Daemon and Corlys’s War for the Stepstones

Daemon and Corlys’s War for the Stepstones was a private campaign to break the Triarchy’s control of a strategically placed island chain. It brought Daemon Targaryen victories, a brief claim to kingship, and the head of Craghas Drahar, but its gains remained vulnerable to renewed invasion. The war also joined Corlys’s maritime interests to Daemon’s search for military glory, while King Viserys’s support kept the enterprise supplied without making it a settled royal conquest.

The Stepstones and the Triarchy

The Stepstones lie between Dorne and the Disputed Lands of Essos. The rocky islands were poor prizes in themselves, but their position gave their rulers leverage over shipping routes to and from the Narrow Sea. For centuries, outlaws, exiles, wreckers, and pirates had used them as a base, and their attacks on merchant vessels were treated as a persistent nuisance rather than a major strategic danger.

That balance changed when Lys, Myr, and Tyrosh joined forces against Volantis. After their victory at the Battle of the Borderland, the three cities formed the Triarchy, an alliance governed by a council of thirty-three magisters rather than a king. Once Volantis withdrew from the Disputed Lands, the Triarchy turned west and conquered the Stepstones with combined armies and fleets under the Myrish admiral Craghas Drahar. His reputation as the Crabfeeder came from his treatment of captured pirates, whom he left exposed to the rising tide.

At first, Westerosi lords welcomed the change: the Triarchy had replaced the islands’ disorder with a power capable of policing the sea lanes. Its tolls seemed a reasonable price for safer passage. But the charges rose repeatedly until merchants who had once paid willingly tried to evade the Triarchy’s galleys, as they had earlier evaded pirates. The Lyseni also seized women, girls, and young men from passing ships for sale into slavery. These exactions turned approval into resentment and made the Triarchy’s rule a direct threat to the commerce on which Corlys’s power depended.

Alliance and campaign

Corlys, Lord of the Tides, had made his fleets the foundation of a wealth and influence rivaling those of any lord in the Seven Kingdoms. He was determined to end the Triarchy’s rule in the Stepstones and found a willing ally in Daemon, whose ambitions were drawn to the gold and renown that war might bring. The two men planned their campaign at High Tide on Driftmark, away from King Viserys’s wedding celebrations. Corlys would command the fleet; Daemon would lead the army. Their forces would be greatly outnumbered, but Daemon would bring Caraxes, his dragon, into the conflict.

The war began in 106 AC. Daemon raised an army of landless adventurers and second sons and won a series of victories during the first two years. In 108 AC, he met Craghas Drahar and killed him in single combat, taking his head with Dark Sister. The victory removed the Triarchy’s celebrated commander, but it did not end the wider contest for the islands.

A brief kingdom, and renewed war

Viserys supplied Daemon’s effort with regular infusions of gold. By 109 AC, Daemon and his army of sellswords and cutthroats controlled all but two of the islands, while Corlys’s fleet held the waters between them. At this high point, Daemon declared himself King of the Stepstones and the Narrow Sea, and Corlys placed a crown upon his head. The title made visible the scale of their success, but the account stresses that their new kingdom was far from secure.

The following year, the Triarchy sent another invasion force, commanded by Racallio Ryndoon, a Tyroshi captain. Dorne joined the Triarchy in alliance, and the fighting resumed. The change exposed the limits of Daemon and Corlys’s achievement: taking most of the islands and controlling the surrounding waters had not prevented their opponents from returning with fresh forces and allies.

Royal distance and significance

Viserys supported the campaign financially, apparently content that his brother was occupied away from court. His attitude contrasted with the war’s consequences for Corlys and Daemon: what the king could treat as a diversion was, for the Lord of the Tides, a struggle over the sea routes and tolls that affected his fleets. Meanwhile, King’s Landing continued its cycle of feasts, balls, and tourneys, and the court remained largely untroubled by the fighting.

The war’s course therefore depended on more than battlefield victories. The Stepstones’ geography made control of them a contest over passage, fleets, and the ability to sustain forces across the sea. Daemon’s early successes and Corlys’s command of the waters created a moment of near-dominion, but neither the self-proclaimed crown nor the killing of Craghas settled the contest. The Triarchy’s renewed invasion, strengthened by Dorne’s participation, left the campaign open rather than concluded.