Gurglot  Evarell

 

My mother, Marka Evarell was a human explorer traveling with a group of svirfneblin on an expedition to repair the ruined city of Blingdenstone when they ran afoul of a raiding party of orcs.  She was captured and spent months in the orc camp, forced to become a concubine of the orc leader, Ashkabarr.  When she was finally rescued by a ranger named Jarsif, she decided to reluctantly return (her great great grandfather and namesake was Markel Evarell, one of the first humans to explore Blingdenstone)   to her home town, Caer – Konig off  Lac Dineshere.

 

The tiny fishing village never felt like home to me, and everyone seemed to mock me because of my appearance.  Even my mother gave the impression that she resented me (years later, I stumbled across Jarsif in The Big Fat Knucklehead tavern and he related the details of my birth that my mother had never told me).  As soon as I was old enough, I settled in the much larger city of Easthaven on the other side of the lac.  Easthaven might have been a more bustling township, but I soon felt just as much of an outcast as I did in Caer – Konig.

 

One night I found myself at The Big Fat Knucklehead when two sailors suddenly burst through the tavern doors.  They were in the middle of a “friendly” brawl that ended when one man clocked the other and he ended up sprawled at my feet.  I helped him up and soon learned that his name was Malador and he was first mate to the man who had just dealt him the “fatal” blow, Captain Derrick Gaftner.

 

The three of us closed down the tavern and I ended the night by signing on to Derrick’s crew on The Singing Siren.  Until then I had gotten by mending nets, but I had always longed to trod the boards of a sailing ship.

 

Malador and I became fast friends and at first Captain Gaftner seemed firm but fair, if a little hotheaded, but that was to slowly change.  Malador taught me so much about the sea and seafaring; he also told me he was a devout follower of Umberlee. He wore a medallion with two crashing waves:  The symbol of Umberlee around his neck. Many times, over the years he had been at death’s door and had prayed to Umberlee and she saved him.  There was a certain barbarian gnome who had set his hair on fire, peed in his mouth and left him for dead on the deck of a burning ship.  Once again he had reached out to the B*#ch Queen of the Sea (even her most devout followers call her this.  In fact, she almost expects to be addressed this way) and was saved.

 

There had always been a rivalry between the towns of Caer – Dineval and Caer – Konig.  Captain Gaftner called Caer – Dineval his home; so it’s no surprise that when the fishermen of Easthaven and Caer – Konig seemed to team up to drain the lac of it’s main source, the Knucklehead trout, the Captain decided we would stage raids on the two cities biggest ships.  At first I got a kick out of sticking it to my former home town, but soon we started raiding ships from all three towns.  The final straw came when Gaftner commissioned a battering ram for the prow of the ship and changed its name to The Howling Fiend.

 

We would use the ram on any ship we set our sights on no matter where it came from.  We had officially become a pirate ship.

 

The mood on the ship completely changed after that and I would probably have left on my own even without what happened next.  I was high up on the riggings trying to secure a line when the wind blew the line (and the sail it was attached to) out into the middle of the lac.  I lost my balance and fell all the way to the deck, hitting my head hard.  I looked up and saw Gaftner standing over me.  I raised my hand hoping he would help me to my feet, but instead he grabbed me and shoved me into a barrel.  Before I knew it he was hammering the lid shut.  He threw the barrel overboard.

 

I descended deeper and deeper into the darkness.

 

I called out to Umberlee.

 

When I woke up I was in sumptuous bedroom.  A tapestry with those same crashing waves was draped from the ceiling.  Malador was standing by my bed.  He told me these were now my quarters at the Temple of Umberlee.  I knew exactly what I had to do to thank the Sea B*#ch.

 

Today even after all this time I’m still uncomfortable with tight spaces but I’m finally ready to go out into the world.  My training is done and I will soon take my oath as a Paladin of Umberlee.