Iron Islands

The Iron Islands is one of the constituent regions of the Seven Kingdoms. Until Aegon's Conquest it was ruled by the Kings of the Iron Islands and then briefly the Kings of the Isles and the Rivers.

The Iron Islands are home to a fierce seafaring people who call themselves the ironborn. While some say the archipelago is named after the abundant iron ore on the islands, the ironmen claim it is instead named after their own unyielding nature. It is often said that every captain is a king aboard his own ship, so the islands are also called "the land of ten thousand kings".

The isles are ruled by House Greyjoy from their castle of Pyke. Notable houses have included Blacktyde, Botley, Drumm, Goodbrother, Greyiron, Harlaw, Hoare, Merlyn, Stonehouse, Sunderly, Tawney, and Wynch. Bastards of noble origin from the Iron Islands receive the surname Pyke.

Geography
The Iron Islands is an archipelago in Ironman's Bay, located in the Sunset Sea off the western coast of Westeros. They are roughly west of the riverlands, northwest of the westerlands, and south of the north.

The main grouping of islands numbers thirty-one, with the seven major isles being Pyke, Great Wyk, Old Wyk, Harlaw, Saltcliffe, Blacktyde, and Orkmont. Eight days sail northwest of Great Wyk is a smaller grouping of thirteen clustered around the Lonely Light. Some of the Iron Islands are used for sheep grazing or are uninhabited. The islands are ruled from Pyke, the seat of House Greyjoy on the island of the same name.

The Iron Islands is the smallest of the regions of the Seven Kingdoms. Dorne is the least populous of the Seven Kingdoms according to Doran Martell, but it is unclear if he is also including the Iron Islands in this estimate.

The Iron Islands are small, barely-fertile rocks with few safe harbors. The seas around the isles are stormy, frequently wreaking havoc with their considerable force.

People
The inhabitants of these harsh isles are known as ironmen, especially by the rest of Westeros, but they also call themselves the ironborn. The ironborn are a seafaring people, and some do not like to be far from the sea. The Drowned Priests of the ironborn likewise seldom stray far from the sea. The ironborn are considered independent, fierce and sometimes cruel. The ironborn live in a harsh land and hold no love for the peoples of the mainland Westeros, whom they consider green and weak.

The Faith of the Seven of the Andals and the old gods find small favor with the ironborn, as their allegiance is given to their native Drowned God. Because of the scarcity of the Faith, there are few knights in the islands; known knights include Ser Harras Harlaw and Ser Aladale Wynch. Some ironmen believe in returning to the Old Way of reaving and paying the iron price.

Economy
The islands are sparse and rocky with a thin, stony soil that makes it hard for the smallfolk to farm, often having to do without the animals that might make their job easier, such as oxen or horses. While their mines do not produce the precious metals of the westerlands, iron is abundant on the isles. Lead and tin can also be obtained. Most ironborn feel the dangerous and backbreaking labour required to mine these metals is work suitable only for thralls. With so little wealth on the islands themselves, it is not difficult to understand why the ironborn of old turned to raiding. Archmaester Haereg suggests that need for wood was what first drove the ironborn to raid the mainland.

Military strength
According to a semi-canon source from 2005, the Iron Isles can raise approximately twenty thousand men and five hundred longships. The Iron Fleet alone consists of one hundred ships which are three times larger than the standard longship. A longship such as Sea Bitch has fifty oars, while Great Kraken and Iron Victory are larger. George R. R. Martin has indicated that the major lords of the ironborn can each float around a hundred ships. The only fleets comparable to those of the Iron Islands are the royal fleet in the crownlands and the Redwyne fleet at the Arbor.

Kingsmoot era
Maesters believe the Iron Islands were settled by the First Men many thousands of years ago. Legends claim that the First Men discovered what would be called the Seastone Chair upon the shores of Old Wyk. There is no evidence the islands were inhabited by children of the forest or giants. Weirwood trees do not grow in their poor soils, so the old gods did not have significant followers there. Instead, the humans who came to inhabit the islands worship their own local religion of the Drowned God. The priests of the isles claim the ironmen are not First Men but were created in the image of the Drowned God, and they therefore may have a connection with merlings. Some also suspect that the isles were originally inhabited by the Deep Ones, and that they are the ones who left the Seastone Chair behind. Most ironborn, however, believe that their ancestors were an offshoot of the First Men who simply crossed to the isles on boats, where their culture developed differently from their mainland cousins. The ancient First Men kept thralls, hinting that the ironborn were also First Men who retained the practice in their isolation.

