@Bloodrosechilling character. How did Naesenara die? Florence and Dalton are names of towns in Western Massachusetts.
H O U S E D E T A I L S _________________________________________________________House Seat: Oldtown & the High Tower. _________________________________________________________ Region: The Reach K E Y M E M B E R S ▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔ Lord Jon Hightower was born in a good and peaceful times, the last savage wars of the continent distant memories. As his competence and loyalty to the crown was noted, some saw it as inevitable that he came to be Hand of the King. But as he did so, many contemplated if his unquestioning obeisance to Aegon was for the best of the realm, Lord Jon facilitating any whims and proclivities of the King if he so demanded them. ◼ Name: Jon Hightower ◼ Age: 49 ◼ Appearance: Surprisingly well-kept for his age, brown hair and eyes contrasted by pale skin make him have a very standard appearance of a Westerosi Lord. However as of late his clean shaven and orderly appearance has given way to a slow creep of stubble ◼ Biography: It was thus in the eyes of many not particularly surprising that upon his King dying, Jon was dismissed from his title. Though he took his imposed resignation peacably, all at court could tell he was dissatisfied to say the least. So it was that returning home, he locked himself in a chamber of the High Tower, disappearing for a long time during which his eldest Morgan took running of the House. When he exited his self-exile, Jon was clearly unwell. Ravening about ancient readings and texts, his mood and thought changed more than the direction of the wind. While not outright out of play, Jon Hightower was now closer to a pawn than a proper piece of the Game of Thrones. ▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔ Morgan was born weak and frail, many thinking he would pass in infancy leading to a lack of attachment from both mother and father that believed he wouldn't make it to adulthood. But he overcame his sickness, his time alone leading to a strongly independent streak. But, lack of direction from his father ensured the youth growing into a man would dip his toes into many things, yet never master anything. He was never a master warrior, nor poet nor administrator nor anything else. Perhaps for running a House that would have been optimal, but it lead to many a would-be marriage arrangement falling through as nothing exceptional stood out from him. ◼ Name: Morgan Hightower ◼ Age: 27 ◼ Appearance: Morgan can look far older than he is, with stress, time in the sun, and perhaps an unlucky roll of the bloodline's dice making him appear to be of the same age as his father sometimes with slightly wrinkled skin, occassional gray hairs, and the slightest bit of a hunch, his likely only pleasant traits being his great height and the hair many Ladies would be jealous of if not for Morgan's long working nights leading to it being washed less commonly than it ought be. ◼ Biography: Now the gargantuan task has been laid unto him of managing the House amidst his father's de-facto madness. While initially a not particularly difficult thing, it was just as his own ambitions started to rise of centralizing the House's power and being rid of things long troubling it that the ambition of his siblings and other people he was meant to trust grew, their efforts pulling the House into wholly different directions. ▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔ ◼ Name: Fiona Hightower ◼ Age: 26 ◼ Appearance: Her father's daughter, long brown hair and dark eyes along with cheeks and a jaw too strong to be considered conventionally beautiful but at least pretty enough to not be ugly, everyone's eye first goes to her height, enough to dwarf all peasants and even some noble lords. While her father schemed to have her betrothed to one of the more nobly-behaved of the Targaryens, this fell through following Lord Jon's exit of the court. Now the poor girl is a bargaining chip disputed between her brothers, all the while rumours are abound she prefers the company of women in a carnal way. ◼ Biography: ▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔ Twin to Hengist, the siblings were bright and strong from an early age. Seen for some time as more viable heirs than Morgan by many, it was some time in puberty that the siblings began to quarrel. Competing for everything from parental attention to girls to the last bite of pie, it soon got to the point that they sought different paths in life almost out of spite for one another. ◼ Name: Parlan Hightower ◼ Age: 20 ◼ Appearance: Shorter than father and his elder brother, Parlan could be mistaken for a bastard with his slightly rounder facial shape, his exceptionally light features in eyes and hair, compounded with much more tanned skin. Much shorter than father or Morgan, the twins are nonetheless both well built, broad shoulders bearing martially capable not exaggerated or vain musculature. ◼ Biography: It was only when they left novitiate studies at the Citadel that the full chasm between them was visible. It was Parlan's twin that was the straight arrow, that much clearly observable when the boys were taught how to fight in their late teenage years. Parlan used hooks and daggers everything but a proper sword, he studied the campaigns of the Dornishmen against the attempts to conquer them and the guile they used to stay independent. In civil matters, he came to take charge of the family's banking and usury, of overlooking shady trade for bribes, of control over trade of herbs and other exotics passing through Oldtown. It was thus a shock to those that eventually came to learn that he was privately martialling the family's resources to aid the Targaryen loyalists, until they had learned his brother had already sought out to aid the Blackfyre cause. ▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔ As remarked, Hengist was a self-imposed foil to his brother. Lacking the sinister and grim nature of his brother, he became far more adept at walking the well-trod path. An honourable warrior, and administrator of the roads and granaries and smithies, he became interested in the cause of Daemon Blackfyre as rumours of the bastard origins of the current King were relayed to him in a quite convincing way, and thus he became certain the rotten structure had to fall. A letter was sent to the claimant, offering what resources of House Hightower that Hengist could bear for the cause. ◼ Name: Hengist Hightower ◼ Age: 20 ◼ Appearance: He looks the same as his brother, save for his body being covered with scars, whilst choosing to be clean-shaven with short, neatly combed hair. ◼ Biography: ▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔ -◼ Name: Sara Hightower ◼ Age: 17 ◼ Appearance: Of black hair and gray eyes, the girl has always been seen as an exceptionally beautiful woman save for a set of crooked teeth that some in the family have considered knocking out to merely replace with perfect enamel or porcelain prosthetics. Just slightly taller than the average noblewoman, yet still somewhat shorter than most lads who would be prospective matches. ◼ Biography: Sara was a simple girl that didn't want for much save to please mother and father. Yet increasingly as time passed and the scheming of her family aside from her parents became clear, she soured on her kin. Knowing how even know her brothers seek to use the girl as an asset to be traded more than anything else, she took a religious path. Thus there is an uneasiness, for some believe her claim to wish to be a Septa is naught more than a threat, a bargaining tool for better treatment from her brothers, others wonder if it is sincere piety that can be used to improve the family's reputation. | H I S T O R Y House Hightower is one of the oldest of Westeros, their founding in dispute but its legacy not. Whatever the exact details of their mythic ancestry, they nonetheless followed a conciliatory path through their whole history peacefully acquiescing to their overlords in the Reach, the arriving Andals, and then later the Targaryens. This has ensured that despite the tumultuous history of the continent, they managed to not just survive but even flourish through the ages. C U R R E N T S I T U A T I O N Having avoided entanglements of any kind after the Dance of Dragons, House Hightower's power and wealth grew as they maintained closeness to the crown. One culmination of this was appointment of Jon Hightower as Hand of the King. Yet, for all their faithful service, with the death of Aegon they were spurned as far as their patriarch was concerned. Removed from his position as Hand of the King, Jon quickly soured to the Targaryens. Briefly locking himself in to contemplate, he seemed turned almost mad. Having exited his isolation, he one one day rants about how House Hightower failed the Seven Kingdoms and hence had themselves to blame for rightfully being set aside, while on the other he gives long diatribes about how the Targaryens are now nothing without the dragons upholding their inbred rule, and how he had read prophecy in the Citadel of their imminent fall. In the absence of his stoic rule, his children, cousins, and the Maesters in their service are lead to marshal his resources. Though by virtue of owning Oldtown and the Citadel the House can marshal enormous resources, the fact they are divided and in disarray can make the House in one moment appear on hard times when its representatives are acting against one another, and in another moment appear to suddenly be Kingmakers when its disparate cliques finally act in accord. |
