HOUSE TARLY

House Tarly of Horn Hill is a vassal house that holds fealty to Lord Bronn of Highgarden, Lord Paramount of the Reach. Their stronghold is a castle known as Horn Hill, which is located southeast of Highgarden and a hundred leagues northeast of Oldtown among the thickly-wooded foothills of the Red Mountains of Dorne.

House Tarly commands a formidable military, with a great martial tradition. They are renowned as being the house which produces the very finest of soldiers in the Reach, though their former liege lords, House Tyrell, once produced more by sheer numbers, albeit slightly less well trained than Lord Randyll Tarly's own unique forces. Horn Hill was able to field thousands of men, and their entire army remained unscathed during the War of the Five Kings. Like most Houses of the Reach, House Tarly is wealthy since the Reach is the most fertile and agriculturally productive region in Westeros.

At the onset of Daenerys Targaryen's war for Westeros, the Tarlys swore allegiance to House Lannister, the new royal family after the Destruction of the Great Sept in the capital of King’s Landing, which resulted in the extinction of House Baratheon. The new alliance was an act of defiance against their liege lords, House Tyrell. Lord Randyll Tarly then fought alongside Ser Jaime Lannister against the dragon queen, Daenerys Targaryen, under the promise of being named Warden of the South after the end of the war. In the aftermath of the Battle of the Goldroad, a significant amount of their army was destroyed alongside Lannister troops. When Lord Randyll and his youngest son and heir, Dickon Tarly, refused to bend the knee to Queen Daenerys, she had them executed by dragonfire. The Tarly’s allegiance is now uncertain under Randyll's daughter, Talla Tarly, who has become the new head of the house and Lady of Horn Hill. Lord Randyll’s eldest son, Samwell Tarly, who was banished from Horn Hill after a fraught history with his father, was allied with the King in the North, Jon Snow, as well as the Night's Watch, a military order that guards the realm from foreign invaders. Following the end of the war, after the Battle of King's Landing, House Tarly became the vassals of the new Lord of Highgarden, a former sellsword and knight named Bronn, as House Tyrell became extinct after the Sack of Highgarden, led by the Lannisters and Tarlys themselves. Under Bran Stark’s new reign as the King of the Six Kingdoms, Samwell Tarly has positioned himself as Grand Maester.

House Tarly’s heraldry consistes of a striding huntsman, red on green. Their house words are “First in Battle.”

BACKGROUND

Marcher lords of the Dornish Marches, the Tarlys are a family old in honor with rich lands as well as a vast and strong keep named Horn Hill. During the reign of Aenys I Targaryen, Lord Samwell Tarly, also known as Savage Sam, was among the marcher lords who participated in the Vulture Hunt where he wielded the family's ancestral Valyrian steel sword Heartsbane. The son of Lord Tarly later unsuccessfully courted Princess Rhaenyra Targaryen before she wed Laenor Velaryon. Lord Alan Tarly then declared for Rhaenyra and the blacks during the Dance of the Dragons, a faction that opposed Aegon II Targaryen’s claim to the Iron Throne against his sister. At the tourney at Ashford Meadow, the Tarly huntsman was spotted by Ser Duncan the Tall among the heraldry on display where Ser Samwyle Tarly was listed as having competed. Some time later, Lord Randyll Tarly's father was unhorsed by Ser Denys Mallister in a tourney. During Robert's Rebellion, Lord Randyll commanded the vanguard of the Reach at the Battle of Ashford, where he killed Lord Cafferen and forced the usurper king, Robert Baratheon, to retreat. Randyll's liege, Lord Mace Tyrell, took credit for the victory, however. Randyll's reputation as a formidable general were later squandered during the fruitless Siege of Storm's End, while Robert and Eddard Stark won great victories further north.

Lord Randyll was a hard, ruthless man. When his eldest son and heir, Samwell Tarly, showed a preference for songs, poetry, fine clothes and good food over martial valor and a love of warfare, Randyll disinherited him and sent him to the Wall in order to join the military order of the Night's Watch, a place where you serve a life sentence and host many exiled former noblemen. Despite believing himself to be an honorable man, Randyll confessed to his son that he would resort to kinslaying if Sam didn't join the Night's Watch, and even admitted that nothing would please him more than hunting down his own son. Lord Randyll’s fiercer, younger son, Dickon Tarly, was made heir in Samwell's stead. One of the major reasons Randyll states behind forcing Sam out, was that he did not want Heartsbane, the ancestral Valyrian steel sword of House Tarly, to come into the hands of a craven. Randyll was capable of some form of personal honor, citing personal loyalty to Lady Olenna Tyrell, whom he had known since he was a boy, but he was persuaded into fighting against his liege lords when Ser Jaime Lannister offered him the title of Warden of the South. In contrast to her husband, Lady Melessa Tarly is a very warm person, who is the cousin of Axell Florent, the head of House Florent and Lord of Brightwater Keep, as well as Selyse Baratheon who sided with her husband Stannis Baratheon after King Robert’s death.

 MEMBERS and allies

*REPRESENTED IN THE SERIES*