Lodos Goodbrother

Lodos Goodbrother of Corpse Lake is the
eldest child of Lord Vickon Goodbrother.

## Appearance and Character

Lodos is slim but strong
due to his years reaving, and is around 5 ft 10 inches. Neither that handsome
nor that ugly, his face is often crusted with salt and a few light scars. His eyes are
blue while his hair is brown tinged red and neck-length. He has a short beard and mustache. Lodos can get
along with most people if he wants by wearing his “Goodbrother mask”, but takes
it off so his harder self comes through while reaving. Some would call him a religious man.

## History

**Baby Lake**

It was known to outsiders as quite
a small lake, with some calling it merely a large pond. Yet it had the most
crystal clear waters any Ironborn had ever seen. Smooth stones, grey and black,
composed the shore. A few blue and green trees even grew along the banks,
dotted with bushes thick and high. The waters were so fresh and pure one could
see clear to the thirty-foot bottom, and many who visited bathed while others drank and still others fished. And yet no one had ever had a baby in the
waters.

In 68 AC the Lady Alannys
Goodbrother was pregnant and possessed. The roughest, rainiest storm in memory
was beating down their keep, and all the Lady wanted to do was join it. She had
been in labor for days and it was understandable she wanted it to end, but in
this fashion? No one could stop her. Her husband Lord Vickon Goodbrother was
away, and although not well, she was in charge, and so outside she went. That
night, Lady Alannys opened her heart to the storm and her legs to the lake. Thus
it was in Corpse Lake that Lodos Goodbrother of Corpse Lake was born, first of
his name.

From
the beginning there was something odd about the child. He seemed at home in
water, which was normal for any Ironborn, except he was obsessive about it. He
had to be in water most hours of the day, or at least wet.
If he were dry for more than an hour, the child would cry and wrap his arms
around himself. From then on, Lodos was rarely seen without a cup of water in
hand whether in his family keep or outside near Corpse Lake. As he grew up, he
gravitated towards the sea, and so naturally became a fisherman. His nets brought in many great catches from the sea as he was always willing to
fish in storms and in dangerous waters none dared tread. But the way he was seen preparing
fish brought attention. He would slowly cut them at shallow and odd angles,
prolonging their time alive, sometimes ripping them apart with his fingers and sucking out their juices.

In his early 20s, Lodos left Great Wyk to reave. Joining Veron Greyjoy and his raids from 89-95 AC around Andalos, the Cinnamon straits, and the Rhoyne, Lodos reaved far and wide. Not shy to venture
inland, he killed as naturally on land as if he were catching fish in the sea. He was
especially fond of using his Valyrian steel sword, Bonescape, an heirloom of
the family, to cut throats. Lighter and sharper than normal steel, he won
fights quick and easy. Over time, he became adept at destroying the lives of
his victims, always returning with loot and resources. He had a particular
tactic- setting fire to the houses of his prey, for in their haste to put it
out they went to the sea, where, of course, the Ironborn were waiting. However,
unlike his companions he never returned with thralls or salt wives. Any
non-Ironborn in his path he would simply murder rather than take prisoner. Like
his body, his blade was never dry and he was fond of licking the blood from it
after a kill. Asked why he did this he once replied, “blood tastes of iron, and
we are Ironborn. They are dead, and what is dead may never die, but makes us harder and stronger.”

**The Sunken Ones**

By his late 20s, Reaving had left its mark on Lodos. His
hair had grown course and mangy. A crazed look
infested his face when he smiled. It was joked his stare was so intense it could part the seas. The Goodbrother family welcomed him home, but
it wasn’t his mother or father or siblings who first came to the beach to greet him,
it was a drowned priest. The drowned priest had wanted to meet Lodos-
this young man given the name of an infamous priest from a past age, and born
in a lake known for death more than life. The two walked along the beach
together and the priest spoke to Lodos of history. The priest wanted Lodos to
know how Corpse Lake got its name, but to show him, first he would have to
drown him. To become a drowned priest, one must first die, that is, drown, and
then be resuscitated to come back stronger. Lodos didn’t know who this stranger
was, but he had always been curious about Corpse Lake’s origins due to his
birth in it. Wanting answers, he agreed to be drowned.

