Bloodless War

### Outcome

**King Robert III Baratheon ascends the New Throne*** Raymont Baratheon, his wife and children are abducted by mountain clansmen and eventually assassinated in their captivity
* Death of Prince Steffon Baratheon
* Death of King Robert II Baratheon and the accession of his great-grandson, King Robert III Baratheon
* The threats posed by the Five Pretenders are neutralised without significant bloodshed

Factions| * **Iron Throne**/House Baratheon of King's Landing
* House Arryn(during the Battle in the Mountains)
* House Tully(during the Battle in the Mountains)

**The Five Pretenders:*** House Baratheon of King's Landing(claimants)
	+ House Lannister(for Floris and Tommen)
	+ House Bracken(for Martyn and Alynne)
* House Baratheon of Storm's End(under Cedrik)

Leaders| **In the Vale:** Prince Raymont Baratheon  Lady Valaena Velaryon  Lord Commander Brandon Manderly †

**In King's Landing:** King Robert II Baratheon † Lord Hand Bran Stark King Robert III Baratheon Prince Eddard Baratheon Prince Eldrick Baratheon | **The Abductors:**Unorganised

**The Lannister Pretenders:** Princess **Floris Baratheon** Lord Tygett Lannister **Tommen Lannister**

**The Bracken Pretenders:** Queen Emylia Bracken Prince **Martyn Baratheon** Princess **Alynne Baratheon**

The **Bloodless War** refers to the events surrounding the death and succession of King Robert II Baratheon. As the name suggests, despite there being a succession crisis, no full-scale war broke out.

The 'war' began with the untimely death of Prince Raymont Baratheon and his family. Prince Steffon Baratheon died soon after, shortly followed by the death of King Robert II Baratheon himself, technically leaving the Iron Throne to Robert's sixteen-year-old great-grandson, Robert Baratheon, known as 'Robert the Younger', who was never expected to inherit.

During and shortly following Robert's accession, five potential claimants made moves towards seizing the Iron Throne, but all were neutralised by Robert and his allies before any could formally contest the succession and potentially trigger a war.

## History

### Prelude

By 389 AC, King Robert II Baratheon had been on the Iron Throne for sixty-four years, and was fast approaching his eighty-second nameday. While his mind remained sharp, his body had grown increasingly frail, and thus he mostly remained confined to the Red Keep, having not left King's Landing since his eightieth nameday. Likewise, his eldest son and heir, Prince Steffon Baratheon, while also aging, was growing moreso afflicted by grief, having lost his wife, daughter and youngest son, and a number of his closest siblings. As such, kingly responsibilities had fast fallen on the shoulders of Prince Raymont Baratheon, the eldest and last-living son of Steffon, and second-in-line to the Iron Throne.

Despite being over 100 years old, King Robert's perennial Hand of the King, Bran Stark, remained healthy and still as sharp as ever, and had begun advising Prince Raymont of his increasing duties.

### An ill-fated progress

In 389 AC, Steffon and Raymont Baratheon planned to make a royal progress of the Seven Kingdoms, but in the final days before their departure, Raymont convinced Steffon to stay in King's Landing, reasoning that Steffon should remain by the ailing king. Thus, Raymont departed King's Landing at the head of the progress, accompanied by his wife, Valaena Velaryon, and two children, Royce and Tyana Baratheon. Several months into the progress, the group departed Riverrun, heading eastward along the River Road and High Road towards the Eyrie. Around two dozen miles from the Bloody Gate, Raymont's retinue were ambushed by mountain clansmen, and Raymont and his family were taken into captivity, deep in the Mountains of the Moon.

### Failed negotiations and rescue

Upon realising the value of their hostages, the mountain clansmen sent riders to the Bloody Gate requesting to ransom the four nobles, threatening to kill them if any attempts were made to seize them back by force. When word reached King's Landing, Steffon, further consumed by grief, remained in his chambers for a week, with Queen Emylia Bracken ultimately travelling to the Vale to negotiate with the clansmen. After arriving at the Bloody Gate, Queen Emylia quickly grew tired of the clansmen's increasingly exorbitant demands, and sent requests to Lord Artys Arryn and Lady Danelle Tully to call their banners. Lord Commander of the Kingsguard, Ser Brandon Manderly, in a last ditch attempt to prevent a battle, offered to sneak into the encampment and free the Prince, his lady and children, to which Queen Emylia granted her approval. While Ser Brandon successfully reached and freed the four captives, the group were cornered as they tried to escape. Ser Brandon, Prince Raymont and Prince Royce were all killed, while Lady Valaena and Princess Tyana were enthralled to the mountain clansmen, who soon moved encampment, leaving behind the corpses of the princes.

