Astapor

Astapor is one of the three great slaver cities of Slaver's Bay on the eastern continent of Essos, lying on the western shore of the bay, the others being Meereen and Yunkai. Astapor is famed above all as the home of the Unsullied, the elite slave-soldiers whose discipline, training, and absolute obedience make them among the most formidable infantry in the world.

Astapor is a city of red brick, called "the red city," whose economy and pride rest on the breeding, training, and sale of the Unsullied. The brutal making of these soldiers, including the killing of infants to harden the trainees, exemplifies the cruelty of the slaver culture that Daenerys Targaryen comes to destroy.

Geography

Astapor stands on the Worm, a river that empties into Slaver's Bay, its harbor crowded with slave ships. Like its sister cities it is built of brick, for the region has little stone, and its stepped pyramids and walls are made of the red brick that gives the city its color. The plaza of pride and the plaza of punishment lie within, and the city is ringed by walls patrolled by its slaver masters, the Good Masters.

History

Astapor, like Meereen and Yunkai, rose from the ruins of the old Ghiscari empire after Valyria destroyed it, and rebuilt itself around the slave trade. Its particular specialty became the Unsullied, eunuch warriors trained from boyhood through unspeakable cruelty into perfectly disciplined and fearless soldiers, sold to buyers across the known world.

In the story

Daenerys Targaryen comes to Astapor to buy an army of Unsullied. In one of the most celebrated episodes of her story, she trades her dragon Drogon to the Good Masters for the whole of the Unsullied, then, once she holds the command, turns the soldiers and her dragon upon the slavers, sacking the city, killing the masters, and freeing the slaves. She frees the Unsullied and they choose to follow her. Astapor, left to govern itself, descends into chaos and tyranny under a new self-proclaimed king and is later devastated by siege and plague, a grim lesson in the difficulty of the liberation Daenerys began.