House TempletonSeat: Ninestars- The Vale of Arryn
Ninestars is the name of the castle that forms the seat of House Templeton. Sitting NorthEast on the Southern Edge of the Fingers, Ninestars Castle is fashioned from white-grey stone and consists of fairly short, squat battlements framed by two square towers. It lurches up from long yellow grasses with its back to the tides, ducking out of the salty winds gusting off the narrow sea.
Of huge strategic importance, Ninestars has proven invaluable in forming a defensive fortress guarding the Fingers, whilst looking out across the Narrow Sea to its rear.
Whilst hardly the Vale’s most impressive stronghold, Ninestars’ fringe position helps to facilitate it as an administrative hub for the various farming communities in the fertile peninsula. There are comfortably upwards of 2'500 men that owe fealty to the Knight of Ninestars and it is this that has enabled each Ser Templeton to command the respect of the Lordly counterparts such as Corbray, Royce and Hunter.
The centrepoint of the castle is the Sept, or ‘temple’, after which the House is named.
History: Templeton’s history dates back as far as the Andals who are credited with the building of the Temple which became a significant waycastle for those accessing the Vale by sea. Whilst not boasting ought so grandiose as a harbour or port; over generations Ninestars grew around it and the Templeton House was given Knightly status and dominion over the castle by House Arryn many centuries ago.
Essentially the first ‘Templetons’ were required to maintain the temple and keep residence of the villages clustered in the vicinity. It is rumoured that this task was oft doled out to ‘bastards’ of the Arryn House; if true, it would provide a blood-tie to the Noble House for Templeton. Certainly their allegiance to Arryn has never wavered.
As the fortifications grew, Temple-town (from whence the name derives) was the colloquial monicker given to the almalgamated villages who eventually moved to within or beside the castle grounds. The hugely popular Templeton market and annual Fair drew more and more settlers to the vicinity. In acknowledgement of the time-honoured diligence and capable management of the temple and surrounding township, ‘House Templeton’ was formerly recognised by Lord Arryn, that same evening a meteor shower purportedly featuring ‘nine falling stars’ shone across the darkening sky- giving the castle its name, and House Templeton its sigil; the yellow of the stars representing the long grasses of the vale and the black field representing the night sky.
During the Blackfyre Rebellion, House Templeton took to the field with over 1'700 in their host to support House Arryn at the battle of Redgrass Field. Daemon Blackfyre himself cut down the Knight of Ninestars, Ser Ronnel Templeton, leaving his younger brother, Jon as the Knight of Ninestars. A position he holds today. Indeed, Jon Templeton was knighted by Lord Arryn himself after he carried the Lord to safety after an ultimately mortal legwound.
Members of the House:
Ser Jon Templeton- Knight of Ninestars- 30 (called the blackstar colloquially)
The Widow Ninestars-
Lady Allayne Templeton- 34 (Ronnel’s Widow)
Miss Birgitte Sunderland – Daughter of Lord Sunderland and a ward sent to Ninestars to secure Sunderland’s fealty in future. - 13
Kennet Nash – Master-at-Arms – 47
Yohn Cowley – Kennelmaster – 47
Maester Kirwan – A maester – 55
Harold Stone – The late Ronnel Templeton’s bastard – 17
Gawarth Templeton – Jon’s Uncle – 55
Character Sheets:
History
The second son of Ser Wyman Templeton, Jon ought to have grown up in the shadow of his older brother, Ronnel. Two years his junior, Jon and Ronnel spent everyday playing together until Ronnel was struck with a terrifying fever and brain sickness. Maester Kirwan, a young man with some radical practices, believed in ritualistic ‘bleeding’ and though painstaking, Ronnel recovered his wits though had been left perpetually weakened.
Ser Wyman took it hard and this was doubled by the death of his Wife Myrcella Templeton and their newborn daughter in the birthing bed the same year.
