Dalton Greyjoy

Dalton was born the son of the heir to Pyke, though the sources only place his birth year approximately. He took to the sea at five and joined his first raids at ten; he sailed with his uncle as far as the Basilisk Isles and, by fourteen, all the way to distant Old Ghis.

At fifteen he followed his uncle into the War of the Stepstones and watched him die there. He came back soaked in the blood of the men who had killed him, and that day earned the name that would follow him ever after: the Red Kraken. The same year he learned his father had also died, and he returned to Pyke to claim the Seastone Chair.

Dalton was sixteen when the Dance of the Dragons broke out. Ser Otto Hightower, Hand to King Aegon II, offered him the office of Master of Ships in place of Ser Tyland Lannister, hoping his fleet would counter the naval strength of House Velaryon, Princess Rhaenyra's chief support.

But on the other side, Daemon Targaryen understood the young lord better: the promise of free plunder against his enemies was enough to turn Dalton, who brought his longships into Rhaenyra's war instead.

When Lord Jason Lannister died, Dalton sent his men against Lannisport, and the ironborn took it, returning to Pyke with gold and salt wives. Casterly Rock held: Lord Jason's widow, Johanna Westerling, had its gates shut before it could be taken.

Dalton kept striking the coast, taking Kayce and sacking Fair Isle, and for much of the war's two years he ruled the Sunset Sea.

Once the war ended, the regents of the young Aegon III ordered Dalton to stop his raiding. He paid them no mind.

He died in Lord Farman's chambers, when a girl named Tess opened his throat with his own dagger. As he had never taken a rock wife, his heirs were his young salt sons, and a bloody war of succession soon broke out among the ironborn.

The ironborn never stopped honouring Dalton, even after his raiding brought ruin to the islands afterward; they remember him as the lord who defended the old way with steel. He was said to love only three things — the sea, women, of whom he tired quickly, and Nightfall, the Valyrian steel sword he had taken from a reaver — and his men were said to adore him.