Rattleshirt, also known as the Lord of Bones, is a notorious wildling raider and leader of a war band who serves as a brutal and cunning figure among the free folk. His significance in the narrative lies in his role as a pawn in the political and magical machinations of Stannis Baratheon and Melisandre, where he is used as a decoy to secretly spare Mance Rayder's life, and later as an unwilling servant to the Night's Watch under a magical glamor.
Selyse Baratheon, wife of King Stannis Baratheon, is a devout follower of the Lord of Light who arrives at Castle Black with her daughter and retinue, where her rigid piety, political ambitions, and disdain for the free folk create friction with Jon Snow and complicate the Night's Watch's efforts to defend the Wall.
Stannis Baratheon, the self-proclaimed King of Westeros, is a rigid, just, and uncompromising figure who, after his defeat on the Blackwater, takes his cause north to the Wall. There, he aids the Night's Watch against the wildling invasion, but his harsh pragmatism and reliance on the red priestess Melisandre create a tense and often adversarial relationship with Lord Commander Jon Snow. His campaign to win the North is a desperate gamble against the elements and the Boltons, revealing a man of iron will but dwindling resources and a growing dependence on prophecy.
Andalos is the ancient homeland of the Andals in western Essos, a region of flatlands and low hills between Pentos and the Rhoyne, where the Faith of the Seven teaches that the gods once walked among men.
The Arbor is a large island in the Sunset Sea off the coast of the Reach, renowned for its mild climate, fertile soil, and the production of the finest wines in the Seven Kingdoms. Its ruling house, the Redwynes, command the largest fleet in the realm, making the Arbor a crucial source of naval power and economic wealth. Throughout the War of the Five Kings and its aftermath, the Arbor's resources and allegiance are a key prize, with its wines serving as a symbol of luxury and its ships as instruments of war and blockade.
Asshai is a mysterious and legendary city at the far eastern edge of the known world, often mentioned in A Dance with Dragons as a source of powerful magic, exotic goods, and dark knowledge, but never directly visited by any point-of-view character.
Blackwater Bay is the large, sheltered inlet on the eastern coast of Westeros into which the Blackwater Rush empties, forming the sea approach to King's Landing. Its strategic importance is defined by the naval Battle of the Blackwater, where Tyrion Lannister's use of wildfire destroyed Stannis Baratheon's fleet and secured the capital for the Lannisters. The bay is also the site of Davos Seaworth's greatest personal loss—the burning of his ship and the deaths of four of his sons—and serves as a recurring geographical and emotional landmark in the narrative.
Braavos is a powerful Free City in Essos, founded by escaped slaves from the Valyrian Freehold. It is a maritime republic known for its secretive Iron Bank, the Faceless Men of the House of Black and White, and its formidable navy. In A Dance with Dragons, Braavos serves as a crucial hub for exiles, a source of financial power that can sway the fate of kings, and the training ground for Arya Stark as she learns the ways of the Faceless Men.
Estermont is a large island off Cape Wrath in the stormlands, known for its dense forests and rugged coastline. During the War of the Five Kings, it becomes a secondary theater of the Golden Company's invasion, when a detachment of sellswords under Marq Mandrake lands there and captures the castle of Greenstone, the seat of House Estermont.
Greyguard is one of the abandoned castles along the Wall that Jon Snow, as Lord Commander of the Night's Watch, orders to be re-garrisoned. He assigns Janos Slynt to command it, but Slynt's refusal to obey leads directly to his execution, making Greyguard a flashpoint for Jon's assertion of authority and the internal resistance to his leadership.
Hardhome is a cursed, ruined settlement on the northern coast of the Shivering Sea, beyond the Wall, that becomes a desperate refuge for thousands of free folk fleeing the Others after the battle beneath the Wall. In A Dance with Dragons, it is the site of a catastrophic humanitarian crisis: Mother Mole, a woods witch, leads the survivors there in hopes of rescue by ship, but the settlement offers no shelter, no food, and no safety. The Night’s Watch attempts a relief mission by sea, but storms scatter the fleet, and reports from Cotter Pyke describe starvation, cannibalism, and the presence of wights in the woods and water. Hardhome thus crystallizes the failure of the Watch’s resources to meet the scale of the threat from the North, and its name becomes a byword for the realm’s indifference to the free folk’s fate.
Harlaw is the most populous and prosperous of the Iron Islands, ruled by House Harlaw from the castle Ten Towers. It serves as a center of learning and trade in the archipelago, and its lord, Rodrik Harlaw, known as the Reader, is a figure of unusual intellect and caution who plays a key role in the kingsmoot and the subsequent power struggles among the Greyjoys.
Hellholt is a Dornish castle ruled by House Uller, known for its fierce independence and the fiery temperament of its lords. It appears in A Dance with Dragons as a stronghold whose lord, Harmen Uller, is a bannerman to Prince Doran Martell, and whose daughter Ellaria Sand is the beloved paramour of the late Prince Oberyn. The castle's name and reputation for harsh justice mark it as a place of uncompromising Dornish character.
The Horns of Hazzat is the battlefield where the forces of Yunkai and its allies defeated the Astapori army of King Cleon the Great, a decisive engagement that shifted the balance of power in Slaver's Bay and left Meereen isolated against a growing coalition of slaver cities.
The Jade Sea is a vast, legendary body of water far to the east of Westeros, known for its exotic trade, perilous voyages, and the fabled lands that surround it, serving as a distant goal for merchants, adventurers, and exiles in the narrative.
Last Hearth is the seat of House Umber, a powerful northern house sworn to Winterfell. During the War of the Five Kings, the Umbers were divided: the Greatjon was captured by the Freys, while his uncles Mors "Crowfood" and Hother "Whoresbane" took opposing sides, with Crowfood supporting Stannis Baratheon and Whoresbane joining Roose Bolton. The castle itself is not directly depicted in A Dance with Dragons, but its strategic importance and the internal Umber conflict are discussed as key factors in the northern campaign.