It was upon Jon that Wyman came to depend, the dark-haired younger boy grew strong and tall whilst his elder brother took a year to gather strength enough to rise from his chair. However, to flout tradition and promote Jon as heir to Ninestars was beyond Wyman’s comprehension. The eldest must inherit. His brother, Gawarth came to live with them to take Jon hunting and climbing, sparring and ranging whilst Wyman managed the estate and buried himself in the heavy tedium that is the day-to-day fayre of the Knight in the Vale. Meanwhile, Kennet Nash came to Ninestars to serve as Master-at-Arms. Wyman had spotted the young warrior at a Tourney near Heart’s Home and he’d been keen to accept the position which meant he had jurisdiction over a sizeable detail of men-at-arms as well as a detachment of mounted lancers numbering over one hundred.
As the boys grew to manhood, Ronnel was at least adequate with sword in hand, his triumph over his childhood illness was remarkable but a withered sword-arm and a crooked gait meant he looked absurd in the armour specifically gilded for him by the Castle Smithy. He insisted on competing alongside Wyman in a Tourney in Gulltown but was hurt early in the mellee and cruel jibes such as ‘the cripple o’ Ninestars’ were heard being heckled from the public gallery.
Wyman may or may not have heard these jeers but he was said to have stalked to his horse for the tilt enraged. It will never be known how he truly felt that day as he was unhorsed, surprisingly, by a Corbray squire and fell awkwardly, breaking his neck and killing him outright. Ronnel blamed his own disgraceful failure for his father’s death.
Despite Uncle Gawarth’s urging that Jon, and not Ronnel, should be the new Knight o Ninestars, Ronnel accepted the title and vowed that he would do credit to the role.
In truth, he was a fair and just master to the outlying communities and in the three years he served at the Family castle, produce in the Vale increased and a period of prosperity ensued.
When Lord Arryn called the banners, Jon pleaded with his brother to allow him to go in his stead. He was faster ahorse, a better sword and a stronger lance, but whilst agreeing Jon should accompany him, Ronnel insisted that it was he, as the eldest, that should ride to war in the black cape of Ninestars. Jon had his own armour, daubed with black tar and wore a yellow cape, emblazoned with a single black star; earning him the nickname Knight of the Blackstar- a joke amongst the men as Jon hadn’t been knighted but one he liked and would later adopt as an unofficial title.
The war was decided on what became known as Redgrass Field. Jon fought doggedly and several accounts of the battle note a yellow cloak in the Princes’ force, twirling across the field- his blade gusting mists of scarlet as it scythed down foe after foe.
All Jon was trying to do was to cut through to Ronnel, he’d been unhorsed and found himself in the thick of the mellee. It was just like the ill-fated tourney at Gulltown; and the result no less grave. Daemon Blackfyre himself separated Ronnel’s head from his shoulders with a backswing that looked like merely an afterthought. There’d be no songs sung for poor Ronnel.
Fury governed Jon’s every action from there on and when the tide turned and the Blackfyre forces were pushed towards Maekor’s shield wall, he caught sight of the Arryn standard once more.
Falling into the mire.
He abandoned all other thoughts and rode to the aid of his Lord. It would be some tale to tell how he singlehandedly repelled a host of Blackfyre swords to save Lord Arryn but when he got to the Lord, he was grievously wounded and the Blackfyre rebels had been pushed back clear of him. Jon helped him back to the comparative safety of the van and by the time this was done the battle and the war were over.
There are rumours in the Vale that the new Knight of Ninestars was knighted with his brother’s head in his hands but this is a misnomer. There was some 45 minutes between the incidents and it wasn’t until two weeks had passed and the Silent Sisters brought Ronnel’s remains to Ninestars that Jon took up the family shield; nine yellow stars on a midnight black field.
Personality
Make no bones about it, Jon loved his father and older brother. He vaguely remembers Ronnel’s childhood illness as a time of bewilderment and confusion and when mother died and the baby he remembers crying a lot but things moving on quickly.
He supported Ronnel’s decision to take the Knighthood and even rode to the Eyrie at his side when he formally received the Templeton ancestral title. But there are also memories that make him feel bitter; the young Corbray squire who decided to prove himself in the Joust a little too overzealously robbed him of a father and Blackfyre’s beheading of Ronnel and insolent shrug afterwards was a sleight he has ever found difficult to bear.
