House Osgrey of Standfast
Casa Osgrey de Tiesa
House Osgrey of Standfast is a house of landed knights in the Reach, sworn to House Rowan, whose checkered lion is a reminder of power it no longer holds. It was once marshal of the entire northern march of the Reach, lord of lands stretching from one end of the region to the other; today it holds little more than Standfast and three neighbouring villages.
Its story, told mostly in the chronicles of Ser Duncan the Tall, is that of a house worn down over generations — by a lost war, by a rebellion backed the wrong way, by the deaths of sons — until only one old knight and his land remain.
Chapter 1
The marshals of the Northmarch
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Long before the Targaryens crossed the narrow sea, House Osgrey had spent centuries governing the northern march of the Reach for the Gardener kings, holding the title of marshals of that region. Their lands ran for miles in every direction, from the eastern reaches to Coldmoat castle, the hills nearby, the villages of Dosk and Valle Brandy, and both banks of Lago Frondoso.
They married into the great houses of the realm in ways they no longer can: Florent, Swann, Tarbeck, Hightower, Blackwood. When the Rock Kings tried to push into those lands, the Osgreys drove them back and killed their leader, though the victory cost the lord's son his life, fighting on another front at the time.
Chapter 2
The decline after the Field of Fire
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The Osgreys' fortunes turned the day the last Gardener king fell at the Field of Fire. Without the royal favour that had sustained them for generations, the family began to lose its standing in the Reach.
Under King Maegor Targaryen, Lord Ormond Osgrey sided with the Poor Fellows and the Warrior's Sons, against the king's will to disband those orders. It cost him Coldmoat, the castle his family had held for generations, which passed into other hands from then on.
The house had at least one cadet branch, settled by Lago Frondoso, but by the year 211 after the Conquest it had already died out.
Chapter 3
The Blackfyre Rebellion
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When the Blackfyre Rebellion broke out, Ser Eustace Osgrey backed Daemon Blackfyre, who promised to restore Coldmoat to him if the rebellion succeeded. It did not.
His three sons died fighting at the Redgrass Field. King Daeron II pardoned him for his part in the rebellion, but only in exchange for his daughter Alysanne's life, sent to the capital as a hostage.
His wife did not survive the loss: she took her own life after all her sons were dead.
Chapter 4
The Sworn Sword
211 ACBooks only
By around 211 after the Conquest, what remained of House Osgrey had shrunk to Standfast and three nearby villages, ruled by an aging Ser Eustace. A dispute with his neighbour, Lady Rohanne Webber of Coldmoat, reached a deadlock that could only be settled by trial by combat.
The Osgreys' champion, Ser Duncan the Tall, won that combat. The feud between the two houses ended not in more bloodshed but in a marriage: Ser Eustace and Lady Rohanne wed.
House Osgrey's extinction has never been fully confirmed, and some less reliable sources place it still standing in the time of the Baratheon dynasty. If so, it may have continued through Eustace and Rohanne's union, or even through a legitimized bastard; the sources disagree.
