Riverrun.
Inside the Great Hall of House Tully, Lord Hoster Tully was gathered around a massive oak table with his legendary brother, Ser Brynden the "Blackfish," and his young heir, Edmure Tully.
Edmure had just lazily strolled into the hall from the chambers of a serving wench, his face still flushed with a rosy, post-coital glow.
Brynden and Hoster completely ignored the young heir's disheveled state. Their eyes were locked intently on a thick stack of intelligence reports recently smuggled out of Harrenhal.
It was the year 294 AC. While Lord Hoster had grown somewhat overweight in his old age, his mind remained razor-sharp, and his spirit was still remarkably formidable.
He pushed a piece of parchment across the table, tapping it with a heavy, ringed finger. "Look at this. Lady Shella Whent has somehow pulled this 'Roman Rivers' out of thin air, officially adopted him into House Whent, and named a nameless bastard as the undisputed heir to Harrenhal."
Edmure yawned, showing very little interest in his father's paranoid political analysis. He casually picked up a secondary report detailing Roman's recent activities.
"Well, he is recruiting idle farmers, distributing high-grade iron plows, building roads and stone bridges, and renovating the peasant villages," Edmure noted with a shrug. "He sounds like a remarkably benevolent lord to me!"
Hoster's face darkened furiously upon hearing his son's naive praise.
Seeing his brother's famous temper about to erupt, the Blackfish quickly intervened. "Edmure, look at the broader picture. This Roman Rivers sailed a massive fleet directly to King's Landing to pay the Crown's taxes in person. He completely bypassed Riverrun and never even sent us a raven to request an audience."
Hoster scowled, his voice dropping to a dangerous rumble. "Furthermore, the boy has hired dozens of traveling minstrels to aggressively spread propaganda about Harrenhal's new wealth across the entirety of the Riverlands. Half of my sworn banner knights have already approached me, asking questions about these 'miraculous' tax cuts."
Everything else had merely bored Edmure, but the mention of minstrels instantly triggered a sour memory of a bard who had once composed a mocking song about his floppy fish. The young heir's face flushed with sudden irritation.
Hoster could only release a heavy, exhausted sigh as he looked at his notoriously unreliable son.
"Set the boy's public works aside for now," Hoster commanded, turning to the Blackfish. "Draft a formal summons to Lady Shella Whent and this Roman Rivers. There are certain matters that a liege lord must discuss with his vassals face-to-face."
Brynden nodded grimly and immediately moved to draft the raven scroll. Edmure, still largely oblivious to the tension, rolled his eyes.
"Father, is it truly necessary to be so paranoid? Even if House Whent has found a new heir, Harrenhal is still just Harrenhal. What difference does it make?"
Hoster sneered, his eyes flashing with dark memories. "Need I remind you, Edmure, that it was Lord Walter Whent who hosted the grand Tourney of the False Spring? A tourney that allowed Rhaegar Targaryen to insult the realm and directly ignited Robert's Rebellion! House Whent has a long history of hiding massive, devastating ambitions behind a mask of hospitality."
Hoster knew he had to uncover Roman's true intentions. Harrenhal was a sleeping giant, entirely capable of throwing the fractured Riverlands into absolute chaos if left unguarded.
Blissfully unaware of the political storm brewing in Riverrun, Roman was currently in the training yards of Harrenhal, eagerly awaiting the delivery of his new custom weapon.
Following Master Jessy's tactical advice, Roman had decided to fully maximize his terrifying draconic strength. He had commissioned the castle's master armorer, Ben Blackthumb, to forge him a massive, long-handled warhammer.
A standard warhammer used by a normal knight featured a striking head roughly the size of a goose egg. Roman's new hammerhead was the size of an adult man's skull.
Furthermore, to ensure the oak shaft wouldn't snap under the sheer kinetic force of the massive head, Ben had heavily reinforced the entire handle with thick steel splints. The resulting weapon was so absurdly heavy that an ordinary soldier couldn't even lift it off the ground, let alone swing it in combat.
But for Roman, it was absolutely perfect. It wasn't so light that it felt like a wooden twig, nor was it so heavy that it compromised his blinding speed. The striking face of the hammer was forged with raised, jagged steel ridges, designed to reduce the surface area and drastically multiply the armor-piercing kinetic force upon impact.
Roman weighed the massive hammer in his hands, finding its center of gravity. He began to swing it in a series of fluid, whistling arcs until his muscles fully adapted to the weapon's heavy rhythm.
Fully warmed up, Roman stepped up to a heavy wooden training dummy strapped into a set of rusted, surplus plate armor.
Without a word, Roman pivoted and slammed the hammer directly into the dummy's chest.
CRACK!
Amidst the horrified gasps of the surrounding guards, the thick steel breastplate completely caved in. The sheer, concussive force of the blow shattered the steel and utterly pulverized the thick wooden trunk inside, sending jagged splinters flying across the yard.
