(WIP)

[B]House Frey[/B]
[B]Seat:
The Twins – The Crossing[/B]
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[i]“The Twins—two squat, ugly, formidable castles, identical in every respect, with the bridge arching between—had guarded the crossing for centuries.”[/i] – Catelyn Tully

The Twins, sometimes known as the Crossing, are the seat of House Frey in the northern Riverlands. It is a fortified crossing of the Green Fork of the Trident and consists of two identical castles and a tower in the middle of their bridge.

The Twins consist of two identical castles standing on a margin of the Green Fork of the Trident. A stone bridge arches between them. This bridge is wide enough for two wagons to cross abreast, and is guarded by a tower in the middle known as the Water Tower. It is the only crossing point over the Green Fork for hundreds of miles in either direction, from the North to the western Riverlands. It lies directly athwart the main route from Winterfell to Riverrun.

The Freys have held the crossing of the Green Fork for six hundred years. It took them three generations to complete the bridge, after which they built timber keeps on each bank of the river. Since then, the Freys have grown wealthy by charging a heavy toll on all those who need to cross - a fact which irks many older or more powerful houses. The timber keeps have since been replaced by stone. These castles are what give the stronghold its name, for they are identical. They have high curtain walls, deep moats and a barbican and portcullis in each. The bridge footings rise from within the inner keeps. Given their strong castle, strategic location, lands, wealth, and numbers, the Freys are one of the most powerful bannerhouses sworn to House Tully.

The seat of the Lord of the Crossing is a massive chair of black oak. Its back is carved in the shape of two towers joined by an arched bridge.

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Two blue towers united by a bridge on silver-grey, representing the Twins.

[B]Words: We Take Our Toll[/B][/Center]

[B]History:[/B]
House Frey is one of the younger houses in Westeros, dating back some six centuries when its founder was awarded lands and nobility. The founding Frey had a vision of building a great bridge spanning the Green Fork of the Trident and began its construction. His grandson ultimately finished the bridge's construction and built wooden keeps on both sides as well. Later generations replaced the timber keeps with identical stone keeps that were named the Twins. A large tower was constructed in the middle of the bridge and called the Water Tower.

The Twins' defensible construction and strategic location allowed the Freys to prosper by exacting tolls for passage across the river. The Freys grew into one of the richest and most powerful houses of the Trident. Their quick rise to prominence has caused other powerful houses to look down on them as upstarts. Animosity with the Darrys from Darry was nursed, for instance and the Freys also became bitter rivals with their neighbours to the north, the Crannogmen ruled.

House Frey aided Aegon the Conquerer during his War of Conquest and rebelled against King Harren the Black of Harrenhal. Afterward, the Freys joined the other river lords in swearing fealty to House Tully. During the Dance of the Dragons, House Frey sided with the blacks against the greens. Lord Forrest Frey died fighting Westermen in the Battle by the Lakeshore.

[B]Sworn to the Twins:[/B]
House Charlton
House Erenford
House Haigh
Housa Nayland of Hag's Mire

[B]Members of the House:[/B][List]
[*]Lord Calder Frey, Lord of the Crossing[/*]
[*]Walda, Lyana, Amerei, Selyse, his four daughters[/*]
[*]Walder Frey, his infant son[/*]
[*]Lady Darla Frey, elder sister to Calder, former wife to Jon Lothston, died when falling off a horse[/*]
[*]Domeric Lothston, son of Jon Lothston and Darla Frey, squire at the Harrenhal[/*]
[*]Ser Franklyn Frey, his brother, a good tourney fighter[/*]
[*]Steffon Frey, a squire[/*]
[*]Ser Addam Frey, a cousin, a good lance[/*]
[*]Marei, his sister[/*]
[*]Ser Benfred Frey, another cousin[/*]
[*]Ser Tom Fishbone, a Tully bastard sired on Bethany Frey, sister to Ser Benfred Frey, has a fish-skeleton for his sigil[/*]
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[Hider=Lord Calder Frey of the Crossing]
[B]Calder Frey, Lord of the Crossing, the Crippler, Black Calder, Cold Calder[/B]
[B]Age:[/B] 32
[B]Appearance: [/B]
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Lord Calder is stout for a Frey, broad of shoulder though less so than his younger sibling. He has brown hair, with bristly brooding brows and keen eyes.

[B]Personality:[/B]
Born a Frey, and raised at the lofty court of Daeron II the Good, he has developed a disdain for the poorest farmers, the paupers. He is a staunch believer of the nobility lording over the commoners. The lowborn people should recognise their betters and work the land, adhere to their duty. He is a proud man, and believes himself the superior to many.