According to legend, the islands were ruled by the Grey King during the Age of Heroes. For much of their history, each island was its own kingdom and had its own kings, a rock king who ruled the land and a salt king who commanded at sea. These petty kings constantly fought with each other, and raided the First Men of mainland Westeros for timber, crops, and thralls. The islands were first unified when a powerful priest of the Drowned God, Galon Whitestaff, decreed it was sinful for ironborn to make war upon other ironborn. The other priests preached his word throughout the isles, until the various kings and longship captains convened on Old Wyk at Nagga's Bones for the first kingsmoot, to select one High King of the Iron Islands to rule over all. Galon decreed the title was not hereditary, but upon the death of each High King a new kingsmoot would be convened to elect another. The new high kings were also called driftwood kings because of their crowns of driftwood.

The kingsmoot ended the petty wars between each of the isles, and with their new unified strength, the high kings began to conquer other lands instead of just raiding them. Under the rule of King Qhored the Cruel, the ironborn brought much of the western coast of Westeros under the rule of the Iron Island, including lands as far as Bear Island, the Arbor, and Oldtown.} They were gradually lost by his successors, however, as mainland houses such as the Hightowers, Gardeners, and Lannisters increased in strength. The high kings came from numerous houses, with most coming from Houses Greyjoy, Goodbrother, and especially Greyiron.

The Greyiron dynasty
Upon the death of High King Urragon III Greyiron, his younger sons convened a kingsmoot which chose Urrathon IV Goodbrother, although Urragon's elder son, Torgon Greyiron, was away raiding the Reach. Supported by priests unhappy with Urrathon's tyranny, Torgon declared the kingsmoot invalid when he returned to the Iron Islands, and the so-called Badbrother was overthrown. Although Torgon the Latecomer was wise, the ironborn were still in decline and the Cape of Eagles was lost to the Mallisters of Seagard. Torgon had his son rule alongside him for several years, and Urragon IV Greyiron thus also became high king without being chosen in a kingsmoot. The dying wish of Urragon IV was that the high kingship pass to his great-nephew Urron Greyiron, salt king of Orkmont. When the priests insisted that a kingsmoot be held at Old Wyk, Urron had his men slaughter those who attended, including thirteen other kings and half a hundred priests. Urron Redhand established the hereditary rule of House Greyiron over the Iron Islands. Instead of being called high kings, they titled themselves King of the Iron Islands and wore iron crowns. Abolishing the system of rock and salt kings, the Greyiron kings reduced other ironborn kings to lords and extinguished families who refused to submit. While the driftwood kings were elected by consent of the lords and captains, the iron kings led to infighting among the ironborn, which the priests were unable to stop. The Greyirons faced half a dozen major rebellions, numerous smaller insurrections and insubordinations, and at least two major thrall uprisings.

The stronger and larger kingdoms of the green lands took advantage of the ironborn's disunity to take back conquests on mainland Westeros. For instance, Garth VII Gardener, King of the Reach, drove the ironmen from the Shield Islands and fortified them to prevent ironborn raids up the Mander. Unlike the First Men, the Andals built strong ships capable of fighting ironborn longships. During the Andal invasion, wooden stockades of the First Men with replaced with stone castles throughout the the Reach, the riverlands, and the westerlands, new defenses against the lightning raids of the ironborn. All of their possessions lost, the Greyirons barely held on to power, and the isles increasingly divided into civil wars. After a thousand years of hereditary rule, the Greyirons fell to a coalition of ironborn lords and Andal adventurers, who often intermarried with the natives of the Iron Islands.

The Hoare dynasty
The Greyirons were replaced as hereditary Kings of the Iron Islands by House Hoare, who intermarried with the Andals when they came to the isles. The priests of the Drowned God considered the Hoares ungodly and false kings, which Archmaester Hake agreed with. Archmaester Haereg, however, believed the Hoares were disliked for tolerating the Faith of the Seven, discouraging reaving, and promoting trade. The priests eventually rebelled against King Harmund the Handsome, led by a priest remembered as the Shrike. They overthrew Harmund within a fortnight and mutilated his mother, Dowager Queen Lelia Lannister, which led to a long war with the westerlands which left the Iron Islands impoverished and ill-prepared for the Famine Winter.

It took centuries for the islands to recover, during which ironmen began to trade with coastal Westeros and the Free Cities. Only a shadow of what they once were, the ironborn no longer held territories on the fortified mainland and instead reaved in distant places, such as the Basilisk Isles, Stepstones, and Disputed Lands.

