Thoren Blacktyde

Sailing

Thoren Blacktyde is the Lord of Blacktyde.

## Biography

Thoren Blacktyde was born in 355 AC as the second child of Lord Joren Blacktyde and his wife, Lady Yara Merlyn. Thoren was the second only by minutes, with the elder twin, Joren, obviously named after his father (and grandfather) being born a little over half an hour earlier. They were joined by a sister, Yara, a year later, and another brother, Erich, another year later.

At an early age, Joren the Elder brought his two sons to sea with him. Thoren had found his second home. The sea was almost as good as Blacktyde to him. Almost. He observed the sailors at work, slowly learning the ropes.

While he did, their father brought Erich too and then started them out with training weapons. A spar between Joren the Younger and Thoren was more akin to a fight between jesters, not two lordlings and even less two Ironborn. The twins were not entirely uninterested in the art of war, though, with both of them focused more on the planning, rather than the fighting. The elder twin favored logistics. Thoren preferred tactics. To him, a good supply train was not worth it if the tactics that would fight battles were not good enough. After years of learning, he could call himself a tactician. Not the best, but certainly far above most Westerosi. Meanwhile, Erich was certainly something that fit with Lord Joren's view of an Ironborn child. Erich quickly grew proficient with an axe.

When the twins were two-and-ten, their father brought them on their first reaving. Knowing they would not be frontline fighters, he placed them at the back, with a trusted captain of his. But he brought Erich, too.

For all his precautions with his older sons, Lord Joren so overestimated Erich that he felt he was ready to be at the vanguard with him, forgetting that for all his growing proficiency with an axe, he was still just a boy of ten half the height of some of the sailors.

Erich's first reaving could have had a different ending. A Tyroshi sent him overboard during the boarding of a merchant ship. The Ironborn overran the merchants with ease, but had to fish Erich out of the water. Having learned a lesson, Erich would stay at Blacktyde for the next two years while his father and brothers reaved.

After years of learning, Thoren finally learned all that his father and the tutors could teach him about sailing. Using this knowledge, he picked up on seafaring much more quickly.

On 370 AC, a Greenlander fleet sailed to the Islands. Their intentions were clear. Bringing the islands back into the fold of the Seven Kingdoms. If they succeeded, the Ironborn could wave goodbye to the idea of reaving mainland Westeros.

Naturally, this was unacceptable to them. The Blacktyde ships, with the Lord and his three sons joined the Iron Fleet and smashed the Greenlanders, capturing their king, too.

The Ironborn were victorious.

Or so they thought.

They would enjoy this false victory mistakenly believing that this setback would deter them from trying again for a generation.

That timeframe turned out to be massively generous. Instead of a generation, it was two moons.

News of the Lannisport fleet abandoning Lannisport seemed like a gift from the Drowned God himself. For Joren the Younger and Thoren, though, it was quite clearly bait.

However, for all their adeptness at military planning, they nonetheless swallowed the bait, despite knowing what it was, determined that doing as much damage to the West in their absence could force them to return to Lannisport, or even better, split up their forces.

Using their bait to make another bait for the enemy. Bold move, but they played right into their hands.

Confident in another victory, they would go into what would be known as Gravehand's Shoal believing that a victory here could shatter them for good.

Their confidence was quickly shattered when a quarter of the ships ran aground, with their Lord Admiral marooned. The Blacktyde flagship, the *Snake's Bite*, with Lord Joren and Erich onboard, was one of the vessels that ran aground. Joren the Younger and Thoren were on a warship in the middle, the *Corpsemaker*. Seeing the flagship grounded, the second the warship was ordered to close distance with the flagship, a flaming arrow struck the flagship, making it a blazing inferno. Men perished, burning alive and others fel suffocated by the smoke. The screams of the dying were a horrendous experience for all around. Erich made it out. Their lord father didn't.

The two brothers could only watch horrified at the macabre tragedy that unfolded before them. Trying to regain some calm, Joren ordered the warship to keep closing distance as much as possible without running aground or suffer the same fate as the flagship.

This, like Joren's tenure as Lord of Blacktyde, lasted all of four minutes. An arrow struck him on the chest just a few steps away from Thoren.

Now, Thoren's horror gave way to sheer fury. Ordering a nearby longship to pick up any survivors from the flagship, he ordered the *Corpsemaker* to ram the nearest enemy vessel, the most likely source of the arrow that killed Joren.

Forgetting that he wasn't a warrior, he was the first to board the enemy deck, axe in hand. The men followed. What came after that was a reminder that he wasn't a warrior. A Greenlander sword gave him the scar on the side of his face.

But despite that, even with a serving of humble pie, Thoren was not willing to stop himself. In his anger, as the Ironborn overwhelmed the enemy crew, he ordered the enemy crew to be killed without mercy. The man who gave him the scar was saved for Thoren. The new Lord of Blacktyde slit the man's throat. Lacking the men to crew the vessel, Thoren ordered the men to loot everything that wasn't nailed down and burn the ship afterwards.

Knowing now that the battle was lost, his good sense got the better of his anger and he ordered a retreat. Of all the Blacktyde ships that had sailed into battle, less than a quarter remained. The Iron Fleet had been broken.

