Kayn Snow

Were he not born a bastard, Kayn might well have been the apple of many a young maiden's eye. Tall (standing a full 6' 3') and handsome, sporting all the traits of a trueborn Stark, Kayn is the picture of Northern nobility. He has a lightly curled, dark brown head of hair and the somber face of a Stark that lights up with a smile that can warm a room. His eyes, however, are his most striking feature. Like many Starks, they are striking in their icy blue and yet Kayn's have an inhuman depth to them. When sharing eye contact, one often hears you can see into the other person's soul. When looking in Kayn's eyes, it feels as if you are looking across thousands of years and millions of souls. There is magic hidden in them.

## Appearance and Personality

Were he not born a bastard, Kayn might well have been the apple of many a young maiden's eye. Tall (standing a full 6' 3') and handsome, sporting all the traits of a trueborn Stark, Kayn is the picture of Northern nobility. He has a lightly curled, dark brown head of hair and the somber face of a Stark that lights up with a smile that can warm a room. His eyes, however, are his most striking feature. Like many Starks, they are striking in their icy blue and yet Kayn's have an inhuman depth to them. When sharing eye contact, one often hears you can see into the other person's soul. When looking in Kayn's eyes, it feels as if you are looking across thousands of years and millions of souls. There is magic hidden in them.

The Bastard of Winterfell is known to be a kind if not terribly somber man. Life has not been kind to the bastard boy and it has greatly influenced his view of the world. He is a gentle spirit, in truth, one who greatly desires to be loved though he hides that goodness beneath a tough and brusque exterior. He wants to have a place in the world that is more than just his father’s attempts to make him feel included in a family that looked down on him. His innate kindness is most present in his love for animals and their for him.

Kayn is also something of a mystic. He, true to his Stark ancestry, has the Touch of the Gods. His abilities give him a certain presence that many a smallfolk have commented on in the past though the extent of his abilities are not known, even to him. What is known is that Kayn occasionally has dreams that come true, that he has fainting spells where his eyes roll back in his head and he seems to be away from his body, that he can accurately recount things that happened in the past of which he should have no knowledge \*and\* can see events happening many miles away. His abilities are sporadic, occurring mostly in his sleep, but he has found that he can consciously access his abilities when near to a weirwood tree. He can also take on the form of animals through similar means, though this does not require a weirwood and happens almost exclusively when he is unconscious.

## History

Kayn was born of the coupling of a young Lord Jon Stark, then still the unmarried heir to House Stark, and a beautiful serving girl named Lora. Jon, just a boy of nine and ten, had known Lora since he was a young boy and had fallen in love with her over the years. Obviously, Jon was not allowed to marry the girl but he continued to see her nonetheless. Eventually, their visits bore fruit in the form of a pregnant Lora. Jon’s father, no stranger to bastards of his own, offered no help to the boy and his mother had only rage at the news.

Weeks turned to months and finally, on a particularly cold autumn evening in 357, Kayn Snow was born. Tragedy struck the boy immediately upon his birth when his mother drew her last bringing him into the world. Just a few days after he was born, winter arrived. It was as if the boy was the harbinger of the cold, snowy winds that would whip the North for the next four years. The death of Lora weighed heavily on the young Jon, who took in his firstborn son and raised him openly as his acknowledged son. The child was rejected by the majority of the family and it made finding a wife for the single father difficult, none in the realm wanted to marry their daughter to a boy who would come into the marriage disgracing their daughter with a bastard. Finally, an agreement was made with the Greyjoys that Jon would marry Raina Greyjoy, the sister of Lord Ronas. The two were wed in 359 AC and the and their first child, Robb, was born a few months later.

