Naath

The Naathi have dark skin, round faces, flat noses, and amber eyes flecked with gold. Sailors call them the peaceful people: they hunt nothing, eat no meat, and favor music over any form of fighting, even to protect their own villages.

They worship a single god, the Lord of Harmony, pictured as a laughing, bearded giant surrounded by butterfly-winged maidens. Their gentleness and quick wit have also made them prized merchandise: Lys is said to be home to a famous pleasure house known for its Naathi girls.

Over the centuries, Ghiscari, Valyrians, Volantene adventurers, and Basilisk Isles corsairs have all tried to seize the island. The Ghiscari took it three times during the Old Empire, the Valyrians raised a fort whose walls still stand, and the Volantenes built a trading port with slave cages. None of them managed to stay.

The Naathi claim no outsider lasts more than a year on the island: the air itself carries a fever that starts with chills, moves into violent spasms, and ends with the victim sweating blood as their flesh comes away from the bone. The Naathi themselves seem immune.

The illness is thought to spread through the sacred butterflies of the peaceful people, which is how it got its name. Archmaester Ebrose, after studying the known cases, points to a large black-and-white variety with wings the size of a hand, though he admits it's only a guess.

Corsairs have learned the risk shrinks if they don't linger, so they land at night, when the butterflies — daytime creatures — stay grounded. Since the Century of Blood these raids have grown so frequent that the Naathi have abandoned the coast for the hill country inland, and their silks and wines grow scarcer each year in the markets of the Seven Kingdoms.