Synopsis ▔▔▔▔▔ One of the seven great houses of Westeros, the Tyrells of Highgarden have been the wardens of the Reach since the conquest of Aegon Targaryan. Due to vast tracks of fertile lands and the enterprising houses sworn to them, the Tyrells are now one of the most wealthy of great houses save their Lannister cousins to the west. With the economic center of Oldtown, the fleets of the Abor and Shield islands and vast green fields to feed it, the Reach stands apart from the other, more specialized parts of the kingdom.
From the later part of Joffrey's reign to the current Lord of the Seven Kingdoms, the Tyrell's have been consolidating power within King's landing, especially from the long career of Quentin Tyrell as a statesmen. Now the Lord of Highgarden is Hand to the King, and a Hightower his wife. If King's landing was the mind of Westeros, than the Reach and Oldtown had become it's heart in the last half century.
But the good fortune of the Reach has made more than just the Tyrell's ambitious, the Hightower's now rival other great houses in prestige and wealth, and the shipyards of the Arbor add more Galleys to the Redwyne's personal fleet everyday. Without the Paramount present in Highgarden the general unity of the Reach is its lowest in centuries while its power within the kingdom greater has never seen such heights.
The power structure of the Tyrell family is essentially a shared power center between Cassana and Quentin. Quentin is the traditional center of power of the Reach and has a tremendous amount of influence there from his long tenure as warden of the south. However, as Hand Of the King and now being based in Kings-Landing Quentin’s current political powerbase has moved from the Reach to encompass allies all over Westeros. Cassana has become a matriarch and political strategist from within the walls of High-Garden in classical Tyrell fashion. Cassana's role has been increasingly to ensure the minor Reach nobles loyalty as a precaution to the growing Redwyne and Hightower influences throughout the Reach.
Realm ▔▔▔▔▔ The Reach is the second wealthiest region in the Seven Kingdoms behind the westerlands, but it is the most fertile region. Among the products it produces are melons, fireplums, peaches, apples, and grapes. The Arbor is said to make the finest of wines, from dry fruity reds to a rich golden vintage. Woodharps made in Oldtown are highly sought after.
Quentin's stewardship of the Reach focussed on improving agricultural practices and the standardization and maintenance to the various different road networks of varying quality that covered the Reach. The Roseroad that ran to kings landing, was joined by the Tuliproad that connected the Reach to the Stormlands and the Poppyroad which cuts through the Red Mountains into Dorne. These improvements have made the lives of the common-people dramatically, creating wealth and safety within the land but at the cost of strengthening and enriching the local lordship further.
The Tyrell's if needed could potentially raise over 70,000 men to defend the Reach and over 200 ships mostly from the Redwyne Fleet and Shield islands if needed. However, a steadily increasing percentage of those numbers belong to houses such as the Florents and the Hightowers whom have a tense relationship with the Tyrell's currently.
Important Members ▔▔▔▔▔
Name ▔▔▔▔▔ Quentin Tyrell
Age ▔▔▔▔▔ 65
Reputation ▔▔▔▔▔ TBC
History ▔▔▔▔▔ Often referred to as the “Oak tree of the High-Garden” Quentin Tyrell lacks the foolish flowery personality, a trait many of the Tyrell men possess. Quentin Tyrell’s father, Willas Tyrell was committed to his work as warden of the south and had kept the reach in relatively the same condition his father, Mace Tyrell had been known for before him.
Quentin started his lordship quite young, Willas having only one son late in his life meant that Quentin controlled an extreme amount of unquestioned power at a young age. He used this power and the ambition of youth to build roads, improve farms, fortifying the lords and towns by selling food to people all throughout Westeros. Quentin’s competency in management and a political marriage between himself and the King’s sister, Cassana skyrocketed Quentin to a position of power unseen by a Tyrell since during the time of Robert’s Rebellion.
Quentin was put on the small council as the master of coin at just 32 years and with careful accounting and a few tactical privateer raids, the young lord was able to pull Westeros out of a large portion of their debt with the iron bank and use the coin from the long summer and political stability amassed in the king's treasury to improve conditions in king's landing and the other major cities. After several years in the courts of the red-keep and the birth of his first daughter Mary. Quentin and his family returned to High-garden and the Tyrell’s for a while focused on their responsibilities as wardens of the south.
In this time Quentin would have his first son Leon, and the love Cassana felt for this child created a loyalty to the Tyrells that transcended the politics of the marriage itself. Through the help of Cassana Quentin would come to be known as a kind of ‘gardener of the reach’, tending to his land through a close examination of the noble houses, nurturing the effective families loyal to the Tyrells’, and ‘pruning’ the noble families that had become complacent or ambitious in their duties and position.
