Braavos is one of the Free Cities located to the east of Westeros. It is the northern-most, the richest, and arguably the most powerful of the Free Cities. The people of Braavos are known as Braavosi. After the Doom of Valyria, Braavos rose to great prominence, becoming a major trade and banking center. The Iron Bank of Braavos became the greatest single repository of wealth in the known world, and to the present-day everyone from princes to merchants frequent it to request loans of gold.
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Syrio Forel is a master sword-fighter and instructor. Syrio Forel is a bravo and master sword-fighter, originally from the Free City of Braavos where he spent nine years as the First Sword of the city, before relocating to King's Landing. He is hired by Eddard Stark to train Arya Stark.
Ternesio Terys is the captain of the Titan's Daughter, a trading galleon from Braavos. He keeps his grey hair cut short and neat and has a square windburnt face. He is the father of Denyo and Yorko Terys.
Tycho Nestoris is a representative of the Iron Bank of Braavos. He is a rational man, more interested in numbers than in words, reasoning that the former are less likely to deceive than the latter.
A giant statue known as the Titan of Braavos guards the harbor entrance to the city. Braavos was established by a large group of slaves, who overpowered their Valyrian captors and took control of the ships. For more than a century, Braavos remained hidden from the world. Eventually, the city's elected leader - known as the Sealord - sent ships across the world to proclaim the existence of Braavos, an event known as the Unmasking and celebrated every year since with ten days of feasting and revelry.
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The Braavosi theater troupe playhall, known as The Gate, is a building in poor shape, located in a seedy area, close by the edge of Drowned Town, between the Outer Harbor and the Purple Harbor. The rival playhouses - the Dome and the Blue Lantern - are located in better neighborhoods and attract people of higher class, but Izembaro prefers it that way: he claims that the location of the Gate attracts large crowds of sailors and whores, thus its incomes are higher.
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Izembaro is the leading actor and the playwright of The Gate, a theatre troupe. He is a huge presence on stage and rather nasty to his company when off-stage. Izembaro has a penchant for portraying kings. He plays King Robert Baretheon and later, Lord Tywin Lannister. According to Marro, if the specific play has no king in it, Izembaro would sooner not stage it at all.
Lady Crane was the leading actress in Izembaro's Braavosi theater troupe. She was an elegant, fun, charismatic, rum-drinking actress who portrays Queen Cersei Lannister. Actor Camello portrays Eddard Stark and Actor Bobono portrays Tyrion Lannister.
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Actress Bianca, who portrays Sansa Stark, is jealous of Lady Crane because the Sansa character has only two lines. As a result of this obvious jealousy, Arya suspects Bianca is the one who hired the Faceless Men to kill Lady Crane. Arya notices Bianca secretly mouthing Lady Crane's lines from backstage, confirming her suspicions. Arya warns her to watch out for Bianca, but sometime later, Lady Crane reveals that Bianca will have a hard time finding work as an actress considering what Lady Crane did to her face. Actor Clarenzo plays Joffrey Baratheon.
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Izembaro's troupe of actors perform a theatrical play "The Bloody Hand," loosely based on the events of the War of the Five Kings in Westeros, it contains drastic plot condensations, glaring omissions, mischaracterizations, gratuitous nudity, and lowbrow humor.
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The "Hall of Faces" houses skinned faces of the dead, and is found in a great hall within the House of Black and White. The Hall of Faces lies within a large, secret chamber created of stone with large pillars. Cleansed faces of corpses are skinned and hung to dry within the Hall of Faces.
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The Faceless Men are a feared order of mysterious assassins with the ability to change their appearance at will. They use the combination of magic spells and faces of the dead to create their different camouflages.
Jaqen H'ghar is a mysterious man - introducing himself as a Lorathi criminal - who was arrested and put in the dungeons of King's Landing, before being recruited by Yoren to join the Night's Watch. Jaqen is surprisingly calm in the face of danger, yet courteous. Hailing from Lorath he uses identity-less speech patterns in which he refers to people using the third person indefinite. In reality, Jaqen H'ghar is just an assumed identity of one of the Faceless Men of Braavos. He trains Arya to be a Faceless Man.
The Waif was an acolyte of the Faceless Men who claimed that prior to joining, her jealous stepmother planned to poison her. The Waif discovered this plot and sought the help of the Faceless Men. The Waif was fundamentally a cruel and pitiless individual. She had a cold disposition that seldom broke, but did nothing whatsoever to conceal her violent and vindictive mentality. Unlike Jaqen H'ghar, she did not bother to hide her capacity for brutality to the people she disliked. That said, she was visibly frightened and subservient to Jaqen.
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The House of Black and White is a temple in Braavos dedicated to the Many-Faced God. It serves as the headquarters for the Faceless Men. It sits alone on a small island in the lagoon of Braavos. The sole entrance to the temple is a door, one half ebony, the other pale weirwood - thus one black door and one white door. The interior of the House features a central sanctuary with a large pool in the center. The water filling the pool is poisoned, and is given out to those who are suffering and come to the temple to seek the release of death.
The atrium is lined with statues of many gods from many different faiths, from across both Essos and Westeros. Specifically they are gods that represent death and the unknown, such as the Stranger from the Faith of the Seven. The Faceless Men believe that all of these death gods are really one god who has revealed Himself to humanity in different ways: the Many Faced God of Death.
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