Denys Darklyn

## Personality

### Personality Description

He’s a quiet, observant and prudent man. He can read people easily and understand how they think, and can usually gently prod them to reveal more than they want through kind words. He’s often underestimated for his quietness, which doesn’t rattle him since he has the chance to observe and gather more information that way.

He’s generally moral and just man, but for what he believes is right will break certain moral rules. He can manipulate, deceive and seduce to achieve his goals if he believes it’s justified, which makes him hypocritical to most eyes. While he usually has a good idea in mind, he can be deceived by skilled liars or good enough pretension.

### Goals and Motivation

Help Westeros overcome the division in allegiances, settle a good ruler in the Seven Kingdoms and to find peace and prosperity within the Kingdoms.

### Reputation

As the second son of Lord Robyn Darklyn, he’s virtually unknown at court beyond being a quiet, unobtrusive man.

## Backstory

Denys is the third and last born child of Lord Robyn Darklyn and Lady Denera Buckwell, after Helera, the eldest, and Robert, the heir.

He grew up in the shadow of his siblings, bright and lively Helera who was fiercely clever and talkative, loved to dance and to be a lady, and courageous and strong Robert who was the perfect heir, loved to joust and held honour and duel higher than anything else. He was always the quiet kid, different from both his parents and siblings, and thus isolated. This lent him a perspective on the world not many other nobles had, since from the shadows he grew to observe and understand people uncannily well.

Helera was born far earlier than either Robert or Denys, and was the heiress apparent while Denera suffered from infertility and was thought to not be able to produce more children. She had a sharp mind for politics, powerful charisma, and the training to be the perfect Lady of Duskendale. However, after Robert was born, she was cast aside. She had already been married to a landed knight of their service, a good man by the name of Tallon Hayland, to be her consort, and they were relegated to a minor keep near Duskendale.

This stuck to Denys, who believed it was an injustice to women that the laws of Westeros did not allow for women to inherit when men could, and it only cemented his beliefs later on in life. Before Helera was cast aside permanently, around the time he was 15, he briefly conspired with her to somehow retain the status of heiress, and supported her even after their father discovered them. This created a massive rift between the both of them, and Denys grew distant from him and his belief, which made his father eager to be rid of him, though that wouldn’t happen until he was older since he was not fit for acquiring. The bad blood between them was known in the castle. He believes if he can get a woman to be queen, he can help his sister be Lady of Duskendale.

His childhood was a happy albeit quiet one, with books and Maester Tallyn for company, rarely in the company of other children. He can thus blend in the background well enough to indulge in people watching, though he has the quietly unnerving presence all Darklyns seem to have, and his quietness only accentuates it. He and Robert were born exactly 11 months apart, which meant he was always in the shadow of Robert, who was perfect in their parent’s eyes, to the point where he once tried to attack his brother with a sparring sword at the age of eleven. He broke his arm, courtesy of his brother, and resented him thereafter still to this day. They would bicker and argue and even come close to blows, which left him only with his sister, who was much too old to spend time with him until he was older.

His father had seen the potential in Denys to be an informant for him at court after giving thought to getting him away from the castle. He, unlike his father, believed in the right of House Brightflame to rule, since by the rights of inheritance it was their right, and saw it as an opportunity to bring himself closer to those who shared his ideas while risking going behind his father’s back. He hated his father for this decision, which added to his hate for Helera’s casting aside, and the discussion following the reveal from his father still rings in the ears of the residents of Dun Fort.

Denys believes in Visenya Brightflame‘s capacity to rule despite her father’s reputation and the current rules of inheritance in Westeros, and hopes that putting her on the throne can achieve to establish a more lawful line of succession and a precedent to allow women to inherit.