content: 
  ===Background===
  Ramsay is the product of rape. While hunting along the Weeping Water, Roose Bolton saw a miller's wife and decided to illicitly practice the banned tradition of 'the first night', wherein a lord had the right to bed a commoner's bride. He hanged the miller under a tree for not informing his lord of his marriage to the woman and raped her beneath his swaying body. A year later the woman arrived at the Dreadfort with the newborn Ramsay. Roose nearly killed her and the babe, but when he saw the child had his signature pale, cold eyes, the taboo of kinslaying stayed his hand. The woman claimed her husband's brother had stolen the mill and cast her out. Angered by this, Roose had the man's tongue removed so he would not tell the truth to Roose's liege lord, Rickard Stark. Roose then gave the woman the mill along with a pig, several chicks and a bag of coin every year on the condition that she never reveal to Ramsay the truth about who his father was.
  Ramsay's mother arrived at the castle years later claiming she needed help in raising Ramsay, who had grown up wild and unruly. Roose sent Ramsay a servant known as Reek. Reek, despite taking constant washes, always smelled bad due to some "unknown birth condition" that caused his skin to reek, thus his nickname. Giving him to Ramsay and his mother was actually a cruel jest by Roose, but Ramsay and Reek soon grew inseparable. Roose would later reflect on whether Ramsay had corrupted Reek or whether Reek had corrupted Ramsay, even though Reek would follow Ramsay's orders quite faithfully; Ramsay mentioned once that Reek knew better than to deny him. Despite Roose's instruction to Ramsay's mother, either she or Reek eventually informed him of his true parentage. Roose believes that both Reek and Ramsay's mother were urging Ramsay on, and constantly reminding the increasingly violent bastard of his "rights".
  Roose's elder, trueborn son Domeric attempted to forge a sibling connection with his half-brother. Domeric would soon die of a mysterious sickness, and Roose believes that Ramsay poisoned him in order to rob his father of his trueborn heir. Ramsay earned the enmity of House Dustin in the process, as Lady Barbrey Dustin was fond of her nephew, Domeric. Two years prior to the beginning of the War of the Five Kings, Roose brought Ramsay to the Dreadfort as he had no other sons, trueborn or otherwise. It is there Ramsay learned to read and write.
  Ramsay is accompanied by Dreadfort men called the Bastard's Boys, who are just as cruel and depraved as he is but who ultimately serve his father.