Name: Lord Cidran “Ran” Harlaw of Ten Towers, Bannerman to Lord Greyjoy
Age: 48
Seat: Ten Towers on the Island of Harlaw, Iron Islands
Heir: Petyr Harlaw, son of 17 years, in training with the men-at-arms of Ten Towers
Family Members:
Teran Harlaw (deceased) Father, former Lord Harlaw
Ladi Harlaw (Deceased) Mother
Tillia Harlaw nee Blacktide (45) Wife of Cidran
Petyr Harlaw (17) Heir Apparent
Jonaton Harlaw (46) Brother, Lord of Grey Garden
Antom Harlaw-Pyke (40) Legitimized Bastard Brother, Lord of Harlaw Hall, Called Lil’ Ant Harlaw
Perin Harlaw (44) Brother, Lord of Harridan Hill
Maxos Harlaw (42) Brother, Lord of Tower of Glimmering, Called Maxos Merling
Personality:
Proud, loud, strong and iron hard. As a good Ironman ought to be. Gruff and powerful, a man who knows what his people are like. Knows the taste of salt, and the touch of stone. No friend to the Mainlanders but willing to listen to them at the very least. Loyal to the Iron Islands and the Seastone Chair. And though he doesn’t always get along with them, holds family above even his closest friends.
Is a frequent visitor of the shoals and rocks and briney water at the edge of the sea, to dip his head, and take a good gulp of salt water, worshipping the Drowned God, calling his name when things of a spiritual nature are needed, and will often thumb his bell-end in the direction of the Seven. Perfectly willing to pour a libation to the dead into the sea when he’s of the mood.
Biography:
“You’re born an Ironman, aye, that’s right boy. But you can’t call yourself an Ironman until you’ve picked up a sword and fought a man at one pace on the rolling deck of a longboat!”
-Captain Rosi Saltthroat
Ironman, Ironborn, that’s what they are called. A lot of other men of the Iron Isles might have forgotten that over the years. Not so much Lord Cidran Harlaw. He didn’t let the fact that his mines made him rich, and his smiths beat the metals into fine goods. He still cleaved to the idea that an Ironman, should be ready with weapon on hand, in case there is a chance to take to the waters, and prove a prime Reaver of souls, and prepared to rape and pillage, if you have a little free time on your hands that is.
Cidran was born fine and hale, a big strapping child, who was said to have one hell of a pair of lusty lungs, crying out so loud, that he woke the hounds down in the kennels that night. This would carry on to his elder years, his voice always powerful, loud, such that if he wanted to, he could drown out the entirety of a feast hall filled with people and be heard on out into the hall with ease.
Cidran had been born to a family of salt and stone kings. The Harlaws are wealthy, and powerful, enough so that the Greyjoys know fine not to try and cross them, even if the Greyjoys rule. You don’t try and piss off the family that can supply a good third of your men when you come calling. Likewise do they bend the knee to the Greyjoys as the Lords of the Iron Islands. Not that they couldn’t that away from them if they got enough support during a kingsmoot, but who wants to rule the Iron Islands anyway? Cidran knows quite well that the Harlaws and the Greyjoys have a good deal here and he’s happy for that.
When Cidran was young his father threw him out of the castle for a decade, and told him he wasn’t a Harlaw for those ten years. And not to come back until he’d spent time in salt and in stone. He spent those years sailing on various longboats, taking part in the occasional raid on the coast line, taking thralls and learning the trade of the sword, shield and club. He was no stranger to it. When released from his last ship voyage, he bent low enough and worked an iron mine beside some of the thralls he had taken himself less then a year before. He had learned to fight with sword on land and a boat. He learned how to fight with fist and pick in the mines. While doing so he learned valuable lessons about the kind of people that populated the Iron Islands and the Island of Harlaw. Even their Thralls, the common folk of the islands, the shipmen and the captains. They all had iron hearts and iron hands. Powerful and unbending. When he returned to the Ten Towers after that decade was up, he was named Heir to Harlaw. And spent much of his time after ward captaining his own ship, and actting as a mouth for his father between the other lords of the Islands, and on the rare occasion, was sent to the mainland on trading trips, or to speak with the landbound lords.
It was on one of these trips that one of those landbound lords tried to take him as a hostage. Thinking back on it later after his escape, Cidran would hold a little bit of animosity towards the lord who said he spoke for House Brax. Cidran would learn they held banner for House Crakehall and always held abit of a grudge against them afterward. Either way after being captured and held hostage, with a ransom sent to his father. He was left in cell, with a rotting door. Like a proper reaver, he battered down the door, stole an axe, and managed to fight his way out, finding his crew also in the dungeons. With fifty seven oars he managed to get his men all the way out to the castle gates, taking an arrow to the hip on the way, which would leave him with a slight limp into his later years.
His father would die in his sleep when Cidran is in his late 30s. Cidran, his blood brothers and his single bastard but legitimized brother would be the ones to take to a boat, flanked by other boats with captains and the common people to pay respects. The brothers were the ones to tip their fathers body over the gunwale and into the salt. Cidran would be the one to call out to the ships and people that the Drowned God needed a good oarsmen. His mother followed his father a year later, and they repeated the process sending her to join her husband, his father with the Drowned God. No doubt after his parents were gone Cidran took up the reins as Lord Harlaw. Which is where we find him now.
Claim To The Throne: Not a one. Supports the Greyjoys in their efforts on the Iron Islands
Appearance:
FourtyTwo,
Xyzzt,
cosmiccowgirl,
Auragreedia,
SonnetNSunbeam,
Fading Memory,
Fetzen,
Candy Cane Elf,
Not a Sayan,
pppp