P E R S O N A L D E T A I L S _________________________________________________________Age: 17 (b. 179AC) _________________________________________________________ Allegiance: House Targaryen A P P E A R A N C E _________________________________________________________ Even at seventeen, Shiera Seastar carries herself with the ease of someone long accustomed to being looked at. Her hair is thick and curling, silver-gold as one of Valyrian blood, worn longer perhaps than is entirely practical. Her face is heart-shaped, her lips full, and large mismatched eyes; one dark blue, one bright green, both of them watchful. Those who find reason to disapprove of her call it a defect though, those who have spent any time in her company tend to stop saying so. She favours ivory, lace, and cloth-of-silver, and considers cloth-of-gold too vulgar. At her throat she wears a heavy silver necklace set with alternating star sapphires and emeralds. K E Y A S S E T S ▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔ -◼ Notable Skills: Multi-lingual ◼ Valuables: library collection | P E R S O N A L B A C K G R O U N D Lady Serenei of Lys died giving birth to her, and so Shiera came into the world already defined by absence. Serenei had belonged to an ancient but impoverished Valyrian noble family, the last of Aegon the Unworthy's mistresses, and rumours spread quickly that she had practised dark arts, that she was far older than she appeared. Whether Shiera inherited those gifts or simply the suspicion of them, the effect has been much the same. Of the Great Bastards, she has always stood apart. Daemon was the warrior made flesh, Aegor a man sharpened by grievance, and Brynden something stranger still, pale and quiet and watchful, trusted by few. Shiera was closest to him, having grown up alongside him in the Red Keep when so many of the others were kept away or were too much her elder for any real closeness. They grew to share a love of reading even as their interests diverged, and it was enough, for a long time, to make the Red Keep feel less like a cage. She was thirteen, perhaps fourteen, the first time she encountered Aegor. He was fully a man grown, with a cold hunger already evident at that age. She had barely exchanged words with him before, and yet the way he regarded her was different, different from Brynden, different from the way other men had begun to look at her, though she could not yet say how. She had not expected him to speak to her, but in the brief conversation that followed she found him less repulsive than the stories Brynden had told, even if she could not deny the darkness in him either. Over the years, her closeness with Brynden deepened, and many assumed that the two oddities would eventually wed. He proposed it himself for the first time when she was fifteen and she laughed, not unkindly. While he accepted it at the time, he was clear that she would one day change her mind and accept her offer. He has asked more times than she cares to count since. She gives him her bed, although not exclusively, but not her hand, and he has never made peace with the distinction. She did not expect to see Aegor Rivers again, though she did once more, in early 196 AC. Brynden may have warned her to avoid him, but if nothing else, the refusal to be told what she should or should not do drove her to seek him out and see again what the fuss was all about. Her memories of him held true, for the most part. Whatever passed between them while the kingdom's unity hung in the balance, she did not speak of to anyone, not even to Brynden, though in her youthful petulance she still took pleasure in stirring his jealousies. Neither did Brynden say anything when she returned. The look in his eyes and the tightness of his lips suggested he had much he would have wished to say, though. Many things would likely be easier had she accepted any of Brynden's offers, particularly now that war has come again to the Seven Kingdoms. But she wants more from life than that, even with a man as singular as Brynden Rivers. She can see clearly what it would require of her, to become smaller than she is. Her aunt Elaena's words return to her often, the counsel of a woman who chose duty over love twice and has not stopped regretting it. At court Shiera is admired, circled, written about in verse she finds largely unimpressive. Duels have been fought over the right to sit beside her. None of it satisfies her. She is restless in a way that jewels and songs and even Brynden's careful devotion do nothing to ease, and she suspects, though she would not yet say so aloud, that her place, if she has one, lies somewhere the court cannot see from its windows. C U R R E N T M O T I V A T I O N S Few would have approved of Shiera attending the summit at the Twins, yet her aunt Elaena Targaryen found means to circumvent it all in bringing along the pretty young woman. Shiera had wanted to see what she could do away from the capital and intrigue of the Red Keep, wanted to prove that the hours she spent with her nose in books was not for naught. Now she would be given the chance. She attends the summit ostensibly as an observer, possibly as a distraction, but mostly, she attends it in the hopes of finding a path forward and of her own choosing. |
P E R S O N A L D E T A I L S Age: 46 (b. 150AC) _________________________________________________________ Allegiance: House Targaryen | House Penrose A P P E A R A N C E  Elaena was never the beauty her sisters were, and she has long since made her peace with that. What she has instead is something harder to quantify and more difficult to dismiss. At forty-six she carries herself with the particular authority of a woman who has outlived every expectation placed upon her and declined to be grateful for it. Her platinum hair, once her most remarked-upon feature, still carries that singular gold streak down the middle, still worn short in a style practical enough to suggest she has little patience for ornament and elegant enough to suggest she has not forgotten how to wield it. Her eyes are soft lilac, her mouth thin-lipped; both have a tendency toward expressions the court has learned to read carefully. K E Y A S S E T S ▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔ -◼ Notable Skills: Finance | Administration ◼ Valuables: Considerable political influence | P E R S O N A L B A C K G R O U N D She has been keeping accounts since before most men at court learned to read them. Elaena Targaryen was born the youngest daughter of Aegon III, and grew up in a Red Keep that was by turns a gilded cage and something considerably less gilded. She remembers Baelor's reign with the particular clarity of someone who was locked away for eleven years and has declined to forgive it, even now, even with him long dead and canonised in the sept. She remembers Viserys II with the warmth she reserves for very little else, a beloved uncle, the only king of her lifetime who looked at her and saw the mind rather than the bloodline. She watched Aegon the Unworthy spend the realm's treasury on his appetites and smiled at none of his jokes, and she has watched Daeron II work patiently to repair what his father broke, and thought that this, at least, is something worth preserving. Her relationship with her sisters has never been simple. Daena and Rhaena are complicated loves, ones forged in the Maidenvault, tested by everything that came after, and never entirely resolved. She will not speak against them. She will defend them with a ferocity that surprises people who have only seen her across a ledger. But closeness is not the same as ease, and ease is something the three of them have never quite managed. She has been married twice now by a king's decree. Ronnel Penrose is a good man and a poor mathematician, the arrangement suits them both well enough. He lends his name and seal to letters she writes; she lends the marriage a legitimacy that benefits them both. It is, she understands, a more honest arrangement than most. When the dispute arose recently over taking the Master of Coin seat in her own right, she said nothing she did not mean and left for the Twins with her head high and a trusted man quietly in place behind her. The others know and will not admit they do. She will not require them to. That Daemon Blackfyre's cause has found purchase, that her sister's son takes up a pretender's banner, she finds reprehensible in a way that has settled somewhere beneath anger into something colder and more permanent. She has buried too many people to feel surprise. She has not yet stopped feeling contempt. C U R R E N T M O T I V A T I O N S She brought Shiera to the Twins because someone ought to, and because the girl has a mind that deserves more than the Red Keep's intrigues to sharpen itself on. Elaena has her own reasons for attending, she always does. The north's loyalty to Daeron is not a thing to be assumed, and she has spent forty-six years learning that nothing worth having is. She attends the summit without a title to her name in the room, without a seat at the table she has more right to than half the men occupying it, and she intends to be the most useful person there regardless. She has done more with less. |
