YET ANOTHER DEATHLORD WALKTHROUGH
by Ben Cordes <
[email protected]>
Version 1.0.1, February 2018
TABLE OF CONTENTS
1 ADMINISTRIVIA [#100#]
1.1 COPYRIGHT NOTICE [#101#]
1.2 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS [#102#]
1.3 VERSION HISTORY [#103#]
1.4 INTRODUCTION TO THE GAME [#104#]
1.5 GETTING AROUND AND GETTING ALONG [#105#]
2 CREATING CHARACTERS [#200#]
2.1 ATTRIBUTES [#201#]
2.2 RACES AND CLASSES [#202#]
2.3 ASSEMBLING YOUR PARTY [#203#]
2.4 EXPERIENCE POINTS AND LEVELING UP [#204#]
2.5 USING MAGIC POOLS [#205#]
3 COMBAT AND GENERAL INFORMATION [#300#]
3.1 COMBAT BASICS [#301#]
3.2 HEALTH AND DYING [#302#]
3.3 COMBAT STRATEGIES [#303#]
3.4 DEALING WITH LOOT [#304#]
3.5 EQUIPMENT [#305#]
3.6 MANAGING SAVE FILES [#306#]
3.7 ATLAS [#307#]
3.8 WEIRD STUFF [#308#]
4 MAGIC [#400#]
4.1 SHISAI SPELLS [#401#]
4.2 SHIZEN SPELLS [#402#]
4.3 MAHOTSUKAI SPELLS [#403#]
4.4 GENKAI SPELLS [#404#]
5 WALKTHROUGH [#500#]
PART I: SENJU, KAWAHARA, AND THE EMPEROR
5.1 KODAN [#501#]
5.2 Kawa [#502#]
5.3 Emperor's Palace [#503#]
5.4 Tokugawa / Oceanspray [#504#]
5.5 Tokushima [#505#]
5.6 Yokahama [#506#]
5.7 The Caves / Starter dungeon [#507#]
5.8 Yakuza Guild [#508#]
5.9 Kawahara's dungeon [#509#]
5.10 Tokugawa, Bone Island [#510#]
5.11 Wakiza and the Pirates' Lair [#511#]
5.12 NYUKU [#512#]
5.13 South Spindrift [#513#]
5.14 North Spindrift [#514#]
5.15 Twin Rivers: Senju [#515#]
5.16 Sunken Temple [-----]
PART II: SEVEN WORDS AND SEVEN RELICS
5.17 CHIGAKU [#517#]
5.18 Fort Wintergreen [#518#]
5.19 Crystalmist [#519#]
5.20 Troll Hole: word #1 (*) [#520#]
5.21 Tower of Shumi [#521#]
5.22 OSOZAKI [#522#]
5.23 Deepingdale [#523#]
5.24 Wakai [#524#]
5.25 Telegrond [-----]
5.26 AKMIHR [#526#]
5.27 Oasis [#527#]
5.28 Sultan's Palace [#528#]
5.29 Desert Flower [#529#]
5.30 Kobito Mines: word #2 (*) [#530#]
5.31 Pyramid of Akhamun-Ra [#531#]
5.32 NARAWN [#532#]
5.33 Lost Lagoon: the Blue Crystal (*) [#533#]
5.34 Kashiwa [#534#]
5.35 Fort Demonguard [#535#]
5.36 Malkanth: the Sharktooth (*) [#536#]
5.37 ASAGATA [#537#]
5.38 Towne Royal / Makimura [#538#]
5.39 Croyo [#539#]
5.40 Fire Giants Lair [#540#]
5.41 Collect some relics: (**) [#541#]
Nyuku / Twin Rivers: the Sunspear
Akmihr / Sultan's Palace: the Emerald Rod
5.42 GILUIN [#542#]
5.43 Kobar [#543#]
5.44 Shupan [#544#]
5.45 Linear dungeon [-----]
5.46 Temple of Oceanus [#546#]
5.47 SIRION [#547#]
5.48 Clearview [#548#]
5.49 Chessboard dungeon: word #3 (*) [#549#]
5.50 Greenbanks: The Lantern of Kasumi (*) [#550#]
5.51 Staircase dungeon: word #4 (*) [#551#]
5.52 TSUMANI [#552#]
5.53 Morningfrost [#553#]
5.54 Snowraven [#554#]
5.55 Chutes and Ladders dungeon [#555#]
5.56 BLACK ISLES [#556#]
5.57 Red Shogun's Castle: The Ruby Ring (*) [#557#]
5.58 Doors dungeon: word #5 (*) [#558#]
5.59 LOST ISLES [#559#]
5.60 Cave of the Four Elements: word #6 (*) [#560#]
5.61 ISLE OF THE DEAD [#561#]
5.62 Pyramid of the Old Ones: word #7 (*) [#562#]
PART III: ENDGAME
5.63 HELL ISLAND [#563#]
5.64 Skull Keep [#564#]
5.65 Hell [#565#]
5.66 Return to the Emperor [#566#]
6 FINAL NOTES [#600#]
6.1 SAMPLE PARTY [#601#]
6.2 TRAIL OF CLUES [#602#]
6.3 BONUS: THE SPEED RUN [#603#]
6.4 HEX EDITING [#604#]
6.5 APPENDIX: MONSTER LIST [#605#]
1 ADMINISTRIVIA [#100#]
1.1 COPYRIGHT NOTICE [#101#]
This walkthrough is copyright (C) Ben Cordes, 2017-2018. It is protected by a
Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported license.
For more information about the license, please visit the following URL:
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/3.0/
1.2 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS [#102#]
DEATHLORD is a notoriously difficult game for its era, and it amazes me that
there isn't really a "complete" walkthrough for it, despite its non-linearity.
Hopefully this document will rectify that. However, as usual, I would be remiss
if I didn't recognize the giants on whose shoulders I stand.
Andrew Schultz wrote a 'humor' walkthrough that prioritized narrative over
hints, but it's his automatically-generated color maps that really made a
difference for me.
Wilson Lau's Deathlord FAQ and dump of the conversational strings were both
excellent points of reference.
All of the above can be found at GameFAQs:
https://www.gamefaqs.com/c64/574837-deathlord/faqs
A blogger named Genpei wrote a "let's play"-style blog at roughly the same time
that I was writing this walkthrough. His diary, as well as our conversations on
the CRPG Addict's website, were very helpful.
http://obscureoldgamer.blogspot.com/
And finally, a shout-out to Chester, the CRPG Addict, whose blog is totally
worth reading and who unwittingly prompted me to play this game again and take
notes so that I could write this document.
https://crpgaddict.blogspot.com/
1.3 VERSION HISTORY [#103#]
v0.9, September 2017: completed playthrough and first-pass text
v1.0, February 2018: finished narrative, released to GameFAQs
v1.0.1, February 2018: spellchecked, rewrote spell descriptions
1.4 INTRODUCTION TO THE GAME [#104#]
Ah, DEATHLORD. If this is your first time playing, you're in for a treat.
You're also in for an experience that's widely known as one of the hardest
CRPGs of its era. At first it seems like a straightforward member of the
"ULTIMA clone" family, but the realization quickly sets in that you are going
to be given absolutely no mercy whatsoever by the developers. Among DEATHLORD's
most charming "features" is its use of permadeath. The moment a character dies
-- even in the middle of combat -- the game saves state to disk, so that even
if you reset the computer, your character has already been permanently killed.
This is merely one example of the ways in which DEATHLORD hates you. We'll talk
about lots more as we explore the world together.
It's worth your time to look up and read some of the interviews with the
creator of DEATHLORD, Al Escudero. You'll learn a few fun facts, like the fact
that EA forced him to rebrand everything from a Norse them to a Japanese theme
inside of a few months, which explains why some of the game text didn't get
updated in time. (Wakiza has a sign calling it Oceana, the emperor tells you to
go to Oceanspray, etc.) If you speak Japanese, apparently some of the faux
translations are hilariously bad; check out Genpei's blog for examples (linked
in ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS, section 1.2).
My favorite part, though, is the bit where the developer admits that the game
is basically much harder than he intended. The story goes that there was a QA
team working on the project that had played the game through multiple times, so
he kept increasing the difficulty level in order to make their job more
interesting. Which is to say that even if you know what you're doing -- say,
because you're reading my walkthrough -- it's still a damn hard game to play.
Well, okay, it's a lot easier if you cheat using modern retrogaming techniques
like backing up your disk images and using emulator snapshots. But I digress.
I'm assuming you've looked up a copy of the game's manual. It will teach you
the keyboard commands and a little bit of the backstory. The most important
thing the manual has to teach you is right there on page one, in the guise of a
message from the Deathlord himself: in order to win, you will need to find
seven words and six magical items.
However, the manual is also full of misinformation. There's a misprint on the
"minimum stats" table, and the arms-and-armor table is flat-out wrong. This is
the second most important thing that th emanul has to teach you: some
significant portion of the information you will learn in the course of this
game is INCORRECT. This will come up later in the context of clues you get from
NPCs, for instance.
So, don't spend too much time with the manual. I've got you covered on most
things you need to know.
Assuming you're playing on an Apple II emulator (I like "Linapple", myself),
make sure that you are using "nibblized" (.nib) versions of the game disks. The
flat images (.dsk) are cracked versions that don't work. This includes the Boot
disk. You can get some of the .nib files from the Asmiov archive, and there's a
nibblized Boot disk on 'Home of the Underdogs'.
Before you go any further, back up the .nib files for the Boot, Master Scenario
A, and Master Scenario B disks. Put the backups somewhere else, so if all else
fails, you have clean copies that you can use to restart the game.
When you boot the game for the first time, you'll want to use the (U)tilities
to "Make Scenario Disks", which reads the Master Scenario disks and makes
playable copies. Once you have those playable copies (or have found .nib files
in an archive), back up those "clean" scenario disks. Then you can start
creating characters.
1.5 GETTING AROUND AND GETTING ALONG [#105#]
As a descendant of the ULTIMA series, you'll spend 100% of your time in a
top-down view moving north-south-east-west (as opposed to an isometric view
with forward-turn-backward movement, a la WIZARDRY). Apple II games of the era
often used I-J-K-M for movement, and DEATHLORD does as well.
Time passes without you during exploration, so if you stand still for too long,
the game issues a "Wait" command for you. You can stop this from happening by
typing the first letter of a multi-character command (like (C)ast or (V)iew or
(F)search or (O)rate), but keep in mind that you will spend one turn regardless
of whether you execute or cancel the command. Likewise, inspecting a character
consumes a game turn. Linapple lets you use the Pause key to actually pause
emulation.
In contrast, time pauses completely for the duration of combat. You can wait at
a combat prompt for as long as you like without consequence.
DEATHLORD has a functional day-and-night cycle. Time passes twice as fast when
you're outside (10 minutes tick off every ~10 steps) as when you're inside (~20
steps). The sun starts to set at 6pm, at which point your visual range (when
outside) drops 1 square in all directions once an hour, until it gets totally
dark at 9pm. You can (L)ight a torch, which gives 1 square radius of light
while outside (or 2 squares in a dungeon), but be careful when you're walking
around swamp. Torches only last an hour or so outside. The sun starts to rise
at 4am and is full again at 7am.
The phase of the moon doesn't seem to affect anything, but it's there for color
and atmosphere.
Most of the other commands are available in the manual, but I want to point out
a couple of particularly important tidbits.
When you fall into a pit (and you will), you need to use caret (^, aka shift-6)
to climb out of it. (Of course sometimes that doesn't work and you slip back
in, but that's not important right now.)
When casting a spell, the game asks you to type the name of the spell. You also
have the option of typing slash (/) or question mark (?), which brings up a
menu of all spells that you're able to cast right now. Use the up and down
arrow keys to cycle through the menu, then hit Enter to select a spell.
The user interface is reasonably configurable for a game of this era. If you
want to toggle the sound, use control-S. You can change the speed at which
combat messages print with colon (:). Lower numbers are faster, and 0 is an
acceptable number. Note that both of these commands count as an "action" and
will consume a turn, INCLUDING IN COMBAT. The role-playing nature of asking
your Mahotsukai to slow down the combat messages, while entertaining in text,
is not so gratifying when doing so forces you to pass on a chance to cast a
spell.
One of the more interesting features in the DEATHLORD interface is the ability
to record macros. A macro is a sequence of key presses that can be replayed
when you're walking around. (You can't use them in combat, unfortunately.)
Useful macros include things like:
"C" (number of your Shisai) "NASU,"
In a macro definition, the comma represents the Enter key, so this binds "have
your Shisai cast NASU" to a macro key. Note, though, that the macro execution
continues even if there's an error, so if you rearrange your party and "C3"
selects someone who can't cast a spell, the engine will happily continue typing
"N" "A" "S" "U" "Enter" anyway.
To record a macro:
* press control-A
* pick a macro number (1-4)
* type the string of characters (e.g. "C4NASU,")
* hit enter
To play back a macro:
* Macro #1: ampersand (shift-7)
* Macro #2: apostrophe (')
* Macro #3: open paren (shift-9)
* Macro #4: close paren (shift-0)
BONUS HISTORY LESSON! On the original Apple II keyboard, the number row looked
like this:
! " # $ % & ' ( ) * = (shift-0 didn't have a punctuation mark)
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 : -
Caret (^) was shift-N; lower case letters weren't a thing on the original Apple
II. By the time the IIe rolled around, shift-7 was ampersand and the apostrophe
had moved down next to the Return key where we're more familiar with it today.
That's why the macro activation keys are in a weird place on modern keyboards.
TERRAIN: As you explore the world you'll run into a number of different kinds
of terrain. You can always (V)iew a square to learn what type of terrain it is.
Terrain falls into a couple of different types:
* CLEAR: Grass, Scrub, Desert-Sand, Desert-Scrub, Tundra, Bush, Snow-Swamp
These terrain types block neither your movement nor your line of sight.
* OPAQUE: Forest, Snow-Pines, Hills, Steppe
These squares block your line of sight, but you can move through them.
* BLOCKING: Mountain, Snowcap
You can't move or see through mountains.
* PAINFUL: Swamp, Cacti
Walking over these squares causes damage to everyone in your party. Cacti are
also OPAQUE, i.e. they block your line of sight. Weirdly, Snow-Swamp squares
aren't PAINFUL.
Also, perhaps obviously, there's "Water", which you either need a boat to sail
over or G6:UKU to walk over (indoors only).
You will also discover a number of energy fields on your travels. These fall
into two categories:
* Rakhammon's Curtain (purple/green): The only way to pass through one of these
is to (U)se a Blue Crystal, which allows you to step into a Curtain.
* Arkhan's Wall (red/blue): You can step over these normally, but they eat 50%
of your current HP when you do.
TALKING: One of the most important skills for DEATHLORD players is talking to
NPCs. You'll do this in order to learn clues as well as interact with
merchants. Walk up next to an NPC and start a conversation with (O)rate. You
then have a bunch of different options:
* (C)HAT, which randomly repeats one of 16 fixed messages of varying utility
(see below). Because it's random, you sometimes get really hilarious
combinations (Senju tells you to "Find Senju", or better, "Leave me alone").
* (T)ALK, which gets you a phrase that is specific to the NPC you're speaking
with. These are also of varying utility, but often yield key words that you
can ask about.
* (I)NQUIRE, which allows you to free-enter a key word. If the NPC knows
anything about it, they'll tell you. However, every NPC in a location knows
exactly the same set of key words, so you don't have to find someone specific
to ask. (This also sometimes results in hilarious combinations.) Most of the
time, DEATHLORD's parser is smart enough to recognize both a word (DUNGEON)
and its plural (DUNGEONS).
* (B)UY and (S)ELL, which obviously only work on merchants. If you get
stonewalled when asking for a (T)ALK clue, you may be speaking with a
merchant, so try (B)UY. Of course, you may also be speaking with a hostile
that's about to attack you.
* (O)FFER (G)OLD, entered as "OG", which is useful when someone's (T)ALK phrase
is "PAY UP!". (I've marked clues found this way with "($$)".) This can be as
low as 10gp or as high as 100gp, and there's no way to know without just
trying it. Note that just because someone wants a bribe doesn't guarantee
that they have anything useful to say. "Thanks, sucker!" is a not uncommon
response.
* (O)FFER (I)TEM, entered as "OI", which is only useful in a handful of
specific places, mostly dealing with the Emperor, and I'll tell you about
them when we get there.
* (Esc) or (Enter) ends the conversation.
Here are the 16 messages you'll get in response to (C)hatting with an NPC:
Demons are deadly Map dungeons
Don't get caught outside at night Ruins are rich
Find Senju Seek the seven
Find the words Ships get stolen
Hello Things are tough all over
Kobito hide gold Time is short
Leave me alone Watch out for the storms at sea
Look to the north Watch your back
The useful ones are:
"Map dungeons": you should definitely try, although several of them do their
best to confounding pen-and-paper mapping. And you should also map towns!
"Find Senju": indeed, he is crucial to winning the game.
"Ships get stolen": I've never had my own ship stolen, but it is possible for
you to steal a boat by (A)ttacking it. Note that if you do this it will
turn a town against you.
"Find the words" and "Seek the seven": In order to win, you will need seven
words to get through seven gates.
In addition, SENJU, WORD, RUIN, and DUNGEON are good things to (I)nquire about.
The rest of the hints are misleading, wrong, or pointless. There's nothing
special about the North, there's no time limit on the game, and there are no
storms at sea (although there are plenty of nasty monsters). Kobito rarely have
much in the way of gold (the Mines being an exception), and ruins don't tend to
be very rich (or they all get picked over before you get there). Demons are
kind of deadly, but not significantly more so than any other creature.
2 CREATING CHARACTERS [#200#]
Unlike some later games that have skills, "derived" or "secondary" attributes,
or "advancement points" that can be spent on various aspects of your character,
DEATHLORD uses a fairly stripped-down system of attributes. Creation involves
six steps, described in brief here and in more detail below:
1. Pick a race, which determines the range of each attribute.
2. The game rolls seven attributes for you within the racial min/max, then
tells you which character classes are possible with that set of rolls. You can
reroll infinitely.
3. Pick a class from one of the allowed list; more on this later.
4. Pick an alignment (good / neutral / evil). Some character classes restrict
your choice (Kishi can only be Good, Ninja can only be Evil, etc.) Alignment is
irrelevant except that you can't assemble a party that has both Good and Evil
characters in it.
5. Pick a gender (male / female). Character gender is completely irrelevant,
and certain magical effects can change it mid-game.
6. Pick a name. It's possible to change it later with the "Character Utilities"
function on the Boot disk.
Let's talk about each aspect in turn.
2.1 ATTRIBUTES [#201#]
DEATHLORD uses the standard six D&D attributes, plus one for mana. The manual
gives a bunch of vague handwavey descriptions of what the stats are good for,
which is why this section isn't full of more definitive answers. Anything that
I'm vague about here is based on my experience and observation, and may not be
correct.
(STR)ENGTH affects damage, even for missile weapons. It's possible it also
affects to-hit.
(CON)STITUTION affects the number of hit points gained per level.
(SIZ)E affects your ability to (S)mash down doors, and doesn't seem to have
any other effect.
(IQ)NTELLIGENCE affects several things. For one, smarter characters find secret
doors faster. It's possible they also get bonuses to spell damage. The rate at
which POWER replenishes is theoretically affected by INT, but I didn't notice a
significant difference between 14IQ and 18IQ spellcasters.
(DEX)TERITY is supposed to affect thieving skills and your chance to dodge, but
it's hard to tell. I suspect it also affects your to-hit chance. Unlike other
CRPGs, it doesn't affect your armor class.
(CHA)RISMA affects the price of training (but only on the order of a handful of
gp per level) and the chance to (N)egotiate with monsters.
(POW)ER is your "mana" stat. Casting a spell costs 1pt of POWER per spell
level, so a third level spell costs 3POW, etc.
Stats have a minimum of 3 and a maximum of 21, except for POW which is
effectively unlimited.
When the game generates a random number (aka "rolls a die"), attributes provide
a bonus equal to floor((x-10)/2); 10=+0, 12=+1, etc. I've validated this for
damage caused by characters with high STR and hit points gained by characters
with high CON, but I suspect other attributes (like DEX affecting to-hit)
probably use the same scale.
Attr 03 04 05 06 07 08 09 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21
Bonus -4 -3 -3 -2 -2 -1 -1 +0 +0 +1 +1 +2 +2 +3 +3 +4 +4 +5 +5
Attributes don't increase through leveling or any other mechanism. The only way
to improve a stat is to drink from a "magic pool", which can be found in some
dungeons (there are ~50 in the entire game). Even then, magic pools only grant
a stat boost a small portion of the time. They also have a number of other
effects (some good, some bad) which we'll talk about later in section 2.5.
The exception to this rule is POWer; characters capable of using magic gain +1
maximum POW every even-numbered level. Note that when inspecting a character,
only the current amount of POW is shown. There is no indicator of maximum POW;
you just have to remember. POW regenerates naturally with time.
2.2 RACES AND CLASSES [#202#]
DEATHLORD's races are roughly D&D based, with Oriental labels slapped on some
(but not all?) of them. Here's a table with the attribute range by race:
Race D&D Equiv. STR CON SIZ INT DEX CHA POW
Human Human 03-18 03-18 03-18 03-18 03-18 03-18 03-18
Toshi Elf 03-13 03-13 03-12 08-19 08-19 07-18 08-19
Nintoshi Half-elf 03-15 03-15 05-14 06-18 06-18 05-18 05-18
Kobito Dwarf 08-19 08-19 03-08 03-16 03-16 03-16 03-16
Gnome Gnome 05-18 08-18 03-06 03-17 06-18 03-16 03-17
Obake Drow elf 03-15 03-16 03-07 03-14 08-20 03-14 03-18
Troll Ogre/Orc 11-21 11-20 13-21 03-11 03-13 03-10 03-12
Ogre Half-orc 08-19 08-19 11-19 03-13 03-13 03-12 03-14
.. and a (corrected) matrix of allowed class/race combinations. The matrix in
the manual is wrong in several places: Kishi and Shizen require Charisma, and
almost everyone has a minimum Dexterity requirement.
DESIRED ALLOWED RACES MIN ATTRIBUTES
CLASS Hum Tos Nin Kob Gno Obk Trl Ogr ST CN IQ DX CH
Senshi + + + + + + + + 11 .. .. 09 ..
Kishi + + + . . . . . 11 13 11 11 13
Ryoshi + + + . . . . . 11 13 11 11 ..
Yabanjin + . + + + + + + 13 13 .. .. ..
Kichigai + . + + + + + + 13 .. .. 11 ..
Samurai + + + . . + . + 11 11 .. 13 ..
Ronin + + + + + + + + 13 11 11 11 ..
Yakuza + + + + + + + + .. .. .. 13 ..
Ansatsusha + + + + + + + + 11 .. .. 13 ..
Ninja + + + . . + . . 11 13 .. 15 ..
Shukenja + + + . . . . . 11 13 11 13 ..
Shisai + + + + + + + + .. .. 11 09 ..
Shizen + + + + + + . + .. .. 11 09 11
Mahotsukai + + + . . . . . .. .. 11 09 ..
Genkai + + + . + . . . .. .. 11 09 ..
Kosaku + + + + + + + + .. .. .. .. ..
(Note that in tables like this throughout this document, '+' indicates a
positive match, and '.' a negative one.)
Before we get to my advice for building a party, let's look at the list of
classes and their attributes:
Class Abb D&D Equiv. Spl Alg HP Reasons you might [not] want one
SENSHI Sen Fighter - GNE 10
KISHI Kis Paladin Shi G.. 08 unique weapons
RYOSHI Ryo Ranger Shz GNE 09 less armor
YABANJIN Yab Barbarian - GNE 12 more HP, less armor
KICHIGAI Kic Barbarian - GNE 11 unique weapons, less armor
SAMURAI Sam Fighter - GNE 09 unique weapons
RONIN Ron Dark Paladin Shi ..E 08 unique weapons
YAKUZA Yak Rogue - GNE 06 lockpick skills
ANSATSUSHA Ans Assassin - ..E 06 better fighters, worse thieves
NINJA Nin Monk - ..E 07 unarmed attacks, critical hits
SHUKENJA Shu Monk Shi G.. 05 unarmed attacks, spells
SHISAI Shi Cleric Shi G.E 08
SHIZEN Shz Druid Shz .N. 08
MAHOTSUKAI Mah Mage Mah GNE 04
GENKAI Gen Illusionist Gen GNE 04
KOSAKU Kos Peasant - GNE 06 completely useless
"Spl": which spellcasting class they cast spells from
"Alg": which alignments are available to this class
"HP" : maximum number of HP gained per level, not counting CON bonus
2.3 ASSEMBLING A PARTY [#203#]
Let's start with character races. My first piece of advice is that you're best
off just taking six Humans.
