Lord of Pen Cannoc and Ab Comer Castle, Warden of the Trand
Aeron fen Giall is Mormaer of Battania and head of Clan fen Giall, ruling from the cliff-town of Pen Cannoc and holding Ab Comer Castle as his inland stronghold. His lands sit where the Greenwood meets the lowlands, and his rule reflects that boundary. Aeron is known across Battania as mad, bad, and dangerous to know, a reputation earned through ruthless frontier war and unpredictable mercy. He is generous in reward, devious in counsel, daring in battle, cruel in punishment, and impulsive in command. Those who follow him do so with a mix of loyalty, fear, and hunger for plunder.
Aeron thrives on conflict. He treats the border not as a line to be defended, but as a living wound to be worked open whenever it bleeds opportunity. Raiding parties under his banner strike lowland caravans, patrol river bends, and vanish into forest paths before retaliation can be organized. He frames these actions as necessary pressure to keep enemies afraid to gather strength, though his rivals note that Aeron’s methods enrich his clan as much as they defend Battania. His warbands are known for speed, brutality, and sudden violence, making Pen Cannoc a place of constant readiness rather than quiet security.
Despite his cruelty, Aeron is capable of fierce generosity toward those he claims as his own. Warriors who prove themselves in battle are rewarded with spoils, weapons, and status beyond their birth. Villages that meet his demands for clay quotas and militia levies are granted protection and repair crews after raids. This pattern of punishment and reward binds people to him through survival. Aeron does not pretend to be kind. He offers safety in exchange for obedience and blood when he is crossed.
Aeron’s deviousness shows most clearly in how he manages rival clans and foreign powers. He allows Sturgian and Vlandic raiders to clash with one another near his borders, sometimes feeding information to both sides to ensure that neither grows too strong. This strategy keeps pressure off Pen Cannoc itself but deepens the bloodshed along the frontier. While High King Caladog tolerates Aeron’s methods for their effectiveness, other mormaers quietly resent the way Aeron’s wars spill into their territories through refugee flows and retaliatory raids.
As a husband to Liasin and father to Gawen, Aeron presents a contradiction. Within his household, he is protective to the point of possessiveness. His family is kept under heavy guard, and any perceived slight against them is met with disproportionate reprisal. Those close to him say that Aeron’s brutality is, in part, born of fear: fear that the frontier’s violence will one day reach into his own hall. This fear drives him to strike preemptively and often excessively.
In council, Aeron is volatile. He may agree to terms one moment and shatter them the next if a messenger brings news of insult or loss. His impulsiveness makes him dangerous to negotiate with and difficult to predict in coalition warfare. Yet when war comes openly to Battania’s borders, Aeron is often among the first to answer the High King’s call, bringing hardened fighters who know how to fight from cliffs, riverbanks, and broken ground. For all his unruliness, he does not refuse the Greenwood when it bleeds.
Aeron’s greatest strength is that he understands the frontier as a living battlefield rather than a line on a map. His greatest flaw is that he mistakes fear for loyalty. In Pen Cannoc, people survive under his rule, but few sleep without listening for horns in the night.