H O U S E D E T A I L S _________________________________________________________House Seat: Brightwater Keep, on the Honeywine _________________________________________________________ Region: The Reach K E Y M E M B E R S ▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔ ◼ Name: Lord Aubrey Florent ◼ Age: 54 ◼ Appearance: A tall, thin man who carries himself as though the weight of a crown rests upon his brow, even if the crown itself was lost generations ago. Lord Aubrey has a narrow, angular face defined by high cheekbones, a long straight nose, and a jaw that tapers to a clean, pointed chin. He has the prominent, slightly too-large ears that mark the Florent bloodline, though he has learned over the decades to hold his head at angles that diminish them. His eyes are a pale, washed-out hazel, almost amber in certain light, and they possess an unsettling stillness. His hair, once a dark reddish-brown, has gone to grey at the temples and thinned at the crown, though he wears what remains swept back and neatly oiled. His hands are long-fingered and precise, more suited to a maester's quill than a knight's lance, and he is seldom seen without a signet ring bearing the fox-and-flowers of his house. He dresses richly but never ostentatiously, favouring fine wool in deep amber and ivory trimmed with fox fur at the collar, as if to remind every man in the room exactly whose blood runs in his veins. ◼ Biography: Aubrey Florent was not born to inherit. He was a second son, more interested in genealogies than swordplay, content to remain in his elder brother's shadow. That ended at the crossing of the Blueburn in 170 AC, when Denys took a Dornish arrow through the throat. Aubrey was seventeen. Their father, Lord Garmon, spent his lordship nursing the ancient Florent grievance against House Tyrell without ever possessing the cunning to act on it. He drank, raged, and died in 178 AC, leaving Aubrey a house diminished in every way that mattered: coffers half-empty, bannermen restless, and a name spoken with pity rather than respect. Unlike his father, Aubrey did not rage. He calculated. Over eighteen years he rebuilt, marrying Lady Lynaera of House Rowan to bind Brightwater to a powerful family. Lynaera became more than a political alliance: she was the spine of his household, balancing ledgers and quieting creditors while Aubrey played his long game. She bore him three children (Aladore, Jon, and Alysanne) and together they slowly raised a house that had nearly forgotten how to stand. Then the rebellion killed his wife and daughter. Lady Lynaera and Alysanne were set upon while travelling the Honeywine with a small escort. The official account holds that bannerless renegades robbed and murdered the party. No survivors were left to confirm or contradict this. The truth, if it differs from the telling, is buried alongside the dead. Lord Aubrey does not concern himself with the distinction. The rebellion created the lawlessness. The rebels are responsible. And so the rebels must pay. The man who emerged from the sept after three days of vigil over two shrouded bodies is not the man who entered it. The patient schemer has been scoured away. What remains is something colder: a man with nothing left to lose but his sons and his name, and a fury that has cured his famous patience like fire cures green wood. He no longer speaks of the post-war reckoning as an opportunity. He speaks of it as a debt owed in blood. ▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔ ◼ Name: Ser Aladore Florent ◼ Age: 24 ◼ Appearance: Where his father is all angles and restraint, Aladore is warmth and motion. He stands just over six feet, lean and athletic, shaped by years of hard training and long rides along the Honeywine. His face is handsome in a less refined way: a strong brow, a slightly crooked nose broken at a tourney in Highgarden and never properly reset, and a wide mouth that falls easily into a cocksure grin. He has his mother's colouring, with thick auburn hair worn longer than fashion dictates, often falling across his forehead in unruly waves, and warm brown eyes flecked with gold. He has inherited the Florent ears, though on him they seem less unfortunate and more characterful, giving his profile an alert quality that women at court have called roguish. He carries himself with the easy physicality of a natural athlete, loose-limbed and quick on his feet. In armour he wears burnished steel chased with amber and white enamel in the Florent colours, with a fox-head visor on his helm that has become his signature at tournaments. In court dress he favours rich russet doublets slashed with cream silk, a short cloak thrown carelessly over one shoulder. ◼ Biography: Aladore has spent his entire life being told he is the hope of his house. His father educated him in arms and in the arts of court, but where Aubrey is patient and calculating, his heir is bold. Aladore was knighted at eighteen after leading a mounted charge in a border skirmish near the Prince's Pass, scattering a force twice his own. He has grown up steeped in his father's ambition, raised on stories of the Gardener kings and the theft of Highgarden. Where Aubrey has quietly let the grievance guide his decisions over the years, Aladore burns with it. He has competed in tournaments across the Reach, unhorsing Tyrells and Tarlys alike, and earned a reputation as one of the finest young lances south of the Mander. Common soldiers take to him in a way his father will never inspire. The deaths of his mother and sister have turned the burning into something hotter and less controlled. He does not grieve quietly. He rages, he drinks, and he sharpens his sword until the whetstone screams. The grin does not come less easily now than before, but there is an emptiness to it now. He loved his little sister Alysanne in particular with the fierce protectiveness of a brother who knew she was cleverer than him by half and destined for something great. That she and their mother died on a road he should have been riding is a thought that visits him nightly. The coming war is what makes his pulse quicken now. He has sworn his sword to the Red Dragon and means to wield it at the front of every charge, not just for glory but for the scalding satisfaction of making someone pay. His father worries about him. He is right to. But for the first time in his life, Lord Aubrey does not counsel restraint. ▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔ ◼ Name: Ser Jon Florent ◼ Age: 19 ◼ Appearance: Jon Florent almost looks more like a septon's apprentice than a knight of the Reach. He is of middling height, narrower in the shoulder than his brother, with a slender frame that lends itself more to quickness than power. His face is long and serious, dominated by thoughtful grey-hazel eyes set beneath heavy brows that give him a permanently contemplative expression, as though he is perpetually working through some problem no one else has noticed. His hair is a mousey brown, darker than his brother's auburn, kept cut short and practical. He has the Florent ears (more noticeable on his thinner face than on Aladore's) and a scattering of freckles across his nose and cheekbones that make him look younger than his years. He is clean-shaven, not by choice but because his beard comes in patchy and thin, a source of private embarrassment. Despite his scholarly air, his hands are calloused from training; Jon may not love the sword, but no Florent has ever been permitted to neglect the martial arts entirely. He dresses plainly by the standards of his house, in muted browns and creams with unadorned leather and functional boots. ◼ Biography: Where Aladore was the heir, trained and celebrated, Jon was the spare, and he learned early to find his worth in places his brother never thought to look. He is the more intelligent of the two. He reads often and possesses a good memory for maps, genealogies, and the web of feudal obligation that governs the Reach. His father sent him to study at the Citadel, but Jon chose knighthood over the maester's chain. He may be studious and intelligent, but Jon never wanted to be a maester. He was knighted at seventeen and is a competent if not particularly noteworthy swordsman who fights the way he thinks: carefully, looking for the opening rather than forcing one. His primary edge in a fight may well be an opponent underestimating him due to his appearance. The murder of his mother and sister has changed Jon in ways less visible than Aladore but no less profound. He does not rage. He goes quiet, and the quiet has a weight to it that unsettles people. He has read the accounts, questioned the outriders, studied the road where it happened, and drawn too few conclusions. The story of bannerless renegades may be true. It may not. The not knowing gnaws at him like rot in a beam. What he does know is that his father and brother are no longer thinking clearly. Grief has made Lord Aubrey reckless; fury has made Aladore murderous. Jon shares their anger, but someone in this family must still think past the next battle, and with his mother gone, that burden has fallen to him. He is nineteen, and not sure he is equal to it. Aladore will do something glorious and reckless in this war. Jon has resolved to be beside him when it happens, because someone will need to think clearly when the blood runs hot. ▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔ ◼ Name: Lady Lynaera Florent, née Rowan [deceased] ◼ Age: 49 at death ◼ Appearance: A handsome, sharp-featured woman with silvered honey-blonde hair, grey-green eyes, and the straight-backed posture of someone who refused to be overlooked. ◼ Biography: Second daughter of Lord Mathis Rowan of Goldengrove, married to Lord Aubrey as a political match and transformed over three decades into the true spine of House Florent. She managed the estates, balanced the books, raised the children, and maintained a correspondence network spanning half the Reach. Killed alongside her daughter on the Honeywine road during the early chaos of the rebellion. ▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔ ◼ Name: Alysanne Florent [deceased] ◼ Age: 17 at death ◼ Appearance: Small, slight, and elfin, with vivid amber eyes and deep auburn hair; the family beauty, though it was the sharp, unsettling kind that made men uneasy rather than enchanted. ◼ Biography: Lord Aubrey's only daughter and, by his own reckoning, his most valuable piece on the board. She had her father's patience, her mother's pragmatism, and an instinct for reading people that was alarming in a girl of seventeen. Every marriage offer had been refused; Aubrey was saving her for the match that would seal the Florents' rise. The war took her before he could play her. ▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔ ◼ Name: Ser Bertrand Florent ◼ Age: 48 ◼ Appearance: Thick-set and broad-shouldered with a twice-broken nose, a jagged scar from cheekbone to jaw, iron-grey hair cropped close, and the look of a man who has spent thirty years sleeping in mud and never quite forgiven the world for it. ◼ Biography: Lord Aubrey's younger brother, third-born son of the late Lord Garmon. He has spent his adult life as a household knight in the Dornish Marches, and was summoned home when the rebellion broke out. He serves as castellan of Brightwater Keep: a capable soldier, a reliable commander. A man whose years fighting alongside Marcher lords (many of whom now ride for Daemon) give him sympathies his brother would rather