Laarys Saan

Laarys Saan is the current patriarch of the infamous Saan family, and the lord of Grey Gallows in the Stepstones. A cunning and shrewd man, Laarys is the younger half-brother of the now-deceased Samarro Saan.

Appearance and Character
Laarys is a man in his mid-late 30s, with curly black hair and a short, well-kept beard. His dark brown eyes are shrewd and betray little, and his face is more often than not a passive mask, ill-prone to showings of emotion. He often dresses simply, in light clothing or leather armor, though he takes small pride in favoring fashions that have fallen out of style in more appearance-conscious circles. He is slender, but fit, with a wiry athleticism and an almost aloof demeanor.

Despite his calm outward appearance, Laarys is more than capable of acts of passion - for good or ill. His tempers are steady, but his fury burns cold, and a glare from the quiet lord of Grey Gallows is said to chill a room like the depths of the sea. He is known to be magnanimous in victory, but rarely presents any reward or praise without truly meritorious cause to warrant it.

Early Life
To hear the tale most often told, Laarys was born of the late pirate lord Dohanno Saan to a common woman of Rhoynar stock, thus explaining Laarys' dark hair and olive skin, despite his father's obvious Valyrian descent. Laarys was, for all intents and purposes, and unacknowledged bastard, raised in his father's household but never recognized as his progeny.

Quiet and thoughtful, but possessed of a youthful cunning and an eye for detail that passed over little, Laarys grew up aboard and around ships, learning the ways the winds blew and the ups-and-downs of every type of vessel that sailed the fourteen seas. He trained with the bow and spear, learning to fight from some of the dirtiest duelists from both sides of the Narrow Sea, and helming his own ship for the first time before his fourteenth name day.

That changed when Dohanno was slain by Aeryn Targaryen during "Prince of the Narrow Sea's" scouring of the Stepstones. Here the tale becomes muddied, as Laarys' own chroniclers say that Dohanno acknowledged Laarys before his death and named him his heir, but that Laarys' half-brother Samarro lied to the people and forced Laarys into exile. Samarro's agents say that Laarys was responsible for Dohanno's death, conspiring with the dragon rider to take over Grey Gallows.

The result was the same in either case: Laarys stole away in the dead of night with a small flotilla of ships, and Samarro assumed lordship over Grey Gallows and the title of Patriarch of House Saan.

In Exile
Laarys' first destination after being cast adrift on the Narrow Sea was his family's ancestral home in Lys. Living for almost four years as a guest of a distant relation, he met Thysse Ormollen, daughter of the powerful and ancient Ormollen family. The two formed a fast friendship that, over the years, developed into a mutual attraction, and finally love. This was disagreeable, to say the least, to Thysse's brother, the head of the Ormollen family, who had been planning to marry his sister off to a Myrish sellsail captain to secure the privateer's loyalty.

Instead, the brother foolishly challenged Laarys to a duel. Thysse's attempts to placate her brother amounted to not, and, knowing he could not best the pirate in a fair fight, Thysse's brother poisoned Laarys prior to the fight.

The pirate was barely able to keep his feet during the fight, and collapsed under the weight of his own weapons without landing a single hit. As the victorious brother gloated over the form of his defeated, poisoned, prostrate foe, Laarys slid a stiletto from his boot and drove it home thrice: first through the brother's scrotum, next through his belly, and last through his eye. In the chaos that followed, Laarys stole his new lady love from the city, never having consumed the poisoned wine but instead having deceived the deceiver.

For the next several years, Laarys' small fleet of ships prowled up and down the coast of the Narrow Sea and beyond, sailing north to Lorath and Braavos and even as far as east as Slaver's Bay. During this time Laarys accrued a reputation for both ruthlessness and charitably, cunning and unpredictability. He was respected and feared as a brilliant admiral, a lethal duelist, and an ambitious, forceful personality hidden behind a quiet facade.

During his wanderings, Laarys fathered seven children on Thysse: his eldest daughter, Adessa, was born less than a year after their rapid departure from Lys. In the years that followed, Adessa was joined by three sisters - Shiera, Corrine, and Sallora - and three brothers - Rolys, Lahys, and Dymarro.

Yet Laarys never abandoned dreams of what he maintained was his birthright: rule over the Saan family and its seat on Grey Gallows. And his wanderings were not destined to last forever.

Return to Grey Gallows
No sooner had Samarro brought the Saan family to its pinnacle - more powerful than the pirate lords had been in hundreds of years, easily able to vie for total dominion over the Stepstones - the gods of the sea proved once again their wont to be capricious. Samarro's beloved vessel was smashed to matchsticks against the rocks of the Stepstones, and no sooner had his corpse sunk to the deeps than Laarys' fleet of ships appeared on the horizon. The second son of Dohanno Saan set foot on Grey Gallows for the first time in nearly two decades, ascending to the seat he still insisted his father had entrusted to him.

Since his return, Laarys has taken a firm hand in steadying the chaos of Samarro's passing, reassuring his fellow pirate lords - as well as the more powerful families of Myr, Lys, and Tyrosh - that all shall continue as it was on Grey Gallows before Samarro's death. Though none can say for certain just by looking at his steady eyes and disarming demeanor, it is clear to those that know Laarys - personally or by reputation - that the pirate lord's ambition will not be checked now that he possesses what he considered to be his birthright.

Family

 * Dohanno Saan (369 AC - 415 AC) - Various mothers
 * Samarro Saan (395 AC - 439 AC)
 * Laarys Saan (b. 402 AC) - Thysse Ormollen (b. 401 AC)
 * Adessa Saan (b. 420 AC)
 * Rolys Saan (b. 424 AC)
 * Shiera Saan (b. 426 AC)
 * Corrine Saan (b. 428 AC)
 * Lahys Saan (b. 432 AC)
 * Dymarro Saan (b. 434 AC)
 * Sallora Saan (b. 437 AC)