The Keepers of the Stone DLC landed on September 26, 2024 — and GameRant still has no article about it. Neither does TheGamer. Every guide currently ranking on Against the Storm searches predates the sixth playable species, either of the two new biomes, and the Cornerstone Forge system. That’s the gap this guide fills.
Three things came with the DLC: the Frogs, a species built around stone masonry and housing upgrades unlike any other; the Coastal Grove biome, a coastal start built around fishing and Strider Port expeditions; and the Ashen Thicket biome, an industrial wasteland with salt mining and a custom Cornerstone crafting system. A free Update 1.4 overhauled the fishing mechanics for everyone — but the species and biomes require the paid expansion. Here’s what each adds, what it demands from your runs, and whether the purchase makes sense for how you play.
Verified on Against the Storm v1.5 (Keepers of the Stone DLC). Values may change with future updates.
What the Keepers of the Stone DLC Adds: Quick Start
Before diving into mechanics, here’s what you’re getting across the full DLC package:
- 1 new playable species — the Frogs, unlocked at Viceroy level 13
- 2 new biomes — Coastal Grove (Update 1.4) and Ashen Thicket (Update 1.5), both requiring DLC ownership
- 4 new buildings — Frog House, Pantry, Cannery (all Frog-locked), plus the Strider Port (Coastal Grove exclusive)
- 12 new orders tied to Frog population and Frog-specific milestones
- 3 Legendary Cornerstones, 1 Epic Cornerstone, 3 Rare perks, 5 Uncommon perks
- 9 new Deeds and 14 exclusive music tracks
- Free with Update 1.4 (no DLC needed) — fishing system (Small Fishing Hut, Fishing Hut), Cobbler building, five new resources (Fish, Scales, Algae, Paste, Boots), level cap increase from 18 to 20
The biomes become available on the world map after your current cycle ends. Frogs appear in the species pool once you hit Viceroy level 13.
Frogs: The Sixth Species and Why Their Housing Changes Everything
Every species in Against the Storm has a housing need — except Frogs, who skip basic Shelters entirely. They require Frog Houses, a species-specific building that costs 4 Bricks per house (6 Bricks on higher Prestige levels). That upfront cost is the defining constraint of every Frog-inclusive run: if your early glades are light on stone or clay, you’re building Frog Houses from a weaker position than you would be housing Lizards or Beavers.
The payoff is the upgrade system. Where other species’ housing tops out at 2 upgrade levels, Frog Houses have 4 — and each level offers a genuine strategic choice:
| Level | Option A | Option B |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Extra Room (more capacity) | Rainwater Storage (enables rainwater production bonuses) |
| 2 | Indoor Pool (+2 Resolve per resident) | Drafting Table (3% faster building material production) |
| 3 | Atrium (increases newcomer arrival count) | Storage Room (+1 Building Material per year, per house) |
| 4 | Water Pipeline (Rainpunk efficiency) | Workbench (3% extra resource yield chance) |
The Indoor Pool at Level 2 is almost always mandatory — Frogs have a Resolve floor that makes the +2 per resident feel less optional than the description implies. But Level 3 is where the real decision sits: the Atrium compounds newcomer growth (especially valuable when Frogs are your Firekeeper, since their passive already increases arrival speed by 50%), while Storage Room turns each Frog House into a slow but passive Building Materials generator.
Run a settlement where Frogs dominate the population and upgrade all houses to Level 3 Storage Room, and you can produce dozens of packs of Building Materials per year from housing alone — before a single worker touches a masonry building. That’s the Frog loop in full: bricks in, housing out, building materials back out at scale.
Frog Needs Breakdown
Frogs are lighter on consumption than most species. Their full needs list is: Paste, Biscuits, Pie, Boots, Religion, Luxury, Brawling, and Frog Housing. That’s 3 foods and 3 services — versus 4–5 for Humans or Harpies — and they accept 3 city services where most species accept 2. Their Break interval is 2 minutes 30 seconds, which is longer than Lizards’, meaning they hold Resolve longer between satisfaction checks. If you keep them housed and fed, they are genuinely easier to manage than their brick cost implies.
Paste (new in Update 1.4, free) uses Fish or Eggs with Salt or Dye as an ingredient — so Frogs tie naturally into both the fishing system and the Ashen Thicket’s salt production.
