History of House Stark

Tahaki Stark one of the earliest founders of Stark house, along with his younger brother Bran the Builder, was a great warg who could warg into almost any animal by projecting his soul into animals and leaving his body behind. He was ambushed and his body was killed while warging into a dire wolf, after years of struggling with a Stark soul and a wolf body, the Old Gods granted him the ability of phasing between the human and wolf form. He became the First Wolf. This gift extended to all his bloodline although not all Starks had that ability. It was basically a talent that could manifest in some wolfborn children and others could not use it just like warging.

The magical blood of the wolves in the Stark bloodline guaranteed their physical strength, ability to survive the harsh winter of the north and that was the foundation of the Kings of Winter to rule and unify the north for eight millennia. The greatest bane of the wolves was their pride as they never accepted orders except for their Alpha, who was the strongest and pure-blooded shifter in each generation. The position of the Alpha in house Stark was greater than the King of Winter in almost every generation, except that they had to hide that ability from almost everyone as the humans, First Men, Andals, and Rhoynar, would have gathered together to fight them

The Old Gods blessed the Stark house for repelling the cold ones or the White Walkers who sought to destroy them and all life. This blessing manifested in the magical blood of the Warg and the Wolf that all the descendants of house Stark for eons to come would have. Bran received their wisdom and magic to build the Wall to repel the cold ones while Tahaki received the bloodline of the wolf shifters and thus had immortality and strength to fight the cold ones.

The thinning of the bloodline over the ages had produced fewer shifters till it almost vanished. The only known way to guarantee phasing is through the presence of another shifter with a stronger bloodline to induce it or the presence of the walkers as the shifters were basically created to fight the walkers.

The shifters isolated themselves from the politics of the Starks and only ever appeared in the form of wild dire wolves who help Starks win wars in desperate times and thus the Starks had their wolf sigil to propagate the idea that they were protected by wolves to cover the truth of the shifters.

Other royal houses took that habit and started producing other beast sigils like the Lannister Liones and Baratheon Stags, but they never had the authenticity of them as the Starks as the lions and the stags never appeared to fight wars along with their houses.

After the invasion of the Andals was stopped at the neck, the wolves fought their last battle along with the Stark kings by destroying the northern side of Moat Cailin to aid Rickard Stark to defeat the Marsh King and claim Moat Cailin. The Marsh people bent the knee fearing the Stark Wolves and build the Greywatch which is a floating castle that could help them survive the enemy ambushes and faithfully guard the Neck Marshes for House Stark.

The Stark Wolves finding no enemy for their house after vanquishing the Marsh King and the Bolton Red King and with the Wall preventing them from feeling the threat of the Others grow lax and stop phasing and the older wolves grow weary of the millennia of battles and they drift to decline as their bloodline grow thinner with less and less Starks phasing they disappear from history before the Andals could discover their traces and write about them in their books.

The Stark Wolves disappeared from history through their bloodline remained through the lineage of House Stark and bolstered the prestige of House Stark leaving nothing behind but tales of the monstrous wolves coming to the aid of House Stark in their times of winter.

After the First Men invaded Westeros, the Andals invaded and took all its land except the North. Later the Rhoynar fled from the dragonlords of Valyria and resided in Dorne and Nymeria, their Warrior-Queen married into House

Martell to create House Nymeros Martell and the map of Westeros became defined and somewhat peaceful.

The First Men took the massive freezing land of the North and named themselves King in the North instead of their ancient name King of Winter. The Andals controlled the Middle and most fertile area of Westeros in the Kingdoms of The Rock ruled by House Lannister seated in Castelry Rock, The Mountain and Vale ruled by House Arryn seated in Eyrie, The Isles and Rivers ruled by House Hoare seated in Harrenhal, The Reach rule by House Gardener seated in Highgarden, The Storm ruled by House Durrandon seated in Storm's End. The Rhoynar and Andal ruled the southernmost Kingdom of Dorne by the Princes of House Nymeros Martell seated in Sunspear. These were the Seven Kingdoms for years prior to the Doom of Valyria and the Targaryen Conquest.

Having visions and predictions of the Doom of Valyria, the Targaryens fled Valyria and ruled in Dragonstone for a century called the Century of Blood, where blood was shed all over Essos to rectify the political situation and snatch lands after the fall of the Valyrian Freehold which was the overlord of most of western Essos at the time, This century of warfare brought the realm in Essos to a delicate balance of apparent stability with Free Cities independent and the Dothraki ruling grasslands and there was peace short of the disputed lands that had continuous warfare and were the cradle that nurtured the sellsword business in Essos.

After the century-long wait being the only surviving dragonlords, the Targaryens invades Westeros led by Aegon the Conqueror and his two sister-wives along with their three dragons, Balerion, Vhagar, and Meraxes. They conquered five kingdoms, not with martial might and not with tactical prowess but through the flames of their dragons. They destroyed House Durrandon and made Orys Baratheon, their bastard half-brother Lord Paramount of the Stormlands, Warden of the South.

The Targaryens burned Harrenhal down along with House Hoare and instead raised House Tully as Lord of Riverrun, Lord Paramount of the Trident. They failed to conquer Dorne and lost Queen Rhaenys along with her dragon Meraxes. The Targaryens received Torrhen Stark's submission when they faced his host of 35,000 with their host of 55,000 along with three dragons. Although his bastard half-brother suggested they assassinate the dragons or their riders in the night, King Torrhen Stark refused and negotiated for surrender and became known as The King Who Knelt. Torrhen faced fierce opposition from many of the Starks even some of his children he refused to listen and bent the knee to become Lord paramount of Winterfell, Warden of the North. The opposition was lead by Torrhen's own son and heir Jon Stark who left with his men and women in a host of 300 who left Winterfell. Jon Stark refused to bend the knee and took the Winter Crown before his father offered it to Aegon the Conqueror and left Winterfell with the other Stark ancestral sword Frostmourne.

His leaving was painted in the crypts as his father Torrhen considered him dead and made a statue of his image in the crypts. The statue depicts him wearing a crown of an open circlet of hammered bronze incised with runes of the First Men, surmounted by nine black iron spikes in the shape of longswords adorned with wolf head made of silver. He donned a black runic armor adorned with wolf head pauldrons and on his waist lay Frostmourne sheathed in silver. Frostmourne was a claymore with a howling wolf head handle and a bluish silver blade protruding from the wolf's jaw. Jon was a handsome youth with icy blue shining eyes with winter rose between his teeth.

Torrhen was noticed to be wallowing in self-pity and grief over his self-exiled son. He spent much of his time in the crypts gazing at his son's statue for hours. Under the urging of his bannermen, Torrhen proclaimed his deceased younger brother's firstborn, Brandon Stark, as his heir.

Records of Winterfell show that all news of Jon and his host of 300 was cut after their departure except that they established a Free Company somewhere in Essos and named it the Company of Rose, namesake of the Winter Rose he took from Winterfell before his exile and as a reminder to where their roots lie as the Winter Rose only grown in the gardens of Winterfell.

The Annals of Rose, which are the personal records of each head of the Rose cadet branch of House Stark, has laments of Jon as he yearns for the revival of the Kings of Winter and reminds his descendants of their timely return and of their heirloom the Winter Crown..