Taran Goblinkiller, aka Wanderer
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| Taran Goblinkiller drawn by Justin Pfeil colored by Kelly Westermeyer |
One Christmas, after I had already been reading a borrowed copy of the Player's Handbook for months, my parents gave me the Dungeons & Dragons Basic Set and the Dungeons & Dragons Expert Set for Christmas. I created my first character and I Dungeon Mastered my first game that day, with my father and my sister playing. My father played the only D&D game of his life that day as a fighter named Sir Grumpsalot. 🤣
The character I created was Taran, unimaginatively based on one of my favorite fantasy literary characters, Taran, Assistant Pig Keeper, from Lloyd Alexander's Prydain Chronicles. Those works were my first exposure to the fantasy genre. In 6th grade I purchased the final book in the series, The High King, at a Scholastic Book Fair in my school. I was instantly smitten, the following year I would discover Tolkien in the middle school library, but Prydain was the first fantasy world I explored.
So, a couple years later, when I sat down to create my first D&D character, I found myself naming him Taran. And I based his background on the literary Taran. Of course my Taran had a very different, and rather more tragic, life...
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| Taran's first PC sheet. |
Player: GMWestermeyer (my internet nom de plume)
Aliases/Nicknames: Wanderer, Dragonslayer, Goblinkiller
Race/Sex/Class/Level: Human Male Fighter 11
Date of Birth/Death: 551 CY (976 AC) / 576 CY
Homeland: Wild Coast (Heldann Freeholds)
Appearance: Taran was tall, neat, and good looking. He tended to wear simple clothing and had a scar under his left eye from a dragon claw.
Height/Weight/Hair/Eyes: 6‘ 180 lbs, blond hair blue eyes
History: Taran was the son of a powerful wizard who took to the life of a warrior. Taran was handsome and charismatic, a natural leader. He spent his early adventuring career exploring goblin and orc holds, before taking to the sea and discovering the riches of a far tropical island.
Taran later built a stronghold and became a minor lord, adventuring only rarely. He raised pigs, and fought a small war with another minor noble, but was otherwise retired.
When Taran tired of his small holding, and decided the region was becoming too crowded, he decided to travel north and establish a new stronghold, but he was betrayed along the way and captured by a brutal half-ogre mercenary, Abdul the Butcher. Abdul sold Taran to the evil demigod Iuz, who had him torn apart by catapults before his remains were served to Iuz‘ diabolic followers at a great feast.
(Taran's career began in the Known World of X1 The Isle of Dread but later I transferred him to the World of Greyhawk.)
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| Taran Goblinkiller by Justin Pfeil He draws The Keep on the Borderlands. He also draws The Horror on the Hill. Both Known World webcomics. Support Justin's Patreon. |
Chronology of Taran
571 CY / 996 AC
{Greyhawk version} Taran, who later took the appellations Goblinkiller, Wanderer, and Dragonslayer, begins his adventuring career. Taran was the son of a powerful wizard from the Wild Coast region of Greyhawk, near Fax. He began his career exploring a 'Haunted Keep' near his home that was in reality inhabited by goblin scouting parties from the nearby 'Caves of Chaos.'
Taran discovered that a large goblin raiding force was intending to raid the farmlands near Fax, and his information stopped this attack. Later, Taran led various adventuring bands in raids against these caves, as well as the nearby Caverns of the Unknown.'
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| Gurgi's original sheet. |
572 CY / 997 AC
{Greyhawk version} In his raids against the goblinoids Taran had discovered an old ship‘s log that included a chart to a lost island in the Olman Islands, a place rumored to have much wealth. Using the gold he had won from the goblins, Taran fitted out a cog in Safeton, hired a crew, and formed an adventuring band to explore this island. He also took on a henchman, a young ranger named Olaf Snowfalcon, also from the Wild Coast.
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| Taran's coat of arms. |
This 'Isle of Dread' proved to be everything Taran had hoped. He formed an alliance with the natives of the island, defeated a band of vicious pirates, and led several hunting expeditions into the island‘s interior in search of trophies and treasure. He slew an allosaurus, an old green dragon, a young red dragon, a black dragon, and recovered much treasure, including several magical swords, during his months exploring the island.
{Known World version} In his raids against the goblinoids Taran had discovered an old ship‘s log that included a chart to a lost island in the Thanegioth islands, a place rumored to have much wealth. Using the gold he had won from the goblins, Taran fitted out a cog in Specularum, hired a crew, and formed an adventuring band to explore this island. This 'Isle of Dread' proved to be everything Taran had hoped. He formed an alliance with the natives of the island, defeated a band of vicious pirates, and led several hunting expeditions into the island‘s interior in search of trophies and treasure. He slew an allosaurus, an old green dragon, a young red dragon, a black dragon, and recovered much treasure, including several magical swords, during his months exploring the island.
