Rhaegar Targaryen

**Rhaegar Targaryen,** also known as **"The Silver Prince"** or **"The Dragon Prince,**" is the firstborn son and heir of *King Aerys Targaryen II* and his sister-wife *Queen Rhaella Targaryen*. He is the best friend of *Arthur Dayne* and *Jon Connington*, and was the husband of *Princess Elia Martell* and *Lady Lyanna Stark.* He was widely beloved as the Prince of Dragonstone until his father's death in 282 AC, where after the events of *The War of the Seven,* he succeeded the Iron Throne as the new King of Westeros. He is played by Shelbs on the JCINK RPG *A Thousand Eyes and One.*

## Appearance & Character

Like any prince of Old Valyria, Rhaegar has silver-gold hair that he often wears tied behind his neck. When worn long, it reaches just the bottom of his shoulders, and frames a pale, well-groomed face with dark indigo eyes and a short-cropped silvery beard. Very rarely does he go clean-shaven, and will never sport facial hair long enough to run a comb through. As a young prince he refused to grow his hair any longer than past his eyebrows, for he knew his father the *Mad King* was well known for his long and untrimmed locks and did not wish for any resemblance to him. Built like a warrior, Rhaegar is thickly muscled, with corded veins lining his forearms and biceps. Standing at around six-foot-four, he is usually one of the tallest in the room, yet carries himself with such a lithe grace that his size does not seem to be a hindrance. Able to wield the hand-and-a-half longsword *Blackfyre,* there are very few men who can match him in strength and skill.

Known for his melancholy and unexplained changes in mood, many have presumed his somber nature to be because of the Shadow of Summerhall; the name coined for the terrible circumstances that claimed over half of his House during his birth. Inherently bookish and ultimately reserved, he was first known to wield his heavy tomes and his silver-stringed harp before he ever decided to finally pick up a sword. Despite his obvious gloom, his gentle nature and knightly demeanor won the hearts of almost every man and woman in the Seven Kingdoms, and the older he became, the more of a warrior he grew into. Highly skilled with both sword and lance, it was not often one got to witness the Silver Prince enter tournaments, but it was during the few times he competed would he be rightly known as the Dragon Prince instead; the pure embodiment of the might of House Targaryen.

## Personal Life

At the age of seventeen in 276 AC, Rhaegar was married with all ceremony in the Great Sept of Baelor to the sister of *Prince Doran Martell, Elia Martell.* Though she was small, frail and often times ill, her match to the Prince of Dragonstone was said to bring the spires of Sunspear under the final rule of his father King Aerys II. The beginning of their marriage was not easy, their customs and routines so unalike, the rocky and sulfurous island of Dragonstone so much different than the Princess's warm home of Dorne. It was during this time that many said she was not fit to be a dragon's wife, and the whispers never stopped even as Rhaegar's fondness for her grew and Elia finally fell pregnant with the couple's first child in 279 AC. After a tumultous birth in 280 AC and finally bringing a healthy *Princess Rhaenys* into the world, the Dornish princess was bedridden for the next half year, and it was feared she may never carry another child. Not two years later, however, in 282 AC, *Prince Aegon Targaryen* was born, and though he was at last the healthy heir for the Seven Kingdoms, he nearly claimed his mother's life entirely. While she eventually recovered behind the walls of Starfall during the *War of the Seven*, it was confirmed she could never conceive again, with the prince being her last child at her death in 283 AC.