Bastards of the Tide

Daena Targaryen claims Drogon.

Decisive Westerosi and Targaryen Victory

“The Bastards of the Tide” was a sobriquet collectively applied to the descendants of Aurane Waters, a bastard of House Velaryon and one-time grand admiral and master of ships for the Iron Throne that turned pirate in the Stepstones. Over a period of a near-decade spanning from 300 AC to 309 AC, the self-styled “Lord of the Waters” carved out his own small kingdom within the Stepstones and married the daughter of another warlord in the archipelago.

## **Dragons Turn Tail**

Aurane Waters himself died during the War of the Two Dragons at the Battle of Blackwater Bay, felled by a strike from Ser Hobber Redwyne who would go on to be named Lord of Dragonstone, one of the very seats that Waters himself coveted. He was but two-and-thirty at the time of his death; the bastard was survived by his wife Lyra Dort and their children on Torturer’s Deep.

Following the conclusion of the war, only a scant few of the ships that Aurane pledged to the cause survived to flee the Seven Kingdoms with Aegon Targaryen, the dragon whose wings had been clipped after two unsuccessful invasions. Not all of the sailors aboard these ships chose to follow the would-be conqueror into exile, which precipitated the first internal feud between Aegon’s men and Aurane’s pirates when they ported at Torturer’s Deep for resupply.

The pitched battles that erupted between the pirates and Aegon’s loyalists resulted in yet another setback for the man that would be king, particularly when Aurane’s goodfather Tavyos Dort arrived with reinforcements. Once more did the dragon need to flee and this time he escaped to Pentos, where he would live out the remainder of his years.

Tavyos Dort assumed leadership over the remaining kingdom that once belonged to his goodson and adopted the bastard’s self-styled epithet as well. Given the depleted strength of the Waters domain, however, and owing to the simple fact that Tavyos was not the same quality naval commander that Aurane had been, it would be years before the Lord of the Waters was more than a nuisance to ships traveling through the Narrow Sea.

## **Setting the Stage**

Some twenty years later the eldest of Aurane’s children viewed her grandfather as a feeble and cautious man, content to strike passing merchantmen and maintain the meager holdings which he’d desperately held onto as his influence in the Stepstones waned. If not for Drogon, the last living dragon that had haunted the archipelago ever since the death of Daenerys Targaryen, the Waters kingdom would have collapsed, for the dragon was a fierce and angry creature that inadvertently protected the pirate havens that Tavyos yet controlled.

Lysara Waters, at nine-and-twenty years of age, was an experienced sailor, reputed by those that remembered her father as being nearly his equal on the waves. For much of her childhood and adolescence the woman had heeded her mother and grandfather, who was ever wary of losing what they still controlled. That was never enough for a woman that remembered her father’s ambitions to return to the Seven Kingdoms as the Lord of Driftmark and the Narrow Sea and to sit on a royal council. She dreamed of more than small settlements on hardscrabble rocks.

It was in her second decade that Lysara chose to embrace these yearnings and set out for the Free Cities, first seeking a place in Pentos where she served for a time with the Golden Company. From there she continued onward, honing her skills in bloody battle and piracy on the waters, transporting slaves, smuggling all sorts of illicit goods, and so on. No task was beneath her, for every task was a chance to learn. Though she took many lovers and grew a reputation the woman staunchly refused any possibility of marriage.

When she returned to the Stepstones in 333 AC it was with a small fleet of her own. During her nearly ten years away one of her brothers, Jorgen Waters, died in a futile and foolhardy attempt to tame Drogon. Her surviving brother Corwyn Waters informed her that their sibling had been ripped in two by the fearsome creature and their mother died the following year after falling sick. All that was left of their father’s legacy would fall to them - if they could claim it.

Reunited the two siblings set to work. First was their need to unravel their grandfather’s control over the pirate network which they viewed as their birthright. All in all this proved rather easy, in truth. Tavyos was grown indolent and rotund in the belly, considerably more fond of loose women and drink than he was in managing the men ostensibly under his command. Corwyn had won some small fame to his own name in fighting off a Tyroshi squadron and so was able to garner men to his side. Lysara meanwhile had the men and ships with which she’d returned - and with them came tales of the wealth she’d secured for those that sailed with her, which in turn brought more scoundrels to the side of the Waters siblings. In the end it was a woman that was Tavyos Dort’s undoing. One of Lysara’s lovers feigned interest in the old warlord and once abed with him ensured that he would never rise again.

## **Empire Reborn**

To avoid drawing the ire of Drogon was no simple task in the Stepstones, which worked both to the detriment and advantage of the Waters siblings as they set forth to restore and expand upon their father’s domain. The first avenue of attack before them was to consolidate a greater sphere of influence within the Stepstones itself, which took the better part of two years. Even then Bloodstone and Grey Gallows remained out of their reach for the time being.

Over the course of the following year Lysara and Corwyn attacked targets of opportunity on the seas, striking at trading galleys in greater numbers than their grandfather had done in years. By now they were openly being called the “Bastards of the Tide” and flying their father’s banner - a green seahorse on a silver field.

By 333 AC the siblings were anxious for greater glory and so their avaricious eyes turned towards the Seven Kingdoms, while the alliances they’d formed with the other outlaws on Bloodstone and Grey Gallows focused instead on the Free Cities and Disputed Lands. Swift were their sails and oars in falling upon isolated hamlets and villages on the coasts of Dorne. On these first several raids the marauders left behind no survivors where they could help it at the orders of their admiral and mistress. Lysara Waters had decided to continue her careful trajectory of escalation.