The sun was setting when Lodos went
out to Corpse Lake and met the drowned priest, already standing knee deep in
the clear waters. “Are you ready to know the truth?”

“Show me,” said Lodos, as he waded in. The sky was pink red,
the trees blue green, and as the priest dunk Lodos’s head underwater, the
colors bled and blurred. Lodos inhaled a mouthful of water and all went black.
There was no color, no wet, no world at all. Then, Lodos realized, there was no
water either, or rather, the air was now water, and he could breathe it as if
he had gills. He was floating beneath the surface of Corpse Lake and everything
was navy and gray.

Suddenly, another body plunged into
place next to him. It was a young man with short ginger hair. His eyes were
closed but his chest was heaving as he struggled to breathe. Lodos floated
still as a schoolchild and observed. A moment later the heaving stopped, the
man’s white eyes bulged open, closed, and his body drifted away to the bottom
of corpse lake. As soon as he had sunk, another body dropped into the water in
front of Lodos. This one was a woman with velvety brown hair and deep lines
across her face. She too attempted breathing only to gag and shake. Just like
before, her eyes bulged pasty white and blanked out before she sank down into
eternal slumber at the bottom. After this came a teenage boy grimacing and skin
flushed with red. He too gulped down a lung of lake and sank below. Upon all of
this Lodos watched and smiled. He could breathe easy as if he were in air,
though he was unsure if this were real, a dream, or something in between.

Bodies began dropping all around
like anchors- to his left an old man, to his right a robed priest, underneath
him sank a ragged thrall, body after body gasping in water, drowning in
splashes, and only now did Lodos realize that next to water his blade was
nothing. Wetness was the greatest killer of them all. Only now did he
understand that he was in his element, that here is where he truly belonged,
that the blood of his enemies he tasted not just for iron but because on land
blood was the next best way to get himself wet.

And now with the bodies pitching
into the water and popping around like popcorn, now Lodos let himself sink to
the mass of human flesh below. But the bodies, far from lifeless, reanimated
and waved to him, beckoned to join them at the core of corpse lake. And so he
did. Lodos swam down, down, tens of feet, until the light whimpered and died
and that wetness the essence of god reigned supreme. And at last he touched the
black rocky bottom and weighed the fleshy miasma about, balancing himself like
on a scale. Feeling a current beneath the rocks tickling his ankles, he reached
down and lifted rocks from out which a red current poured. Lodos took a knee
and there he saw a pane glass window under the rocky bottom, with a thick red
flow of water pumping through it. Lodos squinted down through the glass and saw a vast
ocean, one so big it encompassed every sea he had sailed and every sky he had
seen except this sea moved like it were a creature, red currents for blood, a blue
fire shining out in beats like a heart, a jello skin holding it together with a
million dead bodies as hairs on that skin, ingesting the oceans, swarming the
earth, crushing all other gods in its immensity. It was then that Lodos
Goodbrother of Corpse Lake knew his place.

Lodos awoke coughing up water. He
was on the banks of the river in the mud, and the priest was over him. He had
passed the test. He had survived where others had perished. Lodos staggered up.
“This was a grave. A mass grave.”

The priest looked long at him. “Once it was. Those who
didn’t pass the test of the drowned god were left to wither in this lake. So
came the name.”

“But, where, why aren’t the bodies still here?”

“I am afraid your House and others don’t adhere to the Old
ways as much anymore. But tell me, Lodos Goodbrother, what did you see on your
journey?”

Lodos leaned against a tree and hacked. “I saw God. I saw
why I was born. I saw what I am supposed to do.”