he did not have. ▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔ ◼ Name: Maester Edwyn ◼ Age: 63 ◼ Appearance: Stooped and liver-spotted, with watery blue eyes and a fringe of white hair around a bald crown. ◼ Biography: Assigned to Brightwater Keep by the Citadel over twenty years ago. A competent but unambitious man who has served the Florents faithfully and without distinction. Since Lady Lynaera's death, much of the household correspondence has fallen to him by default, a duty he performs adequately but without her instinct for what matters and what does not. ▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔ ◼ Name: Ser Harmon Florent ◼ Age: 31 ◼ Appearance: A lean, sandy-haired man with a long jaw, the Florent ears, and the pinched, cautious expression of someone perpetually worried about giving offence. ◼ Biography: A cousin of Lord Aubrey's, son of a younger branch that holds a modest manor along the upper Honeywine. Serves as captain of Aladore's personal guard in the field. Loyal, solid, unimaginative, and quietly terrified that Aladore will do something that will get them both killed. ▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔ ◼ Name: Rycherd Ashford ◼ Age: 15 ◼ Appearance: A slight, freckled boy with straw-coloured hair and an earnest face that has not yet lost its baby fat. ◼ Biography: Squire to Ser Aladore, second son of a minor Ashford knight. Worships his master with the blind devotion of a boy who has not yet seen real battle. Rides south with the Florent cavalry. ▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔ ◼ Name: Septa Myranda ◼ Age: 56 ◼ Appearance: A broad, plain-faced woman with grey hair pulled severely back and calloused hands more suited to a washerwoman than a servant of the Faith. ◼ Biography: Served as governess and spiritual guardian to the Florent children. She travelled with Lady Lynaera and Alysanne but was left behind at a waypoint along the Honeywine the morning before the attack, recovering from a fever. She has not forgiven herself and likely never will. ▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔ -◼ Name: Lady Emphyria Florent, née Cuy ◼ Age: 72 ◼ Appearance: A tiny, sharp-eyed old woman with white hair, a hooked nose, and a tongue that could strip paint from a castle wall. ◼ Biography: Lord Garmon's widow and mother to Aubrey, Denys, and Bertrand. She has outlived her husband, her eldest son, her daughter-in-law, and her granddaughter, and carries each loss like a stone sewn into her skirts. Still resides at Brightwater, where she is alternately ignored and feared by the household staff. | H I S T O R Y House Florent is one of the oldest noble houses in the Reach, tracing its lineage to Florys the Fox, the cleverest of Garth Greenhand's many children. Legend holds that Florys took three husbands, each ignorant of the others, and from those unions sprang three great houses: the Florents, the Balls, and the Peakes. The Florents descend from Flement Brightwater, Florys's first husband, who built the original keep on the banks of the Honeywine. It is a lineage older than the Tyrells, older than most houses still standing in the Reach. For generations beyond counting, the Florents served the Gardener Kings with distinction. The blood of the Gardeners flows in Florent veins through a direct male line descending from a younger son of King Garth X Gardener. When the dynasty ended on the Field of Fire, consumed by dragonflame alongside King Mern IX, the Florents had every reason to believe that Highgarden would pass to them. Aegon the Conqueror thought otherwise. Harlen Tyrell, the steward of Highgarden, opened its gates to the dragons and was rewarded with lordship over the entire Reach. A steward elevated to supremacy over the very bloodlines he had served. The Florents knelt. They had no choice. But they did not forget. In the centuries that followed, House Florent pursued a path of bitter loyalty. They fought in the Faith Militant's rising, in the Dornish wars, in every conflict that demanded Reach swords. Lord Jarmen Florent perished on the Field of Fire alongside his Gardener king. Lord Patrek rode for the Greens in the Dance and was cut down at the Battle of the Kingsroad. Lord Symond marched with Tyrell into Dorne and was slaughtered at Sunspear. The pattern never changed: the Florents fight, the Florents bleed, and the Florents receive nothing. Each generation produces a lord who believes this will be the time things change, and each generation is disappointed. By the time Lord Garmon Florent inherited Brightwater Keep, the house had entered a quiet decline. No single disaster, merely the slow erosion that comes from being perpetually passed over. Garmon spent his lordship raging against the Tyrells and drinking himself into an early grave, accomplishing nothing except ensuring that the name Florent became synonymous with impotent grievance. His son Aubrey inherited a diminished legacy: a keep in need of repair, bannermen growing distant, coffers thinning, and a name that great lords spoke with pity rather than respect. But Aubrey was not his father. Where Garmon raged, Aubrey planned, slowly but steadily reversing the Florent fortune. Whilst not exactly prosperous, House Florent had become a house of some prominence in the Reach. Until tragedy once again struck. C U R R E N T S I T U A T I O N When Daemon Blackfyre fled King's Landing with Aegor Bittersteel and Quentyn "Fireball" Ball, the Reach was thrown into chaos. Anti-Dornish sentiment runs deep here; King Daeron's marriage to Myriah Martell is a wound that has never healed. When Fireball rallied his banners, many Reach houses answered. The Peakes have declared openly. The Osgreys ride with Daemon. The Costaynes and the Balls have turned their cloaks. The Hightowers of Oldtown maintain a tense neutrality that satisfies no one. House Florent chose differently, and has paid a price no one anticipated. Lord Aubrey was among the first Reach lords to pledge his banners to King Daeron II, publicly and without equivocation. His reasoning was simple: the rebels would lose, and the lords who bled for the winning side would feast on the carcasses of those who did not. Then the war killed his wife and daughter, and calculation became something else entirely. Lady Lynaera and Alysanne Florent were set upon while travelling the Honeywine with a modest escort. Every member of the party was killed. The official account holds that bannerless renegades (opportunists born of the chaos Fireball's campaign has sown) robbed and murdered them. There are no known witnesses to confirm or contradict this. Lord Aubrey has not sought the truth with any great vigour. The rebellion created the lawlessness. The rebels are responsible. That is enough. The deaths have fundamentally broken the slow, steady path House Florent was set upon. Lynaera was Brightwater's spine: the woman who balanced ledgers, managed the household and acted as Aubrey's anchor. Alysanne was Aubrey's most valuable political piece, a daughter of ancient blood held in reserve for the marriage that would seal the Florents' rise. Both are gone. In their place is grief, rage, and a dangerous clarity. The ever-patient fox is patient no longer. Where once Lord Aubrey offered loyalty as an investment he now wages war as a vendetta, with his eye on the holdings of House Peake in particular. Brightwater can field roughly fifteen hundred swords. Ser Aladore has ridden south with the bulk of the cavalry to join Lord Leo Tyrell's muster, burning to make someone pay. Ser Jon accompanies him as possibly the last steady mind the Florents possess. Lord Aubrey remains at the keep, but it feels emptier than its garrison would suggest. There are rooms he does not enter. There is an unease permeating from the man always considered so calm and collected. The fox no longer has the luxury of patience, or the inclination for mercy. And the fox does not forget. Ancient Reach house with better Gardener blood than the Tyrells, been salty about getting passed over for Highgarden since the Conquest. Spent the last few generations in slow decline thanks to a string of lords who were better at complaining than scheming. Current lord, Aubrey, is the first competent Florent in a while and has spent eighteen years quietly rebuilding. When the Blackfyre Rebellion kicked off, Aubrey immediately backed the Red Dragon. Not out of love for Daeron, but because he did the maths and figured the rebels were going to lose, and he wanted to be first in line when the crown started handing out confiscated rebel lands (looking at you, House Peake). Then his wife and teenage daughter got killed by bandits (allegedly) on the road during the chaos of the war. Now the calculating political operator has been replaced by a grieving father with a grudge, and his eldest son Aladore (the heir, a hothead tournament knight) is out for blood. The only person in the family still thinking straight is Jon, the kind-of-bookish younger son, who is nineteen and very aware he is not ready for this. Uncle Bertrand holds the castle. He is a grumpy old soldier who spent thirty years in the Marches and has complicated feelings about fighting his former comrades. Loyalist house. Motivated by revenge. Probably going to do something unwise. |
