Beron I Durrandon

Beron the Boring in the Rainwood. Roughly 25 years of age.

Beron I Durrandon (82-149 A.I.), known as Beron the Boring and later Beron the Bad, was a son of Durran XIX Durrandon and the victorious claimant of the Great Stag Duel. He ascended the Storm Throne in 115 A.I.

Appearance

Beron wore a close-cropped beard and kept his hair long. He had black hair and stormy blue eyes. Of the three claimants, Beron looked most like a classical Durrandon, having a broad frame and powerful muscles.

Personality

Beron held a disinterest in the divine proclamations of his elders. He cared not for the gods men worshiped, and thought himself entitled to much by virtue of his name and reputation. Despite a boorish, dour demeanor, Beron had a strong sense of justice and compassion that struggled to show itself in his speech, but came across in his actions.

The standard used by Beron the Boring's forces during the Great Stag Duel. His supporters were often called 'Greens' and he was sometimes referred to as 'the White Stag.'

History

Beron was raised in Griffin's Roost, under the tutelage of Edgar Konugtun. Beron was perhaps the best fighter of the three claimants, but skill at dueling alone cannot win thrones. Unlike the two other claimants, Beron made no attempt to establish a name or reputation for himself, and claimed the Storm Throne because he felt he deserved it most.

While Durran the Kingslayer and Balder Stormblessed bled each other dry in the heartlands of the kingdom, Beron and his forces laid siege to Storm's End. It was a short siege, however, as the men of the castle threw open the gates with Balder's absence. Beron then turned his armies to defeat his two brothers, finding that Durran had already forced Balder to retreat into the Slayne. Crushing Durran's host, Beron set about his coronation. During his crowning, Durran arrived and asked for clemency, which Beron granted him in the interest of healing the realm's divides. He was named regent while Beron recovered from wounds suffered during the war.

Beron soon after set his sights on Balder, and with the realm united behind him and his new regent, the two brothers defeated Balder's paltry Slayne forces by 120 A.I. and finally put the war to an end. Beron sentenced Balder to join the Night's Watch, but his escort was ambushed by children of the forest, by the command of the Green Queen. Beron instead had Balder kept under house arrest in Storm's End, so that he may be kept under close watch.

Reign

Beron's time as king is marked by his failure to prepare a worthy heir, and the betrayal of the Andals that served him and his family. The Leygoods broke from the Stormlands and swore to Duskendale, a kingdom friendly to their faith. The Polanders and Mannings assisted the Ullers in conquering Tarth in 122 A.I., and the Sloanes arrived, promising to convert to the local religion, only to go back on their word and start pillaging the Stormlands as brigands and bandits.

His rule, instead of consolidating the Stormlands and recovering from its civil war, led only to more war. Tarth was reconquered in 128 A.I. and the Blacktydes were reinstalled as its lordly house, whilst Morne was sacked and all septs on the main island were burned. House Uller was reduced to ruling over Castle Morningside, and much of the house was executed. Houses Polander, Manning, and Mertyns of Riskmarch were evicted from their castles, and no further Andal settlement would be accepted.

A great war involving five kingdoms along the Blackwater erupted in 132 A.I., after Beron decided to push Ormond Darklyn's claim on Duskendale. He wished to see the Andal influence in Duskendale shattered, but after four long, bloody years, the war saw only the Baywater Woods reclaimed from the Andals.

He successfully repelled the Andals of House Toyne and House Bar Drox when they attempted to conquer the Hook, though most credit the False Spring for this victory instead of Beron himself.

Silas, his precious heir and the first Durrandon skinchanger in generations, died suddenly in 146 A.I. This broke the king, and left him depressed and even more reclusive. He was rarely ever seen outside Storm's End, and he rarely spoke to anyone. He waged a war against the Peaseburys that lasted two years, ending their hundred years of independence. Beron's cited reasoning for this invasion was the threat of Andal influence from Duskendale. and Greatstock was awarded to the uncle of the defeated lord.

Shortly thereafter, however, the Marcher lords banded together. Tired of Beron's generosity to foreigners, especially with his forbidding of raiding the new Dayne kingdom to the south and settling Dornish refugees in the Valor Meadows, they crowned their own king, Mace Caron. For a year, Beron's men battered and defeated host after host of the new Marcher king, with the aid of House Dondarrion. At the war's conclusion in 149 A.I., the defeated lords were taken prisoner by Beron to be ransomed back to their families, and their taxes were raised. Dondarrion, for staying loyal, had their taxes lowered, but Mace Caron escaped Beron's grasp.

Beron would die two months after war's end, at the age of 67. His crown then passed to his heir, Elenei.

Quotes by Beron

"Do you want to risk a Bronze-Axe in the Kingslayer? Do you want to risk a madman in Balder?"

—Beron to the Green Queen.

"Run home, little starling, and know that it will not be your home for much longer. Pray your master lives to a hundred."

—Beron to Ser Orten, a servant of House Mertyns.