Why not demihumans? Just look at the bonus modifiers: there's no functional
difference between an 18 and a 19 for most attributes, so the only non-Human
race that gives you any sort of useful boost is a Troll. An Obake can get 20
DEX and Toshi can start with one extra POW than anybody else, but the reduced
maximums in other stats make up for it. The only other benefits are the ability
to use the Kobito Hammer and Toshi Bow, which are good-to-great missile weapons
to be sure, but by the time you find one you'll probably have another weapon
you like better.
IF you're planning on taking a character class that allows Trolls, AND you're
willing to spend a really long time waiting for a maximum-value roll, I could
see an argument for a Troll with 20STR and 20CON. The +1 bonuses to damage/hit
and HP/level are both pretty nice... but that's a big "if".
I can neither confirm nor deny having spent a couple of hours writing a shell
script in Linux that used screenshots and OCR to auto-roll characters until I
got the stats I wanted, but feel free to drop me an email if you want to see
the thing.
One more thing on attribute maximums before we move on: I mentioned "magic
pools" earlier, and the fact that they can be used to increase stats after the
start of the game. They seem to ignore racial maximums, so you can get a Toshi
up to 18STR, eventually. But they also seem to max out at 18, so if you play a
Troll that starts with a 17STR, you will never get them up to 21.
Right so, party of six Humans? Check. On to the classes.
DEATHLORD uses a 3+3 turn-based combat system (see section 3.1) so you're
generally going to want three fighters for the front ranks and three
spellcasters in the back. There are couple of tweaks to that, though, which
we'll talk about in a second.
Let's start with the straight fighters. SENSHI are bland but effective. SAMURAI
have slightly fewer HP but get to use the Katana, which is a very good melee
weapon and easily available once you leave Kodan. YABANJIN and KICHIGAI trade
more HP for restrictions on armor; the Kichigai also gets to use the Berzerk
Sword, in case you want four attacks per round (brutal!). You don't *need* any
character in this group, but you'll probably wind up taking one for your party.
In the hybrid fighter/caster group, RYOSHI grant access to the Shizen book, but
low-level Shizen spells are pretty useless. KISHI are great because a second
Shisai caster is great at low levels, plus the Holy Blade is pretty good if you
can find one. If you're planning an evil party, take a RONIN instead for the
Unholy Blade and Skull Shield (a whopping +6 AC!).
For thieves/rogues we have the YAKUZA and ANSATSUSHA. The Yakuza are better
thieves; the Ansatsusha are better fighters. Neither get spells. Thieving
skills aren't really necessary or super useful, although it might relieve some
of the frustration of not being able to find a pit that you know is there.
If you like unarmed and unarmored fighters, the NINJA and SHUKENJA are your
monk-types. They get a +1 bonus to AC every two levels, although there's a
weird bug that resets them to AC10 at level 32. Their unarmed damage max also
goes up by 1 every two levels. Shukenja also read from the Shisai spellbook for
bonus NASU castings. The NINJA is sort of like an evil Shukenja, except they
(a) can't cast spells (b) can use the Shuriken and Nunchaku (c) can critical-
hit monsters at really high levels. Like most CRPG monks, they tend to be
vastly underpowered at low levels and don't usually live long enough to make up
for it.
Finally, the four spellcasting classes. MAHOTSUKAI are the standard offensive
casters, with some interesting utility spells mixed in. GENKAI have a large
number of spells that let you flee combat if that's your playing style. You'll
also really like HIBANA (a weak group-zap spell) at low levels and UKU (walk on
water) at higher ones.
The divine magic classes, SHISAI (priest) and SHIZEN (druid) come with
reasonable armor and fighting skills, which makes them good candidates for
the third front-line slot. Unfortunately they also have terrible weapon choice,
until you luck into a Rod of Death or acquire the Emerald Rod. Shisai focus
more on healing and buffing and are pretty much mandatory, but Shizen have some
unique spells that make them quite handy as well.
This brings us to the question of party balance. Everyone's going to play the
game differently, and you can be successful with a number of different party
compositions. My party looks like this: Samurai, Kishi, Shizen, Shisai,
Mahotsukai, Genkai. We're a little underpowered in melee combat at first, so I
actually started the game with a Senshi in the third slot and swapped in the
Shizen after we gained a few levels and really got rolling.
I don't bother carrying a rogue-type; theiving skills aren't useful enough, and
back-row slots are too valuable to waste on a non-spellcaster. The priests are
good enough fighters (with a non-terrible DEX, anyway) that I don't miss a
third fighter, and I'd rather have all four spellbooks than the extra brawn.
If you decide to take three fighters, you have to drop a caster class. I'd say
you're picking between the Shizen and the Genkai here. Check out the spell
lists in section 4; Genkai give you group-zap spells early, which is really
handy in Kodan. Shizen are the only class that can cure disease/illness, and
they get some group zap spells later to rival the Genkai. Z4:HITATE / SANTATE
are tough to do without, but not impossible; and you can compensate by
'cheating' and picking up the Ruby Ring and Emerald Rod early, if you want to.
Okay, now that you've figured out what your party looks like, let's talk
statistics. At the top of the list, CON is pretty important for everyone. HP
are a precious resource and you want as many as possible. Don't skimp on CON
for your mages, although this is a prime candidate for using magic pools to
improve your stats later (see section 2.5).
Mages also want to focus on having high POW. You won't get much during the
course of character development; you probably won't get 30 max POW across the
game unless you do a lot of grinding. One extra point of POW matters, though
maybe not much. INT (IQ) is supposed to determine how fast you recover POW and
also affect spell power, but if it does, it's not very visible.
Fighters should have a high STR and, perhaps less obviously, DEX. I noticed a
dramatic difference when my Shizen went from DEX 9 to DEX 10 in terms of how
often they hit during melee combat.
For the most part, SIZ doesn't matter. You do want at least one character with
a high SIZ attribute for bashing down doors.
And lastly, just like in D&D, CHA is pretty useless. Although, as a playing
style, I don't (N)egotiate with monsters much, so it's possible I would notice
low CHR if I used that tactic more.
DEATHLORD will happily let you assemble a party with only one character in it,
but I'll tell you right now this game is hard enough as it is and you don't
need to handicap yourself. (Also, you need to carry four items that all fit
into the same inventory slot, so you kind of need at least four party members.)
So pick your six classes, roll up your characters, make sure you assign
alignments appropriately, and then assemble your party. And then you get to
name it!
2.4 EXPERIENCE POINTS AND LEVELING UP [#204#]
As is true with most RPGs, in DEATHLORD characters have a "level" which starts
at 1. Every time you win a battle, you gain some experience points (XP). When
the game deems that a character has gained enough XP, you go up a level, and
you become more powerful. Actually, you gain the *potential* to go up a level,
but you have to visit an Academy and get "trained" in order to actually do so.
Training costs money, which is part of how the game manages your cash reserves.
Where DEATHLORD is different than most CRPGs is that it *doesn't tell you* how
many XP your characters have. Literally the only way to figure it out is to
disassemble a memory dump or a save disk file. It's maddening!
So, how much experience does your party gain from a battle? Well, each monster
has an XP value (see appendix). The total experience pool from a battle is
equal to the XP of the monster times the maximum number of monsters present at
any one time. Since DEATHLORD only ever sends one group of monsters against you
at a time, this is usually pretty straightforward to figure out. However if
they summon allies, that's where the "maximum present" modifier comes in. If
you start with four Gremlins, kill three, and they summon one more, you only
get credit for four. But if you start with four and they summon another first,
then you get credit for five.
Now we know how big the experience pool is, how do we divide it up? In order to
earn a share of experience, a character must do something "useful":
* landing a hit in melee (a kill is not necessary, but a miss is not enough)
* casting any spell
* trying to cast a spell but failing because you're out of POW
* casting a spell and then hitting ESC to cancel
The last one is the most interesting one. Because "useful" is usually defined
as "landing a hit in melee", the front line gets XP more often than the spell
casters in the back rank. Consistently using the cast-and-cancel trick ensures
that your casters are counted in the experience pool at the end of most fights,
which means that they won't be left quite as far behind in collecting XP and
going up levels.
So we have a pool of XP and a number of characters who participated; divide A
by B and you get the number of XP that each character gains. If there's a non-
zero remainder, the PC in slot #1 gets 1XP additional, then slot #2, and so on.
So your back-rank characters tend to get the short end of this stick.
You start the game at level 1; level 2 requires 200XP, as do levels 3-5. The
next four levels (6-9) require 400XP, the next four (10-13) 600XP, and so on.
The escalator tops out at level 22, after which all levels require 1200XP. You
can't advance past level 99. You can comfortably beat the game in the mid 20s;
if you're getting into the 40s, you either really like grinding or you aren't
save-scumming for HP (see below).
When a PC gains enough XP to advance to the next level, their XP counter resets
to 0 and starts counting up again. A "+" appears next to their name and their
details indicate (for example) level "04+01". This indicates that PC is ready
to advance from level 4 to level 5. It is possible to gain enough experience to
train for two levels at once (04+02), but not three.
Note that when you finally make it back to the training academy and train for
the next level, your XP counter is reset AGAIN, so any experience you gain
between leveling and training is wasted.
Training costs approximately 100gp per level plus some change, so the game's
level cap of 99 is as much about paying for training (you can only hold
10,000gp) as anything else.
When you train to go up a level, the main benefit is that your maximum HP goes
up. The amount it goes up is randomly rolled and depends on your character
class (section 2.2). It's also modified by your CON modifier (section 2.1).
There are few things worse than rolling a 1 on your new HP when you go up a
level, so I highly recommend using an emulator with save states (like
Win/Linapple) and doing what's called "save-scumming": save right before you
pay for training, and if you don't get enough HP, reload and do it again.
The other obvious boost to your character's power comes from spell levels.
Spellcasters gain new spells every couple of levels; see section 4. Secondary
casters gain new spells levels *four times slower* than primary casters, as per
this chart:
Spell level: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
Primary caster: 1 3 6 10 14 19 24 Shisai, Shizen, Mahotsukai, Genkai
Secondary caster: 1 12 24 40 56 76 96 Kishi, Ryoshi, Ronin, Shukenja
So, yeah, your Kishi is *really* never going to get to cast S7:MOINOCHI.
There are hidden power improvements from going up a level as well; I believe
that higher-level characters are more likely to hit, more likely to dodge an
attack, and more likely to resist the effects of magical attacks.
2.5 USING MAGIC POOLS [#205#]
Attributes don't increase when you go up a level. In fact, the only way to
increase the attributes of your characters is by throwing yourself upon the
mercy of the random number generator and drinking from a magic pool of water.
When you're exploring a dungeon, you'll find pools of water all over the place.
They come in three kinds: normal water, poison, and magic. There is literally
no way to distinguish them without drinking from them to see what happens. I've
provided vague descriptions of where the good pools are throughout the dungeon
walkthroughs in section 5, but really if you're going pool hunting you probably
want to use a well-annotated map.
When you (Z)drink from a magic pool, the response is "You feel dizzy!". One of
the following random effects will occur:
- nothing
- +1 to a random stat
- -1 to a random stat
- fully heal HP
- lose 50% of your remaining HP
- fully restore POW
- drain all POW
- cause poison (TOX)
- cause disease (ILL)
- flip the character's gender
Once a magic pool has granted an effect, it becomes normal water.
This really isn't fair. First you have to identify that something is a magic
pool, which you can't do. Then you have to hope that something good happens,
which is only three of the possible ten effects (including "no effect",
although I have no idea if the distribution is uniformly random or weighted).
And then if you do happen to get the "+1 to a stat" effect, you have to hope
that the randomly-chosen stat is the one you want. By the way, magic pools
can't raise a stat beyond 18, so if the stat the game chooses is already at 18
or higher, nothing happens instead.
If you're cheating, er, I mean, reading this walkthrough and using maps, then
you should obviously save-scum until you get a positive effect. But if I were
playing this game straight, I can't imagine ever choosing to drink from a pool
of water, even if I somehow knew already that it was a magic pool. The chance
of something bad happening is just way too high.
3 COMBAT AND GENERAL INFORMATION [#300#]
You'll spend most of your time in DEATHLORD doing one of three things: tracking
down clues from NPCs, sailing from one continent to another, and moving between
fights. So let's talk about combat and how to survive it, as well as some other
gameplay tactics you'll want to know.
3.1 COMBAT BASICS [#301#]
Step 1, before you get into combat: make sure that everyone has readied a
(W)eapon, either (H)and or (M)issile. (Or, for the Shukenja amongst you, (O)pen
hands.) You can confirm this by looking at your equipment list; a readied
weapon has an asterisk in front of it. Now then...
DEATHLORD uses a no-frills turn-based combat system. You have six characters
in your party (...right?), and you will be facing a single group of monsters on
the other side. Your party gets to attack, then the monsters attack, then you
attack, and so on until the combat is over. There's no targeting system,
there's no range or distance between parties, and there's no functional
difference between melee weapons and missile weapons. You just beat the crap
out of each other until everyone dies or runs away. (Note that running away
causes the monsters to disappear, so it's a valid route to shortcut a fight.)
As is common in combat systems of this style, only the first half of your party
can (A)ttack enemies using a weapon. Slots 1-3 can attack, cast spells, or do
other things; the characters in slots 4-6 can't attack but they can do the
other things. (Actually, they can try to (A)ttack, but the game will just say
"Can't!") This is called a "3+3" turn-based combat system because your party is
divided into a front rank and a back rank.
I told a little fib up there, which is that your party doesn't always go first.
First strike is granted to the team that initiates combat. If you used the
(A)ttack action to start melee, you get first strike. Otherwise the monsters
attack first.
Unlike some games that let you queue up commands for your whole party and then
execute them afterwards, DEATHLORD executes each action as soon as you hit the
key. So you get to watch the outcome of your front row's attacks before
deciding what spells to cast with your back row. This is nice, but also means
that once you issue a command for an earlier character, you can't go back and
change your mind.
I said this earlier but I'll say it again: "interface" commands like : (change
message delay) or control-S (enable/disable sound) COUNT AS YOUR BATTLE ACTION.
Likewise, if you hit (C)ast and then change your mind and hit ESC to cancel,
that's your action. However, Enter (view character's statistics) does not
consume your turn -- you get to input another action after you finish viewing.
So what can your characters do on their turn?
* (A)TTACK using whichever weapon you have readied. (You readied your weapons,
right?) We'll talk about this more in a minute.
* Ready a new (W)EAPON; pick from (H)AND, (M)ISSILE, or (O)PEN HAND (i.e. no
weapon).
* (C)AST a spell. You have to type the spell name, or hit / or ? to get a menu.
If you get the spell name wrong, you get another chance to type it.
* (R)ETREAT to the back of the group. This action doesn't actually occur until
everyone else has taken their turn, so if you tell #3 to RETREAT, #4 won't
get to ATTACK because they're still in the back row. If multiple characters
RETREAT in the same round, they all move to the back and retain their relative
ordering from before. This mostly makes sense; actions are applied in the
same order you specified them.
* (F)LEE, which causes the party to attempt to flee combat AND ALSO stops
anyone else in the party from executing a command this turn, so you probably
only want to do this with the party member in slot #6. It doesn't always
work. There are also a bunch of Shizen spells that cause you to FLEE that
tend to work much better, and if they don't work you don't lose the rest of
the party's turn.
* Attempt to (N)EGOTIATE with the monsters. This is like FLEEING, but it
depends on CHA, and if it works, the monsters charge you some amount of
money to leave. Harder monsters want more money (and are less likely to say
yes in the first place).
* (Space) Skip this character's turn.
* (S)KIP everyone's turn. Seriously, just don't use this.
When you use the ATTACK action (again, only from slots 1-3), you get to make
one or more attacks against a single enemy. Certain weapons grant you more than
one attack, and casting M3:ISOGU grants one additional attack to everyone in
the party. The most you can get is five attacks in a round; the Berzerk Sword,
only usable by Kichigai, attacks four times.
By the way, there's no functional difference between missile weapons and melee
weapons, except that you're allowed to carry one of each (see section 3.4). You
can't fire a missile weapon from the back row, and the combat system doesn't
include range or distance between parties. So you should let the various
benefits and penalties of each weapon (see section 3.5) decide what you use.
For each attack, the game rolls a random number to see if you hit. Lots of
different things go into this check, and I apologize for the vagueness here:
* Higher-level characters seem to hit more often.
* Higher STR and DEX probably(?) cause you to hit more often. Higher DEX may
also make you harder to be hit.
* Many weapons and armor have to-hit modifiers (see section 3.5). Those numbers
came from a data dump of the game's internal memory, so they're probably
accurate, but they would be more useful if we knew what random number the
game was rolling. (1-20 would be standard for games like this, but who
knows?)
* Enemies with lower ARMOR CLASS are harder to hit, but again it's not totally
clear how much. AC starts at 10 and goes down. Monster AC is in the Appendix
at the end of this document. You should obviously try to get your front line
fighters' AC down as far as possible.
Each attack has an independent chance of hitting. If it hits, the game rolls
damage. The damage rating of each weapon is listed in section 3.5. You get to
add your STR bonus to the damage *for each attack*, which means that weapons
that attack twice are generally better than weapons that attack once even if
they do half as much base damage (because you get to double your STR bonus if
you hit twice). However, weapons that attack multiple times often have lower
to-hit bonuses (or even penalties), which changes the math a bit.
Still, if you're carrying a Ninja, get them a Shuriken as quickly as possible
(they're pretty cheap), and buy your Samurai a Katana as soon as you leave
Kodan.
A final note: one of the few benefits that the game throws you is that only
three monsters get to take actions when it's their turn, no matter how many
there are in the group. So a group of 16 Kobito won't completely swamp you the
way they can in other games.
3.2 HEALTH AND DYING [#302#]
The health system in DEATHLORD is pretty straightforward. Everyone has a number
of HP, or hit points. The game displays this as two three-digit numbers; the
left-hand one is your current health, and the right-hand one is your maximum.
If you have a "condition" inflicted upon you then your maximum health is
replaced with the worst three-letter status indicator:
* (PAR)alysis S3:MOTUNASU
* (TOX)ified, aka 'poisoned' S4:DONASU
* (ILL)ness, aka 'diseased' Z3:BYOKINASU
* (RIP), aka 'slain' S7:MOINOCHI, S5:INOCHI, Z7:DRUINOCHI
* (STO)ned, aka 'petrified' S7:YAWARISHI
These five conditions can be cured by a high-enough level spellcaster, as shown
above. They can also be cured at a temple for money, although not every temple
can heal every condition.
Health will regenerate over time (about 1hp every 30 minutes of game time), so
long as your characters have food. Characters without food are "starving" and
will not regenerate health. Food is easily acquired on almost every continent
(though not in every town) at a rate of 3gp per meal and is consumed about once
every 90 minutes.
You don't have to explicitly "rest", but if you want to kill a bunch of time,
it's faster to use (control-P) to "pitch camp" for several hours than it is to
hold down the spacebar. You can't pitch camp while "indoor", which covers towns
and the first floor of some dungeons, but it works "outdoor" and in most
dungeons. The location indicator below your party list will tell you where you
are, and therefore whether or not you can camp.
Keep in mind that monsters will continue to roam around while you're camping
and will get first strike if they come across your camp. You may be able to
find little corners where it's harder for monsters to find you.
If you have pitched camp and decide to stop for some reason, you can press (B)
to interrupt your rest and "break camp" at any time.
Health can also be regenerated with magic. Shisai and Shizen have healing
spells, although the Shizen's spells cost more so they aren't as efficient:
S1:NASU 1 / 1-8 ~ 4.5 hp/mp on average
Z2:DUNASU 2 / 1-8 ~ 2.25
S4:MONASU 4 / 17-32 ~ 6.125
Z5:DRUNASU 5 / 17-32 ~ 4.9
S5:HONASU 5 / 33-64 ~ 9.7
S6:ALNASU 6 / all best if curing 60hp or more
The day you cast your first S6:ALNASU to cure 100+hp is a beautiful day indeed.
Finally, temple priests will cast S6:ALNASU on you for 200gp. It's called
"Healing" on the menu. Once you're off Kodan and basically rolling in gold,
it's not the worst idea. For the sake of comparison, healing by resting costs
1gp in food consumed per 1hp restored, but the temple priest is much faster.
DEALING WITH DEATH: One of the wonderful ways in which DEATHLORD hates you is
by saving to disk *immediately* if one of your characters dies. That way if you
reboot the game and try to make a new party with the dead character, they're
still dead! Isn't that great?
The first thing you should do is use your magic powers of retrogaming to keep
copies of your save disks around as backups. Technically this is possible using
the disk utilities, but I played this game in 1988 and doing that was such a
pain in the ass that we never did it.
If you decide to fix the situation in-game, you have two options, "raising" and
"resurrecting". "Raising" a character, via cheap temple, S5:INOCHI, or
Z7:DRUINOCHI, permanently lowers that character's CON by 1. This is often an
enormous loss, so you should rectify it right away by finding a magic pool. The
far better option is "resurrection" via S7:MOINOCHI or a slightly more
expensive temple visit, which does not come with a CON penalty.
If one of your characters is slain in combat and you try to resurrect them in
the middle of the fight, keep in mind that spellcasters lose all their POWER
when they die, so they will be nigh-useless to you until the combat is over.
3.3 COMBAT STRATEGIES [#303#]
You're going to get into a lot of fights across a game of DEATHLORD. First of
all, you can't really avoid them; once a monster decides to start chasing you,
they will do so until they catch you. They get to move diagonally and you
don't, so they have the jump on you unless the terrain happens to be in your
favor.
Once a fight starts, you have two options: stand and fight, or try to end the
combat early. The latter option has three versions, which I described in
section 3.1. Ending combat early (through fleeing or negotiating) causes the
combat to disappear, but you don't get XP or treasure.
If you decide to fight, your tactics are fairly limited. Your back line, in
particular, can't really do anything but cast spells or use the occasional item
(and there aren't many). You get the (R)etreat command, which lets you shuffle
somebody from the front row who's about to run out of HP to slot six so they
don't get whacked and die. But that's only useful if the character in slot four
can defend themselves, so I recommend putting a Shisai or Shizen there and
giving them good armor.
Don't forget the experience distribution rules (section 2.4); make sure
everybody gets a chance to do something "useful", and in general if you're
facing fewer weaker monsters, it's probably a good idea to skip over your front
line on the first turn so the back row has a chance to cast-and-cancel so they
get something out of the fight. You should also consider having characters that
have a +1 and are waiting to train not do anything at all in combat, to reduce
the denominator of distributed experience.
3.4 DEALING WITH LOOT [#304#]
DEATHLORD provides you with a unique inventory management problem. Each
character can hold eight items, but those eight inventory slots are devoted to
certain categories of items -- melee weapons go in slot 0, for example. You
can't hold more than one of each category, so you can't stash a spare melee
weapon in any other slot, which makes acquiring a new melee weapon interesting.
When you win a battle, you may or may not get money, and you may find zero,
one, or two items. Money always goes to whoever is the party leader at the
moment. If you collect too much money (a character can only hold 10,000gp), you
silently drop the excess. So make a point of checking how much cash your party
leader has, and use (T)rade (G)old to give some to other characters when
necessary.
Note: do NOT use the Pool Gold command ($ or shift-4)! It gathers up all the
cash in the party, silently drops everything over 10,000gp, and then gives it
all to one person. Go read that sentence again, and pay attention to the
"silently drops" thing. This may not seem like a problem while you're on Kodan,
but it will become one soon enough. It's really easy to throw away many
thousands of gold pieces without knowing you've done it. And you don't get a
warning, because DEATHLORD hates you.
If you find an item in battle, you will be asked which character wants to pick
it up. If that character already has an item in that slot, the game will ask if
you want to drop the item you already have and pick up the new one instead. You
can cancel and pick a different character. Note that it is entirely possible to
irretrievably lose a unique item (such as the Emerald Rod) this way.
(G)etting money from a pot or a treasure box works exactly the same way, except
that you can select a character to perform the action (G 5 K will tell
character #5 to steal from something to the E, for example). However, treasure
boxes are sometimes trapped, so it's good to have a thief or a character with a
high DEX open them.
If you want to move inventory items between characters, you have two options.
For food, you can use the (T)rade (F)ood command. Type the DESTINATION
character first, then the SOURCE character, then tell the game how much to
move. You can do this for (T)orches (and, as I mentioned above, (G)old) too.
The game allows you to do this with (E)quipment, but DO NOT USE THIS COMMAND.
Let's say you want to give your Tanto to someone to hold for a second while
your Mahotsukai does something else. So you (T)rade (E)quipment to #1 from #6,
and then pick the Tanto... but you forgot that character #1 already has the
Sunspear. No problem, they'll just quietly drop it so that they can receive the
Tanto, because that's what you wanted, right?
Instead, use the e(X)change command. Again, pick the DESTINATION character
first, then the SOURCE character. In our previous example, the Mahotsukai would
wind up with the Sunspear, because players 1 and 6 EXCHANGED their melee
weapons. This is a much safer operation (and easy to reverse), but it only
works on actual equipment.
