Awesome. Why doesn't everyone begin to shape up their character profiles and post here?
"Then or now, we swore a vow."
Character Name: Ser Edric Baratheon.
Age/Birthdate: 28 (born 270AL).
Loyalist or Separatist: Loyalist.
House: Baratheon, principal house of the Stormlands and Crownlands.
Faction: The Kingsguard.
Family: Lord Harbert II Baratheon {father}, Ora Wylde {mother}, Steffon Baratheon {Uncle}, Robert Baratheon {cousin, liege lord, former King}, Stannis Baratheon (cousin), Renly Baratheon (cousin).
Appearance: Edric is, at first glance, an intimidating figure. With strong Baratheon blood, he possesses the typical identifiable "Stag" features; black hair, naturally large physique and tall stature, all reinforced further when he is fully armoured in his white Kingsguard armour. His one differing feature is his eyes: he possesses his mother's grey and stormy eyes typical of a Wylde instead of the Baratheon blue. Edric is particularly big across the chest, with broad shoulders and arms thick with muscle.
Personality: In stark comparison to his cousins, Edric is much less boisterous or arrogant in his demeanour. From an acquaintance's point of view, Edric is calm, collected and in control of his emotions and power, as expected of one of the Kingsguard Seven. A friend or family member would agree, as Edric does exert a less flamboyant persona than the booming Robert, extravagant Renly or reserved Stannis. However, he has been known in his later years for his outspokeness within the realms of knights and nobles: Edric is extremely critical of fellow knights who break the code, corrupt lords and the many criminals of King's Landing. He has even angered and made enemies of multiple lords of the Crownlands due to his vocal nature, a trait which even Stannis and Renly have suppressed in favour of remaining high in the ever dangerous game of thrones.
When roused into battle or action, Edric possesses the natural charisma and iconic booming voice typical of a Baratheon, made for commanding and leading men into battle. He is fiercely loyal to his family, the Iron Throne and the Kingsguard, despite his widely differing and opposing political opinions.
However, with what appears to be a natural confidence and an unbiased, undistorted outspokenness comes insecurities. Edric's disdain for weakness, corruption and sin comes from his own shortcomings, failures, and burdens of guilt: he is a lot more critical of his own abilities than his cousins and other brothers of the Kingsguard. He constantly and vigorously trains to forget the many feelings of lust, anger and fear he experiences, and the multiple transgressions in which he never forgets, in an attempt to live by and uphold a code of knighthood that deep down, he knows does not truly exist.
Equipment:
- Kingsguard White Armor, Cloak, Sword and Shield: the traditional garb and equipment of the White Swords. While all of his armour is plain white, Edric has modified his shoulder plates and shield to display the sigil of the Baratheon Stag on the Wylde blue-green maelstrom on gold.
- Morningstar: While Edric is primarily trained in the use of longswords, he has displayed a particular skill and fondness for morningstars in combat, keeping one holstered on his left side during combat.
Skills:
- Knight and Kingsguard training: Being of noble blood, Edric received ample combat training from a young age. Combined with his natural strength as a Baratheon, he has grown to become a formidable fighter worthy of the Kingsguard, and is considered by the court and his fellow knights as extremely dangerous with his morningstar. However, he is not as experienced or lethal as his other brothers, such as Ser Barristan the Bold, Ser Jamie Lannister, or Ser Mandon Moore, and is often assigned to less aggressive postings that require indirect intimidation rather than brute force or sheer experience.
- More to come...
Origins/History: Edric Baratheon was once a particularly passionate young child who, like most children, held a warped view of the world. From childhood, Edric aspired to be a knight, admiring the art of sword, shield and lance after hearing his father's numerous warstories of the War of the Ninepenny Kings. A childhood visit to King's Landing in 278AL on his 8th nameday made Edric more infatuated with the idea of war and glory. Along with his two older first cousins, Robert and Stannis, Edric was insistent of his future as a Commander, Captain or Knight of high honour and valour.
That same year, the then King Aerys asked Edric's uncle, Lord Steffon, to find a suitable bride for Prince Rhaegar in the Free Cities. Edric was dropped off by sea at Tarth to live as a ward under Lord Selwyn Tarth, as planned, despite the youth's insistence to travel with his parents. Edric's father and mother, Lord Harbert II Baratheon and Lady Ora Wylde accompanied Lord Steffon, whose entire ship was later caught in a storm in Shipbreaker Bay from their return to Westeros a few months later, with all aboard perishing. Watching from atop of Evenfall Hall on Tarth as the remains of the ship were retrieved from the ocean, this event shook Edric deeply, and gave him an extreme fear of the sea and anything associated with it.
Due to his young age, Edric was held back on Tarth, despite Lord Jon Arryn, who took care of Robert, offering to reunite him with his older cousin. While his two older cousins eventually went off to fight in Robert's Rebellion, Edric felt weak and hopeless without any of his remaining immediate family around him. Edric proceeded to re-focus his depression, loneliness and fear of the sea into relentless combat training with the master-of-arms and knights of Tarth. He displayed, like his cousins, an aptitude for knight's training, and developed a particular side skill and fondness for morningstars and spiked maces over the traditional sword. He struck a strong friendship with Lord Selwyn Tarth's daughter, Brienne Tarth, who was an outsider mocked for her gender. Brienne was extremely skilled with the sword, besting Edric multiple times as good as any man, but she was still a woman, and considered inferior.
The constant displays of disrespect that several of the Stormland and Tarth knights showed towards Brienne -- and by extension, Edric when he attempted to defend her -- disillusioned him slightly in his views of the concept of the honourable knight. However, his youth and naivety still blinded him to the broader realities of "noble" knights and soldiers, and he eventually joined in the taunting to be accepted. He lost Brienne as a friend in the process, and though he laughed at the time as she walked away with utter contempt of him, he could not erase that memory of the disappointment of him that her eyes had carried.
