House Celtigar of Claw Isle is one of the oldest houses in the Seven Kingdoms, its roots sunk in the Valyrian Freehold before the Doom. The Celtigars were not dragonlords, but they counted themselves among the Valyrian nobility, and they fled west across the narrow sea in the generations before the cataclysm, settling on the rocky isle off the cape called Crackclaw Point. When Aegon the Dragon crossed to Westeros, the Celtigars were well-placed to serve: Crispian Celtigar sat as master of coin under Aegon I himself, and the family's closeness to Dragonstone endured through the three centuries of Targaryen rule. During the Dance of the Dragons, Lord Bartimos Celtigar joined Queen Rhaenyra's black council and filled the same office for her cause.
At the opening of A Game of Thrones, the house is ruled by Lord Ardrian Celtigar, an old and sour man called the Red Crab, said to be consumed by avarice. His hall on Claw Isle is stuffed with the accumulated wealth of generations: Myrish carpets, Volantene glass, gold and silver plate, jeweled cups, a trained sea eagle, chests of rubies, and a Valyrian steel axe whose provenance reaches back beyond the Conquest. When Stannis Baratheon calls his banners after Joffrey's coronation, Celtigar answers, contributing the ornate galley Red Claw to the royal fleet. After the disaster at the Blackwater, Lord Ardrian is taken prisoner and bends the knee to the Iron Throne to secure his release.