It is sometimes possible to sell equipment back to shops, but you have to find
a shop that sells items of the same variety; you can't sell a shield back to an
armor shop, for instance, and neither can you sell a melee weapon to a missile
weapon shop. However, if it can't be bought in a shop, it can't be sold back to
a shop either. So the vast majority of the time, it's not worth carrying around
something you can't use. Just drop it and move on.
I mean, at least you don't have to deal with encumbrance.
3.5 EQUIPMENT [#305#]
Here's a table of all the equipment in the game, broken down by inventory
slots. Within each slot, items are further divided up into 'weight classes'. In
theory, there's a 1:1 correlation between a character class and the weight
classes that they can use. In practice, that doesn't always seem to be the
case. As an example, the Bo-Staff is in the lightest weight class for melee
weapons, but Shisais can use them. In addition, some items have race or class
restrictions; the Powerstaff can only be used by Mahotsukai.
The information in this table, including the division of weight classes but
excluding which classes can use which items, was obtained by dumping data from
the binary game image and doing some investigation. Andrew Schultz also has a
FAQ with a similar data dump up on GameFAQs (link in the ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS,
section 1.2), which you're welcome to cross-reference. I've tried to confirm it
where possible, but haven't done an exhaustive job.
Column 1 of the table is the hex item ID that appears in your character's
inventory data, if you're poking through save files. See HEX EDITING, section
6.4 for more information on that.
"$$$" is the approximate minimum price of the item. You will not find the item
cheaper than this, and usually it will be more expensive (modified slightly by
the Charisma of the buyer). If the price is " - ", that item can't be purchased
(or sold) in shops. Things sell for half (or less) of their purchase price.
The next three columns are full of "who can use this" data. Fighter-types are
grouped together, then thief-types, then magic users. These columns are in the
same order as the class listings in section 2.2.
"TH" indicates the to-hit bonus or penalty for using the weapon; higher is
better. "A/Dmg" shows the damage range, and if the weapon can attack multiple
times, there's a "2x" or "3x" in front of it. Some weapons also affect your AC
(either up or down). For the sake of this table, positive AC modifiers are
good (even though your AC wants to be as "low" as possible).
Special effects are listed in the last column. Items that "cast" a spell do so
when you (U)se them; they usually come with a limited number of charges. The
maximum number of charges is in parentheses, for example (#24), but you'll find
items with less. Check your inventory; it will tell you how many charges are
left. (**) means infinite. A weapon that "slays" a particular monster type does
double damage against them; see the MONSTER LIST in the appendix, section 6.5.
Fightrs Thfs Magi
Id $$$ SKRYKSR YANS SZMG Name TH A/Dmg +AC
~ Melee Weapons (Slot 0) ~
00 10 +++++++ ++++ ..++ TANTO -2 2x1-3 -1AC
0a 20 +++++++ ++++ ++++ BO-STAFF 1-7 -1AC
26 - +++++++ ++++ ..++ ROD OF LIGHT +1 1-8 casts S3:MOAKARI (#24)
3b - ....... .... ..+. POWERSTAFF +2 1-12 +4AC casts M3:ZUMA (#20)
46 - +++++++ ++++ ..++ SUNSPEAR +3 1-24 +3AC slays Deathlord
02 30 +++++++ .... ++.. JO-STICK -1 1-7
32 - +++++++ .... ++.. ROD OF DEATH +2 2x1-10 +1AC
49 - +++++++ .... ++.. EMERALD ROD +4 1-10 +6AC slays demons,
casts Z4:SANTATE
04 50 +++++++ ++++ .... SAI 2x1-4
1c 100 ....... ..+. .... NUNCHAKU +3 2x1-9
1d 400 .....+. .... .... WAKIZASHI +1 2x1-10
27 - +++++++ ++++ .... DRAGONSLAYER +1 1-12 +1AC slays dragons
28 - +++++++ ++++ .... GIANTSLAYER +1 1-12 +1AC slays giants
29 - +++++++ ++++ .... DEFENDER +1 1-10 +4AC casts M5:HOHYO (#10)
31 - +++++++ ++++ .... SWORD OF FIRE +1 1-12 +1AC slays undead,
casts Z4:HITATE (#10)
10 80 +++++++ .... .... MASAKARI 1-8
13 120 +++++++ .... .... GLAIVE 1-9
19 250 +++++++ .... .... NAGINATA +1 1-10 +1AC
1e 600 .....+. .... .... KATANA +1 2x1-14 +1AC
2c - ....+.. .... .... BERZERK SWORD +1 4x1-8
33 - +++++++ .... .... THUNDERBLADE +2 1-14 +1AC casts M3:ZUMA (#08)
37 - ......+ .... .... UNHOLY BLADE +3 1-10 +2AC casts M6:KOROSU (#06)
3c - +++++++ .... .... RUNEBLADE +2 1-15 +2AC casts M6:KOROSU (#06)
38 - .+..... .... .... HOLY BLADE +3 1-15 +2AC slays demons,
casts S6:ALNASU (#06)
~ Missile Weapons (Slot 1) ~
08 30 +++++++ .... ++.. SLING -2 1-6 +1AC
2f - KOBITO HAMMER +1 1-16 +2AC KOBITO only
0d 110 +++++++ ++++ .... LIGHT BOW -1 2x1-4 +1AC
12 150 +++++++ ++++ .... CROSSBOW +1 1-10 +1AC
18 70 ....... ..+. .... SHURIKEN 3x1-3 +1AC
2d - +++++++ ++++ .... TOSHI BOW +3 3x1-8 +2AC TOHSI only
15 210 +++++++ .... .... HEAVY BOW 2x1-6 +1AC
1a 300 +++++++ .... .... GREAT BOW +1 2x1-8 +1AC
~ Body Armor (Slot 2) ~
01 20 +++++++ ++++ ++++ CLOAK +1AC
20 - +++++++ ++++ ++++ TOSHI CLOAK +2AC casts G4:KAKUSU (#10)
2e - +++++++ ++++ ++++ SABLE CLOAK +3AC
03 60 +++++++ ++.. ++.. HARA.ATE +2AC
07 110 +++++++ ++.. ++.. HARAME.DO +3AC
21 - +++++++ ++.. ++.. HARA.ATE +1 +3AC
22 - +++++++ ++.. ++.. HARAME.DO +1 +4AC
0c 210 +++.+++ .... ++.. HARAMAKIDO +4AC
2b - +++.+++ .... ++.. HARAMAKIDO +1 +5AC
34 - +++.+++ .... ++.. DO.MARU +1 +6AC
3a - +++.+++ .... ++.. DO.MARU +2 +7AC
17 410 ++...++ .... .... DO.MARU +5AC -1 to hit
1b 610 ++...++ .... .... YOROI +6AC -2 to hit
35 - ++...++ .... .... YOROI +1 +7AC -1 to hit
40 - ++...++ .... .... GOLDEN YOROI +10AC
~ Shields (Slot 3) ~
06 30 +++++++ ++++ ++.. SMALL SHIELD +1AC
23 - +++++++ ++++ ++.. BRONZE SHIELD +3AC
0b 80 +++.+++ .... ++.. MEDIUM SHIELD +2AC
30 - +++.+++ .... ++.. SILVER SHIELD +4AC
41 - +++.+++ .... ++.. GOLDEN SHIELD +5AC
11 120 ++...++ .... .... GREAT SHIELD +3AC -1 to hit
42 - ......+ .... .... SKULL SHIELD +6AC
~ Misc Armor (Slot 4) ~
05 10 +++++++ ++++ ++++ GLOVES +1AC
24 - +++++++ ++++ ++.. GOLD JINGASA +2AC
09 70 +++++++ .... ++.. GAUNTLETS +2AC
0e 100 +++++++ .... ++.. JINGASA +1AC
39 - +++++++ .... ++.. GOLDEN CROWN +3AC
14 180 ++.++++ .... .... KABUTO +2AC
3d - ++.++++ .... .... GOLDEN GLOVES +3AC +2 to hit
3e - ++.++++ .... .... FALCON HELM +4AC
~ Magic Items (Slot 5) ~
3f - ....... .... +... RING OF LIFE +1AC casts S7:MOINOCHI (#06)
44 - +++++++ ++++ ++++ SHARKTOOTH reveals location of Hell Island
45 - +++++++ ++++ ++++ BLUE CRYSTAL (U)se to pass through Curtain
48 - +++++++ ++++ ++++ RUBY RING +2AC casts Z4:HITATE
4a - +++++++ ++++ ++++ BLACK ORB give to Emperor to win game
~ Tools (Slot 6) ~
0f 80 +++++++ ++++ ++++ LOCK PICK allows (P)icklock action
16 100 ....... .... +... HOLY SYMBOL casts S2:TSUIHO (#12)
43 - +++++++ ++++ ++++ LANTERN illuminates the Hell dungeon
~ Scrolls (Slot 7) ~
1f - ....... .... +... SCROLL.HEAL casts S6:ALNASU (#01)
25 - ....... .... ..+. SCROLL.WARD cases M5:HOHYO (#01)
2a - ....... .... .+.. SCROLL.CURE casts S4:DONASU (#01)
36 - ....... .... +... SCROLL.RAISE casts S5:INOCHI (#01)
47 - +++++++ ++++ ++++ DOCUMENT give to Emperor to get free boat
3.6 MANAGING SAVE FILES [#306#]
One of the things that makes DEATHLORD so brutal is the autosaving and
permadeath. The game doesn't allow you to keep multiple save files or anything
like that. But you're retrogaming, which means you get the benefit of an
emulator that makes things like swapping disks easy. If you're lucky, you might
even be able to save snapshots of the emulator state for super-fast reloads.
Before you start playing the game, you'll need to use the in-game utilities to
make copies of the Scenario A and Scenario B disks. These hold your save data.
Depending on what part of the world you're in, one of the two disks will be
"active". If you start a game and say you have two drives, you can put both
scenario disks in and the game will manage it for you. Otherwise, every time
you cross the invisible boundary it will ask you to switch disks. Regardless,
when you hit (Q)save, the game will save your party to whichever is the current
scenario disk.
This isn't an emulator tutorial, so I'll just say this: every time you save,
take those two .nib files for your scenario disks and copy them somewhere safe.
That way you can always revert to a previous save if something goes wrong. This
one tip will change DEATHLORD from an edge-of-your-seat festival of frustration
into a far more ordinary CRPG.
There are several ways that this allows you to manage your game.
SAVE-SCUMMING: Whenever a random boon is bestowed upon you (i.e. random hit
points from training, or the effects of a magic pool), save your game and back
it up, then do the thing. If you're not happy with the result, reload. This is
even easier if you use an emulator with save states; in linapple, hit F12 to
save the emulator state and F11 to reload. This way you can maximize your HP
per level and always get +1 to the stat you want from magic pools.
DISK-SWAPPING: Because the game uses *two* Scenario disks and only one is
active at any given time, you can replace the other Scenario disk (which has
saved lots of things you've done in that half of the world) with a fresh, clean
copy. This will reset certain bits of state and allow you to do things more
than once, or undo things (like pissing off a city by attacking the guards)
that aren't so advantageous. There's advice out there for how to attack cities
and steal a bunch of stuff from merchants, then disk-swap to reset the city,
but it's not my cuppa.
DISBANDING YOUR PARTY: The Boot disk has a feature that allows you to disband
the current game on a Scenario disk. This releases all the characters back into
the "pool" of generated characters. You can then reform a "new" party and
"restart" the game on Kodan near Kawa. Your characters will be in the same
state you left them (money, equipment, levels all intact, but so is death), and
if you don't swap in fresh Scenario disks, everything you've done will still be
saved in the world state, but at least you can buy a new boat in Tokugawa.
3.7 ATLAS [#307#]
The world map that's printed on the inside of the box shows you five
continents: Kodan, where you start, plus Chigaku, Akmihr, Asagata, and Nyuku.
It also names the towns on those islands, which is useful for figuring out
where Senju has gone hiding. But apart from a rough idea of which direction you
need to go from Kodan, the continents aren't really in the right places, and
finding them is a nightmare when you're trying to dodge sea monsters and not
get poisoned.
So here's a more accurate, and therefore more useful, world map. It's divided
into disk sectors, which are 55 x 55 tiles square. You can always tell when you
switch sectors because the disk drive will get accessed. You'll also see this
when, say, walking across Kodan. Also, in case it isn't obvious, the world is
round, so as you hit the edges of this map you will wrap around.
A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P
01 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 01
02 . . . . . N . . . . . . . . . . 02 Nyuku
03 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . H . 03 Hell I.
04 . . . . . . . . . . C . . . . . 04 Black Is. Chigaku
05 . B . . L . . . . . . . . . . . 05 Lost Is.
06 . . . . . . . K K . . . . . . . 06 Kodan
07 . . . . . . . K . . . . O . . . 07 Osozaki
08 . . . . A . . . . . . . . . . . 08 Asagata
09 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . * 09 (deserted)
10 . . . . . . . . . . A . . . . . 10 Akmihr
11 . . D . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11 I./Dead
12 . . . . . N . . . . . . . . G . 12 Narawn
13 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . G . 13 Giluin
14 . . . . . . . . . * . . . . . . 14 (deserted)
15 . . . . . . S S . . . . . . . . 15 Sirion
16 . T . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16 Tsumani
A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P
I cribbed this map from Wilson Lau's FAQ, but I've reoriented the continents
such that Kodan is mostly central and any clues you get about the relative
location of two continents line up. For instance, on this map, Narawn is south
of Nyuku; the Black Isles are north of Tsumani, the 'star of the south'; and
Giluin is east of Narawn. Even though in most cases it's faster to sail around
the world in the opposite direction than the one you're given.
One hint about getting lost at sea: if you get really really lost, try sailing
west and count sectors until you hit something. You'll have more luck if you
can roughly center yourself in the map sector (27 steps from either edge). If
you manage to go around the world (16 sectors) without finding a continent, go
south one sector and try again, and you'll probably hit something.
Below I list each continent, give its coordinates on the map above, and list
the visitable locations along with a rough pointer towards which part of the
continent they can be found. Locations with a game-winning thing (i.e. word or
relic) are marked with an asterisk.
Akmihr (K-10)
Towns: Oasis (NE), Desert Flower (SE), *Sultan's Palace (SE)
Dungeons: Akhamun-Ra's Pyramid (NW), *Kobito Mines (C)
Asagata (E-08)
Towns: Towne Royal (NW), Croyo (C)
Dungeons: Fire Giants' Lair (NE)
Black Isles (B-05)
Towns: *Red Shogun's Castle (C)
Dungeons: *Doors Dungeon (C)
Chigaku (K-04)
Towns: Fort Wintergreen (NW), Crystalmist (E)
Dungeons: *Troll Hole (C), Tower of Shumi (SW)
Isle of the Dead (C-11)
Dungeons: *Pyramid of the Old Ones (SW)
Giluin (O-12:O-13)
Towns: Kobar (NE), Shupan (SE), Temple of Oceanus (W)
Dungeons: Linear Dungeon (N)
Hell Island (O-03)
Towns: Skull Keep (C)
Dungeons: *Hell (Skull Keep)
Lost Isles (E-05)
Dungeons: *Caves of the Four Elements (SW)
Kodan (H-06:I-07)
Towns: Emperor's Palace (C), Kawa (C), Tokugawa (NW), Tokushima (E)
Ruins: Yokahama (E), Wakiza (S)
Dungeons: Caves (E), Yakuza Guild (Kawa), Kawahara's dungeon (Palace),
Pirate's Den (Wakiza)
Narawn (F-12)
Towns: *Lost Lagoon (NW), Kashiwa (SW), Fort Demonguard (C), *Malkanth (C)
Nyuku (F-02)
Towns: Spindrift North (W), Spindrift South (W), *Twin Rivers (NW)
Dungeon: Sunken Temple (NE)
Osozaki (M-07)
Towns: Deepingdale (C)
Ruins: Wakai (SW)
Dungeons: Teleground (NE)
Sirion (G-15:H-15)
Towns: Clearview (SE)
Ruins: *Greenbanks (W)
Dungeons: *Staircase dungeon (NE), *Chessboard dungeon (W)
Tsumani (B-16)
Towns: Morningfrost (SE), Snow Raven (SW)
Dungeons: Chutes and Ladders dungeon (S)
3.8 WEIRD STUFF
It's possible that the cracked game disk that's floating around somehow
prevents you from getting better loot. I got almost nothing anywhere until I
(accidentally) rebooted using a nibblized boot disk, and all of sudden the loot
started to flow like water. It's possible something else happened there, but a
switch definitely flipped.
[CHEAT] Have a Shisai buy a lockpick, then immediately buy a holy symbol. Press
(Y) to replace the first with the second, and (due to a bug) the holy symbol
will have a huge (255) number of charges.
The best, and indeed only, way to get a town to turn against you is to attack
someone. No matter who you run up against -- including the undead! -- let them
attack you first, and the guards will stay quiet. They don't even seem to mind
if you bash down doors, break into prisons, and steal things. Just don't attack
anyone. If you run afoul of this rule, the guards will attack you on sight and
the merchants won't sell you anything anymore. This is a particularly bad idea
at the Emperor's Palace on Kodan; it's hard to win the game if you can't talk
to the Emperor.
While outside and on-board a boat, you can attack enemies on land, but they can
not attack you. Likewise, monsters in the water can attack you from the water,
even if you're on land. However, when you're inside, even if you're on-board a
boat (yes, it happens), you can be attacked from land.
If you try to (B)oard a boat that isn't yours, the game tells you it's "Not
yours!". You can steal a boat by (A)ttacking it. Careful, though; they usually
have ~30 Sailors on board, and they aren't super hard, but they do summon
allies.
Chests eventually close themselves and slowly regenerate gold. If you go back
to treasure that you looted much earlier in the game, there's a change it will
be there again.
Casting G6:UKU allows you to walk on water for around 20 steps. If it runs out
when you're in the middle of water, though, you don't drown (phew). You're just
stuck, because the game won't let you walk on water any more. So you have to
rest until you can cast UKU again.
4 MAGIC [#400#]
Across this document, spells are listed in all-caps with a prefix indicating
the class and level of the spell. For example, Z4:HITATE is a 4th-level shiZen
spell, and I bet you can figure out the rest from there.
The main effect of the spell is CAPITALIZED.
'HEAL' (health) and 'CURE' (status) spells only ever affect one party member
at a time.
'BUFF+' spells improve the attributes of one or more party members.
'BUFF-' spells hinder your opponents.
'FEAR' spells cause your opponents to flee combat, and seem to be more likely
than most to be dependent on the enemy type.
'HOLD' effects encompass a variety of styles of paralysis as described in the
manual, but they all work roughly the same way: affected creatures are
unable to act for some number of rounds. The type of effect doesn't seem to
matter by creature type, i.e. you can put skeletons to sleep.
'FLEE' spells give you a chance of fleeing combat which is generally better
than just taking the (F)lee action; Genkai have many of these spells.
The damage caused by 'ZAP' spells seems to be level-dependent. It may also vary
with your caster's IQ stat, but I haven't done the independent trials to know
for sure. Often when you first get a zap spell the damage maximum will be
lower, but it will go up over time; don't expect to roll a 30-point casting of
M3:ZUMA at 6th level. Also, the numbers I report here are rounded and based on
my experimental evidence, so you may get higher or lower. Zap spells that
'slay' are always subject to some kind of saving throw, meaning that more
powerful monsters are less likely to be affected.
4.1 SHISAI SPELLS (Kishi, Ronin, Shukenja) [#401#]
* Level 1
NASU HEAL 1-8hp
AKARI Provides 3sq radius LIGHT for ~195 turns; dungeons only
KATAI BUFF+ AC by 2, one party member, cumulative
* Level 2
MOTU HOLD 1-3 targets
DOSOI Halves the damage taken from TOXification
TSUIHO FEAR, undead only, only works once per combat. This is basically a
"turn undead" spell which "banishes" enemies.
* Level 3
MOAKARI Provides 4sq radius LIGHT for ~300 turns; dungeons only
MOTUNASU CURE PAR
ONKEI BUFF+ attack, entire party
* Level 4
DONASU CURE TOX
MONASU HEAL 17-32hp
MAKATAI BUFF+ AC by 1, entire party
* Level 5
HINAGU ZAP group, up to 30hp; only works outdoors and in towns
INOCHI CURE RIP (raise dead); character loses -1 CON
HONASU HEAL 33-64hp
* Level 6
ALNASU HEAL all hp
KURENZA ZAP group, up to 40hp
KAERU Casting this spell sets a 'homing beacon'. Enter a word, then later
have the same caster (Y)ell your recall word to teleport to the
spot where you cast the spell.
* Level 7
SHINSEIGO ZAP group, slays; enemies that fail are "damned"
MOINOCHI CURE RIP (raise dead), no loss of CON
YAWARISHI CURE STO
4.2 SHIZEN SPELLS (Ryoshi) [#402#]
* Level 1
KUSAMOTSU HOLD 1-4 targets; 'entanglement', only works when standing on grass,
bushes, trees, etc.
HIKAKOMU BUFF+ attack, one party member
ICHIHAN Divine the current dungeon level; but see section 5.58 for an
important note about how DEATHLORD dungeons are laid out
* Level 2
KINO BUFF+ AC, one party member, cumulative
DUNASU HEAL 1-8hp
MOYA FLEE
* Level 3
BYOKINASU CURE ILL
KONPASU Divine the direction to the nearest island while at sea
YOBUZUMA ZAP group, up to 30hp; 'lightning', only works outdoors
* Level 4
HITATE Prevents damage from fire for ~32 steps
SANTATE Prevents damage from acid for ~32 steps
TABEMONO Create food; only works when standing on grass, bushes, trees, etc.
* Level 5
HIKABE ZAP group, up to 50hp; 'fire'
DRUNASU HEAL 17-32hp
JISHIN ZAP group, up to 50hp; 'earthquake'
* Level 6
HIARASHI ZAP group, up to ??hp; 'fire'
KYOKI Causes 'insanity', with varying effects
TSUKAKUSU Hides the party from wandering monsters, even while moving
* Level 7
KONRAN HOLD group
KOMARU ZAP one enemy, slays
DRUINOCHI CURE RIP (raise dead); character loses -1 CON
4.3 MAHOTSUKAI SPELLS [#403#]
* Level 1
TODO ZAP one enemy, 1-8hp; 2x1-8 at L4, 3x1-8 at L8
The manual claims 4x is possible but I never got a 4th attack.
NERU HOLD group; 'sleep'
TATE BUFF+ AC by 2, one party member, cumulative
* Level 2
CHIKARA BUFF+ attack, whole party, cumulative
YOWAMERU BUFF- damage, all enemies, cumulative
KOWA FEAR, one enemy, doesn't work on undead
* Level 3
ZUMA ZAP group, up to 30hp; 'lightning'
ISOGU BUFF+ whole party gets +1 attack next round; 'haste'
KUMO HOLD group; 'web'
* Level 4
HITAMA ZAP group, up to 30hp; 'fire'
UGOKU Teleports the party randomly 1-8 squares
MOKOWA FEAR, all enemies
* Level 5
DOKUMO ZAP group, slays; 'black smoke', affects whole group or none
KOORI ZAP group, up to 50hp; 'ice'
HOHYO BUFF+ AC by 2, whole party
* Level 6
KOROSU ZAP group, slays
UNMEI ZAP one, slays
ARASHI ZAP group, up to 50hp; 'fire'
* Level 7
TOKI HOLD group; 'time stop'
UNPAN Teleports the party up or down 1-4 levels of dungeon
TAIYOHI ZAP group, up to 75hp; 'fire'
4.4 GENKAI SPELLS [#404#]
* Level 1
KIRI FLEE
HIBANA ZAP group, up to 2hp; up to 4hp at L3, 6hp at L5
SHOTEN BUFF+ attack, one party member
* Level 2
NIKKO Provides 3sq radius LIGHT for ~195 turns; dungeons only
NIJIN BUFF+ AC by 2, one party member
MEKURA HOLD group; 'mind blast'
* Level 3
KAWA FEAR, 1-3 enemies
NIGERU FLEE
MAMOTU HOLD group
* Level 4
MANIJIN BUFF+ AC by 2, whole party
KAKUSU Hides the party from wandering monsters; movement cancels
GENEITODO ZAP group, up to 30hp; 'phantom missiles', targets can save
* Level 5
MEIRO HOLD group; 'mesmerized'
MANIGERU FLEE
YUJO HOLD group; 'charm'
* Level 6
UKU Allows party to walk on water for ~20 steps
MAKAWA FEAR, whole group
KOTOBA ZAP group, up to 50hp, targets can save
* Level 7
HONIGERU FLEE
YUREI Wandering monsters will ignore the party for ~20 steps
TSUKIHI ZAP group, up to 75hp; 'fire'
5 WALKTHROUGH [#500#]
Enough with the appetizers; let's move on to the meat of our quest (and this
walkthrough). DEATHLORD is a highly non-linear game. There is a plot, or at
least one main goal, and to achieve it you need to visit almost every continent
in the game at least once and in some cases twice.
