Pyke

Pyke stands on an old headland that the sea split into three islands and a dozen rock pillars, on a coast of sheer cliffs. The whole castle is built from the same black-grey stone as the coastline, and a wall of square towers separates fifty acres of mainland, with its outbuildings, from the rest of the islands.

A wide stone bridge crosses to the largest island, where the Great Keep stands. The other two hold the Kitchen Keep and the Bloody Keep. On the most isolated pillar, the last remnant of the original headland, stands the oldest part of the castle, the Sea Tower, reached only by a final bridge of wood and rope: that is where the lords of Pyke keep their chambers.

No one knows who built Pyke or who ruled it first: the castle is old enough that its founders have been lost to the memory of the Iron Islands. Centuries ago it was an ordinary stronghold, raised atop a cliff and ringed by a wall of towers and bastions.

The waves wore those cliffs down, and the outer walls and outbuildings went with them; what remains of that wall today are the watchtowers scattered across the islets. The Bloody Keep takes its name from Qhored I Hoare, King of the Iron Islands, who murdered the sons of Bernarr II Justman, King of the Trident, there while holding them hostage.

When Aegon the Conqueror subdued Westeros, the Lord Reaper of Pyke, Vickon Greyjoy, kept his title and went on to rule the whole archipelago as Lord Paramount from the Seastone Chair.

Generations later, Lord Balon Greyjoy killed the maester of Pyke for failing to cure his brother Urrigon, and had to ask the Citadel for a replacement.

The Greyjoy Rebellion ended at Pyke. King Robert Baratheon and Lord Eddard Stark gathered thousands of men and landed on the island through Lordsport, taking the castle after siege engines brought down the southern tower of its wall.

Soon after, Balon's wife Alannys Harlaw brought five children to Pyke as wards - among them Tristifer Botley - but she ended up wandering its halls searching for the sons she had lost in the war. She eventually moved to Ten Towers, with her brother Rodrik, where conditions were better.

Ravens reach Pyke from Riverrun and Varamar, warning Lord Balon that his son has left as an envoy for Robb Stark, King in the North. Balon does not answer.

The son himself returns to Pyke soon after, for the first time since he was taken as a boy hostage after the Rebellion. Instead of an honor guard, his uncle Aeron Damphair escorts him from Lordsport. Balon turns down the alliance Robb Stark offers and, after a feast with his captains in the Great Keep, tells his family his plans to invade the North.

Word reaches Pyke that Balon, who had proclaimed himself King of the Isles and the North, is dead: he fell from one of the castle's bridges.

The next day his exiled brother, Euron Greyjoy, returns to Pyke and claims the Seastone Chair for himself.

Euron summons the ironborn captains to Pyke to swear loyalty to him as king. His brother Aeron responds instead by calling a kingsmoot on Old Wyk.

Despite everything Aeron does to stop it, the moot ends up crowning Euron.