He is ambitious and relentless. Refusing to take a wife until he raises the House to a Lordship or a chronic lack of heirs demands it, he keeps Uncle Gawayne as a close advisor and sole heir to Ninestars as his father’s brother. He also has every intention of legitimizing Ronnel’s bastard, Harold Stone who was sent to foster at Ninestars after the death of his mother; a former handmaiden to Gawayne’s late wife who reputedly seduced the young Ronnel in the bleak months following Ser Wayman’s tragic death.
Jon is not quick to smile but neither is he quick to anger. Even on Redgrass Field, it took watching his brother slain to rile him into fury. However he is weak in the presence of Ronnel’s widow. He’d be the last to admit it to himself but the woman has a profound power over him; wed to Ronnel at 16, she soon grew frustrated with Jon’s older brother’s ‘failings’ in the bedroom; she began to bed Jon aswell when he was only thirteen. Jon, to his credit, has managed to avoid siring a bastard on his conniving sister-in-law in all these years which seems to suggest the widow is barren. He is keen to foist her off on some other Knight as quickly as possible but in 17 years she has entrenched her position as the First Lady Templeton of Ninestars and it appears Jon is stuck with her. She is desperate for Jon to wed her, which would bring no opposition as in many families it is the ‘done’ thing to wed an older brother’s widow but her failure to bear a child in nigh on two decades and the appearance of Ronnel’s bastard (attesting that his seed bears fruit) has set Jon dead against the idea. Indeed, sex aside, the woman terrifies him.
Allayne Templeton (nee Waxley)
History
The Widow Allayne Templeton of Ninestars was born to Ser Ryman Waxley and Lady Daena Waxley, the fourth daughter and sixth child of a happy and lasting marriage; indeed both parents still live, well into their sixties. Allayne stood out amongst the other Waxley girls; Arda, Mowen and Bryda- more wilfull and precocious, but infinitely prettier- her raven-dark curls setting her apart from her straight-haired, mousy siblings with their high noses and brittle, high-pitched tones.
Life for Allayne was dull, never challenging and that tedium continued into her teenage years. She watched her brothers marry. Hadred, to a Meadows girl from Grassy Vale in the Reach, Haldred to a Daughter of Lord Farring in the Crownlands. Her sisters all managed to wed themselves to noble houses too; a Tarbeck, a Glover and a Hardying. All were younger sons or cousins but when a possible union to Templeton was mooted, her father was passing keen to see it done.
Allayne knew that Templeton was merely a Knightly House, like her own, but one that commanded weight and authority surpassing some lesser Lordly houses. Ronnel Templeton had been sickly in childhood but had survived and although partially disfigured by his malady, was still heir to Ninestars and a knight in the making. He was two years her junior but she liked that. Even at sixteen she knew she could mould the boy like a Wickenden candle…
The wedding was easily as lavish as any of her sisters’, although Mowen (the wife of Donal Glover) was conspicuous in her absence. The bedding… A non-event. Ronnel had been in his cups and at 14 it had taken too grave a toll on him. It was at least a week before he managed to fulfil his husbandry duties and mount her. She had to bite her lip to stop from laughing at his crooked stance and as he spent his seed within the first minute she nearly wretched as he groped at her with his withered right arm.
After twelve months of similar disappointment, she made her way along the North passage to Jon’s bed, where she taught him how a woman ought to be loved. He was a quick learner.
She doubted Ronnel knew to where she slipped late at night. She always told him it was to the Sept at the centre of the castle and he never asked any questions. Probably delighted to have such a devout and beautiful wife; praying to the Mother for a son, not stealing to the brother for a fuck.
For Ronnel’s underperformance in the marital bed, he was a kind and witty young man, there were times when she was genuinely proud of his endeavour and commitment to overcoming his shortcomings and growing into the Knight House Templeton needed him to be. His uncle favoured John but the new Master-at-Arms, Kennet Nash was shaping her husband into a passable swordsman, although he still sat ahorse awkwardly.
When the Tourney at Gulltown came around, Allayne was sickened to see Ronnel’s piteous early exit from a mellee nobody thought he should join, she feigned illness and returned home early. She had already left when Ser Wyman perished.
