No maps can find these towns because they are of a temporary nature: every generation or so the Free Cities expend the effort to send great fleets to the Basilisks to destroy every pirate den and hang every man they find. Most famous of these is Port Plunder, along with others such as Sty and Whore's Gash. There are some settlements scattered across the Basilisks - muddy, ramshackle pirate towns where ships can hire new crews from the murderers found in every inn and tavern. Another, much smaller isle is Skull Island, an uninhabited rock where pirates dump the rotting skulls of victims they have decapitated. The largest of these is the Isle of Tears, where many captives from raids are kept in slave pens. There are about a dozen islands in the chain of the Basilisks. Euron Greyjoy also visited the Basilisk Isles with his ship numerous times during his many years away from the Iron Islands. Young Dalton traveled on reaving expeditions to the Basilisks with his uncle when he was only ten years old. One of the greatest leaders of the ironborn was Dalton Greyjoy, the Red Kraken, who led them during the Dance of the Dragons. After this ban, traveling all the way to the Basilisks to raid nearby shipping lanes increasingly became one of the few options left open to ironborn reavers.
After House Targaryen conquered and unified the Seven Kingdoms, they forbid the ironborn from raiding around the coasts of Westeros itself. Ironborn raiders have sought plunder and glory in the Basilisk Isles for many centuries, despite the Iron Islands being located very far to the west. They also make a great base for pirates going out on longer range attacks against the merchant fleets of the Summer Islands and Free Cities to the west, as well as Slaver's Bay and Qarth to the east, and even the occasional Ibbenese whaling ship that strays too far into southern waters. Thus the Basilisk Isles are an ideal resupply point for pirates operating in the Summer Sea. The Basilisk Isles are reasonably far away from the powers in the Free Cities or Slaver's Bay that might try to stop them, but at the same time close to the shipping lanes between these two regions, because they dip south to avoid the Valyrian peninsula: merchants (and even the pirates themselves) don't dare travel through the Smoking Sea, the shattered island chain that is all that remains of the southern end of the peninsula after the Doom of Valyria. Thus the Basilisk Isles truly are wretched hives of scum and villainy, where life is typically nasty, brutish, and short.
Criminals and cutthroats from all lands in the world come to the isles to seek their fortune. The Basilisks are truly lawless, infested by the absolute worst of the world's pirates, slavers, and mercenaries - the utter dregs of humanity. In contrast, the Basilisk Isles are infamously located at the extreme southern edge of the explored world, far from the centers of civilization, and not formally claimed by any realm.
Nonetheless the Stepstones are still on major shipping lanes and fairly close to major urban centers (indeed, the Free City of Tyrosh is located at the eastern end of the Stepstones). The Stepstones in the Narrow Sea are pirate dens because they are a border region located between several major powers (the rival Free Cities and Westeros itself), and thus constantly changing hands and rarely controlled by any one of them for long. This also puts them in a great position to serve as bases for slaver raids against tribes on mainland Sothoryos, as well as against the peaceful inhabitants of Naath island (located between the Basilisks and the Summer Islands farther west). They are located a considerable distance south across the Summer Sea, however, roughly the same distance south of Valyria as Valyria is south of Volantis.ĭue to their location off the northern coast of mainland Sothoryos, the Basilisk Isles are one of the few parts of that continent which have been explored - the mainland is primarily hostile tropical jungles. The Basilisks stretch across roughly the same east-west distance as Slaver's Bay, beginning southeast of Valyria's eastern shores and ending around the same longitude as Meereen. The Basilisk Isles are off the north coast of Sothoryos. A map showing the location of Sothoryos, in relation to the continents Westeros and Essos.
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