House Blackwood

House Blackwood of Raventree Hall is an old house from Raventree Hall in the riverlands, one of the main families sworn to House Tully of Riverrun. They once ruled the riverlands as kings during the Age of Heroes. They blazon their arms with a flock of ravens on scarlet surrounding a dead weirwood upon a black escutcheon. House Blackwood rules over wider domains and can field a much larger army than their overlord of House Tully.

Raventree is located in Blackwood Vale north of Riverrun and the Red Fork. Some Blackwoods are buried in the village Cairns, while others are buried beneath the dead weirwood of Raventree.

Age of Heroes
The Blackwoods are an ancient house descended of the First Men. Family traditions state they ruled most of the wolfswood before being driven from the North by the Kings of Winter, which Maester Barneby's runic translations support.

The Blackwoods have an old and bitter feud against their neighbor in the riverlands, the Brackens, coming from the Age of Heroes when both houses ruled as kings. According to the Blackwoods, the Brackens were petty lords and horse breeders who hired swords to usurp the Blackwood kings. The Blackwoods believe this occurred five hundred years before the arrival of the Andals, but the True History states it was one thousand years before the Andals.

Andal Riverlands
The Blackwoods and Brackens allied together against the Andal invasion, but they were defeated in the Battle of the Bitter River. The feud was aided by House Bracken's conversion to the Faith of the Seven after the Andal invasion. In contrast, the Blackwoods kept the religion of the old gods, being one of the few houses south of the Neck to do so. The Blackwoods accuse the Brackens of having poisoned the weirwood of Raventree Hall. The Teats, Battle Valley, and the village of Blackbuckle are part of the disputed land. There have been numerous peaces between the Blackwoods and Brackens, many sealed by marriage, but the feud always restarts. Benedict Rivers was a bastard born from both houses who eventually became King Benedict I Justman, with House Justman ruling the riverlands for about three centuries. There were Blackwoods among the many petty kings who disputed the riverlands in the tumultuous century after King Bernarr II Justman's death.

With the support of the Storm King Arlan III Durrandon, Lord Roderick Blackwood rebelled against Humfrey I Teague, King of the Rivers and the Hills. Roderick was killed in the Battle of Six Kings, ending Arlan's attempt to restore the riverlands to the Blackwoods. After the river lords rejected the possibility of being ruled by Roderick's daughter, Shiera Blackwood, Arlan added the riverlands to the realm of the Storm Kings.

When the Kings of the Iron Islands from House Hoare invaded the riverlands three centuries later, Lady Agnes Blackwood led the rivermen's resistance. She was betrayed by Lord Lothar Bracken, however, and then slain by King Harwyn Hoare. The ironborn then conquered the riverlands from the Storm King, Arrec Durrandon.

Targaryen Era
House Blackwood aided Aegon the Conquerer during his War of Conquest and rebelled against Harwyn's grandson, King Harren the Black of Harrenhal. The Blackwoods and Brackens had been weakened by a private war a decade before the rebellion, however, and Aegon granted the new title of Lord Paramount of the Trident to Lord Edmyn Tully of Riverrun.

Lord Blackwood supported the claim of Laenor Velaryon in the Great Council of 101 AC, but the council ultimately chose Viserys Targaryen as the heir of Jaehaerys I Targaryen. A Blackwood fought a duel with a Bracken over Rhaenyra Targaryen in 112 AC, but the princess eventually wed Ser Laenor. The Blackwoods supported the blacks of Rhaenyra during the Dance of the Dragons. Lord Benjicot Blackwood and Red Robb Rivers, the Bowman of Raventree, participated in the Battle by the Lakeshore. Lord Ben had one of his best archers, Billy Burley, mercy kill the dragon Tessarion after the Second Battle of Tumbleton. After the civil war ended, "Black Aly" Blackwood, Bloody Ben's aunt, married Lord Cregan Stark in return for allowing King Aegon II Targaryen's pardon of Lord Corlys Velaryon to stand.

Lady Melissa Blackwood was the sixth mistress of King Aegon IV Targaryen and the mother of three Great Bastards, Mya, Gwenys, and Brynden Rivers, the last of whom became known as Lord Bloodraven.

Ser Otho Bracken, the Brute of Bracken, slew Lord Quentyn Blackwood in a tourney at King's Landing three years before the tourney at Ashford Meadow, reinvigorating the old feud. Bennifer, Robert, Roland, and Roger Blackwood participated at Ashford. Ser Steffon Fossoway considered convincing Otho or the Blackwoods to fight for Dunk at the trial of seven, but decided it would be impossible to make them fight on the same side. When Lord Bracken lay dying, Septon Sefton explained that Otho would inherit and the Blackwoods would not suffer him, meaning war. The then-Hand of the King, Lord Bloodraven, was half-Blackwood, so he was unlikely to stop it. When Lord Bloodraven marched on Whitewalls to quash the Second Blackfyre Rebellion, among the river lords who came in support was Lord Blackwood. Ser Eustace Osgrey boasted that in the past members of important families married Osgreys, citing Blackwoods as one of the examples. The queen consort of King Aegon V Targaryen was "Black Betha" Blackwood.

The Great Council (233 AC)
In the Great Council, the Riverlands, as usual, presents much less than a united front. House Blackwood backs Aegon, House Darry backs Aemon, and House Bracken votes for Maegor, though one can imagine they intended to vote for Aenys before his "unfortunate accident." House Tully does not speak one way or another until is is clear the majority is for Aemon, after which they throw their support behind him. This pleases no one.

The Fourth Blackfyre Rebellion (238 AC)
The Riverlords did not, en masse, participate greatly in the Fourth Blackfyre rebellion. They massed troops and marched them, of course, but these saw little combat, as the Riverlands did not want to leave Maidenpool and Saltpans open to incursions from the East and felt that moving the troops too far was a certainly surefire path to such.

Their main contribution, as it turns out, was post-war squabbling. House Blackwood, after the death of Brynden Rivers, requested that his body be returned to Raventree Hall so that he could be buried alongside his family. As it turns out, Aemon had already burned him in the Targaryen fashion, something that upset House Blackwood rather immensely.

The Lords Declarant (308 AC)
It is unknown what had drove Melissa Blackwood to take a ride through Bracken lands with such a small party, except that she was supposedly "on her way to visit a friend". What is known, however, is what befell her thereafter. While travelling through a particularly brambly pass, she was seized from her horse by a group of Red Priests, angered at House Blackwood's execution of one of their comrades earlier that month for little more than examining the castle's silverware. For the sins of her House, it was deemed, she would be sent to the pyre. Her travelling companions, however, were spared such a fate. They were sent back to Lord Roderick Blackwood, to warn him of what fate befell those who sought war with R'hllor.

Once the news was spread, however, any reservations House Blackwood may have had about such a war were swept away. He began an ever more fervent (if somewhat quiet) campaign to drive the followers of the Red God from the Riverlands, or at least from Tully's favor. He was joined in his efforts by an unlikely companion: The Lord Bracken. There were many theories about why the ancestral enemies now worked together. Some figured him a friend of Melissa's, others a lover. Many believed he was appalled the priests had committed such crimes on his own land, an insult to either his pride or his people's safety. And some believed they thought the threat posed by R'hllorites and the King's Men truly that great.