Which Player Type Should Prioritise Frogs?
| Player Type | Frogs Recommendation | Best First Biome |
|---|---|---|
| New player | Avoid until you’re comfortable with base species. Brick scarcity early-game punishes new players harder than experienced ones. | Skip DLC biomes entirely until the base game feels stable. |
| Casual player | Draft Frogs when orders reward high Building Materials output or Frog population milestones. Strong mid-game payoff with moderate early investment. | Coastal Grove — fishing provides food diversity without demanding complex new mechanics upfront. |
| Hardcore / optimiser | Use Frogs as Firekeeper for the 50% newcomer speed passive. Combine Storage Room upgrades with Pack of Building Materials orders for compounding efficiency. | Ashen Thicket — Cornerstone Forge lets you craft custom game-warping cornerstones unavailable anywhere else. |
| Completionist | Target all 4 Frog House upgrade levels in a single run; complete all 12 Frog-specific orders across multiple runs. | Both biomes in sequence — Coastal Grove has the only run where all 3 fish pond types can appear simultaneously. |
Coastal Grove: Fishing, Expeditions, and the Strider Port
Coastal Grove settlements start at the map edge near water — which sounds limiting but comes with a significant compensation: the Strider Port, a building present in every Coastal Grove starting Glade. Unlike standard blueprint acquisition through Reputation, the Strider Port lets you launch expeditions into submerged ruins for blueprints and treasure.
Expeditions alternate between two types: blueprint expeditions yield one blueprint plus a treasure chest; treasure expeditions yield only a chest but with a higher chance of rare-tier loot. The cost scales with each successive launch — roughly 20% more resources per level, reaching 180% of the base cost at Level 5. Since the rarity of the blueprint you receive in blueprint expeditions is not affected by how many resources you invest, the optimal strategy is to send lighter provisions on blueprint runs and save heavier food investment for treasure runs.
The blueprint pool through Strider Port includes exclusive access to Homestead, Rainpunk Foundry, and Finesmith blueprints — buildings unavailable through normal Glade discovery on this biome. You receive 5 fewer Reputation blueprints than in standard biomes, but gain access to 8 expedition blueprints, leaving overall blueprint availability roughly equivalent with a different acquisition rhythm. For the full framework on which buildings are worth prioritising across all biomes, see our Against the Storm blueprint selection guide.
Coastal Grove Resource Profile
Trees drop Wood plus a 30% chance of Algae and 10% chance of Vegetables — making this the most Algae-rich logging biome. All three fish pond types (Algae pond, Thunderfish pond, Copperfin Trout pond) can appear in Coastal Grove and in no other single biome. Large ponds carry 60 resource charges apiece, making them slow to deplete but high-yield when ground bait is active (bait doubles yield; 1 Pack of Crops produces 4 bait pieces).
The biome’s long-term mechanic is Gift of the Depths: once your fishing huts collectively consume bait 150 times, you unlock the ability to sacrifice Algae at the Ancient Hearth to reduce Hostility. That’s a meaningful safety valve on higher Prestige runs where the Storm ramps pressure faster than you can resolve it through standard means.
Ashen Thicket: Salt, Sea Marrow, and the Cornerstone Forge
The Ashen Thicket was added in Update 1.5 (after the initial September 2024 DLC release) and has a different identity to Coastal Grove — less fishing, more mining. The biome’s flavour text describes a once-thriving spruce forest destroyed by industrial exploitation and the Blightstorm, and that history translates mechanically: this is the only biome where all three vein types (Copper Ore, Coal, Salt) appear in the same run.
Ashen Trees yield Resin alongside Wood — useful for Coats, Tea, and Crystalized Dew production — and Sea Marrow at a moderate drop rate. Sea Marrow also drops from Salt veins at roughly 30%, making it more accessible here than in biomes where it requires specific glade events or trade. Sea Marrow matters because it’s the only material that opens Abandoned Caches in the Ashen Thicket, and it functions as a Purging Fire fuel alongside Coal, Oil, and Wood, giving you more options to control Blightrot spread without burning through Coal reserves.
Salt: The New Resource
Salt was introduced as part of the Ashen Thicket update and functions as either an additional ingredient or a direct substitute in several recipes — notably Biscuits, Paste, and Jerky. In practice, this means Ashen Thicket runs can satisfy Frog Paste needs through a mining-based production chain rather than a fishing one, which matters when the biome is light on good pond placement but heavy on ore veins.
The Cornerstone Forge
The Cornerstone Forge is the Ashen Thicket’s signature building and the most strategically interesting addition in the entire DLC. It lets you craft up to 3 custom Cornerstones per settlement using Thunderblight Shards — rare lightning-infused crystals mined from dedicated vein nodes. The crafting interface lets you select conditions, effects, optional drawback penalties, and even custom names for your cornerstones.
The practical implication: a Cornerstone that would normally require a lucky draft can be constructed to order. The biome passives accelerate shard acquisition — the Deeply Hidden Riches passive grants shards every 40, 80, or 120 vein charges mined — and the Royal Mining Operation passive assigns automated rainpunk carts to warehouses for every 80 combined ore, coal, and salt units used in crafting. High-Prestige runs that normally struggle with bad cornerstone drafts have a consistent mitigation path here that no other biome provides.
How Frogs Shift the Mixed-Species Meta
Before the DLC, species selection in mixed settlements was largely a question of matching available food and services to the species you drafted. Frogs introduce a third variable: housing infrastructure. A settlement drafting two Beavers and a Frog clanmate in the same run now needs to dedicate early stone output to Frog Houses — material that would otherwise go toward Hearth upgrades or warehouse construction. Our Against the Storm best buildings tier list identifies which non-Frog structures are worth competing for those early blueprint slots.
