The Greenblood is a river in Dorne whose mouth opens onto the sea at the Planky Town. Its estuary connected the river’s inland settlements to a floating town of boats and barges, and became the site of the first bloodshed in the First Dornish War when Rhaenys Targaryen attacked the town from dragonback.

Course and Estuary

During Rhaenys Targaryen’s first flight into Dorne, she followed the river downstream from Godsgrace to where the Greenblood met the sea. There she found the Planky Town spread across the water: poleboats, fishing skiffs, barges, houseboats, and hulks joined together with ropes, chains, and planks to form a floating city. On that first visit, only a few old women and small children appeared as Meraxes circled overhead.

The First Dornish War

Rhaenys returned in 4 AC, when the First Dornish War is generally held to have begun. Riding Meraxes, she set the Planky Town ablaze. The fires leapt from boat to boat, and burning wreckage choked the mouth of the Greenblood. The smoke could be seen as far away as Sunspear, carrying news of the attack beyond the estuary.

People and Consequences

The town’s inhabitants fled into the river to escape the flames. Fewer than a hundred people died, most by drowning rather than dragonfire, but the attack nevertheless shed the war’s first blood. The Greenblood’s mouth thus joins the geography of Dorne to a decisive change in the conflict: a place first encountered as a quiet, sparsely peopled settlement became the scene of the opening strike.