I've tried to organize this in an order that (a) makes "plot sense", meaning I
don't send you somewhere without showing you the clue that tells you how to get
there, and (b) minimizes the amount of backtracking that you have to do.
Of course, even if you follow the clues you're given, it's entirely possible to
simply happen upon a continent by mistake while searching for a different one.
There's nothing stopping you from just going on walkabout (sailabout?) as soon
as you get a boat, striking out in a random direction from Kodan, discovering
the Red Shogun's palace, and recovering the Ruby Ring even before you've found
Senju. On the other hand you could do what I did, wind up on Asagata, and get
your 10th level party demolished by a bunch of Fire Giants.
DEATHLORD does not coddle you. Even the starter dungeon can be lethal for
parties that are just starting out. At every turn there is a wrong step that
you can take that will drop you into a dungeon that will overpower you. What
I'm going to do in this walkthrough is steer you off of that path as often as
possible. But if you feel like freelancing, I've tried to write each section in
a fairly self-contained way, so you should be able to pick it up whenever you
get to a particular town. There will be a couple of places where the town
descriptions make more sense if you read them in the order I've written them,
though.
One quick word on notation: Generally when I'm describing the information
you'll learn in an area, I've put oration keywords (i.e. things that you can
(I)nquire about) in ALL CAPS. Keywords are plural-insensitive, that is, asking
for CAVE and CAVES usually gives you the same answer.
At the top of each section is a list of Services offered by the town. Different
vendors offer different levels of service; the value noted in parentheses is
the best service offered by that particular vendor. The list below includes all
services (or items) in order of priority, so as an example a "melee weapons
(Masakari)" vendor sells neither the Glaive nor the Naginata.
* TRAINING: All training academies offer the same service.
* FOOD: All food vendors sell food at a rate of one meal for 3gp.
* HEALING: Deparalyze, Detoxify, Healing, Cure Disease, Raising, Resurrection,
Depetrify. All vendors charge the same prices. Temples offering Depetrify are
rare.
* TOOLS: Torches, Lock Picks, Holy Symbols. All vendors sell all items,
although the price on the latter two varies.
* MELEE WEAPONS: Tanto, Bo-Staff, Jo-Stick, Sai, Masakari, Glaive, Naginata.
The worst vendors stop at the Sai.
* MISSILE WEAPONS: Sling, Shuriken, Light Bow, Crossbow, Heavy Bow, Great Bow.
Not everyone sells the Great Bow.
* SPECIALTY WEAPONS: All vendors sell the Nunchaku, Wakizashi, and Katana.
* ARMOR: Cloak, Hara-ate, Harame-do, Haramakido, Do-maru, Yoroi. Level of
service varies quite a bit.
* SHIELDS: Small, Medium, and Great; there are not many shield vendors.
* MISC ARMOR: Gloves, Gauntlets, Jingasa, Kabuto. Vendors are hard to find but
always carry all four items.
* SHIPYARD: Purchase a boat for 10,000gp.
One last thing before we start: I really, really recommend that you go download
some maps, especially for the dungeons. (See the ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS, section 1.2,
for a link to Andrew Schultz's map repository on GameFAQs.) It is true that a
significant chunk of the fun of a game like DEATHLORD is in the discovery that
comes from entering a new dungeon completely blind and feeling your way along
with a pad of graph paper; it is also true that this game hates you, and will
lay trick after trick after trick in your path.
So, I leave it up to you, dear reader, to decide how you want to play. If you
read this walkthrough and use maps to guide you through dungeons, I think
you'll still find DEATHLORD fun, and you'll be able to complete it in a
reasonable amount of time. Not using maps will increase the difficulty
*dramatically*, and may result in ulcers of frustration and dozens of hours
spent mapping impossible dungeons.
Up to you, though.
*** PART I: SENJU, KAWAHARA, AND THE EMPEROR
As our intrepid heroes begin their adventure, they'll meet the Emperor of Lorn
at his palace on Kodan and learn about some of the threats against him. The
evil wizard Kawahara and the good wizard Senju appear to be locked in some sort
of death match, though someone is clearly pulling the strings behind Kawahara
and Senju is no where to be found, at first...
5.1 KODAN [#501#]
The continent of Kodan is where you start the game. It's also the largest
continent on the map, taking up three sectors. You'll spend the entire first
chunk of the game here, trying to earn enough money and/or prestige to acquire
a boat. You'll also need to earn enough experience to not die immediately after
leaving your home continent, but we'll cross that bridge when we get to it.
(Just kidding: there are no bridges in DEATHLORD.)
5.2 KAWA [#502#]
Services: food, tools, melee weapons (Masakari), armor (Haramakido)
As you start the game, you're dumped naked and shivering right next to Kawa. It
might seem like a good idea to buy some equipment, but hold off for now. We'll
collect some more cash first, and there's better stuff to be bought elsewhere.
Of course, if you run around outside too long, you could well be attacked by
wandering monsters and lose your entire party before you even get off the
ground. So maybe back up that save disk first, eh?
Kawa has a mid-range melee weapons shop and a mid-range armor shop. Although
you won't be able to afford top-end stuff yet, in Tokugawa you'll also be able
to buy missile weapons, which are generally better than melee although they do
usually come with a to-hit penalty.
What you will eventually want to buy here is a Holy Symbol. This makes fighting
off parties of Skeletons much, much easier. Given that Skeletons can be farmed
for gold (see the ruin of Yokahama, below), this is pretty much a no-brainer.
Spend some time walking around Kawa, practicing (O)ration and getting to know
the locals. You'll find out that someone named KAWAHARA is waiting for you in
the CAVERNS underneath the Emperor's Palace, which sounds like an obvious plot
arrow if ever I've heard one. You'll find some YAKUZA hanging out near the inn.
The NPCs here also know about the lay of the land: YOKAHAMA, which I just
mentioned a minute ago, is ESE of here and now lies in ruins. There's another
set of RUINS, formerly known as WAKIZA, to the SW. On the E coast is a town
called TOKUSHIMA, with an old shrine out on BONE ISLAND. You can also see most
of these features on the world map that's printed on the game box.
You can also learn that the Diamyo has a kaibu locked up in the west tower. A
Diamyo is feudal lord, like a baron. In DEATHLORD they are sometimes present as
rulers of a town, and about half of them are hostile and will attack you on
sight. Killing a Diamyo doesn't have any sort of effect plot-wise, it just
means they won't talk to you and you have to kill them. The one in Kawa is
hostile.
Finally, there's an oration trick that you should know: whenever you go into a
town, ask someone about a DUNGEON. If there's one about, someone will know
about it. Often enough someone will have a (T)alk message that mentions a
dungeon, and then you know to ask about it, but eventually you just learn a
couple of common keywords, and that's one of them. Here in Kawa, they'll point
you towards the "starter dungeon", along the trail to the E.
Let's talk about stealing from towns. It turns out that the only way to get the
town guards to turn against you (as well as the townsfolk and merchants) is to
(A)ttack someone first. Stealing is 100% allowed and no one will stop you or
argue, so put down your "but I made a good-aligned party" nonsense. You need
the cash, at least for now.
There are two varieties of object that you can steal from: pots and chests (or
boxes, really, is what they look like on-screen). Use (G)et to take their
contents. Pots generally have more gold, but boxes are much more likely to have
items and also more likely to be trapped. Coffins can also be raided for gold
and items, but some percentage of the time they also contain Vampires, which
you really don't want to fight, because level drain is the *worst*.
So, that being said, let's break into the Daimyo's quarters. You can buy a
lockpick if you want or just (S)mash down the door. Neither is 100% effective,
and failing to smash down a door costs you 2HP, so consider your gold/health
situations.
From the foyer head W down the hallway to find a few pots of gold. Back by the
entrance, there's a secret door to the south that leads into a crypt -- DON'T
OPEN THE COFFIN -- and a false wall to the E that leads to more cash. It's a
nice boost to your starting gold and should make your shopping trip in Tokugawa
more fun.
For now, you're not powerful enough to take on either the guards in the E
(there's more money there), the Daimyo in the SE (pointless, but hostile), or
the Yakuza Guild. You can come back and handle these guys later; just remember,
always let other people attack you first while you're in town. You can kill the
Kaibu in the SW tower, if you really want to.
5.3 EMPEROR'S PALACE [#503#]
Services: food, healing (Resurrect)
Your next destination probably ought to be the Emperor's Palace, since it's
right there, just WNW of Kawa. On the off chance you ever need to do this walk
in the dark, if you take the N exit from Kawa, you can walk 7W and then (E)nter
N to get to the palace. Or reverse. It's handy if you're farming the Yakuza
Guild for experience and need to get detoxified at the healer's.
Easily the most important thing to do here, at least for now, is to find the
healer, just W of the central square. You can rob him blind, both from the
donations pot (shame!) and from the hidden cache behind him to the W. There's
also a food vendor just E of the square. To the N you'll find his royal
majesty, EMPEROR Nakamoto, atop his throne. He would like you to determine who
is responsible for "these outrages". No word on what outrages he's talking
about, but the "bring me any news" line is important later. This is common for
DEATHLORD: very subtle hints hidden in speech.
E of the Emperor's audience chamber is his private garden. The prison cell in
the center houses a party of Shades, which can drain levels. Don't even bother.
There's also a large treasure room E of there, but you shouldn't tangle with
the guards at low levels.
This is as good a time as any to talk about prisons. Many major towns have
prisons. Prisoners often, but not always, have the most interesting things to
say to you. However, you will often get into at least one fight, either with an
angry prisoner, or with guards that don't appreciate you bashing down the
prison door. You can often tell if someone on the other side of a portcullis
wants to talk to you or not; if you wait a few turns and they don't move but
just hang out by the door, they're probably hostile. If they move around at
all, they're definitely not. Remember, never (A)ttack anyone inside a town.
In the case of the Palace, the jail doesn't have many useful hints, and it has
a couple of hostile prisoners, but no guards at least.
On to the clues: asking around, you'll hear about the hidden Yakuza Guild in
KAWA and the SPY in the NW tower. Break into that tower and the spy mutters
something cryptic: "Step east on the second drop"
There's also two DUNGEONS to be found: the CAVERNS under the SE tower of the
palace (where Kawahara awaits you -- don't go there yet), and the "starter
dungeon" to the E, which you already know about.
Elsewhere on Kodan you'll learn about the party of MAGES that are visiting the
Emperor. They're housed in the Guest Chambers just W of the Emperor's audience
room, and they're awfully nice folks who don't mind at all if you rob them
blind. Highly recommended. Between this, the temple vault, and the coin from
the Kawa Diamyo, you should be ready to buy some serious gear.
You have two choices. The best gear on this continent is found in Tokugawa, to
the NW. That city is labeled on the world map that comes in the box, so I don't
think it's cheating exactly to head there next, and that's what I'm going to
write as the next section.
On the other hand, the plot arrows point you towards the starter dungeon (too
challenging until you gain a couple of levels), the ruins of Yokahama (ditto),
and Tokushima on the E coast. You'll learn about Tokugawa in Tokushima (try not
to confuse them, but everyone else does) but that's an awfully long way to walk
without equipment, so if you want to go there next, you're best off buying some
gear in Kawa first.
Along with your front three, I recommend arming whoever's in slot 4 as well,
because you'll probably get into a situation in the first couple fights where
you need to drop someone out of the front rank to avoid having them get killed.
This is also a really good time to save your game and back up the saves.
Me? I'm going to go shopping.
5.4 TOKUGAWA [#504#]
Services: training, food, melee weapons (Naginata), missile weapons (Great
Bow), armor (Yoroi), shipyard
Head NW from the Emperor's palace, and along the coastline you'll find the
bustling port town of Tokugawa, also known as the shopping capital of Kodan. It
has the only training academy around, which makes it a frequent stopping place
for your party. There's also a shipyard, which will come in handy later. For
now you can learn that ships cost 10,000gp (i.e. as much as one character can
carry). Sounds like something we can work towards.
Without a boat (or G6:UKU), you only have access to the E and S sides of the
city. The absolute must-do is to find the training academy; enter the city from
the E and walk just a little bit W to the first shoproom N.
BUYING EQUIPMENT: In the SW there's a food vendor and a missile weapons vendor.
Bows are really excellent early-game weapons; the Light Bow (-1 to hit, two
attacks for 1-4 damage, +1 AC) usually does better damage than the
Masakari (1-8 damage) if you have any damage bonus at all from high STR, and
the AC bonus is nice even if the to-hit penalty is a little bit sad.
If you're considering a Naginata (+1 to hit, 1-10 damage, +1 AC), consider that
the Crossbow has the exact same stats, costs 100gp less, and thieves can also
use it. The Great Bow (+1 to hit, two attacks for 1-8 damage, +1 AC) is clearly
the best weapon available to your fighters right now. And for a Ninja, the
Shuriken (three attacks for 1-3 damage, +1 AC) is a no-brainer.
Your Shisai and Shizen will have to settle for either the Bo-Staff (1-7 damage,
-1 AC), Jo-Stick (-1 to hit, 1-7 damage), or Sling (-2 to hit, 1-6 damage, +1
AC), none of which are good options. Sadly, they won't find upgrades for some
time.
You'll find the armor and melee weapon vendors in the NE; the Guro brothers
outfit adventurers all across the world, and you'll run into them again and
again. There's not a lot of hard choices to be made here; buy the most
expensive stuff you can wear. Yoroi does come with a -2 to-hit penalty (and
Do-Maru a -1) but you really want your AC as low as you can get it. Shisai and
Shizen have to settle for Haramakido for now.
The townsfolk will be happy to tell you about the famous YAKUZA of KAWA, the
group of MAGES that are staying at the PALACE, and the wizard KIYOSHI who
resides here. You will also get a very common message to "search the towers",
which means to go check out the corners of the map. This happens a lot, and
when it does, you should do it. In this case, head to the S part of the town
and look for the tower in the NW corner. There you'll find a signpost
overlooking the ocean with a cryptic clue: "Due south of the second stone"
For now, let's head W towards Tokushima and maybe beat up some wandering
monsters.
YANG THE NECROMANCER: Yang is roughly equivalent to Kawahara in difficulty (see
later in this document); they can both slay everyone in your party, and you're
almost certainly not ready to take him on at this point. Come back later; he
makes a reasonable test to see if you're ready to attack Kawahara's dungeon.
Anyway, his well-labeled residence is in the SE corner of town. He's got a huge
flaming skull in his foyer, which is nice and cozy. When you open the door to
the N, two sets of Zombies will attack. Remember, even the undead count as city
residents -- let them attack you, or the city guard will have something to say
about it.
Make sure to save your game before you take on Yang.
The hallway the Zombies live in is dark, but that's okay. Work your way around
to the N. The two doors you can see contain coffins, which in case I haven't
been clear enough, you should *never never* open. Yang himself is hiding in his
antechamber, behind a secret door that is 1W and N of the left-hand door. He
has some nasty zap spells along with the slay-all and paralyze-all effects.
Once you dispatch him, find his treasure room, 1E and N of the right-hand door.
There's a pit right inside the door. Yang plus his zombies are worth around
30XP total, which is barely worth the trouble.
5.5 TOKUSHIMA [#505#]
Services: food, healing (Cure Disease), armor (Harame-do), shields (Medium)
Tokushima is a forest village on the E coast of Kodan. It's a little tricky to
get to, in that it's easy to accidentally wind up in the NE corner of the
island instead. But we'll use the starter dungeon caves as a landmark. From
Kawa, head a little NE along the path, past the lake, then SE. When the trail
forks NE/SE, head straight E through the trees to find the caves tucked into a
small mountain. From the caves, head directly E; when you see the mountain
range, jog N around it and then follow the coastline S until you see Tokushima.
Enter from either the N or W.
There are two standard tropes here that are worth talking about. The first is
that Tokushima, like many towns and cities, has a signpost roughly at its
center. Sometimes that signpost tells you the name of the town, but just as
often there's no no indication whatsoever of the town's name. Here, the sign
just tells you that the Emperor is looking for brave adventurers, which you
almost certainly knew already. If you don't know what you're doing in a town,
finding the central signpost is sometimes a good start.
The other commonly-found feature of Tokushima is its graveyard. You can find a
clue here that says "Tombstones can hide clues"; this is mostly false. Many
towns have graveyards, and a few are really important, but most (like the one
here) just have a collection of stones that all say "R.I.P." Every now and then
you'll get something slightly more clever, but still not useful. Some of them
feature Mausoleums, often behind portcullises, but I have not found a single
useful thing to do with such a feature, and if you do, I would love to hear it.
Okay, onto the town itself. The peasants will tell you about a loud NOISE they
heard a while back that came from the SE; this points you at BONE ISLAND, off
the E coast, which you heard about in Kawa, but can't get to without a boat. In
case you missed it on the way here, they'll point you at the DUNGEON to the W.
TOKUGAWA is apparently a shopper's paradise; you can buy "just about anything"
there, including boats.
The more interesting plot arrow is about SENJU, who you may have heard of
because one of the random CHAT clues is "Find Senju". No one has been able to
tell you anything about him until now, though: he's a powerful mage. If you
find a mage (a Mahotsukai wandering around) and ask him ($$), he'll tell you
that a mighty WIZARD used to live in YOKAHAMA, and that wizard's name was
Senju. So that sounds like a place to check out, although we heard back in Kawa
that Yokahama is a ruin now.
Exploring around, you can find a healer in the SE, a food vendor just NE of the
signpost, and an armor and shield(!) vendor in the NW. This is one of the few
shield vendors in the game, and you should definitely acquire shields for most
of your party. In the far SW is a building that contains some Yakuza that will
attack you. There aren't any town guards here, but you don't want to lose the
shield vendor, so let the Yakuza attack you first.
5.6 YOKAHAMA [#506#]
To get to the ruin of Yokahama, head to the starter caves, then go straight S
until you hit water. Head E and then SE. Yokahama is tucked into some swamp
to the SE.
This is your first opportunity to do some serious grinding. (The Yakuza Guild
is better in terms of XP, but you won't survive down there long enough to grind
right now, and curing poison is expensive.) Skeletons only grant 4XP each, so
it's slow grinding, but they hunt in large packs, you can use a Holy Symbol to
destroy them, and they regenerate in fixed locations every time. They also tend
to drop a lot of cash, so you can save up for gear and training. If you're
clever, you can fight exactly as many packs as you want, turn around and leave,
rest up outside, and come back for more. Keep your Shisai stocked with Holy
Symbols and you'll do okay even at low levels.
The first pack jumps you just N of where you come in, so step 1E first so you
can see them coming. It's okay to (A)ttack for first strike here; no one cares.
After that, head straight N until you can see a pond. There will be a bunch of
groups of Skeletons trapped behind it, and if you're careful you can release
one pack at a time. Don't be afraid to burn Holy Symbols and save your Shisai's
MP for healing spells, even if you can cast S2:TSUIHO.
When you're low on resources, exit the city. You're tucked far enough into a
corner that it's hard (but not impossible) for wandering monsters to find you,
so resting is a little dodgy but possible. You're sure to get attacked at least
once between here and Tokugawa, so don't try to make the run if you're already
low on HP. Head back to town, stock up on gear, train if you're ready, then
come on back for more skeleton killing goodness.
Eventually you'll be strong enough to polish off the skeletons near the
entrance and pick your way around the town map. Most of what you'll find is a
ton of swampland, so you'll take some damage doing so. As you explore ruins
like this, keep in mind that any door that needs to be opened probably has
another way around it now that the buildings are falling apart. Make sure you
explore as much as you can before you waste HP on doors.
Yokahama has been well and truly destroyed, and honestly there's not a ton to
see here, but there are a handful of small clues. You can find a scared Yakuza
who spins you a tale of EVIL ONES taking over the place. KAWAHARA apparently
brought a legion of undead with him and laid waste to the town; he's now
waiting for you six levels beneath the PALACE, which you already knew.
SENJU was a powerful wizard that used to live here; he and Kawahara got into a
fight that resulted in the NW corner of the town getting wiped off the map.
Senju fled here afterwards. When you find him, you should give him a CRYSTAL;
they're supposed to let you pass through... something, but it's not clear what.
I actually really like the design of this town / ruin. It's challenging but
manageable for early parties, and eventually you get to explore the whole town
and piece together the history of what was here and what happened to it.
5.7 STARTER DUNGEON [#507#]
When you get sick of fighting Skeletons (around Level 4 or so), go ahead and
check out the caves in the center of the E portion of Kodan. You'll want a good
bank of HP before you go taking on this dungeon; Ghouls can PARalyze,
Stonebrows have high AC but fall pretty quickly to G1:HIBANA, Gremlins summon
allies, and Kobito can be a challenge at this level. In the lower levels,
Niatama attack twice per round and Harpies can DISease.
You're also going to learn a lot of DEATHLORD dungeon lessons down here that
will serve you well in future dungeon dives.
LEVEL 1: There aren't any tricks or secrets here, but I mean, it is your first
dungeon level. For your first couple visits, stay near the stairs, maybe
explore a bit E. There's not actually any point in exploring the rest of this
floor unless you just want the experience of doing so, you're mapping by hand,
or you're trying to generate more random monsters to fight. When you're ready
to continue, proceed vaguely SSW and wind your way through the swap, then turn
E and look for the stairs.
LEVEL 2: Don't drink the water down here, it's all poisoned. Turn E from the
stairs and then head N.
If you head NE from here, you'll come across Dungeon Lesson Number 1: a patch
of swamp that you can't see through or around, so you don't know if there's any
point in taking the damage to trudge your way through it. Hint: there isn't. At
least, not this time.
Head WNW instead, then N. The stairs down is hidden behind your first "false
wall", which is Dungeon Lesson Number 2. The difference between a false wall
and a secret door is that you find a secret door by (F)searching for it; you
find a false wall by attempting to walk through it and seeing whether that
works. There are no visual clues, you just have to try it.
Combine this with Lesson Number 1, and you see how nasty the trick is: you
never know when a wall will be false or hold a secret door, and there's no way
to know without trudging through swamp and bashing into walls at -2HP per turn.
The false wall hiding the stairs is in the E part of this section.
LEVEL 3: A sudden shift in architecture. Step to the W and you'll find a hall
of pillars with a burial chamber in the center.
Dungeon Lesson Number 3: Sometimes, water pools are magical, and when you drink
from them you get a random effect (see section 2.5). However, sometimes they
are poison, and sometimes they don't do anything. The two pools just inside the
door to the burial chamber are both magic pools.
Dungeon Lesson Number 4: NEVER OPEN COFFINS. Coffins sometimes house Vampires
or Banshees, i.e. creatures that will level drain you and probably kill low-
level characters before you even know what happened. That being said, some
coffins are safe to open... probably.
The southern part of this chamber has some pots and crates you can loot. The
northern part has one coffin that always has a vampire in it and two that
don't. Good luck.
Back out in the hall of pillars, there's a secret door in the SE corner. Behind
the secret door is a false wall -- did I mention DEATHLORD hates you? -- and
beyond that is a room full of, you guessed it, coffins.
The stairs down are SE of where you came in, behind another false wall. As much
as I insist that DEATHLORD hates you, it does spend much of this dungeon
training you how to navigate dungeons; pay attention. Not that there's any way
to *know* when it's teaching you a lesson...
LEVEL 4: Nothing much to say here. This dungeon has no purpose other than to be
a starter dungeon, so the bottom level is kind of boring. I suppose Dungeon
Lesson Number 5 is that dungeon floors vary in size, and don't always fit into
a nice 32x32 square. Take a screenshot to prove that you got this far, then
head back to the surface whenever you want.
5.8 YAKUZA GUILD (under Kawa) [#508#]
At this point, you should be cruising along pretty easily. If you can get all
the way to the bottom of the Starter Dungeon you're doing pretty well. Outdoor
fights shouldn't be a big deal anymore, and you're just looking to grind for
some experience before taking on the tougher battles.
One other random note: you've spent the whole game walking E-W along the top
half of Kodan so far. There *is* a chunk of the continent to the SW, but the
only thing down there is Wakiza and the Pirate's Den, which are completely
optional. The Pirate's Den has eight floors, and the top half isn't too
terrible, but I still wouldn't recommend going in there right now. If you're
feeling masochistic, check out section 5.11. Otherwise, you could grind in the
Starter Dungeon or Yokohama, but you probably want something a little more
challenging / rewarding, and for that, ironically, we're going back to Kawa.
The Yakuza Guild is full of various thief types (Yakuza, Ansatsusha, Ninja).
Unfortunately, some of them can poison you, and if you don't have S4:DONASU
yet, you'll have to run all the way to the Emperor's Palace to find a healer.
So you probably want fighters with 90+ HP before you try taking this on.
In Kawa, head to the W-most hallway and find the secret door. There are a few
thieves waiting for you inside plus a few crates, and then steps down to the
real meeting place. You'll immediately be swamped by 6-10 parties of thieves,
and they respawn A LOT. Fortunately, now that you're in the "basement" it's
okay to take first strike against hostiles.