P E R S O N A L D E T A I L S Age: 24 _________________________________________________________ Allegiance: House Blackfyre A P P E A R A N C E Aegor is tall and muscular, lean and lithe as a panther, with the purple eyes of his Targaryen blood set above a close-cropped beard, little more than a shadow on his jaw. His black hair marks him apart from the silver-gold of his father's line, a bastard's distinction worn without apology. His armour is well-made but deliberately plain — grey steel and black rings, practical and without ornament. His helm bears a horsehead crest with a flowing mane behind it. His shield displays his personal sigil, the red stallion of House Bracken combined with black dragon wings from House Blackfyre on a golden field, the horse snorting fire. He does not smile. He has not smiled in some time.  K E Y A S S E T S ▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔ -◼ Weaponry: A knight's warhammer and lance. He is a ferocious and capable warrior, having trained extensively in the martial arts expected of a knight of his standing. _________________________________________________________ ◼ Notable Skills: One of the foremost military commanders riding under the Blackfyre banner, considered alongside Ser Quentyn Ball to have had the largest hand in convincing Daemon to press his claim. A proven battlefield commander with a particular aptitude for cavalry engagements and a ferocious warrior capable of holding his own against the most dangerous opponents in the realm. _________________________________________________________ ◼ Retinue: Knights and men-at-arms sworn to the Blackfyre cause, many drawn from houses with Bracken connections in the Riverlands. | P E R S O N A L B A C K G R O U N D Aegor was born in 172 AC at King's Landing to Barba Bracken, the fifth of King Aegon IV's mistresses. He was born only a fortnight before Queen Naerys nearly died in childbirth, and with Naerys lingering near death, Barba's father began to speak openly of Barba marrying the king. When Naerys recovered, Prince Daeron and Aemon the Dragonknight forced Aegon to send Barba and her bastard son from court. Aegor was raised at Stone Hedge among his mother's kin, nurtured on her resentments and the ancient grievances of House Bracken, growing into the bitter and hard-edged man the court had made him before he was old enough to understand it. The enmity between Bittersteel and Bloodraven runs deeper than politics. Many would blame the ancient enmity between their houses, their competition over their half-sister or even that Aegor's mother was set aside in favour of Bloodraven's. In truth the matter was more simple, Bryden was able to remain at court, becoming some distant part of the royal family in his own strange way. Aegor was cast out, permitted only temporary visits to the halls that should have been his childhood home. When Aegon IV died, he legitimised all his bastards, but while his brothers have come to wield Valyrian steel, Bittersteel was left with nothing but the legitimisation itself. It was the final insult in a life full of them. It was Bittersteel and Ser Quentyn Ball who had the largest hand in convincing Daemon Blackfyre that he was the true heir and should press his claim. C U R R E N T M O T I V A T I O N S Bittersteel rides in service to a king he helped create, prosecuting a rebellion he has longed to start. His loyalty to Daemon is genuine, the Black Dragon is the one man who has treated him as something more than a useful embarrassment, but it sits alongside a web of personal grievances that the rebellion gives him legitimate cause to pursue. He wants Daemon on the Iron Throne and his half-brother Brynden Rivers broken. He is a hard man who has little use for anything beyond war, and war, at last, is exactly what he has. He does not think beyond victory. He has never found it useful to. As it stands the specific location of Bittersteel is unknown to the royalist forces, going to ground in the Riverlands. Unknown to even Bloodraven's spies, he heads North to the Twins. |
H O U S E D E T A I L S _________________________________________________________House Seat: Winterfell _________________________________________________________ Region: The North K E Y M E M B E R S ▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔ Though the Warden of the North is not as famed as his father or siblings, he has done much to recover the realm and prepare it for what is coming. He has done much to prepare them for conflicts like what Cregan was dragged onto with the Dance and the Conquest of Dorne, however Cregan's grudges still are spoken of in the courts and relations between the Dragons and Wolves are icy as the Winters of the north. ◼ Name: Lord Brandon Stark ◼ Age: 46 ◼ Appearance: Stark's do not wither into bone and crumple, to live among a frozen land such as the North is to harden ones body as much as ones resolve, the fit live and strong live through the Winter's, all those who cannot pass on Brandon son of Cregan still stands. Large of frame with dark hair and icy blue eyes, strong of arm and skilled as he could has learned much of the world exploring as a youngest son, wiser than most and considering cunning beyond the measure of most Starks. ◼ Biography: This stems from the deaths and woes the North has recently gone through from the time of the Dance it was thought they would have a chance to heal and grow more powerful. But a bride promised was never given, their heirs and sons as the loyal followers of the Targaryen's Conquest in Dorne died, not just House Stark's heir but many of their vassals as well. The Skag Rebellion would claim his older brother and Edric would die trying to bring him home. Now, bastards and dragons want aid? They must give in gold and blood before a single Northerner will die in this damned war. The North remembers, always. ▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔ First born son of Brandon Stark is a bit shorter than his father and considered a trouble maker enjoying sneaking around and pulling pranks. Good with a sling or a bow he is fleet on his feet, preferring short swords and axes to the annoyance of his father. He was a bit of a trouble maker around Winterfell until taken to battle against the Skagosi rebellion.◼ Name: Rowan Stark ◼ Age: 25 ◼ Appearance: Strong of arm and tall, yet silent as the grave in all his movements, able to sneak without intending too. A big man who can move as silent as the grave with a preference for short blades, big axes. Brought up fighting Skagosi, he fights dirty as foes. Famed for smiles and laughter as he cuts down the foe, he is Bolton brutal and Stark stubborn. ◼ Biography: However he has shown great skill in learning about battles and organization, stealthy and silent he is not as popular as his younger brothers but enjoys good support. He is a trouble maker, having a reputation of sneaking out of Winterfell dressed up as a mercenary before being dragged back by his father by the ear. He is as friendly and affable to allies, brutal and uncompromising to his foes. He is a come back or humorous joke when insults fly as if to strike with a fist. While not as big as younger brother, his quietness and stealth are unusual for someone of Stark bloodline. As well as his willingness to use dirty fighting to bring down his foes or fight dishonorably. ▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔ Strong of hand but sweet of voice, Alder Stark is claimed to be the best swordsman in the North in where he faces off against many of the other Lords of the North sons and champions. Yet time again the boy with a strong arm and better structure than his peers often takes the fight. He rarely speaks up but shows an unwavering devotion to his father and teachers who have forged him like steel.◼ Name: Alder Stark ◼ Age: 21 ◼ Appearance: Dark of hair with icy blue eyes, taller than his father and bear a striking resemblance to his father and uncle Rickon. Handsome, with a voice like whiskey over honey. Strong and built like the famed Northmen he broad and wide shouldered, steady hand and quick mind. ◼ Biography: His singing voice and musical skill have made him one of the most eligible bachelors of the North but more than any of that he is known for skill and temper, council his father on how to best deal with Skagos after their defeat such as rebuilding some defenses and seeing to adding a minor navy to ensure regular control and food shipments to Skagos as they try to end their cannibalism. ▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔ The oddball of the family, not as serious as Stark or as withdrawn as a Bolton. Ashe is a cheery and friendly sort who finds Southron’s rather funny with their armor and knightly codes when arrows and rocks slay more knights than a sword ever will. Why bother with practicing with that?◼ Name: Ashe Stark ◼ Age: 17 ◼ Appearance: Shorter and stockier than his brother’s Ashe Stark can most be found ascending parts of Winterfell or rocky outcroppings by the outside. He is nimble for his size and can be rather sneaky. ◼ Biography: A prankster and unwilling to give up his joys in life such as singing and performing in taverns, Ashe has been known to get into bar brawls where he has made more friends than enemies, among the sons of the other Northern houses. However, he believes the Southrons are fools in how they conduct themselves then again the North has always ruled differently than the south. - | H I S T O R Y House Stark were Kings in the North long before the Andals and Aegon rose, one after another they were felled until alone stood the Starks with a loyalty and love of their Bannermen. When Aegon came, the Northern King wisest of them all bowed his head and gave his crown to the Targaryen's. Loyal to oaths and honorable men, the Stark's have recently been famed for the Hour of the Wolf where they killed and exiled men of their enemies when taking the position of the Hand of the King. Having recently put down a brutal rebellion that killed his older brother, Barth the Blacksword infamous warrior Lord who served in the Conquest of Dorne. C U R R E N T S I T U A T I O N House Stark has been on the rise, from it's great heights since the Hour of the Wolf when all the Lords of Westeros quaked at the sight of his father Cregan, House Stark has stumbled in the crisis after death of his father and the many heirs he left to squabble. They have recently gained the great influence marrying into House Bolton whom has no male heirs, with goals of adding the Dreadfort to their crownlands. Due to issues within the North of succession and rebellion, Moat Calin has seen some renovation as well as new keep being built on Skagos and loyal soldiers being placed there, with the goal of forcing the Stoneborn who killed thousands in their rebellion into the fold. It's armies are well practiced and more direct control established across the North, due to the recent rebellion and the need for ships House Stark and Manderly's have amassed a small and mostly defensive focused navy, as well supporting them 50,000 men across the North can be called upon, summer has been sweet as their stores swell as each day Winter grows closer the Starks cannot afford to send men to war, but once it comes their armies will happily march across Westeros and take from the mouths of Southron than deplete their own. However the North is so spread out that it would take over a year to gather, as such house Stark can directly bring about half that number to bear in a shorter time. |
