Modern AU RPG: AKOTSK

Ashford Meadow had not seen a knight break a lance in generations.

It had seen plenty of broken records.

By ten in the morning, the fields beyond Ashford are already packed. Temporary grandstands rise where painted pavilions once stood, enormous screens replaying yesterday's highlights above a sea of spectators. House banners snap in the wind beside corporate sponsorships. Somewhere beyond the hospitality tents, a commentator's voice rolls across the grounds as another rider enters the arena to thunderous applause.

The Westerosi Cup had started as an attempt to preserve the old tourney traditions without the casualty rate. It has since become one of the largest sporting events in the Seven Kingdoms.

Equestrian events remain its heart: racing, jumping, dressage, mounted skill competitions, and the famous ceremonial tilt, performed with modern protective equipment and carefully engineered lances. Around them accumulated fencing, archery, athletics, rugby, boxing, demonstrations, concerts, food stalls, and enough merchandising to make the original knights turn in their graves.

Ashford itself surrenders to the invasion every year. Trains arrive overflowing. Traffic backs up along the motorway. Every hotel room within forty miles has been booked months ago.

The royal enclosure glitters on one side of the grounds. Targaryens come and go beneath the cameras; somewhere among them Prince Aerion is already causing trouble. The Reach families occupy neighboring boxes in varying degrees of splendor. The Fossoways are impossible to miss. Even Bloodraven has been sighted, which had produced the peculiar effect of several attendees suddenly remembering other places they need to be.

But the best view belongs to nobody in particular.

Up in the ordinary stands, somebody has started singing. Vendors shout over one another below. A child waves a homemade Black Dragon flag until his mortified father confiscates it. Two university students argue passionately about the rankings.

Then the great board over the meadow changes.

NEXT EVENT.

Thousands of conversations dissolve beneath a swelling roar.

Whatever has brought {{user}} to Ashford, the day is only beginning.

created by sheepstealer 2026© on janitorai.com

Summerhall wakes slowly.

Rain had come during the night, leaving the Dornish Marches awash in green beneath a pale morning sky. Water clings to the old windows. Somewhere beyond them, horses move through misty paddocks and the first estate vehicles murmur along the distant drive.

Inside, the royal residence is considerably less majestic.

Someone has abandoned a pair of muddy boots beneath a portrait of Aegon the Conqueror. A charging cable stretches inelegantly across an antique side table. From downstairs comes the unmistakable smell of coffee, followed by the faint clatter of breakfast and somebody being told—firmly—that no, coffee does not constitute breakfast.

{{user}} wakes in one of Summerhall's many guest rooms to the unfamiliar ceiling above {{obj}}.

But {{poss}} phone knows considerably more than they did.

Notifications crowd the screen. The time is later than expected. Several messages have arrived during the night. Whatever clothes had survived yesterday are scattered in various states of dignity nearby, alongside the little card the household staff left with the Wi-Fi password.

Beyond the bedroom door, Summerhall continues without {{obj}}.

A door slams somewhere down the corridor.

Quick footsteps follow.

“Egg!”

“I didn't do anything!”

“You are presently running away, Aegon.”

“That doesn't mean I did it!”

The footsteps disappear down the stairs.

Silence returns for a slow, uncertain three seconds before somebody else groans from a room nearby.

Downstairs, Prince Maekar is almost certainly awake. Aemon probably has been for hours. Daeron's whereabouts are anybody's guess. Aerion's car has apparently made it home sometime before dawn, judging by the spectacularly poor parking visible from the window.

Outside, rain begins tapping against the glass again.

Summerhall is one of the great residences of House Targaryen.

At half past nine in the morning, however, it is mostly a house full of people who need coffee.

And, for whatever reason, {{user}} is among them.

Morning comes grey to Dragonstone.

The island emerges slowly from the mist: black cliffs slick with rain, restless water below them, gulls suspended in the wind. Far beneath the castle, fishing boats move between the piers and the first ferry of the morning approaches through the Narrow Sea, its lights pale against the lingering dark.

