Baelor I Targaryen

**Baelor I Targaryen** was the sixth king to sit on the Iron Throne, styling himself with the title **King of the Andals, the Rhoynar, and the First Men, King of All Westeros, Lord of the Seven Kingdoms, Shield of His People, and Protector of the Realm**. Born as the first child of King Viserys I Targaryen and Queen Zhoe Arryn, he had four trueborn siblings, one of whom was his second wife and queen, Rhaenys Targaryen.

He had two children, both daughters - Princess Saerra Targaryen, heir presumptive, and Princess Naerys Targaryen.

His reign began near the end of 129 AC, after his father passed from an illness of two years.

## Appearance and Character

Baelor was a handsome man, boasting the silver hair common to those of Valyrian descent and eyes a shade of blue-green that could be either calming or intimidating, depending upon the situation at hand and his mood of the moment. He maintained a clean-shaven face and a closely cropped head of hair. He was not an overly tall man, boasting only an average height at 5 feet and 9 inches.

Regarded as an intelligent and quick-witted individual, Baelor also carried himself with a relatively extroverted demeanor. Nevertheless there were times in which he could be viewed more as opportunistic with a zeal for advancing himself or his interests. This may well have tied glove in hand with the king’s tendencies towards grandiosity, borne out in his ardent belief in Targaryen exceptionalism.

The dual influences of his father and the long-tenured Hand of the King Prince Aegon tempered some of the more boyish and spontaneous tendencies exhibited by Baelor in his youth, as did his experiences in ruling over Dragonstone and the two years spent working closely with Aegon prior to his father’s passing.

## History

### Youth, 100 AC - 110 AC

Born at the tail end of several difficult trials for the realm to King Viserys I Targaryen and Queen Zhoe Arryn - not the least of which was the marriage of own parents - Baelor Targaryen was blessed to live a pampered and comfortable life as a scion of the royal family. Despite the travails prior to his birth, and despite troubles still unfolding, the realm remained intact, which had been far from a foregone conclusion before his parents were wed.

As the heir apparent to the Iron Throne, Baelor was quickly affirmed as the Prince of Dragonstone - though his uncle Prince Daeron, formerly the holder of that title, was named as its regent until Baelor was to come of age.

As a child, Baelor was a cheerful and enthusiastic sort that often exasperated parents and caregivers alike, whether they were stewards, maids, maesters, or even veteran knights. Full of irrepressible energy, the crown prince was fascinated by the architecture of his family’s castle and from an early age set out to learn its secrets - all the cellars, hallways, ways to and fro. During one of his many excursions as he matured, Baelor discovered a grand secret - the chamber of the dragon mosaic, and the secret passages that connected to it. Even as a child, however, he recognized its value, and would share the secret only with a select few over the years.

Baelor lived a privileged life the sort that most in the realm could only imagine. Anything that he desired was never far out of reach and his parents doted upon him, with Viserys especially spending as much time with his son as possible out of fear that he would otherwise create a rift that would mirror the one that he suffered with his own father. Time proved this to be a fear that the king needed not hold, for Baelor held close relationships to both his parents.

Maesters saw to his scholarly education, whilst the white brothers of the Kingsguard and the Red Keep’s master-at-arms were tasked with ensuring that the prince grew up to be proficient in martial pursuits. In other ways Baelor took after his father, finding a great deal of enjoyment in horseback riding through the Kingswood, or even in reading and learning the history of their house - particularly in relation to dragons, their ancestral fortress of Dragonstone, and the ancient days in Old Valyria. Baelor did not, however, inherit his father’s musical skills, nor in truth much interest in artistic pursuits beyond the amusements of mummer’s troupes and the like.

By 107 AC, Baelor was the eldest of four siblings - Jaehaerys, born in 103 AC; Armidyon, born in 104 AC; Daenys, in 106 AC; and finally, Rhaenys, in 107 AC. As the firstborn and the heir, Baelor viewed it as his natural responsibility to take charge over his siblings and act as their leader, regardless of whether or not the others would respond positively or chafe under his direction.

Baelor also developed a fondness for the nearby city of Duskendale, which he viewed as a quaint little place to escape from the mess of King’s Landing when it was permitted - which occurred from time to time, given that House Darklyn was a trusted bannerman and that his father’s cousins Prince Aegon, Princess Jaehaera, Princess Alysella, and Prince Valerion had a Darklyn for a mother. So, too, was a half-sister named Shiera Waters living there, born of Meredyth Darke - a woman formerly a companion of Princess Alysella that had been the King’s mistress for a time.

