Guk and the Frogloks

A troll city first

Guk did not begin as froglok land. It was the trolls’ citadel beneath the Innothule swamp. When froglok nomads first reached the shores of Innothule they met the trolls, saw a cannibal race, and were horrified. They attacked at once, hoping to rid the world of what they saw as evil abominations.

The trolls fought viciously but could not withstand the froglok armies, who drove them out and took the city. The trolls settled in their village of Grobb on the swamp above, and the struggle between the two peoples never ended.

The curse

The trolls struck back with magic. A powerful troll shaman, fuelled by hatred, walked into his former city and began killing froglok citizens with his bare hands. As soldiers arrived he conjured the power of Innoruuk, and the blast killed him along with many hundreds of froglok witnesses.

The curse it left condemned the victims’ souls to Innoruuk’s Cauldron and their bodies to walk forever as undead. The survivors kept building the stronghold of Upper Guk above them.

EverQuest II’s Legacy of Guk tells the same history and lays the blame on Innoruuk and Ykesha, the troll god of strife. Either way, the dead frogloks of Lower Guk are what a god’s favour bought the trolls.

Life in the upper city

The living frogloks kept the upper city, still fairly intact, heavily defended by froglok warriors, shamans and wizards, and threaded with shallow waterways patrolled by crocodiles and guards. Below, the frogloks even grew fungusmen as guardians from the rich swamp earth.

They also kept a hierarchy. Monsters of Norrath lists noble titles earned by ability, climbing from Tuk through Gaz, Ton, Vis, Shin and many more to Guk at the top, for nobles who take orders directly from the king.

They also kept faith with Mithaniel Marr, who they believed had lent them his strength against an assault from the followers of Rallos Zek.

The depths

Below the living lies the Ghoul Lord’s domain. In classic EverQuest Lower Guk was one of the most famous hunting grounds in the game, flooded and green-lit, packed with undead frogloks and named camps, and notorious for corpse runs.

Not every froglok shares this history. The other great froglok kingdom lies under Sebilis on Kunark, where the frogloks serve Trakanon, carry extra titles up to Reet for those who hold audience with the dragon, and raid as far as the walls of Cabilis.

Gukta and the retaking of Grobb

The frogloks eventually came up out of the swamp. With Mithaniel Marr behind them they rose against the trolls, drove them from Grobb and renamed it Gukta, the outpost of Marr. It did not last: in the story Hope Fails the armies of fear overwhelm Gukta’s defenders in a battle of more than a day, the swamp runs red, and Grobb belongs to the trolls again.

The war with the trolls also produced a troll myth of its own: the vision of Zraxth and the Rise of Ykesha, in which the trolls answered the froglok advance.

Legacy

Guk is the clearest case in Norrath of a dungeon that is also a people’s history. The frogloks you killed in Upper Guk were defending their city, and the undead below were their ancestors.

Read it with the fall of Grobb and Ykesha, and with Mithaniel Marr, the god the frogloks claim as their own.