P E R S O N A L D E T A I L S _________________________________________________________Age: 19 _________________________________________________________ Allegiance: Nominally loyal to King Daeron II Targaryen A P P E A R A N C E Rella Sand is unmistakably Dornish in her looks — olive-skinned and dark-haired, with the kind of easy, sun-warmed beauty that draws eyes in any court. She is buxom and carries herself with the relaxed confidence of someone who has never been made to feel small, a quality that reads as charm in some rooms and as arrogance in others. The single feature that betrays her father's blood is her eyes, a clear and startling purple around an inner halo of turquoise and yellow. She dresses well and with some extravagance, favouring the flowing Dornish styles she grew up with over the more structured fashions of King's Landing, and shows little interest in adjusting this to suit her audience. She has the hands of someone who has sailed and ridden and handled herself in foreign ports, though she would not describe herself as rough. K E Y A S S E T S ▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔ -◼ Notable Skills: An easy facility with languages, having picked up snatches of Valyrian, the Summer tongue and several Essosi dialects through her travels. A natural social intelligence that she consistently overestimates in politically complex situations. Comfortable at sea and in foreign courts in a way that most highborn women of Westeros are not. _________________________________________________________ ◼ Valuables: A collection of curiosities and gifts accumulated across her travels — jewellery, silks and small luxuries from the Summer Isles and the Free Cities. Combined incomes from two courts who would rather pay her than upset her. _________________________________________________________ ◼ Retinue: A Dornish serving woman who has accompanied her since childhood and has spent years quietly managing the consequences of Rella's decisions. | P E R S O N A L B A C K G R O U N D Rella Sand was born at King's Landing to a Dornish noblewoman who had come north as part of the attending party of Princess Myriah Martell, brought to court for the marriage of Myriah to the then-Prince Daeron. Her mother, Tamara Sand, was a natural daughter of the Prince of Dorne by a noble paramour, a woman of good blood but uncertain standing in a less accepting foreign court. This made her an entirely suitable conquest for Aegon, who had never been known to let political disaster trouble him. Rella was the result, and both babe and mother were quietly shipped back to Dorne before she had begun to show too obviously. They remained awhile at Sunspear, before Tamara returned as one of her sister's favoured ladies, with a young girl the court politely deciding to ignore had vibrant purple eyes. She grew up between the two courts depending on the waxing and waning whims of the Unworthy towards the Dornish delegation. Knowing precisely what she was and finding it, on the whole, more interesting than troubling. Through her mother she carries the blood of the Prince of Dorne, making Maron and Myriah Martell her half-uncle and half-aunt by her mother's line, and through her father she is of the blood of the dragon. It is a curious doubling of connections, she has Dornish blood that the Martells do not quite claim and Targaryen blood that the court does not quite acknowledge. The Martells regard her with the an amount of warmth reserved for relatives whose existence is mildly inconvenient. The court of Daeron II tolerates her the way it tolerates a number of inconvenient consequences of Aegon's reign. She has filled the gaps this distance creates with travel. By the time she was sixteen she had been to Tyrosh and Lys, had spent half a year at a merchant's court in the Summer Isles, and had accumulated enough stories to hold a dinner table for an evening and enough enemies to make a second visit inadvisable in at least two of the cities. She claims to have been fast friends with the Sealord but no one really knows enough to contest this. She returned to King's Landing because it remained the most comfortable place to be comfortable in, and because she has not yet found anywhere she would rather be permanently. C U R R E N T M O T I V A T I O N S Rella Sand is nominally at court in support of Daeron II's cause, insofar as the court feeds and houses her and she has no particular wish to see it fall. Her loyalty is less a conviction than a default — she has never been given sufficient reason to choose otherwise, and the Blackfyre cause has not yet offered her anything interesting enough to change that calculation. She is aware that the rebellion makes her position somewhat delicate, given that her Targaryen blood, however bastard, makes her a figure of at least theoretical interest to both sides. She finds this more flattering than alarming, which is characteristic of her. As the conflict increases in intensity, Rella has taken it upon herself to travel to the Reach, taking with her a small but loyal band of crew and marines from her journeys. If she seeks to do anything more than explore more of the world is unclear, but most could surely worry she's is absoulutely intending to do something. |
P E R S O N A L D E T A I L S Age: Twenty-four _________________________________________________________ Allegiance: The Faith of the Seven A P P E A R A N C E _________________________________________________________  Septa Cerenna is the sort of woman who is immediately and instinctively trusted, which is arguably the most dangerous thing about her. She is fair in the Reach fashion, with the light blonde hair, not the Westerlands gold or like beaten silver, but of pale straw. Her green eyes are warm rather than sharp. Her face is open and expressive in a way that grey septa's robes do nothing to dampen. She has never quite mastered the serene and composed look favored by her mentors, and tends instead toward an animated attentiveness that makes everyone she speaks to feel they are the most interesting person in the room. She is of middling height and carries herself with the comfortable confidence of someone who has never doubted her welcome anywhere. K E Y A S S E T S ▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔ -◼ Notable Skills: An extraordinary memory for names, faces, and personal details shared in confidence. A genuine gift for making people feel heard and cared for. An extensive web of connections accumulated across noble households throughout the Reach and beyond, built entirely through pastoral care and deployed entirely without strategic intent. _________________________________________________________ ◼ Valuables: A well-worn copy of The Seven-Pointed Star with extensive personal annotations in the margins. A small collection of letters from noblewomen across the Reach who consider her their most trusted confidante. _________________________________________________________ ◼ Retinue: A young novice of fourteen who follows her everywhere and has already developed the haunted look of someone who has seen too many of her superior's plans reach their natural conclusions. | P E R S O N A L B A C K G R O U N D Cerenna Peake was born the youngest daughter of a second cousin to Starpike, which is to say she was born into the comfortable outer ring of a proud house that had little to spare and much to protect. While her branch of the family kept a modest hall near enough to Starpike to attend feast days, it was far enough to be largely ignored by the main line in matters of inheritance and marriage. She grew up knowing she was a Peake and all that it meant while understanding clearly that the name would not do a great deal of practical work on her behalf. She was sent to the Faith at thirteen, which suited everyone including her. She had already by that point demonstrated a talent for being present in conversations she had not been invited to, for passing along information she had not been asked to, and for arranging meetings between people based on her sense that they should know each other but with no grounding in the actual circumstances of their lives. The sept gave this energy a home and she thrived. She was warm and attentive and genuinely devout in the way that comes from feeling rather than performance, and the noble ladies who came to her for counsel left feeling cared for and understood. She was not focused enough to serve as a governess, one attempt at that ended in disaster not spoken of, but her cloister could not deny the effect her charm had, especially on funding. She has spent the years since moving between the septs and households of the Reach, gathering connections the way other women gather embroidery. She knows the wives and sisters and mothers of men on both sides of the rebellion, because she has ministered to all of them without once noticing that this might be complicated. When Lord Gormon declared for the Blackfyres and marched northwest, Cerenna felt a quiet and private pride she would never voice aloud. She is a Peake. She has written to Starpike once since the rebellion began, a warm letter to Lady Antonie expressing her prayers for the safety of the family and mentioning in passing that she had recently met a most interesting young woman of Dornish descent who reminded her somehow of the Lady of Starpike in her cleverness. It seems that Lady Antonie has not yet had time to respond, perhaps the letter sits on her table still. C U R R E N T M O T I V A T I O N S Cerenna is currently traveling through the Reach in the company of a certain woman of Dornish descent after meeting her under circumstances that Cerenna has decided were not accidental. The Seven work in ways that are mysterious to others and perfectly legible to Cerenna, and it is clear to her that this young woman of uncertain standing and vibrant purple eyes has been placed in her path for a reason. She has appointed herself Rella's guide and protector with the wholehearted warmth of someone who has never once been wrong about this kind of thing, because she has never stayed in one place long enough to observe the consequences. She does not think of what she does as political. She thinks of it as her duty of care. She just wants everyone to be alright. She believes, with the deep and unshakeable conviction of the genuinely well-meaning, that most conflicts can be resolved with the right conversation between the right people. She is going to arrange that conversation. Worse, she has already begun to think of who ought to be in the room. |
