Moredo Rogare

Moredo Rogare was the eldest of the three Rogare brothers who came to King’s Landing with their sister, Larra Rogare. A feared fighter and commander of her guards, he embodied the martial face of the family’s growing influence at court. When Lord Thaddeus Rowan later appointed him to lead an army into the Vale, his personal prowess could not compensate for the language barrier between him and the Westerosi troops under his command. The failed assault on Gulltown exposed the gap between the image of a formidable foreign captain and the practical demands of leading an army. Moredo’s later absence from the brothers’ trials, while he negotiated in Braavos, left his next move pointed toward Lys rather than the royal court.

Place in the Rogare Family

Moredo came to King’s Landing with Larra Rogare and his brothers Lotho and Roggerio. Larra established a household there that remained distinctly Lysene: her ladies and servants were from Lys, her clothing arrived from her father’s ships, and Lysene swords guarded her. Moredo commanded those guards, placing him at the center of the household’s protection and making his role more than that of a visiting nobleman. He was one of the people responsible for maintaining his sister’s security in the Red Keep.

The brothers also pursued influence through different means. Lotho established a branch of the Rogare Bank, while Roggerio opened the Mermaid, an expensive pillow house near the River Gate. Moredo’s contribution was force. Court gossip reduced the family’s methods to a trio of instruments—gold, sexual allure, and steel—and assigned Moredo the last of these. The account describes the brothers as powerful but also cautions that stories of their control were mixed with fear and falsehood. Larra and her brothers were ambitious, but they were one faction among several competing for wealth and influence around Aegon III. Their Lysene origins, customs, and gods helped make them objects of suspicion in a court that might have judged comparable Westerosi ambitions differently.

Appearance and Reputation

When Lord Rowan named him to command the army sent toward the Vale, Moredo was presented as a striking warrior: tall and stern, with white-blond hair and bright blue eyes. Observers said he resembled a warrior of Old Valyria. He carried a Valyrian-steel longsword named Truth, a weapon that reinforced the martial image surrounding him. His appearance and sword helped make him seem an imposing choice for command, and his fighting ability was widely accepted.

That reputation did not settle whether he was suited to lead the expedition. Moredo spoke the Common Tongue only imperfectly, whereas his brothers Roggerio and Lotho were fluent. Many questioned the wisdom of placing a Lysene commander over an army of Westerosi knights. Rowan’s court enemies seized on the appointment as evidence for their existing accusation that the Hand had aligned himself with Oakenfist and the Rogares. Thus Moredo’s selection became politically charged before the campaign had tested it: it signaled the family’s access to authority, but also supplied its opponents with a visible example around which to rally suspicion.

Command in the Vale

The campaign joined attacks by land and sea. Oakenfist took command of the fleet, while Moredo was assigned command of the army that Lord Rowan intended to carry into the Vale. At Gulltown, the fleet swept aside the Gilded Falcon’s sellsails and captured the harbor. The landward assault then exacted a severe price: the attackers lost hundreds of men taking the port walls, and three times as many in the fighting through the streets.

The operation’s difficulties became acute when Moredo’s translator was killed in the street battle. Without him, Moredo struggled to understand his troops’ reports, and the soldiers could not understand his commands. Communication failed in both directions, and confusion followed. His personal fearlessness and formidable appearance could not repair that breakdown. The episode makes the limits of his command concrete: the obstacle was not a lack of courage or strength, but the inability to exchange usable information during a battle. The loss of the translator turned a language weakness that had already worried observers into an immediate military liability.

Braavos and the Planned Return to Lys

During the trials of his brothers, Moredo was in Braavos treating with the keyholders of the Iron Bank of Braavos. Before the year ended, he was to sail for Tyrosh carrying Braavosi gold, intending to hire ships and swords for an attack on Lys. The account sets that enterprise beyond its own scope, so it establishes his preparations but not their outcome. Moredo’s absence from the trials therefore marks no settled withdrawal from the family’s affairs: while his brothers faced judgment in King’s Landing, he was negotiating the resources for a further campaign. His trajectory moves from guarding Larra’s household, to commanding an army whose communications failed, and then to seeking mercenary force for a return toward the Rogares’ home city.