Knights of the Cardboard Castle

It is the 284th year after Aegon’s Landing. Robert’s Rebellion has ended with a decisive victory for the rebels, resulting in the establishment of House Baratheon of King’s Landing as the new royal line. House Martell, together with House Tyrell, sided with the Targaryen dynasty, despite the dishonourable acts of Rhaegar Targaryen. Rhaegar was married to Elia Martell, sister of Doran Martell, yet he had disdained her when during the Tourney at Harrenhal he awarded the winter rose crown for the Queen of Love and Beauty to Lyanna Stark instead of his own wife and a year later kidnapped her, sparking the rebellion.

In the end the rebels won and in their haste to prove their loyalty to the new order, not only did Jaime Lannister betray his Kingsguard oaths to slay King Aerys, but the bannermen of House Lannister, Sandor Clegane and Amory Lorch, acting under the instructions of Tywin Lannister himself, murdered Elia, together with her children Aegon and Rhaenys. Oberyn Martell, younger brother of Doran and Elia, wanted to continue the war, but Doran knew that Dorne did not have the strength by itself and made his peace.

But House Martell does not forget and in the fullness of time, we will have our vengeance.

For now it is necessary to pretend to be loyal while we build our forces and scheme in secret. We are fortunate in that all of our council members and most of our vassals are loyal. Our heir is Arianne Martell, Doran’s eldest child as under Dornish law the eldest inherits, whether male or female. The vassals would prefer a male heir but the dissension is only very mild. One vassal in particular does present a problem. He is Lord Trebor of the Ghosthills. The problem is that he holds the High Lordship of the Ghosthill. This seat is traditionally the overlord of the seats of Ghost Hill, The Scourge, The Tor and Ghaston Grey.

Unfortunately for Lord Trebor, while he holds the seats of The Tor and The Scourge under his personal demesne,  the seat of Ghost Hill is held by Lady Nymella, a personal vassal of Doran Martell, and the seat of Ghaston Grey is held by Doran himself. One solution would be to transfer the vassalage of Ghost Hill to Lord Trebor and award Ghaston Grey to him as well, but as Doran only holds two other counties as his personal demesne, this threatens to make him too weak relative to his vassals, encouraging rebellion. Therefore we sit on the situation and send Oberyn, who is acting as Doran’s Master of Whisperers to The Tor to warn us if Lord Trebor is plotting anything.

Our Master of Arms, Castellan and Master of Coin all stay in Sunspear to train levies and increase our tax revenue. Meanwhile our Master of Laws, Lady Larra of Blackmont is dispatched to Highgarden. House Tyrell has traditionally been rivals in the south with House Martell but as they also stayed loyal to House Targaryen, they will be valuable allies if we are to bring about the restoration of the Targaryens. Accordingly we intend to improve relations between our two houses, while subtly undermining the relationship between King Robert Baratheon and House Tyrell if possible.

Later in 284 we begin our plans for vengeance with a plot to kill Ser Gregor Clegane, the Mountain that Rides. Plots become more effective as more people give their support to them. Shockingly, almost every official in the court of House Clegane wants to see Ser Gregor dead and eagerly accepts our invitation to join the plot. This makes the plot amazingly powerful. By the end of the year, we come up with a plan to weaken the supports of a railing on a balcony that Ser Gregor is known to frequent, hoping that the moment his great weight is put against it he will fall to his death.

And indeed early in 285, Ser Gregor takes a tumble just as we had hoped. One down, many more to go! Emboldened by our success, we hatch another plot to kill Ser Amory Lorch. He isn’t as despised by his own people as Ser Gregor and most of the officials in his court refuse to participate in the plot. Unfortunately for him, one official in particular hates him and that is his own Master of Whisperers. That makes all the difference.

This time the plan is to fake an attack by highwaymen while Ser Amory is travelling by carriage. Barely three months after the death of Ser Gregor, the second name on our list is down. The other names of those against whom we plan vengeance are Tywin Lannister, Kevan Lannister, Jaime Lannister and Cersei Lannister. These however are too powerful and too well connected to fall prey to such simple plots. For example the only person of note who would support a plot to kill Cersei Lannister appears to be her husband, King Robert Baratheon himself.

We settle down to bide our time and wait for events to unfold.