Matarys Targaryen

## Introduction

Ser Matarys Targaryen is the former bastard son, now legitimised, of the late Prince Baelon Targaryen, descended from King Aegon the Conqueror through the line of Aenys I and his son, Prince Jaehaerys. He earned his legitimization through blood and fire, and now rules as a lord in his own right.

## Appearance and Character

Matarys, despite his bastard birth, still looks every inch a princeling - tall, muscular, comely and with a face that looks as if it was sculpted from marble. Being half-Targaryen, he has inherited the beautiful purple eyes so common to those of his father’s blood, but not the silver-gold hair, instead being blessed with the fiery red hair of his mother’s house, the Reynes, which he keeps long, flowing down to his neck and neatly cared after. He has always remained clean shaven, not even sporting peach-fuzz while serving as a squire as lads his age are wont to do. His small, plump mouth is usually drawn upwards into a cutting smile when at ease, but there is a hardness to him when the situation calls for it, and commanding men comes naturally to him. With his formative years spent training at arms, the bastard has developed into a youth of excellent physical shape, muscled like a maiden’s fantasy - broad of shoulder, long of limb, with muscular arms and a stomach as flat as a plank. Overall he is tall and well-made, with a lean and lithe build like that of a panther.

Matarys carries himself in a well-mannered, exemplary fashion almost indistinguishable from that of his more well-born royal cousins. Yet he also possesses a certain charm that the lowborn and smallfolk find endearing, Thus one could say he has a multi-faceted demeanor, at times appearing carefree while other times demonstrating ferocious killing intent and deadliness, depending on what the situation at hand calls for. This juxtaposition of noble distinction and common-born sympathy is what attracts people of varying walks of life to him. His natural good looks do not hurt either, of course. This, ofttimes, superficial charm allows him to win many friends, but leaves him with few, if any, people who know him truly, as his social chameleon nature does not leave much room for genuine connection.

An unstable adolescence, lacking much structure, has formed the young commander of the City Watch into a man who prizes order and control. Not one to tolerate when underlings balk at his commands, he has earned little love from the men under him. While loyal to the point of following him off a cliff, the men that have been under Matarys the longest all agree that when fulfilling his duties he is a real cast-iron bitch. Nearly always in control of himself, the bastard draws clear lines between himself and those around him, distinguishing those who follow him and those that he views as possible equals. While sympathetic to the smallfolk, he has no qualms about showing his aristocratic upbringing, even among the common-born soldiers, valuing the control that the authority brings him. As a knight, he exhibits bravery, ruthlessness and chivalry in equal measure.

## Biography

The boy who would become known as Matarys was born in Castamere in the 1st Moon of the 80th Year, to Lady Johanna Reyne. Born out of wedlock, the young bastard was heavily suspected to be sired by Prince Baelon Targaryen, who the Lady had had a tryst with. The babe's purple eyes left little room to doubt that assertion. The rumours would be confirmed when Prince Baelon stepped forward to claim the child as his own, acknowledging the boy as his and bestowing upon him the name of Matarys. He would be taken from Castamere and brought to court in King's Landing, to be given an education fit for his station. As he grew older, it would be noted that while he inherited the purple eyes of his father, his hair was not the silver-gold that was so common to those of Valyrian heritage, but instead a bright red, like fire.

However, he would never grow up to know his father, as the man perished during the Fourth Dornish War in the year 83 After Conquest, leaving the boy without either a father or a mother in his life. To honour his father's wishes, the boy's uncle, Prince Aemon, would adopt him and raise him among his own children. Growing up among his cousins, the lad would not initially be aware of any difference between him and his, unbeknownst to him adoptive, siblings - of course there was the red hair and the older siblings were always... different around him, like they knew something that no one else did, but the young Matarys was unable to figure out what it was, no matter how much he pried. Still, even despite his sometimes pestering and sulky nature, he managed to grow close to the children of Prince Aemon, looking up especially to Prince Aegon and Princess Helaena for their martial prowess.

Matarys himself would exhibit a strong martial spirit as well, with his sturdy build and fair height offering him good advantage in the sparring yard. As a page, and later squire, at the royal court, he would be given the best education someone of his station could hope for - being taught combat by the Master-at-Arms, educated along with the other children at court by the Grand Maester, and so forth. In his time off he enjoyed riding horses, spending time with his siblings - especially Alysella, who was the one most of age with him - as well as listening to the stories told by the denizens of the castle, with his favourites being stories of the Andal invasion and the Conquest. When he was old enough, he was taken as a squire by Prince Aemon Targaryen, his adoptive father. While proving to be able and dutiful at his job, the lad would also make friends with another of his uncle's squires, Roy Baratheon, the future Lord of Storm's End and Lord Paramount of the Stormlands.

When Matarys was two-and-ten, the Rosegold rebellion broke out and Prince Aemon was put in charge of the Royal forces that marched to quash the self-proclaimed King, Gwayne Tyrell, and the less grandiose, Lord Tytos Lannister of the Westerlands. Marching with the Royal Host, the young bastard was eager to prove himself worthy of one day becoming a knight. Tall, strong and possessing of powerful will, Matarys did indeed prove himself brave and able, standing and fighting by the side of his knight with as much resolve and ferocity as any knight. It would be at Bitterbridge that the royal bastard would first swing his sword in anger and kill his first man, slaying a knight of house Varmer when a sally from Bitterbridge nigh broke through to the king and his commanders. Thus having achieved himself, he would capture another knight, though this one of lesser stature, being a hedge night in the service of Lord Mullendore, for whom he would later receive a pitiable ransom. Too young to receive his spurs, his uncle would instead gift the youth his esteem, a suit of plate armour of burnished black steel and a shield, emblazed with a black lion possessing the wings and tail of a dragon on a backround of red, surrounded by a bordure of white ermine on black.