Escalate they did, of course, for greed and glory was in their blood. As their attacks continued so too did Lysara and Corwyn grow more bold, changing their focus from isolated settlements to ones nearer to the castles of nobility to which their father once schemed to belong. Dorne was not their first target solely due to proximity; ever since the time of Nymeria the Dornishmen had enjoyed little power at sea and the pirates knew this well. By the time any ships belonging to the houses of Dorne came searching, they were long gone back to the Stepstones, where Drogon roamed and indiscriminately attacked whatever irritated him.

Naturally this meant setbacks from time to time. On more than one occasion Corwyn needed to flee from the roused creature, though Lysara herself seemed lucky to rarely ever draw its ire. So too did they lose ships and men, though further exploits replenished their losses before events could turn dire.

## **And So Tears Did Flow**

No one was spared the scrutiny of the Bastards, who were gleeful whenever their victims turned out to be nobility from the Sunset Kingdoms. Some of the men were forced into press gangs to work oars or do hard labor back on Torturer’s Deep and the other islands under their control. Some of the women were divided up between the warlords and captains as trophies. Those that were not kept were sold into slavery, as were children. On occasion a hostage or two was ransomed back to their families, but often this was far more trouble than it was worth.

Though their reign of terror upon the high seas infuriated lords of the stormlands and Dorne alike, there was little that could be done. Each time a squadron of ships was dispatched to try and attack the Bastards they met fierce opposition - either on the waters or from the sky. More than once House Baratheon and House Martell sent ships, sometimes in coordination with one another. More oft than not few of those ships ever returned home. And never did they return having succeeded in routing the pirates that continued to plague their shores.

The worst incident of all for the Westerosi - and by far the most profitable single incident for the Bastards - came in 346 AC. One early morning the green seahorse was spotted flying in the wind as a fleet commanded by Lysara Waters approached Weeping Town on the southeastern coast of the stormlands. Several ships of House Whitehead rushed forward in an effort to hold back the invaders, but to no avail. Unfortunately for the stormlanders they were significantly outnumbered; what ships were not seized or badly damaged fled for Greenstone.

What followed was no less than an atrocity. The fighting was fierce and pitched throughout the town’s crooked alleys with numerous buildings set aflame. Pillaging and murder and rape was the order of the day. As had become the norm over the years for the Bastards there was no shortage of captives taken to be sold into slavery across the Narrow Sea. Even House Whitehead itself could not escape; by the end of the attack, there was not a single member of the house that was not either dead or clapped in chains.

## **Downfall**

With great success comes ever greater scrutiny, however. Furious once more over the degradations visited upon his house's peoples Ser Davos Baratheon, the heir to Storm's End, set out to organize a fleet assembled of ships from his own house, reinforced by ships from House Tarth and House Estermont as well as the surviving ships of House Whitehead.

Meanwhile a small number of swift ships snuck into the archipelago, bearing a visitor from Pentos. What came next was never truly revealed. What is known with certainty, however, is that dragonflame was soon unleashed upon the islands of the Stepstones, targeting the pirates and smugglers and other miscreants - all with Daena Targaryen, the Last Dragon, on the back of her grandmother's dragon. Grey Gallows and Bloodstone burned first before the new conqueror turned her gaze towards Torturer's Deep.

Lysara and Corwyn were caught entirely by surprise upon their return home after a successful raid on another convoy traveling through the narrow sea. They had but time for one last emotional embrace before separating to different ships in an effort to corral survivors and flee from the unleashed might of the dragon in the skies.

The meager force under Corwyn's command was soon consumed in dragonflame, nearly a half-dozen ships burning on the water as men died screaming. Lysara was helpless to watch; her own sailors refused orders to turn around so that she might bring to bear a scorpion on the deck of her flagship. Despondent, the woman could do naught but watch the demise of her last relative and the dream they shared.

Fortuitously for the stormlanders the desperate pirates sailed straight into their own fleet as it was on course to seek vengeance for the attack on Weeping Town. In the battle that followed most of the pirate ships were damaged or set aflame with fire arrows.

Ser Davos, brandishing a sword that allegedly was once wielded by his own grandsire for whom he was named, led his men onto Waters’s flagship, a massive three-decked warship sporting four hundred oars but crewed only by roughly half that number when battle was joined. Already demoralized by their prior defeats the pirates did not last long in this latest round of fighting onboard their own ship. Lysara Waters, the last warlord of the Bastards of the Tide, clashed steel with the stag lord to no avail. The Baratheon knight disarmed her quite literally and had the woman fitted in chains.

Lysara Waters was executed a few days later at Weeping Town and her head placed atop a pike on the town’s wooden walls. Davos Baratheon was hailed as a hero and claimed the pirate woman’s flagship for his house’s own fleet, with the other captured ships returned to Weeping Town. Once known as the *Sweet Cersei* years earlier when Aurane Waters absconded with the ship and its mates, it had been renamed *Bastard’s Glory*. Davos renamed it once more - *Fury*.

## A New Start

Weeping Town lay absent a ruling house with the loss of the Whiteheads. Though agents were dispatched to several of the Free Cities in an effort to locate any members sold into slavery, each excursion met with naught but failure. In the end there was only one choice - a new ruler needed to be named to the town.

Near to Storm's End was a small towerhouse where a house well known for its loyalty to Lady Shireen Baratheon's own father had resided ever since the War of the Two Dragons, when their modest keep on Cape Wrath was lost after Daenerys Targaryen burned the Rainwood. The Lady Paramount of the Stormlands thus chose to grant the town, its lands, and its titles to her old friend Ser Devan Seaworth.