The Frogdog was first unleashed upon the world for general purchase during July of 2024. It was the first quarry monster and second overall expansion of what will eventually be the Inverted Mountain campaign.
Furthermore, this malodorous monster had the honors of being the first “modern” Node 1 Quarry to be made available outside of the GCE.

The Frogdog Expansion was also the very first thing I chose to post about after I had first started this site way-back-when. Since then I have fought no less than 15 Frogdogs (and 2 Bullfrogdogs) for the site alone, as well as a whole lot more on my own time, both with and without the Feline Entity by my side.
So, with Black Friday 2026 slowly creeping up on us, I though it would be high time I put an overview together like I did for all newer expansions released post-Gambler’s Chest. Especially as I do keep recommending this box as one of my “Big 4” alongside Black Knight, Dragon King and Sunstalker.

Obvious Spoiler Warning!

Any survivor daring enough to travel to the Cess Pond at the base of the Inverted Mountain, or any who are unfortunate enough to wake up from their dreamless slumber close to it, will sooner or later be set upon by a Frogdog.
Within the murky waters of these swamps ripe with flesh devouring bacteria the Frogdogs lurk, poised and ready to strike down survivors and White Lions alike!
Typically though, luckily one might even call it, long before any survivor could ever lay eyes on these monsters, they would surely have smelled them first, for the Frogdog has a uniquely putrid way of fighting: farts.

With a stink potent enough to project immediate death and the lingering promises of a strange metamorphosis, the Frogdog will lunge at your survivors, trying to lick them, flop on them and toot them in the face, all whilst a whining swarm of dogpoles follows them around wherever they go.

Should your survivors, however, feel confident in imitating this rotten beast by jumping off of the gigantic bouncy mammoth leaves littering their common habitats, even the toughest Frogdog hide will eventually give and they will be able to fell even this truly robust monster!
Just take care that they don’t start enjoying hunting Frogdogs too much – the stink might affect them in ways untold.
..
Aaand, its already too late. That guy’s nose fell off!

If you can manage to stomach the more noticeable of the underlying themes of the Frogdog – its overwhelming stink and its often fart-powered attacks – this monster will offer a meaty Node 1 Quarry that not only brings along a whole bunch of interesting new gear and mechanics to your campaign, but also a Lvl3 variant encounter that has its own slew of late-game gear!
And let’s be honest .. how much worse is the fart-themed dog-frog compared to the vomiting and pissing baby-elephant-anglerfish-baby really?

As hinted at above, the Frogdog also brings along its own little Prologue encounter – Devour the White Lion! Which, whilst it is currently a unique bonus to the Frogdog, to be fair, the Gorm will also eventually get the same treatment with its reprint.
But for the time being, however, the Frogdog does still have a slight leg up when it comes to node integration, so to speak (09/2026).

So, let’s talk about this stench fueled monstrosity that is a dog with a frog and delve into why I personally consider it one of the 4 best expansions to get right now (not counting the GCE)!
As usual I will be looking at the expansion from a non-Arc survivor perspective, both in regards to it’s fight as well as what it brings to the table for your settlement phase. I will also talk about the Bullfrogdog whilst we are at it and touch upon one of my favorite topics – copper – but briefly.
The Lure Lantern did nothing wrong! You hear me?!

Here is your second obvious Spoiler Warning!

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The Frogdog – Hunt & Showdown

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Picture this: you have just defeated your very first Prologuedog, collected its resources, founded a new settlement with a bunch of random people and are hyped to get started on crafting all the cool new gear this expansion has to offer. What do you do first?
..
Hunt another Frogdog, of course!

Much to the chagrin of a part of the player-base that came to expect the Crimson Crocodile’s way of doing things (giving out the monster-specific crafting location right after the prologue) would be the new standard, the Frogdog wants you to play with bone weapons from the Bone Smith first!
At least for a bit.
And I am here telling you that that is okay. Not every new monster needs to do everything in the same way as other new monsters do. Not that the Frogdog would be considered “standard” in a lot of ways .. more on that in a moment. But at least when compared specifically to the Derpodile, the Frogdog does not have a single super-dense hit location and whatever you build to bridge the gap to specialized weaponry will last you through those first few Lantern Years reliably.
Go ahead and swing that Bone Axe – it’ll be fine! There’s not a single hard bone in that old frog’s body!

