Arya Stark

PLAYER INFO:

Name: Rory

Preferred pronoun: Male

Preferred means of contact: emails to this email (astrophrenia@gmail.com), or tumblr messages to theredbookofwesteros

Any other characters currently in-game? Nope!

CHARACTER INFO

Name: Arya Stark

Gender: Agender, but doesn't mind female pronouns. Strongly objects to being called a lady, however.

Source: A Song of Ice and Fire books/Game of Thrones show

Canon point: I'll be taking Arya from somewhere in the canon of A Clash of Kings/Season Two, and will be influenced by both medias! Probably just after Harrenhal.

Age: Eleven.

Colour: #581E08

Chumhandle: nymeriasNeedle

History: Arya Stark was born the youngest daughter of Lord Eddard Stark and Catelyn Tully, a "lady", though never particularly ladylike. Growing up, she was always more interested in fighting and weapons than any of the things her Septa tried to teach her, and while she got on just fine with her older brothers, especially her (ostensibly) half-brother, Jon Snow, she clashed nonstop with her older sister Sansa, who was very much the young noblewoman. Despite their differences, however, as she once confided to her father, Arya did not hate her sister. When she was nine, her father was selected by his friend, the current king, Robert Baratheon, to be the Hand of the King: Arya and Sansa were both uprooted from their native, northern home in Winterfell with Ned when he went south with the King, making their new home in King's Landing, the capitol. While Sansa thrived (at least at first) in the Southern court life, Arya hated it. Things improved for Arya when her father caught her taking out her frustration in her room with her own sword, Needle, given to her by her half-brother Jon before she left Winterfell, and she was given "dancing lessons" to learn the proper way to use a sword. Arya was greatly effected by the lessons of her dancing master, Syrio Forel, both in physical skill and in philosophy.

When things in the political atmosphere turned against the Stark family, ending in the beheading of Arya's father, Arya fled the city with Yoren, a brother of the Night's Watch (of which her uncle Benjen and brother Jon were both members), who helped her disguise herself as a boy named Arry and escape being caught by the Lannisters after Robert's death and their deposition and execution of Ned Stark. Sansa remained at court.

On the road, Arya befriended a number of boys bound for the wall, most notably Gendry Waters, the only one to know her true identity amongst them, for a time, and, though neither knew it, one of King Robert's bastards. Yoren plans to escort Arya in secret to Winterfell. However, things go awry when the party is attacked by raiders near the God's Eye Lake - only Arya, Gendry, and a few others escape, everyone else is killed. She also frees the three prisoners of the Night's Watch that had been travelling with them, imprisoned. The small group of survivors continues on on their own for a time, until they are captured by Ser Gregor Clegane, and taken to be servants at Harrenhal. During this time in her travels, Arya first creates her Hit List, the people she wants dead in the Seven Kingdoms.

She is reunited with Jaqen H'ghar, one of the prisoners she freed, now in the service of the Ser who lead the raiders on their party. In exchange for the three lives she saved, Jaqen offers to commit three murders for her. Arya selects her overseer, for striking her, a man she overheard boasting of participating in a gang rape, and finally, Jaqen himself. To get around his commanded death and convince Arya to unsay his name, Jaqen helps her free the imprisoned Northmen in the dungeons of Harrenhal, and stage a rebellion. Before leaving, Jaqen gives Arya an iron coin, so she can find him again. Arya turns to the guise of Nymeria (a warrior queen of legend, as well as what she had named her pet dire wolf), a cupbearing servant girl, shedding her Arry identity, when Harrenhal is reclaimed by northern lord Ser Roose Bolton, for her service in the uprising. When Ser Roose leaves command of Harrenhal to Vargo Hoat, Arya, with Gendry, and another of her enduring companions, a boy named Hot Pie, escapes back into the wild, heading north again. It's early on her continued journey after leaving Harrenhal that she will find a strange device (computer) and set of discs hidden in a cavernous hollow below the roots of a large tree, leading to her, and a small stand of trees, being transported into the Incipisphere.

