Just a backup in advance of the detumblring
Unlikely. Robb’s offer of peace describes his kingdom as incorporating:
“…all the Stark lands north of the Neck, and in addition the lands watered by the River Trident and its vassal streams, bounded by the Golden Tooth to the west and the Mountains of the Moon in the east.“
If Robb had seized the Golden Tooth in battle, it might have been a different story, but it doesn’t seem like he was making any claim on that particular castle.
Well, it’s not entirely clear who the land at the confluence of the RedFork and the Blue Fork belongs to. There aren’t a lot of noble houses listed in that area – there’s the Mallisters up on the coast, but Oldstones does not have a ruling house (hence the whole business with Jenny), there’s no known ruling house of Fairmarket, and the only other named house from that region are the Blackwoods, and they seem to be center more to the west (directly north of Riverrun). If the land is not currently occupied by a ruling house, than the law of escheat says it reverts back to the liege lord.
As to whether you need permission to build a castle and start charging a toll, there isn’t explicit text either way. However, if King Daeron II had the authority to give Daemon Blackfyre the right to build a castle in the Crownlands, my guess would be that the Lord Paramount of the Riverlands has the authority to grant a license to build a castle on its own lands. And the same logic would likely hold for tolls, given that it wouldn’t be interfering with a royal highway and if a lesser Houses like the Freys can charge tolls for bridges I would imagine the same would apply for their liege lords.
How long would it take to build a castle like Riverrun 2 and what would you call it?
Years if not decades, based on historical examples. As for a name, @goodqueenaly suggests “The Tines,” since the tine is the sharp point of the Trident and this castle would be a strongpoint on the Trident. Also, it’s a nice echoing of “The Twins,” another bridge-castle of the Riverlands.
Good question!
For the most part, I would imagine that these towns would be primarily commercial: Seagard is a port serving the trade along the Sunset Sea, Saltpans (to a lesser extent than Maidenpool) serves trade along the Trident and the Bay of Crabs, Fairmarket is a market town with a bridge that allows one to travel from Riverrun to Seagard or the Twins and vice versa, and Lord Harroway’s Town is located at the Ruby Ford over the Green Fork and close by to the crossroads of the Kingsroad, the River road, and the High Road.
Beyond that, we know that Ironman’s Bay is teeming with fish, so I would imagine that Seagard would have a fishing industry as well. We know that Saltpans also has a fishing industry, and as we know from the name flat salt pans (likely due to extensive shallows at the estuary where the freshwater Trident meets the saltwater Bay of Crabs) where salt is mass-produced and sold to Essos. Associated with that, Saltpans likely also has a significant salting industry, where fresh fish are preserved so that they can be stored longer and thus sold further afield.
In terms of other industries, I would start with industries that process agricultural resources: we know that the Riverlands produces some wine, so there’s probably coopers making barrels to hold the wine; we know that the Riverlands produces a lot of cattle, so you probably have (in addition to cattle markets) butchers, cheesemakers, and tanners and leatherworkers; we know that lots of grain is grown and traded in the Riverlands, so you need millers and bakers. After that, I would guess that between all the rivers and roads, the Riverlands also has a lot of industries that are associated with transportation: in addition to merchants, teamsters, longshoremen, porters and warehouse workers, ferrymen, and sailors, you probably also have a lot of boatwrights, cartwrights, wheelwrights, and blacksmiths who manufacture and repair the boats and wagons that carry the goods on land and water.
Good question!
If I had to guess, Robb’s terminology is based on a historic formulation of the boundaries of the Riverlands, which tended to be somewhat more fluid than those of other kingdoms.
Prior to the advent of modern surveying techniques, natural features tended to be used quite a bit as boundary markers – hence part of the reason for the Mexican-American War was that Mexico and the U.S disagreed whether the U.S/Mexico border was at the Rio Grande River or the Nueces River, or why France historically tried to expand its borders to the Alps, the Pyrenees, and the Rhine even though its linguistic borders are considerably to the west, and why the Germans tried to do the same for the territory between the Rhine and the Danube.
Moreover, the phrase that Robb uses is somewhat more complex: it’s the lands “watered by the River Trident and its vassal streams (emphasis mine).” To figure out what he means by this requires looking at a map:
Note that the Trident and its vassal streams snake up to that disputed territory between Greywater Watch and the Twins in the north, and significantly into the Westerlands territory up by Ashmark and Hornvale if you compare it to the political maps (hence why he’s also claiming the Golden Tooth), it might even include Wickenden in the Vale if you push if far enough.
The bigger issue is what about that territory between the Red Fork and the Narrow Sea south of the Trident? Well, arguably it’s “watered” by the eastern bank of the Red Fork from the Mummer’s Ford north to Riverrun along its western border and then again on the southern bank of the Red Fork from Riverrun to Darry, and then you have the Trident Proper which runs from Darry to Maidenpool all the way out to Cracklaw Point (which historically was something of a border territory). Harrenhal down to Stony Sept would be a bit tricky, since Harrenhal itself isn’t bordered by the Trident (although its lands probably are). Likewise, where does the waterline end: Antlers? Sow’s Horn? Duskendale? (It was once part of the Riverlands, after all.)
I think anything’s possible, and certainly there have been periods of stronger and weaker Kingdoms of the Rivers and Hills.
I think a couple different things would be necessary for a Riverlander King to become dominant:
Here’s my thinking…
King of the Trident is probably the oldest title, a bit like Kings of Winter. It represents a claim to the defensible interior of the Riverlands, the part that would have been the hardest for the Westerlands or the Vale or the Reach etc. to conquer.
