Planky Town is a floating settlement at the mouth of the Greenblood, built from vessels joined into a city. Its exposed position made it a striking early scene in Rhaenys Targaryen’s passage through Dorne and, on her return in 4 AC, the target of the attack that began the First Dornish War.

Setting and First Encounter

The town consisted of poleboats, fishing skiffs, barges, houseboats, and hulks connected by ropes, chains, and planks. On her first flight through Dorne, Rhaenys came upon this clustered settlement where the Greenblood met the sea. As Meraxes circled overhead, only a few old women and small children appeared to look up at the dragon. The scene followed Rhaenys’s visits to deserted Vaith and Godsgrace and continued her encounter with a country whose lords had withdrawn rather than meet her openly.

The Attack in 4 AC

When Rhaenys returned to Dorne, the town became the first target of her campaign by fire. Riding Meraxes, she set the vessels ablaze; the flames spread from boat to boat until burning wreckage choked the mouth of the Greenblood. The smoke was visible as far away as Sunspear. The settlement’s construction, with its many craft lashed together, made the fire spread across the floating city rather than remain confined to a single vessel.

Flight and Significance

The inhabitants took to the river to escape the flames. Fewer than a hundred people died, most by drowning rather than dragonfire. The attack was therefore destructive but did not amount to the slaughter its scale might suggest; the people who could flee did so into the water. The account identifies the burning of Planky Town as the first blood shed in the First Dornish War, giving the floating settlement a defining place in the conflict’s opening: it was where Rhaenys’s earlier journey through an emptied Dorne gave way to open violence.