The Northern Famine

Whenever shortages strike Westeros, the North is one of two regions that feels it the hardest - and the events of the Great Famine were no exception. Many who lived beyond the Neck knew the touch and taste of hunger, and as crops continued to fail and prices continued to rise, many of the hardy Northmen took their lives into their own hands. For some this took the form of poaching, and indeed the Wolfswood and Barrowlands were filled with ambitious hunters hoping to feed their family for a few days more, but others bent their skills to different tasks.

Taking their inspiration from the Winter Wolves, that fabled band of northern soldiers, many grizzled warriors and third or fourth sons took up arms and departed from their homes. Some turned to banditry, taking from the countryside what they had not been able to purchase, whilst others traveled south to join the gold cloaks and the Golden Company. Yet others formed a company of their own, traveling across the Narrow Sea to seek their fortunes in the Free Cities; that band yet fights for coin to this day, descendants and brothers-in-spirit of those Northmen who first departed.

The Free Men of the Kingsroad
Desperate, starving northerners turned to banditry and ambush during the Great Famine. Scores of trained soldiers, and those that joined them, all leaving their loyalties behind, banded together along the Kingsroad to wreak havoc upon the holdings of nearby nobles. Houses Cerwyn, Tallhart, Dustin, Waterman, and others, all reported to Winterfell, telling of encounters with deft and well-trained bandits calling themselves “free men”.

When reports of thieving raids from within his vassals’ castle walls began to reach the greying Lord Rickard Stark, he decided even the Great Famine was no cause for such lawlessness. Gathering the most capable of his garrison, he rode south to rid the road of the pestering cravens. The already-weakened Stark force reached the Barrows and were met promptly by several organised bands that seemed to have grown into the hundreds.

The bandits were too adept in the hills for the men of Winterfell, and Lord Rickard was felled by an arrow in the dead of night. His heir retreated back to Winterfell, and soon the call went out to the other lords to reconvene and scour the Kingsroad.

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