Red Rain

Red Rain is the famous sword of House Drumm, a Valyrian steel weapon carried by the Drumm claimant during the Kingsmoot. Forged before the Doom of Valyria, it embodies the antiquity, violence, and inherited prestige on which the Drumms attempt to base their claim to rule the Iron Islands. Its presence turns family history into something physically displayed, but the sword’s authority proves insufficient when set against the practical demands of kingship.

Nature and Provenance

Red Rain is forged of Valyrian steel and dates from the days before the Doom of Valyria. That age places it among the surviving objects that connect the ironborn present with a remote, nearly legendary past. The sword is not introduced as an anonymous weapon: it is specifically identified as the Drumm’s famous blade, an heirloom whose name and history are already known to the assembled captains.

The sword’s antiquity also links it to a broader network of exceptional materials and lost knowledge. In the Citadel, glass candles are said to have been brought from Valyria a thousand years before the Doom, while dragonglass and Valyrian steel recur in accounts of the Others and the Long Night. Red Rain belongs to this same historical horizon of objects that have survived the collapse of older powers, although its demonstrated function remains martial rather than magical.

Red Rain at the Kingsmoot

During the Kingsmoot, the Drumm climbs the hill carrying Red Rain at his hip. His champions include his sons Denys and Donnel and Andrik the Unsmiling, a giant of a man, so the sword appears within a carefully staged presentation of strength, lineage, and military backing. The Drumm argues that Pyke has no inherent right to rule the ironborn, invoking Great Wyk as the largest isle, Harlaw as the richest, and Old Wyk as the most holy.

Red Rain becomes the centerpiece of his historical performance. The Drumm draws it while recounting how Hilmar Drumm the Cunning once took the blade from an armored knight using wit and a wooden cudgel. The story converts the sword from a possession into evidence of Drumm ingenuity and ancestral prowess. He also invokes Dale the Dread, Roryn the Reaver, the hundred sons of Gormond Drumm the Oldfather, lost ships, and battles forgotten for eight hundred years. Through Red Rain, the past is made visible before the captains.

The display initially wins approval, but the effect fades as the Drumm continues speaking. His account of Drumm glory grows repetitive, and the crowd becomes restive. When his chests are opened, the captains see the meager gifts he has brought them; Aeron Greyjoy recognizes that a throne cannot be bought with bronze. The cries of support for Drumm die away, revealing the limit of inherited symbolism: Red Rain can establish distinction, but it cannot supply the generosity, momentum, or immediate political advantage required by the Kingsmoot.

Rivalry with the Reach

Red Rain later reappears in discussion of the ironborn invasion and the expected response from the Reach. When the threat of Highgarden and its forces is raised, the Drumm emphasizes that Lord Tarly carries Heartsbane, another Valyrian steel greatsword, and marches in Lord Tyrell’s van. The comparison places Red Rain within a recognizable hierarchy of celebrated blades and frames the coming conflict as a contest between famous weapons, houses, and warriors.

Victarion Greyjoy responds to the prospect with eagerness, imagining that he might take Heartsbane for himself just as the Drumm’s forebear took Red Rain. He also longs to test his axe against Jaime Lannister or Loras Tyrell. In this martial imagination, Red Rain is less a personal object than a precedent: its remembered seizure promises that the weapons of powerful enemies can be won through battle. The sword therefore helps define the warrior’s idea of honor, in which combat, capture, and possession carry more weight than political argument.

Meaning and Narrative Function

Red Rain carries history, identity, and power across generations. House Drumm uses it to argue that its greatness predates the current order, while the sword’s story of Hilmar’s victory presents cunning and violence as ancestral qualifications for leadership. Yet the Kingsmoot separates symbolic inheritance from effective rule. The blade commands attention, but the Drumm’s speech loses the crowd, and his gifts fail to persuade the captains.

The sword’s recurrence beside Heartsbane also makes Valyrian steel a language shared by rival societies. It can signify ironborn raiding glory, Reach military leadership, or the personal ambitions of warriors such as Victarion Greyjoy. Red Rain thus functions simultaneously as heirloom, proof of lineage, prize of war, and political spectacle. Its enduring fame preserves the Drumms’ past, but the Kingsmoot shows that even a legendary sword cannot, by itself, turn memory into a crown.