This content was originally included in an issue of Duelist magazine. The original articles can be accessed via Internet Archive here.

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Main Magazine Page: The Duelist #8

With contributions from Shawn Carnes, Scott Hungerford, Kyle Namvar, Christopher Rush, John Tynes, Pete Venters, and Jon Wilkie

In the first installment of a new Duelist feature, we’ve researched one of Homelands’ most colorful characters

The Man Who Would Be King

A thief and a rogue, Eron the Relentless is the ruler of all the land from Koskun Falls to the edge of the Great Wood. Originally a street urchin and petty thief in Aysen, Eron followed a strange path that led him to immortality and eventually to the rough-hewn throne of the Goblin King.

Craving something more exciting than second-story work, Eron visited the Floating Isle, home of the Wizards’ School and the Wizard Savant Bernatheen. The Savant promised to cast any spell in his possession on Eron if the thief would venture into Castle Sengir and retrieve a tome of dark spells from Grandmother Sengir’s library. Eron agreed.

The raid went well. After hours of searching, he discovered the main library and found Grandmother Sengir fast asleep under one of the ink-stained tables. Beside her was a book covered with strange runes and symbols. Not knowing a spell book from a recipe book, Eron took a chance and escaped with the journal.

When Eron presented the spell book to Bernatheen, he took another gamble and demanded that the last spell in the tome be used as his reward. After Bernatheen cast the spell, Eron found he was immortal and immune to aging. He also found, however, that although he would regenerate whatever damage was done to him, scars and minor aches would never entirely heal.

Eron’s subsequent reign of terror in Aysen is legendary. Armed only with a small knife, he would face whole packs of angry guards. On one occasion, he even cut himself into sections to fit through jail house bars. After a few months of fame and fortune, though, Eron grew bored with crime. He traveled the Homelands for a year, looking for adventure, and eventually wandered into Koskun Keep. He forced his way into the palace hall and declared himself King of the Goblins

Of course, the Goblins killed him and threw him in the corner for the wolves to eat. When Eron got up a few minutes later, the Goblins killed him again, thinking him to be some terrible undead sent by Baron Sengir. When he got up again, Eron proclaimed that it was his destiny to rule over the Goblin families. The Goblins decided to accept him and took the opportunity to rid themselves of the current ruling family. Although Eron was eventually praised as a hero and worshiped as a demigod by the Goblins, he has been assassinated some twenty-seven times by his loyal subjects. Each time he is murdered, though, he seems to just become more determined and his ideas about justice seem to degenerate even further.

Eron recently formed a treaty with Aysen in which he agreed to keep his subjects from invading in exchange for continued trade in food and goods. Eron knows that if he does not keep firm control, his subjects may just throw him down a mine shaft and declare war against everybody they can get their knives into. While Eron can be a completely maniacal ruler, his primary concern is with the future of all the peoples of the Homelands and his own place of power among them as the Goblin King.

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Future issues will explore the official history of other cards—if you’ve always wanted to know more about a particular card, send your request to the Leng Reference Desk, c/o The Duelist, PO. Box 707, Renton,.WA 98057 (or via e-mail to duelist@wizards.com)

Playing With Eron

True to his legend, Eron the Relentless is very powerful, very aggressive, and very hard to send to the graveyard. The key to using Eron is to always attack as soon as he comes into play and never back down. Be relentless!

Here are a few cards that help you take advantage of Eron’s abilities:
Aggression—Eron the Relentless + First Strike + Trample = Pain.
Bloodlust—A highly available card, Bloodlust makes Eron 9/1 until the end of the turn. And with regeneration, who cares if he takes lethal damage?
Stone Giant—Watch the Stone Giant toss Eron the Relentless at your opponent. Watch Eron the Relentless do lots of damage. Watch Eron the Relentless regenerate from destruction and do it all over again.

Eron: An Artist’s View

“After reading the history and description of Eron the elentless, I was captivated by his story,” says artist Christopher Rush. “Portraying a character’s personality in a painting is one of my favorite challenges, and this self-appointed king offered a lot to work with. The description I was given was very simple: ‘Eron is regal, crazy-eyed, and damn good-looking. It would be good to show a few of his scars.’ For Eron’s dress, I mixed Oriental and Mediterranean styles to show the influence of the many cultures he encountered; on his scarf is embroidered his regal symbol.

“When doing a portrait, I usually begin with a good idea of what I want and then find a person who fits that description to use as a reference. In the case of Eron, I already had such a strong image that I didn’t need a specific reference. Eron definitely came to life as I was painting.”