Dragonstone (castle)



Dragonstone is a volcanic island that guards the entrance to Blackwater Bay and the sea approaches to King's Landing, off the east coast of Westeros. It is also the name of the castle that stands upon it. It is the ancestral home of House Targaryen.

At the time the series begins, it is held for King Robert Baratheon by his brother, Lord Stannis. The Chamber of the Painted Table is inside the castle. The castle was built using advanced Valyrian stonemasonry techniques, long since lost. As a result it has many exotic features unique in all of Westeros, including massive dragon-shaped gargoyles. The entire castle is dominated by dragon design motifs.

Large amounts of dragonglass (and little else) can be found on Dragonstone, but it isn't a precious or even particularly useful material, being too brittle to make weapons and too sharp to use in building. Otherwise, the only significant advantage of holding Dragonstone island is its strategic position, guarding the entrance to Blackwater Bay and King's Landing.

Season 1
Lord Eddard Stark sends a messenger to Dragonstone to personally deliver a letter to Stannis, revealing the secret that Cersei Lannister's children are really bastards of incest, and thus Stannis is the legal heir of the dying King Robert.

Season 2
At the outbreak of the War of the Five Kings, Dragonstone becomes the headquarters for the faction of King Stannis Baratheon. Unfortunately for Stannis, at the outset he is only supported by the lords of the few islands in Blackwater Bay that were already subject to his overlordship from Dragonstone. To curry support for his weak position, Stannis converts to the religion of the Lord of Light, influenced by the Red Priestess Melisandre. At a gathering of Stannis and his supporters on the beach, Melisandre burns the wooden statues of The Seven-faced God from Dragonstone's sept, as an offering to the Lord of Light. Soon afterwards, Ser Davos Seaworth meets with the pirate-lord Salladhor Saan on the coast of Dragonstone, to hire his fleet of thirty ships as sellsails to supplement Stannis' fleet. Following his defeat at the Battle of the Blackwater, Stannis manages to retreat back to Dragonstone with what little survives of his shattered army.

In the books
In the A Song of Ice and Fire novels, Dragonstone is a volcanic island located a couple of hundred miles north-east of King's Landing. The island has a small port and a large castle on it, built by the Targaryens some 500 years ago, when they settled Dragonstone as a trading outpost of the great Valyrian Freehold. When Valyria was destroyed in the cataclysm known as the Doom a century later, Dragonstone was the largest Valyrian stronghold to survive intact. The Targaryens refused to help the colony-states along the west coast of Essos maintain Valyrian rule. They would later become the Free Cities.

The Targaryens instead waited for another century building up their strength, then invaded and subdued Westeros three hundred years ago. They built a new capital at King's Landing, while Dragonstone became the primary holding of the King's heir (who was also named "Prince of Dragonstone"). After the deposing of King Aerys II Targaryen, Robert Baratheon appointed his brother Stannis as Lord of Dragonstone until his own son, Joffrey, became old enough for the office. This has caused a rift between the brothers, as Stannis feels that he should rightfully be commanding the ancestral Baratheon castle of Storm's End instead of their youngest brother, Lord Renly.

Dragonstone is the home port of part of the Royal Fleet. In addition, Dragonstone commands the loyalty of a number of smaller houses located on surrounding islands in the Narrow Sea and on nearby parts of the coastal mainland. Dragonstone is a cold, drafty and harsh place. Lord Stannis and his family usually prefers to spend as much time as possible at court away from the island, but have recently returned to Dragonstone to attend to business there just before the start of the series.