Post by The Black Dread on Jun 16, 2014 15:40:49 GMT -5
Though some quietly called it paranoia, Queen Rhaena knew better. Her experiences early in life, the rending of her family into factions of dragonriders vying for the throne, surely must have influenced her decisions later in life, particularly those regarding the island citadel of Dragonstone.
After her twin sons were born, Queen Rhaena broke with tradition, keeping the Lordship of Dragonstone under her direct control rather than ceding it to her heir as was customary. This in and of itself caused little stir, though some of the lesser lords of Dragonstone chafed at the Queen having such a direct hand in their affairs. The action with far greater implications, however, was her disposal of the Dragonmont. Queen Rhaena decreed that trespassing on the mountain carried an unequivocal punishment of death, though the Queen demanded that all trespassers be shipped to King's Landing for judgement rather than to allow them to simply be executed on the island itself. More often than not, when such a man or woman arrived in the Red Keep, the Queen would make a spectacle of allowing her dragon Tyraxes to burn the would-be dragon rider alive, to provide an abject lesson to her subjects regarding the penalties for disobeying the law. She created a corps of guardsmen, three hundred hand-picked Targaryen Household guards from King's Landing, to guard the mountain. They were organized into three companies of one-hundred men apiece, and set on a three-month rotation of duty, so that 200 men were guarding the Dragonmont at all times.
When her engineers informed the Queen (reportedly to her great displeasure) that the cost of walling off the entire mountain would cost the entire yearly revenue of Westeros fifty times over, she settled for a series of guardposts, strategically placed at the foot of each of the four passes that lead up the Dragonmont. Three of the four were placed in excellent locations, physically blocking the narrow passes up the mountainside, such that one would have to enter the small fort through the front gate, and exit through the back gate if they wished to travel up the Dragonmont. The fourth outpost, guarding the roughest and most dangerous of the mountain paths on the easternmost face of Dragonmont, was restricted by the topography and the engineers were forced to placed it several hundred yards from the foot of the path, though its towers still commanded a clear view of the surrounding area.
Each outpost contained a permanent garrison of forty men, while the remainder were divided into eight teams of 5, tasked with moving across the face of the mountain from cave to cave, seeking any eggs laid by the wild dragons with the orders to remove them that they might be shipped to the Royal Vaults in the Red Keep.
Egg-removal was a duty with an extremely high rate of death and wounding, Queen Rhaena found it difficult to replenish the ranks of her Dragonmont Corp, despite their unusually high level of pay. To date, eleven trespassers have been caught and executed trying to sneak past the guard posts up the Dragonmont, and at the Queen's order their skulls have remained above the harbor gates to Dragonstone's port, as a macabre reminder of the fate waiting for any who would seek to steal the dragons of the Queen of Westeros.
After her twin sons were born, Queen Rhaena broke with tradition, keeping the Lordship of Dragonstone under her direct control rather than ceding it to her heir as was customary. This in and of itself caused little stir, though some of the lesser lords of Dragonstone chafed at the Queen having such a direct hand in their affairs. The action with far greater implications, however, was her disposal of the Dragonmont. Queen Rhaena decreed that trespassing on the mountain carried an unequivocal punishment of death, though the Queen demanded that all trespassers be shipped to King's Landing for judgement rather than to allow them to simply be executed on the island itself. More often than not, when such a man or woman arrived in the Red Keep, the Queen would make a spectacle of allowing her dragon Tyraxes to burn the would-be dragon rider alive, to provide an abject lesson to her subjects regarding the penalties for disobeying the law. She created a corps of guardsmen, three hundred hand-picked Targaryen Household guards from King's Landing, to guard the mountain. They were organized into three companies of one-hundred men apiece, and set on a three-month rotation of duty, so that 200 men were guarding the Dragonmont at all times.
When her engineers informed the Queen (reportedly to her great displeasure) that the cost of walling off the entire mountain would cost the entire yearly revenue of Westeros fifty times over, she settled for a series of guardposts, strategically placed at the foot of each of the four passes that lead up the Dragonmont. Three of the four were placed in excellent locations, physically blocking the narrow passes up the mountainside, such that one would have to enter the small fort through the front gate, and exit through the back gate if they wished to travel up the Dragonmont. The fourth outpost, guarding the roughest and most dangerous of the mountain paths on the easternmost face of Dragonmont, was restricted by the topography and the engineers were forced to placed it several hundred yards from the foot of the path, though its towers still commanded a clear view of the surrounding area.
Each outpost contained a permanent garrison of forty men, while the remainder were divided into eight teams of 5, tasked with moving across the face of the mountain from cave to cave, seeking any eggs laid by the wild dragons with the orders to remove them that they might be shipped to the Royal Vaults in the Red Keep.
Egg-removal was a duty with an extremely high rate of death and wounding, Queen Rhaena found it difficult to replenish the ranks of her Dragonmont Corp, despite their unusually high level of pay. To date, eleven trespassers have been caught and executed trying to sneak past the guard posts up the Dragonmont, and at the Queen's order their skulls have remained above the harbor gates to Dragonstone's port, as a macabre reminder of the fate waiting for any who would seek to steal the dragons of the Queen of Westeros.
all alone and also really bored 
Hopefully going to kickstart the festival too