H O U S E D E T A I L S _________________________________________________________ House Seat: Kingshouse _________________________________________________________ Region: Skagos | The North K E Y M E M B E R S _________________________________________________________ ▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔ ◼ Name: Lord Magnar ◼ Age: 62 (b. 134 AC) ◼ Appearance: ◼ Biography: The current Lord of Skagos, though illness has robbed him of active governance. He understood and sanctioned his sons' scheme during the Skagosi rebellion. A capable warlord in his time, he is now dependent on Torvin for the management of his own household, a dependence he both needs and resents. His death is anticipated by every faction on and off the island. ▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔ ◼ Name: Torvin Magnar ◼ Age: 28 (b. 168 AC) ◼ Appearance: ◼ Biography: The firstborn twin, Torvin chose to remain on Skagos while his twin went to Winterfell. It was a decision made by cold assessment of aptitude, not sentiment. He governs the island in all but name, framing every decision as his father's will while quietly making it his own. Patient, hard to read, and acutely aware that the plan he is holding together was designed for two men who may no longer both exist. ▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔ ◼ Name: Aldric Magnar ◼ Age: 28 (b. 168 AC) ◼ Appearance: ◼ Biography: Torvin's twin, currently residing as an honoured guest of House Stark. Yet from the Magnars' perspective, he is a potential blade close to the heart of their overlords. More socially fluent than most Skagosi, he was the natural choice for Winterfell. That has done little to change the fact that he is viewed as barbaric and uncivilized by those on the mainland. | H I S T O R Y ___________________________________________________________________________________ House Magnar is among the oldest families of Skagos, their name itself said to mean "lord" in the ancient tongue of the island. They have a claim to precedence older than the Stark dominion over the North. They ruled as petty kings in the age before the Starks extended their reach across the Bay of Ice. The island of Skagos is a hard place, it is remote, difficult to supply, and populated by people who feel little kinship with the mainland lords who nominally rule them. Unicorns roam its highlands. Its people are regarded by the rest of the North as savage and unknowable. C U R R E N T S I T U A T I O N __________________________________________________________________________________ The Skagosi rebellion against House Stark has ended, crushed two years past at no small cost. House Magnar emerged from the conflict as the only Skagosi house Winterfell believes it can trust. What the North does not know is the shape of what House Magnar actually did. They aided Stark selectively, timing their support to let their rival houses Stane and Crowl bleed themselves weaker first. The architect of this scheme was the current lord's twin heirs, Torvin and Aldric. Lord Magnar, sharp enough to understand the full shape of the gamble, agreed. He has since been too ill to govern, leaving Torvin to hold the island together in all but name while Aldric sits at Winterfell as a guest. |
P E R S O N A L D E T A I L S Age: 42 _________________________________________________________ Allegiance: House Stark & House Bolton A P P E A R A N C E _________________________________________________________  The Bolton presence is carried by Twyla even though she married Brandon. Skin like snow and hair like the depth of night with a gray blue stare that would pierce the best armor. Though severe in countenance her smile is quite warm when given. Twyla holds her head high and is famed for being unreadable. She is obviously intelligent and keeps her own council unless she feels that her council is beneficial. K E Y A S S E T S ▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔ -◼ Weaponry: Knives ◼ Notable Skills: Knife combat ◼ Valuables: House Stark Jewels ◼ Retinue: Lila Snow, her ladies maid that has been with her since she was a teenager. | P E R S O N A L B A C K G R O U N D Twyla Bolton was born the final living ember of a dying, feared legacy—the last direct descendant of House Bolton, raised beneath the flayed banners of the Dreadfort. Her childhood was not one of warmth, but of quiet observation and careful survival. The Boltons were not known for tenderness, and Twyla learned early how to read silences, how to measure danger in a glance, and how to endure without breaking. Where others inherited cruelty, she inherited restraint. Where others reveled in fear, she studied it. By the time she reached womanhood, the North had begun to shift. The old brutalities of House Bolton had made them powerful—but also isolated. Twyla, unlike her forebears, understood that fear alone could not sustain a house forever. She became something rare: a Bolton who could adapt. Her marriage to Brandon Stark was no accident—it was a calculated union, one that shocked the North. To wed a Stark to a Bolton was to stitch together ice and blood, honor and infamy. Many whispered that Brandon had taken a wolf into a den of vipers. Others believed Twyla had escaped something far worse. At Winterfell, Twyla remade herself—not by abandoning her past, but by mastering it. She is composed, sharp, and deeply perceptive, often speaking less than those around her but understanding far more. The Northern court learned quickly that she was not to be underestimated. While Brandon rules with the steady, honorable strength expected of a Stark, Twyla governs in subtler ways—through alliances, quiet counsel, and an unerring instinct for threats before they surface. Yet her greatest struggle is not political—it is legacy. As the last true Bolton, Twyla carries a name that cannot pass through her bloodline. Though she bore five children—Rowan, Alder, Briar, and the twins Ashe and Wyllow—they are Starks, not Boltons. The flayed man will die with her unless another path is forged. This truth weighs heavily on her, not out of pride alone, but out of responsibility. A house, no matter how dark its history, is still a piece of the North. Now, she and Brandon quietly search for a distant Bolton cousin—someone who can take up the name and reshape it, or at the very least, ensure it does not vanish into legend and ash. Privately, Twyla is torn. She does not mourn the cruelty of her ancestors—but she fears what happens when history is erased instead of remembered. She teaches her children both Stark honor and Bolton awareness: mercy, but never naivety. Her sons are strong, her daughters sharper still, and in each of them lives a balance she fought to create. In the end, Twyla Stark stands as something the North has never seen before: A Bolton who chose not to become a monster— and a Stark who never forgot how monsters are made. C U R R E N T M O T I V A T I O N S Searching for a Bolton to take the Dreadfort as well as preparing her younger sons to inherit it as a cadet branch. |
P E R S O N A L D E T A I L S Age: 20 _________________________________________________________ Allegiance: House Stark A P P E A R A N C E _________________________________________________________  Briar is very much her mother’s daughter. She has been known to be called the Ice Princess due to her stillness and difference. Honorable to a fault she would never break a pledge. She is more relaxed outside where walls don’t contain her. She is very faithful to the old gods. K E Y A S S E T S ▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔ -◼ Notable Skills: Archery, listening to conversation and picking out truths, an almost uncanny perception. _________________________________________________________ ◼ Valuables: A bow and quiver of arrows, House Stark Jewels, _________________________________________________________ ◼ Retinue: Genna Hobbs, a ladies maid that has been working for the Starks since Briar turned thirteen. | P E R S O N A L B A C K G R O U N D Briar Stark was born into contradiction. The third child of Twyla Stark and Brandon Stark—and their eldest daughter—Briar grew up caught between two legacies: the unyielding honor of House Stark and the quiet, dangerous awareness of House Bolton. Where her brothers were given room to grow into warriors and heirs, Briar was watched. From the moment she could walk, it was clear she had inherited something different—not just her mother’s dark features, but her stillness… and her ability to see too much. As a child, Briar was not loud, nor openly defiant. She listened. She lingered in doorways, memorized conversations not meant for her, and learned the rhythms of Winterfell as if it were a living thing. The servants learned to mind their tongues. The guards learned she noticed who cut corners. Even as a girl, she had a way of making grown men uneasy—not through cruelty, but through understanding. Her mother, Twyla, recognized it immediately. Rather than softening Briar—as many in the North expected of a noble daughter—Twyla refined her. She taught her the unspoken rules: how to measure truth from lies, how to let others underestimate her, how to wield silence like a blade. But where Twyla had been raised in fear, she made certain Briar would never be ruled by it. From Brandon, Briar learned honor, duty, and restraint—lessons she accepted, though not blindly. This made her dangerous in a different way than her ancestors. Briar does not believe in cruelty. But she understands its uses. By her teenage years, Briar had already begun shaping her own place within Winterfell. She trained in archery—not for sport, but for precision. She preferred the godswood to the great hall, finding clarity among the trees where others felt watched. Some whispered she had the old blood of the North in her more strongly than her siblings—that the weirwoods listened when she spoke, and remembered when she did not. At twenty, Briar has become something quietly formidable. She is not the heir—that role belongs to Rowan—but many in Winterfell know that if Rowan is the face of the future, Briar is its shadow. Advisors tread carefully around her. Visitors often mistake her calm for passivity, only to find themselves outmaneuvered in conversation before they realize the game has begun. Her relationship with her siblings is complex but fiercely loyal:
