"The proudest city in all the world was gone in an instant, its fabled empire vanished in a day, the Lands of the Long Summer scorched and drowned and blighted."
Twelve years before the Doom, Lord Aenar Targaryen's maiden daughter, Daenys the Dreamer, had a powerful prophetic dream along with visions that Valyria would be destroyed. Foreseeing the Doom, she convinced her father to leave Valyria before the cataclysm. Aenar set sail, moving House Targaryen and their property and their five dragons to the island Dragonstone.
"Valar morghulis was how they said it in Valyria of old. All men must die. And the Doom came and proved it true."
On the day of the Doom, every hill for five hundred miles exploded, filling the air with ash and smoke and fire, which killed even dragons. Earthquakes destroyed palaces, temples, and towns, while lakes boiled or turned to acid. The Fourteen Flames, the fiery mountains of Valyria, sent molten rock a thousand feet into the air, and red clouds rained down dragonglass. The cataclysm fragmented the Valyrian peninsula surrounding Valyria into numerous smaller islands and creating the Smoking Sea between them.
