Trogulus is Professor Homlomium's lab assistant in the undersea research dome of the Queen's Society of Sparks in Londinium, England. Addressed as Troggo by Lord Snackleford, he is described as a foreign exchange student. Trogulus's gender is uncertain, but will be assumed to be male for convenience in reference until more definite information is revealed. He apparently likes tuna.
Appearance[]
Trogulus is a roughly human-sized and humanoid amphibious creature, primarily green in color, with red eyes and orange to brownish-orange fins and markings. He has a fringed crest, webbed fingers, and very sharp, pointy, numerous teeth.
Whence He Came[]
It is never explicitly confirmed what country or region Trogulus was exchanged from, nor (since he can breathe water as well as air) who he was exchanged for[1], but Hadrian Rakethorn speculates ✣ that he is a young-ish Deepdweller.
Current Events[]
Agatha's crew capture someone who they believe to be Professor Homlomium, but it turns out to be ✣ Trogulus in disguise; this ruse was originally deployed so that Trogulus could attend boring staff meetings in Homlomium's place. Trogulus admits that the Professor is dead, and that he, Trogulus, replaced the Professor's remains with ground beef so that everyone would think he was still alive. (And killed the two doctors charged with performing Homlomium's autopsy.) This is important because of a group of bad guys he calls the Grey Hoods, who want to use Tobber's research to summon a extra-dimensional being, but who are kept in check only by fear of Tobber. The summoning still happens, and Trogulus leads Agatha and Co. to the scene. While the Grey Hoods are eventually dealt with, events lead to the dome's self-destruct mechanism being activated. The surviving humans all flee in submarines, while Trogulus remains behind ✣ to manually activate the damaged undocking mechanism. This separation annoys British agent Trelawney Thorpe, because he did kill a couple of people. Oh well! Bye!
Possibly Relevant Outside Information[]
Trogulus resembles the Deep Ones from the H.P. Lovecraft story "Dagon", and thus also resembles various fish-people from other science fiction and horror properties following in Lovecraft's footsteps, such as XCOM 2: Terror From The Deep, the Gill-man from the Creature from the Black Lagoon films, and the Troglodyte race included in the Dungeons & Dragons role-playing game.
"Troglodyte" is also presumably the inspiration for his name. D&D in turn borrowed the name from ancient mythology: the Greek Τρωγλοδύται means "cave goers." To quote Wikipedia: "Herodotus [5th Century BCE] referred to the Troglodytae in his Histories as being a people hunted by the Garamantes. He said that the Troglodytae were the swiftest runners of all humans known and that they ate snakes, lizards, and other reptiles. He also stated that their language was unlike any known to him, and sounded like the screeching of bats. Alice Werner (1913) believed (in passing) that this was a clear allusion to the early Khoisan, indigenous inhabitants of Southern Africa, because their languages contain distinctive click sounds."
A possible link between between the distinctly non-sub-aqueous troglodytes and Trogulus is a 2008 Canadian horror film called Sea Beast. Its original title was Troglodyte.
References
- ↑ note, however, that Albia does have octopode subjects who survive in air by means of a "breathing" apparatus (air ctendium?)