Whether you think this is a good approach or not – concerning the crafting location – you will still head out to hunt another Frogdog sooner rather than later, and not only because you don’t have much of a choice in a new campaign’s first Lantern Year. You will very likely want another one after that as well. And another. And then maybe one more just to be safe.
A lot of the gear has frustratingly precise crafting costs and the resource deck of this monster is quite large and varied – there’s 5 different kinds of hide! And whilst it is not as bad as with Sunstalkers, it does invite the comparison.
Just speaking from personal experience, I have yet to finish a Frogdog Armor Set before Lantern Year 7.

But first things first – we can’t skin a Frogdog we have yet to find! Hunting these large monsters can be a tough proposition all on its own. As a general rule of thumb: the longer the tables are on the hunt event’s card the worse it probably is.
If you get lucky enough you might be able to quickly find your quarry after you only got lightly nibbled on by a dogpole and developed a mild migraine from the noxious fumes.

But whether or not you had a rough hunt with multiple survivors gaining Squeamish (D) and breaking their arms or an easy one where you picked a strange flower and afterwards innovated Drums, in either case you will soon find yourself face to face – sometimes face to butt – with a Frogdog.

The monster in stats:
P: 5B/3A 6MOV 7TGH – Farts: B
Lvl1: 8B/2A 7MOV 8TGH – Farts: B
Lvl2: 8B/6A 9MOV 11TGH +1SPD/DMG – Farts: B&A
Lvl3: 9B/8A/2L 10MOV 17TGH +2SPD/DMG +2 ACC-Tokens – Farts: A&L

These stats aren’t exactly standard for a Node 1 Quarry monster – it does feature not only elevated TGH for most of its levels, furthermore the basic action of the Frogdog starts out at 3SPD, 5+ to hit & 1DMG as well. On top of that, it “charges up” 1 fart for its next turn via Gaseous Bloat on that as well.

Especially for the Prologue 3SPD and 7TGH are kind-of a big deal.

But the math does indeed still math and at least when it comes to the 3SPD baseline, the 5+ to hit does statistically even it out to hitting twice per attack .. just like 2SPD with a 2+ to hit would as well. So unless you are cursed with bad dice rolling if you get even a little bit of EVA going on your survivors you will definitely be fine when hunting Frogdogs.
And the Frogdog Armor is flush with green affinities as well.

The higher-than-average TGH would also be a much bigger deal if it weren’t for the Mammoth Leaf terrain that get’s set up in threes for each and every Frogdog fight. Any survivor on them may spend both their act and move at once to place themselves up to 7 spaces away and attack with a weapon at +3STR.
The game quite simply wants you to utilize those.
Unfortunately, whilst it is a very powerful piece of terrain (that can be found in other fights as well), they do come at a cost: the Frogdog has no other random terrain.

To be frank, this does feel mostly like an design oversight whilst playing, and whilst I personally would wager that we might see some sort of support gear in the full Inverted Mountain campaign that spawns either certain or full-on random terrain, this is still just my own speculation and for most campaigns you will quickly notice the missing bits and bobs typically found on the showdown board, be it acanthus or a random pile of half-digested survivor.

But, with the fight finally set up you can have at it, punch the Frogdog in it’s huge uncannily humanoid-looking face or the Heinous Origin .. you know, the place where the farts come from.
And believe me, that dog-frog wants to let it rip.

Every time a card or reflex triggers Gaseous Bloat another randomly drawn fart is added to the monster’s Double Sphincter, which has these cards get played at the start of the next monster turn. Luckily if you stand in the middle spot of the 3 spaces in the blind spot .. you know, the Heinous Origin .. dealing a wound will discard the top card of these accumulated farts .. by .. erm .. having the gas dissipate harmlessly .. or so we are told.
Should you not manage to get rid of them however, prepare for the stink delivered in small attack-like increments. Typically the most basic of these farts (mostly the B variations) will hit the person closest to the Heinous Origin and deal some guaranteed DMG whilst also adding a stink token to them.
And whilst this might not sound too bad right off the bat, be careful though, as at higher levels the farts get a lot more creative and a lot more deadly.

Stink tokens in turn will typically affect mainly the monster’s targeting (for Lvl1). And should you bring stinky gear to the fight – like Monster Grease – you will also start the fight with one of these tokens per stinky gear in your gear grid.
Grease up your dedicated tank and the Frogdog will very likely go after them instead of your less well equipped party members.

