The fall of House Justman seemed absolute. In the year ~2,200 Before Aegon's Conquest, King Bernarr II and his elder sons were butchered in the Bloody Keep of Pyke, sacrificed by King Qhored Hoare to the Drowned God. The Riverlands descended into chaos, its crowns splintered among Bracken, Blackwood, Vance, Mallister, and Charlton. For a century, the land was ruled by mud and blood, its people prey to pirates, raiders, and petty kings.
Yet the Justman line did not end. Bernarr's youngest son, Prince Edrick, only six years old, was spirited away by three loyal knights. They smuggled him from Pyke, hidden among river traders, and carried him upriver through secret channels. Rather than return to Fairmarket, they sheltered him in a forgotten cadet keep between Raventree Hall and Stone Hedge. There, under the false name Edwyn Rivers, the boy grew in obscurity, raised as a minor cousin of a dead dynasty.
When he came of age, his guardians revealed the truth: he was Edrick Justman, last heir of Benedict I Justman's line. His claim was met with suspicion. Blackwoods and Brackens accused one another of forging a pretender, while House Tully — still minor — chose to support him, hoping to rise through royal favor. Thus, the Justmans survived, though their kingship was but a shadow of its former glory.
Edrick proclaimed himself King of the Trident, but his crown rested on fragile foundations. Blackwoods backed him out of loyalty, Brackens supported him only to spite their rivals, and Tullys sought advantage. The rest of the Riverlands rejected his rule, declaring their own crowns. For a century, the realm was fractured, remembered as the "Hundred Kings of Mud and Blood." The Justmans ruled weakly from their border keep, symbolic kings with little power, surviving only because the great houses canceled one another out.
Generations passed. Edrick's great-grandson, Lucifer I Justman, inherited a crown weakened by Bracken influence, strained by Tully ambition, and frustrated by Blackwood stalemate. To break the cycle, Lucifer enacted a bold marriage: he wed Lady Alyssa Blackwood, a sharp-minded noblewoman devoted to the Old Gods. The union shifted the balance of power. Brackens were weakened, Blackwoods elevated, and Tullys forced to seek influence through trade. More importantly, the marriage tied the Justmans to the prestige of the First Men, countering Andal encroachment.
In the generations that followed, the Riverlands grew more stable. Blackwoods gained dominance at court, Brackens simmered in rebellion, and Tullys expanded their wealth. The Justman kings remained weak, dependent on Blackwood support, but they endured. Their survival was symbolic, their crown fragile, yet they continued to rule — a dynasty thought extinguished, preserved by loyalty, secrecy, and the careful balancing of rivals.
After the fall of King Bernarr II Justman, the Riverlands splintered into chaos. For centuries, rival crowns rose and fell, each claiming dominion over the Trident. Yet two dynasties endured above all others: House Justman, holding the western coast from their stronghold near the Red Fork, and House Teague, rising in the east with the backing of the Faith of the Seven.
The Justmans clung to survival through loyalty and blood. Their vassals — Blackwood spears, Bracken horse, and Mallister ships — kept them alive against Ironborn raids and pirate incursions. The Teagues, meanwhile, built their power through septs and motherhouses, repressing the worship of the Old Gods and binding themselves to Andal influence. The Riverlands became a realm divided: old gods in the west, the Seven in the east, each side claiming kingship but neither strong enough to unite the land.
The rivalry hardened into open war. What came to be remembered as the Battle of Six Kings was, in truth, the struggle between Justman and Teague. Armies marched across the Trident, banners clashed at Raventree Hall and Stone Hedge, and fleets fought at the mouth of the Blackwater. The war was brutal, a contest of faith and bloodline, tearing the Riverlands apart.
In the end, the Justmans prevailed. The Teagues were extinguished, their septs burned, their dynasty ended. Yet victory came at a terrible cost. The Riverlands lay shattered, its fields scorched, its lords weakened, and its people weary of endless war. The crown of the Trident was preserved, but it was a hollow crown, resting on a land too broken to defend itself.
Into this weakened realm marched Arlan III Durrandon, Storm King of the south. Seeing opportunity, he claimed the Riverlands in its entirety. The Justmans, battered by generations of conflict, bent the knee. Their kingship ended, but their survival continued. No longer rulers of a united Trident, they endured as high lords under Stormlander rule — diminished, symbolic, yet still alive.
Thus the Riverlands entered a new age: the Century of Anarchy gave way to Storm King dominion. The Teagues were gone, the Justmans survived, and the fate of the Trident was bound to foreign crowns. Yet in the shadows of defeat, the blood of Benedict the Just still flowed, waiting for the day it might rise again.
After bending the knee to Storm King Arlan III Durrandon, House Justman endured as high lords of the western Riverlands. The Storm Kings brought a measure of peace, though rebellions flared across the Trident. Yet these uprisings never reached the Justman domains. Their vassals — Blackwood, Bracken, and Mallister — remained loyal, and Atlantis prospered quietly under Stormlander rule.
The crown was gone, but the Justmans survived, their strength preserved in the balance of rival houses.
The Storm Kings' dominion ended with the coming of the Ironborn. Harwyn Hardhand, Iron King of the Isles, defeated the Stormlanders and claimed the Riverlands. From the Iron Islands to the Trident, he established a new kingdom, remembered in The Iron Chronicle as the era of the Kings of the Isles and the Rivers.
Harwyn's son, Halleck Hoare, shifted the seat of power inland, ruling from Fairmarket rather than Pyke. The Ironborn crown weighed heavily on the Riverlords, but House Justman endured, their domains spared the worst of Ironborn cruelty.
Harwyn's grandson, Harren the Black, sought to immortalize his dynasty. He ordered the construction of Harrenhal, the greatest castle ever built in Westeros, a monument to wealth and defiance.
For forty years, Harrenhal rose stone by stone, draining the Riverlands of labor and coin. Villages starved, lords grew resentful, and the land groaned under the weight of Harren's ambition. Yet the Justman domains remained resilient, shielded by their vassal bloc and the quiet strength of Atlantis.
Twenty years before Harrenhal's completion, a child was born in Atlantis — heir to House Justman.