Against the Storm Frog Guide: 4-Tier Houses, the +50% Newcomer Firekeeper, and Why Frog+Beaver Is the Most Efficient Pair in 2026

Verified on Update 1.4 (Keepers of the Stone DLC, September 2024). Mechanics may change with future patches.

Quick Start: Frogs at a Glance

• Frogs unlock at Citadel upgrade level 9 — you need to reach this before Frogs appear in your settlement’s species pool
• Build a Crude Workstation in the first five minutes — Frog Houses require Bricks, not Planks
• Assign a Frog to the Ancient Hearth at the start of Cycle 1 to trigger the +50% newcomer bonus immediately
• At Housing Tier 1, pick Extra Room in most runs; switch to Rainwater Storage only in a confirmed Rainpunk economy
• At Housing Tier 2, pick Indoor Pool for resolve-focused runs; Drafting Table when your Frog masonry workforce is 8+ and bottlenecked on building material output
• Pair Frogs with Beavers for the most resource-efficient settlement; pair with Humans to hit the highest late-game resolve ceiling
• Never run Frogs as your only species — they cannot use Shelters, which is fatal in biomes where the Hailstorm mystery can activate

New to Against the Storm’s core systems? Our Against the Storm beginner’s guide covers the resolve system, species selection framework, and Blightrot management before diving into species-specific strategy.

Why Frog Housing Is Different — and Why It Matters

Every other species in Against the Storm can fall back on basic Shelters when you haven’t built species-specific housing yet. Frogs refuse. A Frog won’t count as housed in anything except a Frog House, which means your first priority in any Frog-inclusive run is a Crude Workstation and a Brick supply — before your settlement does much else.

That constraint is the cost of entry. The payoff is a housing architecture no other species has. Human, Beaver, Lizard, and Harpy houses each have two upgrade levels — one tier of generic bonus, one tier of a species-specific perk. Frog Houses have four upgrade levels, each presenting two choices with meaningfully different effects. That’s double the upgrade depth of any other species’ housing tree, with choices that shape your run’s economy, resolve ceiling, or newcomer throughput depending on what you pick.

The Frog’s Masonry specialisation feeds back into this loop: Frogs assigned to Crude Workstations and Stonecutters produce building materials faster than any other species, which means they help sustain the Brick cost of their own housing expansion more efficiently than the numbers imply.

Frog House Upgrade Tiers: What to Pick at Each Level

Each of the four Frog House upgrade levels gives you a binary choice. The right option depends on your run type — here’s the breakdown:

Tier 1 — Extra Capacity vs. Rainwater Storage

Extra Room adds one housing slot to the building — the reliable default that directly reduces resolve pressure from unhoused Frogs. Take this in the vast majority of runs.

Rainwater Storage adds 50 tank capacity per Rainwater type. Only worth considering if your blueprint draw has committed you to a Rainpunk economy with Rain Engines or Purification Workshops already queued. Don’t pick it speculatively — housing slots beat passive Rainwater tank expansion in almost every scenario where you don’t already have Rain Collectors placed.

Tier 2 — Resolve vs. Production Speed

Indoor Pool grants +2 Resolve to every villager housed in the building. This is the stronger long-term pick for most runs — resolve that pushes populations toward the Decadence threshold compounds value across the full run length. Default to Indoor Pool unless you have a specific reason to take the alternative.

Drafting Table increases building material production speed by 3% per villager housed here. It only beats Indoor Pool when you have 8 or more Frogs assigned to masonry buildings and your production line is visibly bottlenecked on material output. In that narrow scenario, per-worker compounding makes it competitive. Outside it, Indoor Pool wins.

Tier 3 — Newcomer Multiplier vs. Passive Resources

Atrium adds one extra villager per newcomer group for every two villagers living in this house. This synergises directly with the Frog Firekeeper bonus — if you’re already running the +50% newcomer speed bonus at the Ancient Hearth, Atrium multiplies its effect. More groups arrive faster, each carrying more people. Strongest when paired with the Generous Gifts or Stormwalker Tax Cornerstones.

Storage Room grants 1 Pack of Building Materials per villager at the start of each Drizzle. Passive resource generation that compounds across long runs. Take this when your economy runs lean on building materials between storms and you’re already fully staffed — the passive income delivers cleaner value when newcomer throughput is no longer your bottleneck.