As far as AI cards are concerned, the attacks feature fairly simple After Damage triggers and tend to stick to the already established 3/5+/1 attack profile.
Considering this is a Node 1 Quarry monster it being on the simpler side of things effect-wise should not come as much of a surprise. Especially for the Frogdog, as the traits and fart-deck do give it a lot of character already.

Of course, attacking is only half the battle – you also need to weather the monster’s reactions to your attempts at wounding.

In general, it is always a good idea to attack the Frogdog from its blind spot because otherwise it might Leap away after grabbing the attacking survivor.
But overall, there are just a bunch of reactions that send the monster jumping away to a different Mammoth Leaf, often times charging up a new fart with Gaseous Bloat afterwards as well.

If your survivors should find themselves insane and at least slightly stinky there is a jackpot to hit in this Hit Location deck as well, as one of the crits will give survivors +1LCK if the circumstances line up.
Which does mean that you can potentially farm LCK from this monster!

There are also a good few reflexes that will give Eproctophilia (D) to sane attackers.
You should not worry yourself too much about the details of what this new disorder entails – trust me, just don’t – all you need to know is that your survivor now loves the stink! Give them more! They need it to depart and revel in getting more of it! Each and every new tokens will give them +1 Insanity and +1 Survival! Classy!
And as far as we have talked about them, those tokens don’t do to much! Give them more! Let them have it all!

..

Lvl2+ would like a word.

Whilst for Lvl1 Frogdog fights the stink tokens do, in fact, not do a lot .. from Lvl2 onwards the swamp will eat people alive if they have any of these tokens .. at a rate of 1DMG per token per turn.
Yes. That does mean that all Frogdog fights from that point on are damage races to a degree.

And that is precisely what makes Lvl2 Frogdogs fairly difficult to hunt at first. Whilst most other quarries are mainly reliant on getting dash and/or surge but will let you play with positioning at your leisure, the Frogdog does not give you the time to be playing around and failing important wound attempts even in an otherwise safe-ish environment.
Considering the monster also has an extra point of TGH for Lvl2 as well, you will want as much STR on your survivors and/or chosen weapons as possible, or a lot of survival to at least be able to make ample use of the Mammoth Leaf terrain.
But let’s dial it back again for a moment.

Once you have managed to defeat your very first Frogdog you will return back to your settlement in triumph – your prize consisting of a boney paw, 2 different flavors of hide and a mangled frogboob.
Amongst all the “different-resources-mayhem” the Frogdog puts you through, it does feature quite a few bits that are of several types (think organ & hide) as well as a chance to actually even drop an Iron!

And should you managed to kill a higher level Frogdog, you will also find a couple of glowy bits that will enable you to go after the games newest metal resource: copper.

But first: we need to get back to the settlement.

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The Frogdog – Settlement & Gear

***

Whilst most of your community will be busy setting up the Froskrafter so you can make a stinky new club – one of your survivors will return from their first visit to the swamp afflicted with .. change.
..
Aaand their nose fell off.

Returning from that first hunt will have you innovate Mere Omens and nominate a survivor to turn part Frogdog .. as they take up the mantle of your Mere Navi.
If they do not explode from this quite drastic and sudden change, they will take on the role of being a spiritual leader or guide – like a shaman, druid or oracle – that can interpret the waters of the swamp.

Once you have this innovation – even without a Mere Navi – you will be able to gain omen tokens every time you witness an omen! Which quite simply means that any time you read the word omen on a card or in a piece of text you get one of these tokens.
And you will want to be on the look-out as they are fairly rare and NOT bolded anywhere. Also yes, they trigger on any mention of the word omen – so in other expansions as well! Black Knight, Red Witches and Flower Knight all feature omens, to just name a few.
Sadly, even if you are on high alert for any mention of the word “omen” it is not all that uncommon that you can go a whole campaign without seeing even a single one.

That little paragraph would have been 6 tokens!

But what do you even need these tokens for if they are so hard to come by?
Well, with the Frogdog expansion you can only spend them in 3s to trigger a Metamorphosis Festival event the following Lantern Year.

Affecting both your oldest and youngest survivors in the settlement, you have the potential to return retired fighters back to the fold or set up your next generation for success with extra stats or bonus armor for every age milestone they will eventually reach.

Whilst personally, I feel that this event is highly underrated in the community, especially the side for your young-bloods (probably because it interacts poorly with Saga), I will agree that the omen mechanic could use some more support all around.
Omens are quite rare and this event is the only thing you can use them on to date.
Once again though, and this is also again just my own speculation, this system will likely get more to play with in the full Inverted Mountain campaign.

