Lore · Ages & Empires
Toskirakk & the Rallosian Empire
Oggok’s ogres were once the masters of a continent. Seeds of Destruction sent you back to see their capital at its height.
The ogre capital
Toskirakk was the original capital of the ogres and the strongest fortress of the ancient Rallosian Empire. Inside it was a platinum slave-mine, where the lore says much of Norrath’s future currency came from. The empire was so dominant that few outsiders were still free, and its slave warrens were overcrowded.
Sources: EverQuest.com: Seeds of Destruction, Unfolding the Lore Part 5 (2008)
Ogres made to rule
An in-game book on the Nokk ogres says Rallos Zek made the ogres near the end of the Elder Age, long after his giants, out of sturdy bone and olive-green flesh, and set them in the Serpent Spine Mountains of Tunaria. Another ogre book boasts that the Warlord made them the best of all his races, giants, goblins and orcs together.
Sources: Library of Erudin: Rallos Zek (Lineage of the Nokk Ogres; The Ogres Come of Age)
The march on Earth
From this empire came both invasions of the Plane of Earth. The first, under Murdunk, failed. The second, under Tallon and Vallon, captured the Rathe Council. The Korascian Warrens were the army’s route to the council chamber. They are named for Korascian Prime, a great frog who has guarded that approach for centuries and turns the Rallosians’ slave fodder into his thralls by mesmerising them.
Sources: EverQuest.com: Seeds of Destruction, Unfolding the Lore Part 5 (2008)
Discord’s chance
Seeds of Destruction frames this as the moment Discord chose to strike. If the Rallosians destroyed all thirteen councilors and seized the source of the Rathe’s magic, war would rule Norrath for good, and the lore asks whether war is not just another kind of discord. Discordians had already blasted Korascian Prime’s old lair open, exposing the Plane of Earth’s crystal core and letting out crystal monsters that hate all life.
Sources: EverQuest.com: Seeds of Destruction, Unfolding the Lore Part 5 (2008) · EverQuest.com: Seeds of Destruction, Unfolding the Lore Part 1 (2008)
Murdunk’s first failure
Seeds of Destruction: Unfolding the Lore, Part 5, fills in the two invasions. In the Elder Age, the ogre Murdunk led the first Rallosian army into the Plane of Earth, egged on by Rallos Zek’s son Eriak, because he wanted to prove he was worthy to lead the forces of Zek. Many earth guardians died, but the Rathe could not be beaten. When a councilor fell, another took its place. The surviving Rallosians were thrown out by the council’s wards. Furious, Rallos Zek put the master tacticians Tallon and Vallon in charge of the second assault, and brought the scarred Murdunk along for what he knew of the plane.
Sources: Library of Erudin: The Rallosian Wars (Seeds of Destruction: Unfolding the Lore — Part 5)
The price of victory
The same article says the second invasion was only partly successful. The Rathe’s power source stayed out of reach, but the councilors were captured and brought to Norrath, where one was executed. The Rathe Mountains rose where that councilor fell, and Lake Rathetear formed. Dying on Norrath was permanent, so the council never got its thirteenth member back. Rallos Zek was scarred by the same wards that had banished Eriak and lay regenerating in the Plane of War. Meanwhile the reborn Rathe took revenge on the army’s leaders, and Murdunk, leader of the ogre nation, was slain.
Sources: Library of Erudin: The Rallosian Wars (Seeds of Destruction: Unfolding the Lore — Part 5)
The empire returns
In EverQuest II, the ogres’ curse is lifted and a Second Rallosian Empire marches again. Its lieutenants’ journals are collection rewards. “We no longer suffer the curse of the Rathe,” writes Dergud in 289 AS, “Now we will have our vengeance upon Norrath.” Gerrog’s logbook has the army marching through the Feerrott toward the Rathetear Mountains, to “stomp on the bones of the gods we once defeated.” The RPG’s Heroes of Norrath has the shaman Woomp dream of that army conquering the Temple of Cazic-Thule, only for a green mist to kill every soldier.
Sources: Library of Erudin: The Rallosian Wars (Lieutenant journals (EQ2); Heroes of Norrath — Woomp)
Where the sources disagree
- The original manual describes the ogre empire’s fall as the gods’ curse on Rallos Zek’s children. Seeds of Destruction gives the Rathe Council the leading role in that curse, “aided by several other members of the pantheon.”
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.