Rodrik Connington

Lord Rodrik Connington is the Lord of Griffin’s Roost and the master of laws on Queen Visaera I Targaryen’s small council. He is married to Lady Argella Baratheon, his fourth wife, with whom he has three children: Stannis, Desmond, and Gwyneth.

Appearance and Character
Rodrik is tall and well built for his age. He is bald, though he boasts a grey beard. He is well known for his unbroken, stoic demeanour.

His reputation as a fair but ruthless jurist has spread across Westeros and the Narrow Sea. He is comprehensive with his rulings, but exceedingly severe with his sentences. Through his hundreds of justiciars roaming the realm, the people of Westeros have grown to both fear and respect him in equal measure. Few do not known him by name.

Childhood
Rodrik was born in 363 AC as the first son and child of Lord Axell Connington. Rodrik’s mother was Lady Shyra Connington, who passed away after giving birth to his brother, Criston. Though Rodrik was once like any other child, being both curious and energetic, his child’s spirit followed his mother to the grave. He eschewed the wonderment of his youth, turned to books and quiet maesters, and donned a frown so permanent that the statues at Griffin’s Roost found it difficult to emulate.

Adolescence
Rodrik squired at the age of ten and four under Ser Corwin Dondarrion, the Lord of Blackhaven’s brother. Under Ser Corwin’s tutelage, a quickly growing Rodrik learned to wield two-handed swords. With one of his own, he killed and beheaded bandits from the Red Mountains as he and Ser Corwin sought to quell their numbers around Blackhaven. Rodrik earned his spurs from Ser Corwin five years later after saving his teenage neice, Cyrenna Dondarrion, from an attempted kidnapping along the Boneway.

After earning his spurs, Rodrik married another Cyrenna at his father’s behest, mending the longtime rift between House Morrigen and House Connington.

Adulthood
Following a number of stillbirths, Rodrik lost his first wife in 387 AC. There was no love lost between them, and he was eager to marry his next wife, Cyrenna Dondarrion.

As the Hammer Uprising started to spill over into the Stormlands, Lord Axell tasked Rodrik with harrying the heretics in the region and dispensing justice across the restive countryside. For two years, he presided over the trials of criminals and religious fanatics. His fierce sense of fairness combined with his uncompromising need to punish the guilty earned him a frightening reputation across his future holdings. As heads, hands, and limbs were severed, so too was dissent in the region.

At the height of his prime, Rodrik fought alongside his father in the War of the Three Thieves. Together, they laid siege to Grey Gallows and breached its walls. Midway through the war, however, he lost his second wife to complications following her third miscarriage.

After the Scarlet Winter struck, Rodrik was sent back into the Roost’s countryside to carry out justice. Though the boom in bandits, loooters, and arsonists was universal to the realm, he was able to thin their numbers around the castle. He had married Corenna Swann at the season’s brutal onset, only to lose her by its tragic end. After a second failed miscarriage, she committed suicide after jumping out of her tower window.

Without an heir or a child to call his own, Rodrik began to treat his niece, Arianne, as if she were his own daughter. He took great interest in her education and sought to inspire her more intellectual pursuits. Though her fiery spirit sometimes clashed with his glacial one, they remained close throughout the years.

Mummer’s War
Rodrik did not attend the tournament at Harrenhall, for he felt compelled to remain his bedridden father’s castellan at the Roost.

Along with his father and brothers, he marched in the Mummer's War and witnessed the surrenders of Bitterbridge and Highgarden.

Seniority
Rodrik ascended to lordship after his father succumbed to a second bout of shaking illness in 408 AC. Upon becoming lord, Rodrik quickly enacted a series of legal reforms across his holdings, establishing among other things the right to an investigation, whereby the accuser and the accused of any crime committed on his land reserved the right to have an investigation completed by him or one of his agents. Though the cost of hiring more bailiffs was onerous at first, the subsequent decline in crime justified the expense.

Shortly after Argella Baratheon visited the Roost on Hugh’s invitation, Rodrik received an offer to marry her. They were wed at Storm’s End in 408 AC on the 17th day of the 11th moon. During the first few years of their marriage, a substantial age gap and too few mutual interests to fill it separated them. All of that changed, however, after Argella became the first of Rodrik’s wives to birth him a living child in 412 AC. They named him Stannis after Argella’s famous ancestor. Rodrik, believing Argella to be a divine messenger sent by R’hllor, converted to her faith. They would go on to have two more children, Desmond and Gwyneth, and grow much more intimate after each one.

Master of Laws
In 410 AC, Queen Visaera appointed Rodrik as her master of laws. With his appointment came a wave of legal reforms and initiatives, the most prominent of which being his justiciar initiative. Believing everyone has the right to justice, he has tasked hundreds of justiciars to scour the countryside and proffer the Queen’s justice. Over the years, the majority of these justiciars have emulated Rodrik’s fair but severe sense of justice, which, by invoking his name during sentencing, has served to spread his reputation to even the most remote corners of the realm.

By 418 AC, Rodrik went on to execute two commanders of the gold cloaks. The first he found guilty of rape in 414 AC, and the second guilty of forced mutilation and corruption in 417 AC. He appointed Ser Simon Thorne, a former gold cloak captain, as the Queen’s Justice and had him investigate his former superiors. When he turned up successful, Rodrik appointed Simon as Queen’s primary executor of justice within the city, granting him full authority over investigations and sentencings save those involving the nobility.

During his tenure, Rodrik has sought to rid the gold cloaks of corruption, improve their judicial aptitude, and bolster their martial abilities. He has clashed with Prince Consort Corlys Velaryon, the commander of the Golden Company, on the matter (and on many others, like the justiciars), sparking a bitter rivalry between the two men.

Though a faithful of the Lord of Light, Rodrik has offered no protection to the red priests in King’s Landing despite the construction of a new temple. While his faith is strong, it is entirely transcendental, provoking him to reject priests as mere spinsters and opportunists. The presence of Belos, the priest accompanying Argella, has particularly incensed Rodrik against the clergy of his faith.

Family

 * Lord Axell Connington (348-408)
 * m. Lady Shyra Connington, nee Estermont (346-375)
 * Lord Rodrik Connington (b. 363)
 * m. Lady Cyrenna Connington, nee Morrigen (365-387)
 * m. Lady Cyrenna Connington, nee Dondarrion (370-399)
 * m. Lady Corenna Connington, nee Grandison (383-405)
 * m. Lady Argella Baratheon (b. 389)
 * Stannis Baratheon (b. 412)
 * Desmond Baratheon (b. 415)
 * Gwyneth Baratheon (b. 416)
 * Ser Criston Connington (b. 375)
 * m. Lady Jeyne Swann (b. 375)
 * Edric Connington (393-394)
 * Arianne Connington (b. 395)
 * m. Lady Mylenda Selmy (360-414)
 * Ser Hugh Connington (b. 378)
 * m. Lady Helaena Connington, nee Merryweather (b. 380)
 * Gerald Connington (b. 395)
 * Cassana Connington (b. 381)
 * m. Ser Steffon Caron (b. 378)
 * Axell Caron (b. 399)
 * Jon Caron (b. 401)
 * Johanna Connington (b. 389)
 * Tyana Tarth, nee Connington (362-404)
 * m. Lord Dranny Tarth (357-405)
 * Lord Braeden Tarth (b. 385)
 * Breyna Tarth (b. 385)