A Civil War Fought with Dragons
The Dance of the Dragons is the war that broke House Targaryen. When King Viserys I died in his sleep on the third day of the third moon of 129 AC, his widow Alicent Hightower and her council kept his death quiet for a week and crowned his eldest son, Aegon, in the Dragonpit. Viserys had named his daughter Rhaenyra his heir years before, and on Dragonstone she was crowned in turn. The queen's party wore green and the princess's wore the red and black of her house, so the two sides were called the Greens and the Blacks. For two years they fought over the Iron Throne with armies, fleets and, for the first and last time in Westerosi history, dragons against dragons.
This map follows the whole war as George R.R. Martin tells it in Fire & Blood. It is drawn on an embroidered-linen map of Westeros, in the manner of the opening titles of House of the Dragon. Every dragon is a small dragon-shaped token that flies its missions from place to place; every army is a disc that marches along the roads; every fleet is a little sailing ship. The land underneath is stitched in green or charcoal for the side that held it, and changes colour as castles and cities are taken.
Dragons and Envoys, 129 AC
The first moves were made by dragonriders. Rhaenyra's husband Daemon flew Caraxes to Harrenhal, whose castellan yielded the largest castle in Westeros without a fight; it became the rallying point of the river lords who declared for the Blacks. Her sons were sent as envoys: Jacaerys on Vermax to the Eyrie, White Harbor and Winterfell, where Cregan Stark promised the North in the Pact of Ice and Fire, and Lucerys on Arrax to Storm's End. There he found his uncle Aemond already betrothed to a daughter of Lord Borros Baratheon. Aemond followed him out over Shipbreaker Bay in a storm, and Vhagar, five times Arrax's size, killed boy and dragon. Daemon's answer was Blood and Cheese: two hired killers murdered Aegon's young heir Jaehaerys in the Red Keep. From then on it was a war of revenge.
The Greens had the larger lords: the Hightowers of Oldtown, the Lannisters of Casterly Rock and the Baratheons of Storm's End. The Blacks had more dragons, the Velaryon fleet that closed the Gullet to all shipping, the Vale and the North, and most of the riverlands, where the Blackwoods beat the Brackens at the Burning Mill and Daemon took Stone Hedge. In the autumn Ser Criston Cole marched out of King's Landing, sacked Duskendale and besieged Rook's Rest. Princess Rhaenys came to its relief on Meleys, and Aegon on Sunfyre and Aemond on Vhagar fell on her a thousand feet above the castle. Rhaenys and Meleys died; Aegon was burned and broken for a year, and Sunfyre was crippled. To replace the dragons they could not ride, the Blacks offered knighthood to anyone who could claim one, and four dragonseeds succeeded: Hugh Hammer, Ulf the White, Addam of Hull and a girl called Nettles.
The Year of the Blacks, 130 AC
On the fifth day of 130 AC ninety warships of the Triarchy fell on the Velaryon fleet in the Gullet. Five black dragons broke them, but Vermax flew too low and crashed into the sea, and Jacaerys, the heir, was killed. A fortnight later Ormund Hightower, trapped between two black armies on the Honeywine, was saved by Prince Daeron on Tessarion. In the riverlands the Lannister host crossed the Red Fork and lost its lord, then marched into a trap on the shore of the Gods Eye, where Roddy the Ruin's Winter Wolves and the river lords destroyed it in the Fishfeed, the bloodiest land battle of the war.
With Cole, Aemond and Vhagar away at an empty Harrenhal, Rhaenyra and Daemon appeared over King's Landing on their dragons while the Velaryon fleet landed an army, and the city fell in less than a day. Cole turned south to join the Hightowers and was ambushed among the corpse feasts at Crossed Elms: the Butcher's Ball, the high point of Rhaenyra's fortunes. Then everything went wrong for her. Aegon's last son, Maelor, was torn apart by a mob at Bitterbridge; at Tumbleton, Hugh Hammer and Ulf the White turned their cloaks and burned the town for the Greens; Aegon II, smuggled to Dragonstone, took her own seat with the crippled Sunfyre. On the twenty-second day of the fifth moon Daemon and Aemond killed each other above the Gods Eye, and a few days later the mob of King's Landing stormed the Dragonpit and killed every dragon in it. Rhaenyra fled the city she had held for half a year.