Tier 4 — Resolve via Rain Engines vs. Resource Proc Chance

Water Pipeline grants +1 Resolve per 2 villagers via connected Rain Engines. In a Rainpunk economy, combining this with Indoor Pool at Tier 2 creates the highest per-species resolve bonus achievable from housing in the current roster — Frog Houses become your primary resolve infrastructure, not just a maintenance obligation.

Workbench increases the chance of extra resource production by 3% per villager. Useful in resource-scarce late-game conditions, particularly in Food production buildings during difficult Storm cycles when margins are thin. Less impactful than Water Pipeline in a resolve-focused build.

What Frogs Want — and Why Beavers Are the Natural Pair

Frogs have the following needs:

• Food: Paste, Biscuits, Pie
• Services: Boots, Religion, Luxury, Brawling
• Housing: Frog Houses only — no Shelters or Big Shelters

The overlap that matters most for colony design is Biscuits. Beavers also rely on Biscuits as a primary food source, which means both species share the same flour-based production chain: grain field → mill → bakehouse → Biscuits. A single Bakehouse line satisfies this need for both populations simultaneously — no split infrastructure, no parallel supply chains for your most basic food need.

That shared chain is the mechanical foundation of the Frog+Beaver efficiency argument. Frogs add Paste (meat or bone-based production) and Pie to the food picture; Beavers lean on Pickled Goods as their secondary food. Both secondary needs use different buildings and different raw materials — no contested ingredient, no shared bottleneck.

On the service side, Frogs want Luxury and Brawling. A Fighting Pit covers Brawling early in most biomes. Luxury items — Incense, Candles — need a separate production chain but are accessible across most biomes. Religion and Boots are common needs shared across nearly all species, so a single service building per type covers the full colony. For a broader breakdown of which species food preferences align per biome, see our Against the Storm clans guide.

The Frog Firekeeper: When +50% Newcomers Is the Right Call

The Frog Firekeeper accelerates newcomer arrival by 50%. Every other species’ Firekeeper does something different: Lizards provide +1 Global Resolve, Humans slow Queen’s Impatience by 25%, Beavers extend fuel burn time by 20%, Harpies add +5 Global carrying capacity, and Foxes reduce Hostility per opened Glade by 6.

The Frog bonus is the only one that solves worker supply directly. In a standard run, the first structural bottleneck isn’t resolve, fuel, or Hostility — it’s labour. A settlement short on workers in Cycles 1–2 leaves production buildings idle or delays Glade clearing, and both outcomes cascade into resource shortages that compound throughout the run.

Assigning a Frog to the Ancient Hearth at the opening Drizzle compresses the time to full workforce coverage. Where a base-rate run brings in newcomer groups every few minutes, the Frog Firekeeper halves that window — your settlement reaches full building staffing 2–3 cycles earlier than it would otherwise.

Frog vs. Lizard: The Real Decision

The Lizard Firekeeper’s +1 Global Resolve is stable — a permanent buffer across every species’ resolve bar. But +1 Resolve is roughly 4% of a typical resolve bar. The Frog Firekeeper’s +50% newcomer speed is worth nothing when you’re already fully staffed, and everything when you’re not.

In practice: if your settlement has unfilled production slots in the first two cycles, the Frog Firekeeper removes that bottleneck faster than any alternative. If your starting species draw gives you a large population that fills buildings immediately, the Lizard Firekeeper’s sustained resolve advantage compounds across the rest of the run and pulls ahead.

Two Cornerstone perks extend the Frog Firekeeper’s value beyond the early-game window: Generous Gifts (bonus resources per newcomer group) and Stormwalker Tax (income per newcomer) both stack additively with newcomer frequency. With either perk active, the Frog Firekeeper keeps generating value across the entire run — not just the opening cycles.

One additional note: if you’ve built out a Rainpunk water collection chain, Frogs’ Rainwater specialisation means they work faster at Rain Collectors and Water Treatment buildings — adding a production layer on top of the Firekeeper benefit before you rotate away from the newcomer bonus.

Species Comparison: Firekeepers and Housing at a Glance

Colony Compositions: Two Builds That Work

Frog + Beaver: Resource-Efficient Pair

This combination covers both primary building material chains without overlap. Frogs handle Masonry — stone, cut stone, bricks — while Beavers handle Woodcutting and wood processing. Neither species competes for the other’s building assignments, so you assign workers by specialisation from the first cycle without compromise.

