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<title>The Gorog Chronicles Recent Updates</title>
<description>The last update of the comic.</description>
<link>http://www.drunkduck.com/The_Gorog_Chronicles/</link>
<language>en-us</language>


<item>
<title>Gorog, The Gambler</title>
<description><![CDATA[


Gorog happened upon a blacksmith in the town of Djul and he was interested in buying the smith’s newest creation, an axe forged from the femur of the world’s last known giant; he imagined this axe would go well with the blackwood dagger he had stolen from a decimated corpse some months earlier.  Only thirteen years old and unemployed, Gorog decided the only way to buy the axe was to collect winnings by gambling. He had witnessed his former foster-mother, the witch Ursull, obtain several bags of gold and jewels by winning card games against wandering bards, warriors, and other people of a generally leprous demeanor.  He thought the task simple, though he insisted on practice.

For weeks, Gorog spent every waking moment honing his gambling techniques.  The sun rose, he awoke, made his daily deposit near a bush beside the cave, ate a few chunks of meat, and then went to work developing his gambling abilities.  It was an art form, a precise science, a technique that no one else would be able to defeat.  The sun sank behind the horizon and Gorog continued into the night.  Three weeks after he began his studies, he emerged from the cave and headed towards the only inn available in the small town of Djul.

Inside, Gorog approached a table of the most despicable card players imaginable.  One was a cannibal named Thorm.  One was a rapist and murderer named Verjn.  And one was a mime known only as Tory.  Gorog pulled a seat to the table and told them he wanted to play the ancient card game called Dragon Tooth.  Seasoned professionals, the three card players agreed and a pot was arranged.  It contained eighty pieces of gold.

Dragon Tooth is a fast game.  This game was the fastest.  The cards were dealt and before any of the three card players could even begin to organize their hands, Gorog used his weeks of practice to swiftly flick his entire hand of cards at his opponents.  He lodged a card in the skull of each gambler; the mime’s head was nearly shorn topless.  Gorog stood, collected the gold, and walked to the blacksmith’s shop.  He bought the axe and named it Ticklefist.

But that is another story.
]]></description>
<pubDate>Wed, 14 Nov 2007 00:00:00 -0600</pubDate>
<link>http://www.drunkduck.com/The_Gorog_Chronicles/?p=310106</link>
</item>

<item>
<title>Gorog, The Restless</title>
<description><![CDATA[The baby who would be Gorog was found atop Black Tooth Mountain by a wandering witch named Ursull.  Having never given birth to a child of her own, she found this discovery quite exciting.  Ursull named the child Gorog, an ancient word from a forgotten language.  Only Ursull knew the meaning of the word, but she never told anyone else.  To this day, no one knows what Gorog means.  Some say it translates as “destroyer”, some say it is “drinker of lukewarm blood”; but, there are some circles who suggest that the name simply is a mispronunciation of the other ancient word Carthok, which means “creamy skin”.  Intellectuals have never been able to agree on a standard definition.

Ursull raised the boy for ten and a half years.  She fed him witch’s brew, which consists mainly of decapitated rodents, filleted lizards, and raw innards from various small mammals.  Though lacking the mainstream flavor that cooked meat would provide, these raw entrails worked to strengthen Gorog’s immune system.  The raw protein enabled his muscles to develop at a higher speed.  And his steady diet of home-made mead paved the way for body hair at an early age.  

By the time Gorog was nearly eleven, he had decided he would leave home.  The world was large and he intended to see every part of it with his own eyes.  There was nothing left at the witch’s cottage besides dead animals and rotting meat.  He thanked Ursull for the love and food and the occasional grooming of his enormous blond mane.  When he left the cottage, the witch became enraged, for secretly, she had hoped the boy would stay until she died of old age.  She needed a companion because witches, for the most part, were widely misunderstood and ignored by the general populace.  Many more witches suffered from loneliness than one might expect.

As a witch, Ursull lacked the kind of communication skills necessary for a decent conversation between a child and his anxious foster-mother.  Instead of making tea and discussing her anxieties, she summoned a horde of venomous demon toads to attack her once-beloved and adopted son.  Gorog destroyed each of the seven hundred and forty-two toads before turning on Ursull.  She told him he would live a cursed life of violence and woe.  He broke her neck as she summoned a skeleton from a nearby graveyard.  Having no direction from Ursull, the skeleton turned out to be quite agreeable and Gorog invited the undead creature to travel with him.  Conversation was lighthearted.

But that is another story.
]]></description>
<pubDate>Wed, 07 Nov 2007 00:00:00 -0600</pubDate>
<link>http://www.drunkduck.com/The_Gorog_Chronicles/?p=306223</link>
</item>

<item>
<title>Gorog, The Born</title>
<description><![CDATA[Long ago, at the peak of the highest mountain in the lands of Ilsiria, a child was born.  The child’s birthday was racked with thunder, lightning, and an unusually high number of decapitations.  This was, by no means, the child’s fault.  He was born to a slave girl named Zira, mistress to the overlord Roanork.  The great overlord had impregnated Zira, but was unable to father the child because his own wife, much more sinister than her husband, would never allow such intimate betrayal.  Roanork, having little room in his heart for compassion, was nonetheless unable to kill Zira.  He ordered seven of his most vile minions to take the slave girl to the top of Black Tooth Mountain, where she was to give birth to the child and live out the rest of her days in exile.  

But Roanork couldn’t bear to live his life without seeing his own child.  He lightly poisoned his wife’s wine with a concoction of chili powder and bile of newt; the apothecary had assured Roanork that this poison would keep his wife in slumber for several days.  Roanork followed the minions and Zira to the top of Black Tooth Mountain and, after she gave birth, he entered the clearing and swiftly killed each of the seven oafish fiends he had charged with protecting Zira.  The overlord held his child, sang it a sweet song from his own childhood.  The song spoke of demon bats and child-eating witches and legions of undead; as far as Roanork was concerned, it was the most beautiful song this side of the Dark Seas.

Roanork and Zira embraced while the child lay quietly on a bed made of blood soaked robes and leather armor.  The child watched the starry heavens disappear behind a blanket of despicable thunder heads.  Rain poured as the overlord kissed his aching mistress.  Lightning struck a nearby tree and at the same time, an incredibly long spear was driven through both Roanork and Zira.  At the opposite end of the spear stood the overlord’s wife, Zee, driven mad by a swirling mixture of rage, insanity, and considerable indigestion.  

Cursing her husband’s blood, Zee told the child that it would stay in the mountains, promising that if the boy ever stepped foot into her kingdom, she would have him drawn, quartered, pissed upon, burnt, pissed upon again, and dipped into a latrine, wherein he would be pissed upon several more times.  Seeing as how the boy was only a few minutes old, he didn’t understand any of these things.  He only giggled, drew up a knife from the belt of the still-writhing Roanork, sneezed, and then threw the blade directly at Zee’s head.  She fell in a heap and died before her husband.  The child cuddled with his father and held his mother’s thumb until a pack of bickering man-spiders happened upon the grizzly scene.

But that is another story.
]]></description>
<pubDate>Wed, 31 Oct 2007 00:00:00 -0500</pubDate>
<link>http://www.drunkduck.com/The_Gorog_Chronicles/?p=301978</link>
</item>

<item>
<title>Coming Soon...</title>
<description><![CDATA[Gorog will most likely go live on Halloween.  This is a little teaser (as well as an experiment for myself)... 

]]></description>
<pubDate>Tue, 30 Oct 2007 00:00:00 -0500</pubDate>
<link>http://www.drunkduck.com/The_Gorog_Chronicles/?p=301516</link>
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