Abelar Tarly

House Targaryen

Lord Abelar Tarly is the Lord of Horn Hill and a Marcher Lord of the Dornish Marches. Born in 387 A.C. Abelar Tarly is the first and only child of Gareth Tarly. His mother died in childbirth. His father, in sorrow, stabbed himself through the heart with the ancestral sword of House Tarly, Heartsbane. Abelar became the Lord of Horn Hill at only a few hours old. For the next 14 years, he would live under constantly changing regents. But at his fourteenth name day, he took control over Horn Hill despite the protests of his counselors.

## Appearance and Character

### Appearance

Abelar has brown hair and blue eyes. His brown hair, from his father, is kept combed to the side, his blue eyes, from his mother, are cold when he looks at something it is as though they penetrate it and read your entire life history before judging you. Often he will wear a grey or blue robe with few accessories, even though he could easily afford far more expensive garments. He has a lean figure, high cheekbones, and a finely kept beard. At 6'3 he is very tall looking down on most others. Abelar is conventionally attractive, but his personality renders his looks useless.

### Personality

Calling Abelar cold would be correct. When entering a room it is as though all life is sucked out of it. When he starts talking it as though a blizzard leaves his mouth. It is rare that he talks, however, often he can stand there listening to someone talk for hours without uttering a single word. That's not to say he is dumb. Quite the opposite. Abelar is a master of numbers and strategy. At the age of ten, he devised a plan to improve the income of House Tarly by one hundred dragons. During his childhood, studying was preferred rather than practice sword fighting. When he is not studying or reviewing the finances of Horn Hill, Abelar can be found either playing Cyvasse or inspecting his soldiers.

Every day is a strictly organized routine. It is carefully planned, making sure to the most out of each and every day. Should things not go according to plan he becomes destructive. This is when he truly manifests his Tarly nature. He will fling tables and chairs, destroy ancient vases and paintings before locking himself in a room alone with Heartsbane.

### Opinions on Abelar

To his courtiers, he is the manifestation of all that is good and bad about House Tarly. He has their rigid discipline combined with their unquenchable anger. If necessary he has nothing against using his own hands when necessary. Though he did prefer to delegate the responsibility, Abelar does understand that sometimes extreme measures are necessary. In Horn Hill, he has gained a fearsome reputation as a ruthless individual. After he seized the gold of the nobles of Horn Hill one courtier stood up and complained. The courtier's sentence was cut off by his own screams. His arm had been chopped clean off. Heartsbane was covered in blood.

### Order and the individual

Abelar seeks long-term stability and economic prosperity at all costs. The individual has no value beyond his utility to his lord, as an instrument of war, or production. All individuals must dedicate themselves to a higher cause, namely the cause of order. A society that puts order above the individual will prosper. If one does not operate to the fullest potential at all times, they must be punished. Preferably in a manner that motivates them to further their productivity. Every society should through psychological and physical means improve an individuals contribution to society. Emotional outburst should only be allowed if they increase productivity. Any other show of emotion is a sign of weakness.

## Early Life

After the tragedy that took place at his birth Abelar was now the new Lord of Horn Hill. But due to his age, a regent was chosen to rule in his name. During his childhood, many regents would come and go. His only relative Melara Tarly would leave for Redwyne at this time leaving him all alone in Horn Hill. At the age of seven, he found himself disinterested in the matters of the court of Horn Hill. Even then he could see the number sycophants at court grow each day. Not only that, he found their attempts at swaying him to their side unimpressive and exceptionally boring.

### Education

In an attempt to weaken the Tarly lord the regent at the time sent him to the Maester in hopes that he would not learn how to govern. The Maester quickly discovered Ablear's talent with numbers and educated him accordingly. At the age of eight, he was reading through all the finances of Horn Hill. At the age of nine, however, his education took a drastic turn. The regent changed once again, but this time the regent wished for Abelar to learn how to lead armies. For two years, he was drilled in the arts of leading, outsmarting the enemy and inspiring troops. It was during this time Abelar would first see the corruption of Horn Hill. He saw the regent at the time accept a bribe from some landless noble. Later that very same noble would receive a small piece of land outside of Horn Hill. The week after this regent would waste half the Tarly funds on a feast. Here Abelar first observed the decadent nature of his vassals. After this incident three years would pass, he would see numerous examples of corruption during these years, different regents would come to power and promptly lose it. His education would therefore constantly shift between learning Statecraft and learning Tactics. At the age of fourteen, the regent at the time died. Instead of nominating a new regent Abelar decided that he would do a far better job than any regent and took power in Horn Hill. Much to the ire of his council.

## Management of Horn Hill 401 - 402

With him coming to power his entire council who had been in power since his father's death were imprisoned and have been there ever since. He quickly reorganized his entire court. Removing courtiers from their honourary positions and imprisoning anyone who objected. After his purge of the sycophants of Horn Hill, he instituted widespread administrative reforms. His first reform was adding the council of efficiency. The second was obligating every large village to send at least one member to the court. This was commonly called "the peasant court." After instituting his second reform Abelar went on a crusade against the old Regency, revoking all granted titles that had been given during the regencies. He did, however, invite every noble who had their land revoked to Horn Hill to argue for their case. Once they arrived in Horn Hill they would be imprisoned on charges of corruption. Those who had not committed any crimes towards House Tarly were given back their own land for their loyalty and hard work. In cases where they had proven exceptionally effective, they were also given some of the land previously held by the corrupt lords.

### The Council of Efficiency

The council is dedicated to maintaining and improving the efficiency of Horn Hill and its surrounding lands. The council itself is made up of 20 individuals, equally split between nobles and the different masters from the peasantry. The council itself does not wield any executive power. Their duty is more focused on providing sound advice to Abelar and coming with any suggestions they might have so as to improve efficiency. All members of the council are appointed directly by Abelar via a process that could best be described as "extremely uncomfortable."

