House Bolton of the Dreadfort

During the Age of Heroes and long after it, the Boltons were kings in their own right in their corner of the North, styled as the red kings for their long struggle against the Starks of Winterfell. Legend says they flayed fallen Starks and hung their bodies from the walls of the Dreadfort; a shakier rumor adds that some Bolton lords wore the skins of their enemies as cloaks. That custom even fed the suspicion that the legendary Night's King had been a Bolton himself.

The last of those red kings, Rogar the Hunter, laid down his crown before Winterfell just as the Andals began crossing the sea and invading Westeros. Soon after, King Theon Stark, known as the Hungry Wolf, sought the Boltons as allies rather than enemies: together they defeated Argos Sevenstar at the Battle of the Weeping Water.

The habit of flaying took centuries to fully die out. According to the annals of Long Sister, during the Rape of the Three Sisters — two thousand years ago now — a Bolton lord named Belthasar owned a tent sewn from the skins of a hundred Sistermen.

About a thousand years ago, by the house's own account, the Boltons finally bent the knee to the Kings in the North and agreed to give up flaying their enemies.

The oath did not hold forever: three hundred years later the Boltons rose in revolt against Winterfell. The Starks answered with a siege that dragged on for years around the walls of the Dreadfort, until the Boltons capitulated and swore fealty once more.

When Lord Eddard Stark called the lords of the North to join Robert's Rebellion, Lord Roose Bolton answered and fought at the Battle of the Trident.

There, with Ser Barristan Selmy lying gravely wounded on the field, Roose advised Robert Baratheon to finish him off; the new king chose instead to leave him to the maesters.

After Eddard Stark's arrest in King's Landing, Roose was among the first to answer Robb Stark's call. At Winterfell, both he and Robett Glover pressed to command the vanguard.

When the northern host split at the Twins, command of the infantry fell to Roose, who tried to catch Tywin Lannister's army off guard. The maneuver failed, and he was forced to retreat after the Battle of the Green Fork.

Under Ser Edmure Tully's orders, Roose marched with Ser Helman Tallhart on Harrenhal, striking a deal with the Bloody Mummers to take the castle. There he took as his cupbearer a girl who called herself Arya Stark, not knowing she truly was.

Meanwhile Roose's bastard son Ramsay had married Donella Hornwood; he soon murdered her and claimed the Hornwood lands for himself. He then led his men from the Dreadfort to sack Winterfell, and among his victims was Ser Rodrik Cassel.

When word came that the Ironborn had ravaged much of the North and that the Lannisters had won at the Blackwater, Roose Bolton judged Robb Stark's cause lost and struck a secret bargain with the Lannisters. His betrayal was sealed at the Red Wedding.

For his part that night, House Bolton was named lord of the North and Roose became the new Warden of the North, a title few northern lords accept willingly: Stannis Baratheon openly challenges his authority, and those who don't envy him instead.

For a time Theon Greyjoy was held prisoner by Ramsay at the Dreadfort. There he was partly flayed and given a new name, Reek, beaten into him through torture.