War Frogs
The Chronicles
Ancient lore of the Great Swamp
The Great Swamp
Before the wars, there was only the Swamp. A vast, fog-choked realm stretching beyond all horizons, its black waters teeming with life older than memory. The Great Swamp was not merely a place — it was a living thing, breathing slowly through its reeds, dreaming in the deep places where the mud never dries.
For ten thousand seasons the Frog clans lived in uneasy harmony, divided by water and custom but bound by the ancient Pond Pact — a covenant of peace sworn upon the bones of the First Tadpole, the progenitor of all froghunger.
"We croaked once, and the mountains heard us. We croaked twice, and the mountains feared us."
— Inscription on the Gates of PondheimThe Breaking of the Pact
The peace shattered in the Year of the Dry Season. When the waters receded and the lily pads wilted, the Toad Clans of the Eastern Marshes broke the Pond Pact, driven mad by thirst and the whispers of the Swamp Behemoth — a creature ancient beyond reckoning, sleeping in the deepest trench of the Great Swamp.
The Hoplite legions of Pondheim marched within a fortnight. The Spearbite irregulars followed. From the fog came the Ribbit Archers, their bowstrings humming with the song of war. What began as a territorial skirmish became the first true war the Swamp had ever known.