Theodan Wull

Theodan Wull is the 1007th Lord Commander of the Night's Watch. A scion of House Wull, he fought on the frontlines during the War Beyond the Wall. He is the undaunted veteran of untold rangings, which has, over his more than thirty years of service, earned him the devotion of his brotherhood.

Among the Free Folk, he is reviled as the Blood Crow for the atrocities he has committed against their people.

Appearance and Character
Like the remainder of his blood kin, Theodan is born of sinewy stock. He has greying, dark brown hair and a beard of the same colour, both of which he keeps haphazardly short. He has a big nose, beady eyes, and bushy eyebrows.

With a large build and aged features, he projects an air of authority. He is deliberate with his words and prejudicial towards those who are not. Among his brothers, he is a forgiving and patient figure; but towards the Free Folk, he is an unrepentant foe. He has been known to spare few Free Folk on his rangings, going so far as to slaughter their children “out of prudence.”

History
Theodan was born in the lands of House Wull, near the Bay of Ice. He came into the world squalling, his hands curled in tight fists, which his parents; servants saw as a sign that he would become a strong fighter; as he grew, their predictions proved true. Theodan burgeoned into a fearsome fighter, though he was like a fly next to his elder brother, Halys, who was a full head taller and more broa-shouldered. Driven by the kind of fraternal rivalry that plagues most families, Theodan compensated for his relative lack of strength by mastering the finer martial proficiency: strategy.

In a land where brute strength was the chief language spoken between soldiers, Theodan seemingly spoke in tongues. Even at the age of ten and four, he was like a diamond buried in a bed of coals, his martial mind too refined for his hotheaded kinsmen. Be it around the war table or out on the battlefield, fighting Free Folk raiders, he patronized his kin for their simple tactics while they in turn belittled him for his lack of experience. As time progressed, the gap between their ways of thinkings widened. Tensions boiled until Halys had heard enough from his brother and drew blood after a bitter argument. Theodan, gashed at the navel, understood what it meant to be attacked first, to be unwanted from a now contested place. After he had spent a moon’s turn to recover, he abandoned his place of birth for the Wall, the home of the Night's Watch and a thousand substitute brothers.

Theodan had a military mind, and the Night’s Wach was a military order; he had been drawn to it by the tales of valour surrounding heroes like Lord Commander Jon Snow, who helped prevent the Long Night only a century ago. What Theodan found when he arrived at Castle Black was a relative disappointment, for the black brothers were few in number and fewer still in tactical know-how. Though he regretted his decision to join the Night’s Watch, wishing instead he had joined a host of Nothern cavalry, he swore his vows in front of the nearest Weirwood and took the Black all the same, for, among his unremarkable brothers, he believed he could find respect.

Following the swearing of his vows at the age of ten and seven, Theodan joined the Rangers and travelled past the Frostfangs on his first ranging, where he slew his first soul, a Hornfoot spearwife. The ranging soon descended into horror as he and his brothers harried the Hornfoots further into unfamiliar territory, where the ranging’s most senior officer would fall in the first of many ambushes to come. By sheer force of will and an equal amount of luck, Theodan survived. He was the fourth of twenty individuals to return on their own, and the last.

By 416 AC, Theodan had become not only a seasoned ranger, but also the First, a position he had grown to covet after a dozen unnecessary close calls with death. Upon his appointment, he overhauled the entire Order of Rangers, from the structure of its ranging parties to the contingency plans its brothers followed. Behind the frontlines during the War Beyond the Wall, he unleashed a viscious hit-and-run campaign against Ekkil Crowsbane’s army, targeting unguarded settlements and commanders while they slept. On the battlefield, he served as Lord Commander Jonothor Waters’ most senior officer and lead the vanguard of the Black Brother contingent.

Eight years after his appointment as First Ranger, the Blue Winter struck, taking with it the life of Lord Commander Jonothor and half the Night’s Watch. What few hundred men remained elected Theodan as their new leader. Rejuvinating the Watch from the husk it had become had initially been his responsibility, though it was fulfilled for him by Lord Jon Stark’s infamous Black Draft, which saw hundreds of unwilling, noble volunteers conscripted into the brotherhood from across the North. By 438 AC, most brothers had only ever known one Lord Commander.

Theodan had found laughable the rumours of yet another “crippled” king Beyond the Wall. He and the majority of senior officers deliberately ignored evidence, believing the Free Folk were simply trying to lure rangers into ambushes. Any semblance of disbelief ended when the Free Folk, numbering close to twenty thousand strong, decended in a surprise invasion upon the Shadow Tower.

10th Moon

 * Theodan lead a ranging Beyond the Wall to ascertain the veracity of hitherto unbelieved rumours about the so called “Crippled King.”
 * Theodan, true to the alias he had just discovered, sacked The Keep, home of the Spearwives of the Keep, and returned home the next moon wounded, unable to confirm the Crippled King’s existence but aware of the threat he now posed.

12th Moon

 * After the invasion of the Shadow Tower, Theodan called upon the lords of Westeros and particularly the North to come to his beleaguered order’s aid.

2nd Moon

 * During the three-day battle below, Theodan took the remainder of his rangers atop the Wall to eradicate the surviving giants that had occupied it.

Family

 * Lord Rodrik Wull, the Wull (368 - 409)
 * Lady Wull (370 - 426)
 * Lord Halys Wull, the Wull (b. 388)
 * Theodan Wull (b. 391)
 * Unknown others

The Night’s Watch

 * Strong Beck, blacksmith at Castle Black
 * Stannis Connington, Commander of the Shadow Tower
 * Cregard Stark, First Ranger
 * Maester Harwyn, the maester at Castle Black
 * Hallis, a ranger
 * Desmond, a ranger
 * Jorvik, a new recruit brought by Cregard