Younger son of a King of Winter, said by Catelyn Stark to have lived a thousand years before the events of A Storm of Swords. As a Stark of Winterfell with no realm of his own to inherit, he led the northern host that crushed a rebel lord in the eastern hills; for his service the king his brother granted him lands east of the Last River and free leave to raise a keep upon them. The keep he built he called Karl's Hold, and in the centuries since the name has worn down to Karhold and the line he founded has come to be styled House Karstark, the only cadet branch of the Starks of Winterfell still extant in the modern age.
