The Kingdom of Froggwich (setting)

[martinl]

The Kingdom of Froggwich
a setting element for any even vaguely silly fantasy campaign.

A regal young lass with a glint in her eye stands defiantly on the bridge in front of you. She wears a fine hauberk, has a sword at her side and a shield on her back, and a strange bandoleer of motley-colored balls, about the size of an orange, across the blank tabard on her chest. She hails you with a cocky grin - "Are any of you sorry lot able and willing to prove yourselves worthy to cross my bridge?" Then she blows you a kiss. You've never seen that as a threatening gesture before, but somehow this girl manages it.

A long time ago, in a land far away, the isolated mountain Kingdom now known as Froggwich had a problem. Not a little problem, like the mountain orcs who occasionally raided their lands, or even a serious problem, like a marauding dragon. A Big Problem. An evil wizard (no modern scholar is sure about the exact nature of this wizard -some argue that it was a normal wizard from a poorly understood magical school, others think a Sidhe is more likely, others say only a dimensional traveler or Elder Thing could have done … this) known as Maelvache had turned the heir Prince Anura into a frog, and only a kiss from a true princess such as his fiancée Princess Procya would end the spell. Procya was only twelve at the time, and still living at home, as the marriage was not scheduled for another two years. Swift diplomacy and swifter horses brought her to the Kingdom now known as Froggwich quite expeditiously.

Happily, the royal wizard assured the king that he could easily examine the aura of any frog brought to him for magical influence, reducing the amount of frogs the Princess must kiss to one. Unhappily, Maelvache had anticipated this, and secretly strewn the kingdom with many fierce creatures that he had also transformed into frogs. The first frog kissed became a berserkly confused mountain bear that devastated the unprepared royal court before being brought down. The princess barely survived. The king and the royal wizard did not.

The princess called Maelvache to court to discuss terms, and he was confident he’d triumphed. The only royal left was a bear-mauled foreign twelve year old girl who had been in the kingdom only a few days and was not even married into the ruling dynasty. Most of the other authorities of Froggwich simply lacked the resources to withstand his magic; he had already suborned many of them. He fully expected to end up King of Froggwich within a year.

Still, Maelvache was no fool, and was prepared for treachery, diplomacy, and armed assault. He wasn’t prepared for the princess to pull out a frog, give it a quick peck, and stuff the rapidly transforming saltwater croc down his robes. They named the crocodile “Binky,” and kept him in the royal stables for many years. No one ever bothered to recover even the slightest a scrap of Maelvache’s remains for burial or analysis.

This however left the Princess in a political vacuum, surrounded by factions whose befuddled leadership had just snapped out of mental control, with no strong or legitimate authority in sight. For a while, she kissed frogs and threw them into a pit. The dragon that destroyed half the royal guard and three quarters of the royal castle put an end to that plan. The obvious backup plan of letting local factions determine the proper heir themselves had worse problems, as due to dynastic chicanery a few generations back a bloody multi-sided civil war would be inevitable.

The Princess cut this Gordian knot of local politics and magic when she convinced the kingdom Archdruid to symbolically wed her to every frog in the Kingdom in a surprise, but very public ceremony. The now legitimate Queen Procya (she was married to the legal heir, after all) was a local hero, politically savvy, and a succession option that didn’t involve mass death. It even turned out that she was a good ruler. That should have been the end of it. (*Technically* the Froggwichistanis spent her reign ruled by a frog. This still has some quaint after effects on local customs and language.)

There *were* three small problems.

The first was that she needed an heir of her own. This she dealt with by taking a commoner consort, having a passel of spirited daughters, and having them declared legitimate despite all evidence. The common people loved that her consort was one of them, the nobles wouldn’t back a bumpkin to be king and take authority, she was technically still married to a Frog King out there somewhere and anyway, everyone loved the new crop of princesses. It’s hard not to love princesses, especially when the other option is civil war.

The second was that the kingdom was full of enchanted frogs, and they were breeding. This still puzzles scholars to this day, as such transformed creatures should have eventually switched back, assimilated into the new species, or died of magical complications. Instead, they prospered, their enchanted offspring magically more robust than your average frog, interbreeding the magical resonances of Prince, frog, and a slew of dangerous animals and monsters.

