Locations of the Riverlands

Riverrun:

A strong three-sided castle, although not especially large. The castle is bordered on the north by the Tumblestone river and on the south by the Red Fork, while on the west a third side faces a massive man-made ditch. In time of danger the sluice gates can be opened to fill a wide moat and leave the castle surrounded on all three sides by water, turning Riverrun into an island and leaving it practically unassailable. It commands a view of many leagues.

The castle has sandstone walls which rise sheer from the water, its battlements are crenelated and have arrow loops, and its towers command the opposite shores. Riverrun's keep is located inside. Properly garrisoned, Riverrun can hold supplies for men and horses for as long as two years; a garrison of two hundred men is larger than Riverrun requires in most circumstances. Some guardsmen wear fish-crest helms.

The keep is triangular, like Riverrun itself, and the lord's solar is triangular as well with a stone balcony jutting eastwards. The solar can be reached by a spiral stairway.

The Great Hall is where large councils are held and the high seat of the Tullys sits.[4] There is a private audience chamber above the Great Hall with a high seat for the lord and a bell to ring for servants.

The dungeons of Riverrun are windowless, their doors heavy and made of wood and iron.

The Wheel Tower has a great waterwheel within it, which is turned by the Tumblestone whose waters go through it. It has ivy climbing alongside it, below it one makes a wide turn and ends up in churning waters. Eventually one can reach the Water Gate.

The Water Gate has a wide arch and a heavy iron portcullis, red with rust in its lower half. It is named so for being half in the water. One must use a boat to go through it. Many boats are tied up within the Water Gate, secured to iron rings in the walls. The water stair leads from the lower bailey up to the castle.

The godswood is a bright and airy garden, with redwoods, flowers, nesting birds, and streams. The godswood's heart tree is a slender carved weirwood.

The sept at Riverrun is a seven-sided sandstone building. The sept was built by Hoster Tully and set amidst the gardens that his wife Minisa Whent cherished. Inside, the images of the Seven Holies are painted on marble.

The Twins:

Sometimes known as the Crossing, they are the seat of House Frey in the northern Riverlands. It is a fortified crossing of the Green Fork of the Trident and consists of two identical castles and a tower in the middle of their bridge. This bridge is wide enough for two wagons to cross abreast, and is guarded by a tower in the middle known as the Water Tower. It is the only crossing point over the Green Fork for hundreds of miles in either direction, from the North to the western Riverlands. It lies directly athwart the main route from Winterfell to Riverrun.

The Freys held the crossing of the Green Fork for six hundred years. It took them three generations to complete the bridge, after which they built timber keeps on each bank of the river. Since then, the Freys have grown wealthy by charging a heavy toll on all those who need to cross - a fact which irks many older or more powerful houses. The timber keeps have since been replaced by stone. These castles are what give the stronghold its name, for they are identical. They have high curtain walls, deep moats and a barbican and portcullis in each. The bridge footings rise from within the inner keeps.

The seat of the Lord of the Crossing is a massive chair of black oak. Its back is carved in the shape of two towers joined by an arched bridge.

A generation ago, the Red Wedding took place at the Twins. There King Robb Stark and most of his bannermen were killed, including his own mother Lady Catelyn and his direwolf Grey Wind. The Freys cruelly cut off his head and attached his wolf's head to his body. This occurred despite the Stark host having guest right and the Freys have since fallen into dishonor and disrespect.

Harrenhal:

Harrenhal is the largest castle in the Seven Kingdoms and is the seat of House Whent in the Riverlands, on the north shore of the Gods Eye lake. Since the War of Conquest, however, it has become a dark and ruinous place. When Aegon the Conqueror came ashore, the walls of Harrenhal could not protect its creator, Harren the Black nor the rest of his line. Aegon's dragons roasted the man and his household alive inside the castle, and the walls have since had a melted appearance.

The castle has five towers of dizzying size, with equally monstrous curtain walls. The walls are incredibly thick and its rooms are built on a scale that would be more comfortable for giants than humans. The castle's holdings are some of the richest in Westeros, claiming vast tracts of green fertile land.

Harrenhal covers three times as much ground as Winterfell and its buildings are so much larger that they can scarcely be compared. Its stables can house a thousand horses, its godswood covers twenty acres, and its kitchens are as large as Winterfell's Great Hall. When it was built it could have potentially garrisoned a million men.