Lord Calder is a mediocre fighter, able to stand his own in personal combat but preferring not to. Though he does not lack courage, he sees his mind as his most powerful weapon. Unlike his kinsmen Franklyn and Addam, he is no warrior but has specialised in the practical aspects of warfare. On several accounts, Calder has displayed an aptitude for tactics and planning, relying on knowledge, surprise, timing and opportunism to gain victory.

He has a mind for organisation and politics, and always tries to gain the advantage and negotiate or strike from a position of strength. Cunning, Calder uses his strengths in a versatile way, carefully guards his weaknesses and exploits those of his enemies. The game is always being played, he believes, it is just a matter of playing your cards right.

[B]Biography:[/B]
Growing up in the Twins meant growing up among a host of ruthlessly ambitious family members. As the firstborn to the late Lord Aemon Frey, Calder was groomed from an early age to inherit the Twins and become the head of the powerful Frey family. With that responsibility came the duty to be ever vigilant of the enemies of House Frey, and they are several.

Up until the age of ten, Calder spent his time at the Twins, studying history and poetry mostly. When he went away as a ward to the Eyrie and later King’s Landing, his studies turned to more practical fields, Calder taking an interest in engineering and logistics.

Though Calder spent sufficient time practicing his skills with weapons, he was not particularly a prodigy, unlike his younger brother Franklyn or his cousin Addam. While he displayed reasonable aptitude for swinging a sword, Calder’s weapon of choice is a single-handed war hammer, better known as a horseman’s pick.

Calder squired first for Ser Harry Haigh, but it became clear that this was not a beneficial position, for while he may have been a knight of some renown in his heyday, Harry, washed up in the capital, had turned to the drink. Calder thought him a useless half-wit, and wrote to his father that he would choose and negotiate his own commission. After being turned down by Ser Lyonel Baratheon, the Laughing Storm, in a rather humiliating exchange, young Calder Frey began to see the world for what is really was, putting behind him the ideas and fancies he had obsessed about in his childhood years.

A lad of fifteen, Calder became the squire to a young Ser Humfrey Hardyng of the Vale. House Hardyng was sworn to House Waynwood from Ironoaks, and so it was a good thing Ser Humfrey was intent on making a name for himself as a tourney knight, for the Waynwoods were notoriously obsessed with ceremony, leading to more than one incident when Calder and Humfrey attended.

For the next two years, Calder followed Ser Humfrey as he went from fair to fair, from tilt to tilt. During this time he learned a lot of how politics influenced practically everything, as well as how to acquaint himself with people born high and low.

When travelling from the Twins to the Vale through the Mountains of the Moon, Ser Humfrey and Calder were beset by a group of Mountain clansmen. It was in this skirmish that he earned his spurs, Ser Humfrey knighting him for it at a gathering in the Eyrie.

Later on, Ser Calder distinguished himself against raiding Crannogmen in a few swift engagements. Ever since, the men of the marsh think twice before staging incursions into the Freylands. During one of these skirmishes, Calder knighted his younger brother Franklyn who then set out with their cousin Addam to break lances at tourneys.

Calder spent some time travelling around the Riverlands and visited Oldtown and Lannisport before returning to King’s Landing. For a time he resided there, and worked in the port’s customs administration. When the Blackfyre Rebellion broke out, he even functioned as a temporary advisor to the Small Council to organise and oversee the expansion and modernisation of the city’s defences. He helped prepare the city and Red Keep for a siege, though that proved unnecessary. 

However, Lord Aemon Frey called him home to protect the Twins and Freylands, for when war engulfs Westeros, the Riverlands burn. Calder secured supplies and led expeditions to pick off looters, deserters and bandits, while his father stayed at the Twins due to prolonged sickness.

Lord Aemon was careful not to declare for any one in particular, only sending a token force of two hundred footmen and fifty knights to Riverrun to reinforce his liege lord.

After Lord Aemon’s death in 199 AL, the Crossing passed to Calder without much incident. Lord Calder earned his nickname, the Crippler, due to his treatment of unruly subjects. Some runaway serfs had been caught, causing Calder to utter a well-known epigram at the Twins. “Give peasants half a chance, and like pigs in the forest or sheep on a mountainside, might all too easily stray. Rein them in and cull them on time.” The serfs lost their feet so they could never run away again. From then, seeing his initial mild approach did not work, Lord Calder Frey adopted a stern and rigid mode of punishment.

Thieves lose hands, runaways lose feet, muderers lose heads, rapists lose… Lord Calder’s harsh but fair justice is non-discriminative. Ser Harry Haigh, the first knight he squired for, had manhandled a farmer’s daughter and was subsequently offered the choice between taking the black or of being robbed of his manhood.
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