Fortress of Tears
The largest and most southerly of the islands is the Isle of Tears, which is roughly 100 miles wide. This island consists of steep valleys, studded with dark bogs and rugged flint hills. On the south coast is a good anchorage, where, well over five thousand years ago (according to tradition), the Ghiscari founded the city of Gorgai. The Valyrians seized the city in the Third Ghiscari War and renamed it Gogossos, using it as a penal colony for centuries. After the Doom of Valyria, Gogossos grew powerful and rich on the slave trade, corsairs seizing captives from nearby Naath and the mainland of Sothoryos to sell in their thousands. After the fall of Essaria to the Dothraki, Gogossos was nicknamed the “Tenth Free City” and may have even become that in truth. But in 25 BC, seventy-seven years after the Doom of Valyria, the Red Death erupted in the slave pens. It swept across the Isle of Tears and then spread across the rest of them. It killed nine of every ten men, who died screaming, bleeding copiously from every body orifice, their skin shredding like wet parchment. Since most of the population was wiped out, the city of Gogossos and the entire island was abandoned. It stayed that way for centuries, shunned even by the pirates that eventually settled on the other islands until one fateful day a ship had run aground and a pale handsome man with black hair, neat dark beard and pale blue lips emerged from the sea.
The Crow-Eyed Krakens
The Pale Mare, as the ship was called, was a two-mast galley from Qarth commandeered there by a man going by the name of Urrathon Night-Walker. It sailed all the way from the spicers’ city with only one goal, and while its crew believed the goal was plunder, it actually was much sinister. As the cruel fate would have it, the man calling himself Urrathon in truth was none other than the infamous Euron Crow’s Eye from House Greyjoy, and he needed the crew of Pale Mare to die.
Euron’s goal was always chaos. Chaos and power. And probably the power of chaos. And where better to look for that than in the lost cursed city with a rich history of misery, death and blood magic? In order to awaken this dormand terror however Euron needed blood, and lots of it. So he did what any sensible psychopath would do. He bought a ship with a full crew and some spares, renamed the ship into the Pale Mare, because of course he did, and sailed towards his goal. His own ship, Silence, a single-mast galley with pitch-black sails and dark red hull, was always close behind, just barely out of sight.
When the Pale Mare finally reached the western harbour of the Isle of Tears, most of the crew was so sick they could barely stand. Curiously though their captain was seemingly unaffected and instead grew more and more energetic the closer they got to their final destination. When the land was in sight, Euron and a handful of his own men turned on their qartheen crew and managed to slaughter most of them, including the helmsman, while the orphaned Pale Mare drifted cluelessly into the morning fog. With a mournful crash it rammed onto the coral shallows and rested to a stop, blood pouring from atop her deck. While his men meticulously finished their gruesome work, the man who called himself Urrathon jumped into the now-red waters and quickly swam to shore.
What he found was even better than he hoped for. A sprawling ruing of a once-mighty city stretched out between the isle’s western and eastern harbours. In time, with lots of blood, sweat and tears (mostly that of slaves), this ruin would become the mighty fortress of Gogossos.
Two now absolutely enormous harbours, in addition to constantly producing whale and shark meat and other byproducts, are capable of constantly building, maintaining and repairing a suitably enormous fleet of formidable ships for war and occasional commerce alike.
Housing roughly eleven thousand fighting people alone, with an additional five thousand spread out around the city, it now poses a very significant threat to the whole Summer Sea.
Adding to the already worrisome situation, the entirety of the Basilisk Bay (excluding the Isle of Fleas far to the south-west) is now firmly under the rule of Gogossos, albeit none of the other isles can boast a number anywhere near its liege’s.
Of course in order to unite this traditionally troublesome region, Euron had to do something. So he did, mostly with his crew and his son Boremund, his first child with his Lioness, Cercei from House Lannister. All his other sons either died or left him to pursue their own goals and dreams, sometimes also a bit mad. All, that is, except for Qarl who was born just two years before Euron’s death.
Euron’s first order of business was to fortify the ruins immediate to the western harbour. With his base of operations secure, Euron then took his crew deeper into the ominous city, disappearing there for months. It proved worthy one day when a Valyrian Steel longsword, richly decorated with gold and dragonglass, was discovered in a dark room where the ancient Valyrians practised their secret magics. Euron coated the blade in basilisk venom, gathered his posse and ventured off the isle to visit all others. He proceeded to capture them one by one, some with force, some with words, and some with cunning.
After that was done, he gathered some driftwood from the shore of every isle now under his command and made himself an elaborate driftwood crown. His Lioness then placed it upon his head in the beginning of a week-long celebration filled with every sort of debauchery imaginable.
After too many years of terror on the high seas, the vile king Euron the Crow’s Eye finally died at the age of one-and-seventy from a festered wound.
His son Boremund is the current “king” in the Basilisk Bay. A man of unmatched physical prowess, he closely matches his father’s enigmatic charisma. However, quite opposite to his father, Boremund’s heart is lately the one of mercy and forgiveness - something that he often has to ask for himself due to his rather fiery temper, that one probably stemming from his mother. In his wrath he ordered the beheading of his kinswoman, Ghauda Greyrock, a deed that brought upon him the stain of kinslaying and still brings much stress and remorse into his mind.
