The Iron Islands Succession War and Lannister Expedition joined a contested inheritance to a campaign of retaliation. After Dalton Greyjoy’s death, three factions fought over the Seastone Chair; a Lannister invasion then intensified the struggle without securing the islands for the family’s chosen claimant. Its failure came at a heavy cost to both the invading force and the Ironborn population.

The succession crisis

The conflict followed the death of the Red Kraken, Dalton Greyjoy. His three sisters and their husbands seized the boy Toron Greyjoy, who sat on the Seastone Chair, and put his mother to death. Meanwhile, Toron’s cousins allied with the lords of Harlaw and Blacktyde to raise up his half-brother Rodrik Greyjoy. On Great Wyk, a separate faction rallied behind Sam Salt, who claimed descent from the black line. The crisis was therefore not a simple contest between two brothers: three competing claims drew support from distinct groups across the islands.

For half a year, the factions fought before House Lannister intervened. The succession struggle had followed violence within the ruling family, and its unresolved rival claims offered an opening for an outside power seeking to punish the Ironborn and influence who would rule.

The Lannister intervention

Ser Leo Costayne arrived with a fleet and landed thousands of Lannister troops on Pyke, Great Wyk, and Harlaw. Lord Oakenfist had refused to take part in House Lannister’s vengeance against the Ironborn, but Lady Johanna Lannister’s appeals persuaded him to join the expedition. The account suggests that her promise to marry him if he delivered the islands to her son’s rule may have helped change his mind.

The expedition thus had two aims: retaliation for the Ironborn’s devastation of the Westerlands and the installation of Lady Johanna’s son as ruler of the Iron Islands. The force landed across several islands, but the intended transfer of power proved beyond Costayne’s ability to deliver.

Defeat and devastation

The campaign suffered a major reversal on Great Wyk, where Arthur Goodbrother killed Costayne among the stony hills. Three-quarters of the Lannister ships were seized or sunk in the cold grey seas. The attempt to break the islanders’ resistance ended without establishing the rule Lady Johanna had sought.

The costs extended far beyond the failed expedition. Hundreds of longships and fishing boats were burned, along with homes and villages. Lannister forces killed the wives and children of Ironborn involved in the attacks on the Westerlands wherever they found them. Among the dead were nine of the Red Kraken’s cousins, two of his three sisters and their husbands, and several lords, including Lord Drumm of Old Wyk, Lord Goodbrother of Great Wyk, and the lords of Volmark, Harlaw, Botley, and Stonehouse. Thousands more died of starvation before the year ended: the Lannisters carried off much of the islands’ stored grain and salt fish and destroyed what they could not take.

The outcome

Toron Greyjoy remained on the Seastone Chair after his defenders beat off the Lannister assault on Pyke’s walls. His half-brother Rodrik was captured and taken to Casterly Rock, where Lady Johanna subjected him to a degrading punishment and made him her son’s fool. The invasion therefore inflicted severe losses and punishment without achieving its stated political objective: Toron remained in power, while the failed campaign left famine and widespread destruction in its wake.