The Tourney at Ashford

House Dunn
Vassals of House Tyrell :: “Until Mountains Fall”

HISTORY
The history of conflict between Dorne and the so-called marcher lords of the Seven Kingdoms goes back countless generations. Even in the days before the Kingdom of the Reach was truly a kingdom, feuds and conflicts broke out along what, increasingly, became a hard cultural divide. It is from these conflicts that the house that is today called the Dunns arose.

The exact origins of House Dunn are unknown today; some say the house is descended from the commander of an Andal commander who held the Dornish at the Silver Hills for days, allowing the Reachmen army time to arrive, while others say their origin, instead, lies with one of the Andal adventurers that came south during the Invasion. Whatever the truth, it’s clear that House Dunn is one of the eldest of the marcher houses.

Along with several other houses arrayed along the Dornish Marches that border onto the Red Mountains, the Dunns are part of a series of treaties with the other lords of the Reach; through them, those houses provide men and gold to the Reach marcher lords. With those men and gold, the marcher lords were to defend the realm against incursions from the south. The Dunns, in particular, chose to style themselves after the Night’s Watch of the north with their lord taking on the title Lord Commander. In time, even other houses outside the Reach began to contribute to the defense of the realm in this manner.

Such preparations were well tested during the days after Aegon’s Conquest; with tensions at an all-time high between the two powers, the Dunns were forced to often defend the land from roaming bands of Dornishmen from the Red Mountains. Although never specifically proven, it’s rumoured that a number of Lord Commanders of the Silver Hills even ordered preemptive attacks across the border in order to either take land or simply incite the Dornish to attack.

During the days of Aegon IV, the Dunns were especially tested. The young and recently come-to-power Lord Commander Thaddeus Dunn sought to gain great power for the Dunns. Making use of the king’s distaste that the Dornish remained separate from his rule, the Lord Commander led several raids across the border flying the flags of the nearby House Caron.

Such, however, soon proved folly; while a capable fighter, the Lord Commander found himself outnumbered and surrounded on the shores of the Torentine. During the conflict, Thaddeus Dunn suffered a grievous injury, losing the lower half of his right leg. It was only due to the timely intervention of another force from the marches that saw the badly beaten Dunn force retrieved. Although his life was saved, Lord Commander Dunn would never fight on the lines again.

Soon, however, it seemed the purpose of the Dunns would fade; during the early days of Daeron II’s reign, Dorne came to a proper peace agreement with the Iron Throne. Although Princess Daenerys is married to Maron Martell, Lord Thaddeus believed it was only a matter of time before Dorne stabbed them in the back and resumed their attacks. But as year after year ticked by, Lord Thaddeus found himself proven wrong – permanently, it seemed, when Prince Baelor the Breakspear marched out of Dorne at the head of a twenty-five thousand man strong Dornish army to bring to bear against the treasonous Blackfyre rebels.

In the years since, the Dunns have slowly begun to lose their respect from the rest of the land and, recently, even monies from treaties older than Westeros itself have begun to dry up as other lords realize that Dorne has finally become a true part of the Seven Kingdoms. Many blame Lord Thaddeus’ insistence that the Dornish cannot be trusted and that they will, soon, show their true colours for the Dunn’s failure to adapt to the changing political landscape of Westeros.
It will soon be time for the Dunns to change – or disappear into the dust of history.

HOLDINGS
While officially the seat of the Dunns has no given name, the fortress that stretches beneath the Silver Hills is known to many others in Westeros as The Burrow. A small fortress protrudes above ground on a hill to provide a watchpost looking south toward Dorne while well-dug and maintained tunnels beneath the surface serve as the primary living space for the Dunn household. Although no exorbitantly wealthy, the Dunns maintain a small hold of trophies from their victories against Dornish invaders – including an ancient spear they claim once belong to the warrior queen Nymeria.

As part of the defence line against Dornish incursion, the Dunns were held in high regard by their neighbours in the Reach and in Westeros as a whole. While the peace with Dorne and its slowly assimilation into the Seven Kingdoms as whole, however, the Dunns have slowly slipped from the place they once had due a lack of adaptation to the new political climate.

The lands of the Dunn rest along the edge of the Silver Hills, stretching for trackless miles of borderland between those hills and the plains of the Reach – almost all of it empty land aside from the small farming communities that dot the landscape. The Silver Hills somewhat unique position gives them borders with both the Stormlands and Dorne – and the military presence kept by the Dunns on their land occasionally gives rise to skirmishes with their neighbours in the Stormlands, House Caron.

Large, mostly empty land, however, gives rise to large areas where, despite its size, the Dunn military doesn’t patrol. As such, numerous lairs of bandits have crept up in old abandoned villages and ruins, allowing them to prey on the outlying villages during harsh times. The majority of the population, then, crowds into a few small villages and a reasonably sized town overlooked by the Burrow – a town that, for the most part, exists to serve the military forces housed nearby.

The Dunns are not a particularly wealthy family with most of their funds coming from old mutual defense treaties that require the other houses of the Reach to support the marcher lords. These funds, along with a minor supply of iron from a meager mine dug into the Silver Hills, have allowed the Dunns to keep an arm a sizable military force – though with Dorne now a part of the Seven Kingdoms, Lord Thaddeus fears other lords may question they need for those treaties.