The third problem was the wedding ceremony. No one knew it at the time, but the ritual the Archdruid performed forged a bond between the Queen’s line and the enchanted frogs, a very special bond.

One hundred and one years later, one of the Queen’s great great great granddaughters, no doubt emulating her ancestor, kissed a frog she had found in the palace garden. It was sadly unfortunate that she didn’t survive. It was more unfortunate that one of her ladies in waiting survived long enough to explain where the Hippomammothaspotaur came from. It was most unfortunate that there was a minor civil war going on at the time involving her noble house. A war her noble house nearly won as its enemies found little girls hurling seemingly unlimited quantities of horrible chimeric monsters over the battle lines into their rear ranks, then lost as every other noble house in Kingdom now known as Froggwich who had intermarried with the new royal line realized the raw WMD-like power of their own unmarried daughters. This was the official beginning of period now called “The Time of Frogballs” by historians.

The whole place was a warring, politically crazed, monster ridden chaos for quite some time. Outsiders learned to avoid it and the locals were way too busy to bother with records, so the The Time of Frogballs is not well documented. However, things eventually settled down into a highly decentralized kingdom, now called Froggwich, where every little castle and keep was effectively independent under the matriarchal dominance of a “Princess” carrying around a bandoleer of carefully trained frogs in fist sized round habitat balls.

Yes, “trained.” They had learned how to bond with the frogmonsters and make them vaguely controllable. Then they had reached a kind of WMD-Princess détente. Things were tense, but they could, and did, rebuild. It's not like the mountain orcs were a threat anymore.

These days, like all aristocratic warrior societies in peaceful times, they have started to export bored, glory-seeking warriors. In this case, the warriors in question were comparable to the mightiest summoners of the outside world.

So if you see a regal lass travelling the roads alone, with no guards and arms including a bandoleer of colored balls and a pouch of chap stick, take care, be polite, and by no means agree to a duel. It is not wise to battle a Frogwitch.

Rules elements to consider:
Fast-draw and kiss (frog)
Hurled weapon (frog)
Animal Training (frog)
The massive situational power Frog Empathy
Summonable Gadget Allies
Frogballs, a small portable frog habitat with a kissing portal

Gaming Ideas:
The Time of Frogballs is that post apocalyptic fantasy adventure setting you have always wanted, and it has the advantage that the WMDs include little girls with frogs in their pockets.
“None Shall Pass” - A Frogwitch stands in the PC’s way. They must best her in a duel or diplomatically convince her to let them pass (good luck).
“Far From Home” – The Kingdome of Froggwich is far away, and the PCs have never heard of their warriors. This will make the upcoming battle very interesting…
“Politics as Usual” – détente is failing. The mother of a Frogwitch the PCs are friends with (or who is a PC) has been assassinated and the whole kingdom is on the brink of a new Time of Frogballs. Can Our Heros stop Mutual Assured Frogstruction?
A Frogwitch is a possible character concept for a high powered fantasy game.

With apologies to Oglaf and Pokemon.

[johndallman]

Thanks, that's funny.

[Dammann]

Wonderful!

[combatmedic]

I fall down and worship it.


Heck, don't just use it as a game setting- write a story. this one is comic fantasy GOLD.

[MadWombat]

You have made an otherwise bad day into a great one, and made me remember why I bought a game store in the first place. Your setting is absolutely ribbeting.

[Apache]

*boggles*

*head explodes*

You know, this would make a decent card battle game.

You know. Like Pokem-

*is promptly gobbled up by Cthulhu*

[adm]

Wow...just Wow.

[martinl]

Thanks for the props guys.

Specific replies:
combatmedic - Thanks for the suggestion, but there's not really time or inclination for that right now.

MadWombat - ouch. Kermit me to congratulate you on your punning skizzles..

[Phantasm]

This. Rocks!

I love the frog-monster take on the summonable creature allies.

[somecallmetim]

I hope this doesn't get me in trouble for a "me too" post, but that was great. Funny and charming and just cool.