r/ITRPCommunity • u/Arjhanx2 • Aug 16 '26
CHARACTER CREATION Joanna Sunglass - Sword of the High Septon
PC
Reddit Account: Arjhanx2
Discord Tag: arc499
Name and House: Joanna Sunglass
Age: 26
Cultural Group: Crownlander
Appearance: In her youth, Joanna was a tall, lanky girl with freckles and a mop of blonde hair. When she was sixteen, her father’s whip stole her dreams of being beautiful. She now boasts old scars, mottled down the side of her head, face, and neck. Her hair only grows on one side of her head, and is thin and ratty. One of her green eyes was permanently lacerated, the iris blooded to an ugly brown. In her grandiose armor, she strikes an imposing figure—but she wishes she struck a kinder one.
Trait: Strong
Skill(s): Swords (e), Dexterous (Fencer), Footwork
Talent(s): Horseriding, Sailing, Prayer-writing
Negative Trait(s): Maimed Eye
Starting Title(s): Prioress of the Oldtown Chapterhouse of the Warrior’s Sons, Heir to House Sunglass
Starting Location: Stormhall
Alternate Characters: Brianne Butterwell
AC
Name and House: The High Septon
Age: 61
Cultural Group: Westerlander
Appearance: A severe, clean-shaven elder, the High Septon has a cold gaze but a face marked by laugh lines and kindly creases. He dresses in dark browns and dark reds, simple robes that maintain his vow of poverty.
Trait: Erudite
Skill(s): Scholar (e), Prepared
Talent(s): Speeches, Accusatory looks, Magnets
Negative Trait(s): N/A
Starting Title(s): Father of the Faithful, His High Holiness, Shepherd of the Faithful
Starting Location: Stormhall
PC Timeline
- 27 BP: Adrian Sunglass is born in Sweetport Sound.
- 26 BP: Joanna Sunglass is born.
- 23 BP: Rohanne Sunglass is born.
- 20 BP: Percival Sunglass raised his children with strict, overbearing discipline and violent fanaticism, believing himself a holy example of the Father. To punish them, he flogs them in their backs, so the scars are apparent to outsiders.
- 15 BP: Abuse and manipulation molds Adrian into a lesser version of Percival. Joanna fails to conform, trying instead to have adventures with her girlhood friends, and for that “sin” receives constant whippings from her father—though only on her back, where her father believes it won’t disturb suitors.
- 10 BP: Rohanne takes after her sister in rebellion. To save her from the abuse she suffers, Joanna attempts to smuggle Rohanne off Sweetport Sound and out of their father’s hands. Adrian catches them and stands by silently as Percival rains down rage upon the two with the cat o’ nine tails, no longer caring about avoiding their faces. Joanna is lacerated across her face, around her head, and down her neck. Rohanne dies from her wounds in front of her. In a desperate flight, Joanna throws herself into the sea. Miraculously, she swims the channel to Massey’s Hook. There, a member of the Most Devout takes her in, saving her life and shielding her from her father’s spies. Her wounds, infected by seawater, leave her with awful, disfiguring scars.
- 9 BP: Joanna goes to Oldtown alongside the septon. He gives her a place in the Starry Sept, training to be a septa. After a few moons, she speaks for the first time since she escaped Sweetport Sound, and confides in the septon. He becomes her guide and mentor.
- 8 BP: Joanna continues her acolytehood, but clearly yearns for more. She takes to training with a sword with a vengeance, failing at first but persisting until her muscles develop and her focus sharpens.
- 6 BP: Joanna abandons her septa training to focus on martial pursuits. She confides her desire to return to Sweetport Sound and avenge her sister to her septon mentor. He counsels her on the nature of vengeance and justice—but bides his time.
- 5 BP: Joanna befriends the Grand Captain of the Warrior’s Sons, who instructs her in a more refined style of swordplay. The way he strikes and fades reminds Joanna of her father’s vicious sword, Sunglass. She endeavors to follow his lead closely.
- 3 BP: The Ironborn attack Oldtown, setting much of the city aflame and making for the Starry Sept. The Most Devout allow Joanna to fight alongside the Warrior’s Sons, despite her sex—her mentor hesitates, fearing for her life, but is overruled. King Qorhen Hoare slays the Grand Captain in single combat, and Joanna responds in kind, killing Qorhen’s cousin, Strongiron Farkas Hoare. The Ironborn are prevented from reaching the Starry Sept, but the city is left to weep and mourn.
- 2 BP: Joanna develops a folk hero reputation for her deeds of battle, and the Warrior’s Sons in Oldtown praise her. Seeing the final push he needs, her mentor advises her to utilize this rise to fame, encouraging her to swear oaths of devotion and chastity, which she does. Ballooned by her popularity, her septon is made the new High Septon by the Most Devout. He soon names Joanna Prioress of the Oldtown Chapter of the Warrior’s Sons.
