Lore · Legendary Figures
Frostcrypt & the Shade King
The Serpent’s Spine (2006) hid one of EverQuest’s darkest stories in an ice tomb under a frozen lake. It starts with a father’s letter.
The giants of Valdeholm
When Solusek Ro raised the Serpent Spine Mountains, a clan of hill giants, the Krithgor, was trapped in the valleys between them. They revered their dead. Frostcrypt, carved into the ice and stone of Icefall Glacier beneath frozen Flateye Lake, held kings, priests, soldiers and common folk alike. Each body lay in state for three days before going into a slot in the wall under a metal nameplate.
Sources: EverQuest.com: Into the Depths of: Frostcrypt, Part 1 (2009) · EverQuest.com: Into the Depths of: Frostcrypt, Part 2 (2009)
A king’s letter
King Beltron Wulfnor wrote to his son Odeen as he was dying, to explain the choice everyone questioned. Before the war on the Plane of Earth, a loreseeker had brought him the Prophecy of the Tears: “And from great sorrow one tear from nine. A tear of ruin.” No one could agree what it meant. So, in case the Rathe won and came for revenge, Beltron kept most of House Wulfnor at home to protect the royal line, and watched the rest of his giants march off without him.
Sources: EverQuest.com: Into the Depths of: Frostcrypt, Part 2 (2009)
The funeral
Thousands marched from Krithgor to Valdeholm for his burial, chanting a war prayer said to have come from Rallos Zek himself. Only loreseekers and nobles went down into the crypt. As they wafted purity smoke over the body, his skin darkened and runes burned across it. The ice gave off a blue-green vapour, and the Warlord’s voice shook the mountain, calling them betrayers of their maker and promising them “a darkness eternal.”
Beltron rose, took up the axes he was to be buried with, and cut down everyone near him. Each victim rose as a Shade of Zek, aqua-skinned and runed. Only Loreseeker Yrgar lived to tell it, and Odeen escaped by praying silently.
Sources: EverQuest.com: Into the Depths of: Frostcrypt, Part 2 (2009) · EverQuest.com: Into the Depths of: Frostcrypt, Part 1 (2009)
The Wraithguard
The shades believe their curse will lift when every living Krithgor is dead, so every night they attack Valdeholm and every day they hide in the crypt. The living giants were torn, because killing the shades meant killing their own honoured dead. A lorekeeper named Malgar learned from a shade’s mind a pattern of runes that repelled them, and carved it into a wall and into weapons. The few who took up those weapons called themselves the Wraithguard.
King Odeen publicly cast them out as heretics and ordered them forgotten, but quietly kept them supplied, knowing they were all that stood between his people and extinction. Criminals sentenced to death may now choose to join them instead.
Sources: EverQuest.com: Into the Depths of: Frostcrypt, Part 2 (2009)
The old rites
The official Into the Depths of: Frostcrypt article explains why deaths were once rare: giants live long, and in the days of their dominance they seldom needed to fight. The dead were given rites, dressed for their rank and carried down on a litter. The procession stopped at the statue of Rallos before going on to the right wing of the crypt. The body was laid on a stone table with the tools it would need in the afterlife (weapons or trade tools), and each family member left something to travel with it.
Sources: Library of Erudin: Frostcrypt, Throne of the Shade King (Into the Depths of: Frostcrypt — Part 1)
A king’s last days
The in-game book The First Shades of Zek, Volume I says that as the war on the Plane of Earth ended, Beltron left his palace in Valdeholm to spend his last hours in Krithgor, among his giants and the Rallosians who had served. Volume II preserves the god’s full words in the crypt: “BETRAYERS OF YOUR MAKER! … You will know and love the endless struggle of war.” Loreseeker Yrgar’s account survived only because his quill was later found in the Serpent Spine Mountains.
Sources: Library of Erudin: Shades of Zek (The First Shades of Zek, Vols. I–II)
What the shades spare
Even after so many battles, the official article notes, the upper tomb is wrecked but the royal areas are untouched, because even the undead giants still honour their royalty.
Sources: Library of Erudin: Frostcrypt, Throne of the Shade King (Into the Depths of: Frostcrypt — Part 1)
Where the sources disagree
- The Frostcrypt overview says Rallos Zek cursed the giants for refusing the war. High Lorekeeper Baeldon’s diary says the Krithgor did answer the call, but their king ordered them north the night before the portal opened, and that the Warlord pronounced his doom ten years after the war, decades before it fell on Beltron’s funeral.
- A crown-gem reading says a giant named Huldan once accused Kresgord, of the royal house, of secretly worshipping Karana. Huldan was executed, but the rumour that Kresgord was guilty never died. The lore leaves it unresolved.
Keep reading
Retold in our own words from the sources linked under each chapter; short quotes are marked and sourced. The illustration is an original AI-generated painting made for this page alone, not from the game.