Medrick Manderly

Shield of the Faith

Defender of the Dispossessed

Order of the Green Hand

Winter's Bounty

Shyra Manderly

Domeric Manderly

Lyra Glover (Manderly)

Medrick Manderly is the eldest child of four to Lord Theomore and Lady Robyn Manderly, born in the year 42 AC. Medrick is the current lord of House Manderly and White Harbor. He is a fierce looking man, though well renown in the North for his pacifist tendencies.

## Appearance and Characteristics

Medrick has always been considered a man of hulking size. Though not particularly a muscular beast of a man, he'd always been considered an intimidating man. His hair had lost all color in his old age, though he still maintains and thick and lush hairstyle to match a short but full beard.

His left eye was gashed during the fighting with the Wildlings and has been left with a permanent and very pronounced scar since then. In the Battle for Sweetsister, Medrick suffered a gruesome injury to his left leg and he's carried the horrible scars since, having lost majority of the function of the limb.

Medrick tends to wear clothes of a finer make than most other Northern houses, due to the availability of foreign materials, silks, and designers in his home port. His clothing may be more eccentric than others but still remains as close as possible to the traditional function-over-form style of wardrobe of the North.

Medrick is a man that wants nothing to do with fighting or warfare or anything of the sort these days, much to the chagrin of his sons. As his age continues to creep up, Medrick becomes more and more soft spoken, his voice rarely raises above an exclaimed outburst. The famous Manderly loyalty lives on through Medrick, the man is staunchly devoted to his Stark Kings, whoever they may be.

## History

### Childhood

Medrick Manderly was born during the later half of the year 42 AC. The North had been experiencing an unprecedented period of peace and the Manderlys, in particular, a time of booming economic growth. Medrick was groomed to take over as Lord of White Harbor since the moment the lad could talk. His twin brothers, Torrhen and Hallis, were born a year later, with his sister, Lyra, four years after.

Though he was only a year older than his brothers, Medrick was always treated quite obviously different. When Torrhen and Hallis would be allowed to run outside and play and fight and shoot their bows, Medrick was forced to stay indoors and study all manners of teachings from the family's maestor. Even at a young age, he took to learning reading and writing as well as any, and already he'd become skilled at mathematics and memorizing houses and their words.

Despite that, however, Medrick still snuck away as much as he could to play and fight with his brothers. He dreamed of being the greatest knight in the entire North, able to ride his horse against any enemy and slay them all without skipping a beat! Men who worried themselves over trivial matters of state were nothing but cowards in his eyes.

### A Turning Point

In 53 AC, just when Medrick turned 11 years of age, he had his opportunity to earn the glory that he'd been so itching to earn. Lord Osric Stark called all banners to arms in response to another King-Beyond-The-Wall gathering massive strength in the Valley of Thenn. The Manderlys answered the call in full force, and sent a massive army to the Wall under the command of Medrick's uncle, Rickard. Medrick, as defiant and eager as ever, snuck away again to join his family's army and went north to the Wall with them.

Fairing a similar story to the Starks, the Manderly force crushed the Wildlings they faced against, but at great cost. A sudden counter-attack caught Rickard by surprise, and before his men could restore their battle lines, the Manderly leader fell to the barbaric onslaught. Medrick himself was caught in the onslaught and would have perished alongside his uncle had reinforcements not arrived as soon as they had. Medrick retreated back to White Harbor with a permanent and large scar over his left eye, and forever losing sight out of said eye.

When Medrick left, he had been a wide eyed, naive boy hells-bent on earning glory and fame on the battlefield; the boy who returned was opposite in almost every regard. Unable to process fully what he had seen beyond the Wall, Medrick turned dramatically against fighting and war. No longer yearning to do anything of the sort, the boy found himself more and more enthralled with matters of state. With the screams of dying men ringing out all around him in silence, visions of a Wildling's axe falling against his face shocking the boy from his nightmares, Medrick found himself diving into books and studies simply to keep his mind distracted from the horrors he faced as a young boy.

Medrick remembered reading King Alaric's letter over and over, fear and dread sinking into his stomach at the prospect of another war, of more death and destruction. Thankfully for the traumatized boy, the Northern secession went through more smooth than any man could have ever hoped for.

### More War

In the year 67 AC, war hit White Harbor once more. Despite his hatred for warfare and bloodshed, Medrick found himself dragged into an age old and repeating conflict with the Sistermen. When news of Sistermen pirates began scuttling Manderly ships reached the shores of White Harbor, Medrick's brother, Hallis rushed together a good number of his House's levies and lands his troops on Sweetsister.