Whilst Ronnel and Jon rode to the Eyrie for her husband’s knighthood some weeks later, Allayne realised, delightedly that her moon’s blood was late by at least a week. She had little doubt that it was more likely young Jon and not the virtually impotent Ronnel who was the father, but the seed was the same stock and what Ronnel didn’t know wouldn’t hurt him. She waited patiently for all the signs of impending motherhood to begin, as she’d learned from her Septa back in Wickenden. She would tell Ronnel when she began to show, but weeks and months passed with no evidence of producing the next Templeton heir, or a dutiful daughter to provide some female companionship, something Ninestars sorely lacked.
As a year went by, Ronnel became happy as a prospering Master of the surrounding lands and realisation dawned on Allayne that the mother, or the Maid, or the crone had chosen to take her womanhood from her in payment for betraying her husband time and again for his stronger, more virile younger brother.
Well the others could take the Seven! She was the Nine! Allayne abandoned what frail attachment she had with the faith and kept a stony, politic silence about her evident barren womb.
She could always blame Ronnel for the lack of a child in the years they had been wed. After all, it stood to reason that his childhood illness may have taken his seed from him, or rendered it hollow.
Jon was wise enough to spill his seed elsewhere in their illicit sessions in anycase, wary of siring a bastard on his sister-in-law which he’d no doubt have to watch Ronnel raise.
The rebellion changed everything.
When Ronnel didn’t return and Ser Jon Templeton pinned her against his brother’s marriage bed and took her insistently and roughly, she realised that there was real danger her position would be broken. She was 21. She refused to go quietly into the night, her chance of raising herself in the world spent on a kindhearted but pitiful cripple; a dead one at that. She implored Jon that marriage was a natural and even expected step. They’d been lovers for five years but Jon was equal to her ambition and far less naïve; even to her charms.
He suspected something was amiss that his Sister-in-law had yet to bear a child and of course, he knew that wasn’t down solely to Ronnel.
No. Jon wanted a Lordship. He’d watched his brother shamed at Gulltown and his father killed by a mere squire. Ronnel had been slain with ease by Blackfyre and Jon was determined to restore some venom into the Ninestars’ reputation.
No sooner had things settled into a kind of miserable post-rebellion nothingness, than two children arrived at Ninestars within months…
The first was a slap in the face. Harold Stone was a boy of 4. He was brought to Ninestars by Gawarth Templeton. He said the child was Ronnel’s bastard, sired upon his late wife’s handmaiden who had recently passed from the pox. Allayne lost it. Not that Ronnel had cheated, but that he could have performed sufficiently to beget a child, a son no less, on some pox-ridden wench when illiciting any excitement from him for her had been an increasingly futile labour.
She had her suspicions that this handmaiden had been already with child when Ronnel allegedly dishonoured his vows upon her. However Jon saw Harold as a strange blessing, a shadow of his late brother sent to restore better fortunes to the Templeton estate. Privately, she seethed and her objections to little Harold stay in the West turret near her (and Jon’s) chambers both lay were vociferous enough that it fell largely upon Gawarth to mentor the lad- as he had Jon all those years ago.
Her anger was quelled, however, when the new Lord Arryn requested Jon to journey to the Eyrie once more. Upon his return, he had an infant girl; Birgitte Sunderland was the youngest child to Kevan Sunderland- Arryn had insisted Sunderland pay for his support of the rebellion by sending Birgitte to be fostered in the Vale. Templeton had been chosen and from the moment Ser Jon rode home with the gold-haired child, Allayne had found a new lease of life.
In the intervening years, Birgitte has grown into a beautiful young maiden, catching the eye of most of the men at Ninestars. Allayne remains a provocative beauty but her habit of wearing a black mourning gown embroidered with nine yellow stars ‘in memory of Ronnel’ has earned her the title of the Black Widow.
Personality
Allayne has always sought to better herself and her ambition has ever been her driving force. She has a sense of entitlement that may be said to be entirely misplaced, but she has ever felt superior in wits, beauty and charm to her sisters and has ever strived to control her environs. Even early in her marriage to Ronnel, Ser Wyman kept a cynical eye on her- seeing the way she used age and sexuality to control his eldest son. Her power over Ser Jon remains strong; he still makes his regular conjugal visitations but infuriatingly, he has ever proven too wise to take his barren Sister-in-Law to wife.
However, Allayne has proved with Birgitte, to have a genuine capacity to be loving and considerate, although the Ward she has raised has certainly been done so in Allayne’s image.