However, much of Harrenhal has far gone into decay. The Whents use only the lower thirds of two of the five towers, letting the rest go to ruin, and many places in the castle have not been entered in decades. Bats infest the tops of some of the towers.

The Five Towers:

   •  Tower of Dread
   •  Widow's Tower connects to the Kingspyre Tower via a stone bridge. Underneath there is a great cell that is used to keep prisoners.
   •  Wailing Tower contains storerooms on the ground floor and cavernous vaults beneath.
   •  Tower of Ghosts is near the postern gate and the ruined sept.
   •   Kingspyre Tower contains the castellan's chambers. It connects to the Widow's Tower via a stone bridge. It is so named for the fact that Harren the Black died in this tower.

Known Gates:

   •  The Main Gate has exceedingly thick walls.
   •  The East Gate is smaller than the Main Gate and is located near the Tower of Ghosts.


Castle Sections:
   •  The Hall of the Hundred Hearths is the castle's great hall. It has only thirty-four or thirty-five hearths, but is said to be able to entertain an army. Its floors are smooth slate and there are steps to two galleries above.

   •  The Kitchens are located in a round stone building with a domed roof containing nothing but kitchens. The kitchens are as large as Winterfell's Great Hall.

   •  The Barracks Hall above the armory is where the men-at-arms take their meals.

   •  The Armory is located below the Barracks Hall and contains the forge.

   •  The Godswood is walled over twenty acres. It has a small stream running through it. The heart tree appears to have a terrible visage full of hatred, with a twisted mouth and flaring eyes. It is located across the ward from where the Barracks Hall and the Armory are. The heart tree has 13 deep marks carved into it dating to 130AC when Daemon battled Aemond in the Dance of the Dragons. These marks still bleed every spring.

   •  Flowstone Yard is where men-at-arms exercise and drill and squires clean arms and armor. It has a lumpy surface and is located near the Wailing Tower. There is a covered gallery above the Flowstone Yard with arches looking towards it.

   •  The Bear Pit is ten yards across and five yards across, walled in stone, floored with sand, and encircled by six tiers of marble benches. It is located in the middle ward.

   •  The Bathhouse is a low-ceiling room filled with great stone tubs large enough to hold six or seven after the fashion of the Free Cities. The Bathhouse is made of stone and timber, with only one entrance to the room.

The Quiet Isle:

An upthrust island that sits at the mouth of the river Trident where it flows into the Bay of Crabs. It is a refuge for those sworn to the Faith of the Seven. The isle lies across the river to the south of Saltpans. Thick mudflats surround the island when the tide goes out. When the tide is in, the brothers residing on the isle use a ferry to get to the mainland.

Those who dwell on the Quiet Isle are male penitents, led by the Elder Brother. They seek to atone for their sins through contemplation, prayer, and silence. They are allowed to break silence when confessing. The brothers on the isle wear brown-and-dun robes, with wide bell sleeves and pointed cowls. Many brothers wind lengths of wool about the lower halves of their faces as well, so that all that can be seen of them are their eyes.

Only the Elder Brother and his proctors are permitted to speak on the island and the proctors only one day every seven. A vow of silence is an act of contrition, a sacrifice by which they prove their devotion to the Seven above. Occasionally some visitors are allowed to stay on the island, some are women who are sick, hurt or with child.

The Quiet Isle’s septry stands half a mile from the shore, where the wide mouth of the Trident widens further still to kiss the Bay of Crabs. When the tide goes out it goes out swiftly, the receding water leaving behind a broad expanse of glistening brown mudflats dotted by tidal pools that glitter like golden coins in the afternoon sun. Even from the other side of the shore the Quiet Isle’s prosperity is apparent.

The isle’s slopes are covered with terraced fields, with fishponds down below and a windmill above, its wood-and-sailcloth blades turn slowly in the breeze off the bay. Sheep graze on the hillside and storks wade in the shallow waters around the ferry landing. There is a whitewashed stable with a thatched roof.

The top of the hill has a low wall of unmortared stone encircling a cluster of buildings and a windmill. The wooden sept has leaded glass windows and wide doors carved with the likenesses of the Mother and Father and a seven-sided steeple.

To get to the island from the mainland by foot one must cross the mudflats when the tide is out. Only the faithful may cross safely. The wicked are swallowed by the quicksands, or drowned when the tide comes rushing in. Travelers must be careful there they set their feet, and it is recommended to follow someone familiar with the area.

