Character Sheet
HOUSE: Arryn, married into House Lannister.
NAME: Jeyne nee Arryn, of House Lannister
TITLE(S): Lady
AGE: 26 (b. 285 AD)
GENDER: Female
APPEARANCE: A conventionally attractive beauty, with hair that seems to shift from brown to blonde and back again depending on the season and time of day, and eyes like the sea, albeit the solemn, greying portions of it. Her wide eyes portray an image of innocence, although closer inspection reveals an almost bored, contemptuous gaze.
HOUSE MEMBERS:
(Not all-inclusive, NPCs in King's Landing are bolded.)
Lord Yann Arryn: 54. Father. Lord Paramount of the Vale.
Lady Janess (Waynwood) Arryn: 44. Mother.
Lord Robar Arryn of Gulltown: Some distant relation. 63. Head of the Cadet Branch, the wealthy House Arryn of Gulltown. Well-known for fighting, strangely enough, on the side of Queen Roslyn during the Rebellion, with a sizable force of sellswords and Free City mercenaries. In a shock, yet savvy move, named Warden of the East to dilute the power of the main branch.
Ser Lyn Arryn: 29. Brother. Heir to the Vale.
Ser Elys Arryn: 29. Brother (and Lyn Arryn's identical twin). Decidedly not Heir to the Vale. How sad.
Hellena, Terrance, Sade, and Rowan: Younger siblings. 22, 19, 24, 16.
Finally, Jeyne Arryn is known to employ an esoteric retinue of beautiful serving men and ladies from all across the world outside Westeros. Naturally, their wages are paid with Lannister currency.
BIOGRAPHY:
The third of eight siblings, and the first of three daughters, Jeyne Arryn had been, from a very young age, Lord Yann Arryn's favorite. Born beneath a waning moon, she was a quiet girl in her youth, yet clever - and eager to display her cleverness - all the same. Capable of warm humor and acerbic wit alike, young Jeyne Arryn spoke rarely, but firmly; her mocking recital of the various defeated and slain warriors of House Royce in order to lambast the fabled runes upon their armor (and, indeed, the House as a whole) won her few friends, but the admiration of her father forever. A young girl, not to be trifled with.
Still, she understood and deferred to the duties that came with being the eldest daughter of a Great House. While by some measure the most astute of the siblings, she would never be head of House Arryn. Her fate was to marry a suitable man from another House of influence, to serve as a tool for leverage and power alike. While she found herself at peace with the inevitability, she refused to allow herself grow dull. She insisted that she be taught the histories in exacting detail, be instructed in the ways of sound battle strategy should Yann, Lyn and Elys all fall before her. Well-learned, intelligent, and strong of mind, she became one of the most desired women in the Seven Kingdoms.
Dutiful though she was, her engagement to the eldest son of House Royce had been a bitter disappointment all the same. House Royce was a vassal house, and beneath her, in her mind. In truth, many thought House Royce was more fit to the titles of Lord Paramount and Warden, and this perception gave them power and threat. Yann Arryn had planned the engagement to lessen the rift between the two Houses, although in truth only succeeded in creating one between him and his prized daughter. Jeyne Arryn thought very highly of herself, and had expected a betrothal worthy of song and story. A chivalrous Tyrell lad, for example, or even an unlikely union with a platinum-haired Targaryen Lord.
Jono Royce was a courteous man, it was true, and brave - that was true also. But he was a man who did little to stir the passions. As a warrior, he was more pious stalwart than red-blooded seeker of glory or awe-inspiring champion. He spoke so slowly that it almost grated, and while his face had perhaps once been passable, age, demeanor and many a melee had made him solemn and far from comely. Jeyne Arryn had been an exceptional daughter - her prize was a loveless, insignificant marriage.
Realizing that little more was expected of her other than producing children, she found herself turning away from duty. She had never before presumed to spend the labors of others, but found herself wasting gold on many a lavish excess. She purchased prized steeds and falcons that she intended to use for breeding, yet forgot about them days after their arrival. She hired women from the pleasure houses of Lys to serve her, if only so that her serving girls would have a more exotic look about them. Any distraction was welcome. Not only from her new husband, but from her own father, whom she refused to correspond with.
That Jono Royce passed away half a decade later, of some weakness of the bowels, was sweet relief for Jeyne Arryn. When she returned, however, she was a changed woman. Less dutiful, and more entitled. She - rather delusionally - demanded that she be named heir of the Vale, on account of her being the most able of the eight children. Such a demand was categorically denied, yet Lord Yann Arryn found himself bending over backwards to accommodate her daughter, back in the fold, in any other way possible.
And so he, too, found himself funding Jeyne Arryn's newly preferred lifestyle. While gold may not serve as happiness, it nonetheless seemed to purchase reconcilement between father and daughter. In the years to come, savvy spymasters would note that Lord Arryn actively mulled the possibility of offering Jeyne's hand to one of the younger Targaryens - a match more fitting her particular tastes - although he eventually relented, given the Targaryen's marriage policies.
Eventually, he would find a match that suited Jeyne Arryn almost miraculously well: the heir to Casterly Rock.
CLAIM: Xandor Targaryen, Lord Paramount of the Crownlands - a sentiment not uncommon amongst the Vale. Keeps mum about it, obviously. Granted, if her Lannister husband should unexpectedly find his way into greater power...
HEX: #A0D