Personality: Arya is sharp and a bit mischeivous; she's never fit the caste of being a girl of noble birth, neither the girl part nor the noble part, and while the North allows her to be a bit more wild, she clashes with more proper ideals of what a lady should do, fighting constantly with Sansa, and her Septa. She is brash and impulsive often, and tends to be of the mind that if someone has failed to earn her respect, she doesn't have to give them any. As such, she valued her father and older brothers' opinions, feeling ashamed when Ned reprimanded her for something, and feeling unhappy when she felt she was a disappointment to any of them, or any of the other people she valued (such as her dancing master, Syrio Forel, or Gendry). However, she frequently mouths off to, disobeys outright, or actively fights against people she does not respect or believes are wrong. Arya's view of the world is rather black and white in that respect: there are good people and there are bad people, and Arya has a sort of conviction that she gets to choose who that is, as evident in her Hit List, and her behaviour towards the nobility while in King's Landing. In more ways than one, Arya is a wild card, sometimes more wolf than child, and far too grown up for her age, though her youth often shines through.

Abilities & physical limitations: Arya is a fairly accomplished swordsman, toughened by survival in a hard world, completely unafraid to end a life if she has to. She's clever, thinks on her feet, and is rather nimble and dexterous. However, being rather small and young, her physical strength is limited. She shares the trait with some of her other siblings of an affinity to nature, specifically animals, which later manifests as skinchanging, the ability to enter the body of nearby animals, see through their eyes, and even control them. (This is going to be a large part of her in-game abilities as well.)

Appearance: Short and slight, Arya is teased in her early youth with the nickname "Arya Horseface", suggesting she is nothing exceptional to look at, often outshone by Sansa, who most consider quite beautiful. However, she is sometimes compared to her aunt, Lyanna Stark, who was known for her beauty, and as she grows up, she seems to be growing into her looks. Arya is able to convincingly disguise herself as a boy, after often being mistaken for one, and tends to prefer more practical clothing to fancy dresses and skirts. She keeps her hair short, and is rarely seen without a few scrapes and bruises and a liberal coating of dirt. She dresses in the manner of the North: furs, leathers, and natural fibres in dark, earthy colours tend to be her preference. She has dark brown hair, and Stark features.

Notable AU differences from canon, if applicable: Not applicable!

Strife Specibus: Swordkind

Prototyping: Iron Coin (Jaqensprite)

Jaqen H'ghar looks like this in the show, but in the books his hair is much more... accentuated. It's split red and white, which I guess they did in the show, but not very dramatically. A more dramatic rendering would be this, so I guess maybe that split colouration would be what the prototyping of the Iron Coin contributes to the game's underlings? He's also a murderer and a criminal. So. There's that.

Title: Sword of Winter

In-game abilities: The aspect of winter is a complex aspect, dealing with nature, change, and bitterness. In Westeros, where Arya is from, the coming of winter means darkness and wildness and cold, and in the cases of the long winter, magic. Arya's abilities as the Sword of Winter manifest in the emergence of her skinchanging abilities, which allow her to connect with the natural world through animals, turning herself more wild. She can also simply communicate with animals. In addition to this, Arya develops the ability to blend with other parts of the natural world and seasons, having some subtle influence on the climate around her which is at first connected to her emotions, but later she can learn to master and control. Generally, this means she can slightly affect both weather, flora, and fauna, changing an arena to be slightly more in her favour, or enemy's disadvantage. Also, she is almost completely immune to cold. She wields the natural world as her weapon, but like a sword, without proper training, her abilities are little more than wild swinging and hoping to hit something.

Planet: Land of Cold and Wolves. The land is blanketed with snow, looking much like the North from which Arya had originated, only lacking any kind of greenery. LOCAW's many rivers are all frozen solid, and its trees have been so long frozen they have turned to ice crystal. The land is populated by pale blue and white direwolves who gather crystal from the trees by scratching at their bark. The denizen of LOCAW is the great wolf Fenrir. Fenrir is massive and destructive, and seeks only to devour. He holds some cleverness however, as the mythical Fenrir was a song of Loki, the Norse god of Mischief. The mythical Fenrir could only be bound with the sacrifice of the hand of Tyr in order to create magical bonds that would hold Fenrir back from devouring the gods and the world itself, as it is said he will do if he ever breaks free of his bonds again. The chord that binds Fenrir in myth is made from all the little aspects of nature, and as such, Arya must bind Fenrir from destroying her and her planet by gathering the strength of all the natural forces around her, in accordance with her aspect. Failing to bind Fenrir would not only mean Arya would fail to learn the skills she needed to learn from binding it, but also that Fenrir would continue devouring, first LOCAW and its consorts, then other planets nearby. The legend says if this happens, the entire world will be reborn from what Fenrir has devoured, however, it would not be a world in which Arya had won the game.