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| “ | The substance was the pyromancers' own term for wildfire. They called each other wisdom as well, which Tyrion found almost as annoying as their custom of hinting at the vast secret stores of knowledge that they wanted him to think they possessed. Once theirs had been a powerful guild, but in recent centuries the maesters of the Citadel had supplanted the alchemists almost everywhere. Now only a few of the older order remained, and they no longer even pretended to transmute metals ... but they could make wildfire. | „ |
| ~ Tyrion Lannister's thoughts on the Alchemists' Guild and on their skill of creating wildfire. |
| “ | Our order perseveres... like the substance, which grows ever more potent as it ages. We perfect our ancient arts in darkness, forgotten by the world. We are masters of the fire, but we live only to serve. All we need is the right... spark. | „ |
| ~ Wisdom Hallyne. |
The Alchemists' Guild, also called the Guild of Alchemists, are minor characters in the A Song of Ice and Fire series. It is a small but ancient order of alchemists, who are said to possess vast secret knowledge, including magic. They reside in their guildhall in the royal capital city of King's Landing. In its early years, the Alchemists' Guild was once powerful and are said to be capable of transmuting metals, but they are most well-known for their skill in creating a highly dangerous liquid called the substance, commonly dubbed throughout Westeros as "wildfire". Many alchemists of King's Landing are pyromancers.
Though their power had waned overtime in the coming years and were supplanted by the order of Maesters, the guild was blessed by House Targaryen with their royal patronage during the Targaryen Dynasty until it eventually waned after Prince Aerion Targaryen died drinking wildfire. The Alchemists' Guild's power resurfaced during the reign of King Aerys II Targaryen, infamously known as the Mad King, due to his strong fascination with Wildfire, with the substance being used several times on his orders, such as to burn criminals and his enemies alive, most notably Lord Rickard Stark and his eldest son and heir Brandon.
During Robert's Rebellion, the Alchemists' Guild had a secret role in the Wildfire Plot, where they were tasked by Aerys to prepare a vast amount of wildfire in order to burn all of King's landing when the war turned in the rebels' favor, though the plot was thwarted by Ser Jaime Lannister, who was serving as a Kingsguard to the Mad King at that time. During the Baratheon Dynasty, the guild's power waned once more, though they were given some favor by House Baratheon of King's Landing and had a supporting role in the War of the Five Kings.
Organization[]
Full members of the Alchemists' Guild are known as Wisdoms, who are assisted by acolytes and apprentices. Wisdoms who lead the guild are known as Grand Masters.
In its early years, the guild was powerful and were claimed to be able to transmute metals. During the reign of King Robert I Baratheon, the Alchemists' Guild power and abilities had waned overtime and they had lost a significant amount of their influence and only a few members remained.
Though they are hinted to possess vast magical knowledge, the skill they are only capable of is creating the highly volatile and unstable substance known as wildfire, or so is commonly dubbed, and it is considered to be a close cousin to dragonflame. The recipe to create Wildfire is a closely-kept secret amongst the members of the Alchemists' Guild.
Because of how dangerous wildfire is, jars filled with the substance has to be produced with great care before they are immediately removed and brought to and stored in the vaults.
Guildhall of the Alchemists[]
The guildhall serves as the center/headquarters of the guild and is located at the foot of Visenya's Hill. Wildfire is prepared by acolytes in the stone cells beneath the guildhall. To prevent wildfire from spreading in case they ignite, each of the cells contains a room above filled with sand, the only one that can smother wildfire. Any fire within a cell would cause both floors to fall and the sand to drop, which instantly smothers the flames.
History[]
The Alchemists' Guild is an honored institution that was founded at an unknown date during ancient times, and is implied to be several millennia old. Originally holding great power, they were eventually supplanted by the maesters of Oldtown's Citadel, as they harbored a strong disdain for magic and all knowledge related to it, as they follow the Faith of the Seven. The guild had seen a decline that lasted for centuries, until it was interspersed when their power resurfaced twice in the last 300 years during the reign of House Targaryen.
Following the Dance of the Dragons, in which nearly all the Targaryen dragons died during the civil war before eventually becoming extinct in the reign of King Aegon III Targaryen, the Alchemists' Guild gained an extensive amount of royal patronage, as since the Targaryens had lost all their dragons, they began to rely more on the guild's Wildfire as a replacement.