The priest smiled. "Welcome back, Lodos Goodbrother, Drowned Priest of Corpse Lake."

**Corpse Bride**

“Where is this Corpse Lake they speak of, I want to see it
myself.” Fisherman, reaver, lord, thrall, they all said that. Two hours hike inland
from the coast of Great Wyk, it was Lodos’s job to show all inquiring minds the
great “Corpse Lake” of his house. The last year or so he had stepped away from
reaving to become the official Goodbrother tour guide of “Corpse Lake”. Under his
father, the lake had become a tourist attraction designed to bring needed coin.
The visitors were usually disappointed at the lack of dead bodies, but they
nonetheless relished the saltless fresh water, a rarity in the Iron Islands.
They bathed, frolicked, played, drank, sometimes hosted parties or even
weddings at Corpse Lake. In time the very name came to be mocked in good humor,
such was the immaculateness of the water.

The Goodbrothers welcomed this, and
they had welcomed even more Lodos volunteering to lead the tours. Seen as a bit
violent even by Ironborn standards, the family viewed this as a way to
integrate Lodos back into the family peacefully. What was more mysterious to
them was why Lodos had volunteered, and so enthusiastically at that. But to
Lodos, a man capable of hiding his intentions, these waters belonged to the
Drowned God, not to fat lords and little children. This was a place of worship
and reflection, not of play and frivolity. Ever since his near drowning by the
priest, he had known it was his duty to protect it, to change the lake back
to the Old ways. But how to do this? His sister had more sway with his father,
Lord Goodbrother of Corpse Lake, than he did, and he couldn’t just threaten them like they
were thralls or greenlanders. No, he needed to destroy their sickeningly sweet
version of Corpse Lake from within. As a guide, he could gain unlimited access
to the lake and all those who sought it. So he played nice, wearing the Goodbrother
mask at day, while he plotted as Lodos at night.

His sister, Yara, was to be married
to some Lord from Pyke on the shores of Corpse Lake. It was to be a grand
affair. When the wedding day came and the sun was at high noon and the lake flat
and at peace, Lodos was ready. A hundred some people from all across the Iron
Islands showed up on the shores of Corpse Lake. Tables were set and food was eaten
and there was no end to the wine and music.

Lodos watched them all from a high
hidden setup near a stream that fed the lake, overlooking the scene below. A
black haired girl moaned on the ground next to him, bound and gagged. Her eyes were
pink, her face full of terror, and she was bleeding from a deep gash on
her forehead. He had found her in the port just sitting and watching the waves.
Dressed in rags, whoever she was, she would not be missed, and it was easy for
Lodos to lure her most of the way here with the promise of sweets. He said a
prayer to the Drowned God, took out his knife, and slit her throat several
times. Then he slit her wrists and other arteries and watched as the blood
pooled around her.

Killing was easy to him. It was the
aftermath that distinguished the common killer from the professional. With
great care, he made sure no blood spilled on him as he dragged her into the
stream. Lodos lifted up a rock and used it to pin down the dead girl’s legs,
then he let go. Her lower body was immobile but her arms and torso flailed
around like blades of grass in the wind. Her tongue lolled about as water
coursed over her, and her eyes were open and swollen and looking down, down to
the drowned god, or perhaps just to the wedding several hundred feet
below that she’d attend as a ghost.

Lodos
smiled and watched as the waters coursed over the corpse and brought its
essence to the peoples below. They were bathing in the lake, drinking from it,
but now they each had a little infinitesimal part of a corpse in them. The body
was bleeding but the red blood was hopelessly diluted before reaching the lake
such that no one even noticed. Lodos just left his offering there to decompose, and took a roundabout way back to the wedding.

“Where
have you been brother? You look worn out. We missed you.” His sister exited
corpse lake where she had been splashing around. She offered him a cup of water, “fresh from our lake.”

Lodos took it and smiled, “Thank you.” He drank it all.