Aeron Greyjoy

Aeron was born last among the children of Lord Quellon Greyjoy and his second wife, Lady Sunderly, well behind the three sons his father had from an earlier marriage.

At sixteen he declared himself a grown man, though he was really just a boy who drank hard, sang, juggled and rode horses for the fun of it. He bragged that no one could hold his liquor better than him, and once wagered his own ship, the Golden Storm, that he could put out a hearth fire with nothing but his own piss.

When the Greyjoy Rebellion broke out, Aeron joined his brothers Victarion and Euron in raiding the coast. The Iron Fleet sailed into a trap the Crown's master of ships, Lord Stannis Baratheon, had set off Fair Isle, and Aeron's own ship went down with him aboard.

He was given up for drowned, but washed ashore alive and was hauled in chains to Lannisport by a local fisherman. He spent the rest of the war as a Lannister prisoner, whiling away the time with pissing contests against lions, boars and roosters, until he was shipped home once the fighting ended.

Back on the islands, a second shipwreck left him stranded on the shore without any visible wound, yet changed inside. He lost his taste for laughter, turned into a hermit, and gave what was left of his life to preaching the faith of the Drowned God, earning the ironborn's respect under the name Damphair.

He carries an old fear of his brother Euron that he can't fully explain, and dreams again and again of a door with creaking hinges that he ties to him. He also lives with guilt over the death of another brother, Urrigon, who died of an infected wound suffered while playing the finger dance with Aeron, the ironborn axe-juggling game.

When the War of the Five Kings breaks out, it's Aeron who brings his nephew Theon back to Pyke after Robb Stark sent him to negotiate an alliance. Balon turns it down and plans his own invasion of the North instead, sending Aeron along with Theon to raid the Stony Shore.

The ironborn take Benfred Tallhart prisoner and Aeron has him drowned. Theon turns aside toward Torrhen's Square and then Winterfell, while Aeron carries on plundering villages on his own.

With the raiding done, Aeron returns to his rounds as a priest across the Iron Islands. Inside the Great Keep at Pyke he brings Balon word of Theon's latest defeat at Winterfell, and speaks out against letting his daughter Asha succeed him.

While reviving a drowned man on the shore of Great Wyk with the ritual kiss, he learns that Balon has died and that his brother Euron, whom he has always scorned, has claimed the Seastone Chair. Aeron holes up for a time in a driftwood shelter on Pebble, refuses the chair for himself, and, fearing Euron will be the ruin of the ironborn, calls a kingsmoot on Old Wyk to choose Balon's successor.

The captains answer his summons and the Iron Fleet comes home in force from Fever River. On the shore of Nagga's Cradle, Aeron blesses his chosen candidate, his brother Victarion, trusting him to keep to Balon's old ways, and steps away to eat only fish and water while the other captains feast.

He runs the kingsmoot and hears out the claimants, but is left speechless when the captains, dazzled by the horn Euron carries and his bold promises, choose him as Balon's successor instead.

Aeron asks Victarion to help him stand against the new king, but his brother bows to the vote. Aeron announces he'll preach against the 'godless' Euron among the ironborn and vanishes from Old Wyk the next day, while Euron and Victarion sail off at the head of the fleet toward the Reach.