Through his continued service of the crown and the long summer’s continued blessing of the reach, the warden of the South became the hand of the king in 360AC after Kings Ores previous hand had died of natural causes. A contentious choice by much of the King’s small Council at the time Ores appreciated Quentin’s tendency to nurture and maintain as opposed to the more ambitious and selfish personalities that dominated the courts of kings landing. Ores and Quentin quickly went to work trying to apply his strategy of tenderness, stability and growth that had kept the Reach so peaceful to the entirety of Westeros and in a lot of ways Westeros prospered. Quentin’s running of a kingdom could be compared to a custodian of a large grounds, with an organised precision and an almost ceaseless stamina.
When Orys died, Quentin was tasked with helping the new king Galladon. More a boy than a king, Quentin gained even more responsibility in running the kingdom, but his hands were experienced now, and it seemed that this summer could last his entire life.
Then the king decided to go to war. Quentin begged the king not to invade Essos and join the coalition. To meet with New Valyria and broker peace so that blood would not be spilt in Westeros.
Galladon however, saw the Targaryan threat as too great. And when the king orders the hand obeys.
Name ▔▔▔▔▔ Cassana Tyrell
Age ▔▔▔▔▔ 55
Reputation ▔▔▔▔▔ TBC
History ▔▔▔▔▔ Born the a second Daughter to Joffrey and Sansa Baratheon, Cassana’s early life would be somewhat of a beautiful dream. But Cassana grew up to resent the cruelness of her father and the lies and deceit of Kings Landing. At 23 years she was married off to Quentin Tyrell to re-secure the relationship between the Tyrells and the Baratheon’s once it was realised that Quentin possessed a lot more political tenacity and strategic thinking then his soft-hearted father Willas. She was depressed at her use as a political pawn but was at least glad the period of courting was over in her life. And this was the type of attitude Cassana was known for, the manners and etiquette to suit only a princess of the Iron throne and a world view as bleak as a soldier veteran to half a dozen wars.
At this point Quentin was still the master of coin and she was still trapped in the confines of her father’s and eventually brothers court. Even the birth of her first child, Mary Tyrell would not even pull her from the melancholy she was now famous for. Like most Tyrell men, Quentin had an uncommon respect for the gentler sex. Realizing that a lot of her mood stemmed from the animosity she held towards the Baratheon’s of Kings Landing and the type of people that frequently inhabited the courts of the Red Keep, Quentin took his wife and young daughter back to Highgarden.
Like the flowers the keep is known for, Cassana blossomed beautifully there. Gaining for the first time in her life the autonomy she had desperately needed and a more genuine form of respected she had desperately craved for back in king’s landing. Happiness had finally come to the women, but her pragmatism remained. Her skills in a courtly setting allowed her to quickly gain a strong foothold in the Reach, and her relation to the Martells through the Baratheon of King’s landing made her particularly useful in handling border matters with the Dornish.
At a certain point, after she had proved herself a capable matriarch of High Garden, the gods blessed her with her first son Leon. Leon was all she could ever hope for a child and through him she became loyal to the Tyrell’s absolutely. Which would prove to be quite the necessity a decade later as Quentin, requested by the king, accepted the role of hand to King Orys Baratheon.
Cassana stayed in High Garden to watch over the Reach for her husband, who had worked so hard to ensure the people he wardened over prospered. Quentin left for King’s Landing with Mary, leaving her and his young son to rule over The Reach in his absence. For the first decade or so of Leo's life Cassana had a monopoly over the influences her son had access to. She molded her son into a polite, socially aware boy that had mastered courtly etiquette and had a working understanding of how to maneuver and achieve goals in this setting.
When leo was organised to squire under Ser Belric Hightower...
Name ▔▔▔▔▔ Mina Redwyne
Age ▔▔▔▔▔ 25
Reputation ▔▔▔▔▔ TBC
History ▔▔▔▔▔ TBC
Name ▔▔▔▔▔ Leo Tyrell
Age ▔▔▔▔▔ 20
Reputation ▔▔▔▔▔ TBC
History ▔▔▔▔▔ History: Born during a beautiful flower blooming within the walls High Garden. The birth of Leo Tyrell, heir to the High Marshallacy of the Reach was celebrated all over the South. With such a weak Baratheon bloodline at this point the blood of Garth the Gardener created a classic garden prince, with only the slight traces of his Baratheon/Stark mother in a face that often resembles melancholy when at rest. With Cassana being so old and having not produced a male heir yet Leo's birth was hailed as a miracle from the seven and marked by one of the greatest tournaments the Reach had seen, with a notable performance from a young Belric Hightower. Who was knighted and assigned as a companion to the
Attractive, kind, charismatic Leo became a favourite of the court by the time he finished his pageship with Ser Alec Fossoway, a notable knight of Highgarden and the wider Reach. Leo’s time as a child was split between two powerful and at times conflicting personalities. The cunning melancholy of Cassana, which shows in his tendency to manipulate through charm and vanity and the noble code of chivalry upheld by Fossooway.
