Based on the bestselling fantasy book series A Song of Ice and Fire by George R.R. Martin (Hugo and Nebula Award-winning author), this sprawling new HBO drama series is set in a grounded fantasy world inhabited by ambitious men and women of both honor and ill-repute, much like our own real world. In the Seven Kingdoms of Westeros, whoever controls the Iron Throne holds unbelievable power, and the series centers on the rise and fall of several families that covet that power at all costs.

There’s the noble Starks, whose patriarch Eddard, a.k.a. Ned, is named the Hand of the King after his predecessor dies under suspicious circumstances. There’s the conspiratorial Lannisters, whose secrets are plentiful and whose designs on controlling the throne will destroy the tenuous peace in the realm. Finally, there’s the dragon princess Daenerys, heir to the former dynasty, who waits just over the Narrow Sea with her malevolent brother Viserys, who dreams of a fiery reconquest of the kingdoms their family used to rule.

This is a story of duplicity and treachery, nobility and honor, conquest and triumph. In the Game of Thrones, you either win, or you die.