During his rule, King Aegon IV Targaryen dreamed of conquering Dorne and though he tried to exploit the hatred the Stormlands and the Reach bore towards the Dornish, he decided to go along with another plan to invade Dorne. As he was obsessed with regaining dragons for House Targaryen, King Aegon ordered the Alchemists' Guild to build him "dragons", instead of just trying to resurrect them. The alchemists constructed mechanical dragons, gigantic siege engines fitted with pumps that can shoot jets of Wildfire.
Despite their usefulness during a siege, however, Aegon the Unworthy, lacking any tactical sense, ordered that they go through the Boneway to start the invasion on Dorne. This was an unwise move, as the Boneway is too steep for lumbering siege machines like the mechanical dragons. Because of how unstable the Wildfire is as well as the difficulty in moving the siege engines, they never made it that far as one had went up in flames and soon all the wooden dragons were set alight causing a quarter of the Kingswood to be burned in the process. Humiliated by this folly along with his failure, Aegon IV was forced to abandon his scheme and he never spoke of Dorne again.
Many years later, late during the reign of Aegon's son, King Daeron II Targaryen, the Great Spring Sickness affected most of Westeros sans Dorne and the Vale. Thousands died from the plague, including King Daeron himself. Brynden Rivers, a bastard son of the late Aegon IV, upon seeing the corpses of smallfolk piling up in the streets of King's Landing had pyromancers from the Alchemists' Guild burn all the bodies piled up in the ruins of the Dragonpit with wildfire pyres. At night, the light of the pyres can be seen throughout the capital as a dark green glow. A quarter of King's Landing was burned in the aftermath.
The guild's royal patronage wouldn't last long; while drunk, Prince Aerion Targaryen, or Aerion Brightflame, drank a cup of wildfire in the delusional belief that it would transform him into a dragon but the substance only burned him from the inside out, causing Aerion to die screaming. With this incident, the Alchemists' Guild fell out of favor, leading them to decline for thirty years.
They regained their favor once again during the reign of King Aerys II Targaryen or the Mad King, following the Defiance of Duskendale; as his insanity went through a downward spiral overtime, he became brutal and capricious while also developing a growing obsession with fire, especially wildfire. In the two decades of the Mad King's reign, the guild's power waxed greater than ever, as several of its members were given high positions at court, which they never had before, while the pyromancers became Aerys' trusted agents. The Mad King even began to use wildfire to burn anyone he suspects of opposing him, leading him to be despised by many Westerosi lords, with many more following suit, though this only worsened Aerys' paranoia, which drove him to burn more people he suspects of being traitors.
Execution of Rickard and Brandon Stark[]
After Lyanna Stark was abducted by Aerys' son and heir, Prince Rhaegar Targaryen, Lyanna's brother Brandon rode to the Red Keep where he rashly shouted for Rhaegar "to come out and die", ultimately leading him to be arrested by the Mad King for seeking to kill his son. Brandon's friends were also arrested. The Mad King then demanded for their fathers to come and present themselves to answer for their sons' crimes. When they arrived, nearly all of Brandon's companions were wrongfully executed without a fair trial, with Ethan Glover being the only one spared and kept imprisoned. When Brandon's father Lord Rickard Stark demanded a trial by combat, Aerys declares fire as his and House Targaryen's champion. When Rickard was brought into the throne room wearing his armor, he was suspended above the rafters while Wisdom Rossart, the Grand Master of the Alchemists' Guild and a new landless lord, lit a pyre beneath and Lord Rickard was cooked alive in his own armor while Brandon, strapped to a torture device, helplessly watched before strangling himself to death while desperately attempting to save his father.
Robert's Rebellion[]
This monstrous act is what sparked the beginning of Robert's Rebellion, in which Houses Baratheon, Stark and Arryn rose in rebellion against House Targaryen, and they are soon followed by House Tully, House Greyjoy, and many other houses. As the rebellion began to spread to other parts of Westeros, this caused the Mad King's paranoia to worsen even more and he has more victims burned alive daily. During the finals day of Robert's Rebellion, as Aerys' became more fearful that the rebels would be triumphant, he hatched a secret plot, in which he ordered his pyromancers to prepare a vast quantity of caches of wildfire and hide them around King's Landing, as King Aerys plot to have King's Landing burned to the ground and killing all of its inhabitants to ensure Lord Robert Baratheon, the greatest threat to the Targaryens, would not have it intact.
Rossart's personal arms shortly after being appointed as Hand of the King.
