House Stark of Winterfell

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**House Stark of Winterfell** is one of the Great Houses of Westeros and the principal noble house of the north. In days of old they ruled as Kings of Winter, but since Aegon's Conquest they have been Wardens of the North and ruled as Lords of Winterfell. Their seat, Winterfell, is an ancient castle renowned for its strength.

Their sigil is a grey direwolf racing across a field of white. Their words are "Winter is Coming", one of only a few house mottoes to be a warning rather than a boast.

Aside from the Karstarks of Karhold, the Starks of Winterfell may have other, distant relatives in the north. White Harbor and Barrowton are considered to be likely options. Some younger Starks have also held vassal holdfasts for the lords of Winterfell.

## Culture

### Traits

The Starks have a reputation for long faces, brown hair, and grey eyes. Some are known for melancholy and iciness, while others have a wildness sometimes called "wolf blood".

In the past, Starks are said to have had the ability of warging into direwolves (and possibly other animals).

### Customs

House Stark traditionally buries deceased members of their family in the crypts below Winterfell. The Kings of Winter and Lords of Winterfell are given a statue of their likeness, sitting by their tomb, whereas other family members normally do not get one. The statues of the kings and lords have stone wolves by their feet and have swords placed upon their lap, which are said to keep the spirits of the dead at rest, locked within their tombs.

House Stark traditionally follows the old gods. There is no sept at Winterfell.

The Starks have traditionally been friends of the Night's Watch. The four youngest men to have served as Lord Commander, including Osric Stark, were brothers, sons, or bastards of Kings in the North.

The Starks hold the belief that there must always be a Stark in Winterfell. When the head of the house is away, the Stark remaining in the castle to rule the north is referred to as "the Stark in Winterfell".

A common saying of theirs includes "the lone wolf dies but the pack survives", symbolizing the importance of family to the Starks. The Starks have traditionally been quite isolationist, causing the North to be in relative peace when there is no Bolton uprising. Due to this, Starks tend to care a lot about family and usually have a lot of children. Multiple names have often reappeared over the generations, including Brandon (after the house founder), Torrhen, Benjen and Rickon.

## History

### Kings in the North

The Starks are an ancient house of First Men descent. House Stark was founded by Brandon the Builder, a legendary figure who lived during the Age of Heroes. Bran the Builder is said to have raised Winterfell, the seat of the Starks, and the Wall, and other legends connect him with Storm's End and the Hightower. The Starks were Kings of Winter in the north for eight thousand years since the Age of Heroes, possibly beginning with Bran the Builder. The Night's King, the attainted thirteenth Lord Commander of the Night's Watch, has been suggested to have been a Stark, among other possibilities. The Night's King is said to have been defeated by Brandon the Breaker and Joramun.

The ancient Starks gradually defeated rival kings, such as the Barrow Kings to their south and the Red Kings to their east. For several millennia, the Starks were not the uncontested Kings in the North. Their primary antagonists, the Red Kings from House Bolton of the Dreadfort, swore fealty some thousand years ago, ending their flaying ways. Meanwhile, King Jon Stark drove pirates from the White Knife, and the Wolf's Den was built at its mouth. This stronghold was often granted to sons and grandsons of the King in the North; one such branch, the Greystarks, was extinguished after allying with the Boltons against the Starks. King Jon's son, Rickard, defeated the Marsh King and married his daughter, bringing the Neck into Winterfell's realm under the lordship of House Reed.

When Andals attempted to conquer the north, King Theon Stark made common cause with House Bolton and defeated Argos Sevenstar in the Battle of the Weeping Water, after which he raised a fleet and sailed to Andalos. There he took revenge by sacking and putting hundreds to death. He later conquered the Three Sisters, and battled against the ironborn, driving them away from Cape Kraken and Bear Island and slaying Ravos Hoare. Both places were later taken back by King Loron Greyjoy, and King Rodrik Stark took Bear Island back after Loron's death. It is said that he did so by winning a wrestling match, though some scholars doubt the truth of this tale. Rodrik's sons and grandsons took back Cape Kraken. King Theon also smashed a rebellion in the Rills, and gave aid to the Night's Watch against wildlings.

Thousands of years before Aegon's Conquest, King Brandon the Shipwright attempted to sail across the Sunset Sea, but never returned back home. His son, also named Brandon, burned the northern shipyards in his grief. The north has since lacked strength at sea.