When Medrick learns of his brother's actions, he takes over the rest of the levies in place of his elderly father and moves to bring Hallis and the rest of the levies back home. Unfortunately, his brother refused to leave and so Medrick found himself in a situation he dreaded more than anything else: in the midst of battle. During the fighting, a spear thrust into his hamstring destroyed Medrick's leg. Somehow, by the grace of the Seven, Medrick pushed through the pain and managed to rally his men together and come to a hasty peace with Lord Gunthor Arryn.

### Marriage and Lordship

After the battle Sweetsister, Medrick, aged 25, was betrothed to a Locke girl ten years his junior, Arra Locke. A year later, with Arra turning 16, the two officially wed under the eyes of the Seven in the Sept of the Snows. The same year that spread joy and celebration throughout the city unfortunately brought worry and sorry along with it. Moons after Medrick's wedding, Theomore Manderly passed away due to old age and fatigue.

Thankfully for the House, Medrick had spent his young years learning the in's and out's of the economy, how to set trade routes, which taxes and laws should be doled out. The transition from father to son was simple and so smooth hardly any citizen, from the highborn to the common folk, had anything negative to say. Medrick naturally moved into his father's old position on King Alaric's new council as Winter's Bounty. Always on the move between his duties in Winterfell and his home in White Harbor, Medrick seemed to work tirelessly to keep the new Winter Kingdom afloat while propelling his own House to newfound economic heights. Medrick was one of the first to push for the construction of the glass gardens, a move that nearly bankrupted the vast coffers of his House, though the massive amounts of food they grew after quickly replenished what currency was lost.

### Winter Always Comes

When the Winter of a Hundred Kings struck the Kingdom of the North, White Harbor's forgiving position spared the House from the initial death and destruction from the swiftly spreading winter. Though the winter didn't hit his hold as hard as the rest of the North, Medrick had an almost larger problem on his hands. As the winter blizzards slowed, a plague struck White Harbor and into the neighboring region. Thankfully, the plague was weak and only a few number of Manderly subjects died in the blight.

### Family and Death

The nonstop workload Medrick put on his own shoulders strained an already purely diplomatic marriage. Although the two were never close, they at least managed to keep up appearances of a content couple for the rest of the Kingdom to see, and what's more, they produced four children: Wylla in 72 AC, Warrick in 78 AC, Shyra in 82 AC, and finally Domeric in 87 AC. When she came of age, Wylla traveled with her father multiple times to Winterfell, and the young girl quickly befriended the young Princess Gwyneth Stark, much to the joy of Medrick.

Unfortunately, Domeric's birth was a difficult one, and Arra never truly recovered from the dangerous ordeal. In 88 AC, the Lady of White Harbor passed away. Despite the couple never truly becoming a loving marriage, they still respected and took care of each other and Medrick grieved for his deceased wife for days. Arra was a well loved and revered member of the city, and it seemed nearly everyone joined their Lord to pay their respects to her.

### Plague

Medrick had little time to grieve his dead wife, as only a year later, a worse plague than what struck years before swept through his city and beyond. The Curse of Meagor did its best to destroy White Harbor; diseased peasants swarmed the streets before the city's healers could do anything to prevent it. Even members of his own House suffered to the blight: his cousin Jory, Arsa Manderly nee Stark and one of their sons, Marlon, met the Seven early. Fortunately, the Curse passed through its course before any more Manderlys died for it.

### An Old Man's Regret

Under the elder Manderly's thumb, the Kingdom of the North grew wealthy and powerful, even during times of uncertainty such as the Blackvein raiders or the sacking of Flint's Fingers. Most of Medrick's efforts were spent attempting to curb the young king's incredibly persistence to use the accumulated wealth to build roads to connect seemingly every other castle, while simultaneously supporting various lord's attempts to bolster their own hold. Medrick's words ultimately fell on deaf ears, and the old man spent many a late night trying to figure out ways to support King Theodan's ambitions without breaking the North's treasury.

The added stress and worry about the King's plans put a strain on a broken body that simply couldn't handle it anymore, and in the year 105 AC, Medrick passed away. He would never live to see his warnings of what was to come from such careless spending come to fruition, while many wondered if Medrick had stayed alive for just a few years longer would the Kingdom of Winter have managed to keep its independence.