As I said in my last post, The Archmaester’s Key, Game of Thrones last chapter pack by Fantasy Flight Games, has recently been released on FFG’s store, and I had the pleasure of illustrating Valar Dohaeris, one of the cards of this expansion.

As the name suggests (if you are a Game of Thrones’ nerd as I am), the illustration is set in Braavos, and it depicts the Temple of The House of Black and White, which is where Arya Stark spends a considerable amount of time both in the books and in the HBO’s series.

I have to say, the chapters about Arya were among my favourites while reading the series, so working on this was even more enjoyable to me.

In case anyone’s memories were fuzzy about this place, I happen to have the relevant bits handy, straight from my brief:)

Slowly her eyes adjusted. The temple seemed much larger within than it had without. The septs of Westeros were seven-sided, with seven altars for the seven gods, but here there were more gods than seven.
Statues of them stood along the walls, massive and threatening. Around their feet red candles flickered, as dim as distant stars. The nearest was a marble woman twelve feet tall. Real tears were trickling from her eyes, to fill the bowl she cradled in her arms. Beyond her was a man with a lion’s head seated on a throne, carved of ebony. On the other side of the doors, a huge horse of bronze and iron reared up on two great legs. Farther on she could make out a great stone face, a pale infant with a sword, a shaggy black goat the size of an aurochs, a hooded man leaning on a staff. The rest were only looming shapes to her, half-seen through the gloom.

Between the gods were hidden alcoves thick with shadows, with here and there a candle burning.
Silent as a shadow, Arya moved between rows of long stone benches, her sword in hand. The floor was made of stone, her feet told her; not polished marble like the floor of the Great Sept of Baelor, but something rougher. She passed some women whispering together. The air was warm and heavy, so heavy that she yawned. She could smell the candles. The scent was unfamiliar, and she put it down to some queer incense, but as she got deeper into the temple, they seemed to smell of snow and pine needles and hot stew. Good smells, Arya told herself, and felt a little braver. Brave enough to slip Needle back into its sheath.

In the center of the temple she found the water she had heard; a pool ten feet across, black as ink and lit by dim red candles.

I don’t really remember if I decided to make the pool larger than ten feet as an artistic licence, or just because as an European I only speak Metric.
Regardless, it was supposed to be the focus of the composition, so it is indeed slightly larger than it’s described in the books.

I’m saying this just in case you are a Game of Thrones fundamentalist and you feel compelled to point this out to me in angry emails:)

by Paolo Puggioni