The End of the Dance, 130–131 AC
In the Second Battle of Tumbleton the rivermen and Addam on Seasmoke fell on the green camp at night; Daeron, Hugh, Seasmoke, Vermithor and Tessarion all died, and the great green army melted away. Lord Borros Baratheon took the leaderless capital for Aegon. Rhaenyra sold her crown for passage home, landed on Dragonstone and was fed to Sunfyre before her son on the twenty-second day of the tenth moon. Sunfyre died of his wounds that winter. But her cause outlived her: in 131 AC the Tully host marched on King's Landing, broke Borros at the Battle of the Kingsroad, and a day's march from the city found that Aegon II had been poisoned. Cregan Stark arrived with the North too late to fight, ruled the capital for six days, the Hour of the Wolf, and Rhaenyra's son was crowned Aegon III. On the seventh day of the seventh moon he married Aegon II's daughter, and the Dance was over.
How to Read the Map
Green is the Greens of Aegon II and charcoal the Blacks of Rhaenyra; the paler charcoal of the North and the Vale marks lands that declared for her but sent few men until the last months. Teal is the Ironborn of Dalton Greyjoy, the Red Kraken, who sided with Rhaenyra mainly as an excuse to raid the green west, and gold is the realm reunited under Aegon III at the end. Bare linen is neutral: Dorne, the Tyrells of Highgarden, and Riverrun until House Tully joined the war. Dragons are named after the beast with the rider in brackets, so you can follow Vhagar from Storm's End to the Gods Eye; a dragon is still drawn on the keyframe of its last fight and gone on the next. Armies and fleets are coloured by side, and the Two Betrayers change colour at Tumbleton. Large pins mark the turning points, small dots the smaller events around them.
Fire & Blood gives only a handful of exact days: Viserys's death, the Battle of the Gullet, the Battle Above the Gods Eye, Rhaenyra's death and Sunfyre's death, plus Aegon III's wedding. Everything in between is placed by the book's own relative cues (nine days after Lord Staunton's raven, a fortnight after the Gullet, a nineteen-day march to Harrenhal, three days after the Red Fork, the fourteenth day at Harrenhal) and by travel times on the map, the way fan chronologies of the Dance do it. Westerosi moons are read as calendar months, so the third day of the third moon of 129 AC is 3 March 129. Where the book only says 'late 129' or 'early 130', the date is a reconstruction.
The Book and the Show
The map follows the book, and House of the Dragon tells the same war differently. In the show Viserys's misheard words about Aegon the Conqueror's dream make Alicent believe he wanted their son on the throne; in the book the Greens simply seize it. In the show Lucerys dies because Vhagar stops obeying Aemond; in the book Aemond chases him down on purpose. Blood and Cheese's victim is the same, but the show drops the cruel choice Helaena is given between her sons, and Prince Maelor does not exist in it at all, so there is no Bitterbridge. At Rook's Rest the show strongly hints that Aemond meant to kill his brother Aegon. The third season opens with the Battle of the Gullet, where Rhaena claims Sheepstealer instead of Nettles, who does not appear, and Hugh, Ulf and Addam are sent after Aemond instead of fighting at the Gullet. None of that is on the map.
How the Map Was Made
The routes come from dated itineraries for about forty dragon flights, armies and fleets, each waypoint marked as documented in Fire & Blood, reconstructed, disputed or inferred, with the events checked against A Wiki of Ice and Fire. Places that are not on the base map, such as Driftmark, the Gullet, the field of the Butcher's Ball and the shore of the Fishfeed, are estimated from the book's geography. The tools are the same as for our Game of Thrones war map: routes over land and sea on a grid, castle-sized pieces of land for the territory, and an automatic check that every army is where the research puts it and every castle has the right colour on every keyframe. The basemap is the fan-made Westeros map data by cadaei, after maps by Tear, theMountainGoat, Werthead and Other-in-Law, released under CC BY-NC-SA 3.0. The world of A Song of Ice and Fire is copyright George R.R. Martin. This is a non-commercial fan map, not affiliated with or endorsed by HBO or George R.R. Martin, and it may not be used commercially.