A few generations before the Wars of Conquest, the peaceful King Qhorwyn the Cunning built a strong fleet to deter attack. His ambitious son, King Harwyn Hardhand, then conquered the Trident on the mainland from the Storm King Arrec Durrandon. Harwyn's grandson, King Harren the Black, ordered the construction of Harrenhal, an enormous castle on the northern shore of the Gods Eye in central Westeros. The building of Harrenhal over forty years beggared both the Iron Islands and the conquered riverlands.

The Hoare line, now Kings of the Isles and the Rivers, ended with the deaths of Harren and his sons during Aegon's Conquest. Inspired by Aegon Targaryen, Lord Edmyn Tully led the river lords in rebellion against the Hoares at Harrenhal. Harren refused to yield to Aegon and the castle was too strong to storm, so Aegon rode his dragon, Balerion, over the walls and roasted Harren and his sons in their tower. Most of Harren's supporters were killed in the burning of Harrenhal or by river lords as they retreated back to Ironman's Bay, and Aegon granted the riverlands to House Tully. In 2 Aegon invaded the Iron Islands and defeated the various pretenders to Harren's throne. Aegon then allowed the defeated ironborn to choose Lord Vickon Greyjoy of Pyke to rule as the new Lord of the Iron Islands, a vassal of House Targaryen who now ruled the Seven Kingdoms from the Iron Throne.

The Greyjoys under the Iron Throne
Vickon Greyjoy, Lord of the Iron Islands, was a cautious ruler who did not provoke House Targaryen and its dragons. Vickon allowed the Faith of the Seven to return to the Iron Islands. His son, Lord Goren Greyjoy, suppressed a conspiracy to crown Qhorin Volmark and a revolt by a priest calling himself Lodos, and in return King Aenys I Targaryen allowed Goren to expel the Faith from the archipelago for another century. After Goren, the weakened Iron Islands remained aloof from mainland politics for the next hundred years.

Lord Dalton Greyjoy, the Red Kraken, raided the western shores during the Dance of the Dragons, capturing land from the westerlands. In 134 Lady Johanna Lannister allied with Ser Leo Costayne to invade the islands in reprisal. While this invasion seemed to have settled the greed of the Iron Islanders it only served to point it west, to the lands on the other side of the world.

Lord Gregan Greyjoy, picked in a Kingsmoot after the invasion in 134 was a cautious man who rode a line between satisfying the bloodlust of his people and keeping a peace with the Mainland. He managed to maintain that balance for nearly twenty years before dying peacefully in his sleep in 163. The moot that was held to choose his successor was one of the more lively moots in the time since Aegon's Conquest. There were many who put themselves forward. The results of this moot were the death of Lord Harlaw's brother in a dance of death, and the defeat of the Eldest Greyjoy son in a challenge of wit, and the Lord of House Farwynd in a challenge of iron by Vaella Greyjoy, the eldest of Gregan's children. For fear of a Lady ruling the islands for the first time in recent memory the Priests of the Drowned God put the three to the water, where Vaella stayed the longest, so long she was feared dead, having almost lost her title to her brother.

Lord Farwynd who could not accept being twice bested by a woman was defeated a third time, in a test of stone, which to the surprise of no one proved harder than the Lord's skull. In the time since Lady Vaella's elevation to Lady Greyjoy, much has changed on the Iron Islands, she has taken it upon herself to create House Hungwoman in the ruined keep of Greyiron on the other side of Pyke, and to again send ships to the South and East of the Iron Islands, one of the most famous of these raids being the Rape of the Crag. Her Lordship is not without its troubles, such as the departure of a Goodbrother fleet, though the story goes it is a fleet of ghosts due to Lady Greyjoy's displeasure and dispatch of a fleet of her own to intercept it before it traveled too far from home.

Quotes
"Ironborn captains were proud and willful, and did not go in awe of a man's blood. The islands were too small for awe, and a longship smaller still. If every captain was a king aboard his own ship, as was often said, it was small wonder they named the islands the land of ten thousand kings." - thoughts of Theon Greyjoy

"The islands are stern and stony places, scant of comfort and bleak of prospect. Death is never far here, and life is mean and meagre. Men spend their nights drinking ale and arguing over whose lot is worse, the fisherfolk who fight the sea or the farmers who and scratch a crop from the poor thin soil. If truth be told, the miners have it worse than either, breaking their backs down in the dark, and for what? Iron, lead, tin, those are our treasures. Small wonder the ironmen of old turned to raiding." - Theon Greyjoy to the captain's daughter

"The Old Way served the isles well when we were one small kingdom amongst many, but Aegon's Conquest put an end to that." - Rodrik Harlaw to Asha Greyjoy