But it is her bond with her mother that defines her most. Twyla sees in Briar the question she herself once faced: What do you do with darkness when it lives in you, but does not control you? Briar’s answer is still unfolding. She does not seek to restore House Bolton—but neither will she pretend it never existed. She studies its history in secret, not out of pride, but out of necessity. If monsters are born from silence and denial, then Briar intends to ensure the North never forgets what created them. Some in the North already call her “The Thorn of Winterfell.” Not because she is cruel—but because she is sharp, rooted, and impossible to ignore once she draws blood. And should the day come when Winterfell is threatened from within or without, it will not be Briar who rides at the front of the banners— —but she will be the one who ensures the enemy never sees the end coming. C U R R E N T M O T I V A T I O N S To assist with getting her brothers married off. |
P E R S O N A L D E T A I L S Age: 17 _________________________________________________________ Allegiance: House Stark A P P E A R A N C E _________________________________________________________  Soft, quiet, sweet, gentle, and an extraordinary aura that just seems to relax and calm others. Wyllow brings a sweet softness with her that can be mistaken as weakness but is not. She does not go out of her way to be spiteful to people but she will not hesitate to set them on the right path. She becomes an almost different person on a horse. Free and wild she seems to mesh with horses so easily and well that you could say that they communicate without words. K E Y A S S E T S ▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔ -◼ Notable Skills: Songs, stories, playing the lap harp, horsemanship, embroidery and memorizing history as well as several languages. _________________________________________________________ ◼ Valuables: Lap Harp, House Stark Jewels _________________________________________________________ ◼ Retinue: Genna Hobbs, a ladies maid that has been working for the Starks since Briar turned thirteen. A stallion named Dārys that is eighteen hands and only lets Wyllow ride him; he tolerates others touching him but barely and you know if you’re not liked by him. | P E R S O N A L B A C K G R O U N D Wyllow Stark, the youngest child of Twyla and Brandon, entered the world in a hush of falling snow—a twin born moments after her brother Ashe, small and quiet where he was loud and restless. From the beginning, it was clear Wyllow was different. While her siblings seemed shaped by the weight of legacy, expectation, and conflict, Wyllow seemed… untouched by it. Or so most believed. She grew into a gentle presence within Winterfell, known for her soft voice, patient smile, and the way she seemed to bring calm simply by entering a room. Servants adored her. Guards relaxed around her. Even the most hardened northern lords found themselves lowering their voices in her presence, as though instinctively unwilling to disturb something fragile and rare. But Wyllow is not fragile. She simply chooses kindness. From a young age, she took to music, drawn especially to the delicate, haunting sound of the lap harp. Where others trained with sword or bow, Wyllow practiced melodies—soft songs that drifted through Winterfell’s stone halls in the evenings. Her music became a quiet constant, something that stitched warmth into the cold North. It is said even the direwolves would settle when she played, their restless pacing soothed by her touch on the strings. Books came next. While many noble daughters were taught histories as obligation, Wyllow devoured them out of genuine fascination. She read not just of great victories, but of failures, forgotten houses, broken oaths—stories others skimmed past. Unlike Briar, who studied history to understand power, Wyllow read to understand people. She remembers details others dismiss, drawing connections that often go unnoticed until much later. In this way, her sweetness hides a quiet depth. Her greatest contradiction, however, lies in the saddle. Despite her gentle nature, Wyllow is an exceptional horsewoman, fearless and instinctive. Horses respond to her as they do to few others, trusting her without hesitation. She rides not for display, but for freedom—often slipping away at dawn or dusk, her pale cloak trailing behind her as she disappears into the snow-covered lands beyond Winterfell. There is something almost wild in her then, a glimpse of the untamed North that lives beneath her softness. Among her siblings, Wyllow is the thread that binds them:
Her relationship with her mother is perhaps the most telling. Twyla, shaped by darkness, does not quite understand how Wyllow became what she is. Yet she protects her fiercely—not because Wyllow is weak, but because she represents something Twyla never had: a life not defined by fear. Still, there are moments when Twyla watches her youngest daughter too closely, as if searching for something hidden beneath the softness. And perhaps there is something. For all her gentleness, Wyllow sees more than she lets on. She hears what is not said. She feels shifts in mood, tension in the air, the weight of unspoken truths. She does not confront these things like Briar would—she carries them, quietly, until the moment comes when a single soft word can change everything. Many in Winterfell believe Wyllow Stark will grow to be a lady of songs and stories, remembered for her kindness. They are not wrong. But they are not entirely right, either. Because in a world of wolves and ghosts, of bloodlines and buried sins, sometimes the most powerful force is not the sharpest blade— —but the one person who reminds the North what it is fighting to protect. C U R R E N T M O T I V A T I O N S FILL IN HERE |
Ive had my eye on this for some time. Still accepting?
P E R S O N A L D E T A I L S Age: Fifty and Four years _________________________________________________________ Allegiance: House Targaryen (with some flexibility) A P P E A R A N C E _________________________________________________________  Lord Quentyn is a tall, thin man. He stands six feet four inches in height and weighs just under two hundred pounds. K E Y A S S E T S ▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔ -◼ Weaponry: Long Sword, Lance, and Bow ◼ Notable Skills: Lord Blackwood is an experienced battlefield commander and seasoned warrior. He is an excellent swordsman. | P E R S O N A L B A C K G R O U N D Lord Quentyn was born at Raventree Hall, his family’s domicile to Lord Benjicot Blackwood in 141AC. The Blackwoods are an old house in the Riverlands, descended from the First Men, and may be the only remaining house of the great houses of the Riverlands that follow the Old Gods. When Lord Benjicot, a seasoned warrior in his own right, passed away, Lord Quentyn was named Lord of Raventree Hall. He swore allegiance to House Tully and to House Targaryen. He took Felurian “the Fertile” as his wife. It was rumored that Felurian was a witch from Essos who charmed Lord Quentyn with her guile. Or maybe she was merely an attractive woman whose personality so endeared the Lord of Raventree Hall that he was compelled to be with her. In either case, Lady Felurian gave her husband several offspring, from whom her title of “The Fertile” was derived. Lady Felurian is a beautiful woman with long raven-black hair, bright blue eyes, and pale skin. Felurian is slender, large-breasted, with well-defined birthing hips. Felurian has a great sense of humor, keeping everyone in the family on their toes with her quick wit. Many of her daughters share her sense of humor. At age thirty and four years she has provided the following children to her husband Ser Quentyn: Melissa (11), Melantha (10), Benjicot (9), Robin (8), Bennifer (6), Robert (5), and Roland (3). She is currently pregnant with their eighth child. Ser Quentyn has a few individuals at Raventree Hall who provide assistance with the day-to-day maintenance of the castle and surrounding regions. They are Ser Floren Rivers, 49, master-at-arms & Castellan, Maester Simon Grell, 60, Ser Alister Wayn, 44, Master of coin and Septa Lelith Smallwood, 58 C U R R E N T M O T I V A T I O N S As of 196 AC, Quentyn’s goal is to defend the Riverlands from invasion by the usurper Daemon Blackfyre. His family, at one time, sat at the pinnacle of society in the Riverlands. He is proud of his heritage and desires to serve his liege Lord Tully as well as the King Daeron II Targaryen. Due to his personal experience and age, he is of the mindset that he would rather survive than give up his life to a king who may not appreciate his sacrifice. He is more interested in self-preservation and the survival of his house than the realm. The history of Blackwood has seen several kings come and go. Who knows how long this one will last? |
2x Thank