When Aerys' Hand of the King, Lord Qarlton Chelsted, discovered the Wildfire Plot, he confronts the Mad King over this and tries to dissuade him from his scheme but in vain. Realizing this, he resigns in disgust by flinging his chain of office at the king's feet. In retaliation, Aerys had him burned alive as punishment before appointing Lord Rossart as his final Hand. With his new title, Rossart chose a hand carrying a burning Wildfire torch as his own personal arms.
Later, during the Sack of King's landing, while the capital city was being sacked by Lord Tywin Lannister and his forces, the Mad King realized that the end is nearing and he summons Rossart together with his only present Kingsguard Ser Jaime Lannister, Tywin's eldest son and originally the heir to Casterly Rock. While giving Jaime the order to kill his father and bring back his head, Aerys gives Rossart the order to ignite the Wildfire caches and have King's Landing destroyed. Jaime himself would claim much later that like Prince Aerion Brightflame, the Mad King held the delusional belief that he would rise from the inferno as a dragon with the power to crush his enemies.
Before Rossart could even ignite the wildfire caches, however, he was betrayed by Jaime, who killed him near a postern gate to prevent King's Landing from being destroyed but soon realized that despite Rossart's death, King Aerys would just give the order to another pyromancer and goes to the Red Keep to kill the Mad King. In the throne room, when Aerys learned that Jaime had killed Rossart, he frightfully rushed to the Iron Throne but was killed when Jaime cuts open his throat. Days later after Robert Baratheon had seized the Iron Throne, Jaime hunts down and kills Wisdoms Belis and Garigus, who also had a hand in the Wildfire Plot. Thus, with the death of both pyromancers alongside the Mad King and Rossart, the Wildfire Plot was ultimately thwarted and King's landing was saved but this came at a price; as Jaime didn't publicly reveal the Wildfire Plot for reasons unknown, he was branded a Kingslayer for his killing of King Aerys and he was widely reviled for not only his betrayal but also for breaking his Kingsguard oath.
Robert's Reign[]
After the oldest and most experienced members of the Guild were all already dead, the acolytes who remained were inexperienced in destroying the wildfire. As such, some jars remained in the vaults of the Guild, with no one daring to touch them, while others were lost and forgotten. The Mad King's numerous caches of wildfire that had been left under several speficic locations of the city were also forgotten, as the only living person aware of the Wildfire Plot is Ser Jaime Lannister, who did not confide with anyone due to his personal wish to preserve his Kingsguard vow to keep the King's secrets (this would eventually change in the third book, with Brienne of Tarth being told about it).
When Wisdom Hallyne asked why the spells of the Guild did not seem as effective as their scrolls promised, Wisdom Pollitor explained that magic began to leave or weaken in the known world as soon as the last dragon died.
During King Robert I Baratheon's last year of reign, 298 AC, members of the Faith found a cache of two hundred jars of wildfire under the Great Sept of Baelor. Beside himself with terror, the High Septon demanded for the Crown (who was sworn to protect the Faith) to remove the cache immediately. Lord Varys had Wisdom Hallyne and other members of the Alchemists' Guild remove the jars and take them back with them in their guildhall.
War of the Five Kings[]
| “ | There is a vault below this one where we store the older pots. Those from King Aerys's day. It was his fancy to have the jars made in the shapes of fruits. Very perilous fruits indeed, my lord Hand, and, hmmm, riper now than ever, if you take my meaning. We have sealed them with wax and pumped the lower vault full of water, but even so... by rights they ought to have been destroyed, but so many of our masters were murdered during the Sack of King's Landing, the few acolytes who remained were unequal to the task. And much of the stock we made for Aerys was lost. Only last year, two hundred jars were discovered in a storeroom beneath the Great Sept of Baelor. No one could recall how they came there, but I'm sure I do not need to tell you that the High Septon was beside himself with terror. I myself saw that they were safely moved. I had a cart filled with sand, and sent our most able acolytes. | „ |
| ~ Hallyne to Tyrion Lannister. |
In 299 AC, during the War of the Five Kings, the alchemists discover three hundred jars under the Dragonpit and remove them.
Queen Regent Cersei Lannister commissions ten thousand jars of wildfire for the defenses of King's Landing against potential attacks by House Baratheon. Wisdom Hallyne meets with Tyrion Lannister, the acting Hand of the King, meets in the Guildhall of the Alchemists, where he tells him about the substance and shows him a wildfire supply.