There are two treasure rooms; you reach them by stepping into the fire pit in
either corner. The treasure rooms are not safe places to rest; they have false
walls in the corners so that monsters can sneak in and out but you can't. As I
said, DEATHLORD hates you.
Beware the Master Ninja behind the Guildmaster's door, who can critical-hit you
(i.e. kill in one blow), but gives up around 1000gp if you kill him.
5.9 KAWAHARA'S DUNGEON (under the Palace) [#509#]
You're not technically required to do this before you leave Kodan, but the
Emperor did ask you to try to figure out what the hell is going on, and all the
plot arrows you've gotten have pointed towards Kawahara waiting in the dungeons
under the Palace. The early levels aren't so bad, but before you go take on
Kawahara himself, it's not a bad idea to kill Yang the Necromancer (in
Tokugawa) first to see whether you're ready. Backup your game disks first, tho.
The dungeon is in the SE corner of the Palace. There's a couple of guards, but
they won't actually stop you. Remember the lessons we learned in the Caves?
Good, here's your quiz. We'll pick up a few new lessons down here, too.
LEVEL 1: Mostly what you'll find down here is a bunch of Kaibu (not bad for
grinding) and a bunch of empty pots and crates. Skip the room W of the entrance
and head E to find a natural cave instead. There's a false wall SW that you'll
need to find in order to advance. Then break down the door S (the "gates of
Kawahara") and fight off a bunch more Kaibu.
In the southern half of the level, watch out for the pit trap -- this may well
be the first one you've fallen into, so don't forget how to climb out (I
mentioned it all the way back in section 1.5). Immediately afterwards, you'll
find your first eternal hallway: there's a teleporter halfway down that
teleports you back one square, and there aren't any contextual hints that clue
you into the fact that you've been teleported. I mentioned that DEATHLORD hates
you, right? Often times there's not even a way around a teleporter like this,
but there is here; there's a secret door E that will take you around the
teleporter square.
There's nothing else on this floor, though; the stairs are at the end of the
hall SE.
LEVEL 2: As you descend, there's a room N with a V-shaped pool. This room has
secret doors that will lead to hidden hallways that ring the room and
eventually end in a treasure room.
Back in the first hallway, proceed W. If you turn N at the fire pit, you can
find a bit more treasure in one of the side rooms, but that's otherwise a
dead-end. To proceed, you'll need to find a false wall in the room with the
fire in the center.
When you work your way around to the long E-W hallway, break down the locked
door N. Beyond you'll find two stairs and a warning: ONE STAIR LEADS TO YOUR
DOOM, THE OTHER DESCENDS TO THE NEXT LEVEL. CHOOSE ONE.
If you aren't ready to take on Kawahara yet, step E and proceed to level 3. If
you're feeling more gutsy, jump down to SECOND PASS below and be prepared to
fight your way up from the bottom of the dungeon.
LEVEL 3: Not too much interesting to find here except for some new monsters. In
the NE of the level there's a vampire that's OUT TO LUNCH. They like the dark,
dontchaknow. His apartment has a false wall with some cash.
S of the stairs, turn E into the first room. The NW corner of this room leads
through two secret doors, down a long hallway (watch out for the pit), and into
a significant treasure room.
Eventually, go S and W. Watch out for Behemoths in the pond; they look like
whales, hit hard (~15hp), and summon backup. Work your way around the pond to
the stairs down.
LEVEL 4: This room is ringed with water; in the corners you'll be able to see
some magic pools that you can't get to from here without G6:UKU. You have to go
out into the ring hallway and find secret doors into each corner.
There's a good-sized treasure haul to the SE, but you have to navigate a room
full of pits, a long hallway full of acid, and several parties of Mahotsukai.
This will test your max HP unless your spellcasters have up over 40MHP (which
you'll want anyway before you take on Kawahara). If you don't have Z4:SANTATE
yet, you can still skip most of the acid because the W wall is false, but two
hits on the way in and two on the way out is still pretty painful. You can rest
after the acid and before opening the doors if you're patient and have food.
In the NW you'll find STONEHOME, with dozens of Stonebrows to fight off. They
have super high AC but not very many HP, which means G1:HIBANA should polish
them off quite quickly. I got lucky and found a Katana in their treasure room
(false wall NE).
The otherwise-unremarkable stairs down are in the SW corner.
LEVEL 5: This is a dead-end, but there's some fun to be had. In the NW corner
of this room is a secret door that leads to four(!) magic pools. (Mind the
pits.)
There's a false wall to the E but the room beyond has nothing but empty pots.
To the NE, in the room with four pillars, there's a secret door E that leads to
a teleporter puzzle. You can find a significant treasure room on the far end.
There's also a room filled with acid and coffins, which is pretty much the
worst combo ever, so don't bother.
If you proceed N from the four-pillars room, you'll find a room filled with
water. This is a teleporter destination; for now there's nothing else you can
do, so reverse your steps and climb back up the stairs to daylight (or, at
least, the palace).
SECOND PASS: Go back to the decision point on LEVEL 2, and take the W stair.
Fall all the way to the bottom of the chute, which drops you on level 6.
There's a ring of fire here that you can pass with Z4:HITATE, but there's also
a false wall to the W that will allow you to scoot out unharmed. Follow the
hallway around W S E to a room with a magic pool in the center. Save-scum for
+1 to a stat, then work your way back around the way you came in and break
through the N door. There's a teleport roughly W-center that will drop you in
the watery room on level 5 that I mentioned above, from which you can walk out.
THIRD PASS: It's time to take on Kawahara. Go back to the decision point on
level 2, and take the left-hand stair. Remember what the Ansatsusha spy in the
Palace said? 'Step east on the second drop.' Press K to go E; the first time
it'll fail and drop you down the chute, and the second time you'll step through
a false wall.
That puts you in a forested area on level 4; you need to find a series of
adjacent secret doors along the S wall to pass the lake, or there may be a boat
on the shoreline. The stair in the NE corner brings you to level 5 and a
darkened, minotaur-infested maze with a teleport trap. Beat that maze, and the
staircase on the far end puts you on level 6 where several Wraiths (ack! level
drain!) guard Kawahara's lair.
Note that if you decide to bail out, you have to back up through the minotaur
maze to level 4 and take the chute to the bottom (see SECOND PASS, above).
Kawahara himself is mostly brutal because he has two levels of zap spells, plus
he can paralyze you, and occasionally kill you outright. He seems to have
around 50-75HP so five or six shots seems to take him out. Once you beat him,
take the DOCUMENT from the box behind him (and some cash from the other two),
then step on the box that the document came in and you'll be teleported to
level 5.
Here's what the document says if you (V)iew it:
To his most noble countenance, the Emperor of Demons & Lord of Death!
Greetings Master!
I have done your bidding and sent forth the initial wave of creatures that
were readied for the invasion of the kingdom. I have also ordered a
contingent of skeletons to loot and pillage the surrounding area. It is my
duty to inform you that your legions have met with stiffer resistance than
was anticipated & although they managed to raze the town of Gold-Rock the
wizard somehow escaped destroying fully half of the army in an explosion
the like of which I had not known was possible. I am currently in the
process of restoring the bulk of the army sufficiently to allow me to crush
the emperor and send his soul to your domain that he may suffer for the
inconvenience that his treason has cost.
Your servant, Kawahara
Too bad there's no town named Gold-Rock, although Yokohama is clearly overrun
by skeletons. Head back to the Emperor, who told you to "bring me any news".
(O)ffer him the (I)tem you found, at which point he tells you:
Go to Oceanspray where a vessel awaits you. Hunt down the wizard's master and
don't return until he is no more!
Too bad there's no town named Oceanspray, either. However, if you go to
Tokugawa (you know, where all the boats are) you'll be able to (B)oard one for
free. Note that this is a one-time offer; if you find yourself back on Kodan
without a boat (say, because you dispersed and reassembled your party), you
will need to spend $10k to buy a new one.
5.10 LEAVING KODAN [#510#]
So now you have this boat, but you don't really know what to do with it. Get
used to that feeling; you'll have it a lot. Actually, once you leave Kodan,
you'll wind up with more plot arrows than you know what to do with, but for the
time being you don't really know what's going on. So let's tie up what few
threads we do have, namely, places that we know exist but we haven't been able
to get to without a boat.
TOKUGAWA BY SEA: Enter Tokugawa from the N (or maybe you're here at the docks
because you just picked up the Emperor's boon). Sail S and W, then N to dock.
You can loot the rooms along the S wall, and there's another food vendor that
you can steal from with impunity if you want. Elsewhere in that tavern there's
a Yakuza who will tell you ($$) that there's an island to the S of here. This
is a plot arrow that stretches WAY into the future: it's pointing towards
Sirion, but while there are several very good reasons to go to Sirion, you
don't know what any of them are yet.
This is another thing that DEATHLORD makes you do: take really good notes, and
tick the boxes of clues that you've already figured out so you know what's
left. It also gives you clues that you shouldn't follow up on right away
because your party isn't ready yet, like sailing halfway around the world to
Sirion before you find Senju.
Anyway, back in Tokugawa, Kioyshi the sorcerer lives in the NE corner. He's
visitable if you sneak N but don't exit the town, then go E until you find a
place to dock. He tells you THE DEATHLORD IS MOVING SOUTH, which flat out isn't
true and wouldn't be a useful clue even if it was. He also has a treasure room,
but it's blocked by a Rakhammon's Curtain, and you need a Blue Crystal to pass
those.
If you haven't beaten up Yang the Necromancer yet, go for it.
VISIT LOVELY BONE ISLAND: Our last [necessary] stop in Kodan is the other side
of the continent, where we'll visit the other place we know about that we
haven't been able to get to. Enter Tokushima from the E and find the islet in
the SE corner with a ruined temple. The Shukenja hanging out in the temple
tells you ($$) that Senju has fled north, and you should seek him between "the
two rivers". Hey, the game map shows a town named "Two Rivers" on Nyuku! Since
everyone else has been telling you to find Senju, and the game map shows a town
named "Two Rivers" on the island of Nyuku, this seems like it might be a good
idea. Let's head NW towards Nyuku and see if we can't find this Senju chap.
5.11 WAKIZA and the PIRATE'S DEN [#511#]
As I said above, this town and dungeon are completely optional. Most of the
hints you learn here point you at other optional places. Also, you really want
S4:DONASU before you tackle the Den, which means it isn't such a great place to
grind for experience after getting your boat. But you can check out Wakiza, at
least.
Head S from the palace and generally follow the trail. You may come across a
circular mountain range (kinda looks like a volcano). In the center is a lone
signpost which reads:
Search the Wakiza ruins for pirates gold
Sounds like a good plan, but I'd be wary if I were you. Checking out Wakiza on
foot doesn't do you much good. Some Shukenja will take a bribe to tell you the
thing you already knew about pirates hiding gold in a CAVE under the town. If
you beat them up you can steal the gold they're hiding behind some false walls.
The Den is technically accessible on foot in the N, but you have to walk
through a bunch of swamp to get there. Far better to come back with a boat and
explore the western half of the map. There you'll find a merman sitting on the
beach who tells you of a GREAT LAND named Osozaki that lies E of here. (Hint:
it's not all that great.) On the island in the center of the map is a
Mahotsukai who provides you with your first "what is this game about" clue:
Seven gates and seven clues, miss but one and you will lose
Hell, it turns out, has seven GATES, which align with the seven evils (aka the
seven deadly sins). If you've been paying attention to the Chat clues, you know
you've been told to find seven words. No one ever puts this together for you,
but you're reading a completely optional part of this walkthrough so I'm going
to let you in on a secret: the seven words you need to find are (bad)
translations of the seven deadly sins into Japanese.
If you sail to the NE corner, you can navigate around some swamp and dock at
the one spot where there isn't any. From there, look for a false wall E and it
will take you to the entrance to the Pirate's Den.
LEVEL 1: Unremarkable. Lots of swamp, no false walls or secret doors. Follow
the path around roughly clockwise to the stairs down. No new or interesting
monsters here.
LEVEL 2: Board a boat and sail SE until you find another boat. He's parked on
the only free space that doesn't involve walking through swamp, jerk. Follow
the path and board another boat, then do that a third time to find the stairs
down.
LEVEL 3: Board yet another boat (get used to it). The room to the N has a wall
of darkness, and beyond it is a series of energy fields. In the center of the
room is a signpost that says "Arr, you'll never get our treasure, mateys!" In
other words, it's a stupid trap, because DEATHLORD hates you.
Dock to the W. The rest of this level is a "maze" of small rooms with false
walls and secret doors. There are two sets of stairs down; the easier-to-find
set is in the NE of this maze, and leads down to a part of level 4 with a small
treasure room and a bunch of Dark Toshi (TOX). Clear that out, then come back.
The harder-to-find set is beyond a secret door N that leads to a treasure room,
and another secret door W that leads down.
LEVEL 4: A bunch of cash to find here. If you walk around the perimeter, be
aware of the large number of pits. But before you take one of the boats that
are conveniently near the entrance and sail around, a few words of caution
about using boats. If you're on a boat, you can't disembark onto another boat.
If you disembark onto a teleporter from a boat, or otherwise can't get onto dry
land adjacent to a boat you want to board, you may not be able to get to that
boat again. This happens a lot on this level.
In the NE corner of the map is a treasure room. Clear it out but don't walk
through the false walls to the S, or you'll lose the use of this boat. Instead
board your boat again and sail a little bit more S. Disembark through the false
wall in the center of the E jetty; this drops you on a teleporter into the
otherwise-inaccessible space W of here. Clean out the treasure -- you only get
one chance to do it -- and then walk E to exit. You're now boatless, so work
your way around the room clockwise, searching for pits as you go.
Don't take the stairs yet. Find the false wall SW. Go 2W 3S 1E; if you go too
far S, you'll hit a teleporter that takes you to the N side of the room. Useful
for getting out of here; not helpful for getting to the treasure down here.
Once you're past the teleport trap you will find five treasure rooms (one
requires hooking 1N into a false wall). Clean them out, then go back.
I wouldn't go much further than this with an inexperienced party. The bottom
four levels get really nasty, and you'll want a much more powerful (level 15+)
party before you tackle them. Sea Dragons have a nasty breath weapon, Ghosts
drain levels, and Will O Wisps are annoying. On the other hand, the crates down
here have all manner of good loot. It's possible to get Yoroi +1 without ever
leaving Kodan.
Pressing on? Okay, don't say I didn't warn you...
The bottom half of the dungeon is navigated by a ring of teleporters. There is
a series of stairs along the E wall, but they aren't accessible without G6:UKU.
I suppose that's a hint about how powerful your party should be before you
start exploring the lower half of the dungeon, but then why are the teleporters
there...?
LEVEL 5/A: Sail E and follow the narrow river until you can't, then go N and
pick up another boat. Sail E until you find the zig-zag inlet, and board a
boat inside it. Midway through the inlet is a teleporter that takes you to the
S part of this map.
LEVEL 5/B: This is also a zig-zag, and there's not really anywhere to go. The
same square you came in on is also the exit teleporter, so sail off it and back
on to move forward.
LEVEL 8/C: You're in the NE corner of the level. N of here you can see a fake
portcullis (that can not be bashed down) with a fake staircase next to it, but
you can't get there from here (without G6:UKU). The darkness around you is
actually solid ground, so you can disembark onto it, but don't yet.
Sail W until you hit granite, then S until you hit the wall. The last inlet E
will take you to the teleporter out of here, which takes you to point D, just
NW of where you just came from. If you want to collect some treasure, find a
bunch of magic pools, and fight off some Ghosts (yikes!), disembark just N of
there and find the ground path to the E. Save your game first, tho, unless you
like level drain.
LEVEL 5/D: Step S as soon as you get teleported here. You're just NW of point
B, but if you sail down to the SW, you can walk over a land bridge to find a
treasure room and two magic pools. Come back to point D to proceed.
LEVEL 6/E: You're in the NW corner near a bunch of treasure and two Sea Dragons
(ow). Clean up the boxes, then get out of here; heading S doesn't get you
anywhere interesting.
LEVEL 7/F: You're in the NW corner again, also near a bunch of treasure (that's
a little harder to get to). This teleporter takes you back to point A. You can
sail around for a long time here and clean up a bunch of pots, if you don't
mind fighting off endless waves of Sea Dragons. The canals are organized as two
concentric rings; if you follow them around long enough you'll find a second
set of boxes, and then you'll wind up back where you started. Again, you can't
get to the SE corner where the stairs are without G6:UKU.
If, instead of following the teleporters, you use G6:UKU to get to the E half
of level 5 and take the stairs, you'll find another boat/canal navigation
puzzle all the way down to Level 8. Then there's a simple boat ride to the NE
corner, where you find a sign saying "Dark Elves only", which is funny because
(a) they're called Dark Toshi, (b) you can't play that race, (c) this gate is
fake and literally cannot be opened. There is no Level 9. I hope you had fun
getting here, though.
5.12 NYUKU [#512#]
Two sectors W and four N of Oceansp-- sorry, Tokugawa -- you'll find the
continent of Nyuku. Keep in mind that Tokugawa is at the NW corner of a sector
anyway, so you'll cross the first sector boundary very quickly.
RETROGAMING NOTE: When you exit from the sectors containing Kodan for the first
time, the game will ask you to insert the Boot disk so that it can show you a
message that is both hopeful and ominous:
And so the brave adventurers sailed forth from the land of Kodan on the
Emperor's quest.
If you didn't start the game from a nibbilized Boot disk (as opposed to a
cracked ".dsk" image), this load doesn't work. So SAVE YOUR GAME before you
leave Kodan.
If you approach from the south, you'll find a mountain range along the southern
edge of the continent. Buried in that mountain range, but only accessible from
the north, through some trees, is a signpost marking the point:
THE SECOND STONE
Remember the sign in Tokugawa that said "Due south of the second stone" without
any further explanation? If you sail *straight* S from here -- although it's
actually faster to sail N and wrap around -- you'll find Narawn. We're not
going there any time soon, but it's a note to take.
Follow the western coastline N until you find the twin towns of Spindrift. Two
Rivers (where you'll find Senju) is slightly further N of them, also on the
western coast.
5.13 SOUTH SPINDRIFT [#513#]
Services: food, healing (Depetrify), tools, melee weapons (Naginata)
The twin Spindrifts, just across a strait from each other, are a "good cop /
bad cop" pair. South Spindrift is the 'good' one. You can find the Diamyo along
the E arm of the town. He's an agreeable chap who doesn't have a lot to say and
doesn't mind if you rob him blind. Which is good, because his people are pretty
stingy with information unless you pay up.
If you find the temple in the NE and proceed through to the garden, a Shizen
tells you to "look up above". Straight N from him is a secret door, behind
which is another Shizen who tells you ($$) that Senju is in TWIN-RIVERS. Great,
thanks. You can find out for free that Twin Rivers is north of here.
Other useless tidbits you can learn for money include the fact that you should
beware of traps on level four (of the nearby DUNGEON). In order to learn this,
you need to bust down a door, fight two groups of Yabanjin, steal a boat, sail
across a lake, bust down another door, and pay money to a Mahotsukai. You're
not even going into this dungeon at all (it's in the mountains along the north
coast of Nyuku) unless you like pain.
Rounding out the clues-for-cash in South Spindrift, the Deathlord can not be
hit by "mortal" weapons. Might need to ask Senju about that one.
That's about it. There's a good healer here but not much else useful.
5.14 NORTH SPINDRIFT [#514#]
Services: training, food, missile weapons (Great Bow), specialty weapons,
misc armor, shipyard
The 'evil' town of the pair, but also the far more interesting and useful. Lots
of Ronin, etc. running around. Several of them will ask you for gold, will ask
for more gold than you've paid people for information before, and will then
sneer at you and say "Thanks!" and leave you with nothing.
If you need some cash, hit the center of town, find the apartment complex to
the NW, and go in the N-most door on the W side of the building. There's two
treasure rooms behind secret doors.
Now that your pockets are feeling a little more full, this is a great place to
top up your equipment. There's a "specialty" weapon shop here that sells
Katanas for your Samurai (+1 to hit, two attacks for 2-14 damage, +1 AC), and
Nunchaku for your Ninja (+3 to hit, three attacks for 1-9 damage). There's also
a store that sells miscellaneous armor. If you somehow still don't have Gloves
for your wizards, Gauntlets for your clerics, and Kabuto for your fighters, buy
them here. Also a missile weapons shop with Great Bows.
The training academy is unlabeled and much easier to get to by boat; it's
hiding in the SE corner of town near the shipyards.
Clues, most of which you need to pay for: The DUNGEON you may have heard about
is in the NE part of the continent. You should search around the entrance. No
one likes SENJU around here, but he will trade you a spear for a crystal, which
is a useful piece of intel. Crystals apparently allow you to pass through
energy fields, and though no one here knows this, they're only talking about
Rakhammon's Curtain (the purple/green ones). You can walk through Arkhan's Wall
without a crystal, even though it hurts.
The graveyard doesn't have anything interesting.
Near the centre [sic] of town you'll find the Seventh STONE, surrounded by
guards. If you peruse your notes you may remember seeing a clue about the
'second stone' from Tokugawa. I already mentioned this in section 5.12, but I
suppose you could see this as a hint that if the seventh stone is here in town,
the second stone might be nearby? Turns out it is. But sailing due south of the
seventh stone will get you to the same place as sailing due south of the second
stone, so it's not a super effective hint.
SENNIN, an evil wizard, welcomes you (and other trespassers) to his home in
the SW. He's a necromancer similar to Kawahara, including the ability to cast
KOROSU. You can find him if you take the first door E after you enter his home.
DO NOT take the last door W, through the hallway lined with fire; a party of
Beholders awaits you at the far end. Beholders are some of the most difficult
critters in the game; they level drain and also cast KOROSU. There's also a
prison where you can free a prisoner, and a couple of secret treasure rooms in
the hallway leading up to Sennin.
5.15 TWIN RIVERS [#515#]
Services: food, healing (Raise), tools, melee weapons (Sai)
Yeah, so why "Twin Rivers" and not "Two Rivers"? Because the people who
programmed the game and the people who designed the paper map didn't talk to
each other, and this town's guards call it "Twin Rivers".
Twin Rivers doesn't have a lot going on for it. You came here looking for
SENJU, and he's in the SE corner of the village in a cabin hidden among the
trees. There's not much else of note; the vendors aren't very useful and the
clues are pretty sparse. The DUNGEON we've already heard about is "a great
sunken temple" that's 16 levels deep.
Here's a hint: there are only three 16-level dungeons in the game. Two of them
are optional, including the Sunken Temple here and Telegrond on Osozaki. The
third is the Deathlord's lair. So when you hear about 16-level dungeons, run
the other way.
A Shizen tells you -- for money no less! -- to find his 'brother' (i.e. another
Shizen) somewhere in SPINDRIFT. This is a pointer to the clue that tells you
that Senju is in Twin Rivers... where you already are. In other words -- say it
with me -- DEATHLORD hates you.
This is a great town if you're into weird little programming quirks and funny
(C)hat messages. In the structure to the WNW there's a pack of wolves wandering
around. They talk. They told me to map dungeons.
The only two things to be found off the beaten path are the graveyard in the
northwest (nothing interesting there) and Senju's place in the SE. There's a
helpful sign out front labeling his home, which is kind of funny for someone
that's on the run from a powerful necromancer and the frickin' Deathlord. The
wizards in his foyer are not particularly helpful. My favorite was the one who
told me "Senju awaits you" and "Leave me alone". Nice guy. Even better, when I
found Senju himself, his (C)hat response was "Find Senju". Reader, I couldn't
make these jokes up if I tried.
Senju tells you to bring him "a TOKEN of your worth", by which he means "a blue
crystal". He'll trade you that for a weapon that can be used to defeat evil
"for all time". No word on where to find a Blue Crystal yet, although if you
skip ahead it turns out that they're on Narawn and that signpost kind of
pointed us there without telling us why. This is another classic DEATHLORD
move; tell you where to go, and tell you why to go somewhere, but not both at
the same time.
5.16 SUNKEN TEMPLE [Unfinished] [#516#]
Sixteen levels of pointless nightmare. From reading other people's notes on
this game, I've learned that there's a second Ruby Ring to be found here, but
you have to have M7:UNPAN and it's still super annoying. Maybe someday I'll
come back and write notes on how to get it. That day hasn't happened yet.
Needless to say, I recommend you skip this dungeon altogether.
*** PART II: SEVEN WORDS AND SEVEN (well, six) RELICS
The evil wizard Kawahara has been defeated and the good wizard Senju has been
found in his hiding place on Nyuku. Senju sends the party on a quest for the
Blue Crystal, promising them a weapon of great power in return. What other
wonders will the party find along the way?
Okay, stepping out of narrative mode for a moment, let's take stock. One of the
effects of the open-world nature of DEATHLORD is that, at this point in the
game, it's not super clear where you're supposed to go. However, if you wander
on to the wrong continent, you're likely to find yourself in trouble pretty
quickly. There's nothing stopping you from heading south in search of a Blue
Crystal; the world map even shows a continent (Asagata) south of Nyuku. But if
you do you're more likely to end up on the Lost Isles, and you don't really
want to take on the Caves of the Four Elements without better fire protection
than Z4:HITATE.
