Driftmark Island

Driftmark Island is the low-lying, fertile island in the Gullet that became the ancestral home of House Velaryon. Its position near the Narrow Sea shaped its history: the Velaryons made the sea their element, and Driftmark grew from a family seat into a powerful maritime center. In the period described, the island’s wealth and influence also made it a significant setting for the politics of the royal succession.

Setting and Velaryon Origins

According to the family histories, the Velaryons settled on Driftmark before House Targaryen came to Westeros. The island’s name recalled the driftwood the tides brought to its shores. Its low, fertile terrain contrasted with the stony, smoking neighboring island of Dragonstone, where the Targaryens established their seat.

The Velaryons were never dragonriders, but they had long been the Targaryens’ closest and oldest allies. Their ships carried Aegon I Targaryen’s soldiers across Blackwater Bay during Aegon’s Conquest and later formed much of the royal fleet. Service as master of ships became so closely associated with the Lords of the Tides that the office was widely regarded as almost hereditary.

Castles, Ports, and Maritime Growth

The old seat, Castle Driftmark, was dark and grim, perpetually damp and often flooded. After inheriting the lordship, Corlys Velaryon used his accumulated wealth to build a new castle on the island’s far side. High Tide, raised from pale stone, stood on a site surrounded by the sea at the morning and evening tides and linked to Driftmark proper by a causeway. Corlys moved the ancient Driftwood Throne there, a seat said in legend to have been given by the Merling King.

The island’s settlements expanded with Velaryon shipbuilding and trade. Three modest fishing villages beneath Castle Driftmark grew together into Hull, named for the rows of ship hulls visible below the castle. Near High Tide, another village developed into Spicetown, whose wharves and piers drew ships from the Free Cities and farther away. Because Driftmark lay across the Gullet and closer to the Narrow Sea than Duskendale or King’s Landing, Spicetown captured shipping that might otherwise have gone to those ports, increasing the wealth and power of House Velaryon.

Corlys Velaryon and the Island’s Influence

Driftmark was the base of Corlys Velaryon’s rise. As a boy, he repeatedly sailed across the Narrow Sea; later, his voyages aboard the Sea Snake carried him beyond the routes previously traveled by Westerosi traders. The riches from those expeditions helped make House Velaryon, for a time, the wealthiest house in the Seven Kingdoms. As Lord of the Tides, Corlys continued to build ships, and the royal fleet tripled in size during his years as master of ships.

His ambitions extended beyond maritime wealth. Through his marriage to Rhaenys Targaryen, Corlys joined the fortunes of Driftmark to those of the royal dynasty, and he expected their children to ride dragons and eventually one day sit the Iron Throne. When King Viserys I Targaryen married Alicent Hightower, House Velaryon was notably absent from the celebrations: Corlys had already seen his son Laenor’s claim passed over, and now his daughter Laena had also been bypassed as a possible royal bride. The omission made the island’s political independence visible in the contrast between the festivities at the Red Keep and Corlys’s gathering with Daemon Targaryen across Blackwater Bay.

A Place of Refuge and Political Alliance

In 115 AC, after the death of Daemon’s wife, Rhea Royce, Daemon returned from the Vale to the Stepstones and stopped at Driftmark to visit Corlys and Rhaenys. High Tide was one of the few places in the Seven Kingdoms where he could be confident of welcome. During that visit, he became interested in Laena, whose earlier betrothal to the son of the Sealord of Braavos had stalled, and asked Corlys for her hand in marriage.

Driftmark thus served not only as a naval and commercial stronghold but also as a meeting place where powerful figures could form alliances outside the immediate reach of the royal court. Corlys’s connection to the island’s ports, ships, and wealth gave House Velaryon the means to act as an independent political force; Daemon’s welcome at High Tide brought that force into his search for a new position in the succession struggle.