FROBOZZ

Frobozz, an ancient province in the northern part of the Westlands, is the site of many historic settlements such as Galepath, Mareilon, and the Castle Largoneth. This province of Frobozz corresponds roughly to the Kingdom of Quendor during the reign of Entharion. After the downfall of the kingdom in 883, the entirity of the Eastlands and Westlands came to be referred to as the Land of Frobozz, after its largest province.


HISTORY OF FROBOZZ
Although the history of the northern regions before the formation of Quendor is dominated by the rise and fall of competing city-states, these small powers were by no means the only participants in pre-Quendoran political life in the Westlands. In fact, several historical sources that detail the formation of the Kingdom of Quendor make no mention of the city-states whatsoever, describing the lands that now make up ancient Frobozz as wild and untamed wasteland, populated by all sorts of warring tribes and uncivilized nomads. Undoubtedly, the area stretching from the northern strip of the Mithican Mountains in the west to the Lonely Mountain and the coast in the east was still on the whole largely barbarized and highly dangerous. In fact, it is likely that the various warring tribes that inhabited the forests near Galepath and the hillsides near Mareilon account in a large part for those two cities’ respective inabilities to form a larger and more stable union or nation of some kind before the coming of Entharion.

In any case, it is nearly certain that in his history-making campaign against Galepath and Mareilon, Entharion himself encountered incessant delays along the way. Forced to fight his way through foreign and largely unexplored territory in his attempt to reach the coast, by the time he had reached his goal, the would-be monarch had defeated and pacified the various nomadic and tribal groups that had attempted to stand in his way. Although the twin pillars of his new kingdom would be the conquered coastal cities, it was these barbaric tribes that would form the bulk of the countryside population of Quendor at its birth.

Although the names of the original provinces are long since lost to us, several pre-Flathead maps have survived that show the original provincial boundaries. For the sake of convenience, each of those provinces are referred to by the names of their chief cities, with one exception: Galepath, Mareilon, Quendor, Znurg, Vriminax, Bozbar and Borphee. The province surrounding the capital at Largoneth was referred to as Frobozz, although no record of a city by the same name has survived to the present day. The rule of Entharion the Wise brought a semblance of peace to a war-torn land and began a dynasty that reigned over the Kingdom of Quendor and its seven and a half provinces for almost seven hundred years, spanning the majestic reigns of fourteen benevolent monarchs.

In the year 660 GUE, Pseudo-Duncanthrax raised a tremendous army to wage a systematic conquest of the neighboring kingdoms, quickly reaping a reputation for cruelty, bloodthirstiness and aggressiveness, thus forever earning the nickname “The Bellicose King.” This vile ruler moved swiftly and brutally against the southern half of Borphee and put an end to the tottering and defenseless dynasty of Mauldwood. Finally accomplishing the merger of the two halves, Pseudo-Duncanthrax called the resulting territory Greater Borphee Province. This move began a trend; one by one, the neighboring principalities of Miznia, Gurth, and Mithicus were brought under Quendoran sway and given new provincial administrations.

With the completion of the conquest of the Westlands, Duncanthrax was faced with the peculiar problem of absorbing lands several times the size of his original kingdom. Clearly it made little sense to turn each conquered land into an individual province, since any one of the new territories would be much larger than most of the original provinces combined. At this point, realizing that the original seven provinces were now too small to be effective in the new system, one of his many administrative reforms was merging Galepath, Mareilon, Quendor, Znurg, Vriminax, Bozbar, and Frobozz, into the Province of Frobozz, thus bringing to completion the creation of the provincial system as we know it: Frobozz, Greater Borphee, Miznia, Gurth, and Mithicus.


After the Collapse of the Empire
Following the disaster of Curse Day and the downfall of the kingdom in 883, entropy quickly took hold of the surface world. Lands were torn by violence and discord. Faced with the fact that Quendor was well past its prime, the once-great cities on both continents became dens of misery and confusion; lands were torn by violence and discord.

With the final collapse of the Quendoran state in the older provinces of the Westlands, the initial political evolution of the area was characterized by a surprising rebirth of the ancient city-states. Dating back over nine centuries from the ancient era before Entharion, the cities of Quendor, Galepath, Mareilon and Borphee all re-emerged as independent powers. Although Quendor would long remain a neutral power, and Borphee itself would soon be reabsorbed by the Quendoran Empire's successor state, Syovar’s Kingdom of Zork, Mareilon and Galepath were to enjoy several generations of independent power.

The old families of nobility that had long controlled Vriminax wasted no time in solidifying an alliance with Quendor, its nearest neighbor and the most ancient of the northern cities. By 884, the combined militias of the two cities had occupied the western half of the former Frobozz Province, under the notion that taking the territory would provide a solid defensive zone between themselves and the already growing tensions of Galepath and Mareilon. Borphee, in close communication with Accardi, and more concerned with its mercantile interests in Miznia and Gurth to the south, discarded the bulk of the ruined empire to the north, creating an immense territorial vacuum between Borphee and Mareilon.

For some ten years following Syovar's capture of the Land of Frobozz, both Galepath and Mareilon concentrated their military efforts against this new incarnation of the Great Underground Empire. It would not be until the Conference of Quendor led to a marked strengthening in Syovar's control over the world political situation would the aggression of the city-states begin to abate somewhat, at least until the Enchanters Guild strongly opposed about one-fourth of the way through the tenth century. But henceforth, the entirity of the Eastlands and Westlands came to be referred to as the Land of Frobozz, or alternatively the Kingdom of Zork, and just the Land of Frobozz after the end of the First Age of Magic in 966 GUE.


FROBOZZ NATIONAL ANTHEM:
Frobozz, Frobozz,
Your beauty fills our hearts.
Your quite hills and somber vales—
We love your private parts.