Corlys Velaryon

He was born in Driftmark in the year 53, son of Corwyn Velaryon. The sea called early: at six he crossed the Narrow Sea for the first time with his uncle Victor, and he never stopped sailing after that. By sixteen he already commanded his own ship, and by twenty-three his name traveled the ports of Westeros and Essos alike.

Aboard the Sea Snake, a ship of his own design, he made nine great voyages beyond Qarth, into lands no other lord of the Seven Kingdoms had seen. He came home with silk, spices, and jade enough to double his house's fortune, though on one of those routes he lost the woman he loved and half his crew.

The ninth voyage made him immensely rich and gave him the name he'd be remembered by: the Sea Snake. Of twenty ships bought in Qarth, only fourteen made it home, and not one of the elephants survived the crossing.

On his grandfather's death he inherited Driftmark and built High Tide to replace the old, damp castle on the island. In the year 90 he married Princess Rhaenys Targaryen, and joined King Jaehaerys's council as Master of Ships and Lord Admiral.

In 92, with Rhaenys pregnant, Myrish pirates raided Tarth. Corlys sailed out with his fleet; Prince Aemon, Rhaenys's father, followed on Caraxes and arrived first, and died under an arrow before the Velaryon fleet reached the shore.

Jaehaerys named his son Baelon his heir instead of Rhaenys. Without a word, Corlys left the council. Eleven years later, at the Great Council of 101, his son Laenor stood as a candidate for the throne with the backing of Boremund Baratheon and other lords, but the council chose Prince Viserys instead.

When Queen Aemma Arryn died in 105, Viserys looked for a new wife; Laena, barely twelve, was proposed, but he chose Alicent Hightower instead. It was the third slight to his house, and Corlys didn't even attend the wedding.

He then betrothed Laena to the son of the Sealord of Braavos, and backed Prince Daemon's campaign against the Stepstones; in 109 he crowned Daemon king of the Stepstones and the Narrow Sea with his own hands.

In 113 the council agreed to marry Laenor to Princess Rhaenyra; they wed the following year, and Corlys insisted the couple's first son bear a Velaryon name, Jacaerys. Around that time he also had an affair with Marilda of Hull, which produced two sons who wouldn't carry his name. Laena's intended, meanwhile, was squandering his fortune; in 115 Daemon killed him in a duel and married Laena himself.

In 120 Corlys's luck turned all at once: his daughter Laena died in childbirth, and the boy she bore didn't outlive her by many hours. Months later, at a fair in Spicetown, his son Laenor was murdered; Corlys offered ten thousand gold dragons for the killer's head, and no one ever claimed it.

That same year Harrenhal burned, killing the Hand of the King, Lyonel Strong, and his son Harwin. It was said Corlys had ordered the fire to avenge his daughter-in-law, who was rumored to have been Harwin's lover.

In 126 a fever brought him to the edge of death. Rhaenyra proposed her second son, Lucerys, as heir to Driftmark, and the eldest of Corlys's nephews, Ser Vaemond, called her sons bastards and claimed the lordship for himself. Daemon cut off his head; Rhaenyra fed it to her dragon. Corlys, unaware of any of it, recovered.

In 129 the Dance of the Dragons broke out: Rhaenyra against her half-brother, King Aegon II. Corlys sat on the queen's Black Council; more than half her troops had sworn loyalty to his house before they'd sworn it to the crown.

Commanding the Velaryon fleet, he closed the Gullet and blockaded Blackwater Bay, cutting off King's Landing's trade by sea, until a battle in the Gullet itself ended the blockade.

At Dragonstone, word reached him that Rhaenys had died at the Battle of Rook's Rest. Corlys blamed the queen for that death, and told her to her face that she should have been the one to fall.

Late in 129 his grandson Jacaerys named him Hand of the Queen. Around then, Marilda presented Addam and Alyn of Hull as the late Laenor's bastard sons; many suspected the father was Corlys himself, who often spent time at Marilda's shipyard. He accepted them without objection.

When Addam became a rider of the she-dragon Seasmoke, Corlys asked Rhaenyra to legitimize the two brothers; with Lucerys already dead, they became the new heirs to Driftmark.

Corlys fought alongside Jacaerys at the Battle of the Gullet, where his grandson died. High Tide and Spicetown were burned and sacked, taking much of the treasure he'd brought home from his voyages.

After King's Landing fell, he urged Rhaenyra toward mercy for her half-siblings; she and Daemon refused, each for their own reasons. When the Two Betrayers deserted, Corlys kept defending Addam and Alyn, and Rhaenyra, trusting no one by then, accused him of treason. He didn't deny it, and was thrown in chains into a black cell in the Red Keep. Addam died soon after at the Second Battle of Tumbleton; his brother Alyn was left as heir to Driftmark.

When word spread that Corlys lay dying in his cell, the army loyal to Rhaenyra fell apart. After the queen's execution, Lord Borros, the dowager queen Alicent, and Lord Larys Strong had him freed: they needed his name and the Velaryon fleet, now under Alyn.

They offered him a pardon and one of Lord Borros's daughters for a wife; Corlys refused the marriage and set his own terms: pardon for all the Blacks, freedom for his granddaughter Baela, held captive by Aegon II, and a marriage between Prince Aegon the Younger and Princess Jaehaera to unite the two branches of the family. Alicent agreed.

Back in the capital, Aegon II ignored his counsel and wanted only revenge, until those choices cost him his life. With the king dead, Corlys had Queen Alicent arrested and sent envoys to Casterly Rock, Oldtown, and Storm's End asking for peace.

Corlys held the Red Keep until the riverlands army reached the city. Alongside Prince Aegon the Younger, he yielded King's Landing under a peace banner.

Soon after, Lord Cregan Stark entered the capital with his northern host. Corlys opposed marching on Casterly Rock, Oldtown, and Storm's End, but Cregan wanted justice for Aegon II's death and imprisoned twenty-two men, Corlys among them; he didn't deny poisoning the king.

His own granddaughters saved him: they convinced the young King Aegon III to restore his honors, and Lady Alysanne Blackwood agreed to marry Cregan in exchange for his approving the decree. Corlys joined Aegon III's first council of regents, and came to be seen as the most powerful of the seven.

He died of old age in King's Landing on the sixth day of the third moon of 132, at seventy-nine. His body sailed home to Driftmark, and he was buried at sea east of Dragonstone aboard his old Sea Snake. It was said the dragon Cannibal flew over the water when the ship went down.