The Tale of Gergelig
Scribed and recorded by Guild Historian Yuniok Juum
In our wildest aberrations we dream of an equilibrium we have left behind and which we naively expect to find at the end of our errors. Such a creed holds true for all beings of conscience. The mawog named Gergelig (this is not his original name, as we shall see as the tales proceeds…) is just such a one. Torn between undying loyalty to an overlord long murdered and a nurturous responsibility to those he once terrorized, Gergelig represents the dichotomy of sentience -the dual substance of mind personified. He is the classic villain, the dispassionate assassin, the rebellious slave and the repentant servant. He is a being in search of redemption, yet still beholden to the decaying loyalties of his past.
Gergelig’s tale begins, as such tales often do, as a young mawog slume (infant mawog) is birthed into the captivity of a cruel and sadistic ilkroun overlord. Thro’qal U’thoq, called Utho’qeel by the jungen of Sundered Clev, Throke the Desecrator by the deeprunners of Pallgrimscrack, and Urkle’s Plague by the deep gnomes of Silvpoddle, was lord, master, and god to the mawog pile into which Gergelig was born.
The slume’s mother perished in childbirth, gurgling her final, strangled cries just as our subject uttered his first. Such a thing is considered a grand and portentous omen among the mawog. In celebration of this honor, the newly birthed servant of Thro’qal was dubbed Ort U’uqlato, or Ort Twicecryer in the surface tongue.
Ort’s early years were a time of wonder and joy. Unquestioned servitude to his cruel overlord brought pleasure and satisfaction beyond imagination. The dank, dripping halls of Thro’qal’s palace were a wonderland of new experiences for the young mawog, and the many torture chambers and abattoirs brought endless delight to his curious mind. Indeed, life was good. Ort served his master without question. No act was beneath him, no task too menial, no humiliation too base.
Perhaps now it is timely to tell of the many fetishes and hobbies of Thro’qal U’thoq, an ilkroun whose reputation for vileness and cruelty was legendary even by the standards of his ilk. It is whispered that Thro'qal often bathed in the eye humors of blinded slaves, three hundred of which, mostly nowyr bred for the purpose, were required for each such immersion. Further histories tell of the ilkroun’s insidious decorating habits. Apparently the entire Hokoko Gaurzam Dai, once thought to have perished in a flood, instead had their skins flayed from their bodies and used to upholster the extensive walls of one of Thro’qal’s many galleries. The skinless, boneless bodies were magically given a semblance of life and sent to wage war on the jungen of the Sundered Clev, armed with axes and hewers crafted from the corpses’ very bones. It is not the intention of this historian to offend the reader with a litany of predations and travesties, but merely to illustrate the horrific depths to which Thro’qal’s evil descended. I will assume, at this point, that such an impression has been made and will continue apace. After all, this is the tale of Gergelig, not the tale of Thro’qal.
We proceed…
Ort developed and mastered his inherent powers very quickly. His mastery and skill caught the attention of his wicked lord, who put him to task in a brute squad charged with rounding up and torturing slaves who somehow slipped their parasite and escaped. In this work Ort excelled. His natural stealth and bloodlust again caught the attention of his master and he was transferred into the ranks of the U’uk Kaquar, an insidious and infiltrative group tasked with entering deep gnome society under eldritch disguise and causing political and social havoc for the delight of the scrying Thro’qal. In this work too Ort excelled. His skill at the mimicry of gnome voices and mannerism was unparalleled. He even, for a considerable time, managed to get himself elected as mayor of Silvpoddle, a position from which he caused untold chaos and damage through the illicit poisoning of springs and the pursuant fractioning of gnomish society as one group or another was blamed for the action. For his troubles, and to aid him at his task, Ort was gifted by Thro’qal with a magical hat of disguise with which he blended ever deeper into deep gnome society. His scepter of the office of mayor was a mystical lizard stick, another gift of his master.
All told, Ort, or Mayor Gergelig as he was now known, spent two decades hidden in plain sight among the gnomes of Silvpoddle, orchestrating travesties with one hand, while quelling them (after significant damage of course) and bolstering his popularity with the other. Life was grand. He reveled in the wealth of the gnomish silver mines, the gullible hearts of the gnomish people, and the satisfaction of loyal servitude to Thro’qal U’thoq. Yes indeed, Silvpoddle was his to toy with. But all good things must come to an end, yes no?
The unthinkable happened. The order came form on high. Thro’qal had grown bored of the antics of the gnomes. They were to be exterminated. Every one of them. Their carcasses were to pave the road from Thro’qal’s palace in Huz’qunim to his new palace built atop the ruins of Silvpoddle. An army of mawog and jungen slaves would be arriving soon to carry out the carnage.
