Casterly Rock

Casterly Rock is the ancestral seat of House Lannister, a colossal stronghold carved from a great mountain of stone on the west coast of Westeros, overlooking the Sunset Sea. It is the heart of the Westerlands and the source of the legendary Lannister wealth, for the Rock is riddled with veins of gold and silver that have made the family the richest in the realm.

Casterly Rock is not a castle in the ordinary sense but a fortified mountain, its halls, vaults, and tunnels hewn directly into the living rock over thousands of years. It is among the oldest and strongest seats in Westeros, never having fallen to siege.

Geography

The Rock rises above the harbor town of Lannisport and the sea. It is honeycombed with halls, dungeons, mines, and passages, so extensive that a man might be lost in them. Its mines run deep beneath the earth and sea, yielding the gold that funds Lannister power. A great lion is said to be carved into the seaward face of the mountain, and the Lion's Mouth, its main gate, opens onto a road wide enough for twenty riders abreast.

The Rock's defensive strength is proverbial; with its single mountain mass, deep wells, and stores, it could in theory withstand a siege indefinitely.

History

Legend holds that the Rock was first the lair of a great lion, and that the trickster Lann the Clever won it from the Casterly family who first held it, by guile, founding House Lannister. The Lannisters ruled the westerlands as Kings of the Rock until Aegon's Conquest, when King Loren Lannister knelt after the Field of Fire and the family became Lords of Casterly Rock and Wardens of the West.

In the story

Casterly Rock is the seat of Tywin Lannister, the formidable lord and Hand of the King whose children, Cersei, Jaime, and Tyrion, are central to the story. Tyrion serves for a time as castellan of the Rock. Though much of the war is fought elsewhere, the Rock and its gold underwrite the Lannister cause throughout the War of the Five Kings.

Rulers

Casterly Rock is held by House Lannister, Wardens of the West, whose words are unofficially "A Lannister always pays his debts" though their true house motto is "Hear Me Roar." Their sigil is a golden lion on crimson.