If we're going to start making Valyrian Steel, something we should consider is unloading a boatload of it at the Night's Watch. If it's found out that each Ranger gets their own Valyrian Steel sword, the Westerosi will go absolutely
bonkers over it. Second Sons will sign up left, right, and center just so they can get their hands on the fabled steel.
This serves our interests for two purposes: first, it will enormously strengthen the Night's Watch against the Others. Dragonsteel is one of their two noted banes and it doesn't have nearly the same weaknesses that dragonglass has. The Lord Commander has noted that his greatest wish is for more
skilled men. Reopening that Watch's various castles has done wonders for getting desperate smallfolk to sign up, but it hasn't been great in attracting actual fighting men. It's much better to get someone who's trained since the age of seven as opposed to raw recruits who have to learn everything on the Watch's time and dime.
If the swords are entailed to the Watch, we don't even have to worry about them disappearing; they would legally be property of the Watch. Include a few, specific maker's marks on the blades and we
know when they go missing and someone is stealing from them.
Second, this is going to noticeably weaken Westeros militarily and politically. The people who have the greatest lust for Dragonsteel are likely to be the best warriors: knights, nobles, sellswords, that type of folk. Most of Westeros' armies are still composed of levies. They're basically wheat before the Legion's scythe; untrained smallfolk fit to be cut down. It's the second sons, the knights (both hedge and true), the sellswords, and other retainers that form the trained core of fighting men they depend on. They're the only ones who have even a fraction of a hope of standing against us. Despite the fact that the Night's Watch would pull only a few thousand fighting men away from Westeros' armies, I suspect that it would be
disproportionately damaging to their overall fighting ability.
Something else this does, incidentally, is weaken the institution of nobility in Westeros. With an increasing number of second sons disqualifying themselves from succession by joining the Watch, there will be fewer nobles for noble jobs. When we come in with new, educated professionals, there will be fewer Westerosi who are capable of performing the same duties. Westerosi lords aren't as educated as a scholar, but they receive tutoring from the Maesters since childhood and that's more education than 99% of the population receives.
With more second sons joining the Watch, it also makes their families that much more likely to go extinct. That's something we can easily take advantage of to reward our subordinates and followers. Conquest is violent; shifting the factors in our favour so that more families go extinct, purely as a result of opposing us, will allow us to take their estates easier.
All of this would be relatively low cost and enormously beneficial. Say we got an enormous, absolutely pie-in-the sky number of recruits; 3,000 Rangers. This would likely be more Rangers than the Night's Watch had even at its height; they've always needed builders and stewards to maintain the Wall and their supplies. There's likely more Stewards and Builders than Rangers and at its height, the Wall was only 10,000 men.
3,000 Rangers getting a VS Longsword each would cost 180 HD worth of Fiends. A tithe compared to the numbers we're otherwise throwing around.
This also has the side benefit of absolutely spitting in the Lannisters' face. Sure, after they looted an outlying manse in Valyria
, they managed to snag a few Valyrian Steel weapons. We've relearned the secret of forging it and can give out those precious gifts like
candy. This is something that the Lannisters
cannot outdo us on as they have no dragon riders. It will also serve as a prelude, informing the Westerosi of the power and wealth we've amassed. How many more will turn their cloaks to our side when we can create what they value more heavily than wealth, honour, and blood ties?
