Gabon Trollsdirge (S."Barker") way the “lost” adventuring son of House Amothad .He was a man of impressive size indeed, standing 6'8” and weighing over Ihree hundred pounds. Long, peppered hair and a grizzled beard adorned his proud head; he was dirty and unkempt and had more the look and smell of a wild man or hermit than that which befitted a noble of Dor-en-Ernil. He was an experienced warrior but felt his age, at just over one hundred years, and his strength and skills were fading. So was his reason. He recognized Manor Rhanorann as his home but knew no more about it. He often mused that he wished to see his father and brother again but did not realize that with a short walk he could have come to a neighbor's house and learn where they had gone.The old warrior wandered the mansion halls and camped in his father’s old room. His war gear was left in the closet there, and he carried with him only a heavy oaken cudgel and a bag of old soup bones for his dogs. Around his neck on a chain was a silver whistle, which would summon the beasts with an ultrasonic call. The bones would add to any attempt to calm the warrior’s hounds. Any intruders in the house were seen by the owner as thieves and robbers and no arguments to the contrary would be able to pierce the clouds of dementia that darkened his mind. For this reason he would attack visitors on sight, calling down condemnation on all thieves and particularly on those in his house; and though he might have paused to listen for a moment to whatever denials they may have made, he would not be satisfied until hey fell or flew from the house. His dogs were of Similar attitude but, though they were huge and were once formidable ,age had dulled the edge of the threat they posed to those whom they might attack.
The Tale of Gabon Trollsdirge[]
In T.A. 2745 the House of Amothad had been minor nobility in Dol Amroth for many generations. Its head in that year, Abairin the Tall, had two sons who were as different as day and night. The elder, Abairris, was a man of kind heart and quiet disposition while his brother, Gabon, was known for a rough nature and a rather poor temper. Abairris was given to study and the arts; Gabon had a passion only for the arts of war. In 2745, at the age of forty-five, Gabon had grown tired of ihe quiet life of Dol Amroth and took up his weapons to find adventure in the lands of the South and East. He sailed away alone and in secret, leaving only a note which said "he would someday return, when he had made a name for himself".That name was never to be heard by his father or his brother,for the former fell ill and died in the next year and the latter was mortally wounded in the battles of 2758. In fact, since that day, no word of the younger brother had come to anyone in the City of the Prince. However, Abairris,after his injury at he hands of the Corsair raiders, on his death bed and without an heir, willed the mansion of his family to his wandering brother, insisting that the man would someday return and that the house should be kept for him. Since that time the estate had been maintained at rather regular intervals by the servants of various friends of the family, but no one really hoped for the adventurer’s return and only for the sake of their respect for the last wishes of Abairris had it not been sold. After his leavetaking, Gabon did indeed make a name for himself. In the lands of the far east he fought with a band of mercenaries and discovered in his heart a great hatred for the race of Trolls. This arose, it was said, from a period he spent as the guest of a group of these folk who impressed him as appallingly poor hosts. After a daring escape he returned and gave the Trolls a lesson in etiquette which none of them survived. This won him, among his associates, the epithet of "Trollsdirge". Many years passed before the warrior, with old age eating away at his sanity, took it into his head once more to see the lands of his birth and to visit his father and brother. Thus, 2800 found him at home at last, but in the end, the strains of this last journey and realization that noone remained to welcome him, had broken his mind completely. He lived now in his mansion but lived as he had for years in the wilderness. He had seen none of the people of the city, and they remained unaware of his arrival. He camped within the fine halls of the house as if he were alone in the lands of the Enemy. Reports of lights in the windows of the building has simply been, put down with all of the other ghost storiest hat had formed around the estate over the last forty years.
Notes[]
Original forms in MERP:
- Gabbon = Gabon
- Grallow = Amothad
"Grallow" is an irish name maybe derived from An Ghreallach or Grealagh meaning "miry ground" or "marshy land".
References[]
- MERP:Assassins of Dol Amroth