BigPapaBelial — Roleplayer Guild

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: 

Name: Roderick (Little Roddy) Flower, Bastard of House Hunt

Age: 29

Seat: No reigning seat

Heir: No Heir, hasn’t fathered any children yet

Personality: Glib, blithe and mostly carefree. He carries his own burdens lightly, and looks on the woes of others without much of a problem. Being a Bastard gives him a unique outlook on things.  He’s studious and book smart. But has a very low opinion of many people around him. 

Biography: It began with an unwisely taken cup of mead. As many stories often do. This cup of mead started a story that has happened many times before.  It started the story of a bastard. 

The current Lord of House Hunt had gone to a tavern to drown the days stresses away. The tavern girl was slim, dark haired with an exotic tan to her skin. The lord was proud, powerful and tall. She had a pair of breasts that could swell out of her outfit if she just moved in a certain way, but managed to keep them penned in. He had a hard time penning something else in. And after many drinks, and some sweet talk the end result was a night and a day of wild animal like passion.

The Lord Hunt then moved on. As is the way of many of the Great and Lesser houses. The tavern girl lived on and did not know of what was left until she found she was late the next month as it were. And knew for certain when she began to throw up. The union had borne a third it seems. When the child was in swaddling clothes she took him to the Lord Hunt. And presented the lord his bastard son Roderick. The Lord took responsibility, and even took the tavern girl in for her trouble. The boy grew up in the Lords house. He didn’t grow up with luxury though, as his mother was a sensible woman, and knew he’s still of Bastard stock. So though he had some of the opulence, he also learned how to work with his hands. His father tried to teach him courtly niceties. And he learned some, but took less to the courtly stuff and more to the peasants way. His older brother was more the son that Lord Hunt wanted. While Roderick Flowers a much more down to earth fellow.

He was given a choice on his sixteenth naming day. To stay at the castle, go into military service, take the Nights Oath or a fourth option, go to Old Town and become a measter.

Roderick took the fourth option. And with his Father’s blessing and his mother’s reminder to always remember what he is and where he came from set off to the Citadel. It’s interesting to note that Roderick, who gained the nickname of Little Roddy, when some of his classmates met his brother Rodney Hunt, who’s a big fellow compared to Roderick, well Roderick is quite an intelligent fellow. He soaked up information like a sponge. And could internalize it in a state that he could understand much better then the way his tutors and the teachers could relate. He took fairly well to his lessons. And grew to really love the lessons on medicine, drugs, narcotics and poisons. In fact those were the first links he forged. The Medicine, Drugs and Narcotics and poisons chain links. He wore them proudly. He also took part in a program meant to teach measters how to fight. And he learned quite well how to handle a pair of daggers. He also learned through some of his classmates the art of sneaking out of The Citadel during the night to partake of some of the more risqué forms of entertainment around Old Town.

This might have been where his downfall started. Those late nights caused him a little trouble. He needed pick me ups during the day. So he began to brew himself various stimulant drugs to keep him going. He began to supply his classmates and soon some upper and lower year students with them too. A teacher though found out, and gave him a warning to stop. Roddy said he would but secretly continued, and even began to wrangle money out of his classmates for the drugs. By then he was far enough along that he’d been at the citadel for a fair amount of years. Having made his way to his twenty fifth naming day in the Citadel. And had only 3 links so far to show for it. He was about to gain a fourth though as he took up the surgery training. And gained another link that way. But then he began to do things that Measters are forbidden too. He began to test his drugs, medicine and other skills on live sources.

Again another teacher found him out. But unlike another man in a time long ago, Roderick didn’t let the man report him. He tracked the man, and slit the Measters throat in a dark hallway, leaving his body in a seldom used closet to rot. This bought him a little time. Until a well-meaning servant found the body. And a small bloodstained paper with Roderick’s name written on it. It had been a note to the Dean of the Citadel about Roderick’s extra studies. A group of guards and measters went to see the young man in his study room. And found him studying a man who had been doped up so heavily on various drugs and narcotics that he could only speak in song. Roderick was stripped of his Chain links, only after he gutted one of the measters and two of the guards. At the trial of Measters convened to decide his fate it was learned he was almost endlessly high on a variety of drugs that kept him going. Sleeping maybe only an hour or two a day. Using drugs and food and drink to keep him going during the day. It was decided he’d be expelled never to return. A measter went to take his chain links, but found he did not have them on him. Roderick was marched out of the citadel and thrown out with his clothing and a small stipend of money to help him get back home.

It took him a few months to make the trip back to the realms of House Hunt, and presented himself at his Father’s court. And truthfully relayed what happened. Not bothering to lie. Though his father and mother were put out with him, he did say he’d learned quite about and could earn his keep. His father set him up with a shop, and enough materials to get his work started. By twenty sixth year, people were coming to him for drugs and medicines that measters wouldn’t give to them. Soon nobles came to him for poisons. One year a noble asked him to do the poisoning for them. He trained himself and managed to get into a small party, where he managed to sneak a poison into a goblet of wine meant for his topic. He sipped on a flute of champagne as his target choked and died before the eyes of everyone attending. At twenty seven he was asked to get rid of someone messily, he used a pair of curved daggers to disembowel the target, leaving him hanging from his own entrails on a sign post for many to see and to get the message.

By the time he reached his twenty ninth naming day he was known to only a chosen few, who would go to him for the things they need. And the actions that they couldn’t do their self. Little Roddy Flowers. The Poison Flower of House Hunt.

Claim To The Throne: Not a single claim. Has other things he’s interested in.
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