| abstract
| - Droglo is a human Mudlander appearing in Revolt of the Beastmasters, the seventh part of Heroes Chronicles. He became the first ruler of Tatalia. Tarnum, the former Barbarian Tyrant, was sent by the Ancestors to fight Mad King Gryphonheart, ruler of Erathia, and free the Mudlanders from slavery. Disguised as a beastmaster, he gathered a group of slaves and turned them into rebels, freeing other slaves and fighting back against their oppressors. But Tarnum knew that one day, he wuld have to leave them, and without a wise leader to guide them, the Mudlanders could end up just as brutal, merciless, and uncaring as his own people, the barbarians, had become under his rule. He knew that the Mudlanders needed to be ruled by one of their own, and he eventually chose Droglo. Droglo was a fourteen-year-old human who had never been a slave, but had spent much of his life battling the Erathians. Tarnum was impressed by his resourcefulness, battleskills, and charisma, but it was the boy's compassion that convinced him he would be an excellent leader. When a group of gnolls captured some Erathians and accused them of slaughtering children, Droglo freed them, since he knew they were innocent - he'd already killed the thugs responsible. When Tarnum asked if the Erathians might be guilty of other crimes, like slavery, Droglo told him that the really guilty ones were the Mad King and the Erathian nobles, not the common folk. Tarnum knew the boy could be the perfect leader, so he decided to turn him into something more than a swamp-boy. They soon faced the army of Prince Niven, who was the Mad King's oldest son and a tactical genius, despite only being sixteen years old. After talking with a rebellious Erathian noble, Tarnum decided to abduct the boy and show him the realities of slavery, hoping to turn him to his side. Tarnum and Droglo entered the enemy camp in the middle of the night, clubbed the prince unconscious, and carried him out. Droglo, who had experience with wyverns, found a nest of them that he quickly tamed so they could fly back. Tarnum showed Niven some recently freed slaves, how they were hunched over from exhaustion and covered in whip marks, but since Niven had only ever seen house slaves before, he thought it was all staged. Personal stories of torture and pain by more than twenty slaves did nothing to change his mind, so Tarnum decided to show him an Erathian camp - the stench of the slave pens, the poor creatures crammed into pits, and the score of corpses hanging from the surrounding trees as a warning. Niven cried in horror, and Droglo wondered whether it would have been kinder to kill him instead of showing him the truth. Depression consumed him for days, and when Droglo and Tarnum offered to escort him back to his own camp, he didn't know what to do. Droglo asked him to help save the slaves. Tarnum was silently impressed that Droglo was already taking command. Niven joined Tarnum's group, and the two boys practiced with their swords every morning, becoming like brothers. Niven was almost as fast as Droglo and far more skilled, but Tarnum noticed that Droglo won half their duels because he fought by instinct, while Niven's years of training made him stiff and predictable. When the Mudlanders had reached the border of Erathia, ready to escape into the swamp, Niven returned home to gather the nobles against his father. Tarnum asked Adamina, leader of the wise witches, for her approval to name Droglo as his second-in-command. Adamina told him the boy was young, but they would think about it. When Tarnum realized that the enemy forces were larger than he had expected, he decided to ask a barbarian tribe for an alliance, hoping the extra strength would be enough. But since he couldn't go himself, he sent Droglo. Droglo was gone a lot longer than Tarnum had anticipated, and when he returned, he had a nasty wound on his face, which would leave an ugly scar. He told Tarnum that the barbarians had forced him to duel one of their best warriors, which Tarnum knew was a serious violation of barbarian custom - if they wanted to test Tarnum's strength, they would duel him, not his messenger. He placed a hand on the boy's shoulder and thanked him, regretting everything the boy had to have gone through in barbarian territory. Claiming the swamps as their own, the Mudlanders decided to found a nation, and the witches named it Tatalia, after an old word for community. They hoped that this would increase popular support, since Mad King Gryphonheart was no longer a king controlling his subjects, but a foreign invader. With the Mad King off to war, the nobles of Erathia had agreed that he had dragged the nation into dishonor, and crowned Niven King of Erathia. When he learned that Niven was marching to their aid, Tarnum asked Droglo to ride ahead and meet up with his friend, and Droglo informed him that the wisewomen had named him Tarnum's second-in-command - they just hadn't told Tarnum about it, since they were still angry that he'd hired the barbarian mercenaries without asking them. Since Tarnum knew Droglo would soon lead the Mudlanders, he wasn't too upset that the witches kept information from him. The two allied armies united. Mad King Gryphonheart had lost the support of Erathia, and had nothing left but what thieves and mercenaries he could hire. In anger, the Mad King placed a bounty of 20 000 gold on his son's head, twice what he had offered for Tarnum's, and one day, an assassin slipped into Niven's tent, dressed as a a monk to avoid suspicion. The rogue drew a long blade from his robes, but before he could attack, Droglo jumped on his back, dragged him to the ground, and killed him. As representatives of Tatalia and Erathia, Droglo and Niven signed a treaty to ban slavery, and Niven knew that he would have a difficult task ahead of him, restructuring Erathia's economy to account for the lack of slaves. They hoped the bold agreement would spread to other nations. While chasing a fleeing rogue, Droglo came across an old statue of the Barbarian Tyrant, the brutal ruler that had enslaved the Mudlanders so long ago. Recognizing Tarnum's face, he stared at his friend in shock, and wondered what kind of man he was. Droglo later spoke to Adamina about it, and while it's not known how much she actually told him about the past, he had tears in his eyes when he next spoke to Tarnum. Tarnum realized that the boy was unwilling to hear his tale, and asked him: "If a man - a King - made many terrible mistakes, do you think he should have the chance to redeem himself?" Tarnum knew that Erathia and Tatalia were in good hands, and that when the Ancestors called him away, the people would be safe. And one day, the statue of the Tyrant would vanish into the swamp, and old wounds would have a chance to heal.
|
![[RDF Data]](/fct/images/sw-rdf-blue.png)