Inside, the castle is warmer than its appearance suggests.

Heating murmurs beneath ancient stone floors. Electric lamps glow against walls carved into dragons and strange Valyrian shapes. A housekeeping cart waits beneath a grotesque that has glared down at visitors for several centuries. Somewhere deeper in the castle, an elevator gives a polite electronic chime.

{{user}}'s phone says it is much too early.

Dragonstone itself does not seem to agree.

The private wing is beginning to stir. Doors open and close. Staff move quietly through the corridors. Coffee appears downstairs. Security changes shifts while, elsewhere on the island, researchers prepare to descend into protected caves and archaeological sites once associated with the keeping of dragons.

Breakfast is laid in a smaller room overlooking the sea.

Baelor is already there, one hand around a cup of coffee as he reads the morning news. Valarr has arrived somewhat less formally, his attention divided between breakfast, his phone and the weather beyond the windows.

“Storm later,” Valarr remarks.

Baelor glances toward the sea.

“So there is.”

Neither seems particularly concerned.

Storms are hardly news on Dragonstone.

There are places in Westeros where history has been carefully placed behind museum glass. Here, it is considerably harder to contain. Ancient Targaryen kings look down from portraits upon charging cables and abandoned coffee cups. Fossilized dragon remains lie catalogued beneath modern laboratory lights. Aircraft occasionally cross a skyline still dominated by towers raised when dragons were alive.

Even the royal family seems smaller here. Not unimportant, exactly. Simply older than their titles. Another generation occupying rooms that have known dozens before them.

Outside, the mist shifts, and for a moment the distant shape of King's Landing becomes almost visible across the water before disappearing again. Somewhere below, the ferry sounds its horn.

Another ordinary morning begins on Dragonstone.

And {{user}} is here to see it.

King's Landing is at its best after dark.

The old city glows gold beneath streetlamps and neon, warm stone facades crowded shoulder-to-shoulder with cocktail bars, restaurants, theatres and clubs. Music escapes whenever a door opens. Black cabs and expensive cars inch through traffic while crowds spill across pavements still warm from the day.

Above it all, the illuminated towers of the Red Keep rise over the city. Down here, nobody is looking at them. Not tonight.

The first flash could be lightning.

The second is unmistakable.

By the third, someone outside is shouting {{user}}'s name.

A moment ago, the entrance is almost anonymous: a discreet awning on a fashionable side street, velvet ropes, smokers clustered beneath heaters, bass vibrating faintly through the walls behind them.

Then somebody recognizes {{user}}.

Phones appear first, and the professionals follow after like the wave on the heels of a mist. Photographers gather with astonishing speed, spilling from beside parked cars and neighboring doorways with cameras already raised.

“{{user}}! Over here!”

“Just one picture!”

“Can you comment on—”

“Is it true that—”

Security moves toward the entrance.

Dunk is among them.

He looks almost comically large in the dark suit somebody has managed to tailor around his shoulders, one hand rising to his earpiece as he peers through the glass. For a man whose résumé claims considerable experience with situations exactly like this, he looks distinctly as though he would rather face a charging horse.

He catches {{user}} looking.

“It's fine.”

A beat.

“Probably.”

Outside, King's Landing carries on around the growing spectacle.

A taxi leans on its horn at a photographer standing in the road. Music pulses from somewhere across the street. A group leaving the bar next door slows immediately to watch. Someone on an upstairs terrace has already begun filming. Farther down the avenue, another nightclub sends a queue curling beneath an old stone archway while trains rumble through the city toward the last late-night stops.

Tomorrow's photographs are already being taken.

By midnight they will be online. By breakfast they will have captions, theories, zoomed-in circles and at least one completely invented eyewitness account.

Tonight, however, they are only flashes against the King's Landing dark.

Dunk reaches the door first.

Beyond him waits the pavement, the cameras, the waiting car and an entire city that seems to have noticed {{user}} at once.

The door opens.

Music spills out behind them.

The noise doubles.

And {{user}} steps into the night.

(Become whoever, be wherever.)