House Reyne of Castamere was among the oldest and proudest of the westerland houses, sworn to Casterly Rock since time beyond counting. Their seat lay at Castamere, a fortress built above and around a vast network of silver and gold mines whose wealth made the Reynes the second richest house in the west, surpassed only by their Lannister overlords. Long years of prosperity bred ambition in their blood, and by the reign of Lord Tytos Lannister they had grown bolder than any vassal had right to be, lending the Lannisters men and gold while quietly treating the lord of Casterly Rock as a peer rather than a master.
The ruin of House Reyne came swiftly and utterly in 261 AC, when Lord Roger Reyne, called the Red Lion and counted among the deadliest knights in the west, joined his sister's kin the Tarbecks in open defiance of their liege. Tytos's heir, the young Ser Tywin Lannister, answered with a campaign of such cold precision that both houses were erased within a single season. After the fall of Tarbeck Hall, Roger and his brother Ser Reynard led the surviving Reynes into the mines beneath Castamere. When Reynard sent terms from within, Tywin had the mine entrances sealed and a nearby stream diverted into the tunnels. By daybreak, silence answered where three hundred men, women, and children had sheltered. No one emerged. Castamere stood henceforth as a hollow monument to the price of Lannister defiance, and the song The Rains of Castamere carried that lesson to every hall in the Seven Kingdoms.