Tramun Clogg

An enormously fat stoat with plaited fur and a pair of large wooden clogs, Cap'n Tramun Josiah Cuttlefish Clogg was the pirate captain of the Seascarab, and also a rival of Badrang the Tyrant in the northwestern sea. Despite his clumsy appearance, Clogg was clever and deceitful.

When Badrang went east to build an empire, Clogg was determined to find and kill him. He sailed the high seas with his crew, until one day he came upon Badrang's fortress, Fort Marshank. Clogg and his crew entered the fortress to meet Badrang, but when they tried to overthrow him they were swiftly trapped and were forced to leave. A few nights later, though, Clogg attacked Marshank. When it became clear that he could not breach the fort, neither with force and a battering ram, or with a spy (the fox Skalrag, who had previously burned down the Seascarab and been captured by the corsairs), he signed an uneasy alliance with Badrang.

Though the treaty stated that Clogg's crew was allowed to billet in Marshank, the pirates remained in a camp on the coast. One night they received a surprise visit from a strange creature calling himself "Tibbar, the magic rabbit". It was actually the hare Ballaw De Quincewold, however, trying to gain entrance into Marshank for himself and his friends so that they could help Marshank's slaves to escape. Clogg was enraptured by Ballaw's tricks and invited him for a magic show in Fort Marshank the next night.

After the magic show and the revelation that half the slaves had escaped, Clogg and his crew followed the escapers, claiming that the escaped slaves were no longer under Badrang's jurisdiction and the next beast to find them would be their owners. Though the corsairs lost the tracks of most of the slaves, they managed to hunt down Celandine, a lost squirrelmaid. While chasing her down, Ballaw and another squirrel, Felldoh, came to her aid, quickly killing three of Clogg's crewmembers and injuring a fourth.



Clogg's return to Marshank was met with a fresh argument with Badrang and hatred flared up anew. Clogg schemed to assasinate Badrang with a knife-throwing searat, Oilback, but this scheme failed when Oilback killed a rat Captain named Gurrad, who had been carrying a flask of poisoned grog intended for Clogg. While all this was happening, the remaining slaves of Marshank escaped with the help of Brome the mouse and Keyla the otter.

A furious Badrang immediately led the entire horde after the slaves. Clogg took advantage of Marshank's abandonment and quickly entered the fort with the crew, claiming it for himself. Unfortunately, there was a secret tunnel leading into the fort, made by the escaped slaves, and Badrang reentered through that. Clogg's treachery was clear, and Badrang enslaved him. At the turning point, Clogg's crew deserted him and surrendered to Badrang, agreeing to join his horde.

Clogg spent a short time as a slave, making up for his shame by insulting and jibing Badrang, always maintaining that one day he, Clogg, would be burying Badrang in a nice deep grave. During the Battle of Marshank and the smaller battles leading up to it, Clogg's primary task was to dig graves for slain hordesbeasts. At one point Badrang gave him a mighty whack over the head with a pike handle, stunning the corsair and most likely tipping him over the edge of insanity (although he had been showing signs of it before the injury).

When Marshank was captured, Clogg alone survived, with the exception of the searat Wulpp, though he was completely insane in the end. Ironically, he presumably buried his long-time rival Badrang along with others in the ruins of the fort; nothing is known of Clogg's final whereabouts.

Trivia

 * Tramun Clogg is known to be Brian Jacques' favourite villain.