Later, after much more wildfire has been produced. Hallyne reports to Tyrion that his order has been having an unexplained and surprising increase in the effectiveness of their spells, noting how much more powerful they are and that said spells have not been so easy since the time of the dragons. Unbeknownst to Hallyne and Tyrion, there are three recently born dragons in Qarth, belonging to Daenerys Targaryen. In addition to the newly-produced wildfire jars, the jars that were previously found beneath the Great Sept of Baelor and the Dragonpit are also added to the defenses of the capital.
Tyrion utilizes the defense supply of wildfire, loading them within several ships of King Joffrey I Baratheon's royal fleet, unbeknownst to the sailors serving in them. While the much larger fleet of the rival King Stannis Baratheon is sailing to King's Landing, Ser Imry Florent, the Lord High Captain leading the fleet, informs his captains about the possibility of facing wildfire attacks. However, Imry is dismissive of this threat, stating that the Alchemists' Guild has not been so powerful for nearly two centuries. Unaware about the recent positive development for the Guild, Imry does not even bother to send scouts to check King's Landing's defenses, preferring to immediately enter the mouth of the Blackwater Rush.
Most of Stannis's fleet and all of Joffrey's fleet are destroyed by wildfire, killing or injuring countless combatants. For the service, Wisdom Hallyne is raised to a lord by the Crown, although he does not receive lands.
During the wedding feast of King Joffrey I Baratheon and Queen Margaery Tyrell, four pyromancers entertain the guests and court attendants by conjuring beasts of living flame which tear at each other with fiery claws.
Following the murder of Lord Tywin Lannister, the Hand of the King, Lord Hallyne and other pyromancers of the Guild are employed by Queen Cersei to burn down the Tower of the Hand, which is carried out the night of the wedding of King Tommen I Baratheon and Queen Margaery Tyrell.
Quotes[]
| “ | The substance flows through my veins, and lives in the heart of every pyromancer. We respect its power. | „ |
| ~ Hallyne to Tyrion Lannister. |
| “ | Wildfire is but one of the dread secrets of our ancient order. | „ |
| ~ Hallyne to Tyrion Lannister. |
Gallery[]
Trivia[]
- The identity of the current Grand Master of the Guild has not been given. It appears that Wisdom Hallyne is at least the leader of the Guild's pyromancers, as throughout the story he is always the one in charge of operations handling wildfire in any situation, including moving it. Hallyne is also the one who got accredited by the Iron Throne for the wildfire defenses against Stannis Baratheon and rewarded with a landless lordship. It hasn't been said whether Hallyne is also the Alchemits' Guild's current Grand Master.
- The Alchemists' Guild are the sole notable organization of alchemists in Westeros (at least to the readers), although there are other alchemists and other possible groups in the continent, and they are not affiliated with the Guild of King's Landing. For example, alchemists can also be found in Oldtown.
- Aside for the Alchemists' Guild, the only famous alchemists known in A Song of Ice and Fire are the alchemists of Lys, who produce many potions and poisons, like the tears of Lys and the strangler. The boy Malwyn Frey, son of Ser Raymund Frey, is an alchemist apprentice currently living in Lys.
- The Faceless Men of Braavos and many practitioners of magic also study alchemy and potions. Alchemists in general can be found throughout the continent of Essos as well. They are also in the city of Asshai.
- Pyromancers can also be found in Asshai, though it is unknown if they are connected to the pyromancers of King's Landing's order.
- Like in real-life Middle Ages, all alchemists throughout the world of A Song of Ice and Fire study metals and are said to be capable of transmuting them. An alchemist in Oldtown also claims to be capable of transmuting metals.
- The late Roy Dotrice, who portrayed Hallyne, holds the Guinness World Record for the most character voices by an individual for an audiobook, as he narrated A Song of Ice and Fire and all its numerous characters.
- Dotrice was originally hired to play Grand Maester Pycelle, and his casting was confirmed by George R. R. Martin on June 23, 2010. Unfortunately, due to health problems, Dotrice needed a four-month convalescent period just before production was due to begin, forcing him to withdraw from the Game of Thrones series. He was replaced by Julian Glover, a former colleague of his from a previous project. Martin and the TV series' production team hoped to find another role for Dotrice to play, and on August 7, 2011 Martin confirmed that Dotrice would be playing the role of Hallyne in the second season.