Lady Raina despised Kayn from the moment she saw him and continues to do so until this day. She lacked many motherly traits when it came to her own children and absolutely none of the qualities she did have were offered to Kayn. She attempted to have his room placed in the stables with the grooms, she made a fuss when Lord Jon ordered Kayn to be trained alongside the other boys, made Kayn briefly refer to the trueborn Starks as ‘milord’ and ‘milady’ before Lord Jon stepped in and put a stop to it, among other trivial issues she created for the motherless boy. Despite Lady Raina’s abuse, Kayn developed a close relationship with his siblings that was nurtured by their father. The Stark creed of “the lone wolf dies but the pack survives” was instilled deeply in all of Lord Jon’s cubs who saw Kayn as one of their pack regardless of his surname. Despite their kindness, Kayn continued to feel like an outsider. To avoid Kayn being tormented by Lady Raina, Jon brought Kayn with him wherever he went. As such, Kayn spent considerable time in the capital with his father. It was here that he met members of the royal family including the beautiful princesses Elinor and Myrcella, and Mace Wildflowers.

At an early age, Jon had a sword put into his bastard’s hand and ordered him trained by the Master-at-Arms. He proved sufficient with blades, particularly swords and daggers. He would take to throwing knives as well, a skill he would use later in life. He and his brother Robb would regularly spar in the Winterfell yard, going back and forth for hours on end with neither ever proving to be the decisively better swordsman.

When Kayn was about 4 years old, Jon started to realize that there was something special about the boy. In the mornings he would find ravens clustered at the window, typically a sign that a child had died, but the ravens were not ravenously trying to enter and tear at the carcass of a dead babe but instead seemed to be watching the boy. One morning, Jon opened the window and, to his surprise, the ravens did not move. They just sat, stared, and occasionally crowed. As the boy grew, he started to befriend the ravens that came to his window sill. He would feed them and give them names and tell his father and siblings what each of the birds was thinking as casually as a child would describe a game that he had invented. When Lady Raina heard of the boy’s stories, she demanded that he be locked away so as not to bring a curse upon the family. Jon did not take his wife’s commands well and instead, moved Jon to nicer chambers closer to the godswood.

It was in these new chambers that the boy began to have dreams of being different animals. Sometimes he was a wolf, other times a raven, sometimes even a whale deep below the frozen sea. The family believed the dreams to be just that, dreams, but there was one member of the family that told them differently.

In 309 AC, just as the War of the Two Dragons began in earnest, a man long thought dead returned to Winterfell. Brandon Stark, the son of Lord Eddard and Lady Catelyn and the elder brother of Lord Rickon, arrived in the Winterfell courtyard one morning. Shock reverberated through the castle as a living Stark, the last true Prince of Winterfell, entered the keep. People began to suggest immediately that Bran be named Lord of Winterfell, though those voices were quickly silenced when it became clear what had become of the crippled boy. He spoke in a monotonous tone and seemed wholly away from this world. More god than human. He would spend his days in the godswood in a deep meditative state. He would eat only bread and drink only water, taking no interest in luxury nor even living other than simple survival. He would persist like this until 366 AC.

When Bran heard of what was happening to the child he was an old man and his seeming embodiment of the Old Gods made him a respected figure in Winterfell. Lord Jon did as Bran asked and brought Kayn before him. Bran looked deep into the eyes of the child and said resolutely “He has the Touch”. With that, Bran tapped the boy on the forehead and both went into a deep trance. Bran showed Kayn the creation of the world, the first war with the Others, Bran the Builder laying the first stone at Winterfell, Aegon’s Conquest, and many other significant historical events up until the present day. In what felt to the outside world just a few minutes but many lifetimes to those involved, the two awoke. Bran placed both hands gently on the boy’s cheeks and said “the memory of this world will live on through you.”

The experience with Bran shook father and son alike, especially when Bran became Bran the Beastly in later life. Though jarring, it set Kayn on a lifelong mission to better himself in hopes that he could be worthy of what was foretold of him.

He grew up tall and handsome, kind and intelligent, all of which were seen as gifts from the Gods. He nurtured the connection he had with animals through devoting considerable time to helping tend to Winterfell’s horses and kennels (though this was partially to annoy Lady Raina for her previous attempts to make him live among the animals), and became a well loved figure by the smallfolk of Winterfell, something his brother Robb struggled with. Kayn developed a hobby of ferriering the horses, something that he still does when he is in the castle. He enjoys seeing how happy the horses are once they have a clean foot and well fitting shoe. His latest exploit has been learning to smith with the castle blacksmith, hoping to one day forge his own sword.

