragon's tail points the way south (III: 530)
The sea voyage from the Arbor around Dorne and through the Stepstones is a long one (III: 671)
Most people in Westeros, even among the nobility, do not know High Valyrian (III: 676)
Markets and fairs are places where news and gossip is often swapped (III: 733)
The drought that troubled the realm for nearly two years, following the Great Spring Sickness, ended in 211 (TSS: 155)
A virgin whore might be had from an inn for the price of a golden dragon (IV: 1)
A donkey can be bought for 9 silver stags or less (IV: 2)
There are copper coins known as stars (IV: 67, 345)
The brother of a great lord, if well-rewarded for his service and remembered in the will of his father, may well have wealth enough to feed two hundred knights, and have the means to double that number, support freeriders, and purchase sellswords at need (IV: 114)
A coin known as a groat (IV: 175)
Serjeants serve in the hosts of lords and kings (IV: 203. V: 58)
Before the Conquest, the golden coins of the Reach were known as hands. They still exist in some number, with each coin roughly half the value of a dragon (IV: 233)
A hide, a measure of land (IV: 404)
It's said 900,000 gold dragons could feed the hungry and rebuild a thousand septs (IV: 422)
In autumn, the leaves of trees in the kingswood turn their color, and autumn flowers and chestnuts can be found in plenty (IV: 425)
It's suggested that a journey from the Shield Islands to the far side of the narrow sea is so hazardous in autumn that two-thirds of a fleet might be lost in the attempt (IV: 440)
The Seven Kingdoms has no significant banks (IV: 535)
Summer continued at least through the year 211 or perhaps the early part of 212 (TMK: 649)
A small tent would cost a silver stag, in King Aerys I's day (TMK: 652)
The cost to cross a river on a ferry was a few coppers around the year 205, although prices may well have risen in the intervening years (TMK: 652)
Mounted crossbowmen (TMK: 653)
Hedge knights are nearer to common servants than noble knights in the eyes of most lords, and are rarely invited to ride beside them (TMK: 656)
A knight and his squire could "feast like kings" for a year on the ransom won at a tourney (TMK: 658-659)
In the reign of Aerys I, a ferry across a narrow part of the God's Eye cost 2 coppers a man, and then was raised to 3 coppers each. Three horses cost 10 coppers to carry across (TMK: 659)
Misty Moor, probably in the Reach, mentioned by the hedge knight Ser Kyle the Cat (TMK: 661, 663)
A small tourney thrown by Lord Butterwell has a very rich grand prize of a dragon's egg, but the other prizes are much smaller, being 30 dragons for the knight who came second and 10 dragons to each of the knights defeated the previous round (TMK: 672)
In the reign of King Aerys I, 10 gold dragons could buy a palfrey, a suit of plate for a young squire, a proper pavilion, and good food for a time (TMK: 672)
Most of the roads in Westeros are little more than narrow, muddy tracks (V: 77)
The Lannisters and the Tyrells are the two most powerful houses in Westeros; the Lannisters are wealthier than the Tyrells, while the Tyrells command more troops than the Lannisters (SSM: 1)
The unpredictable nature of the seasons and the harshness of long winters, combined perhaps with the past strength of magic, undoubtedly played a part in the slow progress and advancement of technology in Westeros (SSM: 1)
A sellsword is a mercenary, either mounted or unmounted, who fight for wages. Most are experienced professional soldiers. Freeriders are always mounted, but they include anyone who is not part of a lord's retinue or a feudal levy. They generally do not collect wages, but instead fight for plunder or to impress a lord and become a permanent part of his retinue (SSM: 1)
There are five cities in Westeros. In order of size they are King's Landing, Oldtown, Lannisport, Gulltown, and White Harbor (SSM: 1)
There have been attempts in the past to lay claim to the Stepstones, a chain of large islands in the narrow sea east of Dorne and Storm's End (SSM: 1)
No one has ever successfully crossed the Sunset Sea to learn what lives on its other side (SSM: 1)
The journey from Dorne to the North is a long one, taking months (SSM: 1)
Infantry outnumbers cavalry in Westeros. However, with few exceptions, infantry is largely made up of feudal levies and town militias with poor training and equipment (SSM: 1)
Westeros is more strongly affected by winters than the eastern continent, because it extends further north while the eastern continent's boundary is the icy polar sea (SSM: 1)
There are twelve turns of the moon to the year (SSM: 1)