King of the Rivers and Hills is a more expansive title. The Hills portion represents a claim to the hill country that runs from Pinkmaiden to Harrenhal, the portion I’ve described as the “southern Riverlands,” which is the vulnerable underbelly of the kingdom because it’s not sheltered behind the riverrine walls of the Trident. The Rivers portion is not only a repetition of the claim to the Trident, but also a maximalist claim to all the rivers of the Kingdom, including the God’s Eye River and the Blackwater Rush, and thus might well represent a claim on the northern Crownlands, since King’s Landing and Rosby (and Duskendale, conquered by Benedict II, who may have been the first to use that title) are quite close to the Rush, Cracklaw Point is quite close to Maidenpool and borders on the Trident as it opens into the Bay of Crabs, etc.
River King is the colloquial term. If the two above are the titles that a Justman monarch’s court would use, I imagine River King would be the term used by the smallfolk or by foreigners to differentiate these kings from the many other kings of Westeros.
Well, keep in mind that the rivers somewhat act against the roads, because you need to cross the rivers at a ford or bridge, and that provides a natural funnel-point that defenders can use against you, as we’ve seen with the Battle of the Fords.
I would say that there are mechanisms for moderating the potential threat from a road network: first, use a riverrine navy to ensure that you have the better interior lines, second, build castles at strategic points along the road network to slow the enemy’s progress and whittle down their numbers through multiple sieges, third, build a lot of swing bridges on crossing points so that you can maximize your own flexibility vis-a-vis travel on road vs. travel on water and potentially cut off your enemy by denying them a crossing.
I think it’s more vast than you think, given how many different areas of land it includes:
Lord Jonos drained the last of his ale and tossed the horn aside. “What of the lands and castles we were promised?”
“What lands were these?”
“The east bank of the Widow’s Wash, from Crossbow Ridge to Rutting Meadow, and all the islands in the stream. Grindcorn Mill and Lord’s Mill, the ruins of Muddy Hall, the Ravishment, Battle Valley, Oldforge, the villages of Buckle, Blackbuckle, Cairns, and Claypool, and the market town at Mudgrave. Waspwood, Lorgen’s Wood, Greenhill, and Barba’s Teats. Missy’s Teats, the Blackwoods call them, but they were Barba’s first. Honeytree and all the hives. Here, I’ve marked them out if my lord would like a look.” He rooted about on a table and produced a parchment map.
Jaime took it with his good hand, but he had to use the gold to open it and hold it flat. “This is a deal of land,” he observed. “You will be increasing your domains by a quarter.”
Bracken’s mouth set stubbornly. “All these lands belonged to Stone Hedge once. The Blackwoods stole them from us.”
“What about this village here, between the Teats?” Jaime tapped the map with a gilded knuckle.
“Pennytree. That was ours once too, but it’s been a royal fief for a hundred years. Leave that out. We ask only for the lands stolen by the Blackwoods. Your lord father promised to restore them to us if we would subdue Lord Tytos for him.”
The entire bank of a river, two ruined strongholds and one ruined town, a valley, four villages (maybe five depending on whether Honeytree is a village, a town, or a stronghold), a market town, two woods, three hills…and all of this is just the disputed lands between House Bracken and House Blackwood that would represent a fourth of House Bracken’s current holdings.
To me, this suggests that House Blackwood probably holds most of the lands between the Red Fork and the Blue Fork (there’s not a lot of other Houses from that region – notably Fairmarket and Oldstones don’t seem to have houses associated with them) and a fair bit of land on the southern bank of the Red Fork, given Lord Bracken’s complaints. For their part, I think House Bracken controls most or all of the hill country east of Pinkmaiden and west of Harrenhal and from the south bank of the Red Fork to however far north Harrenhal’s demense runs.
In other words, between them the Bracken and Blackwoods likely control most of the central Riverlands, making them extremely difficult to control, especially if they temporarily band together against an outside intervention.
Good question!
As discussed here, I would guess based on the story that the Justman seat and lands would be on the Red Fork between Stone Hedge and Raventree Hall, both because Benedict Justman’s support was initially from the houses of his mother and father, and because putting himself physically in between the Brackens and Blackwoods is probably the only way to keep them from fighting.
So I would imagine that the castle proper is on an island in the middle of the river overlooking a major ford over the Red Fork, but also controls lands on both banks. As for the name, I kind of like Scales – it follows from House Justman’s sigil, but it also works to allude to the fishes in the Red Fork and that general Trident vibe.
This is a bit of fanon that annoys me. The Riverlands has natural defenses: they’re called rivers. It doesn’t have defensible borders or boundaries, in the sense that the Riverlands has lands outside of its rivers to the west, south, north, and east, and that rivers are easier to cross than the Neck or the Mountains of the Moon, but that’s not the same thing.
However, as history has shown time and again, when Riverlanders pursue a strategy of defense-in-depth as opposed to perimeter defense, they can easily deal with invaders: this is true whether you examine Arrec Durrandon’s campaign that led to the Battle of Fairmarket, the downright miraculous campaigns during the Dance of the Dragons against the Westermen, the Reachermen, and the Stormlanders, or the Battle of the Fords during the War of Five Kings.
So if the North adopted an effective administration (with support from the political community of the Riverlands) that built up a riverrine navy, used the rivers to gain the superior mobility of interior lines and to force any invader into fighting at chokepoints where you have a huge defensive advantage, and was willing enough to retreat back to the inner lines of the Trident when necessary, I think the North could hang onto the Riverlands, even if pressed, for an extended period of time.
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