The plate armor, which varied in thickness, had been completely annihilated. The weaker joints had simply evaporated into shrapnel, while the thickest steel plates had been violently punched through with massive, jagged holes.
Master Jessy was the first to recover from the shock. He erupted into loud applause, fiercely praising his lord's terrifying martial prowess.
The surrounding soldiers were instantly infected by the veteran's enthusiasm. Deafening cheers and battle cries erupted across the training ground, elevating the morale of the garrison to a fever pitch.
"Master Jessy," Roman laughed, resting the massive hammer on his shoulder. "I think this is the first time I have ever heard you be so eloquent with your praise."
"Do not underestimate an old soldier, my lord," Jessy chuckled warmly. "Sometimes those of us who seem insignificant know exactly when to make some noise."
Roman nodded gratefully, acknowledging the veteran's subtle lesson in public troop morale.
Leaving the cheering guards behind, Roman headed to the inner foundries to inspect the armorsmiths. Currently, the men forging armor were mostly apprentices practicing their trade, as the blast furnaces were strictly prioritizing agricultural tools.
Upon arriving at the Whent armory, Roman found old Ben Blackthumb meticulously assembling Roman's new personal armor.
Ben was an ancient fixture of Harrenhal. He had served the last true Lothston lord before transitioning to serve Lady Shella's grandfather, her father, and finally Shella herself.
Westeros featured a massive variety of armor styles. For the future Whent standing army, Roman had officially selected lamellar armor—a highly flexible defense made of hundreds of small, overlapping steel plates laced together.
Compared to traditional, custom-fitted plate armor, lamellar could be rapidly mass-produced to standardized specifications without requiring precise, individual measurements for every single soldier. It was the perfect, cost-effective solution for equipping a massive centralized army.
"My lord," old Ben rasped, bowing his head. "My apprentices and I have been working the forge day and night, but we have only managed to complete twenty sets of the lamellar you requested. We require vastly more trained hands to mass-produce this design."
"Do not stress yourself, Ben," Roman comforted the old smith, inspecting the high-quality steel plates. "I did not expect you to outfit an army overnight. Twenty pristine sets are more than enough for now."
At that precise moment, a breathless messenger arrived with a sealed raven scroll bearing the leaping trout of House Tully.
"A summons? Now?" Lady Shella murmured later in her solar, reading the parchment with a deep frown. "Is Lord Hoster dissatisfied with how we bypassed him to pay the royal taxes?"
But a summons from their liege lord could not be ignored.
A few days later, Lady Shella and Roman departed for Riverrun, accompanied by a heavy escort of twenty guards and several heavy wagons overflowing with high-grade grain as a tribute.
Roman and his nineteen handpicked, fiercely loyal guards all proudly wore their brand-new, matching steel lamellar armor. Before departing, Lady Shella had explicitly instructed Roman to remain entirely silent during the audience and let her handle Hoster's political traps.
As the Whent convoy slowly traversed the Riverlands, Roman's primary observation of his homeland was singular: Absolute chaos.
With its dense, chaotic network of rivers and its staggering number of petty, bickering feudal lords, the Riverlands were intrinsically fractured.
Worse yet, every minor lord with a stone keep felt entitled to set up barricades and extort heavy tolls from anyone trying to cross a bridge or ford a river. It perfectly explained why the common folk of the Riverlands rarely traveled far from their birthplaces.
To aggressively enforce protectionist tolls in a region already this economically shattered... it is no wonder the Riverlands do not possess a single true city, Roman thought furiously, watching another petty knight demand silver to open a wooden gate.
They wasted half a month navigating the agonizing labyrinth of checkpoints and tolls. Just as Roman was reaching his absolute boiling point, the towering walls of Riverrun finally appeared on the horizon.
Riverrun was not a particularly massive fortress, but its geographical placement was brilliant. It sat precisely at the intersection of the roaring Red Fork and the Tumblestone rivers, forming a highly defensible triangle with deep, rushing water protecting two of its three walls.
A massive, man-made trench had been dug across the third, land-facing wall. In times of siege, the Tullys could open a set of sluice gates, flooding the trench and entirely transforming the castle into an unbreachable island.
After Roman and Lady Shella had a moment to observe the formidable defenses, the Tully guards finally escorted them through the main gates and into the Great Hall.
As soon as Roman crossed the threshold, his glowing blue eyes locked onto the three men seated upon the high dais. He easily identified the fiercely intelligent Hoster, the hardened Blackfish, and the soft-faced Edmure.
Hoster's heavy frame shifted slightly as the Whents approached. His sharp, calculating eyes darted from Lady Shella to the towering, heavily armored young man standing respectfully at her side.
"Lady Shella," Hoster rumbled, his voice echoing in the silent hall. "Are you finally going to explain to me exactly where you unearthed this boy?"
Roman sighed inwardly. Lord Hoster is not Robert Baratheon. He cannot be distracted by flattery and a few cups of ale. Surviving this interrogation is going to take genuine effort.