Text recovered from the private collection of grimoires written by Prince Aelyx Targaryen, written circa 276 AC. This specific text was translated into Modern Common from a language that seemed like an archaic version of modern language, yet no such language has been discovered to exist elsewhere during this timeframe.

  On the Roots of Valyrian Madness

  If you are somehow reading this text then there is only one of two explanations that come to my mind:

  1. You are in a similiar situation to my own, then you are in the 'know'.

  2. Scholars, maesters or some other individual has managed to crack the code, so to speak. So to you I shall inform you that I call this language English but shall comment no further on it.

  There's a particular texture to the air on Dragonstone when it's hit by an eastern storm, usually that's travelled up from the Stormlands. It's not quite what I remember from the before, no it seems weather here is simply wilder. Perhaps an aftereffect from magical saturation or the very real gods. I've taken to sitting on my balcony during these storms, watching purple lightning split the sky while I write these notes and my ramblings. It won't ever strike me the Storm God failed before it won't embarrass itself with a failed second attempt.

  After studying Visenya's journals over this past year or so, comparing them to my own observations of Aerys and other such historical characters: Rhaegal, Aerion, etc. I've come to my own conclusion that would make the Citadel burn their precious chains and links in outrage, for I conclude that magic is involved. Valyrian or Targaryen madness is neither a purely hereditary issue caused by incest nor is it entirely mystical. Instead it's a strange combination of the two. The more conventional wisdoms whispered amongst the maesters, that our family's predilection for brother-sister marriages and other such relations have weakened the bloodline. They aren't entirely wrong one only has to look at the Habsburgs of Europe for that. When the genetic pool of traits becomes too concentrated, flaws magnify and appear alongside strengths. This explains some certain cases, the stillbirths, more natural deformations and weakened constitutions. Especially in regards to stillbirths and the childbed in a whole.

  Yet it cannot explain everything can it?

  Why did Maegor descend into cruelty while his brother Aenys did not? Why did Baelor the Blessed hear voices he assumed were the gods talking to him while his siblings heard nothing? Why does Aerys slide between lucidity and homicidal fits of rage on a dime, without warning while Rhaella... born of the same incestuous relation maintains her almost gentle composure?

  The answer lies in the concept of what I've come to call the "burden of fire."

  Simply, the blood of Valyria was magically modified to the point that it can never properly function without dragons. This magic was formed when those simple shepherds began to bond with dragons, enhanced through selective breeding and experimentation. This led to the Valyrians to have a dangerous excess of such mystical energy within their bodies. The dragons served as living conduits, channelling and dispersing the excess through the bond between rider and mount. The same went for the practice of magic and sorcery, it expelled the dangerous excess energy becoming an essential part of society.

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  After the Doom, our family maintained it's sanity through our dragons. For generations, every Targaryen that bonded with a dragon would remain mostly of sound mind. It was a select few of those that didn't possess dragons that displayed the first signs of madness. Of course not every dragon less Targaryen went mad, some individuals like Vaegon simply did not possess the usual amount of... mana that would be usual for a Targaryen. As for Maegor I do not believe he was initially mad or even every mad actually. His excess displays of cruelty and instability began after his head injury during the Trial of Seven. Yet he was only truly unrestrained after his mothers death. Maegor was a wild tempestuous man full of rage and cruelty made by as I discovered in Visenya's journals created through blood magic. Making him not truly a man but instead a kind of homunculus.

  Then came the Dance of Dragons. The beasts that gave our family power died in fire and blood, with them something fundamental changed in House Targaryen. The last dragon died during Aegon III;s reign, a small deformed and sickly creature that refused food. It never grew larger than a housecat, with it's death to illness or poison, the bloodline lost it's safety valve so to speak. The magic remained, the fire still burned within the blood yet the conduit was lost.

  I've experienced this myself in miniature. Since beginning my magical rituals mostly adapted from Visenya's work. I've noticed a peculiar and very specific pattern. In the days following a successful working, my mind feels clearer, sharper, unburdened. The dreams fade, the whispers quiet. But as time passes without magical practice, a familiar pressure builds behind my eyes, an itch beneath my skin that cannot be scratched. This is what happens to all of us now. The magic accumulates with nowhere to go, pressing against the boundaries of our mind and reason until something inevitably breaks. Some Targaryens find alternate channels an obsession with wildfire, religious fanaticism, a prophetic fixation. These are merely imperfect substitutes for dragonbinding. Aerys has turned to fire because fire is the closest element to dragonflame... obviously. His fascination isn't madness in itself, instead it's an instinctive attempt to release the magical pressure building within his blood. But fire cannot bond with its wielder as a dragon can, it cannot complete the circuit. So the pressure continues to build, manifesting as paranoia, cruelty, and delusion. Yet it act's like a placebo effct on his mind... if only for a moment and manifesting in a more, vile sentiment. Rhaegar has found his relief in prophecy and song a far more benign channel, but still incredibly inadequate. His obsession with the prince that was promised grows from the same root as Aerys's pyromania. Different symptoms, same disease. As for myself... I have the advantage of foreknowledge and an outsider perspective. The magical workings I've adapted from Visenya's texts provide some relief, but they're a temporary measure at best. A true solution would require either the return of dragons (unlikely in the extremeand frankly something I wish to prevent if possible) or the resurgence of magic in some form.

  Perhaps the answer lies in the East after all, in Asshai or the Shadow Lands... beyond. Or perhaps in the rituals and ruins of the Rhoynar, who themselves competed with Valyria for centuries before falling to dragonflame.

  What I know with certainty is this, the blood of the dragon carries both blessing and curse. The magic that gives us our famous features the silver hair, the purple eyes, the resistance to fire and disease (In some cases) yet it also carries the seeds of our destruction when left unmanaged. We are creatures of fire made flesh, just as our dragons were.

  And fire, when contained too long without release, inevitably consumes its vessel.