Name:
Ulfar ("The Bear") Lear

Age:
Forty two summers and too many winters

Titles:
Lord of Penkarth, Warden of the North

Origin:
Penkarth

Allegiance:
House Lear

Family:


Appearance:
Ulfar is the North personified. Scraggy beard that never seems contempt, dark hair that is equally uncontrollable and eyes so blue they mirror the sky, and you have a bear of a man that can seem terrifying when you first meet him. The eyepatch really doesn't help the situation but he's mostly placid with a stupid grin plastered to his face the most of the time.

Personality:
Stupid grins do little to hide the fact that Ulfar is unimaginably strong. He leads his people by example and that example is sheer strength and pure honour. He could kill a man very easily with his bare hands and even easier with an axe or a sword but that side of him is rarely, if ever, uncovered. Ulfar believes honour begins in the home and he holds that value high - the only people that ever take precedent over his people are his family. His love is a somewhat dumb one, as is most things that he does. Even in his older age, he would still blindly trip over himself after his wife and his adoration for his children is abundantly clear. He listens to the needs of the smallfolk and carries out the King's Justice when he needs to but the majority of the ruling is left to his wife, who seems to actually have the patience to do so. The rest of his time is spent with his children or in a meadhall somewhere.

He seems like a bright man but the eyepatch and the scars bear a cruel testament to the times when he wasn't so nice. Uprising and rebellion happens rarely in the North but when it does, he has always been there to beat it to a bloody pulp. Honour and loyalty is everything to him and if he can't hold those two virtues up, his life is meaningless.

Background:
Life in the North is never easy. While Southern Lords wallow in humidity, keeping warm is a daily struggle in the North. That struggle was somewhat alleviated by the fact that Ulfar was born a Lear. He had an education, warm meals and the resources to make himself into something. Not only that but he was the firstborn, the heir to Penkarth. His father was one of the finest leaders the North had ever witnessed. He would move mountains to provide for his people and even the weak had a place in his society. He was a hard man though, and he taught his heir with an iron fist. "Honour is everything," He told him, "For when the long winter sets in, it's what keeps us standing." As per traditions of the North, his father carried out the King's Justice. To look a man in the eye before you take his head; that was strength.

The Bear was never very studious, however. He much preferred learning to fight and occassionally getting lost in a brothel (occassionally) instead of learning how to finance the North or eat with some grace. Advisors would do that for him, he reasoned, but advisors could never fight for him or swing his sword. For that reason, he was mostly wild in his younger years, a trait that his father never truly learned to stamp out. The only person capable of that was the girl he had been promised. There were very few things in the world which could make him nervous but she was one of them. Nervous, yes, but head-over-heels for her. She grounded him, somewhat, and he began to properly learn some of his Lordly duties. His father had aged and it wouldn't be long before Ulfar would rise to his position as Lord of the North.

During those years, a small rebellion sparked in the lower houses of the North. Arguing that the Lears were too quick to bend the knee to the King and that their rule made the North weak, the rebels quickly gained some traction. He hadn't been married only a few months before he called the banners and rode out to meet the rebels in place of his ailing father. It was his own cousin who had instigated the conflict, a man whom he had played with as a child. Very few people willingly speak of what happened when Ulfar finally broke the rebels and found his cousin. Most stories say that the Lear Heir dragged his cousin from his bedroom, found a block and took his head. Few stories say that the entire time, Ulfar was quiet, that his eyes had darkened and his features had been set in stone.

When he returned, his first daughter had already been born. It was clear that he wasn't the same as when he had left. He was quiet and strangely, he had grown more in those few, cold months than he had in his entire life. His duties, both to his family and his people, became paramount to him and he was finally forged into the Lord his father intended him to be. Not long after, the Old Lord Lear passed away peacefully and Ulfar became the Warden of the North.

Two children followed his firstborn and they enjoyed the long years of mild winters and bright summers. They grew with smiles and contempt and he made it his duty to raise them as he was raised, with honour and strength. Perhaps with a little less of an iron fist - he was never violent, he was much too mellow for that. His firstborn, Isla, was always the one closest to him. She was pure and innocent but strong beyond belief. Her perfection reminded him that perhaps he had been doing something right. He became a gentle soul, inviting anyone who would grace his tables with their presence. He seemed peaceful and mellow but the threat was always there, lurking, waiting, watching for a time when only swords could cure what words had wrought.