Myles Mormont

Myles Mormont is the sole child of the late Lord Brandon Mormont, lord of Bear Isle and House Mormont, and a principal bannerman of House Stark.

Appearance and Character
Lord Myles is diminutive by the standards of many Northmen, standing at only a little over five-and-a-half feet tall, with an athletic but wiry build. His features make clear his northern heritage: he has stormy gray-blue eyes and fair skin, and dark brown hair which he cuts short, along with a short beard.

Fiery and bellicose, none would dare question Lord Myles' courage, even when it might be best for him to do so himself. He has a ribald and often cutting sense of humor, but complements this with a healthy appetite for life and a deep love of good cheer, strong drink, and worth company. He takes great pride in his eloquence (for a Northman), and often entertains his friends and drinking companions with improvised japes and mocking poems or songs - all in good fun, of course.

Myles' love of japes, jests, and bawdy songs should not distract one from his temper, however: when roused, his fury burns white-hot, and being the warrior that he is, Lord Myles is quick to suggest a test of martial prowess in response to a sleight against him or his.

History
When Lord Jakob Mormont was ousted from his position as lord of Bear Isle and sent to the Wall to live out his days, lordship of the house passed to his younger brother Brandon Mormont. Lord Brandon was an even-tempered and just lord, but otherwise an utterly-unremarkable one, save for one regard: his marriage to Lady Lysanna Flint produced a single child who would go on to grow into Lord Myles.

As a child, Lord Myles was a terror to his household, always rushing to get into whatever trouble he could, whether it was loosing his father's hunting dogs in the castle yard during a feast, or attempting to climb the highest tree in the Godswood to spy on the maester in his tower.

His youthful exuberance was accompanied by an apparent utter disregard for his own safety, and some whispered that the young lordling was like to meet his end long before he ever had the chance to rule in his own right.

Yet despite a bevy of scars to show for it, Myles lived and grew. As he did so, however, so did the friction between him and his father. Lord Brandon was a calm, level-headed, and scholarly man - wholly unlike his son - and did not approve of Myles "disregard for life or even common decency," as Lord Brandon called it.

Their squabbles came to a head in Myles' nineteenth year, when his mother Lady Lysanna died in childbirth at the age of three-and-forty. Her bones had scarcely been interred when Lord Brandon remarried - a woman less than half his age from one of the Northern Mountain Clans - eager for more children. Myles was incensed, and quickly let his father know what he thought of Lord Brandon's new bride - in full view and hearing of a host of assembled lords who had come to feast in celebration of the wedding. Shaking with rage, Lord Brandon ordered Myles to leave Bear Island and never return, for he was no son of his.

If Myles was aggrieved at being cast out of his family home, he hid it well. Sailing to the mainland and then crossing the breadth of the North to White Harbor, he boarded a ship bound for Braavos. From there he traveled to the Disputed Lands and other parts of Essos, and sold his sword with one free company or another for years to come. During this time he boasted that he bedded women and killed men from every civilized land in Essos, from Braavos to Qarth, and from the Stepstones to the Dothraki Sea. The validity of these tales is a matter of conjecture, but the truth is this: Myles Mormont fought in many places and killed many men, and became damn good at both fighting and killing.

Late in the last year AC, while resting his heels in Pentos awaiting a new contract for the company he was fighting with at the time, Myles was called upon by an old friend: Jorry Snow, the bastard son of Bear Island's master-at-arms, and Myles' childhood playmate. Jorry said that Lord Brandon had died, and as his new marriage - the one so contentious to Myles - had produced no children, Myles was the sole heir and therefore sole claimant to Bear Island's lordship.

Though initially reluctant to return to Westeros after so many years away, Jorry was able to convince Myles by saying that if he did not return to Bear Island and claim it as his own, the fiefdom would be repossessed by Lady Berena Stark, the Lord Paramount of the North. What she would then do with it was anyone's guess, but Jorry played on Myles' dedication to the honor and legacy of his house, and convinced Myles to return with him to Westeros. Along with them came two of Myles' closest companions from his days as a mercenary: a Crownlander and fellow expatriate named Harlan Waters, and a Braavosi woman called Tessa the Third.

To say that much has changed would be an understatement. Myles is a great warrior, and a capable leader, but he never wished to be lord of Bear Isle and has never before found himself as the leader of anything greater than a squadron of sellswords. In the Disputed Lands and the Free Cities, things are simpler: conflict can be resolved by a blade, if not by words. And while the North can claim to be a world apart from the rest of Westeros, one thing remains the same: the game of thrones is deadly, and those who do not learn to play quickly risk being the first to fall.

Family

 * Lord Medryck Mormont (350 AC - 393 AC) -- Jeyne Mormont (nee Glover) (354 AC - 394 AC)
 * Lord Jakob Mormont (374 AC - 429 AC)
 * Lady Sarra Stark (nee Mormont) (375 AC - 404 AC)
 * Lady Evelyne Stark (nee Mormont) (b. 377 AC)
 * Lord Brandon Mormont (381 AC - 437 AC) -- Lysanna Mormont (nee Flint) (386 AC - 429 AC)
 * Lord Myles Mormont (b. 410 AC)

Household

 * Maester Ulrich, a maester of the Citadel
 * Ser Howard the Hound, Master-at-arms
 * Jorry Snow, childhood friend and head of Myles' household guard
 * Harlan Waters, mercenary companion of Myles and member of his household guard
 * Tessa the Third, a Braavosi archeress and member of Myles' household guard