Overview
Frogloks are squat, powerfully-built amphibians with wide mouths, protruding eyes, and skin that secretes a paralyzing slime. They hold the deep bogs and salt marshes, and they are the bog ambushers, the trap-setters, and the reason "just wade through the swamp" is never just wading.
Habitat
Frogloks keep their leaps in The Bog Hollows, a hollow of black bog and warm water where the leap is the only light and the oath the only law. They need three things: a water deep enough to hide the leap, a mud soft enough to hold the trap, and a dusk long enough for the choir to sing. They are settled around the bog-pits with hunting-lines across the marsh; a froglok who has not sung with the pit in a season is called "the one who forgot the leap."
Appearance
The froglok silhouette is the squat, wide, low shape — heavy through the hips and shoulder, with the head sitting a little too far forward on the body, like a word that is waiting to be swallowed. Males stand 1.52 m to 1.83 m, squat and wide, heavier through the jaw and hip with a low, barking croak; females stand 1.52 m, leaner and quicker, with a thinner coat and a longer memory. The base skin is a deep, wet, olive-green, the color of a leaf that has given up, darkening to a true, quiet black along the spine and the back of the legs; the belly is a paler, mottled yellow-green, and the skin carries a faint pattern of darker green warts along the shoulders and hips, and the slime is the froglok's most persistent claim — a thin, wet sheen that never dries, and the wetness is the point. The eyes are the mark: a pair of large, protruding eyes, set high on the skull, in a hard, flat amber with a slit pupil, built for seeing the trap from the mud, and the eyes are always wet, because the slime is the skin and the skin is the law. The head is the mark: a wide, flat skull with a mouth that is wider than the skull, and a pair of small, rounded ears set low on the head in the same wet olive-green as the skin. Males carry the line in the jaw and the hip; females in the neck and the tail. Elders are marked by a skin gone pale, dust-green at the muzzle and a back that has stopped trying to be straight — an old froglok leaps slower and holds the trap longer. Everyday wear: a loincloth of stitched bog-hide, a bone-totem worn at the neck on a leather cord, and bare feet, because the mud is the ground and the ground is the trap.
Behavior
Disposition: territorial, aggressive, clannish. In peace, frogloks are quiet, watchful, and absolutely certain of the bog — they have the water, and they let the land know it. In war they fight as the ambush: the slime first, the trap second, the leap third, and the wetness through all of it. Strangers on the marsh are either a meal or a mistake, and the mistake is the one the bog remembers. The social unit is the bog-pit, 15–40 strong, ruled by the Toadking — no pit follows a leap, it follows the king who survived every challenge in the bog for a full moon cycle. Two signature quirks: a froglok who is being lied to will not call it out — they will simply sit in the mud and wait, because the mud is the point, and the waiting is the point. And they keep the slime-fight for a lifetime: a slime-fight is a formal, non-lethal contest, and the winner is the one who can hold the other one's slime the longest, and the holding is the point.
Warfare & Markings
Tactics: the ambush — the froglok line does not fight as the warrior fights; it fights as the bog fights, with the slime, the trap, and the long, deliberate patience of the one who has already set the snare. Armor: none, by choice — the slime is the armor, and a slime that is weighed down with metal is a slime that does not hold. Weapons: the short club, the paralyzing slime that is not a weapon but is used like one, and the leap that is not a weapon but is used like one. War markings: the Slime-Notch, a single, deliberate mark in the left claw for every ambush survived, worn as a record of the long wait; the Oath-Knot, a single knot in the tail-braid for every pit oath kept, in wet olive-green; and the Leap-Brand, a small, deliberate mark on the inner wrist — the first word the wearer spoke in the bog tongue, worn as a mark of the beginning. Post-battle: the dead are carried to the bog-pit, their names sung over the water, and their clubs laid across the threshold — a froglok buried without their club is buried as a stranger.
Magic Alignment
Primary domain: death — froglok magic is the bog-burial, the slow, patient holding of the dead in the mud, the way the bog holds what it swallows. Secondaries: wild and chaos. Named inborns: Bog-Sense (a froglok can feel the trap set the way a herder feels the herd), Slime-Secret (a froglok's skin secretes a paralyzing slime, and the secretion is not a choice), Leap-Carry (a froglok's leap carries across the bog, and the carrying is not a choice). Signature power: the Toadking's Word — a Toadking can speak a word in the bog tongue and let it land on the water, and the water will keep the word until the trap is set. Limitation: froglok magic is spent on the bog; a froglok who has spent their toadking's word must sit silent in the mud for one day, and the day is the worst one of the hollow.
Religion
Frogloks keep Khorvane, the Endless Hunger as their primary god — the death, the bog-burial, the hunger that is the mud's own law. The bog is Khorvane's, and the froglok is the bog's singer. Priestly class: the Toadking, who keeps the bog-pit-temple and speaks the leap at every rite. Heresy is not blasphemy — it is a word broken in the pit, and there is no rite for that one; the pit simply stops singing with the breaker.
Society
Bog-pits of 15–40, ruled by the Toadking, a title earned by surviving every challenge in the bog for a full moon cycle. The pit is the whole of the law, because the leap is the only clock and the mud the only law, and a froglok who has not sung with the pit in a season is called "the one who forgot the leap," and the forgetting is the only kind the hollow remembers. No pit follows a leap, it follows the king who survived every challenge in the bog for a full moon cycle, and the following is the whole of the rank, because a froglok does not measure a froglok in the years, it measures it in the hold, and a froglok who has held the slime the pit forgot is the one the hollow calls the oldest. Outsiders on the marsh are either a meal or a mistake, and the mistake is the one the bog keeps; a mortal who wades the hunting-line is not a guest, it is a debt, and the debt is the whole of the warning — the bog owes a trap to the one who stands the mud, and the owing is the whole of the bond. Young are raised at the pit, where the first word is sung in the bog tongue, and a young froglok who has not sung a word of their own is not given a bone-totem of their own. The one fact the surface keeps wrong: the hollow does not hoard the slime — it keeps the trap, and the keeping is the whole of the pit, and a mortal who is counted is a mortal who is owed, and the owing is the only kind the bog keeps.
Home
They keep their leaps in The Bog Hollows, a hollow of black bog and warm water, where the leap is the only light and the oath the only law.
Relations
The "you are now inside" faction — bog ambushers whose slime is a price, and the ones whose trap is the deal. The froglok keeps the leap and it measures everything in the mud, and the measuring is the whole of the treaty. The Orcs of the marsh edge are the rivals the pit counts, and the counting is the whole of the law — the orc keeps the fang and the froglok keeps the slime, and the two have learned that a fang in the mud is not a word, it is a trap, and the trap is the whole of the distance. The Humans of the camp regard the hollow the way the ground regards the water: with distance, and with the understanding that the distance is the whole of the warning, because a froglok who has set a trap the race forgot is the one the hollow calls the kindred, and a mortal who has waded the line is the one the bog calls the meal. Below, the ground-folk of The Forgotten are the banished the pit takes in, and the taking in is the whole of the bond, because the forgotten are the ones the mud keeps holding, and the holding is the whole of the promise.
In the Story
In the current story, the frogloks are the mud below the camp — the hollow Uaellaen writes about when the trap is worth more than the leap. The Forgotten keep their distance at the hunting-line, and the distance has held for two seasons. This season a froglok came up the bog-channel with a trap that was not in the trap — a trap that is not in the mud, and the not-listing is the whole of the warning, because the hollow keeps its word, and the word has started to move. The Toadking is keeping the trap, and the keeping is the page the camp has not been shown.
We do not attack. We are simply here, and you are now inside. — Toadking