And the Mere Navi isn’t just about watching your survivors bathe in biohazard-graded swamp water either, they can also give bone-chilling prophecies if you bring them a strangely misshapen fungus grown on the oldest of Frogdogs.
+1 departing insanity for the rest of the campaign is nice though.

Sadly that is the full extent of their uses right about now.

..

Hopefully at this point the others are done setting up your Froskrafter, as the Mere Navi is already looking at you funnily.
Are you growing gills?

There is a lot you can build here, especially when it comes to slightly quirky support gear!
How about a death whistle that empowers people by having them quite literally shit themselves?

Meanwhile the weapons are a little hit or miss, with the Grappleclaw (a whip-scythe hybrid!) and the Long Club being positive stand outs as they are both reliable and effective.
As far as the other weapons are concerned .. unfortunately they typically end up being only either or.

As a Node 1 Quarry Monster, the Frogdog also features an item that gives you some degree of Foresight – the Frogdoggles! Whilst insane the survivor wearing this piece of gear will get to reveal both the top AI and HL cards each at the start of their act.
Whilst this does limit their flexibility, I do appreciate that it is a passive effect that also applies to all decks.
That’s up to 6 revealed cards when you are fighting the Red Witches specifically!

Overall I would encourage you to play around with a lot of this gear – it’s okay if you shelf the Vertebrayonet after a fight or two, but try out the Vigor Capsules, Acid Bombs or Turbo Tonic!
There is a lot of fun to be had in Frogdog-land!

The armor is great as well.

There, I said it. And I meant it! The abilities are great – especially when fighting Frogdogs. A 50/50 chance to just ignore farts can be a life saver at higher levels and being able to stand up after knockback is great but not game-breaking as well!
And those are just the non-quirky abilities. You could also go blasting off with knockback 5 at the slightest sight of danger! Not unlike a leaping Frogdog would as well.
..
It’s just so hard to put together. At least it has been for me. And it’s not for a lack of trying either. Both Season 1 and Season 3 had me try and get this armor going quite desperately.
But in whatever campaign I am playing, it would seem that I always end up not getting 1 piece of special hide for at least 2 or 3 Lantern Years in a row.

But speaking of stuff that is hard to put together:

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Copper

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Once you have managed to defeat a Lvl2+ Frogdog you will be able to take its glowing tonsils and make your first Lure Lantern.

I am on record as being a copper-apologist and I am required to tell you that I like both Noodling of Death as well as spending a long time during my campaign preparing to build the Bullfrogdog gear. I’ve written about it before. At length even. Which is also why I am going to keep this as short as I can.
I just think the gear you can make from copper is worth all the effort.

Unga-bunga protects!

But I’ve also come around a little bit to understanding why people dislike this part of the expansion. You have a decent chance of losing your arm any time you go out noodling or when you spot a Copperfish Den – it’s a 30% chance that stuff just gets bitten off because survivors are just not smart enough to not use their own arms as bait.
(Use your reroll, dummy. It’s worth it!)

And you also need to get any copper you have collected in the early game through Principle: Conviction as well.
(Use your reroll, dummy. It’s worth it!)

Because you do have to kill a Lvl3 Frogdog variant to even be able to make use of it to begin with.

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The Bullfrogdog

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Killing a Lvl3 Frogdog after innovating Song of the Brave unlocks the Bullfrogdog for you to hunt during your campaign.

This tusked version of the Frogdog features both new AI and Hit Location cards unique to this encounter and is overall quite aggressive, even more durable than the regular Frogdog and likes to charge survivors down as it tries to gore them on its huge tusks for 5DMG and a bleeding token!

Should you be able to defeat this ferocious foe, the world of copper-based crafting awaits! And its not just one or 2 items either. There is a whole new crafting location to be gained – the Tuskworks!

Thanks to both the Onslaught keyword (doubling the STR of any wound attempt should all attack rolls of a single attack have hit) and the Maneuver on the Bullfrogdog Armor Set Focus Charge (move in a straight line and attack with +1ACC for each space travelled) any survivor wearing full copper gear will hit like a truck, truck, truck.

