Reckoned one of the wisest of the Greyjoys, Quellon ruled Pyke for the better part of fifty years and spent them trying to drag the Iron Islands into the Seven Kingdoms by main force. He freed thralls, forbade the worst of the reaving, discouraged the taking of salt wives, encouraged marriages with the green lands, and brought maesters from Oldtown to teach his children their letters. Nine sons were born to him by three wives (Lady Stonetree, Lady Sunderly, and Lady Piper), but only four lived to manhood, all of them by Sunderly: Balon, Euron, Victarion, and Aeron.
His reforms died with him. Old and ailing through most of Robert's Rebellion, he was finally persuaded by his eldest sons to throw fifty longships against the Reach after the Trident, and was killed in the Mander's mouth in a small fight with the Shield Islands in 283 AC. The Seastone Chair passed to Balon, who undid in a season what his father had spent a lifetime building.