The other side of the coin is the ever=present icy coldness with which she regards Harold. She is intelligent enough to realise Jon intends to legitimise the bastard should old Gawarth die until such a time as he should marry and have trueborn children of his own.
Harold Stone
History
Born in 192AC in the shadow of Ninestars, Harold’s mother had been handmaiden to Gawarth Templeton’s wife until her death and the termination of Mya’s services. In honour of her leal care of the ailing Rhona Templeton, the Templeton estate provided lodgings in the surrounding town and a retention salary that saw her want for nought. By the time she left Ninestars castle, Mya was with child. All Harold knows of this is that she always told him his father was a Templeton but that he couldn’t see him. By the time he was four, his mother had sickened and died from the pox and Harold distinctly remembers Gawarth coming for him and riding him to the castle on his dappled grey mare.
Harold was treated well by the castle staff and by Ser Jon who bid the little boy call him ‘Uncle’. Only the terrifying woman in black seemed not to fawn over the young bastard. He spent much time with Gawarth, a man nearing fifty but with a strong sense of right and wrong. He spent much of his childhood in the castle courtyard; practising with sword and (as he grew stronger) with lance. He spent long summer afternoons with Yohn Cowley, the Castle kennelmaster and the pack of friendly, bright-eyed dogs which would accompany them on hunts or treks. For days at a time, Yohn, Kennet Nash- Master at Arms, and Gawarth would take Harold out into the mountains or through the Vale of Arryn on one half-baked expedition or another. He loved riding and hawking. He would implore the men of the Castle to allow him to attend tourneys or take him on visits to the Lordly houses in the Vale.
Other than at bedtime, Harold spent his life outdoors. Anything was better than his fear of running into another witheringly hateful glare from Lady Allayne Templeton. He understood. He had been told how her husband, who’d died bravely fighting Daemon Blackfyre himself on the Redgrass Field had fallen in love with his mother, Mya. He couldn’t blame him for that; Alayne Templeton was a cold and hateful woman in Harold’s experience.
Despite arriving at Ninestars in the same period of months as Birgitte Sunderland came to foster there, Harold seldom saw the girl, four years his junior until he came of age. Then, Birgitte would oftimes be seen walking in the courtyard, with or without Lady Templeton. She loved animals and Harold showed her the dogs and they would spend afternoons together enjoying the company of one another as siblings might.
However, of late, their friendship has been soured as Birgitte has begun to distance herself from ‘the bastard’. Words she now uses but lent her by Allayne, no doubt.
Harold has noted Birgitte’s beauty as well as any but knows his station and doesn’t want to align himself nearer to Allayne; who’d have him murdered before letting him near her precious ward.
Harold has been approached by Ser Jon regarding the notion of being legitimised should Gawarth pass before Ser Jon marries, to secure a male heir to the Templeton line but he thinks nought of it. Whilst he would love to bear the Templeton name like his late father, the notion of losing his Great Uncle Gawarth is too painful to comprehend.
Personality
Harold is a little lacking in wit, not to comedic effect but he works hard to understand the more complex mechanics of life; he’d much sooner be out on horseback, or tending the Castle dogs with Yohn. He’s grown into a capable and dependable warrior and is genuinely well-liked (Allayne being the exception) by all at Ninestars. Maester Kirwan won’t hear a bad word said about Harold although whnever anyone likens the lad to Ronnel, the Maester only smiles faintly and returns to his duties.
Essentially, Harold is keen to help anyone, never sullen, never wan about his status as bastard born the only times he’d be known to cry as a boy were when Lady Templeton had scolded him; often as not simply for existing.
He is stubbornly loyal, almost standing as testament to his Templeton blood, and looks upon the family at Ninestars as the only family he has known and one he’d ride into the Seven Hells for.
Birgitte Sunderland
History
Birgitte’s beginnings are sorrowful indeed. The fourth child and second daughter of Kevan and Jeyne Sunderland of Sisterton, she was unusually late in birth, born the day of the battle of Redgrass Field. Her Mother died during the birth and the child had to be dragged from her in a grim and bloody scene. Her father was fighting on the Blackfyre side and only upon his return was his defeat in battle compounded by the news of Jeyne’s death.