Kayn had seen the coming of a dragon in a dream when he was around ten years old though the dream was so metaphorical and unclear that he thought nothing of it. In 378 AC, however, Kayn realized what his dream had meant. At the head of the Golden Company and atop the back of a massive dragon, Daena Targaryen tore through Westeros in a stunning shock and awe campaign. Kayn’s father raised the North to face the threat, refusing to allow the realm to remain idle yet again. Before leaving Winterfell, Jon gave Kayn a sword and dagger that he had had made for him along with a set of traditional Northern armor. The sword and dagger were a set, twins in all but size. The blades had a running direwolf down the furrow and the pommels were inlaid with red jewels, the same jewels that once inlaid the eyes of Longclaw when it was wielded by Jon Snow, Jon Stark’s namesake and a hero of Kayn’s. The brown leather of the grip was wrapped in corded gold that covered the overlaps of the leather. Kayn still carries these weapons today.

The Northerners rallied at Moat Cailin and set out to lift the siege of Harrenhal. On the march Kayn met many Northerners of both wildling and Northern origin, all prepared to fight and die under the banner of his father. On the march, the Starks were supplemented by men of the Riverlands including the Freys, Mallisters, and Blackwoods. The Northern host fell upon the siege party and tore apart the Golden Company, dealing them their first major defeat of the war. Kayn fought valiantly alongside his brethren, killing his first man on that battlefield.

As the war dragged on, it became clear that a new course was needed if the Westerosi were to ever gain the upper hand. This was when Mace Wildflowers developed a plan to undermine the Targaryen war effort. Like Kayn, Mace was a bastard though he was of royal origin. The two had met some years before and developed a good relationship, one that grew stronger when Kayn joined Mace on his trip to Essos. A pair of other Northmen joined Mace on his trip as well; Cregan Snow, a bastard of House Mormont and eventual Lord Commander of the Gold Cloaks, and Bael Thenn, heir to the Dreadfort.

Through subterfuge, targeted assassination, and roguery, the Westerosi intricately exploited the tensions in Daena’s Essosi holdings and drove her powerbase into rebellion. This cut the dragon off from her reinforcements and supply lines, leaving her stranded and alone in Westeros. Kayn’s magical abilities were put to use in Essos. His dreams were used to gain information for blackmail and leverage. It was in Essos that Kayn for the first time learned to use his abilities as a warg consciously and deliberately, which made it possible to spy on and scout areas of the city that were impossible to access otherwise.

While in Essos, Kayn developed close relationships with all that he was working with. Chiefly though, he became very close to Bael Thenn of the Dreadfort. The two shared many interests and a sense of feeling out of place. Kayn, a bastard in a Great House of Westeros, and Bael, a member of a House created of outsiders, bonded over their experiences on the fringes. Just as the war brought together wildling and Northerner, it brought together the Bastard of Winterfell and heir to the Dreadfort. Bael taught Kayn some of the Old Tongue, which he still practices to this day, and the two, along with Cregan Snow, delighted in not clarifying their Northern speech to the southerners in their party. At war’s end, Bael would marry Kayn’s half sister Lysa in a ceremony that would mark the first marriage between House Stark and a wildling descended House.

When news of Daena’s return to Essos reached the party, they knew their work was done and beat a hasty retreat to Westeros. Once there, the Northerners returned to their host and fought what was left of the war alongside their people.

At war’s end, Kayn returned to Winterfell relieved to have survived the war. Despite this relief, however, he found himself struck by wanderlust that he attributed to his time in Essos. He wanted to see the world, travel to new places, and meet new people. He did not want to return to the life of a bastard boy forced to hide behind his father from people that wanted him gone. He devoted himself to more fully controlling his gifts, practicing warging and conscious greensight, an ability that he has only just begun to understand. Now, with the celebration of a century since the first Targaryen’s were cast from Westeros taking place in King’s Landing, Kayn is eager to take the opportunity to be something more.