Ironically, it would be in King’s Landing rather than the Dun Fort where Baelor and Shiera would meet for the first time, albeit not until his father’s nameday celebrations in 109 AC. Despite his mother’s admonition to remain away from the bastard girl, Baelor was nevertheless drawn to her - an understandable desire to know a sibling that, for once, was within arm’s reach. As such, they stole quiet little moments together throughout the feast, most often in private halls far away from the celebrations.

### Faith and Cobblists, 110 AC - 115 AC

Baelor was born in the light of the Seven, as befit a member of nobility, no less a scion of royalty. Septons were easily accessible for his religious upbringing, as were septas to act as governesses for the royal children. Despite his early fascination with Targaryen customs of old, Baelor readily accepted the Seven into his life as a child.

The ascension of the Righteous One to the Starry Sept and the new High Septon’s accompanying rhetoric that targeted the royal family for “religious degeneracy,” however, left the young prince confused. Full of questions that his minders could not answer and a disquiet that they could not soothe, Baelor’s visits to the White Sept in the city and the royal sept in the Red Keep started to decrease in frequency.

Matters would come to a head by 115 AC. The year prior, followers of another zealot called Marq the Cobbler had been fomenting unrest throughout the Riverlands and Westerlands, which left the King and Hand concerned, even as they permitted the Houses Lannister and Tully to take the lead in dealing with the issues in their region. In 115, however, it was learned that cobblists had spread to the Crownlands as well after Lord Sunglass delivered several to the royal court with news that the men had sought his support. Only a matter of weeks later did unrest, riots, and fires break out inside King’s Landing itself.

It was an attack upon the heart of the realm that did not go unanswered. King Viserys, his Hand Prince Aegon, and Prince Baelor - accompanied by knights of the Kingsguard and the Dragonguard - strapped on their armor, picked up their swords, and waded into the streets to fight with the beleaguered City Watch.

The fighting was intense, no matter that only a comparative few of the cobblists had any true martial training. Blood ran in the streets and wynds, and cramped corridors made for tricky combat. Nevertheless, the royal defenders ultimately prevailed and the surviving cobblists - those that were unsuccessful in fleeing, anyhow - were rounded up for execution.

After the fighting was done, Baelor was not seen outside his rooms for three days. He was but five-and-ten when he killed his first man and it left him shaken, no matter how necessary he knew it had been. In the weeks and moons that followed, the prince’s visits to the septs dipped even more. He was convinced that the cobblists would not have risen up in such strength if not for the Righteous One, and so the prince started to turn away from the Faith of the Seven in his heart.

### A Tryst and Marriage, 118 AC

A few years later Baelor was reunited with his half-sister Shiera upon a visit to Duskendale and the Dun Fort. At several different times throughout that year, the pair entertained one another often, whether it be in the Red Keep of the capital or the Darklyn’s castle in their quaint little city. This entertainment did not always remain in the realm of what was considered proper; whispers abounded in both the courts of Duskendale and the royal keep of the pair’s affections for one another, borne out through such recreations as attending plays, or hunting, hawking, and sailing together.

Perhaps it was this friendship that led King Viserys and Queen Zhoe to ensure that their son’s betrothal to Lady Ellyn of House Tarbeck was finalized in marriage not long after his eighteenth nameday. She was the daughter of Martyn Tarbeck, who then served as Warden of the West and would later serve as High Justiciar of Dorne. A purely political marriage, the match was arranged by King Viserys in gratitude for House Tarbeck’s decades of stalwart support of the Crown.

At first Baelor resented being tied down in marriage so quickly, which led to a rocky start in his union with Ellyn. Despite this, the marriage would not take long to prove fruitful. By the end of the year, the pair welcomed their first child - a daughter named Princess Saerra.

It would take time, commitment, and no small amount of frustration as the married pair worked to build their relationship. In the end, Baelor came to respect and appreciate his wife, and held her close in his affections. He would not, however, forget Shiera, with whom he would continue to share correspondence on matters sundry.