573 CY / 998 AC
{Greyhawk version} Taran returned to Fax and the Wild Coast where he used his wealth to build a stronghold, Wald Festung, in the southern Welkwood, near where it becomes the Suss Forest. Taran settled into the life of a young feudal lord, raising pigs (which were often shipped to the Olman Islands) and leaving his small holding very rarely to go on adventures. He did aid local elves in recovering a deer herd captured by hobgoblins.
{Known World version} In AY 1997 Taran returned to the Heldann Territories where he rebuilt his family freehold, Caer Dallben. Taran settled into the life of a freeholder, raising pigs and leaving his small holding very rarely to go on adventures. One such adventure involved aiding a group of northern Wendarian elves in recovering their reindeer from a marauding band of hobgoblins.
Taran did not get along with the foreign Vanyan knights who had conquered the former Heldann Freeholds, but his freehold was on the border of the Wendar Forest and not under their rule.
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| The Wild Coast of the World of Greyhawk. |
From this point forward there is no Known World version of Taran's tale.
574 CY
Taran continued the life of a young feudal lord at Wald Festung, raising pigs and leaving his small holding very rarely to go on adventures. Doli and Gurgi remained with him; Olaf wandered the nearby wilderness hunting.
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| Taran's AD&D sheet. |
Taran has an argument with another young lord, Kamaras Maximillian aka ‘Blue Max’ and as a result, the pair went to war. Taran raised a large army and transported it to the Loftwood, where Kamaras had his stronghold. Taran besieged the stronghold for several weeks, but eventually cooler heads prevailed and Taran gave up the siege.
Raising an army of a couple thousand, then transporting that army halfway across the Flanaess by sea was a massive expense, and Taran was forced to spend nearly all of the treasure he had gained on his adventures, leaving only his investments and his holding.
576 CY
Taran was bored with his life as a feudal overlord and sought a new challenge. Moreover, his aborted war with Kamaras had drained his coffers considerably. As his father was originally from Perrenland (in his fake Greyhawk history), Taran decided to strike out north and found a new domain near Perrenland. He sold his investments, turned over his domains to an honorable neighbor lord, and marched his most loyal followers north to the City of Greyhawk.
In Greyhawk, he hired a chief of scouts and arranged for his small army to be barged across the Nyr Dyv and up the Velverdyva River to the city of Highfolk. From there, they marched across the Clatspurs and into Perrenland, where Taran negotiated with the nation‘s leaders to establish a new domain on their frontiers, between Yatil Mountains and Lake Quag just north of the Mounds of Dawn.
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| Perrenland, Ket, and the Yatil Mountains |
All had gone well to this point, but as he and his men moved north along the shore of Lake Quag Taran‘s scout reported a large dragon ahead. Taran went forward with the scout to investigate but the treacherous scout‘s true employer, the half-ogre Abdul the Butcher, ambushed him. Abdul captured Taran with a magical Net of Ensnarement and sold the warrior lord to the evil demigod Iuz. Sensing Taran was a champion of good who had intended to harm him from his new northern domain, Iuz had Taran drawn and quartered by catapults, and then Iuz‘s diabolic court roasted and ate his remains.
As their leader was missing and presumed dead, Taran‘s followers returned dejectedly to Perrenland then scattered and went their own ways.
Thus died my first player character, slain by another player character. In high school our games involved a great dea of player versus player grandstanding. I usually came out on the bottom of these contests, but that never dimmed my enthusiasm for the game. But it is probably why I have almost always been a dungeon master rather then a player.
A few years back I came across Justin Pfeil's webcomic, The Keep on the Borderlands. It really reminds me of playing through these old modlues in the early 1980s. I enjoyed his work so much I signed up for his patreon and got Taran draw by him. In fact, at some future date Taran himself will appear in one of his Patreon only comics, a prequel story called The Halls of Moonflower. I'm looking forward to that and will edit his history above when it happens!
It's fascinating how these old characters and stories have stayed with me through the years, like old friends. I hope I haven't bored too many with this post! 😀
Adventure Bibliography: 'Haunted Keep', Dungeons and Dragons: Basic Set; B2 Keep on the Borderlands; B1 In Search of the Unknown; X1 The Isle of Dread
Disclaimer: This blog recounts the fictional events of a game of Dungeons & Dragons. Views expressed by characters within the blog are those of the characters, not the players, dungeon master, nor the blog's author. All other views in this blog are my own and represent the views of no other person, organization, or institution.
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