When the war did end, Matarys returned with his uncle to the capital once more and resumed a life of seemingly peaceable nature, resuming his duties as squire by faithfully following Prince Aemon around, attending to him whenever the man needed. Seemingly unaffected by the war, or even gladdened by the experience, would blossom even more, becoming a popular sight at the training yards and among the castle garrison, with the members of which he would manage to become fast friends easily. Among his friends he counted, to name a few, his foster siblings, Aegon, Helaena and Alysella, as well as the Master-at-Arms, Ser Rickard Selmy, the Lord Commander of the Kingsguard, Ser Aethan Velaryon, who knew Matarys' father well, and Bethany Blount, a Lady in Waiting for the Queen Dowager and many more. Yet for all his vaunted friends, Matarys yet remained unsure of his identity - it did not take much to gather that he was unlike his siblings or his elders, with his red hair testifying to that fact as clear as daylight.

The revelation would come with the tragic death of his erstwhile father, Prince Aemon, of the Dragonblight in 96 AC. Upon the Hand of the King bade the bastard kneel and knighted him with the fabled sword Dark Sister and then motioned him closer, revealing to him his true parentage - that he was the son of Prince Baelon Targaryen, who had perished in Dorne all those fifteen years ago, and Lady Johanna of House Reyne. Understandably, the words came as something of a shock, no less than the sudden knighting, or the fact that the man he considered his father all his life was dying, and was not in fact his father. Still, despite the revelation would not lessen the blow once the former Hand of the King did pass, and he would share that grief with his foster siblings.

Now a knight, and with no clear purpose, the young bastard would make himself useful and join the City Watch of King's Landing, being assigned as a serjeant and quickly rising through the ranks, being made captain of the Gate of the Gods by the age of 17 and soon, much to his surprised, appointed to replace the retiring Commander of the City Watch at the age of eight-and-ten by the command of King Viserys the First. Matarys would serve as the commander for years, proving an effective commander, reforming the city watch. However, his tenure as commander would be most well known for his confrontation with Lord Gunthor Arryn and his guard, during which he slew the old lord and ten of his knights single-handedly. This act would bring him no small amount of renown, and infamy.

In the last moons of 99 AC, the bastard would have an affair with his cousin, Alysella Targaryen, after it was announced that she was to marry the Heir of the Rock. He would continue to serve in the role of commander until the royal intervention in the war between Dorne and the Stormlands. He would, finally having tired of his time as a watchman, take his leave of the city and sail to Dorne as commander of the land forces. There he would command the land assault upon Sunspear and participating in the sack of the city. Returning home, he would finally receive the boon that he always desired - legitimisation. From hence on he would be known as Matarys Targaryen, trueborn son of Baelon Targaryen and Joanna Reyne.

After his legitimisation, the former bastard would waste no time in securing an advantageous marriage for himself. A war hero, a famous knight and now officially blood of the Dragon, even if distant to the royal line - he would prove to be a desirable bachelor indeed. Who would win his hand, or who's hand he found, was the heiress of House Brune of Dyre Den, the last from a line that suffered heavily during the Hook Uprising, being both on the losing side and losing many members of it's line. With the prospect of getting back into royal favour, the heiress finally acquiesced and took the Targaryen's hand in marriage, thereby making the former bastard Lord Consort of Brownhollow. More power would soon follow as the warrior manages to bring the oft disunited houses of the Claw under his own command.

The matters of the Claw, especially the war against bandits in the northern Crownlands that took place in the second half of the 120s, would keep the lord busy, not allowing him much time to visit the court of his royal cousins. But the coronation of a new king would something he could not ignore, and with the promise of one of his sons getting a White Cloak, the Lord of the Claw would ride to attend to court.

## Family Tree

* King Aegon "The Conqueror" Targaryen (27 BC - 37 AC)
* m. Rhaenys Targaryen (25 BC - 10 AC)
	+ King Aenys Targaryen (7 - 42 AC)
	+ m. Alyssa Velaryon (7 - 54 AC)
		- Rhaena Targaryen (23 - 49 AC)
		- Aegon Targaryen (26 - 43 AC)
		- Viserys Targaryen (29 - 44 AC)
		- Jaehaerys Targaryen (34 - 69 AC)
		- m. Alysanne Targaryen (36 - 58 AC)
			* Aemon Targaryen (55 - 96 AC)
			* m. Mereya Darklyn (b. 53 AC)
				+ **Helaena Targaryen (b. 76 AC)**
				+ Aegon Targaryen (b. 76 AC)
				+ Daena Targaryen (79 - 81 AC)
				+ Alysella Targaryen (b. 81 AC)
				+ Valerion Targaryen (b. 85 AC)
			* Baelon Targaryen (57 - 83 AC)
				+ **Matarys Targaryen (b. 80 AC)**
				+ m. Jeyne Brune (b. 83 AC)
					- Viserys Targaryen (b. 103 AC)
					- Visenya Targaryen (b. 103 AC)
					- Baelon Targaryen (b. 105 AC)
					- Vaemond Targaryen (b. 106 AC)
					- Daella Targaryen (b. 109 AC)
					- Aemon Targaryen (b. 109 AC)

## Meta

Attribute: Bellicose

Social Status: Royal, Lord.

Skill Points: 22

Skills: Skirmishing, Ambuscade, Leadership, Polearms, Precision (Learned), Military Engineering.

Mastery: Field Commander.

CHA MAR COM INT STE STA EDU MAG REP

4 10 4 0 0 0 4 0 6