“Tar Goroth. We call you to the shallows. Rise and join our glory. Rise and join the Shadow's army. Come to us. Rise, rise, rise!”
Zog, also known as Zog The Eternal, is an Uruk necromancer and the main antagonist of the Carnán Quest Line in Middle-earth: Shadow of War.
An ambitious servant of Sauron, Zog was a trained scholar who delved in the arts of dark sorcery. Using necromancy he planned to raise an undead army to fight for his master, but ended up betraying him in a bid to claim rulership of Mordor.
History
A powerful necromancer of the Mystic Tribe, Zog the Eternal was an adherent to the sorcerous ways of the Dark Lord. After the new ring was forged, the Balrog Tar Goroth awoke from its deep slumber, attracting the attention of Zog's master. As a testimony to his allegiance to Sauron, he and his Acolytes went to Gorgoroth to raise the demon and potentially control it. Upon resurfacing from the molten lava, the Balrog slew the mystics and went on a rampage throughout Mordor.
With the united efforts of Carnán, Celebrimbor and Talion, Tar Goroth was defeated in Seregost, yet Zog continued his work as a necromancer. Planning on building an undead army for the Dark Lord, he extended his web of Acolytes to every corner of Mordor to call back to life fallen soldiers and old servants of Morgoth. The promise of an unstoppable legion only furthered his unqueanchable thirst for power and he eventually forsook his loyalty to Sauron.
Meeting with his Acolytes on the frozen lake of Seregost, Zog made a ritual to resurrect Tar Goroth and dominate him, intent on using it to oppose his former master. The intervention of the Bright Lord resulted in another failure for the necromancer and his apparent demise.
After his second defeat at the hands of Talion, Zog was reanimated by his Acolytes in Minas Morgul, where he revealed his plan to the others: to claim Mordor and have a force to rival any legion amassed by Sauron and his lieutenant, the Witch-king. the Bright Lord was ultimately able to slay him and Carnán, in the form of a drake, burned his remains to ash in an attempt to make sure he could not be resurrected again. However, as Zog liked to remind Talion, a true necromancer never stays dead for long.
Trivia
- Although his body was burned by Carnán, Zog will eventually return and ambush Talion at a later point with new lines of dialogue addressing the impossibility of his survival. Zog will always have the Iron Will trait and Unbreakable trait, and be impossible to recruit.
- Zog can be made a follower by using hacks. If this is done than he will have several peculiarities:
- He will use a different voice set because his original voice does not have dialog for follower lines and nemesis missions.
- If made into an overlord than he will have no theme music when fought during online conquests, nor will his name be chanted.
- Zog is voiced by Nolan North who also voices Isildur.
- Zog is first glimpsed as an unnamed orc riding a Caragor in a cutscene just before the fall of Minas Ithil.