Belthasar Blackwood

Belthasar Blackwood is the Lord of Raventree Hall and the Blackwood Vale. He is the head of House Blackwood, a bannerman to House Tully and one of the most powerful Lords in the Riverlands. He inherited his lands and titles in 373 AC from his father Lucas Blackwood, having outlived his two elder brothers Rodrik and Tytos. He also has a younger sister, Bethany, who was married to the late Lord Paramount Brandon Tully. Additionally he has had six children on his wife Arya; Bellena, Brandon, Artsan, Marya, Dacey, and Benjicot.

Appearance and Character
Bethasar is a man of middling height, round of chest and shoulder with a portly and stout build. He was never built like a warrior and his physique is a testament to that. Like many of his kinsmen, Belthasar inherited the black hair that is a signature feature of his house. Curiously, he was also born with a set of mossy green eyes, a trait that neither his father nor mother posses and that he has not passed on to any of his children. The Lord of Raventree dress simply but elegantly, favouring outfits that display the wealth and prestige of his house without being overly opulent. In battle his armor is a bulwark of blackened steel, built for practicality and not show. Belthasar is also known to wear the raven-feather cloak of his great-grandfather Tytos, a piece dating back all the war to the War of Five Kings.

A born diplomat and statesman, Belthasar has never known a situation that he couldn't talk his way out of. A charming and charismatic speaker, the Lord of Raventree is renowned for his soothing deep voice and his ability to calm others. Well-loved among the peasants of Blackwood Vale, he is a born ruler and renowned for treating his vassals and his people well, inspiring in them a loyalty that is rarely seen amongst a Lord's peasantry. He is also a very pious man, dedicated to the Old Gods and the founder of a new branch of the ancient religion that combines older practices such as human sacrifice before a weirwood with more modern ideas like the creation of a clergy an the ordaining of priests. Belthasar is also a scholar and a learned man, with a particular interest in the Higher Mysteries and studying the elder races.

History
Belthasar was born in 350 AC, to Lord Lucas Blackwood and Lady Arya Forrester. As the third son of the pair, he was never expected to inherit Raventree Hall and was thus given more leeway than his older siblings. As a young child he was considered strange indeed, suffering from intense and terrifying nightmares and seemingly possessing knowledge of things that seemed impossible for him to know, animals in particular seemed to act strangely around him, often being more docile and less aggressive in his presence. He would spend hours climing through the branches of the great dead weirwood that gave Raventree it's name, feeding and supposedly conversing with the birds that nested there.

Lord Lucas and his life worked hard to discourage these behaviors in their son, as already rumors had begun to circulate about his strange and unnatural behavior. When he was five, a solution presented itself in the form of a local wise woman who claimed she would be able to help Belthasar with his 'condition'. Lord Lucas, much at the prompting of his younger sister Lenore, allowed this wise woman a place at court as a tutor for his third son. While it would never be known publically, or even by Lord Lucas, this wise woman would go on to reveal to Belthasar that he was a greenseer, one of the precious few to be blessed by the Old Gods with both the ability to skinchange and the gift of greensight. For the next five years she tutored him on how to use his abilities as well as how to ensure they stayed hidden, teaching him to use charisma to cover up his gift.

Life at Court
Eventually, Belthasar, the wise woman, and Lenore all departed Raventree Hall for the court of King's Landing with Lenore's new husband Aenys Targaryen. The young boy seemed to be cut from much the same cloth as his aunt, and while he didn't make as great an impression at court as Lenore did, he was known as a charming and charismatic young man who had a way with words. He had many friends amongst the wards of the Crown and other young boys at court, and even at a young age he was well versed in the courtly games. A staunch supporter of his aunt, he worked hard to cultivate support for Prince Aenys amongst the younger courtiers and wards. During his time in King's Landing he also studied arms under Ser Crispian Celtigar, and although he was never exactly an accomplished warrior he learned his way around the battlefield and grew to favor the flail as his weapon of choice. Belthasar was present for the birth of his cousin Maegor, and afterwards could oft be heard bragging that one day he would be cousin to a king.