### Ice and Fire, 118 AC - 120 AC

Following talks in 116 and 117 AC with the King of Winter, Prince Aegon was once more determined to return to the negotiating table in an effort to secure rapprochement with the northern kingdom - a rapprochement that Hand and King hoped to conclude with reunification. As he had done on some of those earlier trips to the north, Prince Baelor accompanied his kinsman - not as a negotiator himself, but to observe and learn at the long-tenured Hand’s side. It was a unique opportunity, a once-in-a-lifetime chance to witness two titans - King Theodan and Prince Aegon - dueling with words and minds rather than clashing with steel and plate.

Following an initial period where both princes felt the task was lost, King Theodan reversed course and agreed to bend the knee to King Viserys and the Iron Throne. Elated, the two cousins returned home to King’s Landing, where some details needed to be finalized with their own king. Baelor expected that his sister Daenys would soon be betrothed to Theodan’s heir Osric; days later, however, he learned that it was Aegon’s daughter Aemma instead that would wed the future Warden of the North.

The North was thus officially welcomed back into the Seven Kingdoms with a grand wedding held in Winterfell between Osric Stark and Aemma Targaryen in the second moon of 119 AC. Lords and ladies from throughout the land were invited to witness the reunification of the two kingdoms. For the first time since 55 AC - a period of sixty-four years - the realms of Westeros were once more reunited under one king, the Targaryen King on the Iron Throne.

### Loss and Renewal, 120 AC - 125 AC

Despite the optimism of reunification, the inflammatory rhetoric of the Righteous One continued to spread throughout the realm. To counter this, Crown Prince Baelor resurrected an old idea once attempted by Prince Regent Jaehaerys Targaryen. To the royal court he called maesters and sympathetic septons; mummers and singers and actors; knights of the hedge and of tourneys. Once assembled, and with support from some of his siblings - in particular Armidyon - Baelor set out the tenets of that old doctrine.

He affirmed that the Faith of the Seven was the faith of the peoples of the Seven Kingdoms and denounced as insidious the spread of R’hllor worship in the sands of Dorne. Furthermore, with the realm now united for the first time from the great Wall in the north to the Sunset Sea in the south of Dorne, the realm enjoyed an unprecedented period - a period brought forth through the sacrifices and hard work of many throughout the realm, under the leadership of the House Targaryen. Only one house, only one throne, had ever accomplished this feat, and was that not evidence of the Seven’s favor? The dragons may have died years earlier, but only Targaryens had ever rode dragons - and only Targaryens had united the realm entire.

With funding from the royal coffers, all those assembled were set forth away from the capital on their task - to spread the word of House Targaryen and its exceptionalism.

In 122 AC, tragedy struck - Lady Ellyn died and left the crown prince a grieving widower. Baelor withdrew from the royal court and retreated to the island fastness of Dragonstone, where he poured near all his waking hours into his project of exceptionalism and into attending to the needs and attentions of the Narrow Sea houses.

King Viserys did not merely allow his son and heir to surrender to melancholy, however. Knowing well how such a state of fugue could descend over a man, the twice-wed king dispatched his youngest child - Princess Rhaenys - to the island in hopes that she would be able to buoy Baelor’s spirits.

At first resistant to any companionship, Baelor nevertheless acquiesced after Rhaenys refused to depart. Perhaps some small part of him recognized that his soul needed someone to whom he could turn, or perhaps he merely meant at first to humor his sister as the easy solution. Even Baelor was uncertain as he accepted her companionship. In the days and weeks that followed, Rhaenys joined the prince often in his work - and even convinced him to set aside work from time to time, to instead take walks through the castle with her or down to the villages outside where they could mingle with the most loyal smallfolk in the kingdoms. Aegon’s Garden became a favorite spot of theirs in which to converse - about their days past, their hopes for the future, and even Baelor’s grief. Rhaenys became the confidante that Baelor never had before.

One other small ray of brightness for the prince during this time was his continued friendship with Shiera. All throughout the past many years they had maintained their correspondence - long shifted from topics of their more youthful affairs, and onward to inquiries as to their general wellbeing, their lives and health, their aspirations and successes and setbacks. Baelor made certain to meet with her on a few occasions throughout 123 AC, during which time the pair fell once more into old patterns and which did help to lift the gloominess from his heart and spirits some.

In 125 AC, the prince ventured forth to Gulltown. With Ser Jasper Arryn, his mother’s cousin, he met with members of the Poor Fellows, which had reorganized itself in many areas of the realm over the past decade in response to the Righteous One. This meeting did not end well; indeed, unable to reach an accord with the militants, Ser Jasper arrested their leader and beheaded the man.