By 283AL, when Robert took his seat on the Iron Throne, Edric answered the King's invitation to court, though it was no small feat. It took Edric a great amount of mental preparation to board a ship to the mainlands, but his fear soon came back as he stepped aboard. In his shame, he quietly asked the maester's steward of Evenfall Hall to supply him dreamwine for the voyage, as to completely avoid his fear of sailing and the sea. He made it to King's Landing, asleep for nearly three weeks due to a near lethal overdose, the crew all the while fearing for their lives had he died upon their docking.
Seeing the victorious Robert in his prime, Edric was inspired and reinvigorated by his cousin's strength and determination to best his own obstacles. He spent the next 15 years living in King's Landing under Robert's household, and continued his hard training under the Red Keep's Dornish master-at-arms, Aron Santagar, learning the ways of the spear and halberd in addition to the sword, shield and mace. It was through his training that Santagar had reccommended him as a squire to Ser Mandon Moore of the Kingsguard, and while his lord was a brooding man, Edric had felt honoured none the less. While squiring for Ser Mandon, Robert proceeded to send Ser Mandon, Ser Barristan and Ser Eddard Stark to lead the charge in what became known as the Greyjoy Rebellion, and by extension, Edric. Not daring to defy Robert's orders, Edric journeyed to meet his first encounter of true war.
But war never changes. The Greyjoy Rebellion transformed Edric's idealistic views of honour into something more realistic after seeing so many "noble" lords, knights and soldiers rape, kill and steal from the retreating ironborn, but nothing compared to the hydrophobia he experienced. He insisted that he met his fears of the sea head on like any grand knight, and volunteered to be part of the van of Baratheon ships that lead the battle. His feigned confidence almost cost him dearly; Edric nearly drowned while invading Harlaw when his ship,
The Stag's Pride, suffered significant damage against the frontline Iron Fleet. Frozen literally and emotionally with fear in his realisation of drowning when his ship broke in half, he grabbed onto one of the common-born soldiers swimming nearby and used him to stay afloat until he reached a piece of debris. The soldier he used drowned from his superior strength and weight.
Edric eventually washed up upon the shore of Harlaw with two other knights who had witnessed what he had done, and who proceeded to threaten him. In a mixture of adrenaline, guilt and desperation, he brutally cut them down, willing to kill innocent men to preserve his outward image; anything to become a knight. Afterwards, led one of the first ground assaults on Ten Towers, helping capture the resisting foothold with some landing Northmen and refusing to stop fighting until his body reached physical exhaustion. For his "bravery", he was nicknamed the Stag's Fury and the Survivor by the soldiers, for being the only known Baratheon man aboard
The Stag's Pride, to survive, and the way he had literally crushed through the defending ironborn with his morningstar. He was knighted after the battle, though his feelings of fear and guilt had incapacitated him for the rest of the military campaign. It spurned him to train himself harder in his immense shame, and to try and forget what he had done. He knew on the inside that he was no knight, yet when the Lord Commander of the Kingsguard himself had put his sword on his shoulder, he chose to accept the title and the armour all the same.
Edric's first moment of "glory" came in the Tourney at Lannisport, held a few months later in 289AL: at the age of nine-and-ten, he was one of the youngest men to progress into the final jousts with the exception of Jamie Lannister. He defeated Lord Whent and Kingsguard member Ser Boros Blount -- in better shape and form at the time -- with one lance each, though he lost to Lord Yohn Royce in a ruling of nine versus eight broken lances. Edric also participated in the following Lannisport melee, where he was one of the final five knights standing. He was defeated by Ser Jorah Mormont.
Edric's constant training, and display of strength and humility both in the field and in court eventually convinced Lord Commander Ser Barristan the Bold of his worth. Edric's direct blood relation and supplementary recommendation from King Robert contributed to his eventual entry into the Kingsguard alongside Arys Oakheart a year later in 290AL, much to the dismay of Jamie and Cersei, who both had wished for another Westerling to join their ranks rather than another potentially threatening Baratheon, though Edric did not know anything of their future plot.
Edric's dream to be part of the Kingsguard had become a reality, and this solidified his mental barrier of blocking out his guilt to be the best knight his House and Westeros had ever seen. However, his physical closeness to King Robert over the next eight years, who he had witnessed first hand grow into an obese, roaring drunk, his cruel and despicable second cousin Joffrey, and the presence of Ser Jamie Lannister, the Kingslayer, made him cynical of his vows, of who he was serving, and the concept of knighthood, loyalty and honour. His thoughts soon shifted back to his memories of his father and mother drowning in Shipbreaker Bay, the way he and the Tarth knights had treated Brienne, and the men he had selfishly and dishonourably killed to save himself during the Greyjoy Rebellion. His mental well-being in shambles, Edric resorted to excessive amounts of wine in his off-duty time to drown away his immense burden and emotional instability.
At the onset of the War of the Five Kings, Edric found himself internally split between serving Joffrey, his rightful King, second cousin and favourite cousin's son, and running off to fight for Stannis or Renly. As a Kingsguard member, he knew he could not break his holy vows, but the loyal man within him could not allow his conscience to silently serve Joffrey, who showed himself cruel and incapable, or ignore the whispers of Joffrey being the spawn of incest between Cersei and Jamie. However, his internal cowardice and acknowledgement of his own past crimes spurned him to submit to his duty. His Baratheon blood and known close relationships with Stannis and Renly has kept the Lannisters watching him for any sign of defection, and so he remains serving the Crown, at the cost of his honor and dignity.