The Path of Faith is a crooked one. Although the island seems to rise northeast of where someone would leave the shore, one must start due east, toward the deeper waters of the bay, which shimmer blue and silver in the distance. A hundred yards out the path turns abruptly towards the south, so that one's back is almost towards the septry. Proceed in that direction for another 100 yards, between two shallow tidal pools.

Brow of the Hill

The brow of the hill is crowned by a low wall of unmortared stone, encircling a cluster of large buildings:

• A windmill - its sails creek as they turn
• The cloisters - where the brothers sleep on pallets
• The common hall - where the brothers take their meals
• A wooden sept - for prayer and meditation, the sept has windows of leaded glass, wide doors carved with the likeness of the Mother and the Father, and a seven-sided steeple with a walk on top

Behind the sept is a vegetable garden where some of the older brothers pull weeds. Around a chestnut tree is a wooden door set in the side of the hill, “the Hermit’s Hole”.

Hermit's Hole

The Hermit's Hole is a cave is located in the side of a hill with a wooden door at its entrance. It is the original residence of the first holy man to live on the Quiet Isle roughly 2,000 years before the events of A Song of Ice and Fire. Currently the Elder Brother occupies the cave.

It is a warm, snug sanctum. Woolen carpets cover the ground, tapestries cover the walls. Tall beeswax candles give more than ample light. The furnishings are strange but simple. A long table, a settle, a chest, several tall cases full of books and chairs. All are made of driftwood, oddly shaped pieces cunningly joined together and polished till they shine a deep gold in the candlelight. There are cups carved from driftwood, no two are the same.

Women’s Cottages
Although women do not live on the Quiet Isle they are allowed there. There are some modest cottages set aside for the women who visit the isle, be they noble ladies or common village girls. The cottages are not often used but the brothers keep them clean and dry. On the Quiet Isle men and women do not sleep beneath the same roof unless they are wed.

The women’s cottages are on the east side of the isle, looking out over a broad expanse of mud and the distant waters of the Bay of Crabs. It is colder on the east side than on the sheltered side and wilder. The hill is steeper and the path meanders back and forth through weeds and briars, wind carved rocks, and twisted, thorny trees that cling tenaciously to the stony hillside. The fires of Saltpans can be seen across the bay on a clear night. The cottages look like beehives made of stone, low and rounded, windowless with smokeholes in the center of their roofs.

A typical cottage includes a dirt floor, a straw pallet, furs and blankets to keep her warm, a basin of water, a flagon of cider, some bread and cheese, a small fire and two low chairs.


Flotsam and Jetsam
Where the river meets the bay, the currents and tides wrestle, one against the other, and many strange and wondrous things are pushed toward the Quiet Isle. Driftwood is the least of it. The brothers have found silver cups, iron pots, sacks of wool and bolts of silk, rusted helms and shining swords and rubies. So far six rubies have been found, and the brothers are waiting for the seventh. Not all the rivers gifts are pleasant, the brothers collect the dead as well. Drowned cows, drowned deer, dead pigs swollen up to half the size of horses and corpses, rivermen, westermen, northmen, knights and knaves alike.

Oldstones:

The name given to the remnants of an ancient castle in the Riverlands that once belonged to House Mudd. Its original name has long been lost. The local smallfolk gave it its current name of "Oldstones". The ruined stronghold sits on a hill above the Blue Fork of the Trident. Nothing but its foundations remain and a sepulcher of the ancient River King Tristifer IV Mudd. The curtain wall of Oldstones once encircled the brow of the hill upon which it sits, like the crown on a king’s head. However only the foundation now remain and a few waist-high piles of crumbling stone spotted with lichen.

Its foundations remain amongst the weeds to show where the walls and keeps had once stood, but the local smallfolk had long ago made off with most of the stones to raise their barns and septs and holdfasts. The only remnants of the keep are mossy hummocks, behind which is the godswood. Where the gatehouse once stood the ruins are more extensive and a rider must dismount to lead their horse through them. Once inside the vanished walls the weeds are chest high.

Beneath the castle ruins, the lower slopes of the hill are thickly forested. There are gorse, bracken, thistle, sedge and blackberry bushes between pines and grey-green sentinels. Elsewhere skeletal elm, ash and scrub oaks choke the ground like weeds. The road up to Oldstones goes twice around the hill before reaching the summit. It is overgrown, stony and is slow going even in the best of times.

