Rhonan Bracken

## Personality

### Personality Description

Rhonan is a knight and a lord to about the same degree, taking his duty to keeping the safety of his lands seriously and will not shirk his duty in that regard, nor his duty to his liege. He does feel entitled to his station, and due to his experience in putting down dissenters for the Riverlands is known to be a fighter. “I’m not afraid to fight,” is something he is known to say. A frequent competitor in tournaments, the Lord takes pleasure in displaying and honing his swordplay and ability to joust from horseback, an above average competitor in the latter and one of the beter proven warriors in the former. But to contrast this brutish lifestyle, the Riverman does possess a softer side - visitors to his castle witness the depictions of places Rhonan has visited that have been taken down in vibrant paintings, several portraits adorn the rooms and corridors, and his laughter is known to ring out through the woods and across the fields as he cares for the horses in his stables, of which he raises several breeds and hunts with his knights and whatever comrades come calling.

However, the life he has led has been a double edged sword, for Lord Bracken finds peace to be a fleeting facet of his existence. “I’ve split too many skulls to sleep soundly,” was something a comrade of his in the Crossing said during his squiring years, and Rhonan has found that to be a true statement. His visits to the septs are for thanks, strength, and solace that he does not easily find unaided by drink when he cannot sleep…and that is often. Likewise, between the tempestuous relations between Blackwood and Bracken and his own personal trials in the fertile lands of the Freys and beyond even in a dangerous cat-and-mouse with the cast offs from Blackwood bands, Frey scouts and robber knights, Rhonan is quite superstitious, and will take measures to reassure himself he has not been hexed, and suffers no witchcraft or dark magics in his presence. He does not fear magic he can understand, however - “there is a reliability in steel, even Valyrian,” he’s said. And the ensorcelled blades of the Dragon kings, like Blackfyre or Lady Forlorn of House Corbray, have a place of awe and respect in the blacksmith lord’s mind.

## Backstory

Rhonan Bracken was born the eldest son of Adara Bracken nee Oakheart of Old Oak and “Old Lord Bracken, Desmond the Iron Knight of the Crossing, known for his service in House Vance of Wayfarer’s Rest. He was beyond all doubt a proud son of the Riverlands. Raised to be a knight, he sought to uphold the virtues of this state, valuing courage and valor, and striving by his every deed to embody them. It certainly helped that his Reachman blood made him bigger and stronger than his peers as a squire, and he excelled in martial pursuits. Any slights to dishonor were met with a hot temper and ready sword arm, and he eagerly offered his sword in service to his father’s old ally and comrade in arms, the Vance’s, when the Blackwoods and allied bannermen of the Freys sought bloodshed to answer the latest Bracken insult to their rivals. Using the weapon he forged himself during his tutelage at Old Oak as an apprentice blacksmith, Rhonan valiantly commanded the defense of the Vance foot against an Erenford charge when the knight Rhonan was squiring for took a lance to the shoulder, and won himself a knighthood by taking a passing horse and striking down four foes by himself, along with the title given to him by his fellow soldiers of the field, the Hammer.

On his 19th name day he participated in a tournament at Old Oak, newly flexing his knighthood in a joust and going on to win the attention of the daughter of the wealthy Whents of Harrenhal by matching lance and sword against a knight of house Darry, not giving an inch of ground. They wed within the year, and he took to his role as a husband with the vigor of a young man strong and brash, though he struggled to produce an heir. Discouraged, Alyssane did without her husband at her side as Rhonan took his sword to work in a reprisal campaign against the Freys, taking hostages and kin of the Deddings and Erenfords to weaken the Frey resolve to support the Blackwoods in future offensives, making silver and drinking ale, bedding women in taverns and a few septas, forgetting his failures at home for a time. So when he returned to his wife and saw his mother holding a baby girl with Alyssane’s eyes, Rhonan found his victory bittersweet.

Seven years past, Old Man Bracken breathed his last, falling from his horse on a hunting expedition beside his sons, and Rhonan was to assume the command of the castle at Stone Hedge. While his siblings now look to him for guidance, and he looks to his mother, Rhonan is not yet ready to give up riding in plate and mail or become a tame lord. For he is a Bracken, strong as an aurochs, fierce as a wild stallion, and no bridle can tame him. Some think he merely mourns his wife, and feels like he failed his daughter in missing her birth. He has yet to speak such truth to anyone.