Who is Lord Hragg?

One of the oldest story arcs and set of quests in DDO is the Grey Moon Waning and Cult of the Six quests.  The basic premise behind these quests is that a clan of ogres has been betrayed by a small faction of their own tribe with the support of trolls and dark priests who worship the Dark Six.  The previous clan leader of the Grey Moon ogres, who reside on Sorrowdusk Isle, is usurped by an evil and brusk ogre named Grust who has given the trolls the ancestral caves of the Grey Moon ogres and has allowed the dark priest to revive the ancient Dark Six temple that resides on Sorrowdusk Isle.

Lord Hragg is the rightful clan leader of the Grey Moon ogre tribe.  As we make our through the set of quests for these two story arcs we learn that Lord Hragg is a powerful and intelligent being.  We also learn that traditional customs and rights are extremely important to him.  Although the conversations our characters have with him are brief, we notice how important it is to him for the trolls to be eliminated from the Grey Moon’s caves and how disturbing it is to see the halls in the Temple of Dark Six active once again.  His intelligence comes to the service when he demonstrates his ability to read and understand the Libram of the Six, where he learns the rites that the dark disciples in the temple plan to complete and guides you in your quest to stop them.

Erdrique meeting Lord Hragg of Grey Moon.

One has to wonder though, who is Lord Hragg?  How did he become the lord of the  Grey Moon clan?  How was he betrayed?  The only thing we can gleam from our brief conversations with him is that the internal struggle with Grust has left the Grey Moon tribe broken and too weak to deal with the trolls and priest of the Dark Six that are now trying to make Sorrowdusk Isle their home.  We don’t learn anything about his past or anything about him accept from our initial perceptions.  These holes in our knowledge allows someone like to me to come up with some possible thoughts on these topics.

The Eberron Wiki doesn’t give to much insight into the nature or societal structure of the traditional ogre community.  However, just knowing the strong tendency for ogres to attach first and ask questions second, I imagine that their society is largely based on a show of force and strength.  Based on this thought, I can think of two possible ways in which Lord Hragg became the clan leader of Grey Moon.  The first, is through a family history.  It is possible that Lord Hragg is an heir to the clan leadership where his family may have been the strongest of the clan.  I’m guessing that to maintain this leadership, challenges of combat and strength were issued and defended.  I’m guessing these challenges were few and far between.

A second possibility is that there is some type or ritualistic performance to determine a clan leader when the previous leader dies or can no longer maintain leadership.  I can see the most powerful members of the tribe competing against each other to determine the new clan leader.  I can see this as being a possibility, especially one which would have provided somebody like Grust the opportunity to claim leadership and failing therefore resulting in other means to usurp the current leader.

But how did Grust gather enough support to usurp Hragg?  This isn’t quite made clear.  Grust must have found some way to convince the most powerful of the Grey Moon tribe to turn their allegiance.  I’m guessing one way Grust could have done this was promising these warriors a path to greater glory in some aspect.  Perhaps he claimed he could expand their territory and conquer some other areas giving the traitors a new way to prove their strength and perhaps the leadership of smaller colonies.  Perhaps in stopping the Dark Six cultist we also stopped a possible attack on Stormreach from the “Black Sun Ogres.”

Maybe we’ll find out in some future quests in Sorrowdusk Isle or maybe it will always be a mystery.  In either case, it is always fun to speculate.  Thanks for reading everybody and happy hunting in Sorrowdusk Isle!!