Red Keep

The **Red Keep** is a castle containing the Iron Throne and is the home of the Lord of the Seven Kingdoms. It is located in King's Landing, the capital of the Seven Kingdoms, where it sits on Aegon's Hill.

## Layout

### Maegor's Holdfast

Maegor's Holdfast is a massive square fortress inside the heart of the Red Keep behind walls twelve feet thick and a dry moat lined with iron spikes. It is a castle-within-a-castle. The royal apartments are in Maegor's Holdfast. The king's bedchamber has twin hearths.

###### Queen's Ballroom

The Holdfast contains the Queen's Ballroom, a hall only half as big as the Small Hall in the Tower of the Hand. The Ballroom seats one hundred and has beaten silver mirrors behind the wall sconces which makes the torch's light seem twice as bright. Its walls are panelled with richly carved wood and it has a gallery above the main floor. High arched windows sit along the south wall

### Tower of the Hand

The Tower of the Hand contains the chambers of the Hand of the King. Its Small Hall is a long room with a high-vaulted ceiling and bench space for two hundred. The private audience chamber is not as large as the king's but has Myrish rugs, wall hangings, and a golden-tinted round window that give it a sense of intimacy. The Tower also has a solar and a garderobe. The tower has tall windows. Below the tower is the chamber of the dragon mosaic.

### White Sword Tower

White Sword Tower contains the chambers of the Kingsguard. It is a slender structure of four stories built into an angle of the castle wall overlooking the bay. A circular white room, known as the Round Room, has whitewashed stone walls hung with white woollen tapestries and forms the first floor. A large white table (weirwood carved in the shape of a shield) with seven chairs provides a meeting space for the order. The undercroft holds arms and armour, the second and third floors hold the small sparse sleeping cells of the six brothers of the Kingsguard, and the topmost floor is given over to the Lord Commander's apartments. His rooms are sparse as well, but spacious, and they stand above the outer walls.

### Great Hall

The Great Hall is the throne room of the king. The Iron Throne sits on a raised iron dais with high and narrow steps. A long carpet stretches from the throne to the Hall's great oak-and-bronze doors. The Hall itself is cavernous and can seat 1,000 people. It is oriented north to south, with high, narrow windows on the eastern and western walls. Skulls of the Targaryen dragons once adorned the walls.

### Traitor's Walk

The Traitor's Walk is the squat, half-round tower that contains the entrance to the dungeons. The top floor holds the cells for the prisoners who were to be kept in a degree of comfort. The entrance to the dungeons sits on the ground floor of the tower, with the dungeons beneath the tower. Between the two prisons are rooms for the King's Justice, the Chief Gaoler and the Lord Confessor.

### Dungeon

The dungeon of the Red Keep has four levels. On the upper level are cells with high narrow windows where common criminals are confined together. The second level has smaller, personal cells without windows for highborn captives. Torches in the halls cast light through the bars. The third level cells, the "black cells", are smaller still, and have doors of wood so that no light enters them. These are reserved for the vilest and dangerous prisoners. The lowest level is used for torture. It is supposedly safer to go through the fourth level of the dungeons in darkness because there are things one would not wish to see

### Secret Passages

The Red Keep has a network of secret passages and tunnels. They had them built to enable him to make a quick escape should his enemies ever trap him. The tunnels are supposedly full of traps. Some tunnels are of stone, while others are earth supported by timbers. Some of them are so small that a grown man must crawl through them. Some pass very close to other rooms in the Keep, allowing a hidden person to eavesdrop on conversations.

###### Character's familiar with the Secret Passages:

* Prince Maegon Targaryen

* Princess Rhaenyra Targaryen

* Ser Eros Dayne

* Lord Armond Hightower

* Lady Elaina Blackwood

### Godswood

The godswood at the Red Keep is an acre of elm, alder and black cottonwood trees that overlook the Blackwater Rush. The heart tree is a great oak, whose limbs have become overgrown with smokeberry vines

### Sept

The royal sept inside the Red Keep has crystal windows placed high on the walls. There are seven altars, one for each of the aspects of the Faith of the Seven.