Lord Roland Arryn "The Scholarly" was the Lord Paramount of The Vale from 337 AC to his death in 368 AC. Born in 319 AC to Lord Jasper Arryn, Roland ruled the Vale during the War of the Exile and the War of the Burning Brand as well as marching the Valemen on Cracklaw during the Crisis of the Claw.
History[]
Roland was born to Jasper Arryn and Senella Waynwood, a quiet lad with a hunger for knowledge. His father, Jasper, however, attempted to groom Roland in the knightly ways of the Vale. Despite showing proficiency in his sword and promising as a tactician, Roland spent much of his childhood begging the Maester to teach him more of alchemy and astronomy despite the urgings of his father Jasper and grandfather, Harrold.
Rise to the Weirwood Throne[]
In 335 AC, Harrold Arryn was infected with a wound in what would be his final tourney. Taking horribly ill and falling into a coma, Harrold died at the age of fifty four. Jasper Arryn inherited the Eyrie shortly after before dying at the younger age of thirty six due to the illness called "Bad Belly." Roland ascended unexpectedly in 337 AC at the age of 19. Taking Lady Alys Belmore as his bride, Roland named his brother Oswin Arryn Knight of the Bloody Gate and took his rightful seat in the Eyrie.
Reign and Later Life[]
Roland and Alys settled into the court with relative ease, with Roland expanding his family's beloved library and spending many of his days reading in the Eyrie's Garden. While Roland had little desire to perform lordly activities, he performed them well enough to become a rather popular ruler.
Pregnancy was the main thing that shook up the complacency of Roland's life; Lady Alys's first child, the would-be named Jeyne Arryn, was a still-birth, sending Roland into an unsettling depression. With reassurance from his wife, Roland would later have another child, Artys Arryn. The name of a King, he had remarked with joy. Roland was a doting father as his family grew with additional children.
Roland would later call a council between his lords during the War of the Burning Brand to address the rise of the Mountain Clans of the Vale. Taking a number of Valemen, Roland would participate in the war. The war, however, had changed the bright man and made him more withdrawn than ever.
Returning to the Eyrie, he was remarked as a completely different person. He had become much less affectionate and was said to have a glossy look in his eyes and a pale demeanor. Roland spent much of his remaining life in repose, studying in his library and gazing at the stars from his "observatory" with a Far-Eye from Myr. Roland only left the Eyrie once more in his life to swear fealty to Edderion Stark, the King in the North. Returning home, he had seemed to begin to recover but only enough to claim to his family and court that he was "on to something." He took ill, however, and died later. Maester Theobald later said that Roland had died twice in his life; once an ill man obsessed with knowledge, and once an astute young man on the burning battlefields.