Basilisk Isles

A map showing the location of the Basilisk Isles and Naath in blue.

The Basilisk Isles, also known as the Basilisk Islands and the Basilisks, are a group of islands off the northwestern coast of Sothoryos, in the Summer Sea.

Geography

The Basilisks off the northern coast of Sothoryos, with Naath to the west

• The Isle of Tears, located in the bay off the northwestern coast of Sothoryos where Gogossos once stood.
• The Isle of Toads, located east of Basilisk Point and home to the mysterious Toad Stone made of oily black stone.
• The Isle of Flies, located on the western end of the isles.
• Howling Mountain
• Talon, a large, claw-shaped island north of the Isle of Tears, home to the corsairs' slave market and Barter Beach.
• Skull Isle, the northernmost of the Basilisks, where the corsairs deliver skulls to some dark god.
• Ax Isle, located northeast of Zamettar and southeast of Skull Island.
• The corsair's road is a sea route off the northern coast of Sothoryos.

Culture

The Basilisk Isles are named after the basilisks that once infested them.

Corsair towns and pirate lairs—which reuse names like Black Pudding, Port Plunder, Sty, and Whore's Gash—spring up in the Basilisks but are quickly abandoned. The mud-and-blood towns of the Basilisk Isles teem with escaped slaves, slavers, skinners, whores, hunters, brindled men, sellswords, corsairs, and pirates.

Maester Yandel describes life in the Basilisks as nasty, brutal, and often short. The isles are hot, humid, and swarming with stinging flies, sand fleas, and bloodworms, making them unhealthy for both man and beast.

Corsairs from the Basilisks have often raided Naath and Sothoryos. For centuries, corsairs have brought their captives to holding pens on Talon and the Isle of Tears before selling them in the flesh markets of Slaver's Bay or the pillow houses and pleasure gardens of Lys. Many corsairs decorate their ships with severed heads dangling from hempen rope, and they deliver the skulls to Skull Isle once all the flesh is gone.

History

Ancient History

Ruins on the Isle of Tears, the Isle of Toads, and Ax Isle indicate the presence of an ancient civilization, now lost, established during the Dawn Age. Maester Yandel speculates the inhabitants of the Isle of Toads may have a link to this vanished people.

The Old Empire of Ghis founded Gorgai on the Isle of Tears. The Valyrian Freehold captured it during the Third Ghiscari War and renamed it Gogossos. The dragonlords used it as a twisted penal colony for the worst criminals.

During the migration of their ten thousand ships, the Rhoynar stopped in the Basilisks for provisions but were attacked by corsair kings of Ax Isle, Talon, and the Howling Mountain, who put twoscore ships to the torch and carried off hundreds into slavery. The corsairs offered to allow the Rhoynar to settle on the Isle of Toads, provided they gave up their boats and sent each king thirty virgin girls and thirty pretty boys each year as tribute. Princess Nymeria refused, however, and took her fleet to sea again.

Swan ships from the Summer Isles explored the Basilisks, though pirates and slavers from the Basilisks then began to raid the Summer Islanders. Some Summer Islanders joined the pirates and became feared captains.

Ironborn from the Iron Islands have reaved in the Basilisk Isles. Pirates from the Stepstones and the Basilisks have fought the fleets of House Arryn.

Recent History

Powerful Gogossos fell into ruin after an outbreak of the Red Death during the Century of Blood, and the Basilisks were shunned for a century until corsairs returned. Xandarro Xhore of Qarth eventually built a black fort at Ax Isle, while the Brotherhood of Bones settled on the Isle of Flies. In the aftermath of the Doom of Valyria, the islands became nests for pirates who attacked merchants attempting to avoid the Valyrian peninsula and Smoking Sea. Slavers from the Basilisks have raided Naath so frequently since the Century of Blood that the Naathi have largely moved inland.

Volantis and other Free Cities periodically send fleets to clear out these pirates, with varying success. Instead of suppressing them, Saathos Saan of Lys joined the pirates and reigned as King of the Basilisk Isles for three decades.

Harwyn Hoare spent two years in the isles as the captive of a pirate king.

The author of A Caution for Young Girls claims to have spent time as the plaything of a corsair queen in the isles.

Dalton Greyjoy raided the pirate towns of the Basilisks with his uncle when he was fifteen.

Highborn maidens from Volantis sailing to King's Landing to attend the Maiden's Day Cattle Show for King Aegon III Targaryen were captured en route by corsairs from the Basilisks. Racallio Ryndoon fled to the isles after the Daughters' War.

Recent Events

A Feast for Crows

Garin tells Arianne Martell that according to sailors in Planky Town, a new corsair king has risen in the Basilisk Isles and has raided Tall Trees Town.

A Dance with Dragons

It is revealed that Missandei and her brothers had been taken from their home in Naath by raiders from the Basilisk Isles and sold into slavery in Astapor.

Prince Quentyn Martell sees ships from the Basilisks in the harbor of Volantis.

According to Haldon Halfmaester, the current Shrouded Lord is a corsair from the Basilisk Islands.

After returning to Meereen, Daario Naharis tells Daenerys Targaryen that among the turncloaks who have come over to her side is an axeman from the Basilisk Isles, a brute bigger than Strong Belwas.

Among Ser Barristan Selmy's squires is a young former slave called Tumco Lho who is originally from the Basilisk Isles.

Victarion Greyjoy gives Red Ralf Stonehouse the Iron Fleet's swiftest ships to sail the corsair's road along the northern coast of Sothoryos and seek provisions through the iron price from towns in the Basilisk Isles. Victarion gave orders to reunite off the southern tip of the Isle of Cedars; only nine of the ships that had sailed with Ralf turn up, with Ralf himself among the missing.

Quotes

Named for the fierce beasts that once infested them, the Basilisks have for long centuries been the festering sore of the Summer Sea, inhabited only by corsairs, pirates, slavers, sellswords, murderers, and monsters, the worst of humanity. They come from every land beneath the sun, it is said, for only here can such men hope to find others of their own ilk.

—writings of Yandel

The swiftest ships he gave to Red Ralf Stonehouse to sail the corsair's road along the northern coast of Sothoryos. The dead cities rotting on that fervid, sweltering shore were best avoided, every seamen knew, but in the mud-and-blood towns of the Basilisks Isles, teeming with escaped slaves, slavers, skinners, whores, hunters, brindled men, and worse, there were always provisions to be had for men who were not afraid to pay the iron price.

—thoughts of Victarion Greyjoy