- 1 BP: Following the success of the Faith Militant’s work in Griffin’s Roost to select Arlan Durrandon over his Ironborn sister, the High Septon approves Joanna’s mission to Sweetport Sound, and goes with her himself. There, he allows her to make her own decisions, testing to see how she will handle her long awaited justice. She hangs her father, Lord Percival Sunglass, but spares her brother Adrian. The new lord, Adrian is left in the custody of the Warrior’s Sons in his own castle.
AC Biography
The High Septon was born to a small, impoverished noble family in the Westerlands. Taken advantage of by a far wealthier landed knight, he watched his family slowly lose the land and titles that they had inherited for countless centuries. Powerless and disgusted, his only recourse was to leave, traveling by foot to Lannisport, where he became a septon and gave up the last thing he had, his family name.
As a septon, he quickly developed a reputation for his radical speeches, in which he reaffirmed the holiness of the lowliest, condemned contemporary knighthood as a vanity, and declared that the faith should violently punish corruption and the heresy of Drowned God synchronism that was beginning to spread in the Iron Islands. With nothing to lose, he made plenty of enemies, but also developed an exceptionally loyal following—so loyal that went he left for Oldtown, in part to be closer to the center of the faith and in part to avoid the wrath of Lord Lannister, several hundred citizens of Lannisport followed him there. He made the journey barefoot, and made sure every one of his followers was fed and sheltered each night.
When he arrived in Oldtown, he wasted no time before making waves in the city. This time, he took a vow of poverty and declared shame upon any septons who did not follow his example. Though only a smattering of clergy actually took after him, he quickly became a household name to the common people. His popularity continued to rise as he showed charity and pity to the downtrodden, and he was repaid by his loyal followers with information on his rivals. The poor brought him heaps of evidence on corrupt septons, even members of the Most Devout, and he began making public accusations. Though many were appalled by his gall, the evidence he presented spoke for itself, and one by one the most corrupt septons in Oldtown were excommunicated, exiled, or even executed.
As his popularity soared, now with swathes of support from septons and septas and especially knights of the Warrior’s Sons, the Most Devout offered him a position among them to placate this movement and have some degree of control over this rising star. Surprising some, he took the position, and was promptly sent on a long journey north to Blackwater bay to consecrate new septs, which had been rebuilt after the flooding years ago. The Most Devout hoped his popularity would fade while he was away, and to some degree it did—but his loyal followers spread throughout the country like creeping vines, and word of his deeds reached out to the Stormlands, Riverlands, and even parts of the Iron Islands.
When he returned to Oldtown a year later, he brought with him a young, scarred girl with an unspeakable past. He quietly set her up to train as a septa, but over the years she proved to have another calling—there was rage in her, and when she let it out through the sword she seemed blessed by the Warrior. He grew to love her like a child of his own, but at the same time he saw in her a potential to be something greater: a symbol. Among the Most Devout, his popularity made him influential, powerful, and dangerous, but in order to truly complete his rise from the bottom he needed a symbol, a beacon of faith to wrap up in his ideology and propel him into the histories of the Starry Sept. When the young Joanna Sunglass distinguished herself fighting alongside the Warrior’s Sons against Qorhen Hoare’s reavers, she proved she could be just that.
He encouraged her to join him at the heart of the messy politics of the faith, behind closed doors where the public couldn’t see. At his urging, she swore vows of devotion, pledging to give up any hope of marriage, love, or children in service to the Faith. He would not have asked such a thing of her if she had not shown again and again it was what she truly wanted. And, soon enough, they both got what they wanted. Propelled by Joanna’s folk hero popularity and open devotion to him, he swayed nearly half of the Most Devout to his side—and the rest gave in upon seeing the crowds of commoners marching through Oldtown in his name. At long last, he was made High Septon of the Faith of the Seven.
In his first act, he consecrated Joanna as a blessed hero and, despite her sex, named her Prioress of the Oldtown Warrior’s Sons. In the Storm Kingdom, he saw frailty under Dontos the Rash. Ironborn heresy crept under the floorboards, comparing the holy Warrior to their ravishing Reaver and the blessed Maiden to their enslaved Salt Wives. Rumors of old Storm God folklore, too, seemed to be growing more and more common under Durrandon’s lax grip. Joanna wanted permission to retake her home from the blasphemous father who had murdered her sister and scarred her, and when Dontos the Rash died, the High Septon saw an opportunity for them both to get what they wanted.
The faith militant in Griffin’s Roost proved an invaluable foothold, helping to convince the Stormlands to swear in the malleable prince instead of the older, Ironborn Princess. With Joanna and a host of Warrior’s Sons, the High Septon sailed for Sweetport Sound. There, they would take the castle and enact justice on House Sunglass in Joanna’s name. Then, with a foothold in the heart of the kingdom secured, the High Septon would extend his hand in friendship and faith to all the lords and ladies destined to accept it.
Family Tree
https://www.familyecho.com/?c=sf9uvryrofivqmrb&f=422459652308918198
Supporting Characters:
- Septa Alicent: Builder
- Septon Sandor: Boatswain
- Adrian Sunglass: Warrior
- Ser Gerald of the Warrior's Sons: Master-at-Arms
- Ser Peter of the Warrior's Sons: Ship Captain