Since then, other folks have put together the clues, and I have long wanted to do an updated version myself based on all the many contributions that came from all of you, my best friends on whom I have tagged here in this post, in the comments thread of that original Fingerprints essay (33 pages worth in a month!).

That original theory about the Great Empire of the Dawn being the original dragonlords who came to Westeros was called ' Fingerprints of the Dawn,' and it was written long before I had a podcast or blog or anything like that.

So far as I know, I was the first to propose this theory way back in March of last year, although really it was myself and Durrandon who put the major pieces together, and he wrote two essays around this time which I will link two in a moment. It also explains how House Dayne, a First Men family from Westeros, which (according to George) has never had an infusion of Yargaryen blood, occasionally manifests what are thought of as 'Valyrian traits' - purple eyes and silver hair. This connection provides a plausible way for the legend of Azor Ahai and Lightbringer to have some real, tangible connection to one or both of the two Westerosi-related things people have always wanted to connect to Azor Ahai and Lightbringer - the sword Dawn of House Dayne, and the Last Hero and his blade of dragonsteel. There is abundant evidence to tie those dragonlords to Asshai and the Great Empire of the Dawn, and equally compelling evidence that they came to Westeros some time before the Long Night, perhaps long before. Fused stone is only made with dragonfire and sorcery, so far as we know, so the existence of fused stone fortresses in the Dawn Age is pretty solid evidence that dragolords existed before Valyria. We know they existed because two fused stone constructions which can be pretty definitively dated to before the Long Night and before the rise of Valyria exist in the world: the Five Forts, in eastern Essos, and the fused stone fortress at Battle Isle in Oldtown. The Dawn Age dragonlords, in other words. These were the 'men from the shadow' which The World of Ice and Fire speaks of who may have tamed dragons first and then passed their arts to the Valyrians before departing the annals of history. The TL:DR here is that the Great Empire of the Dawn, a kingdom of legend from far eastern Essos, was really the civilization which built Asshai, and that among their number were the original dragonlords who existed before the Long Night and before Valyria.

Dawn of the dragons forums