House Stark attempted to conquer the Three Sisters, which began a conflict between the Starks and House Arryn from the Vale. In response to the Rape of the Three Sisters, the Sistermen asked for help from Mathos II Arryn, King of Mountain and Vale. This conflict, the War Across the Water, lasted for a thousand years, during which time the Starks thrice landed on the Fingers. During King Edric Stark's hundred-year long reign, the Wolf's Den, already torched by House Arryn, was captured by slavers from the Stepstones. Edric's great-grandson, King Brandon "Ice Eyes", took back the Wolf's Den. After a thousand years of war, the Arryns were victorious over the Starks, and the Valemen have ruled over the Three Sisters ever since.

Several centuries before Aegon's Conquest, House Manderly was driven into exile from the Mander by Lord Lorimar Peake during the reign of Perceon III Gardener, King of the Reach. The Starks welcomed them to the north, and accepted oaths of fealthy from the Manderlys, giving them the Wolf's Den and the surrounding lands, leading to the creation of White Harbor around the Wolf's Den.

Possibly around 700 BC, Karlon Stark, a younger son of Winterfell, helped crush a rebel lord. As a reward, he was granted lands on which he built a keep named Karl's Hold. Over time, the keep became known as Karhold and Karlon's descendants became House Karstark.

The Starks helped repel several major wildling invasions, such as when they and their Umber bannermen defeated the brother Kings-Beyond-the-Wall Gendel and Gorne three thousand years ago. Bael the Bard is said to have sired a son on the maiden daughter of Brandon the Daughterless. Bael was later slain by his own son, who was unaware of the fact that Bael was his father.

### Targaryen Conquest and Aftermath

During Aegon's Conquest, King Torrhen Stark raised thirty thousand northmen and marched south. With the burning of Harrenhal and the Field of Fire in mind, however, Torrhen submitted without battle to Aegon I Targaryen. Since the time of the King Who Knelt, the Starks have held the north for the Lords of the Seven Kingdoms as Wardens of the North. Queen Rhaenys Targaryen arranged the marriage of Torrhen's daughter to Ronnel Arryn, the Lord of the Eyrie, in an attempt to knit the new realm together. There are letters at the Citadel which suggest that Torrhen only agreed to this match after much protest, and that his sons had refused to attend the wedding. Torrhen's sons did not agree with the rule of House Targaryen. Some spoke of rebelling and raising the Stark banner, though no rebellion has been mentioned to have ultimately taken place.

For the next full century after the Conquest, the Starks remained aloof from the royal court and disinterested in politics affecting the rest of Westeros. Historians such as Yandel barely remark upon the Starks during this time period, and even Gyldayn's definitive history offers only slightly more information about this uneventful era (thus a full family tree has not yet been revealed for the Starks between the Conquest and the Dance of the Dragons). Torrhen was succeeded by "Brandon the Boisterous". At some point rule of the North passed to Roderick Stark, and Roderick was succeeded by "Brandon the Boastful". Brandon the Boastful attended the Golden Wedding in 49 AC, along with his sons Walton and Alaric, though Brandon died soon after his return from it to the North.

Despite earlier rumblings of dissent by Torrhen's sons, the Starks were not among the wave of localized rebellions that popped up against Aegon the Conqueror's son Aenys I (in the Vale, the Iron Islands, and at Harrenhal). The Starks took no part in the ongoing Faith Militant uprising against Aenys and then his tyrannical brother Maegor the Cruel: as the North follows the old gods they did not heed the High Septon's calls for rebellion. Moreover the North was never singled out for mistreatment by Maegor, so they never joined either of the rebellions against him by Aenys's sons, but they didn't actively support Maegor either. The only brief point when the Starks became involved in the conflicts was after Maegor's death. Captured members of the Faith Militant had been exiled to the Night's Watch by Maegor, and later Aenys's son Jaehaerys I exiled many of Maegor's hardcore supporters to the Wall as well, including surviving members of his old Kingsguard. Neither group had love for Jaehaerys, so soon afterward in 50 AC the two groups made common cause to rebel against the leadership of the Watch. Lord Walton Stark called his bannermen to intervene and crushed the deserters, but survivors fled beyond the Wall: Walton pursued them but was ambushed by wildlings and killed by giants. Walton was succeeded by his brother Alaric Stark.