The best choice for the next continent to visit is actually Chigaku, because
the dungeons are the right level for your party. If you're playing blind, it's
actually more likely that you tried to find Chigaku after leaving Kodan
(because it's "north" of the temple where you find the clue about Senju fleeing
Kodan), and that wouldn't be so bad, but it made more narrative sense to send
you straight to Senju first.
I guess what I'm saying here is trust me, I'm sending you in the right
directions to minimize backtracking. Because it's not like DEATHLORD gives you
useful clues in that regard.
5.17 CHIGAKU [#517#]
Two sectors S and five E of Nyuku -- or two E and two N of Kodan -- is the
frozen hinterlands of Chigaku. If you're coming through here on your way to
find Senju, you're going to learn a lot of things that don't make sense. If
you're heading here after finding Senju, Chigaku represents a nice gentle step
along your journey. I mean, as much as you can say that anything DEATHLORD
throws at you is "nice" or "gentle". Don't get used to it.
5.18 FORT WINTERGREEN [#518#]
Services: armor (Yoroi), shields (Great), misc armor
Along the NW coast of Chigaku lies Fort Wintergreen, a nice little stopping
point where you can learn a handful of useful hints and find some good armor
(including an upgrade to Great Shields). Be warned, though; there are also a
bunch of the dead-end hallways and fake-outs that DEATHLORD loves to throw at
you. Enjoy exploring the fort, but don't get too curious.
SENJU passed through here on his way "north". It would be way more accurate to
say that he took a left turn at Alberqu -- uh, Chigaku -- and headed for Nyuku,
which is way more west of here than it is north. Have fun sailing north from
Chigaku and not finding anywhere to land!
There's a DUNGEON nearby known as the TROLL HOLE. It's in the swamps SE of
here. While you're there, you should look for POOLS, and search the fourth
level, although there's no word on why. The pool in the 'Rec Room' is not
useful, but there are lots of magic pools (of the good kind) in the Troll Hole.
Here's a bit of a spoiler: There's a Kichigai in the stockade that will tell
you that Senju hid a WORD in the Troll Hole. The problem is you can't get to
him without a Blue Crystal, because he's behind a Rakhammon's Curtain. So maybe
you dive the Troll Hole not knowing what you're looking for, or maybe you
completely forget to come back here after you figure out what Crystals are good
for, or maybe you just read a good walkthrough that tells you what to do.
The EVIL ONE, who rules "the four hells", is immune to magic. Presuming that's
the Deathlord, this has the potential to be a pretty serious problem. (Turns
out that's only 99% true, about which more later.) The bit about four hells is
germane, as well, which is also a very DEATHLORD thing to do: hide a
significant point in a very subtle sentence.
5.19 CRYSTALMIST [#519#]
Services: training, melee weapons (Naginata), missile weapons (Great Bow),
armor (Yoroi), misc armor
The other town on Chigaku is in the NE and houses the continental trainer,
which makes it a good base for diving the TROLL HOLE. By the way, the Hole was
(supposedly) flooded years ago, but there have been reports of -- wait for it
-- trolls in the area!
There are also two important clues to be found here, both about the powerful
relics you'll need to win the game.
The first is about the Blue Crystals. The designers played a particular clever
trick here; if you go walking around the *outside* of the city walls -- yes,
there's one square of room to do so -- you can find some Brigands who tell you
that there are crystals to be found in the LAGOON, in a land S of Nyuko [sic].
There are several other opportunities to get clued into the location of the
Crystals, though, if you miss this one (and the "due south of the second stone"
clue from Nyuku).
The other is about the Lantern of KASUMI, a great samurai from the past, which
will "light your way"; this turns out to be a clue on how to navigate the
Deathlord's domain, which is full of impenetrable darkness unless you can find
the Lantern.
The "Home of Sotashi" houses a bunch of Ansatsusha that will attack you.
There's also some Kabuto in the NE that attack on sight. I guess this is what
happens when you bust down doors. On the other hand, you can also learn (NW,
$$) that SHUMI the necromancer lives in a TOWER on the SW part of the
continent. That sounds like a dungeon, though it turns out to be optional.
5.20 TROLL HOLE [#520#]
Okay, it's time to take on your first "word dungeon". It's only four levels, so
not too bad, but it's absolutely covered in swamp. You'll want to make sure you
have a full load of food before coming in here, because you'll be resting a
lot. Okay great, let's check out the "Services" tabs and figure out where the
nearest food vendor is... wait, NO ONE on Chigaku sells food?! I have to sail
to either Kodan or Nyuku to find a food vendor?! WHAT THE HELL.
*sigh*
Well, at least the monsters aren't that big a deal: mostly Hobake, Kaibu,
Trolls, and Skeletons. Trolls hit three times a round but are otherwise within
your capabilities. As hinted at previously, there are an absolute ton of magic
pools here, so you can save-scum (see section 3.6) for some serious stat
boosts if you're either using a good map or willing to drink a lot of dungeon
water.
LEVEL 1: You're immediately standing in some swamp, so get moving. Step E and
don't drink the water. Avoid the side rooms and work your way around clockwise
to the first intersection. Go W, all the way S, and E. The stairs are in the
SE, up a side passage not quite all the way at the end of the hall.
The second door N has a room with a magic pool. You have to walk across swamp
to get to it, natch.
There are two treasure rooms on this floor; a reasonable map will show you
where they are, in case you care, but at this point I bet you're doing pretty
good on gold and aren't too worried about collecting more, especially if it
means crossing a bunch of extra swamp.
LEVEL 2: There's a magic pool right by the entrance. Go W, N at the crossroads,
and take the door W for a second magic pool (and a treasure room behind a false
wall). If you follow the corridor around N there's a third magic pool, but
insiduously the way forward is through a false wall that takes you S, then
around and through a portcullis. Skip past the temple (unless you have G6:UKU)
and find the stairs down in the NW corner.
LEVEL 3: Five more magic pools, although one is only accessible via G6:UKU. Go
E, and where you see four pools in four corners, the NE one is magic. Go N
from there and follow the snaking corridor to find a treasure room behind a
secret door. Now go back to the four-way intersection with pools, go S and open
a door, then go E and open a door. Two more treasure rooms S, and a magic pool
at the E end of the hallway. Okay, those are the easy ones.
Go back to the four-pools crossroads again, then go E and immediately S through
an open door. Follow that corridor S, E, and S to a three-way intersection. 4W
of there is a secret door the to S with a magic pool surrounded by swamp. You
can continue W, or circle back around to an E-W corridor to the S of here and
find the secret door to save yourself a few swamp squares. Either way you're
just N of an offset four-way intersection.
If you have G6:UKU, step W and then N across the water. The first pool inside
the door is magic. Then continue W.
If you don't have G6:UKU, go S from the offset four-way and take the door W.
Walk across a few swamp and you'll emerge in the same place as the previous
paragraph.
Either way, the fifth magic pool is in the SW room. Now go back to the corridor
S of the offset four-way and follow the hallway W. The last door to the N,
which you have to open while standing on swamp (ow), has the stairs.
If you don't care about the magic pools and just want to cross the level as
efficiently as possible, from the entrance stairs go S, W, S, E, take the
second door S, door E, door E, E, third door N.
LEVEL 4: Circle W and N. There's a magic pool down the N corridor (second room
W, first pool inside the door, no G6:UKU necessary). If you keep going N past
that room, you can search for two secret doors in the swamp (grr) that hide a
treasure room with a Harpy-infested coffin. Further yet is a portcullis with a
useless room that has two parties of Kobito hiding behind some water. This is
all completely pointless, though.
Back to the entrance room and W. There's a magic pool in the center of the
swamp. With G6:UKU, go N down a long swamp hallway and cross the water, then
find the false wall W for three treasure rooms and the secret door N to
continue into an E-W corridor.
Without G6:UKU, go W and N, E, N (ignore the water), then circle around W-N-E
to the same corridor. (You can find the secret door S and then false wall E to
get the treasure, too.)
In this hallway, you only care about the two locked doors NW. In the first room
(W-most) you'll find a signpost with The Word across a small pond. If you don't
have G6:UKU, there's a false wall W that leads to a chain of secret doors N-E
that gets you next to the sign so you can read it.
The second room has three magic pools NW but you'll need G6:UKU to get to one
of them. The third and fourth rooms are empty.
The word on the sign is FUSHIN. You can tell it's a magic word because it's
printed in the center of the box. Even if you don't know you're looking for
words, you were probably drawn to the signpost and are going to write down
what's printed there anyway, because you're a good dungeon diver, right?
Congratulations on your first magic word! Reverse your steps and let's get out
of here.
5.21 TOWER OF SHUMI [#521#]
Well, this looks bad.
Shumi the necromancer welcomes you to his undead breeding ground (literally --
see Level 3). There's not much to do here but acquire a little bit of loot and
kill a necromancer. It's not a bad challenge check though; if you got through
the Troll Hole, you ought to be able to clear this tower, and vice versa.
LEVEL 1: An annoying level that gives you the flavor of the place. There's an
outer ring that circumscribes the level and you need to find a way in. You can
head straight S from the entrance but you'll have to cross fire and open a
locked door while standing in it. If you circle E there's a hallway that takes
you inside, but there's a pit trap. Continue around to the S side of the level
and there's a locked door and a portcullis to open.
For a useless clue, find your way to the W side of the tower. Cross the room
full of fire and bash down a door N to enter a maze full of darkness,
teleporters, and false walls. There are also a handful of fake doors in here;
you can tell the difference because if you try to (P)ick the lock, it says
"Nothing there!" instead of "No lockpick!"
The solution to the darkness maze is to avoid all the teleporters; it's
basically 1N 2W (false) 1W 2N 1W (false) 2N 2E 1N, then open the (real) door.
The sign beyond says "SAIL S-E", which roughly points you towards Osozaki in
case you didn't get the hint in Wakiza.
Here's the thing though: Osozaki is completely useless. But the next stop on
the tour of the world map included with the game is S of here so I guess we'll
stop there next anyway?
To continue to Level 2, head to the E side of the outer ring. Just S of the two
doors there's a secret door that leads into a false wall maze. You'll want a
good map, but the solution is 3W 2S 4W (pass by a door to the S) 1N 2W 1N 3W 2S
2W (pass by a door S) 5N. Coming back is easier, just go E when you can and
alternate N/S when you can't.
Note that the stairs go down even though this is a tower, where it would make
more sense for them to go "up". Can't have everything in an Apple II era game,
I suppose.
LEVEL 2: The sign reads "GO BACK", and if you read it while standing on the
staircase, you'll do just that. There is a pit trap immediately S of the
stairs, which is hard to find when every turn you spend searching sends you
back down the stairs.
The good news is that if you want to skip over this level completely and head
to Level 3, you can; the stairs are just S of you.
In fact, this level is pretty brutal; fire to be crossed, energy fields you
can't get through protecting treasure rooms you don't need, pit traps in evil
places, and a snaking dead-end path of doors to bash down with a sign at the
end proclaiming it's the "door storage area". Thanks, DEATHLORD!
It is possible to teleport into the two treasure rooms by working your way most
of the way through the door maze and then casting M4:UGOKU to randomly blink.
It's not really worth it, though, and I'd recommend save-scumming for good
castings if you're going to try it.
LEVEL 3: You start in a circular hall of darkness. In the center of the ring is
a room with a single magic pool. There are four outer exits from the ring:
The NW door is an apparent dead-end. From this room you can M4:UGOKU to a
neighboring room NW which leads to a hallway to the 'nursery', which is a
spawning ground for undead. Run from Wraiths and Phantoms (level drain);
Apparitions (PAR, level drain) are basically extra-beefy Phantoms, so you
really don't want any. Otherwise, knock yourself out, I guess. There are
better places to grind.
The NE door looks like a dead end, but there's a secret door hidden in
amongst the fire. It leads to a treasure room (secret door to the N) and
some stairs down which drops you in the midst of some magic fields (ow).
The SE door has a treasure room (coffins) and can be used to M4:UGOKU into
a neighboring space E with more. If you try to exit that space by heading N and
following the hallway W you'll find a cunning mapping trap: a pair of linked
teleporters that skip you over the space in the center of the level where you
entered this floor, and connect the SE area with the SW area. Sure to mess up
your maps. Also useless because you can't avoid the chute.
The SW door leads to a door to a room with a secret door N, a treasure room
beyond with another secret door, and a room with a magic pool. As you wind
around the corridor you hit a chute which takes you down to a really awful area
of Level 4 with some Phantoms, so don't do that.
LEVEL 4: If you came down the stairs, go 2W 1N 1W to minimize the energy field
damage. Find your way to the "T" intersection at the N edge of the map and meet
me in a couple of paragraphs.
If you fell down the chute, you have to fight off six groups of Phantoms. Good
luck. The sign on the far side of the fire pit says "You did'nt [sic] think I
would make it that easy, did you?" No, indeed, I did not. However, there is a
secret door in the SW that leads to the rest of the level. Proceed E down the
hall, turn N, bash the door, dodge the acid pit, and continue N to the end of
the hall.
Note that the rest of the floor is useless. There are some coffin rooms in the
SE with more energy fields and a couple of hidden vampires. We'll talk about
the NW in a second. The SW has those Phantoms and the NW is where we're going
for real.
From the "T" intersection, go 2E and search S for a secret door. This
hallway has a bunch of damaging pit traps, so go slow and search a lot. At the
end you see a door with a sign saying "Go back, this is your last warning".
Now, if you were to follow this hallway around, you'd find another sign for the
"Personal chambers of Shumi" with an obvious door. Turns out the door is a trap
which teleports you into -- I am not making this up -- a room full of fire (in
the NW part of the level), with another sign saying "Thought you had me didn't
you? Burn fools!" Your only way out is M4:UGOKU or M7:UNPAN. There are no
actual exits. Did I mention that DEATHLORD hates you?
So instead what we're going to do is find the string of secret doors that takes
you into Shumi's lair. From the entrance to this hallway, go 4N 3W (ish) and
search W, then search S until you get into his quarters. Shumi is a
Necromancer, which you've fought before. That fireball is pretty nasty tho.
There is no prize for defeating Shumi. Unlike most RPGs, the level designers of
DEATHLORD saw no reason to immediately follow up a boss fight with a large
quantity of treasure, or really any reward at all. So once you beat him, all
that is left to do is return to safety. Unfortunately, to get out of here, you
have no choice but to go through the energy field and take the stairs. The good
news is that there are secret doors 2E of the ones that led into Shumi's room
that will save you one extra square of field.
5.22 OSOZAKI [#522#]
If you take the hint from Shumi's Tower and sail "S-E" of Chigaku (three
sectors south and two east, to be precise), you'll find Osozaki. You can also
get there by sailing straight east from Wakiza (i.e. the SW sector of Kodan).
Here's the question though: why would you? Well, because you're an RPG player,
and you follow up diligently on clues when you're given them. So if you went to
Wakiza (an optional town) or Shumi's Tower (an optional dungeon) then you might
wind up on Osozaki (an optional continent) and take on Telegrond, which is not
just optional, but also one of the hardest and most confusing dungeons in the
game. For literally no reason. Good times.
5.23 DEEPINGDALE [#523#]
Services: food, melee weapons (Masakari), armor (Do-Maru)
The only town on Osozaki is found on a small island in the center, accessible
via river from the W. You can enter by boat (recommended, as you'll need one to
get around) or on foot.
Both shops here carry less than you can get on Kodan. If you came here first
(perhaps following the hint from Wakiza rather than immediately searching out
Senju) it is vastly disappointing to set off on an epic journey and discover
that the shopping hasn't actually improved.
There's no healer, but at least there's food. Yeah, I'm looking at you,
Chigaku.
The weapon shop has a sign that says "Ask us about our money back guarantee".
If you talk to the nearby Senshi, he tells you "If one of these weapons breaks
in combat we'll send a full refund to your next of kin."
There's a Yakuza guild in the center-E of town. But there's no treasure there.
On the NORTH BANK, which is to say the island in the NE of town, which can't be
accessed without a boat, you'll find a house of "rich" KOBITO. They do in fact
have some gold to steal. Osozaki is also home to some RUINS, formerly known as
the town of WAKAI, to the SW; and a DUNGEON, to the NE, which is 16 levels deep
and run by a group of evil wizards.
5.24 WAKAI [#524#]
The ruin formerly known as WAKAI is in the mountains to the SW. Bandits and
brigands mostly live here; many of them have nothing to say to you, and those
that do want money.
There's an old condemned HOUSE on the N side of town, and we already know about
the 16-level DUNGEON near DEEPINGDALE. The shogun's residence has a few gp for
your trouble, and the old armor+weapons combo shops have a hidden deposit room
between them, behind a secret door.
You may find that evil things live in PYRAMIDS, but not around here. And some
dude called the RED SHOGUN has a dungeon behind his palace; you're encouraged
to "sail around back". Not many people know who he is, though. I'd say this is
an important clue (the Doors Dungeon, which is behind the Red Shogun's palace,
is a word dungeon) but you'll get the same clue again once you find the palace
itself, so it's not that important that you get it here.
Apart from a couple of Vampires behind a 'No Trespassing' sign, which you
probably don't want to muck with, there's nothing much of value to learn, see,
or do here.
5.25 TELEGROND [Unfinished]
As I've said before, the 16-level dungeons are optional. Don't do them; I
didn't, which is why there's no walkthrough for them. If you're really
interested, check out the ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS section for a link to Genpei's blog;
they've got more patience than I do (and are more willing to go exploring nasty
dungeons with M7:UNPAN to map them out).
5.26 AKMIHR [#526#]
Continuing our clockwise progression through "continents we can find from the
game map", we now proceed to the southern hemisphere, where the climate is arid
and the terrain gets more desert-and-scrublike to reflect it.
The desert island of Akmihr is six sectors directly south of Chigaku, or two
west and three south of Osozaki if you decided to stop there. Akmihr contains a
number of useful towns, another Word, and an important Relic, although we won't
be able to pick it up just yet.
The various towns and dungeons also contain some of the most direct and vital
clues to discovering what exactly it is you're supposed to do in this game.
You'll find a listing of (most of) the Relics, a handful of pointers (or at
least town names) for where to go find them, and a description of the various
Words, what they're for, and what they're derived from. Not to mention another
more explicit clue about needing to find the dungeons of Hell in order to
defeat the Deathlord.
As long as DEATHLORD has dragged you along with only the barest minimum idea
what the hell you're doing, this island is a veritable firehose of useful
information. Of course, you'll need to discover a hard-to-find town and dive an
otherwise optional dungeon in order to find it all...
The motto of this place might as well be "come for the hints, stay for the
grinding".
5.27 OASIS [#527#]
Services: training, food, healing (Depetrify), melee weapons (Naginata),
missile weapons (Heavy Bow), armor (Yoroi)
A nice little place to stop by on your first visit to Akmihr, and probably the
first place you'll find as it's in the NE part of the continent. The training
academy and healer will come in handy once you start diving into the mines, and
unlike Chigaku there's actually food for sale to sustain you through those
long(?) dungeon dives.
If you find a Kobito who wants money, he will clue you into the secret of his
people: there is a set of MINES to the SW of here, in which a WORD is hidden.
Apart from the mines, there's also a second DUNGEON in the form of a PYRAMID, W
of here. However, "a horrible fate awaits those who rob pyramids", and as you
may have heard before, "evil things live in pyramids". So that trip promises to
be fun for the whole family. We'll do it last, as per usual.
You may be interested in the PALACE of the SULTAN, who rules this land, to the
S, and the Mages GUILD, which is in Desert Flower, though no one knows where
that is. (It's right near the Palace, but it's tucked in among some cacti and
hard to find.)
In the SW side of town, Grool the Wicked gets annoyed if you force your way
into his temple and kill his skeletons, but he won't do anything about it.
5.28 SULTAN'S PALACE [#528#]
Services: food, melee weapons (Glaive), armor (Do-Maru)
Set sail down the E coast of Akmihr from Oasis and you'll soon find the Palace,
accessible via boat or by land. An impressive building with a very important
secret, and (in my opinion) one of the most well-designed cities in the game.
Not much in the way of commerce though.
It's also a little short on NPCs wandering around, but you can go find people
to talk to in the Sultan's guest quarters (S then W). Two important clues you
pick up there: a Mahotsukai tells you to 'search the GARDEN', just E of the
courtyard, and a Kobito tells you that there's a word in the MINES, which are
W of the palace (although you probably knew that already). You also get a
repeat of the Mages GUILD clue, but no further help finding Desert Flower.
Unlike many towns in DEATHLORD, the prisoners don't have much to tell you,
although you can also pick up the garden clue there. If you do break into the
prison, be aware that the Guards are little tougher down south.
Finally, when you break into the garden and look around (there's a secret door
in the SE), you find a lone Mahotsukai. He tells you that "the ROD" is in the
TOWER. The 'tower' always refers to one corner of town, but which one? The
palace has four of them. Further, the Emerald Rod provides immunity to acid
(via unlimited charges of Z4:SANTATE). Sounds awfully useful!
So I guess that means we're going to look through the towers. The NW one is
accessible from the docks; lots of fire, otherwise useless.
The SW tower has a sign that says 'enter the pyramid through the gate of the
rising sun'. If you haven't heard about the PYRAMID that's W of here yet, ask
someone on the street. "Rising Sun" is a clue that you want to enter from the E
side of the building; the other entrances are fakes.
To the NE you'll find the Sultan's quarters. He seems a nice enough fellow. You
can rob him blind, though you have to pass two magic fields which take 50% of
your HP as you pass. Also I enjoyed the part where the guards waiting in the
hallway attacked me, while the guards in the Sultan's chambers (and the Sultan
himself) sat and watched.
At first glance, there doesn't seem to be a SE tower... but if you look at
where the door to the SW tower is, and then search in the mirror image on the
E side, sure enough there's a secret door there. With a big honkin' sign
saying DO NOT ENTER. And a ring of magic fields. With some Sand Dragons in the
middle guarding a crate.
Welp. Since we don't have a Blue Crystal yet, I guess we're going to have to
come back later (see section 5.41).
5.29 DESERT FLOWER [#529#]
Services: training, food, melee weapons (Sai), armor (Do-Maru)
In order to track down the elusive Mages' Guild, you have to find Desert
Flower. It's rather close to the Sultan's Palace, but hard to spot -- it's
tucked into amongst the cacti just across the inlet N of the palace, invisible
from the water but quickly found if you start exploring on foot.
I guess if you're going to have a Sorcerer's GUILD, you might as well advertise
it on your town sign? I guess that means we've found Desert Flower.
A Kobito tells you to look a bit SW of town. If you brave the cacti and head
into the mountains, you find a signpost that says NOT ALL SEAS ARE AS THEY
APPEAR, which is an incredibly obscure clue -- I'm just gonna spoil this for
you now -- that hints at the function of the Sharktooth, which reveals the
location of Hell Island. Without the tooth, you can sail right through that
sector without hitting land.
Don't waste your time in the residences to the SW. The Guild is where the good
hints are. You will learn that you need to find five RELICS: the Lantern, the
Rod, the Ring, the Spear, and the Tooth. Senju has the SPEAR, which fits in
with some other clues we've heard and makes getting a Crystal a top priority.
The Crystal is also a relic, and we can find one in the Lagoon -- still no word
on where that is though. The Tooth is in MALKANTH, a legendary town populated
by demons.
Finally: some extremely clear hints about the goals of the game and where to
go! And only 29 sections into writing this walkthrough...
5.30 KOBITO MINES [#530#]
Some of DEATHLORD's dungeons are really well put together. Some show off a
theme, and are fun to get to know. Some present really challenging navigation
puzzles. Some are more important than others, what with hiding a word (like
this one) or an artifact. The Kobito Mines, though? The only thing going on
here is combat. A LOT OF COMBAT. This is a fantastic place to grind levels,
because Kobito are fairly straightforward to fight, they have no special
attacks, and they return 14xp each. I cleared two (character) levels without
even trying. And there's a training academy not far from here.
And of course, at the bottom, there's a word to be found. Depending on how you
look at it, the Mines are either a nasty navigation puzzle or a complete
anti-climax. The word is on Level 4, which is the bottom level. Getting down is
easy, and you're more likely than not to do it accidentally because there are
hidden chutes everywhere and avoiding them is hard. That also means working
your way back up is painful. But to make things easier (?), there's a joined
staircase that takes you directly from Level 1 all the way down to Level 4 and
back up again. If you can find it. That's the anti-climax part.
You can find some magic pools here, though, if you're looking for some stat
upgrades. So that's nice.
Now that I've ruined everything, grab a good map to help you avoid the chutes
and let's get started.
LEVEL 1: The Mines of "Morea"? Really? I get that Kobito are supposed to be
Dwarves, but all you did was change one vowel? At what point does "homage" turn
into "copyright violation"?