### Battle in the Mountains

Upon learning of the failed rescue, Queen Emylia began amassing a large force of Arryn and Tully forces to pursue the mountain clansmen, ignoring offers from knights to mount further rescue attempts for Lady Valaena and Princess Tyana, whose fates remained uncertain. By mid 390 AC, around 10,000 highly-experienced knights and foot soldiers were gathered, and several weeks later, their forces had decisively encircled the mountain clansmen. In the ensuing Battle in the Mountains, the clansmen were utterly annihilated, but the bodies of Lady Valaena and Princess Tyana were soon uncovered as well. It soon became apparent that the two had only been killed recently, likely shortly before the battle. Around three weeks after word reached King's Landing informing of his granddaughter's death, the grief-stricken Prince Steffon Baratheon passed away at the age of sixty-two.

### Death of the Old King

King Robert lived on until the following year of 391 AC. His succession uncertain, many started plotting to seize power and influence. Only on his deathbed did Lord Hand Bran Stark finally bring King Robert to confirm his heir apparent, his great-grandson by Steffon's second son, Robert Baratheon, as his named successor to the Iron Throne. King Robert II Baratheon then passed away at the age of eighty-four, after sixty-six years of rule, and the sixteen-year-old Robert ascended the Iron Throne as King Robert III Baratheon.

### The Five Pretenders

Over the following year, five potential claimants made moves to seize the Iron Throne from King Robert III Baratheon.

Immediately after his accession, Robert feared that the ambitious Princess Floris Baratheon, who had openly coveted the Iron Throne following the death of Prince Steffon, would immediately move against him. Robert had Floris arrested and confined to Maegor's Holdfast, only to realise that her husband, Lord Tygett Lannister, and her two sons, Tommen and Jorah Lannister, had fled the Red Keep. Eddard Baratheon and his son Eldrick Baratheon managed to track down the trio before they could escape King's Landing, arresting Lord Tygett and uncovering evidence he sought to support either Floris or Tommen in taking the Iron Throne. Rather than a politically costly trial, Robert had Lord Tygett swear him an oath of fealty, and took Tommen and Jorah as hostages.

The most dangerous moment for King Robert's rule came around a week later, when Bran Stark revealed that the Dowager Queen Emylia Bracken was plotting to seat on the throne her son and daughter, Martyn and Alynne Baratheon, and was in the process of forging marriage pacts that could see half the Realm support her cause, including alliances with the Hightowers, Lannisters and Tullys. Rather than directly expose their plots to usurp the throne, Robert instead chose to publicly expose Martyn and Alynne's incestuous affair, which many at court had long suspected. Robert also implicated Emylia in the affair as aiding and abetting her children's unnatural behaviour. Applying pressure from the Faith, King Robert forced Emylia and Alynne to join the Silent Sisters, and coerced Martyn into joining the Stepstones Guard.

Around a year after Robert ascended the Iron Throne, the highly popular yet narcissistic Ser Cedrik Baratheon, son of Lord Selwyn Baratheon of Storm's End and Princess Lyra Baratheon, felt spurned after Robert named Eddard Baratheon to his Small Council instead of himself. Cedrik then fabricated a story of an altercation with Eddard's son Eldrick, claiming Eldrick had drunkenly attacked him in the streets of King's Landing. Cedrik insisted on a trial by combat, and Eddard feared that should he win, he and his leal supporters could use the victory as a precedent to seize the Iron Throne. Against Eldrick's wishes, Robert named himself as his champion, and faced Cedrik in a duel. Robert deftly disarmed the overly-confident Cedrik, irreparably wounding his sword-arm and permanently slaying his ego, and effectively dispatching Cedrik as a threat to his throne.

### Aftermath

Tommen and Jorah Lannister were made wards and squires to King Robert, in order to keep Casterly Rock in line. Tommen was given leave to return to the Rock following the death of his father, while Jorah was named to the Kingsguard on his sixteenth nameday, so he would remain at court.

With the wounds he suffered at the hands of King Robert, Cedrik struggled to so much as hold a sword for the rest of his life. Coupled with his change in personality, his popularity waned, and Cedrik eventually returned to Storm's End as a man frequently deep in his cups.

Many of those close to the king came to suspect over the years that Queen Emylia Bracken's plots and schemes may have been far more numerous than her final foiled plot to seat her children on the Iron Throne, and that she may have been working against those ahead of her kin in the line of succession from the moment she arrived at court following the death of Queen Jeyne Harlaw. Robert entertained such notions, but mused that whatever secrets Queen Emylia had, her vows of silence ensured that they would go with her to the grave.