In 58 AC Queen Alysanne Targaryen visited Winterfell and was received by Lord Alaric, who was initially cold to her and Jaehaerys: the new king had spared the lives of the men who rebeled against the Night's Watch by exiling them to the Wall instead of executing them, and Alaric felt that had Jaehaerys executed them his brother would still be alive. Alaric was gradually charmed by Alysanne's visit, however, and his daughter ​Alarra grew particularly close to the queen during her visit. Alaric did not attend the tourney in King's Landing which celebrated the tenth anniversary of Jaehaerys's coronation, sending his sons instead. Alaric ordered his bannermen to put aside half of their harvests in anticipation of the winter of 59–60 AC, but not all of the northmen obeyed, resulting in famine. The Shivers plague followed later that winter, though no specific casualties are mentioned in the North and Alaric survived. Lord Alaric died in 72 AC and was succeeded by his grandson, Edric Stark, as Alaric's two sons had preceded him in death.

Alaric's relationship with the Targaryens remained complicated throughout his reign. According to Archmaester Gyldayn, Alysanne charmed a reluctant Alaric into granting the New Gift to the Night's Watch because, even though Alaric was a strong friend to the Watch, he knew the northern lords who already held the lands in question would not be happy to be given away. According to Maester Yandel, however, the Starks were opposed to the royal demand for a different reason: the Starks feared that, under the control of the Castle Black, the New Gift would inevitably decline, for the Night's Watch would always look northward and never give much thought to their new tenants to the south. Time proved this criticism correct, for as the decades passed the Night's Watch neglected the New Gift and it fell into disuse. Yandel cites that there are archived letters in the Citadel sent by the sons of Lord Alaric, asking the maesters about precedents against forced donations of land. Whatever the case, on the whole Jaehaerys and Alysanne became popular in the North due to their other generous donations to the Night's Watch, and their construction of the new Kingsroad extending from the Neck to Winterfell and the Wall.

### The Dance of the Dragons

Edric was eventually succeeded by Ellard Stark, who took part in the Great Council of 101 AC to determine the new heir of the elderly Jaehaerys after his second son's death. The final vote came to a choice between Viserys Targaryen (son of Jaehaerys's second son) and Laenor Velaryon (grandson of Jaehaerys through his first son's daughter). Viserys was the candidate Jaehaerys himself preferred, and he won the final vote by a landslide, though the Starks were among the minority of lords who had supported Laenor (and one of only two Great Houses, the other being the Baratheons). Yandel believed in his history that the reason why Ellard voted against Jaehaerys's preferred successor is because the Starks were still bitter about Jaehaerys forcing them to donate the New Gift to the Night's Watch, leading to its mismanagement. This vote would have longstanding consequences, as it pushed the Starks closer to the Velaryon faction at Viserys I's royal court, and through them to ultimately side with Rhaenyra during the Dance of the Dragons.

At some point after 101 AC, Ellard was succeeded by Benjen Stark, and later Benjen was succeeded by his son Rickon. Rickon died in 121 AC, and was succeeded as the nominal Lord of Winterfell by his only surviving son, the thirteen-year-old Cregan Stark. Rickon's brother, Bennard, served as regent during Cregan's minority. When Cregan came of age in 126 AC, however, Bennard was slow to surrender his power. Relations grew strained between Bennard and Cregan as the young Lord of Winterfell chafed under the limits imposed on him by his uncle. Ultimately, Cregan rose up against his uncle, imprisoned Bennard and his sons, and took rule of the North into his own hands.

In 129 AC, as the Dance of the Dragons began, Prince Jacaerys Velaryon recruited Lord Cregan's aid for his mother, Queen Rhaenyra Targaryen, known as the Pact of Ice and Fire, even though the north was considered to be too remote to be of much influence in the war. Cregan sent the Winter Wolves under Roderick Dustin, Lord of Barrowton, and knights from White Harbor led by Ser Medrick and Ser Torrhen Manderly. After the gathering of one last harvest before winter, Cregan led a great army of men, childless, homeless, unwed, or old men, and younger sons, to King's Landing. He arrived after King Aegon II Targaryen had been poisoned, however, and though he had hoped to punish those lords who had supported the late king, Corlys Velaryon, Lord of the Tides, had already sent out ravens suing for peace. While the court awaited replies, Cregan held sway and arrested all those involved in Aegon II's death, as he objected to the murder of a king. The as-yet-uncrowned Aegon III Targaryen was cowed into naming Cregan as Hand of the King, though Cregan served only a day in that office, a time known as the Hour of the Wolf. Lord Stark held trials for twenty-one out of twenty-two of his prisoners, with Corlys the only one spared a trial. Aegon III pardoned Lord Velaryon and restored his titles to him, which Cregan allowed when Aly Blackwood offered the Hand her own hand in marriage. Cregan returned north the next day.

