Aladore Florent

Rhea Osgrey, nee Florent (29)

Amerei Rowan, nee Florent (25)

Arthur Florent (22)

Cassandra Florent (20)

**Aladore Florent** is Lord of Brightwater Keep, succeeding his father following The Rosegold Rebellion. The son of Alton Florent and Leonette Norcross, he is the second of six children, and the eldest male, and has two small children. He and his siblings are cousins to The White Rose, Alysanne Tyrell.

## Appearance and Character

Aladore has long red hair down to his shoulders, with a mustache but without a beard. He is only of an average height, but has the muscular body of a knight, one adept at tourneys and other martial activities. He dresses opulently, preferring dark colours to his House's blue and white.

His personality indeed fits these colours far better than a sky-blue or pearly white complexion. While Aladore is known for his knightly prowess, he treats it with indifference, an enjoyable hobby, for his true passion is subterfuge. He is harsh and cold even to his own family, an attribute only enhanced by his father's early passing. Aladore is precise and meticulous, making sure that any plan is perfect in every detail before executing it.

## History

Aladore Florent was born as the second child and first son to Lord Alton Florent and his wife, Lady Leonette Norcross. As a son he therefore automatically became heir to Brightwater Keep, displacing his elder sister and from his first moments, being imbued with a sense of privilege and authority.

As more siblings were born, boys and girls both, Aladore was naturally treated as the senior to them, and exacted the usual toll that elder brothers tend to upon their younger siblings. By the time he was in his teens Lord Alton and Lady Leonette had six children, and though he was not so strong or as tall as his sister, his status was enough to keep them beneath him for the most part. As a youth he was close to all of them, awaiting the new siblings first with indifference and as he grew to understand what the swelling of a mother's belly and a day of screaming in a bed meant, anticipation for the new addition to their brood.

His father wished for him to become a knight and the young Aladore was not difficult to convince, having heard of the heroic tales that the knights of legend, and having not heard of the rather more sad tales of those who had perished on the Field of Fire three generations prior. He would squire under his father, learning from the best trainers that their castle had to offer. As any person who practiced a skill for hours a day and years upon end, he became a talented squire and then knight once he reached the age of twenty.

When he was ten years of age, his final sibling was born. Both Lord Alton and Lady Leonette were by now in their late thirties and the birth was difficult. Though a son named Arthur would be born happy and healthy, the stress of the birth combined with the cold weather would mean that his mother would pass a year later, little more than the shell of the woman she used to be. The experience forever changed Aladore; while he had once been happy-go-lucky, kind even, his heart hardened watching his mother waste away to nothing before the Stranger finally ended his mockery.

This, combined with the usual rebellious nature of teenage years and exposure to less idealistic depictions of knighthood, led him to be convinced that the honour and prestige of such things were not for him, and instead he grew more and more interested in the subtle art of subterfuge. As a knight, he could kill five men, but with a network of spies wars could be stopped before they even began. As the dragons shrank and became weaker, his was the first generation that might, *might* have the ability to change Westeros permanently, without facing a weapon without counter.

But subterfuge is necessarily not something one announces openly, so Aladore was knighted by his father at the age of twenty, and grew to be a competent fighter. Soon after he was married to the Lady Desmera Oakheart; a handsome lady and sister of the lord, a far better marriage than his own father had. She would soon be with child, one that all hoped would be a heir to the house and the line of succession secured. But when the child was born it was not; a girl named Anya, looking far more like Desmera and Aladore, with her mother's beauty but without her robustness.

The Rosegold Rebellion was a war where there was no chance of subterfuge, started by a king's single foolish remark that spiralled out of control faster than perhaps anyone wanted. In an instant there was a Tyrell crowned king, and the West and Reach were on the battlefield against an enemy far stronger than they. It may not have been the wisest course of action but Lord Alton was old and prickly and far too honourable for his own good, and so the Florent army answered the call of their liege. The war went better than anyone could have expected, the combined might of the West and Reach almost toppling the king before a peace was made. But for Aladore there was no joy, as his father had perished at the Battle of Longtable, and hundreds of his men lay in makeshift graves.

Following the close of the rebellion he returned home, now as Lord of Brightwater Keep. He has spent the past few years raising his young children, arranging alliances through the use of his siblings for marriages, and restoring the Florent levies to their pre-war strength.

### During Active Play

Following the seizure of Gwayne Tyrell in King's Landing, the Reach descended into chaos without a single, unifying leader. Aladore had long disliked Gwayne and his prickly pride, feeling that his father had died in a war that started and ended because of one man being slighted. While his attitude towards the old man was strong, Gwayne's eldest daughter was popular, far more intelligent and more importantly, Aladore's cousin. While his arrest was questionably lawful, it represented an opportunity for him to be removed and Alysanne to replace him, and so Florent supported the crown. But at the end it was not to be, and instead Dorian would take the lord paramountcy.