### The Peasant Court

In an attempt to extend the reach of the reforms he invited peasants from as many villages possible. Their duty was less to represent the common folk and more to quickly bring his reforms to the countryside. A region notorious for falling behind on any reforms. The peasant court would prove very useful when Abelar decided to fix the housing situation in the region. Most peasant houses were, thanks to the Peasant Court, quickly brought up to regulation. The Peasant Court once again proved instrumental in his agricultural reforms, where he improved the amount of grain by 20 bushels per village. Without the Peasant Court, however, this would have proven impossible.

### The Agricultural Reform

The Agricultural Reform is not one consistent policy that was adopted by Horn Hill. Rather it was multiple reforms who have been lumped together. These reforms included everything from, improving storage conditions for produce, instituting a strict policy on irrigation, expansion of farmlands, increasing the number of farm animals and using them as a source of manure. The Agricultural reforms cost House Tarly an unprecedented amount of gold, but it would be well worth it just one year later.

## The Scarlet Winter

Having come into power before the winter Abelar had already prepared large stores of food in case this winter would be a bad one. His earlier agricultural reform had proven essential to this stockpile. Then the Scarlett Winter hit and it was the worst winter in a long time. Abelar immediately issued a strict rationing program for the peasants taking from the castles on supply. The food supply within the castle only lasted for about a year and a half. Even with the strict rationing. Abelar could only see one solution to this problem, and so he seized the funds of all nobles within the castle. With those funds managed to purchase a large amount of food. The imported food from the far east arrived just in time. Now Abelar imposed even stricter rules upon food distribution, the peasants stayed alive, if barely. By the time the winter ended the food storage had close to no food left within it.

## Management of Horn Hill 405 - 407

The Scarlet Winter stopped any further reforms Abelar had planned at the time an pushed them further back, but with the winter over he continued his reforms. He started with a military reform. Followed by the failure known as "Permanent rationing" and then came the culture shift. His greatest accomplishement, or greatest evil as some say.

### Doctrine of War

Abelar didn't have much faith in tried and tested strategies and ideas. He preferred trying new ideas to further House Tarly. That's exactly what he did with his army. The armies of House Tarly had always been formidable, but there was room for improvement. Abelar started by improving their equipment, providing new swords and armour, but then came the hard part. The entire command structure was to be rebuilt. A monumental task that was almost unprecedented in Westeros. He divided his commanders into three tiers. The bottom tier of command had control over eighty soldiers and had to adapt to each individual situation. Above them were the second tier. Every commander of the second tier had six commanders under him. The commanders of the second tier made sure nobody was flanking or breaking their lines. If it was needed they gave orders to the commanders under them. At the top, there are two commanders who each commanded 4 of the second tier. The third rank made the plans and made sure they were executed.

#### Tactics

He also changed the tactics for the army itself. Inventing new ways to defend from archer fire, cavalry charges, infantry charges and siege weaponry. In addition to inventing new ways to attack. One of his tactics is called the turtle. Where to defend against archer fire all the soldier form into a tight formation and hold their shields above their heads. Those in the front, back and sides hold their shields so as to block arrows from the flank.

#### The Grand Strategy

In its purest form, the concept of strategy deals solely with military issues. However, Abelar proposed the establishment of "The Grand Strategy." This is the management of the resources of an entire region in the conduct of warfare. Up to half of the funds raised by Horn Hill were to be spent on its military, and he also instituted the adaptability plan, a strategy that was clearly more complicated than simple knee-jerk strategic or tactical responses to individual threats. House Tarly's strategies were to be changed over time, implementing different systems to meet different challenges that reflected changing priorities. Parts of the strategy put forward by Abelar included the use of client states, the deterrent of armed response in parallel with manipulative diplomacy, and a fixed system of troop deployments and road networks.

#### Standard production of equipment

To increase discipline and improve efficiency in forging Abelar introduced standard patterns for all military equipment. This would, according to Abelar, result in an army devoid of weakness. Every sword, shield, and piece of armour would be made to perfection. Something that would allow his armies to easily beat any other. This combined with the official tactics makes the army of Horn Hill as close to a professional army as you can come in Westeros.

### The Permanent rationing

In 406 Abelar instituted a policy of "permanent rationing." This was done so as to increase Horn Hills food storage for the winter. It had proven a resounding success during the Scarlet Winter where it saved numerous lives, but now it was far less fortunate. At first, it seemed to be working, with Horn Hills food storage larger than in a long time, however, it quickly took a turn for the worst. Peasants started dying of starvation and the people went hungry. It didn't take long after that for Abelar to revoke the policy and return the grain to the producers.

### The Culture Shift

Abelar has remarked multiple times that he finds the current culture of Westeros weak and foolish. In an attempt to strengthen he introduced a policy that was to turn the culture of his region from an agriculturally based culture to a military based one. His first act was to obligate all young men to train in Horn Hill. There they would learn how to fight in his army. At Horn Hill, they were segregated to a locked part of the castle. They were starved, beaten and taught that the only way to survive was to fight. Then they were taught that all festivities were decadent and not what Westeros should be like. Those who objected were beaten until they agreed. In the months their training took place most learned, though some would never return. Abelar supposedly said to one of his councilors who asked what the point of this was "We shall become a homogeneous culture that obliterates the identity of every group it conquers." In the aftermath of this Abelar has made any and all festivities punishable by death. He gave Lord Vyrwell and Hunt the option to choose if they wished to adopt his policies.

## Recent Events

Abelar has recently attended the tourney of Harrenhal though he did not compete. With the tourney done he is now traveling back to Horn Hill but is the meantime stopping at King's Landing.