Chronological Timeline
- 3rd day of the 3rd moon, 129 AC — Viserys I dies in King's Landing
- 10th day of the 3rd moon, 129 AC — Aegon II crowned in the Dragonpit
- 129 AC — Rhaenyra crowned on Dragonstone
- 129 AC — Daemon takes Harrenhal; Jacaerys wins the Vale and the North
- 129 AC — Lucerys and Arrax killed by Vhagar over Shipbreaker Bay
- 129 AC — Blood and Cheese murder Prince Jaehaerys
- 129 AC — Battle of the Burning Mill; Daemon takes Stone Hedge
- Late 129 AC — Sack of Duskendale; Battle at Rook's Rest, death of Rhaenys
- Late 129 AC — The Sowing of the Seeds on Dragonstone
- 5th day of the 1st moon, 130 AC — Battle of the Gullet; Jacaerys killed
- 130 AC — Battle of the Honeywine; Battle at the Red Fork
- 130 AC — Fall of King's Landing to Rhaenyra
- 130 AC — Battle by the Lakeshore (the Fishfeed); the Butcher's Ball, death of Criston Cole
- 130 AC — Maelor killed and Bitterbridge burned; First Battle of Tumbleton; fall of Dragonstone
- 22nd day of the 5th moon, 130 AC — Battle Above the Gods Eye; Daemon and Aemond killed
- 130 AC — Storming of the Dragonpit; Rhaenyra flees King's Landing
- 130 AC — Second Battle of Tumbleton; Borros Baratheon takes King's Landing
- 22nd day of the 10th moon, 130 AC — Rhaenyra fed to Sunfyre on Dragonstone
- 9th day of the 12th moon, 130 AC — Sunfyre dies
- 131 AC — Battle of the Kingsroad; Aegon II poisoned
- 131 AC — The Hour of the Wolf; Aegon III crowned
- 7th day of the 7th moon, 131 AC — Aegon III marries Jaehaera
This is a free, non-commercial fan map. You can watch it, embed it as an interactive widget on your own website, or export it as an animated GIF, as long as it is not used commercially and the credit stays visible.
Explore the full interactive map →Frequently asked questions
- What was the Dance of the Dragons?
- The Targaryen civil war of 129–131 AC in George R.R. Martin's Fire & Blood. When King Viserys I died, his council crowned his son Aegon II instead of his named heir, his daughter Rhaenyra. Aegon's supporters were called the Greens and Rhaenyra's the Blacks. The war killed both claimants and most of the dragons, and ended with Rhaenyra's son crowned as Aegon III.
- Who won the Dance of the Dragons?
- Neither claimant survived it. Rhaenyra took King's Landing in 130 AC but lost it within half a year and was fed to Sunfyre on Dragonstone. Aegon II retook the throne but was poisoned in 131 AC as the Blacks' armies closed on the capital. Rhaenyra's son became King Aegon III and married Aegon II's daughter Jaehaera, so in the end the Blacks' line took the throne.
- Where did Daemon and Aemond die?
- Above the Gods Eye, the lake south of Harrenhal, on the twenty-second day of the fifth moon of 130 AC. Daemon waited thirteen days at Harrenhal; on the fourteenth Aemond came on Vhagar. Locked together, the two dragons fell into the lake, and by the tales Daemon drove Dark Sister through Aemond's eye before they struck the water.
- Which dragons died in the Dance of the Dragons?
- Most of them. Arrax died over Shipbreaker Bay, Meleys at Rook's Rest, Vermax in the Battle of the Gullet, Stormcloud of his wounds, Grey Ghost and Moondancer on Dragonstone, Caraxes and Vhagar above the Gods Eye, Syrax, Tyraxes, Dreamfyre, Shrykos and Morghul at the Storming of the Dragonpit, Seasmoke, Vermithor and Tessarion at the Second Battle of Tumbleton, and Sunfyre of his wounds at the end of 130 AC.
- Does the map follow Fire & Blood or House of the Dragon?
- Fire & Blood. The show changes many details, among them how Lucerys dies, what happens at Rook's Rest and who rides Sheepstealer, and it leaves out characters such as Prince Maelor. The map shows the book's version; the main differences are described in the article.
- Is there an animated map of the Dance of the Dragons?
- Yes. Moving Polygons has an animated map of the Dance of the Dragons on an embroidered-linen map of Westeros: dragons fly between places as dragon tokens, armies march as discs, fleets sail as ships, and the land is coloured green or black as it changes hands, with pins for the battles and deaths. It is a free, non-commercial fan map: you can watch it, embed it and export it as an animated GIF.
Text version of the map (timeline, layers and events): Markdown