Sailing the shattered remains of the fleet back to Blacktyde, Thoren began to prepare for a siege. But no siege came. A peace deal ended the whole matter. The Ironborn were now vassals to King's Landing again. And as anyone could've guessed, they were forbidden from reaving the mainland.

After the Subjugation of the Iron Islands, Thoren stayed in his room for a fortnight, with servants delivering the food to him. Rumors quickly appeared on Blacktyde, that the new Lord had killed himself or that he had disappeared entirely.

But after a while, Thoren left his room and quickly put himself to work. His first objective was rebuilding the fleet to its numbers before the Subjugation. This task took years, but it was done.

He waited for his sister to marry Vickon Greyjoy and as soon as that was done, set out on a reaving, onboard his new flagship, the *Joren's Revenge*. His brother Erich followed in his own ship.

On this reaving, Thoren took his first salt wife. A Yunkai'i by the name of Grazdha. More raids would follow. More salt wives, too.

Brynden's Rebellion broke out just as he returned from a particularly fruitful reaving of the Stepstones. While he was content upon knowing the Greenlanders would kill each other, the second he learned that many houses in the Reach, many of which had been the driving force behind the Subjugation, Thoren was more than happy to lead a reave to the Reach. But the King would not allow it. At first. When the permission from the King arrived and the summons from Pyke came, the fleet hurriedly prepared and set out to sea.

Thoren wanted to lead his ships to "punish the traitors in the name of the king and all that shite". for "the purpose of restoring the rule of our beloved king to the lands in rebellion", and that the fact that these houses were the same that led to the Subjugation was merely a very lucky coincidence. Really. Of course, this was just an extremely bad cover for his desire for vengeance.

During this war, he showed his natural affinity for leading ships. As a reaver, he was just one of many. As an admiral, though, he had a knack for it that few people had.

But fortunately, he followed the Iron Fleet rather than foolishly striking by himself. So he was present at Oldtown, the ambush that ended the Hightowers, but most importantly, the Skirmish of the Shields. The latter battle was fought with gusto. Upon the capture of Lord Chester, the one called The Holyshield, Thoren favored having him drowned.

When this happened, Thoren decided to take the insult an extra step and had the gravestone of Lord Elwood Chester, the Master of Ships that had led to the Subjugation, destroyed. While he was at it, he took the daughter of the castellan, a far off cousin of the Chesters, as a salt wife.

With his overdeveloped sense of vengeance satiated, after the Rebellion, he would focus on the administration of Blacktyde, with the fleet upkeep and maintenance being his strengths.

Years later, he would join Lord Greyjoy for another wedding, this time in Highgarden. The wedding of Gwynn Greyjoy to Leo Tyrell.

More years passed, and he once again joined the Ironborn. This time, to King's Landing.

## Timeline

* 355 AC: Joren the Younger and Thoren are born.
* 356 AC: Yara Blacktyde is born.
* 357 AC: Erich Blacktyde is born.
* 367 AC: First reaving of the Blacktyde brothers. It doesn't go very well.
* 370 AC: Subjugation of the Iron Islands. His father and older brother die at the Battle of Gravehand's Shoal. Becomes Lord of Blacktyde.
* 375 AC: Yara marries Vickon Greyjoy. Thoren takes his first salt wife in a reaving.
* 376 AC: Takes another salt wife in the same reaving.
* 378 AC: His Yunkai'i salt wife gives birth to his firstborn, Aeron, but dies in childbirth.
* 381 AC: Returns fron the Stepstones with yet another salt wife, to the news that Brynden's Rebellion has broken out.
* 381-384 AC: Fights in Brynden's Rebellion. Is present at the Invasion of Oldtown and the following ambush. Is present at the Skirmish of the Shields. Takes Rohanne Chester as a salt wife.
* 387 AC: Goes to Highgarden to witness the wedding of Gwynn Greyjoy to Leo Tyrell.
* 390 AC: Follows the Ironborn to King's Landing.

## Family Tree

* Dagon Blacktyde (298 AC-349 AC)
* Joren Blacktyde (319 AC-351 AC)
* Joren Blacktyde (337 AC-370 AC)
* Yara Blacktyde, neé Merlyn (336 AC-)
* Joren Blacktyde (355 AC-370 AC)
* Thoren Blacktyde (355 AC-)
* Grazdha of Yunkai (352 AC-378 AC)
* Aeron (378 AC-)
* Trianna (354 AC-)
* Dorna of Redwater (357 AC-)
* Rohanne Chester (359 AC-)
* Yara Greyjoy (neé Blacktyde) (356 AC-)
* Angus Greyjoy (375 AC-)
* Gysella Greyjoy (Ask Mudd AC-)
* Erich Blacktyde (357 AC-)

## NPCs:

* Erich Blacktyde, Captain of the *Darktyde*. Reaver. 357 AC-
* Maron Shepherd, Scion of House Shepherd and Sworn Sword. Warrior (Axes) 369 AC-
* Urrigon Pyke, First Mate of the *Joren's Revenge*. Ship Captain. 360 AC-
* Andrik Pyke, Helmsman and Navigator of the *Joren's Revenge*. Navigator. 365 AC-
* Dorna of Redwater, Salt wife and healer. Medic. 357 AC-