The shared food chain is the second efficiency lever: both species need Biscuits, so one Bakehouse line covers the colony’s core food demand. Frogs add Paste and Pie; Beavers add Pickled Goods. These use different buildings and raw materials — no contested ingredients, no shared production bottleneck.

Firekeeper rotation: Start with the Frog Firekeeper in Cycles 1–2 to accelerate workforce ramp-up. Rotate to the Beaver Firekeeper (+20% fuel burn time) once your buildings are fully staffed — particularly useful before a Storm cycle where Hearth fuel supply is a concern.

Housing loop: Frogs produce bricks faster than any other species via Masonry specialisation, keeping Frog House expansion largely self-financing. Beaver lodges require Planks, which Beavers supply natively. Both housing chains are internally funded by the species that use them.

Frog + Human: Highest Resolve Ceiling

This pairing targets the highest achievable resolve cap rather than production efficiency. It requires a slightly more complex food chain but pays off in mid-to-late game stability — particularly on Prestige 10+ runs where resolve thresholds directly affect how long you can sustain before Queen’s pressure peaks.

Frogs and Humans share Biscuits and Pie as food needs, keeping the flour-based chain as the production core. Humans extend the chain with additional flour-heavy foods; Frogs add Paste. The shared base simplifies early food even as the chains diverge slightly later.

Firekeeper rotation: Frog Firekeeper in the opening cycles for worker ramp-up, then Human Firekeeper from mid-game onward. Human Firekeeper reduces Queen’s Impatience growth by 25%, effectively extending the run’s clock — giving your housing upgrades and resolve stacks more time to compound before the final pressure peak.

Late-game resolve stacking: Fully upgraded Frog Houses (Indoor Pool at Tier 2 + Water Pipeline at Tier 4 in a Rainpunk run) stack with the settlement’s broader resolve infrastructure. When Frog resolve bars consistently hit the Decadence threshold, the resulting bonuses compound production and reputation gains across the closing cycles.

Which Build for Your Playstyle?

Frequently Asked Questions

Are Frogs safe in every biome?

Frogs work in any biome but carry a specific risk wherever the Hailstorm negative mystery is active. Hailstorm kills villagers who can’t reach a Shelter — and Frogs cannot use standard Shelters or Big Shelters. Plan your Frog House expansion one Glade clearing ahead of your Frog population count. If Frogs are outside housing when Hailstorm activates, you lose population and take a simultaneous resolve hit. The fix is pre-emptive housing construction, not reactive building after the mystery appears.

When is the Frog Firekeeper not worth it?

When your settlement already has enough workers to staff all active production buildings in the first cycle. This is uncommon but happens with a large starting species draw or an early worker-bonus Cornerstone. In those runs, the Lizard Firekeeper’s +1 Global Resolve compounds value across the full run while the Frog Firekeeper’s bonus sits idle once you’re fully staffed. If you reach full building coverage before the first Storm without needing the newcomer speed, swap to Lizard.

Do Frogs require the Keepers of the Stone DLC?

Yes. Frogs are exclusive to the Keepers of the Stone DLC, which launched September 26, 2024 alongside Update 1.4. The DLC also adds the Coastal Grove and Ashen Thicket biomes and 12 new Frog-focused Orders. Without the DLC, the best alternative for the early-game worker bottleneck is selecting a large-starting-population species draw and picking Cornerstones that increase newcomer group size.

Is Indoor Pool always better than Drafting Table at Housing Tier 2?

For most runs, yes — +2 Resolve per housed villager stacks with every other resolve source in the game and delivers value from the first upgrade onward. Drafting Table’s 3% production speed per villager is meaningful only when you have 8 or more Frogs in masonry buildings and your chain is genuinely bottlenecked on building material output rather than resolve. Outside that narrow condition, Indoor Pool has broader impact across the run’s full length and doesn’t require a specific workforce size to pay off.

Sources

• Keepers of the Stone DLC and Update 1.4 — Eremite Games (developer)
• Against the Storm: Keepers of the Stone — Steam Store
• Against the Storm — All Species Needs & Requirements — KeenGamer
• The Best Playable Species in Against the Storm — TheGamer
• Against the Storm: Every Species Ranked — Game Rant

Michael R.

I've been playing video games for over 20 years, spanning everything from early PC titles to modern open-world games. I started Switchblade Gaming to publish the kind of accurate, well-researched guides I always wanted to find — built on primary sources, tested in-game, and kept up to date after patches. I currently focus on Minecraft and Pokémon GO.