The bad news is that this level has a handful of chutes that will send you down
to level 3. The good news is that there's not a lot else interesting going on
here, so if you're in a hurry, and don't want to fight off the hordes of
Kobito, it's not such a bad way to go down. The closest one is directly S from
the entrance (you can skirt around the fire pits).
To find the actual stairs, go W from the entrance room. You can duck into
the first room to the S (find a secret door) for a few measly treasure
pots. Head S and take the third passage E, then walk until you hit a T
intersection, then go S to the locked door. Again, you can go through this
door for a few more measly pots. Go W, but not all the way to the end of the
hall (where there's a chute); between the two doors to the S, look N for a
false wall that takes you to the stairs.
LEVEL 2 "Gold Mine and Ore Storage": Rather a misnomer. This floor is a
fairly-open set of caves, with one treasure room in the N behind a hallway of
false walls. There's also three magic pools (one pair, the second of which
requires G6:UKU). There's a bunch of chutes that drop you down to Level 3. And
still a lot more Kobito.
LEVEL 3 "Lower Mine Shafts": Another set of open caves. Two magic pools in the
E side of the map, one N (at the end of a snaking corridor) one S (likewise).
And one random chute near the pond in the SE that drops you onto level 4.
Literally nothing else going on here.
LEVEL 4 "Central Complex": The Kobito spawn thick and furious down here, so I
hope you're healed up. There's nowhere to hide and rest, either.
If you came down the stairs, exit S. The halls to the N of the stairs are
pointless; circle to the W to avoid a pit. There are a bunch of false walls
along this corridor, but most don't take you anywhere interesting. When you
come to the E/W corridor, head S; in the SE corner of the chamber of fire
there's a secret door that takes you to a treasure room. This is the real gold
mine: some quick math says you should clear around 20,000gp, which will help
pay for all the training you're going to need.
If you fell down the chute from level 3, you wind up near the center of the
chamber of fire.
Head N into the hallway of water. Find the W end and go N. In the NE corner,
where the stone walls and brick walls meet, there's a false wall that takes you
down a long path which curves S. At the end of the path is a sign with the next
word: NIKUMU
As you work your way back up the staircase, you may find Kobito that have
spawned but are stuck in the staircase foyers. But that's just par for the
course in here. Head back to the surface and do some training, and stick around
as long as you want to grind levels.
5.31 PYRAMID OF AKHAMUN-RA [#531#]
Although this is an optional dungeon, it's worth doing for plot reasons.
Guardians and Mummies can cause disease (ILL), but there's a healer in Oasis
and your Shizen probably has Z3:BYOKINASU already.
Here's an interesting thing: the first time you attack anyone, it saves to
disk, as if you had just attacked someone in a town. (This also happened in
Yokohama.) I can't see what difference this possibly makes, though, since it's
not like Akhamun-Ra will talk to you.
Enter from the E ("through the gate of the rising sun") and find the secret
door into the crypt. Watch out for pits, which are sparsely distributed
throughout the narrow hallways.
Immediately to the N after the first pit there's a secret door. In a nasty bit
of trap design, there's a magic field in front of a locked door. And you
thought standing on *swamp* in front of a door was bad. Once you bash it down,
behind it you find... nothing. The room beyond has a bunch of spidery hallways
with one false wall at the end, each of which goes absolutely nowhere. The
whole thing is a death trap designed to frustrate you and make you spend a
bunch of time healing. As much as I've complained about DEATHLORD being full of
shit like this, though, it feels kind of right in a pyramid.
Go back out to the first hallway and continue W. From the main four-way
intersection in the center of the tomb, you can:
1. Go S and follow the hallway around. You'll come to a small room with an acid
pool. There's a false wall W of the pool. Follow that around to a tomb with
four coffins -- careful, some of them are full of Mummies. The gate to the S is
a red herring (the burial room beyond is empty).
2. Go N and follow the hallway around. The first branch W is useless. You will
have some trouble getting past the Tomb Robbers that are in the hallway. You do
have the option of attacking them. For laughs, ask them about PYRAMIDS. They
also seem to know a few things about WORDS and the DUNGEON (aka the Kobito
MINE), but nothing you don't already know.
In the next branch to the N, you'll find a room that the Robbers have
already looted ("We got here first!"). But one of the Robbers is stationary,
and he has a hint: search 'east' in the CHAMBER of fire, which is in the
SW. Let's go check that out now; the rest of this hallway is empty.
3. Go W. There's a handful of side passages here. The first turn-off is S.
Continue S to the chamber of fire - aha! There are two secret doors, E and S.
Behind the E door is a room full of Mahotsukai with some of the most useful
clues in the game, in terms of explaining the plot and what you have to do:
"Seven words to pass the gates. Each word can be found deep in a dungeon."
WORDS: "Seven words for the seven ancient evils."
GATES: "Do you mean the gates of hell?"
As a bonus you get to hear about another artifact and what it's for:
"Hell exists only if you have the Tooth. Find it in Malkanth"
The S secret door hides a treasure room (and some Guardians).
Go N from the chamber of fire and turn W. Again, a bunch of Tomb Robbers
block your path, and there's another cleaned-out crypt beyond, and again
there's a stationary Tomb Robber hiding in the corner with a hint. This one
tells you that there's a secret door somewhere in the central room, which is
the only way to find the actual burial chamber.
If you go back out to the main hallway and turn W again, there are a handful
more side rooms. You'll meet some more Tomb Robbers and probably some more
Guardians, but there's nothing else to do in this wing.
Head back to the central room and find that secret door; it's in the NE, and
you have to find the false wall beyond it. Advance down the dark corridor, bust
down the door to the outer chamber, fight off some Guardians, and work your way
around to the stairs (mind the pits).
LEVEL 2: Guardians spawn pretty quickly up here, so be quick. There are two
parties guarding the burial chamber itself. The loot boxes around Akhamun-Ra's
coffin aren't worth the time required to loot them. The man himself is pretty
brutal -- casts a highly-effective UNMEI (slay one opponent), also has KOROSU
and some group-zap spells. Kick his ass, then get out of here.
5.32 NARAWN [#532#]
The land of Narawn is not particularly easy to find, although the easiest way
to get there is to sail 10 sectors directly south (or six north, if you're
looking at a world map) of Nyuku. That puts it 5W 2S of Akmihr and 5S 2W of
Kodan.
You get clued in twice to the fact that there's a land S of Nyuku. The first
calls back to a sign you say in Tokugawa that didn't make any sense at all
("due south of the second stone"). But then you find "the second stone" out in
the wilderness of Nyuku. The second hint is in Crystalmist, where inquiring
after a LAGOON will get you the hint that you should look for one S of Nyuku.
Either way, if you head to Nyuku and then sail directly S, you will eventually
hit Narawn.
5.33 LOST LAGOON [#533#]
Services: training, food, tools, melee weapons (Masakari), armor (Haramakido)
Some Brigands in Crystalmist told you to look for crystals in a lagoon. So did
a Mahotsukai in Desert Flower. Well, here you go. You've got a bunch of little
islets surrounded by water. You can walk around the back side of some of them,
but some you can't... and that ought to be a clue.
Fortunately, this is one of those DEATHLORD towns that has a helpful signpost
in the center... If you can figure out how to get there. Enter from the W and
you'll find a nice path that takes you straight to it (or to the graveyard in
the NW, which is also well-labeled).
Sure enough if you find the right building (it's just SE of the W entrance),
there's a false wall in the S that leads to a Mahotsukai sitting in a field of
clover. "Look at all the crystals!" he says. (F)search the field to find one.
In fact, while you're here, get two.
It's hard-ish to get between different sides of the map, so you'll probably
exit the town and re-enter from different sides depending on what you're
looking for. The crystals are best found W, along with most merchants. The
tools shop is found E, along with the home of a bunch of angry Kichigai.
There's an old VOLCANO in the center of this continent that contains an evil
place called MALKANTH. It hides "a mighty artifact", which sounds a lot like
the Sharktooth we heard so much about on Akmihr, so I guess we should go there.
While you're in Malkanth, "keep to the shadows".
There's a town S of here called KASHIWA, but you'll need a ship to get around.
It's tempting to run straight back to Senju now that you have a Blue Crystal,
but maybe we can pick up that other relic first, eh?
5.34 KASHIWA [#534#]
Services: training, food, healing (Depetrify), missile weapons (Great Bow),
specialty weapons, armor (Yoroi), misc armor
If you sail around the rest of Narawn you'll figure out two things: there's
nothing else here, and there's an inlet on the W side of the island that takes
you into the center. Down that inlet you'll find the town of Kashiwa, and the
Malkanth volcano (guarded by Fort Demonguard, but we'll get there in a minute.)
Enter by boat (from either the N or W). The NW corner of town is partitioned
off from the rest and is only reachable with a boat. In that corner you'll find
the two armor shops (and nothing else). There's plenty of other shopping to be
found throughout the rest of town.
Everything else is accessible by land. For direction-finding, you can learn
that the VILLAGE of Lost Lagoon is N of here -- nice of the two towns to give
out directions to each other, for once. Fort DEMONGUARD is just to the E; its
occupants hold back the demons from the FIERY PIT of MALKANTH.
A Ronin tells you to search the academy. In a secret closet W off the trainer's
hall, there's a Yakuza that tells you ($$) that there's a word under a pyramid,
"north of the coast and due west". This points you at the Isle of the Dead, not
that you have a name for it yet.
A Shizen (in the NW) tells you to check the LOOPS in the canal. There are no
secret doors there, but there is a false wall; however, you can't sail a boat
through a false wall, so you have to try disem(B)arking through the walls to
find the false one. Once you do, a Mahotsukai tells you to search "the shrine
of chaos", which doesn't mean much yet.
The Daimyo of Kashiwa (SE corner) is not friendly, but also not really worth
killing.
5.35 FORT DEMONGUARD [#535#]
Services: healing (Depetrify), melee weapons (Naginata), armor (Yoroi)
Fort Demonguard is in the W side of the volcano in the center of Narawn,
providing a gateway to "the town of evil", Malkanth. It's "heavily guarded",
although that doesn't really mean much in practice unless you're in the habit
of raiding villages, pissing off the town guards, and disk-swapping to restore.
I wouldn't do that here.
There's not a lot to be found here; a healer in the NW, and good weapons and
armor merchants in the E. In the Guest Chambers to the SW you can find a
Yabanjin who says that he comes from SNOWRAVEN, which he claims is far E of
here. (He's wrong, in that charming tradition of NPCs that don't know what
they're talking about; Tsumani is almost directly SW of here, and there's
enough between here and there that I'm not sure how you could sail E of Narawn
and end up on Tsumani unless you already knew what you were doing.)
When you break into the prison (SE) you'll be able to tell the prisoners that
will attack you from the ones that won't, because the former won't move away
from the gate while the latter ones will. One set of Smoke Demons will tell you
that the Pyramid of the Old Ones is W and a bit N of here; this matches the
pyramid clue from Kashiwa. The place has a name and we've been pointed there
twice; sounds important.
Finally, there a handful of Unicorns that will tell you to sail E to get to
"the temple", which is a (unnamed) pointer towards Giluin and the Temple of
Oceanus. And, of course, like Nyuku to Narawn, it's actually faster to get
there sailing the other way around the world.
Okay, three pointers to useful places, two of which are correct and one is
quite wrong. What's left? Oh yeah, we came here looking for MALKANTH, which
apparently lies through the GATE at the E end of the Fort. I have to say,
though, these windows out the E side of the building don't look good. There's
an awful lot of fire out there. But I suppose it is an active volcano. Maybe we
want some fire protection before we go much further?
To exit towards Malkanth, you'll need to bust down a portcullis and a door and
make your way through a magic field. So it's a good thing you picked up a Blue
Crystal already, right? You can also use M4:UGOKU from near the windows to try
to bypass most of the doors. In any case, you don't actually need fire
protection just yet.
5.36 MALKANTH [#536#]
Services: food, melee weapons (Naginata)
I know it looks weird for a dungeon to have services, but stick with me here.
As you exit Fort Demonguard, you're dropped back on the world map inside the
volcano. No enemies spawn here, so it's a great place to rest up. You'll want
to cast Z4:HITATE before you actually enter Malkanth, though. If you really
want to explore the whole place, you'll probably want to get the Emerald Rod
first, but if you're following this walkthrough and want to skip to the good
bits, head to the SE corner and you can pick up the Sharktooth right now.
Malkanth, or "hell on earth" as the guards like to call it, is broken up into
four areas, which "mirror the four spheres of HELL". The NW corner is "shadow",
the SW is "acid", the NE is "fire", and the SE is the "seat of it's ruler"
[sic]. Treat Malkanth like a town; demons will generally tolerate your presence
unless you attack someone, and you really don't want this whole place bearing
down on you, even if the Demonguard would appreciate the effort.
NW (SHADOW): Not a lot going on here; some easy-to-dodge patches of fire. The
SW building has a tomb with a bunch of open coffins; "take your pick", says the
helpful demon. There's a secret entrance in the S wall of the SE building, but
the only thing inside is a Lich in his coffin and you don't really want any of
that. The northern building has a weaponsmith. Remember that hint to "stick to
the shadows"? Totally does not apply here.
SW (ACID): It's helpful to have the Emerald Rod here so you don't have to wait
around for your Shizen to cast a lot of Z4:SANTATE. To the SW, across the acid
field, you'll find McEvil's Fast Food, Home of the Slimeburger. They also sell
human food for 3gp each, in case you rest so much you run out. The "Rest Room"
is a graveyard (hah). If you walk around back you can find the Kitchen with
some pots; only one of them has food you can steal, though.
NE (FIRE): Even more fire here than there is acid over there. The main building
is a temple to the Lord of Death himself, but he's not here (phew). There are
two treasure rooms through false walls, one in either wing, but you'll need
fire protection to get there, and the treasure isn't worth it.
SE (Seat): Don't be discouraged by the diamond-shaped room. It has secret doors
in all three directions, which you probably figured out if you've been mapping.
To the W and N is the "Games Room" where some demons are torturing a Senshi
("Run for your life"). W and S is the treasury, with some moderate amounts of
cash. S from the center is Council Chambers, holding absolutely nothing. E and
N is "cold storage", with a bunch of dead (presumably frozen) adventurers. But
E and S is the "Shrine of Chaos", which sounds awfully promising.
Now, two hints you got before will need to be combined in order to walk out of
here with the Sharktooth. First, you were told in Kashiwa to "search the Shrine
of Chaos"; you will need to (F)search the floor to find it. Second, you were
told in Lost Lagoon to "stick to the shadows". Sure enough, you should ignore
the two coffins in the center of the room, and start searching the dark squares
instead. There in the W part of the room is the Tooth. It's a slot 5 item, so
people carrying a Blue Crystal should not try to pick it up.
That's it for Malkanth. Cast Z4:HITATE, head back to the Fort, and good luck
opening that locked door while standing on an energy field. (I prefer M4:UGOKU,
myself.)
5.37 ASAGATA [#537#]
Asagata lies between Narawn and Nyuku, so it makes a natural stopping-off point
on our way back to Senju. The only essential hint you get here is a pointer
towards the Lost Isles, which you need to find the Cave of the Four Elements.
Of course there's zero indication of why you would want to go there until you
actually go there. There's also a secondary hint pointing you kind of (but not
really) towards Sirion and Greenbanks, but otherwise this continent is
completely optional. But it is on the world map that comes with the game box,
so we might as well cover it.
5.38 TOWNE ROYAL / MAKIMURA [#538#]
Services: training, food, healing (Depetrify), tools, melee weapons (Naginata),
specialty weapons, shipyard
A tough little town(e) to get around(e), since it's only accessible by boat.
You'll be able to stay on board all day, though, because the pathways are
easier to navigate on water than on land / sidewalks.
The shopping is quite good here; Towne Royal has almost everything. Highlights
include the Samurai Supply Shop(pe) in the NW corner; if for some reason your
Samurai don't have a Katana yet (or a better weapon, although that's unlikely),
buy one now. You can also pick up the other "specialty" weapons, although it
still seems weird to me that a Samurai Supply Shop sells weapons for Ninja.
The nearby "shrine of the unnamed god" is a healer that can depetrify, but you
literally have to walk over hot coals to get to them. Hmph. Not much use
without the Ruby Ring.
The Daimyo (SE) doesn't like it when you break into his home. But if you kill
him you can steal his boat!
The essential clue you need is that there's an ISLAND almost direct N from
here. This points you towards the Lost Isles.
Other bits of local color include a pointer towards the nearby DUNGEON, a lair
of fire giants in the Ash Mountains where they mine gold. You're probably not
hurting for gold, but it might be worth checking out. Meanwhile, a Kobito will
tell you ($$) that "the mines" are rich in gold. But if you ask about a MINE,
they tell you that the Kobito have one in the hills of Akmihr. (A nice pointer,
if you don't already know about it.)
While you're in CROYO, you should definitely look for the KEY. (Hint: you
should not look for the key.)
There's a MAGES GUILD in OASIS, which is also a town in Akmihr. This is not
quite true; there is a Mages Guild in Akmihr, but it's in Desert Flower, not
Oasis. I can't complain too much, though, because the people in Oasis will tell
you it's in Desert Flower, and at least you're on the right continent at that
point?
God, this game has really lowered my standards for NPCs giving out "accurate"
information.
5.39 CROYO [#539#]
Services: food, tools, melee weapons (Glaive), armor (Do-Maru)
Things to do:
1. Check out the graveyard and get the clue from the skeleton.
2. Stock up on food and supplies. *shrug*
3. That's it.
Seriously. You can visit the Daimyo in the N and rob him blind; he doesn't seem
to mind. If you check out his hedge maze you can find the Toshi Home E and the
Kobito Home W. Neither is helpful.
The clues aren't even any good. A bunch of KOBITO came to Croyo; then a bunch
of them disappeared. The nearby DUNGEON is a lair of GIANTS on the N coast.
Even the "important" clue, which you get from a skeleton hanging out in the
graveyard, doesn't help; he tells you to search his grave in GREENBANKS, which
is a set of ruins S of here. But not *directly* S; Sirion is actually pretty
hard to find from here, but more on that later.
Oh, and that KEY you were supposed to find in Kobito Home? It's a key-shaped
room filled with fire that contains a hint that you can also get in Towne
Royale, without having to *walk through fire* to get it. This is yet another
example of how much DEATHLORD hates you.
Also, I wouldn't piss off the guard here if I were you. Check out the barracks
just N of the SE graveyard. On the other hand... given how useless this town
is, you could give it a shot if you wanted to get into a fight with a ton of
guards. It's not like you ever need to come back here.
5.40 FIRE GIANTS' LAIR [#540#]
No point here other than loot. You can make A LOT of money down here; Fire
Giants hit HARD, but they carry some good stuff, and occasionally give up to
1000gp after battle. I picked up a Thunderblade and a Powerstaff off them
without leaving Level 1. It's not a bad place to grind for levels, either, but
plan on casting ALNASU a lot, and keep an eye on your spell points. Not too
many special attacks down here, but you can get PARalyzed.
LEVEL 1: A bunch of water (don't drink it) and swamp. There's not much to note
here, except that the false wall that hides the stairs is in the S-most
corridor and is behind a bunch of swamp, just to be annoying.
LEVEL 2: And now we get to see the cutesy theme of this dungeon. There's an
enormous fire pit in the N part of this level, and in the middle is a sign
saying:
* SWIMMING ONLY *
NO COOKING FOOD
OR HUMANS ALLOWED
..right, because where else would Fire Giants swim? *sigh* Okay, I get it.
Fortunately the stairs down are right next to the stairs up.
LEVEL 3: The treasure room to the E is guarded by two groups of Wind Dragons
(ow). It's not a bad place to rest, though; wandering monsters don't spawn in
this room very often.
I'm not even going to reproduce the SAUNA REGULATIONS here. It's pretty typical
for RPGs of this era to have a somewhat dumb sense of humor, and DEATHLORD is
no different.
The stairs up are N of where you came in, in the giant's dining hall. If you
venture E and then N, you can find a secret door with a narrow hallway full of
crates.
LEVEL 4: Roorgtrak, the giant warlord chieftain, maintains a lovely garden as a
change of pace. Sequestering yourself in the far NW corner isn't a bad place to
rest. You can raid his quarters for a number of crates, pots, and coffins, but
you have to brave fire to do it. The stairs down are E of where you came in.
LEVEL 5: If you don't go hunting for false walls W, you'll miss all the loot,
and there is a bunch in the Ore Storage room. The Mining Equipment has all been
picked over, though. Stairs down are S then W, but they're guarded by
stationary Fire Giants.
LEVEL 6: An open mining floor; the stairs down are, again, guarded by
stationary Fire Giants.
LEVEL 7: A small space. Your reward for making it this far: 11 magic pools,
arranged around the *outside* of a room hidden behind several false walls in
the SE. This is also an excellent place to rest if you hide behind the
central pool. Stairs down are W.
LEVEL 8: Congratulations, you found the bottom floor. There's a small pool in
the NE that serves as the "deepest spot", but there's otherwise no reason to
come down here. The fights are thick and heavy, so I hope you cast S6:KAERU for
a quick recall.
5.41 COLLECTING SOME RELICS [#541#]
At this point, we can use the Blue Crystals to pick up some relics that we
weren't able to get before, but we're going to have to do some backtracking to
do it.
THE SUNSPEAR: Head back to Nyuku, sail to Twin Rivers, and knock on Senju's
door. (OI)ffer him one of your Blue Crystals and he'll give you the Sunspear:
"Use this spear if you would rid the world of his evil forever."
This is one of the best melee weapons in the game (+3 to hit, 1-24 damage,
grants +3 AC), almost anyone can use it (except Shisai/Shizen), and it also
happens to be the only thing that can hit the Deathlord.
THE EMERALD ROD: Head back to Akmihr, sail to the Sultan's Palace, and use the
Blue Crystal to pass the forcefield in the SE tower and confront the Sand
Dragons (ow). Take the Emerald Rod from the chest.
This is *also* a very good melee weapon, especially if you have a priest in
your third slot (+4 to hit, 1-10 damage, double damage vs demons, grants +6
AC). You may prefer the Rod of Death (+2 to hit, two attacks for 1-10, grants
+1 AC) because it deals more damage, but +6AC is hard to argue with and you
only get the Rod of Death from a random drop, so you may never see one. Plus,
the Emerald Rod casts Z4:SANTATE with unlimited charges, so you can use it to
pass acid fields now.
In particular, having the Emerald Rod makes navigating part of Malkanth much
easier, so if you didn't pick up the SHARKTOOTH a couple of sections ago, you
should do that now.
The combination of these two relics plus a Samurai wielding a Katana is quite
fearsome and represents the best offensive firepower I could get from my front
line. Depending on your party balance you might be able to do better, but not
by much.
5.42 GILUIN [#542#]
Okay, we're kind of just sailing around the globe right now. But we (may
perhaps) find ourselves on Akmihr, having just picked up the Emerald Rod,
wondering where to go next. Spend some quality time with your notebook where
you've been writing down all the unresolved clues that you have... and then
throw it out, because I've decided we're going to chase after a random comment
from some unicorns.
If you don't like that, feel free to skip ahead to Sirion (5.47) and come back
to Giluin later. Or skip it altogether, although good luck finding the
Deathlord without stopping here...
Back in Fort Demonguard, we got a hint to go visit a temple E of Narawn. Seven
sectors west is faster than nine east, but who's counting? And if you're on
Asagata already, it's just two sectors south to get in line with Narawn, and
then a short four east of there. Giluin is a two-sector tall continent (one of
the few multi-sector islands in the game) so it should be relatively easy to
hit.
The Temple of Oceanus is on the W coast, so you may find it first. But I write
the town walkthroughs before the "dungeon" walkthroughs, so sail N and follow
the coastline around until you find Kobar in the NE. On the other hand, the
towns aren't all that useful, so feel free to skip straight to the Temple.
5.43 KOBAR [#543#]
Services: training, tools, melee weapons (Masakari)
You'll have to get off your boat and go exploring on foot in order to find
Kobar, tucked into a copse of trees in the NE of Giluin.
KOBAR is a tiny village with few services and few hints. The most useful of the
lot is from a Shukenja in the SE, who mentions that TOHEI the cleric guards the
SHRINE of OCEANUS. He's hanging out in a garden at the TEMPLE, SW of here.
Meanwhile, a Ryoshi sitting alone in his home to the SW will encourage you to
search the Temple, and a Yakuza says that there's good loot to be found there.
If you can't trust a Yakuza to point you towards good loot (hint: you can't),
who can you trust? No one, not even me, because on my playthrough I was
basically swimming in gold from the time I left Kodan.
You can also find out that there's an extremely tough DUNGEON N of here. It's
sometimes referred to as the "linear dungeon" because most of the upper levels
are straight hallways. It's also totally optional, maddeningly designed, full
of treasure, and by the way the bottom floor may well be the deadliest place in
the entire game. So naturally we'll be skipping it completely.
