"One cannot win wars with madmen" Lord Lores Lannister after the battle of the Tooth
" I would say winter came to these lands but in truth the Mad Wolf brought not ice but fire " anonymous Malister soldier
The devastation of the trident was an event that irrecoverably shook the foundations of Westeros .
King Draeken Stark , determined to avenge the humiliation, mutilation and death of his beloved his sister as well as the deaths of thousands of Northernmen killed during the rebellion of the riverlords, had brought with him the near total might of the Northern armies.
The singers still sing of grim faced northerners marching to battle alongside armored mammoth riding giants , children of the forest who wielded powerful magics as well as hordes of various beasts bound by the wargs and greenseers.
The Riverlords, undeterred called upon the southern kingdoms for aid against the barbaric forces of the northern demons. In return they cast aside their original faith and embraced the seven . The Reach was the first to answer the call, being the heart of the worship of the seven who are one (and it's king desiring to gain new territories), they were soon followed by the westermen, who immediately laid siege to the Golden Tooth.
The Iron Islands surprisingly did not partake directly in the conflict, though many Ironborn would fight as sellsails and sellswords on both sides . But all through not one longship dared to assault northern shipping, the Ironborn remembered all too well just how brutal the Starks could be if provoked.
The Vale you had declared its neutrality, the prospect of facing the Northern fleets at the sisters silenced any calls for war, though in essence the Arryns were forgiving whenever one of their lords "went rogue" to oppose the Starks on their own
The Stormlands and Dorne were embroiled in their own civil wDraeken and played little part in the war.
What the armies of the alliance lacked in terms of quality they more than made it up with numbers.
This only drove Draeken Stark to make up the number disparity with a level of brutality unseen before since the days of the Hungry Wolf and even then the new Stark king seemed keen on surpassing his ancestor.
Previously almost every conflict in Westeros had been fought with the goal of acquiring wealth and territory which had the side effect of limiting the devastation of wars. Noble houses were spared and retained their powers if they bent the knee to the winning side .
The Desolation changed all of that as the North fought with aim of causing as much devastation as possible. Any castle or keep captured was systematically dismantled beyond any hope of repair , its ruling family slaughtered down to the squealing infants and any bastards that might one day claim the line. Wells were poisoned , the land salted and all smallfolk killed.
Even those houses that sought to change allegiances or even took no side in the conflict were not spared. That combined with the deaths of many Lords and knights in the multitude of battles led to the extinction of at least two thirds of Riverland houses.
Amongst the most formidable weapons of house Stark was wildfire ; a highly flammable substance created by the order of the pyromancer who had been invited to winterfell at the young king's (then prince) invitation. Draeken has always been enthralled by fire (ironically for a stark) and now he wanted to unleash it on the battlefield.
The first use of wildfire in the history of Westeros was at the battle of Tooth, using swarms of birds to drop barrels of the substance on the besieging Lannister army before archers rained down flaming arrows on the confused Lannister armies; the effect was devastating and effectively knocked out the Lannisters out of the fight. King Lores Lannister himself survived though his face was horribly disfigured and he opted to not continue the conflict after witnessing the extent of Draeken's brutality.
The tooth was subsequently torn down , all its mines and farmlands destroyed before the northerners marched away. A fate shared by tens of others castles and keeps.
Still despite winning most battles, many among Draeken's lords grew weary with the war; unlike other kingdoms the north relied mainly not on peasant levies but trained professional soldiers modelled after the ancient Ghiscari and the Valyrian legions that copied them afterwards . This meant that though losses on the northern camp were less than its southern camp, they were much harder to replace.
In attempt to mitigate this , Stark monarch hired sellsword companies from across the narrow sea to supplement his army and while they proved adequate enough on the battlefield, they still caused headaches for the King. Slavery was forbidden by both the old gods and the new, however the essosi has no such obligation and thousands of captured rivermen, women and children were sold into slavery.
This proved to be too much even for Stark's most fanatical anti southern supporters. In addition while the desolation campaign's psychological effect caused many enemy lords to withdraw lest they face the wrath of winter, those that remained offered no quarter or mercy and were determined to fight to the bloody end.
The Stark armies were camped in the ruins of Oldstones when during a war council the northern lords and magnars demanded that Draeken allow them to return to their lands and end the war for had he not achieved his vengeance? Had the breadbasket of Westeros not been ruined enough ? The king however wasn't satisfied, to him the war would not be over until every last riverlord was dead and every inch of its land turned to a blasted ruin. He and his lords argued for days with no end in sight and it looked like infighting would erupt soon.
However the northerners were spared from further conflict when the king was caught in a wildfire explosion while inspecting the arm's reserves of it. It is said that Draeken laughed maniacally even as the flames consumed him, such was the insanity in his laughs that even the beasts in the camp grew silent and weary.
With their king dead, the armies of the winter throne retreated back behind the neck, where they swore loyalty to the king's daughter and only heir.
This meant that technically that the southern alliance (or what's left of it ) had technically won. Unfortunately for them the 'victory ' was almost as bitter as defeat. With most of the Riverlands devastated beyond any hope of repair, it was pointless to hold and it wasn't long before they too went back to their own lands.
This left the riverlords , who arguably were the true losers in this conflict. Most of their smallfolk were killed or enslaved. The few that weren't faced bands of brigands and sellswords that neither side had felt worth dealing with.
House Mallister was among the scant survivors and only by the virtue of bending the knee to house Hoare and not participating in the conflict. House Blackwood too survived relatively intact and ironically outlived house Bracken who were made extinct in the war.
The Desolation of the Riverlands was over and the great game of Westeros would continue with one less member. That didn't mean things got any less bloody.
A/N : IT LIVES. Alright from this point forward we will be skipping much faster in time until we reach the time of the books.