Lore · Ages & Empires
Ykesha & the Fall of Grobb
If you played a troll, you remember the day Grobb changed hands. This is the story Legacy of Ykesha told to explain it.
Zraxth’s prophecy
In the Elder Age the trolls followed only Cazic-Thule. Then Innoruuk touched a young troll mystic named Zraxth, who began holding secret rites to turn the trolls’ hatred into strength against the ogre empire. When that was not enough, he asked his new god for a vision. Innoruuk’s price was the blood of Cazic-Thule’s high priests, and Zraxth and his disciples murdered every one of them in the night.
Zraxth fasted in a trance for eight days. When he finally spoke, no ink would hold his words, so he carved them into a stone tablet with the elders’ blood and a chisel of their bones. Each symbol blazed with dark fire. The ritual killed him.
The Grozmok
The stone foretold the Grozmok, the greatest of all trolls, who would unite the clans through fear and hate and topple the empires of Tunaria. No true Grozmok would rise without the stone, it said, but many false ones would die because of it. The ogres feared what the stone might do, raided the tribe that held it, killed everyone and locked it in their vaults.
The warlord who claimed it
When the gods’ curse broke the ogre empire, Clan Ykesha and Clan Broken Skull fought for southern Tunaria. Ykesha’s raiders found the forgotten stone in a ruined ogre fortress, his elders translated it, and Warlord Ykesha decided he was the Grozmok. Clan after clan joined him. Then Innoruuk, seeing hate fade as his children united, planted doubt in Ykesha’s mind. The warlord hid deeper in his compound, slowly lost his mind, and Clan Broken Skull overthrew him and took the stone.
His survivors rallied under Warlord Jurgash and became Clan Grobb. Later a vision from Innoruuk showed them where the stone was, and they raided Broken Skull Rock and brought it home. A separate in-game book, “The First Vision,” says Grobb’s shadowknights began when Warlord Grimgash received a vision from Cazic-Thule in a cave beneath what became Night Keep.
Sources: EverQuest Lore Wiki (Fandom): The Legacy of Ykesha · Library of Erudin: The First Vision (in-game book)
The stone is stolen
Legacy of Ykesha opens with the stone being taken again. Broken Skull trolls came ashore in a magical fog with robed, finned luggald sorcerers, who opened a doorway of water from Grobb’s moat into Night Keep. The raiders seized the stone, set fire to the keep and escaped through a red portal. Grobb’s warriors went to sea after them.
Mithaniel’s frogloks
Beneath the swamp, the froglok elders of Guk had been waiting. Their scout reported that the crusaders had left and only a small force guarded Grobb. At a gathering of every caste, pale white and blue flames rose and a voice spoke to the chosen among them: they would be the lance of valor. They came out of the water transformed, Mithaniel Marr’s chosen, with a vision of conquest.
The battle lasted only hours. The trolls who saw the new frogloks believed their own god had turned on them. By noon Grobb had become Gukta, the outpost of Marr, and the trolls fled north to Neriak’s Foreign Quarter, where the dark elves tolerated them mainly so they could study what had happened.
Grobb today
An official 2008 Grobb town article is a short story of its own: trolls had “walked from the murky comfort of Innothule, bringing with them a message from their god,” while the elders waited “in the glow of Guk’s stony mouth.” Older troll lore goes back further. The in-game First Vision tells of Warlord Grimgash meditating three days in the Eyes of Cazic after the clans’ victory in Innothule Swamp.
Sources: Library of Erudin: Mithaniel Marr (On the Town of: Grobb) · Library of Erudin: Cazic-Thule (The First Vision)
Where the sources disagree
- EQOA’s troll history says Zraxth answered “the calling of Innothule,” and that the ogres hid the stone in Oggok; Legacy of Ykesha says Innoruuk, and an ogre fortress vault.
- A fan retelling on the Library of Erudin places Zraxth among the trolls of Guk; the Legacy of Ykesha text does not name his city.
- “The First Vision” names Grobb’s early warlords as Grimgash and Jurglash; Legacy of Ykesha names Jurgash. These may be different people or a spelling drift.
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.