The set does also give Surpass 10 to heavy weapons whilst the wearer is insane, which you should be able to easily clear most of the time you charge at a monster.
And whilst you can argue that, yes, this is just Devastating 1 with extra steps it feels more well balanced for what it does this way. Besides.. if you manage to get your hands onto a weapon that already has Devastating X on it, you will be able to do that much more.
5 wounds per successful hit was the highest I could come up with in my personal collection. Although admittedly that is some White Box and full-on endgame level stuff.
..
But just imagine dealing so much damage in a single hit. Picture it for a moment. And let that feeling simmer for a bit.
Whilst unlikely .. just consider .. wounding the Parasite Queen with a well-timed Focus Charge for so much damage all at once. Or even just the Screaming God.
..
Doesn’t that feel .. sublime?

And the Bullfrogdog gear isn’t just solely about unga-bunga either – it can also provide defensive options as well – like the Bullcharge Shield that can give you Deflect 1 every time you spend move and act at the same time if it’s affinities are connected properly.

All in all, copper gear provides you with a set of armor and weapons that are almost in line with the new power level established for Node 4 Quarry monsters by the Screaming God (rather than the King) and should be well worth the effort of crafting post Lantern Year 20.

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Final Thoughts

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Now, I’ve been quite upfront about recommending the Frogdog for a while now and I hope I have been able to make you understand at least a little why exactly I hold the expansion in such high regards.

There is however, one more fair point of criticism I would like to add to the whole copper-part of the lasting debate and as I keep shuffling this paragraph around the article I am unsure where to put .. but I’ll leave it here for the time being.
The Frogdog now has 2 Indomitable Resources that are available as extra purchases and both have the copper tag, whilst the 2 included in the expansion do not. This does mean that when you are willing to spend extra money on those White Boxes (1 being SoD Vol.1 i.e. quite expensive) gathering copper can get noticeably easier .. and that isn’t exactly a good trend for any monster with a new resource type to have.
Calling it “pay 2 win” would be a bit much in my opinion (you still need to successfully hunt Lvl3 Frogdogs for the 33% or 50% chance respectively), but I do understand where people are coming from. And it wouldn’t feel nearly as bad if the Frogdog was shipping with 1 copper indom in the base box to begin with.

Still, even without the Mere Navi support that they’d deserved and the somewhat questionable decisions made when it comes to copper indoms, the Frogdog Expansion does feature a Node 1 Quarry monster with one of the more versatile armor sets to date as well as a whole bunch of interesting support gear, AND also a late-game set to chase after that is roughly equivalent to Node 4 capabilities right out of the box.
And whilst this monster can be a bit of a timeline-hog, hunting Frogdogs can be relevant throughout the entirety of a campaign – which I would argue is a good thing rather than a bad one.

As a part of my “Big 4” alongside Black Knight, Dragon King and Sunstalker, I am obviously going to recommend the Frogdog for purchasing.

And in a first for these write-ups, I think it would also be a good first addition to your collection.
This does come down largely to the fact that the Frogdog is a Node 1 Quarry monster – which is the node you will likely hunt the most during your time with the game. Furthermore, if/once you are reliably reaching KD:M late game in your campaigns, the Frogdog still has things to offer even beyond the also present Indomitable Resources, thanks to the inclusion of the Bullfrogdog.

If you are still wondering why I keep recommending the Frogdog in particular for this spot .. well, the Crimson Crocodile is locked to the GCE – which costs a lot of money all at once (even if it is amazing) and the Gorm is a bit dated at the moment. This one might in theory change once the reprint for the baby-elephant-anglerfish-baby is finally released but even then the Bullfrogdog will likely still pull ahead for me.
Even despite my love of axes.

The Titan Bee on other hand does have a somewhat realistic chance of shaking things up in this spot .. but that one will have to release first before we can get an actual good look at what it’s offering.
So, for now, the Frogdog croaks supreme.

***

The world awaits the bee monsters.

And there you have it .. my updated write-up of the Frogdog. Is it better than the first one? Maybe. It’s longer for sure. But that isn’t necessarily a sign of quality.

I do hope this article will give you an idea whether the Frogdog expansion is for you or not, and should you already own it, maybe it made you at least chuckle a little.

This one, for whatever reason, took me a lot longer than previous write-ups, but with the Frogdog leaping off into the darkness, Season 4 can finally progress. The Butcher is already sharpening its cleavers.

As always, thank you very much for your time, just lean back and try to imagine hitting a Frogdog for 5 wounds with each swing.
Aaand your nose fell off again. You probably should get that looked at.
Amathul