He couldn’t bring himself to look upon the baby girl; leaving her care to a nursemaid of just 19.
When Lord Arryn sent for Kevan Sunderland’s son, Robett aged 8, he wept and pleaded his Lord’s men to take the unnamed infant instead. Learning of his grief they showed some leniency and took the infant, though the nursemaid was required to accompany them to provide milk; her own baby son had been stillborn and she was grateful to have the little Sunderland baby in her care.
Within days of their arrival at the Eyrie, Birgitte (still nameless of course) began to sicken. Some felt it was the altitude, not being of Arryn blood left infants prone to the sharp, thin atmosphere. So Arryn (dying slowly from a legwound sustained on Redgrass) wrote to Ninestars. The Templetons had suffered the death of Ronnel in the rebellion and his Widow was young and childless. Ser Jon himself came to take the baby and the Nursemaid home to the Vale.
The Nursemaid was relieved of her duties formally on Birgitte’s nameday. Allayne Templeton choosing the name of her maternal grandmother. Waymar Sunderland had still never written or any of the household appealed to visit the child.
It mattered not, for Birgitte was a light in the darkness of Ninestars. Loved by all, her sweet, melodic voice could be heard as she ran, giggled and played in those narrow corridors and dusky towers. Allayne was a mother to her as caring, doting and loving as any little girl could have wished. She was taught of all the famous heroes and histories by Allayne, she studied the Seven and practised the faith with Maester Kirwan- who served as the Castle Septon. She had various teachers hired to school her in embroidery, or in music- she became an accomplished flautist.
As she matured she took more time to roam the castle on her own; she found she enjoyed the company of the staff and servants employed at Ninestars as well as those members of House Templeton to whom she owed so much; Ser Jon was dashing and handsome, she’d had a crush on him since she could remember and he always treated everybody fairly. She once dared speak of this to Allayne, whom she called ‘mother’ since she’d never known another. Allayne had found this highly amusing and Birgitte was quite cross that mother had taken her secret with such mirth!
Old Gawarth Templeton was gruffer but never unpleasant and Kennet Nash would always give her an apple if he saw her streaking across the courtyard.
Then there was Harold. Allayne never spoke of Harold but he had always been around. When she was ten or eleven, he’d taken her to Yohn Cowley and they’d spent the afternoon playing and looking after the dogs. After that they spent more and more time together but it was only ever in friendship. Allayne hadn’t liked it and had told Birgitte that Harold was nothing more than a bastard who lay with whores in town and that as a respectable lady it was unseemly that she should be seen with him.
So she had. Mother was right, she would help Birgitte to a noble marriage; she’d told her all about her sister’s weddings and Allayne’s own wedding to her late husband; Harold’s father, people said- but Birgitte would never mention that in front of Mother!
Personality
Bright and energetic, Birgitte has the license of a child still but her beauty and womanly looks belie her more naïve nature. She loves to play and hear music, to read or ride. To sing, dance, dress-up like a true Lady, something she hopes to become one day soon. Recently, she has had her first blood and she blushed a hundred times that evening as Allayne explained the ways of the adult world to her. She is a delightful and bright person to know but with Mother’s help, she is becoming wise to the ways of the world; she knows, for instance, that it is Women and not the Men that have true power. She knows that she has a gift in her beauty and that, if used correctly, that gift wields greater power than any sword.
For now, however, her first instinct is still to be charming and gay; with a light and joyous temperament and an infectious propensity to submit to lively giggles when amused- which is often. Although fast becoming an object of baser desires for men she meets, Birgitte remains largely ignorant of this and tends to take people at face value, so trusting is her nature.
Birgitte can become sad when reminded of the total lack of contact her own family on Sisterton have made since her departure as a babe-in-arms, but her resolve is that she will return to the island one day with a mightly and Lordly husband in tow and show them all what they’d missed. She had a family. House Templeton were her family now.
Birgitte is aware that Ser Jon hopes to earn enough trust from Lord Arryn that House Templeton might be raised to Lordship and this idea pleases her greatly. She has always been treated as kin to the Templetons and any successes they feel she would gladly share in. Anything to please her dear, dear mother…
