House Stark

## House Information

### Sigil

A running grey direwolf, on an ice-white field(Argent, a direwolf courant cendrée)

## Historic Information

### Culture

First Men

House Stark is one of the nine Great Houses of Westeros. The Starks have ruled the North for thousands of years, first as Kings of Winter then as Wardens of the North. The North itself, a disparate and wild region when compared to the rest of the regions of Westeros, is nearly impossible for outsiders to control in any meaningful way. Ever since the War of the Five Kings and the removal of House Bolton by Stark loyalists, Northerners have taken to the belief that only a Stark can truly rule the North despite the House's recent struggles with prestige. The Starks rule from their massive ancient castle Winterfell.

## Appearance and Traits

The Starks are a people of distinct First Men features despite years of intermingling with Andals. They typically have brown hair and grey eyes. They, like most Northerners, are a blunt people that care little for the flowery prose of southerners. They have a certain propensity for sullenness features, which leads to their faces appearing long, displeased, and introverted. They are naturally distrusting of strangers, be they Northern or otherwise, a feature that has only been made more common with time. Despite this, the wolves of Winterfell are a people that are utterly devoted to the pack and defend with great veracity their family, friends, and the North. While most Starks are markedly icy, reserved, or melancholic, some are born with "wolf blood" which makes them wild, passionate, and extroverted. The best examples of wolf blooded Starks are Lady Lyanna Stark, sister to Lord Eddard, and Lord Beric Stark.

## History

House Stark was founded by Brandon Stark, known as Bran the Builder, during the Age of Heroes. Bran the Builder constructed Winterfell as well as the Wall that demarcates the northernmost reach of the North's domain. House Stark gradually consolidated control over the North. Eventually, the Starks solidified their control over the North by defeating the Red Kings of the Dreadfort and the Barrow Kings of the Barrowlands.

The Stark kings with a unified North at their back, withstood the Andal invasion and cemented a distinct cultural, religious, and linguistic tradition that persists to this day. As a result of their success, the Northmen developed an independent streak unseen in the kingdoms subjugated by the Andals. Likewise, the Northmen remained ethnically First Men rather than Andals and maintained their worship of the Old Gods of the Forest while the rest of Westeros was chopping down the weirwoods that were central to the religion. The Starks remain proud of their First Man lineage and traditions despite years of breeding with people of Andal origin such as the Manderlys and Tullys.

When Aegon the Conqueror took Westeros in a storm of fire and blood, King Torrhen Stark rose men to fight back the dragonlords. When he saw the horror that they wrought, King Torrhen submitted his crown and the North to the Targaryen Kings without battle to save the North from the horrors of dragon fire. To this day, Torrhen is known as the King who Knelt. Despite the name, the North prospered under the Iron Throne with the increased security, trade, and infrastructure that came as a result of the union.

For hundreds of years, House Stark faithfully served House Targaryen and avoided major conflict with the other regions of Westeros. A Stark even served as Hand of the King to King Aegon III. That was good faith lasted until the reign of King Aerys II, the Mad King. In 282 AC, following news that his sister Lyanna Stark had been abducted by Prince Rhaegar Targaryen, the heir to Winterfell Brandon Stark rode to King's Landing and demanded that the crown prince return Lyanna and face justice. He was arrested, as was his father Rickard. The Lord of Winterfell and his son were publicly tortured to death by King Aerys. Aerys then demanded that Eddard Stark, the last surviving male Stark and now Warden of the North be executed by his foster father, Jon Arryn, alongside his other ward, Robert Baratheon. Jon Arryn, who loved the two young men as his own sons, refused and raised the Vale in rebellion against the Crown. The war that ensued, known as Robert's Rebellion, saw the destruction of House Targaryen and its replacement by the Baratheon Dynasty under King Robert I. The Starks and the rest of the North returned home and faithfully served the new king they helped to install.

For years, the realm was at peace under a strong and generally well liked king who, despite his taste for wine and women, kept the realm in order through fear if not love. Upon his death, Lord Eddard Stark was serving as his hand and claimed regency until the heir to the throne came of age. Queen Cersei Lannister outmaneuvered the Hand, however, and had him arrested. He was later executed by order of the newly crowned King Joffrey Baratheon. Joffrey kept Eddard's daughter Sansa as a hostage, who he tortured for his own pleasure until she managed to escape following Joffrey's death.

