House Qorgyle of Sandstone counts itself among the oldest Andal houses in Dorne. When the Andals swept across the narrow sea in the centuries before Aegon's Conquest, a band of adventurers pressed deep into the western sands where no settled lord had previously raised a keep. Finding the only well for fifty leagues in any direction, they fortified it and raised the castle they called Sandstone above the dunes. At the time of Nymeria's War, the Qorgyles were bannermen of House Yronwood, fighting beside King Yorick V Yronwood against Lord Mors Martell and Princess Nymeria. Their cause was lost, and following the Yronwood defeat the Qorgyles bent the knee to House Martell, becoming loyal vassals of Sunspear from that day forward.
The house's prominence grew through subsequent centuries, and their scorpion-haunted castle acquired a dark reputation. During the First Dornish War, Sandstone defied the Targaryens: Qorgyle spearmen cut down Lord Harlan Tyrell's foragers whenever they strayed too far west, and the castle was among those burned by Balerion and Vhagar in 9 AC, though House Qorgyle never submitted to the dragon king. Their keep also witnessed a notorious death when a visiting lord was killed by a canopy-full of red scorpions loosed above his bed. Whether Lord Qorgyle engineered the killing or was merely a reluctant host became the subject of competing accounts, including Maester Gareth's chronicle Red Sands. Prince Oberyn Martell was fostered at Sandstone as a boy, and a scion of the house later served as the 996th Lord Commander of the Night's Watch, holding that office until his death brought Jeor Mormont to command in 288 AC.
At the opening of A Game of Thrones, Sandstone is held by Lord Quentyn Qorgyle, whose eldest son and heir is Ser Gulian Qorgyle. His second son, Ser Arron Qorgyle, rides in the retinue of Prince Oberyn Martell when the prince travels to King's Landing for the wedding of King Joffrey I Baratheon.