The payoff for that investment is real. Frogs as Firekeeper increase newcomer arrival speed by 50%, which compounds with the Atrium housing upgrade (more villagers per arrival). A settlement running 8–10 Frogs with fully upgraded Level 3 Atrium houses recruits population faster than any other species configuration in standard biomes. Against the backdrop of orders that require hitting 16–22 Frog-specific Resolve thresholds or building 6–8 Frog Houses within a time limit, this population velocity becomes a run-defining advantage.
For mixed settlements without a strong stone start, the safer approach is to treat Frogs as a late-joining species — adding them to an established population rather than anchoring around them from the first year. Their low consumption and long Break interval make them forgiving mid-run additions once your supply chains are stable.
How to Unlock DLC Content In Your Run
- Frogs — reach Viceroy level 13 in the upgrade tree. They then enter the species pool and can be drafted like any other species.
- Coastal Grove and Ashen Thicket — both biomes appear on the world map after your current cycle ends. You don’t need to do anything specific; they rotate into biome selection alongside standard options once DLC ownership is detected.
- Fishing system (Fishing Hut, Small Fishing Hut, Cobbler) — these are free Update 1.4 content and available to all players from launch regardless of DLC ownership.
- Note on Ashen Thicket — this biome shipped in Update 1.5, several months after the initial September 2024 DLC release. If you bought the DLC at launch, the Ashen Thicket was patched in automatically. Both biomes are included under a single DLC purchase.
Keepers of the Stone: Is It Worth Buying?
The DLC carries an 83% positive rating across 389 Steam reviews — a strong signal, though the sample size is smaller than the base game’s. The honest assessment depends on where you are in your Against the Storm journey.
Buy it if: you’ve completed multiple cycles in the base game and know most cornerstones and events by sight. The Frogs add genuine strategic depth through their housing investment loop; the Coastal Grove changes how you acquire blueprints in ways that feel meaningfully different from standard runs; and the Ashen Thicket’s Cornerstone Forge is the only system in the game that lets you construct, rather than just hope for, specific high-impact run modifiers.
Wait if: you’re still working through the base game’s learning curve. The free 1.4 update added five new resources (Fish, Scales, Algae, Paste, Boots) that immediately expand recipe complexity for all players — something critics of the DLC launch noted made an already information-dense game harder to parse before purchase. New players don’t lose anything by waiting until the base game feels comfortable.
The honest cons: the DLC adds variety and strategic depth but doesn’t overhaul the core loop. Frogs are well-designed but fall into the middle of the species power rankings in general use. Neither biome is dramatically harder than the existing options — which is a positive for players who wanted new content without punishing difficulty spikes, but a mild disappointment for those hoping for a high-Prestige challenge layer.
FAQ
Can Frogs live in regular Shelters or Big Shelters?
No. Frogs are the only species in the game that cannot use standard Shelters or Big Shelters. They require Frog Houses exclusively, which must be built near a Hearth. Each Frog House costs 4 Bricks at standard Prestige (6 Bricks on Prestige 6 and above) and houses 2 residents.
Is the fishing system in the free update or the DLC?
The fishing system — including the Small Fishing Hut, Fishing Hut, Cobbler, and the five new resources — is part of the free Update 1.4 and available to all players. The Coastal Grove and Ashen Thicket biomes require the paid DLC.
What’s the best Frog House upgrade path?
For most runs: Level 1 Rainwater Storage (enables Rainpunk production bonuses), Level 2 Indoor Pool (+2 Resolve is near-mandatory), Level 3 depends on your goal — Atrium if Frogs are your Firekeeper and you want population velocity, Storage Room if you’re running a Building Materials production loop. Level 4 is a bonus rather than a priority; Workbench’s 3% extra resource chance scales well in long runs but rarely determines outcomes on standard Prestige.
Do I need the DLC to access the Cornerstone Forge?
Yes. The Cornerstone Forge is exclusive to the Ashen Thicket biome, which requires Keepers of the Stone DLC ownership. It’s not available through any free update content or in standard biomes.
Can Frogs work in any biome or only the new DLC ones?
Frogs can be drafted into any biome — they’re not restricted to Coastal Grove or Ashen Thicket. That said, Coastal Grove’s fishing abundance makes satisfying their Paste needs easier, and Ashen Thicket’s salt mining provides another Paste production route. Both DLC biomes have natural synergies with Frogs, but you can run them in the Cursed Royal Woodlands or any other standard biome once unlocked.
Sources
- Keepers of the Stone DLC and Fishing Update (1.4) — Eremite Games
- Ashen Thicket Update 1.5 — Eremite Games
- Against the Storm — Keepers of the Stone — Steam Store
- Against the Storm: All Species Needs & Requirements — Keengamer
- Played Against the Storm: Keepers of the Stone DLC — Laura Michet
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.