Ort was aghast. For the first time in his life he questioned the wisdom of his overlord. In truth, he had grown comfortable among the gnomes. Their sparkling halls and blooming forests of fungi were wonders to his eyes, their lilting songs enchanted his soul, and their naïve sensibilities made them a joy to manipulate and deceive. Now the halls would be reduced to rubble, the fungi to ash. The songs would become dirges, then silence; the guileless sensibilities rotted forever. Those that survived -inevitably there would be survivors- would become hardened, spreading the word of deception and cruelty to other communities. Reinforcing the world against Thro’qal’s predations. This must not come to pass. For his own good, the ilkroun’s designs must be thwarted. But how…?
Ort could not work to oppose his master. Such a thing would be unthinkable. There must be another way. Ort wandered the gleaming, gem crusted, halls of the mayoral palace in ponderance. He was still pondering when the alert horns began to blat.
Under cover of invisibility and stealth, a horde of mawogs had infiltrated the walls of Silvpoddle, passing through the open gates undetected by those on watch. Now they had been detected, but it was too late. The gnomish gatewatch had already been murdered. It was the work of a matter of seconds for the devious mawogs. Soon a stream of enslaved jungens flowed through he sundered gates, their spines caked with poison, their cleavers gleaming with hate.
The battle pitched and yawed for several hours, but in the end the conclusion was inevitable. The gnomish spells and spears were no match for the jungen warriors, the deceitful mawogs, and the charmed braths, akselags, and drommerans of Thro’qal’s army.
The city of Silvpoddle was smoldering. The gnomes were being rounded up and dispatched with alacrity. Their skins stretched and dried to be made into paving tile.
As the fighting waned, Thro’qal himself arrived to survey and direct the proceedings. Ort clambered down from the hole in which he had been hiding, overcome with joy and obeisance at the site of his overlord. In his exuberance, the mawog forgot to deactivate his magical hat; to those assembled he was still Gergelig, Mayor of Silvpoddle.
His mind fogged by happiness, Ort failed to notice the reactions of the mawog bodyguards surrounding his master. To their eyes a frantic gnome wielding a wickedly curved scepter was charging their overlord, intent on vengeance. For his part, Ort merely intended to throw himself down at the robes of his lord, begging forgiveness for his erstwhile thoughts of treason.
Ilkrouns gather rarely in covens, but when they do it is often for the swapping of spells and tales. The story of what happened next, the dismal fate of Thro’qal U’thoq, is a cautionary tale to last centuries…
As Ort made to lower himself into obeisance one of Throqal’s mawog guards, sensing danger to his overlord, charged headily toward the approaching gnome, swinging his cleaver and shouting epithets. Without thinking, Ort reached into his sash and withdrew an envenomed blade of the sort he often kept about his person should the need for a quick assassination be in order. Upon hurling the blade at the guard Ort immediately realized his egregious error. His heart sank as the guard blinked himself fleetingly elsewhere to avoid the flung dagger.
A screech fit not only to curdle the blood, but the bones and flesh and gristle as well, pierced the cavern air. Thro’qal’s envenomed heap cascaded to the stone below. The dagger had penetrated his arcane defenses (as it should have, being an erstwhile gift of his own devise) and struck him vitally. The toxin, distilled in eldritch labs from pallgrim spume and unkili spines, was already working its course, freezing first his lung and then his several hearts. As the shriek’s echoes died in the distance, so too did their originator.
The unthinkable had indeed happened. An ilkroun had been assassinated by a mawog servant. A hush settled about the assembled horde. Ort instinctively became invisible and scrambled to one of his many boltholes.
As the ilkroun died, so too did his parasites wither. The jungens, sensing a new route to freedom, immediately turned on their stunned mawog compatriots, catching them by surprise and dispatching them hastily. As suddenly as it had begun, the battle of Silvpoddle was over.
The ensuing several years was a time of rebuilding. The jungens, displaying a rare sense of regret for their actions, stayed in Silvpoddle, eventually replacing the gatewatch and forming a new tribe, The Wogslayth Jungen, Gnomefriends and Guardians of Silvpoddle. Ort stayed in Silvpoddle, retaining his office of mayor. Today, he secretly plots the destruction and enslavement of all deep gnomes, frequently journeying to surrounding gnome cities to surreptitiously sabotage workings and assassinate key figures, sowing the seeds of destruction.
Gergelig no longer cares for the enchanting songs and glorious works of the deep gnomes. He hates and resents them for what they made him become –a mawog who murdered an ilkroun, the worst kind of traitor and a disgrace to his entire species.