In his youth Boremund has made a solid reputation in his own right, paying the iron price. In his youth he was a fearsome sight, clad in a thick steel plate and chainmail lined in sealskin, with the breastplate enamelled a deep black, the monstrous golden kraken House Greyjoy engraved upon it, with a single red eye made out of bloodstone. After his ascension however, the “king” does not participate in the reaving often enough, a flaw that made many of his subjects see him as an unworthy successor of the great and terrible Euron.
It is reported that Boremund is often seen twirling bone dice in his hands. These dice were made by his father Euron out of the bones of a woman named Naki, Euron’s myrish concubine and the mother of Lady Margot, the wife of the Lord of Myrish Flatlands, and late Master Toron Greymyr of Nymolis. When she started to age Euron set her aside, but upon discovering that she had been seeing another man he personally drowned them both. Euron often used these dice when making a decision. Boremund had never been observed actually casting the cursed things, he just twirls them every time he has to make a serious decision.
AI by me
What Boremund definitely inherited from both of his parents is their sexual appetites. With a cohort of women and their numerous broods, all of the isles are now ruled by Boremund’s progeny.
Alongside his wives Boremund had a literal harem of women.
His first concubine, Orana, in defiance had a child with one of Boremund’s sailors. He was advised to send her to the Whore’s Gash, but he refused, letting her stay with the sailor, but he too set her aside some time, leaving Orana distraught. She tragically died in the fifth month of her second pregnancy from what started as an ordinary flu, but turned out to be one of the region's most mind-boggling sicknesses - the rare Naathi butterfly plague. How she contracted this very rare disease is unclear. In a peculiar twist of fate, her son by the sailor is now married to Boremund’s daughter Minala.
Three other concubines bore Boremund’s children, some of whom were already covered in the appropriate previous Chapters (please refer to the Chapter on Lorath for more information on Lady Minelna and her daughters, Tansa and Voraria).
Boremund’s first lawfully wed wife, Chataya Kizwe, was stolen from her homeland of Naath and forced to marry him when they both were quite young.
She bore him six children, five of them survived to adulthood. When her husband eventually became infatuated with other women, she took her chance and ran away back home, but unfortunately she died there soon after under unknown circumstances.
While her three sons are happy playing lords on their respective isles, her older daughter Syrana fled all the way to Pyke and married a man named after her grandfather.
Chataya’s younger daughter however took too much after her father and is currently leading a fleet of her own against her kinsmen in Naath on the grounds of her rights as their Queen.
Two of her half-sisters, Aly and Thora, daughters of Boremund’s two different concubines, are in her active opposition. Aly was the first to flee to Naath where she married a handsome, kind man named Kosstellar Kizwe. He turned out to be a brother to the stolen Naathi Princess Chataya, Boremund’s first wife, and himself a literal Prince of Naath who now stands as the heir apparent to the Naathi Queen. Thora eventually followed her sister and also married a Prince, Retelen, brother to the ruling Queen. Unfortunately Aly contracted the local butterfly fever and although she survived this horrendous ordeal, her mind was broken. After the sudden death of Retelen’s pregnant mother and his father’s suspected subsequent suicide, the Prince’s mind was also shattered. Now each responsible for their loved one’s well being, Thora and Kosstellar seem to have formed a close friendship and the two families now live together to ease the burden of managing two unstable adults.
After the death of his first wife Boremund had a period of freedom, but later somewhat decided to get officially married once again.
His second wife Silaqna zo Grazdan is the sister of the current King of Ghis. In her youth she secretly married a lowborn servant, but he was quickly disposed of by her family and she was married off to the High Master of Yunkai as his second wife. Two years after her husband’s death in battle Silaqna had an affair with one of her little step-son’s lowborn accountants and gave birth to a daughter. The children grew up side by side and although he could not officially marry his step-mother’s bastard daughter, the new High Master of Yinkai made her his chief concubine.
Silaqna met Boremund when came to Yunkai to sell the exceptionally big haul of slaves. Silaqna was smitten by the dashing pirate king and desperately bored, so when Boremund woke up after a night of revelry and found her in his bed he was forced to marry her to avoid her brother’s and her step-son’s wrath. The pair has two children together, but it would seem that although Silaqna is still very much attracted to her husband, he does not share this sentiment at all.
The pair’s daughter Malaesa recently visited the Stepsones with one of her father’s crews and was noticed by the heir of The Southern Stepstones, Malaesa’s kinsman, Ragnal Greyjoy. He is a descendant from both the infamous Kraken’s daughter and from Malaesa’s grandfather, equally infamous Euron Crow’s Eye, with Malaesa being his granddaughter while Ragnal is his great-grandson. The young pair decided to marry and Malaesa stayed in the Grey Gallows.
One other daughter of Boremund that we must talk about before finally taking a look upon the rest of the isles is Jolfa, the Mad Mistress of Gogossos. Decidedly unmarried, she nonetheless entertained a lot of lovers throughout the years and unfortunately some of them were less savoury than the others, leaving Jolfa ridden with disease that clearly cost her too much. Her father nonetheless did not lose faith in his beloved daughter and still entertains her belief that she is his mistress of spies.
Now that we have met most of Boremund’s daughters, let us finally visit his sons.
