Daemon Velaryon

Daemon Velaryon, Lord of the Tides, was a prominent member of House Velaryon whose service connected the royal court to the realm’s naval power. He served as Hand under Maegor, joined Jaehaerys’s regency council after abandoning Maegor, and later became Hand again when Queen Alyssa withdrew from public life. His career ended not in disgrace but in retirement to Driftmark, followed by a near-fatal illness and profound family losses during the Shivers.

Identity and Early Royal Service

Daemon was Lord of Claw Isle and the brother of Queen Alyssa. Though he had served as Hand of the King under Maegor, he was among the first great lords to abandon the king. That change placed him among the experienced nobles whom Jaehaerys’s government could draw into its effort to reconcile a realm recently divided by conflict.

When Jaehaerys and Alyssa selected councillors for the regency, Daemon was appointed lord admiral and master of ships. His nephew turned to him for command of the Crown’s naval affairs, while Edwell Celtigar—another former official under Maegor—was recalled as lord treasurer and master of coin. Daemon’s appointment thus brought a former servant of the fallen king into the new administration, rather than excluding Maegor’s former officers wholesale.

A Naval Lord at the Regency Court

Daemon held his naval offices while Jaehaerys and Alysanne lived apart from court on Dragonstone. Their absence did not end their political activity: lords travelled to meet the young king, and he and Alysanne flew to Driftmark to tour Daemon’s shipyards. Daemon himself remained in King’s Landing with the regents, a separation that made the fleet’s possible use in managing access to Dragonstone a point of tension.

Rogar Baratheon, then Hand, asked Daemon whether the Velaryon fleet could be used to stop lords from travelling to Dragonstone to seek the boy king’s favour. Daemon refused. Rogar regarded the answer as further disrespect, but the episode also shows that Daemon did not simply place the fleet at the Hand’s disposal to contain Jaehaerys’s independent political contacts. His refusal left the visitors free to approach the king and widened the existing strain between Rogar and the court around Jaehaerys.

Daemon’s family and maritime position also connect him to the next generation of Velaryon history. While Alysanne was pregnant, Daemon’s eldest son became a father on Driftmark. The boy was named Corlys, after a celebrated earlier Lord Commander of the Kingsguard, and would later be known as the Sea Snake. The birth establishes Daemon as the child’s grandfather and places the future seafarer within the family whose shipyards and fleet already mattered to royal politics.

Appointment as Hand and Withdrawal

After Rogar was dismissed as Hand, Queen Alyssa appointed her brother Daemon to the office. She sent a raven to Dragonstone to tell Jaehaerys part, but not all, of what had occurred, then retired to her chambers in Maegor’s Holdfast. For the remainder of her regency, she took no further part in public life and left the government of the Seven Kingdoms to Daemon. The appointment therefore transferred the practical burden of rule to him at a moment when the Queen Regent had withdrawn from court affairs.

Daemon did not remain Hand indefinitely. After the poisoning on Dragonstone, he sought to step down. His young niece Lianna had been among the women poisoned, and his departure followed this family loss. The account also gives his advancing age and wish to spend his remaining years with his children and grandchildren on Driftmark as reasons for leaving. Although rivalry with Manfryd Redwyne, who had replaced him as lord admiral, was suggested as another explanation, the chronicle rejects that as a petty aspersion rather than presenting it as established cause.

Jaehaerys considered several council members as possible successors, including Albin Massey, Rego Draz, and Septon Barth, but found none wholly suitable for the office. He also ruled out Rogar and other former Hands, while judging several great lords unsuitable for different reasons. The eventual choice was Myles Smallwood, whose experience in battle and reputation for loyalty answered the council’s desire for an older warrior to balance the young king and the learned men around him. A raven summoned Smallwood to King’s Landing, where he took up the office Daemon had relinquished.

The Shivers and Family Loss

Daemon’s retirement did not remove him from the dangers affecting the realm. When the Shivers spread across the Crownlands in the winter of 59 AC, he fell gravely ill on Driftmark but recovered after coming close to death. His survival came alongside severe losses: his second son and three of his daughters died. The contrast between his recovery and the deaths within his household marks a final, painful reversal after his long service and his return to family life.

Political and Narrative Significance

Daemon’s career is defined by repeated changes of office in response to changing royal needs. He moved from service under Maegor to Jaehaerys’s regency, held the naval administration, and then became Hand when Alyssa withdrew. His refusal to use the fleet against lords visiting Dragonstone also distinguishes his command from a purely coercive instrument of the regency: the ships were a source of political leverage, but Daemon declined Rogar’s proposed use of them in that dispute.

His later departure makes the costs of court service personal rather than merely institutional. The account ties his resignation to age, family obligations, and the poisoning of his niece, then places his own survival from the Shivers beside the deaths of four of his children. Through Daemon, the fortunes of the royal council, the Velaryon fleet, and a family on Driftmark converge; his story closes not with another appointment, but with survival shadowed by loss.