Following his father's execution, Robb Stark, who was now Warden of the North, rose his banners in rebellion against the Iron Throne. Robb Stark is remembered as a legendary Northman and national hero who, despite his short reign and tragic end, reminded the North of its past glory as an independent realm with its own identity and ideals. Robb Stark was a military genius who was able to lead the relatively small Northern army in a series of successful campaigns that pressed deep into the heart of the Westerlands and nearly broke the Lannister war machine. The Young Wolf, as he was called, never lost a battle and was named King in the North by his bannermen. Tragically, King Robb was betrayed by Walder Frey of Riverrun who murdered Stark, his mother, and many of Robb's bannermen with the help of Lord Roose Bolton. Bolton, who had previously orchestrated a sack of Winterfell, was named Warden of the North by King Joffrey Baratheon.

The male line of House Stark was believed wiped out by most in the realm. Quietly, Lord Wyman Manderly had taken Rickon Stark, believed to be the last living son of Lord Eddard Stark, into his protection in White Harbor. Lord Manderly carefully concealed the boy's identity and provided him with great care and affection as he raised him in White Harbor until the time was right. As chaos racked the southern realm, Lord Manderly and his allies realized that the time had come and sprung their trap. Winter's Bite, as the coup is called, was a flawlessly executed rebellion against the Boltons by Houses Manderly, Glover, Umber, and the Skagosi clans against the Boltons that resulted in the complete destruction of House Bolton and the restoration of House Stark as the rulers of a semi-autonomous North. Rickon Stark took on the mantle as the North's ruler under the careful regency of his adoptive father, Lord Umber, Master Glover, and a representative of the Skagosi clans who helped with issues relating to the mountain clans, the Skagosi, and later the newly arrived wildlings.

Following intense negotiation and horsetrading, the North was reintegrated into the rest of the Seven Kingdoms. Despite the restoration of the North and the union with the south, Lord Rickon is remembered as a weak, paranoid, and ineffective ruler that was too consumed with his own internal struggles to properly lead. The governance of the North was deferred to his advisors who were forced to contend with wildling rebellions that began as a result of prejudice against those wildlings that had come south seeking refuge. The rebellion, known as the Savage Winter, severely diminished the standing of House Stark and Lord Rickon especially.

Years into Lord Rickon's rule another rebellion, this one led by House Whitehill and other former vassals of House Bolton against their new wildling overlords, threatened to further diminish House Stark. Refusing to allow their father's ineffectiveness to further damage their House, Rickon's children actively went about suppressing the revolt. His daughter, the future Queen Dacey, rallied the Northmen by appealing to the memory of her storied uncle and reminding the Northmen what had happened when Bolton's ilk were allowed to step out of line. Now with an army, the heir to Winterfell, Beric Stark, and his brother Wyman rode out to crush the rebellion, which they did in a resounding victory. Beric's military acumen and habit of making an example of those that crossed him terrified those that had previously thought quietly that they could challenge the rule of the Starks. Those that were not terrified of Beric, loved him as a comrade at arms that restored the military tradition of the North by crushing the Whitehills and later led the North against the Vale during the Falcon's Gambit after the capture of Widow's Watch.

## The Touch of the Old Gods

The Starks are seen as favored by the Old Gods, who most Northerners believe cursed the Ironborn and later the Boltons for their treachery against the Starks. It is believed that doom will come to the North if a Stark is not in Winterfell at all times and that Stark blood is needed to keep the North alive. This belief is only reinforced by the fact that numerous Starks have been born with magical abilities that were gifted to them by the Old Gods. Arya Stark and Jon Snow, both of the same generation of Starks, were wargs capable of commuting their consciousness into their imprinted direwolves. None were more touched by the gods than Brandon Stark, brother to Arya and cousin to Jon. Brandon Stark, who found he was able to warg into his wolf after a fall that left him paralyzed, eventually traveled beyond the Wall where he developed his mystic abilities. After many years north of the Wall, Bran returned a hollow shell of his former self, more god than human. He spent decades living as a shadow in Winterfell until he ultimately traveled into the Wolfswood and, following a series of strange events, fused with a weirwood tree where he remains to this day. Brandon's habitation of the Wolfswood is not a matter of pride for the Starks. So terrifying are the powers of the blighted Stark that his kin have since ordered their guards to seize and detain anyone that tries to enter the domain of the Bran the Beastly after dark and have had to engage in many clandestine actions in an effort to contain the increasingly powerful being.