Harys Plumm

Lord Harys Plumm is the Lord of Pitfall and an anointed knight, having ruled his keep for over forty years. Despite his age he is still hale, having spent much of his life as a knight in service, doing whatever the Westerlands requires. He has been married to his wife for nearly fifty years, and has six children, along with a number of grand-children and great-grandchildren.

Appearance and Character
Harys Plumm is a tall man, with dirty blonde hair turned almost completely grey and blue eyes that can still see clear across a battlefield, though at short distances they fade. He has an average build, once lean but grown slightly plump in his old age, as most men do. Still, he has enough strength in his tired old limbs to carry his blade into one last campaign.

His character is blunt and straightforward, a man for whom life is simple. A knight's duty above all else is to obey orders, no matter how objectionable they may be. He has seen far too many winters to be anything other than blunt and crude, especially when he considers something intolerable. However, he does love his wife Lyla despite her dottiness, as well as his six children and many grandchildren.

History
Harys Plumm was born in 372 AC, a time so far removed from the present that it exists only in books, and the minds of those who were still children at the time. There were still a few who remembered the days before the Conquest, still those who remembered the first days when dragons rained over the skies. Daryn Plumm and his wife Marissa were themselves in their late thirties, having tried for years to have a son. Harys would be their only child, born happy and healthy with the hair and eyes that most children of the West shared.

As their only child, his status as heir was assured, though with no spares his parents gave him a feather-light touch. From his youngest days however, Harys was not one for such things. He was a child who loved the sword, enjoying his hours in the training yard far more than time spent in studies.

When he came of age, Harys was given an arranged marriage to a woman of similar nobility, as most nobles are. And so it was that for his eighteenth nameday he took the Lady Lyla Westerling to be his wife, a comely but quiet girl with a passion for sums. She had been warded at Pitfall since her early teens, and while the two were not in love, they would remain fast friends. Soon enough their first child would be born; a boy named Armond, and with that the Plumm line was secure.

At the age of thirty, with two children, Harys would see combat for the first time in the War of the Three Thieves. While he would not be unfortunate enough to meet his end at the dragon's fierce flames or the endless depths of the Narrow Sea, it would still be a haunting experience, years on end of campaigning. By the end of it all it was established that the lean man was rather a bad fighter, but had talent enough. More importantly, he had the ability to do whatever had to be done to achieve victory, no matter the consequences. For after all, one could never disobey orders.

In the Mummer's War he would again see fighting, but this time a rather more one-sided conflict. Pacifying a region divided was simple work, but Harys did it well all the same. It was a simple job, and it was easy to go home to his wife and sleep soundly at night, despite what had been required. For what did it matter, when he only done what was asked of him by a higher power. He was not present for the final defeat of the Arryn forces but instead away raiding, and as such would never see the power of the Gilded Queen in battle. Yet he would see the bloody aftermath, and even for a soldier such as Harys it would stick with him for many years, instilling a healthy respect for the winged beasts.

Following the war he would settle down, devoting himself to the duller activities of raising his children and managing his lands. For when the ruler is a tyrant and you are in favour, why would there be a need for war? For two decades there was little in the way of war, and in that time his children grew into themselves, and had children of their own.

While his son and heir was far too soft for his liking, his eldest grandchild Damon was a warrior through and through, and became his grandfathers' favourite. Tyrion was too thin and scholarly, Gregor too brutish, Cyrelle far away on the Arbor, Myra too addicted to luxury and while Gemma was perfect, she was also a woman, not fit to be molded into a soldier. On the other hand Damon was young, strong and had a warrior's heart.

When bandits emerged during the Blue Winter, he was there as a page to see first-hand what had to be done in order to quell resistance, first with his father and then grandfather as they grew stronger. Harys may have been an older man, his muscles aged and thinned, but he was still more than capable of shooing a bandit mob away from the fertile fields and trees that gave his House their name.

In all his years, he had never to fight men of the West, men in uniform. While there had been assorted bandits who were likely from somewhere in the region, it had never been a certainty, and they had fled before being eliminated in any case. Throughout every previous war they had been united against a foreign cause. But when the War of the Three Banners began, it was a fight of Westermen against themselves, cousin against cousin. For the first few months, his only action was to send away the women of the house to the safety of relatives in the south, rebuffing missives both from Westerling and Lannister calling for aid.

For Harys, his loyalty was uncertain. While he had been sworn to the Lannisters like all other lords, it was difficult to reconcile that with the concept of killing his countrymen. For the first and only time in his life, he hesitated to follow orders. Eventually the Plumm forces would be marshaled, but only in time for the Battle of the Three Banners, where tragedy would strike. Hundreds of their men would die in the three-way fighting, including Harys' son Gregor, a brave and fearsome knight by all accounts. While their loyalty towards Lannister was confirmed, the back of the Plumm detachment had been broken, and fewer than half their men remained in fighting condition. For the rest of the war the crippled Plumm forces would follow those of the Lannisters, too meager to effectively make a difference.

When the war ended Harys would return home, with little to show and a son's bones to bury. The fair fields of Pitfall had been scorched, the unfortunate castellan of the castle having been forced to surrender to a far larger opposing force. While the man would not be executed, he would be banished for failing to defend the castle, and it would take the remaining few years to rebuild.

Recent Events
Following the Grand Council, Harys has been a member of the Westerlands army, first in the east against the regency council and now in the west against the Reach. While he is too aged to fight on the front lines he still commands in what is likely to be his final conflict, considering his advanced age. Following the Great Council he has personally received no rewards yet for his service, though his daughter Myra has been taken into the Queen Mother's service.