The sepulcher

At the center of what once would have been the castle’s yard, a great carved sepulcher still rests, half-hidden in the waist high brown grass amongst a stand of ash trees. The sepulcher entombs Tristifer, the Fourth in His Name, King of the Rivers and the Hills.

The lid of the sepulcher was carved into a likeness of the man whose bones lie beneath, but the rain and the wind has worn down the carving. Catelyn and Robb can see that the king had worn a beard, but otherwise his face is smooth and featureless with only the vague suggestions of a mouth, a nose, eyes and the crown about his temples.

The king’s hands are folded over the shaft of a stone warhammer that lies upon his chest. Once the warhammer would have been carved with the runes that told its name and history, but the runes have been worn away. The stone itself is cracked and crumbling at the corners and discolored here and there by spreading white splotches of lichen, while wild roses creep up over the king’s feet almost to his chest.

Saltpans: A town in the Riverlands that sits on the Bay of Crabs and is the seat of House Cox. Semi-canon sources also indicate that House Hawick is from the town. Saltpans has never been an important trading port but ships do call there from time to time. A small castle dominates the town, overlooking the harbor.

Fairmarket: A town in the Riverlands on the Blue Fork of the Trident. It is located mostly on the southern shore of the Blue Fork, but it has a wooden bridge that spans the river. Fairmarket is modestly sized and is five days travel from the Whispering Wood.

Maidenpool: A town in the Riverlands situated along the southern shore of the Bay of Crabs. The town takes its name from the pool where the legendary Florian first spied Jonquil bathing with her sisters (these two are featured in a popular legend). It is the seat of House Mooton. The castle at Maidenpool sits on a hill, and the town is walled. East of Maidenpool are hills. There are two roads leading to King's Landing from Maidenpool, one a faster road which goes through Duskendale and the other which travels along the coast. Maidenpool has a busy harbor and pink stone walls. Fisherfolk northwest of Maidenpool fish the waters in leather coracles, while others collect clams. The town has a tavern called the Stinking Goose and numerous inns, including one near the Fool's Gate. It also has a tower called Jonquil's Tower.

Stoney Sept: A walled town in the southern Riverlands. It is located south of Acorn Hall, southeast of Pinkmaiden, and north of the Goldroad. The headwaters of the Blackwater Rush are nearby. The sept sits on a hill. Below it is a holdfast made of grey stone that seems undersized for the town that surrounds it. The heart of Stoney Sept is a market square with a fountain in the shape of a leaping trout. A brothel known as the Peach is located on the east side of the market.

The Isle of Faces: A sacred island in the middle of the lake called the Gods Eye, located in the southeastern Riverlands. It is one of the few known locations of weirwoods in the south of Westeros, the others having been cut down and burned. At the end of the Dawn Age, following many centuries of fighting between them, this island is where the First Men and the children of the forest signed the Pact ending their wars against each other. In celebration, every weirwood on the island was given a face, so that the gods would witness the pact. With the signing of the Pact, the order of the Green Men was formed, to tend the last remaining weirwoods in the south.

Seagard: A town and castle in the Riverlands. It is the seat of House Mallister. Located on the western coast of the Riverlands along Ironman's Bay, Seagard is sheltered by the Cape of Eagles and is nestled near the headwaters of the Blue Fork. It is southwest of the Twins and northwest of Oldstones. The Booming Tower in the town is named for the immense bronze bell, used to call the townsfolk and others into the safety of the castle when longships are sighted. The Mallisters have a small fleet of six longships and two war galleys to defend the region.

High Heart: A very tall hill in the Riverlands. It was sacred to the children of the forest. Around its crown stands a ring of thirty-one weirwood stumps. The hill is considered a safe place due to its relative height compared to the very flat surrounding land, making it nearly impossible to be approached unseen. The nearby smallfolk avoid the area as it is said to be haunted by the children of the forest who had been slaughtered by the Andal king Erreg.

The Gods Eye: A large lake south of the Trident in the southern Riverlands. The great castle of Harrenhal and its town, Harrentown, sit astride its northern shore, while an unnamed town is along the southern shore. At its center is a lone island, the Isle of Faces, which was where the Pact between the children of the forest and the First Men was created. The warm water of the Gods Eye is blue and green. Among its feeder streams is the Rippledown Rill. Black swans live in the vicinity. The Gods Eye feeds a river that flows south to the Blackwater Rush. The holdfast of Briarwhite is south of the lake and east of the river.