The Long Bridge is the great stone span that connects the eastern and western halves of Volantis, the oldest and proudest of the Nine Free Cities. Built by the Valyrian Freehold at the height of its power, the bridge is a fused-stone roadway supported by massive piers, wide enough for two carts to pass abreast, and lined with shops, stalls, and houses that rise three or four stories on either side, so that crossing it feels like passing through a torchlit tunnel. It serves as the city's central artery, a marketplace, a place of public punishment, and a symbolic threshold between the ancient Valyrian heart of Volantis—the Black Wall—and the teeming, polyglot waterfront districts of the west bank.
Meereen is the largest of the three great Slaver's Bay cities, a sprawling metropolis of many-colored brick pyramids and stepped temples that Daenerys Targaryen conquered and then struggled to rule. Under her reign it became a crucible of clashing cultures—freedmen and former masters, Dothraki horselords and Ghiscari nobles, sellswords and Unsullied—where the ideal of abolition collided with the entrenched realities of slavery, siege, and insurgency. The city's fate, caught between the dragon queen's transformative ambitions and the relentless pressure of Yunkai, Volantis, and the Sons of the Harpy, makes it the central stage on which the moral and political dilemmas of the entire eastern narrative are played out.
The Merman's Court is the great hall of the New Castle in White Harbor, the seat of House Manderly. It is the setting for a pivotal confrontation in which Davos Seaworth, Hand of King Stannis Baratheon, pleads for Lord Wyman Manderly's allegiance, only to be publicly condemned and sentenced to death in a mummer's farce designed to deceive the Freys.
The Narrow Sea is the body of water separating the continent of Westeros from the eastern continent of Essos. It is the central maritime corridor of the known world, crossed by countless fleets, exiles, traders, and invaders throughout history. Its waters witness the passage of armies, the flight of fugitives, and the arrival of dragons, making it a constant presence in the lives of characters from both continents.
Norvos is a Free City in Essos, known for its strict religious culture and its role as the birthplace of Mellario of Norvos, wife of Prince Doran Martell of Dorne. The city is mentioned in the context of the Dornish succession and the history of House Martell.
Old Wyk is the most sacred island of the Iron Islands, the site of the kingsmoot where Euron Greyjoy was crowned King of the Iron Islands, and the location of Nagga's Hill, where the ancient kings of the isles were once chosen.
The Plaza of Purification is a central public square in Meereen, infamous as the site where Daenerys Targaryen executed one hundred sixty-three Great Masters in retaliation for the slave children nailed to mileposts along the road from Yunkai. The plaza becomes a recurring symbol of the brutal, unresolved tension between the queen's liberating ideals and the violent costs of conquest, and later serves as the location where she receives the bones of a child killed by her dragon Drogon, marking the moment her rule begins to unravel.
The Reach is one of the constituent regions of the Seven Kingdoms of Westeros, a fertile and populous land ruled from Highgarden by House Tyrell. Its wealth, agricultural abundance, and powerful armies make it a decisive prize in the wars that follow Robert Baratheon's death. The Reach's allegiance shifts from Renly Baratheon to the Lannister-Tyrell alliance, and its military strength—especially the forces of Houses Tyrell, Tarly, and Redwyne—shapes the outcome of the War of the Five Kings and the subsequent struggle for the Iron Throne.
Sea Dragon Point is a remote, thinly populated peninsula on the western coast of the North, between the Bay of Ice and the Stony Shore, that Asha Greyjoy considers as a potential site for a new kingdom of her own after her failure at the kingsmoot and the loss of her father's conquests.
The Smoking Sea is the stretch of ocean surrounding the Valyrian Peninsula, poisoned and made unnavigable by the Doom of Valyria four centuries before the events of A Dance with Dragons. Its waters are perpetually hot, choked with ash and floating pumice, and said to be haunted by demons and the restless dead. The sea functions as a near-impassable barrier between the eastern and western halves of the known world, a cursed boundary that only the most desperate or foolhardy sailors dare to cross.
Stone Hedge is the ancestral seat of House Bracken, a castle in the riverlands that was burned during the War of the Five Kings. It appears in A Dance with Dragons as the base from which Lord Jonos Bracken besieges the rival Blackwood stronghold of Raventree Hall, and as the site where Jaime Lannister negotiates the end of the siege.
Storm's End is the ancient fortress of House Baratheon, a massive castle on the stormy coast of the Stormlands, renowned for its immense curtain wall and its legendary resistance during Robert's Rebellion. In A Dance with Dragons, it serves as a contested prize: held by Stannis Baratheon's men after his departure for the Wall, it becomes a target for the returning Golden Company and the exiled lord Jon Connington, who plans to take it by guile to secure a base for the pretender Aegon Targaryen.
The Sunset Sea is the vast, uncharted ocean that lies west of Westeros, beyond the Iron Islands and the continent's western shores. In A Dance with Dragons, it serves as the domain of the ironborn reavers and the route by which Euron Greyjoy sails in pursuit of dragons, while also representing the ultimate boundary of the known world, a place of mystery and final departure.
The War of the Ninepenny Kings was a conflict fought in the Stepstones during the reign of King Jaehaerys II Targaryen, pitting the forces of the Iron Throne and its allies against the Band of Nine, a league of ambitious exiles, pirates, and sellswords who sought to carve out new kingdoms. The war is remembered as the final Blackfyre Rebellion, ending the male line of House Blackfyre and providing a proving ground for many of the warriors who would later shape the destinies of the Seven Kingdoms.
