TYCHO: Who are the Faceless Men?
It depends on who's asking.
To a penitent, they may be relief.
To a victim, they may be vengeance.
To a lord, they may be an incredible expense.
And to the Iron Bank, they may be just another asset.
Nobody but the Faceless Men know their origin,
though the order is rumored to predate the founding of Braavos.
We know only that they reside in, or are somehow aligned with,
the House of Black and White,
an odd and lonely building, where few who enter ever leave.
Some whisper that those weirwood doors open not on a house,
but onto the world of the dead,
from whence the Faceless Men rise when summoned.
We can dismiss such foolishness as we do the fishwives who spread it.
The House of Black and White is merely a temple
consecrated to the Many-Faced God,
and filled with statuary of his many faces,
the Old Gods of Westeros, the Lord of Light, the Black Goat,
the Lion of Night, the Weeping Lady, the Stranger.
Perhaps now you understand what is worshipped here.
And along with them, other gods, who none alive now recognize,
brought here long ago by sailors, who never came again.
Unlike the priests of other religions,
the servants here preach no sermons and perform no ceremonies.
As far as one can see, silence and solitude form the whole of their worship,
as well as collecting the occasional devotee.
If one wants to engage a Faceless Man,
one visits the House of Black and White, and pays the price.
As for what that may be, those who have paid it, rarely speak of it.
For, make no mistake,
from the moment the Faceless Men accept your offer,
the man you named is dead, though he doesn't know it.
Perhaps not that day, perhaps not that year,
but soon and inevitably.
Many would say you are as much his murderer as if you'd swung the axe yourself.
Just as many would say that's the point.