House Arryn of Gulltown

During the reign of Jaehaerys I Targaryen, one branch of House Arryn left the Eyrie and settled in Gulltown, the Vale's great port. There they traded the sword for the ledger and took up trade.

Business went well: in time they gathered a fortune that came to rival that of their kin in the main branch, though the rest of the house never stopped treating them as second-rate relations, fit for numbers but not for lordship.

Early in the reign of Aegon III Targaryen, the death of Lady Jeyne Arryn left the Vale without a clear heir. In her will, Jeyne passed over her first cousin and his son and named a far more distant cousin, Ser Joffrey Arryn, as Lord of the Eyrie.

Not everyone accepted the choice. Isembard, patriarch of the Arryns of Gulltown, used the confusion to press his own claim to the lordship, backed by House Grafton and by the sellswords his wealth could buy.

The dispute ended up before the Iron Throne, which settled it in Lord Joffrey's favor. Once again, Gulltown was left without the lordship it had chased.

Having lost the lordship, Isembard found another road to influence. Lord Alyn Velaryon put him forward as aide to Lord Torrhen Manderly, the new Hand of the King, to handle the Crown's accounts and its dealings with the Rogare Bank.

As the generations passed, the Arryns of Gulltown kept marrying into merchant families rather than Vale nobility, a habit that swelled their fortune even as it widened the gulf between them and their kin at the Eyrie.