During the Regency era that followed the Dance, Cregan struggled to hold the North together against several threats. A devastating winter had already begun late in the war which ultimately lasted six years, and in 132 AC the North was one of the first regions in Westeros struck by the Winter Fever, which continued through 133 AC. With the North weakened by winter, famine, and plague, a large wildling war-band led by Sylas the Grim seized on the opportunity to force their way south of the Wall. His force of 3,000 raiders overwhelmed the Night's Watch at Queensgate and proceeded to plunder the lands to the south. Lord Cregan rallied what few remaining able-bodied men were left among his bannermen, then rode out to hunt down and destroy Sylas's raiding bands.

Cregan's eldest son and heir was Rickon, named after his own father. Rickon predeceased his father when died in one of the final battles of the Conquest of Dorne, during the reign of King Daeron I Targaryen. The North lamented Rickon's death, for the subsequent reigns of Cregan's younger sons after him were troublesome.

### Blackfyre Rebellions & Cregan's successors

The exact date of Cregan Stark's death is unclear, though it is said that he lived to be quite old. It is unlikely though possible that he lived through the First Blackfyre Rebellion, as he would have been 88 years old in 196 AC. It is said that "all" of the Seven Kingdoms were divided in the rebellion - though in truth none of the Great Houses sided with the Blackfyres, and most of their supporters were along the southern borders with Dorne, where many lords were ancestral enemies of the Martells who opposed King Daeron II Targaryen's new marriage-alliance with them. Therefore it's possible that a few Northern lords may have sided with the Blackfyres, but overall the North saw little fighting.

The decades after Cregan Stark's death were a troublesome time for the North, as Cregan's descendants squabbled amongst each other and dealt with numerous more local threats in rapid succession.

Cregan Stark had five sons: Rickon, Jonnel, Edric, Barthogan, and Brandon. Though Rickon Stark predeceased his father, he was survived by his own two daughters, Sansa and Serena, and by the known laws of succesion they should have been ahead of Rickon's younger brothers in line of inheritance - however, northern succession laws may simply be different, there has never been a ruling Queen of Winter or ruling Lady of Winterfell for example, and promigeniture is not nessesarily binding elsewere in the seven kingdoms either. Whatever the case was, Cregan's second son Jonnel Stark succeeded Cregan upon his death, marrying his own half-niece Sansa. Cregan's third son Edric Stark married Rickon's other daughter Serena. Jonnel's marriage to Sansa was childless, but upon his death rule passed not to Cregan's third son Edric, but to his fourth son Barthogan Stark. While it is possible that Edric predeceased his younger brother, Edric did have two sons and two daughters with Serena, and the daughters had children of their own, and all of these should have been ahead in the line of succession to Barthogan. The exact reasons and circumstances under which Barthogan became Lord of Winterfell are as yet unknown.

Barthogan himself later died childless, when he was slain in the Skagosi rebellion during the reign of Daeron II Targaryen, and he was succeeded by Cregan's fifth and final son, Brandon, from whom the later generations of House Stark descend. Convoluted succession challenges remained for decades, possibly through Serena and Edric's children - and between Brandon's own rival grandchildren. Brandon was succeeded by his eldest son Rodwell Stark, who died without issue, after which rule passed to his younger brother Calon Stark. (to be expanded)

## House Stark in 245 AC

* Calon Stark, Lord of Winterfell. He is the second son of Brandon Stark, grandson of Cregan Stark, younger brother of Rodwell Stark and older brother of Joseth Stark. Currently he is deadly sick in Winterfell.
	+ Meliana Stark née Cerwyn, Lord Calon's wife and mother of his four children.
		- Alys Stark, Lord Calon's eldest child and first daughter. She was betrothed to a Mormont, who died before they could marry and would have his bastard son, unbeknownst to everyone, who would die shortly after.
		- Farlen Stark, Lord Calon's eldest son and heir. (to be expanded)
		- Alaric Stark, Lord Calon's second son. (to be expanded)
		- Lysara Stark, Lord Calon's youngest child and daughter. She is currently with her betrothed at Riverrun.
			* Brynden Tully, Lysara's betrothed.
* Joseth Stark, Lord Calon's younger brother. He is the third child of Brandon Stark, grandson of Cregan Stark and younger brother to Rodwell and Calon Stark. He is currently managing Winterfell for his dying brother.

## References

https://awoiaf.westeros.org/index.php/House\_Stark (particularly the history section which is copied from there. no rights reserved)