The Rise and Fall of Lenore Blackwood
Belthasar left King's Landing in 365 AC alongside his aunt Lenore and uncle Prince Aenys, happy for a change of scenery and eager to explore the more arcane side of Dragonstone. Now a young man, he accompanied his aunt often on her explorations of the island and was even present for the discovery of the black dragon egg that would be placed in Prince Maegor's cradle.

While the young Blackwood enjoyed his life on Dragonstone, it would later come to haunt him, as he was implicated in many of the rumors and lies that surrounded his aunt Lenore and her supposed study of black magic. Belthasar worked hard to combat these rumors, but to no avail, and soon enough tales of his strange behavior as a child and queer connection to the ravens of his home began to resurface. Paranoid that his continued closeness to Lenore would ultimately spell his ruin, he left the Crownlands behind in 366 AC to return to Raventree and wouldn't be present for Lenore's trial and subsequent execution. Thankfully he wasn't implicated in any of Lenore's treasons, instead being presented as an innocent bystander.

A New Heir and A Reformation
Two years after his return to Raventree Hall, both of Belthasar's brothers would be killed in a hunting accident, supposedly mauled to death by a bear. Although rumors circulated briefly that the new heir had something to do with the death's, he quickly quashed all such talk. Belthasar worked hard to cultivate good relations amongst the smallfolk and minor nobles of the Blackwood Vale, hoping to remedy the black reputation that his house had earned in the wake of the accusations against his aunt. He took to riding around the Vale, performing charity work and seeing to construction projects in local villages. During these missions, he also attempted to convert the smallfolk to the worship the Old Gods, but found his attempts rebuffed at every turn by local Septons and holy men. This prompted him to begin a new and immensely ambitious undertaking. A reformation of the faith of the Old Gods.

Taking elements of the faith that had long ago been set aside, such as blood sacrifice before weirwoods, and newer religious practices such as Priests and the performing of rites in the presence of the weirwoods. Using concepts from both the Faith of the Seven and Faith's of the East, Belthasar sought to reform the old ways to be more familiar to the smallfolk of the south. Capitalising on the Southern Scism and the recent conflicts in the Faith of the Seven, Belthasar's new faith drew a small but devout and tightly knit group of followers within the Blackwood Vale, followers he's installed in key positions within the area in the hopes of eventually turning all of his people back to the old ways. While many of the smallfolk remain skeptical and some openly oppose the young heir, Belthasar's charity work had gained him a certain following and great popularity amongst the smallfolk.

It was also around this time that Belthasar took Arya Forrester to wife. Whom he would go on to father six children with.

Time As Lord
In 373, Lord Lucas died after choking on a chicken bone, leaving Belthasar to become the new Lord of Raventree Hall. Using his new position as Lord, he immediately began expanding his conversion efforts, supplanting septons in local villages with priests that he'd personally ordained, continuing and even expanding his charity work to further his reputation amongst the locals and generally ruling with a kind but firm hand. For the next several years Belthasar would remain in Raventree, gaining support for his new religion and continuing his studies of the Higher Mysteries that he had begun under Lenore.

The Blackwood Vale would blessedly be spared the ravages of the Hammer Uprising and the Great Famine, as Belthasar's stellar maintenance of his lands and the infrastructure he'd built up over the years allowed for the area to suffer through relatively unscathed and rebellion free.

During the war of Three Thieves Belthasar elected to send his son Brandon to represent House Blackwood, rather than joining the fight himself.

The Scarlet Winter hit Blackwood Vale as hard as anywhere else, and in spite of Belthasar's skills as a statesman it was still a hard time for the smallfolk and the nobles alike. Still, the Lord of Raventree saw opportunity even in this most dire of circumstances, and used the desperation of the commons to rally more people to his new religion. Crying out that the Old Gods had sent this winter to show their anger, and that a lack of worship might lead to the return of the others.