A few months later Ser Jasper and several other nobles of the Vale were ambushed while traveling, resulting in the knight's murder. Incensed by the brazen assault, Prince Baelor returned once more to Gulltown and - in cooperation with the Brotherhood of the Falcon - sought to extinguish the flame of the Poor Fellows from the city. Sadly, Baelor’s prior experience in urban combat could not prevent the day from exacting a heavy cost. Ser Luthor Oakheart, a white brother of the Kingsguard, was felled in defense of his prince.

Still angered and grieving anew, Prince Baelor returned once more to Dragonstone, where his sister Rhaenys drew him into what she hoped would be a comforting embrace. And indeed it was, though it was not near enough to soothe a soul inflamed by what Baelor increasingly viewed as transgressions of the Faith. The Poor Fellows would not exist again, he reasoned, without the influence of the Righteous One.

It was to his project that Baelor once more turned, seeking out ship’s captains, traders, and merchantmen to start spreading the doctrine of exceptionalism by sea whilst his other voices did so on land. He continued to spend a great deal of time with Rhaenys as well and relied upon her often to calm him when anger and frustration threatened to control his mood. It was in this light that Baelor seized upon another old idea.

Days of active persuasion, intense pressure, and angry arguments followed after he approached his sister with the thought, which for Baelor was more than merely a thought - it was, in fact, what he now viewed as the only answer to their future. In the end, however, he convinced Rhaenys to accept, and in short order they arranged for Dragonstone’s Septon Manfryd to perform the marriage ceremony in the castle’s sept. It was done quickly and secretly, before word could spread back to the Red Keep and thus their father, whom they expected would object and intercede if he knew. No less quickly the siblings set forth to consummate the marriage.

They did not return to the royal court until the matter was too late to be resolved; Princess Rhaenys was already with child, and somehow whispered rumors of this had already reached the halls of court. The Prince of Dragonstone suffered not these rumors and forthrightly declared that not only was his sister with child - she carried his child, and they were husband and wife.

Viserys and Aegon, still serving as Hand, were both furious with the prince and princess, but there was naught that could be done by this point save extreme measures. Such had been the way that Baelor devised the unveiling of his second marriage, to prevent any interference from their family.

Princess Naerys Targaryen was welcomed by her parents in the early days of 126 AC.

### A Tenuous Peace, 125 AC - 130 AC

Despite the familial turmoil and even despite troubles with the Faith, peace appeared at hand within the realm. For the first time in years, neighboring realms were not at conflict with one another; rebellions did not plague the land; and the royal house stood tall. The only dark spot seemed to be that, in 128 AC, the High Septon held a mass at the Starry Sept in Oldtown to memorialize the fallen devout of Gulltown, as well as septons murdered in the Iron Islands. The Crown dispatched a letter expressing its disapproval, which the Righteous One saw fit to ignore.

King Viserys would not issue a further response, however, as he became ill soon thereafter. For the last two years of his reign, the king seldom attended to matters of state, increasingly leaving those concerns to his Hand and the crown prince. Baelor assumed an active role and worked closely with Prince Aegon, especially in appointments to the small council and other duties of the Crown.

By late 129 AC, King Viserys drew his last breath and left the mortal plane. Baelor assumed the throne in the following days, with his coronation as Lord of the Seven Kingdoms set for early 130 AC.

## Household

### Squires

* Harrold Darklyn, 118 AC - 124 AC
* Alester Florent, 120 AC - 128 AC
* Aubrey Rowan, 118 AC - 124 AC
* Jeor Stark, 119 AC - 130 AC

### Retainers

* Septon Manfryd, overseer of the Red Keep's royal sept
* Ser Benedict Bullock, captain of the Red Keep's household guard
* Ser Alton Scales, castellan of Dragonstone

## Family Tree

FamilyEcho family tree

* Originally created by GreenFyre; updated by Vierwood and PsychoGobstopper

## Meta

### Character Build

**Attribute**: Brilliant

 5

**Skills**:

* Weapon Proficiency (COM) - Two-Handed Swords & Shields
* Leadership(CHA)
* Fortification (STA)
* History & Law (STA)

**Mastery**: Architect (STA)

**Skills Learning**:

* +1 to CHA, Second moon 130 AC