As per fit a family whose wealth is vaster than all save for a family who have literally been rumored to shit gold, Leo’s pageship was more a tutorship in the finer arts of Westeros and other activities befitting a future Warden of the South. He was taught high-valeryian on top of literacy and numeracy. However it was his combat and physical skills that impressed his father the most, and despite his reputation almost blacklisting him from stepping foot in Highgarden, Quentin Tyrell sent for Ser Belric Hightower to take his son as a squire.
A prince of one of the richest kingdoms in Westeros to squire for a half-mad hedge-knight who was known to wear a bag over his head was an odd decision for Quentin Tyrell to make. But Quentin had seen several times just how unmatched in a blade Belric truly was, and knew his son had the raw talent to thrive from Belric's... unconventional methods of teaching. It also allowed him to ally himself with a disgruntled son of the Hightowers, should Quentin ever need it.
Leo's squireship was an eventful one, and Belric saw to it that even in one of the most peaceful times seen in Westeros, Leo regularly saw bloodshed. Leo and Belric obsessively hunted bandit gangs all over the Reach, so that Leo could learn about the lands he would one day rule and to gain as much experience with deadly combat as possible. The only heir to the Reach squiring for an insane hedge knight obviously created alot of protest in the court especially from Cassana, but Quentin was confident that to grow Leo into an heir strong enough to keep the Tyrell's wardens of the south for another generation that he would have to see the realities of the world outside the white walls of Highgarden.
Leo became a ser at 16 just a year after Loras Tyrell and 2 years after his own mentor, both some of the youngest ever squires to prove themselves worthy in the eyes of the seven. Thus with his ego further inflated Leo fashioned himself as the ‘knight of flowers’ to his people and the nobility of the Reach and beyond. Competing in the most recent King’s coronation tourney in a suit detailed with rose and vine iconography. However, after competing, and performing relatively well, the knight of flowers failed to take home any real glory for the Tyrells. This bruised Leo in a way that can be seen in the present day, he doesn’t just lust for power like most Westeros nobles Leo craves a desire to grow his prestige and attain as much personal glory as possible, almost to the point of obsessiveness. Something that could be considered a stark contrast to both his father and his mentor.
In a decision that divided the rest of the family Leo gathered a group of knights from across The Reach to join the crusade to Essos, this included a now aging Ser Belric Hightower, a decision that was extremely unpopular among the rest of the nobleborn knights because of his eccentricities and general unsightlness. These sons of Garth dubbed themselves ‘The Order of the Garden’ and attached 2 additional ships to the expeditionary force. Their sails adorned with Galladon’s Crest with 7 white flowers surrounding and a single red flower directly above the crest on the masts of their ships.
Background ▔▔▔▔▔ The ambition shown in Mace Tyrell and his mother Olenna was replaced by kindness in the rule of Willas Tyrell. After the early death of Mace Tyrell from a hunting incident (some rumor he fell off the same cliff his father did when he died while hawking in the same woods.), the rule of the Tyrell's focused back into the Reach for a time. Willas began the construction of the Tulip-road to the Storm lands with the help of his sister Margaery in storms-end and the Poppyroad which required Loras Tyrell to lead a small campaign into the red mountains to eradicate the bandit companies that hid within the dusty passes.
In an effort to strengthen the Tyrell line and pre-emptively destroy an arguably superior claim to Highgarden, Willas, with no-one to arrange his marriages took Rhea Florent as wife. Willas and Rhea being considerably older than a lot of parents they only produced once son. Quentin Tyrell. It was also in the latter years of Willas' lordship and the initial years of Quentin's where the sworn houses flourished, the Stewardship of Willas allowed them to grow stronger ironically helping to close the gap in resources and power between the Tyrell's and the other major houses of the Reach.
As Quentin developed into the statesman he is now known for, he began to see just how pressing it was that the Tyrell's reestablish themselves as the sole ruler's of the Reach. Quentin realised that although Highgarden lacked the population of Oldtown, or the ships of the Arbor, it still had the most noblest of blood. With that Quentin looked to the Crownlands, and the Tyrell's began to increase their power and wealth through business and political alliances away from the Reach in King's landing.