Many people will tell you that a guy named CHIN runs the training academy, and
apparently, he's the best. Unfortunately, Chin's place is just a Senshi saying
"You cannot pass" and a room full of hostiles behind him. The *actual* trainer
(where you can, ya know, purchase new levels) is just NW of the central
fountain, but his name is Mad Ying.
One of the gravestones marks the Tomb of the Unknown Peasant. Aww, that's
touching. Almost as touching as the Kosaku who can't find his father's grave.
Actually, that's just mean. Never mind.
5.44 SHUPAN [#544#]
Services: food, tools, missile weapons (Great Bow), armor (Yoroi),
healing (Depetrify)
Shupan is also hidden from view by boat, surrounded by mountains in the SE. The
shops are all conveniently in the center of town.
The Temple of AKUMA, god of night, is in the SE. It's an odd building; start
with the fact that the front door is false walls, and that it's populated with
Dark Toshi that won't talk to you. At the end of the day, though, it is a
temple, and you can (B)uy healing services from them.
The Daimyo is hostile, and has some small bits of cash. Break into the 'No
Admittance' rooms hidden behind the armor shop and you'll run into a bunch of
Mahotsukai to fight off. And there are two parties of Toshi in one of the rooms
in the SW.
A Kishi will tell you that strange people go in the house W. But there is no
house W... or at least not one with an obvious door. However, there is a
one-square ring around the outside of the city walls, and if you sneak around
there you can find an entrance to that house with a Dark Toshi who tells you to
search the TEMPLE. (Not the Temple of Akuma, apparently, but the Temple of
Oceanus.)
A Kosaku says that he's seen strange lights in the OLD HOUSE in the northwest
[sic] end of town. It's actually in the north*east*, and I already get 'east'
and 'west' confused a lot when I'm typing so I assumed this was my mistake
until I cross-checked it against some other gamers' work. Anyway, the house
itself is marked with a sign saying it's been condemned by the Daimyo.
Elsewhere, a Shisai tells you that there's a MONK who lives on the N shore,
behind the house. Be forewarned, though, there are Banshees inside, and as
always you have to let them attack first; you can bypass the weird house by
going around to the N and using G6:UKU, though. There's a Shukenja in a house
on the island in the NW corner (who looks a lot like the guy on Bone Island)
that tells you that Cerberus guards the gates of Hell. Regurgitated line from
mythology, or clue to the endgame? You decide.
There's apparently a DUNGEON N of KOBAR, which is N up the coast from here, but
as I've already said we're going to skip it.
5.45 LINEAR DUNGEON
Just don't.
5.46 TEMPLE OF OCEANUS [#546#]
Services: food, healing (Depetrify)
Oceanus, the Lord of the Deeps, has a four-part temple for you to explore,
including many secrets and some useful clues. Also, there's a healer and a food
shop.
NORTHWEST corner: Start by entering from the N, and tying up on the dock W.
Some Shisai will give you the blessings of Oceanus. To the NE there's a room
with some pots, and some pits waiting for you to fall into them. The sign says
"Greed is a sin -- repent!" which is only slightly more than just a sick joke;
it's also a reminder that the seven words you are collecting go with the seven
deadly sins, of which greed is, uh, oddly not one. Well, forget I said
anything, I guess.
The confessionals are empty, but the rooms just S of there have some folks in
them. A Senshi tells you to "disembark at the entry", which is a hint you may
recognize from Kashiwa; there are false walls along the town's canals, which
you can only pass through by disem(B)arking. We'll get there in a bit.
The SW part of this quadrant has a full-service healer. Now head back to your
boat and cross the canal just to the E.
NORTHEAST corner: step N and follow the hallway around. Ignore the doors S, but
find the one at the end of the hall that leads to the temple gardens. It seems
the gardener is on duty at the moment, and he's done some lovely work with the
topiary. Is that... the number "24" and an arrow pointing S? It seems so. I
wonder what happens if we count 24S from that little pond?
Head S from where you docked -- or take the "shortcut" through the useless room
to the SW of the garden instead -- and find the foyer for the crematorium with
a view out onto the graveyard. The crematorium is pointless, but its door is in
line with the arrow. Keep heading directly S from there, and you'll go out into
the hallway. 24S of the pond is the S wall, which contains a secret door.
Beyond the door is a Mahotsukai -- they always have the best hints, don't they?
-- who tells you that "one of the words is in a pyramid". Well, we already
cleaned out Akhamun-Ra's pyramid, so there must be another one somewhere...
But we're not done with this quadrant. Let's check out the disembarking clue
from the NW. Turns out that there's a false wall 1S from the northern entrance
on the E side. That takes you down a long hallway E, and then another S. It's
a dead-end, but just after you turn the corner you can disembark again W and
find a little patch of forest. There, hiding in the SW corner, is a Shisai that
demands more than 100gp to tell you to "search the MAZE" in the SE quadrant. I
guess that's not too surprising; why would anyone put a maze unless there was
something to be found there? Oh, right, DEATHLORD would totally do that.
By the way, this isn't the only place where you should disembark near the
entrance.
SOUTHEAST corner: May as well go track down that maze, eh? Get back on board
your own boat and head S. It's actually pretty hard to get lost here; a number
of the canals loop back on themselves. The game wants you to check out all of
the darkness squares, but there's only one you care about: it's in the SW,
where there's a signpost encouraging you to "go east". If you were to draw out
a map of the rest of the maze, you would notice the SE corner is untouched.
That's because -- be shocked! -- there's a false wall you need to find in order
to get to the end. You can get there by going to the NE corner of the maze,
then as far S as you can, then search W.
Eventually you find a small room with a signpost: "Find the ancient pyramid on
the Isle of the Dead". We got a hint on Narawn about a pyramid on an island
with a word, so I guess now we know the name of the island as well.
SOUTHWEST corner: Head back to the center of town and then W. The first dock
has a small forest. Now, in Kobar you heard about a cleric named Tohei who
guards the Shrine of Oceanus and hangs out in a garden. This is that garden.
The Shisai here doesn't seem to know who Tohei is, though. Regardless, in the
SW corner of this room there's a false wall that brings you to a room with a
small lake, two Mermen (who tell you to be quiet), and a signpost. This is the
actual Shrine of Oceanus.
.. what? Did you expect the game to send you a bunch of hints that brought you
somewhere *useful*? Have I taught you *nothing* about this game?
Proceeding on down the canal towards the W entrance, the next room has a bunch
of empty pots in it, and the room after that a food merchant.
Next to the entrance (on the S side) is another false wall through which you
can disembark. This one is pretty interesting though -- it leads to a shrine to
the "Lord of Death". That seems... a little bit too soon, doesn't it? Well,
what's the worst that could happen, in a game that features permadeath and
tries very hard to prevent you from making backup save disks? Nothing, amirite?
You may be tempted to think that you have to cross the water with G6:UKU, but
no, there are secret doors to either side that hold some treasure. But wait,
there's more! Head to the E side of the room and find another secret door with
a much larger treasure room. The first room has energy fields, including one
that you have to stand on in order to smash down the next door (ow). The second
room has a few pots, the third has some small crates behind another energy
field (hope you brought your Blue Crystal), and the fourth has coffins. If
you're in need of some cash, here you go.
Back in the Deathlord's shrine, the N doors open up onto a pit of fire. If you
go walking with Z4:HITATE, you find an Acid Demon who gives you the only direct
hint about the location of the endgame that you'll get: Hell Island is due N of
Giluin.
5.47 SIRION [#547#]
I alluded to this earlier, but way back in Tokugawa you got a hint from a
Yakuza who told you to sail south. Sure enough, if you sail eight sectors south
(or seven north) of Kodan, you'll run into Sirion, a two-sector wide island.
Congratulations if you manage to write down that clue, not follow up on it
immediately, and then remember to come back to it after all this time.
If you need a gentle but not very useful reminder, the skeleton hanging out in
the graveyard in Croyo told you to find his grave site in Greenbanks, which is
"south" of Croyo. Of course if you sail straight south from Asagata you'll loop
around and end up on the Lost Isles.
So, we don't really know why we're headed to this land, but we're several words
short and there's at least a couple of relics we haven't found yet. And it
turns out that Sirion is pretty much the second most important continent in the
game: two words, a relic, and pointers to one more of each.
You'll most likely spend quite a while just mapping the continent out (if
you're like me, anyway). It's kind of a tossup whether you find Greenbanks (W)
or Clearview (SE) first, but I tend to list towns first and ruins and dungeons
later, so we're going to start in Clearview.
5.48 CLEARVIEW [#548#]
Services: training, food, melee weapons (Glaive)
A town with lots of green space and plenty of useful hints. There's a DUNGEON
in a canyon NW of here that has a word (jackpot!). There are also some CAVES in
a dungeon W of here, where you should "step north".
Here's the problem, though: the "step north" clue actually goes with the
Staircase Dungeon, which is the one to the N. The Chessboard Dungeon, to the W,
is totally different. So, once again, DEATHLORD's NPCs are screwing with you by
telling you information that's just slightly inaccurate.
A Shizen hanging out in the gardens NW of the center of town will tell you ($$)
that there's an ISLAND nearby, findable by sailing NE. This points you one of
two places: to the small island that's part of this archipelago, which has a
mountain with a spiral path to the "peak" where you'll find *nothing*, or to
the deserted islands a few sectors NE of here, where you will also find
absolutely nothing.
Everything of note is in the corners. The food (sake) vendor is in the SE, the
weapons shop to the SW, and the training hall in the NW. The forge adjacent to
the weapons shop is empty, but the food vendor has a secret storeroom W of his
shop with a secret door where you can steal food from him.
Check out the prison in the NE. Lift some gates and work your way E and then S
into the prison "yard". There you'll find some Brigands who tell you of the
island of TSUMANI, "south [one sector] off the coast and west", a land full of
yeti and "fierce snowbeasts". So bundle up before you go.
5.49 STAIRCASE DUNGEON [#549#]
Time for one of the more annoying word dungeons in the game. If you don't know
what you're doing, navigating this one is a real puzzle and it's likely to take
you a while. The first part involves going up and down a ton of staircases, and
the second part involves teleports that are designed to screw with you as much
as possible. Sounds like fun, right? S6:KAERU can save you some pain if you
have it available, but there are some very rich pots of gold down there to be
found if you're feeling low on cash.
Fortunately, it's pretty quick if you know what you're doing -- or if you got
the clue from the Ryoshi in Clearview who told you to "step north in the
caves".
The Staircase Dungeon is nestled in the mountains in the NE corner of Sirion,
though it's not on its own island. There is a significantly-sized island in the
NE of the continent, but the dungeon isn't there, despite there being a
pointless curly-q of trees that wind through the mountains and take you
absolutely nowhere. No, the dungeon is actually slightly W of there.
Anyway, as you enter, you are thrust into a room with an infinite number of
staircases. Of course, since you're standing on a staircase, casting S1:AKARI
or S3:MOAKARI takes a turn, which for some reason does not immediately eject
you from the dungeon. Hitting space to wait another turn will, however.
There are four levels of this dungeon, and they all have a central 11x11 room
that is tiled in nothing but up and down staircases. Every square of level 1
(except the entrance) sends you down to level 2. Every square of level 4 sends
you up to level 3. Levels 2 and 3 are a mix, though most of level 3's stairs
take you down. Even if/when you find your way out to the edges of that room,
you will find solid walls all the way around. Of course, several of those walls
are false.
Before we talk about how to get in, let's talk about how to get out. The center
square of all four levels is an up staircase, which means if you can find your
way there (6 squares from the edge wall), you can hit space until you exit.
Annoyed yet? Well, here's the solution to get you the word. Enter the dungeon,
cast a light spell, then go N. Keep going N, and when you get to the wall, keep
pressing N until you get through the false wall. That's the hard part. Yes,
seriously. Can you imagine trying to figure that out without a walkthrough?
Now cast Z1:ICHIHAN to make sure you're on level 3 (you are). DON'T STEP IN THE
CENTER OF THIS ROOM, there's a chute down to level 4. Step around and exit
through another false wall to the N. Now go all the way W (there aren't any
more chutes) until you can't, then go N. This puts you in a hallway, at the end
of which is a locked door, and behind that the word: CHIJOKU. Oh, and a whole
bunch of Vapor Demons. Hint, Demon-slaying weapons (the Emerald Rod and Holy
Sword) are a good choice here.
Now you can't just exit back the way you came in -- that would be too easy, and
there's a teleporter in the hallway (between 20 and 25 steps W of the door)
that prevents you from doing so. So you're going to have to find another way
around. There's a chute in the SW corner of the word room. Take it down to
level 4. This drops you into a false wall; move S, then W. That first pot is
pretty rich, but the only exit (through a false wall W) is a teleporter that
takes you to level 2.
This is the "second" part I referred to above; there are lots of teleporters
worked into false walls between the small rooms, which makes it really hard to
map because you can't tell when you're being teleported to a different level.
Here's how to do the Exit This Dungeon dance: from level 4, get the first pot.
Step W onto the teleporter and off W; get another pot. (You're on level 2;
there is no false wall W of here.) Step E onto the teleporter and off WEST,
then step E onto the teleporter again and off EAST. Get a third pot. (You're on
level 2 again; if you step E through another false wall, you'll see the
staircase.) Now step W onto the teleporter and off W, and get a fourth pot.
You're back on level 4 and there's a false wall W.
There's another pot here. There should be false-wall exits to the S and W.
Continue W (four more rooms, four more pots), then come back and head S.
There's no pot in this room, but there are nine to the E of here.
There are some more nine-pot treasure rooms, but I bet you don't need them. And
you definitely don't need to waste your time in the teleport mazes that will
get you there.
Head S again into the staircase maze. 6S 4W should get you back to the center,
and two Wait commands should return you to the surface.
5.50 GREENBANKS [#550#]
The ruined town of Greenbanks lies in the center of a large island on the W
part of the continent. If you enter by water from the W, you'll find the
graveyard right away. The Lantern of Kasumi can be found in the grave closest
to the W wall (although not the one that's on its own little island in the SW).
(F)search the gravestone to discover the Lantern.
As best as I can tell, this is the *only* useful thing that you can do in a
graveyard in the entire game. You can't even claim that, as you 'learned' in
Tokushima, "tombstones can hide clues". It's not a clue, it's one of the damn
artifacts you need to win the game.
Anyway.
Like most ruins, there aren't any services to be purchased, but there are folks
you can talk to. There's a town E of here -- although the only way to get this
clue is to (I)nquire about TOWNS, which seems like cheating. There's a DUNGEON
just NW of here, there's something hidden on the sixth level, and if you find
the right Hobake, they give you a hint about needing to walk on ACID.
Continuing the trend of cash-for-useless-hints, a Kaibu tells you ($$) to go N
and then E, which points you towards the nearby deserted islands.
As is also common for ruins, there's a handful of treasure kicking around here.
The Necromancer's home in the very SW has a room full of skeletons guarding a
medium sized treasure room. Near the E entrance is a locked door with a couple
of boxes. In the center of town, miraculously no one has yet decided to loot
the Tax Office. And if you feel like it, you can fight off some Ice Giants in
the NE corner (in a hallway very reminiscent of the Troll Hole, complete with
swamp) and clean out their house.
In the SE, you can find a ring of trees in a one-square wide band around
a house. Hidden back in there is a Viper that you can talk to. *shrug*
5.51 CHESSBOARD DUNGEON [#551#]
To me, Sirion feels like the game designers tried to pack too much of the
mid-game into a single continent. Two map sectors is weird enough, but two
dungeons with two words PLUS a ruin with one of the relics? That's an awful lot
to cram into one island, but here we are.
The Chessboard Dungeon is in fact just NW of Greenbanks. You can either get
there on foot via a mountain pass, or by boat if you approach from the W.
LEVEL 1: Proceed S into the diamond-shaped room in the center. There are dark
squares that you can still walk on. To the S is a hallway of fire; ignore it.
The escape is through false walls to either side.
If you go W, you'll turn S. At the bottom of the map -- hopefully, you've
figured out the size of dungeons by now -- there's a mapping trap that we've
seen before in Shumi's Tower: a teleporter that takes you slightly across to
the other side of that hallway of fire I mentioned before. If you're trying to
map this, you now think you've overlapped where you started. It works in the
other way too! Nothing else useful about it, just a cute bit of dungeon design
to foil mappers. By the way, there are a handful of side rooms in this hallway,
but none of them have anything in them except maybe a few monsters.
If you go E and turn N, you'll find the same teleport trick and side rooms.
Only the last room at the end of the hallway has the stairs down... and a sign
saying "Are you sure you want to go down there?" But of course we do, we're
intrepid adventurers!
LEVEL 2: The hint here is those weird teleporters on the first floor. This
floor is laid out in a spiral, but there are false walls that you'll need to
find in order to avoid getting teleported back to the beginning. Maybe you'll
get lucky, like I did, and a monster will jump through one of the walls you
need to use to advance. Or maybe you'll just have to bash into every wall until
you find all the false ones.
By the way, once you find your way to the inner ring, you then have to search
for secret doors instead of false walls, just for a change.
LEVEL 3: "You have entered Dankbark Forest. No axes allowed!"
There's one really important thing to do on this floor, but if you're willing
to take my word for it, you can just skip over this floor, because the stairs
down to Level 4 are right there. If you'd rather fight a bunch of Evil Trees,
Unicorns, and Centaurs, and experience this level yourself, buckle up.
Exit the stairwell to the S and find the pond. If you have G6:UKU and are
willing to cast it to skip most of this level, cross the river to the E and
find a signpost. Read it, then come back.
No G6:UKU? Turn W at the pond and take the path to the N, but where it turns E,
go W through the trees instead and find a secret hallway of false walls. Follow
it W (there's a teleporter that takes you from the W edge to the E edge of the
map) until you can't, then N. Follow the shore around W S E until you find a
signpost: "You really should have a word with the king."
Then reverse your steps and take the stairs down. And remember that hint.
LEVEL 4: A brutally clever dungeon design trick. When you enter this level,
you'll naturally head S to start exploring it. However, the level is completely
empty, with nary a secret door or false wall to be found... except for one:
*north* of the staircase. But of course, once you're on this floor, you can't
get there, because when you step on the stairs you're taken back up to Level 3.
Fiendish, right? All the word dungeons so far have only had four levels, so
you're going to spend hours walking around this level, mapping it to
perfection, looking for secrets and false walls and not finding a damn thing.
Of course, you did get a clue in Greenbanks that there was something hidden on
"the sixth level", so maybe you paid attention to that. Otherwise, it would be
perfectly natural to guess that there isn't another level below this one. BUT
THERE IS.
LEVEL 5: The cross-shaped room you start in contains 12(!) magic pools, and you
don't even need G6:UKU to get to any of them.
This level also features the only treasure hoard in this dungeon, but it's a
doozy. Head W from the cross, and search N for a secret door in the narrow
hallway. Mind the pits. And don't waste it if you don't need it.
The way forward relies on a clue you got in Greenbanks: you'll need to walk on
acid. The acid pool in the E room serves as a teleporter which takes you to a
room with the stairs down (as well as an open door, which acts as a teleporter
to get out).
LEVEL 6: This level is the whole reason this is called the Chessboard dungeon.
Z4:HITATE is rather necessary here. Watch out for the chess pieces: Rooks can
STOne you and Knights drain levels (*sigh*). But they give good loot - I picked
up an Unholy Blade and Yoroi +1.
The clue here is the signpost from the forest on level 3: talk to the King.
Where does the white king sit on a chess board? In standard chess notation,
he's at e1, also known as the fifth square from the left in the bottom row. The
stairs down drop you at b8. If you head to the king's square (it doesn't have
any fire) and search the walls, you'll find a secret door into a room with the
word on a signpost: YOKUSEI
You can get out either from b8 (where you came in) or g8, where an open door
teleports you back up to level 5. Either works. The open door on level 5 takes
you back into an acid pool (use the Emerald Rod first). You can skip quickly up
to level 2, where you then have to wind your way out through the spiral again,
and then level 1. Or maybe you were smart and cast S6:KAERU before entering the
dungeon, and can have your Shisai (Y)ell your way out. (Have you figured out
you should be casting S6:KAERU every time you enter a dungeon yet?)
5.52 TSUMANI [#552#]
Until you landed on Sirion, you'd never heard of Tsumani, though you may have
heard of a town named Morningfrost. It's far enough out on the fringes of the
world that you probably haven't come across it by accident either. And though
there aren't any Words or Relic here, it's the only place to get a direct hint
about the location of the Red Shogun's land, which has one of both...
Anyway, Tsumani is one sector south and five west of Sirion. Fiendishly, it is
a continent ringed by mountains, so you'll have to do most of your exploration
on foot. Snowraven, on the SW coast, is pretty easy to find, but nothing else
is. The tiny islands in the corners don't have anything interesting. However,
you should make note of the odd cross-shaped formation of rock found on the N
coast; that'll be important later.
Weirdly, snow-swamp doesn't hurt when you walk over it.
5.53 MORNINGFROST [#553#]
Services: food, melee weapons (Masakari), shields (Great)
Morningfrost is a nothing little town, hidden away in a ring of mountains in
the SE part of the main island. It's pretty unlikely that you came here first,
but the hints line up better this way. Such is the burden of writing a
walkthrough -- figuring out how to order your path such that players are likely
to naturally discover things in the same order you write them. DEATHLORD, by
presaging the age of writing walkthroughs by at least a good decade, has in
fact made this as difficult as possible.
Also, there's not a lot going on in Morningfrost, which is why I'm wasting so
many characters whining at you about how hard it is to write this document that
you're reading. On with the show.
You can pick up some food here, but the weapons shop is useless. Shield vendors
are relatively rare so I guess that's nice? In fact, there are only two useful
hint trails. You can bribe a Mahotsukai to tell you about the DUNGEON, some
caves to the W of here.
In the NW of town you might find some Brigands, who have heard that KOSHI the
Huntsman has a pet BEAR. They live in the S (his house has a sign); the
bear is pretty big, though. Koshi tells you (for a bribe) to search 31N 2W of
the SOUTH STAR, which is in SNOWRAVEN, which is on the SW edge of the main
island, so if you didn't find the secret already, you should head back to
Snowraven and do that.
Mind the Yabanjin in the NE; they're not friendly.
5.54 SNOWRAVEN [#554#]
Services: training, food, healing (Depetrify), melee weapons (Naginata),
armor (Do-Maru)
The signpost in the centre [sic] of town says "Snowraven: the star of the
south". If you went to Morningfrost first, you may have heard of the SOUTH
STAR, which is close enough. Follow Koshi's hint and go 30N 2W, then search W
and you'll find two secret doors leading to a Mahotsukai who tells you to find
the LANTERN of Kasumi, STAFF (Emerald Rod), and Ruby RING. If you're following
along with me, the Ring is the only one we don't have yet.
You'll find a bunch of stereotypical Yabanjin that say things like "ug" and "me
kill". And there's a Kishi who tells you ($$) to search the hills NE of town,
which points us at the nearby (optional) dungeon.
A Shukenja hiding out behind the food shoppe tells you to sail around the S end
of town. If you came in by boat (or are willing to cast G6:UKU) you can find a
sneaky spot that takes you into the water around the Temple of ICINE (goddess
of winter and the frozen wastes), where there's a Merman. He tells you that the
RED SHOGUN's castle lies N of Cross Rock, but if you ask anyone, the Shogun is
only a myth. Cross Rock, of course, is a small 4x3 stretch of land found off
the N coast of the continent that looks a bit like an arrow pointing N.
5.55 CHUTES AND LADDERS DUNGEON [#555#]
This is definitely one for which you'll want to cast S6:KAERU before entering.
Getting out is a royal pain. Also, many of the monsters here are Giant-class
(Trolls, Niatama, Triclops) so if you have a Giantslayer this is a good time to
equip it. And in case I didn't say it enough before, this dungeon is optional
so feel free to skip it.
There are lots of different ways that you can get through this dungeon. You'll
do a bunch of up-and-down (not coincidentally, the other common name for this
dungeon is "the up and down dungeon"), either via sinkholes or staircases or
probably both. Here's my favorite path:
LEVEL 1: Work your way W S E. If you find two doors in a hallway you're in the
right place. Open the right-hand one. Hobake spawn frequently in this room and
the one beyond it; you should clear them out now so you don't have quite so
nasty a surprise waiting on the way back up. However, you also need to know
that there's a chute in the center of this room, and false walls in the NE
corner. Clear out the Hobake, then fall down the chute. (Ignore the stairs
down for now.)
LEVEL 2: Take a couple steps E. When you can see the stairs back up, you'll
fall down another chute instead.
LEVEL 3: Take another couple of steps N towards a down staircase, and fall down
another chute.
LEVEL 4: Just S of your position and around the corner there are some false
walls that lead to an up staircase.
LEVEL 3: Head S and W. You're seemingly in an enclosed room, but there's
another set of false walls in the SW that lead to a down staircase.
LEVEL 4: Head W. When the passage narrows and turns SW, find a false wall
hallway to the N instead. That drops you in a brick room, which means pit traps
are a thing again. Ignore the Whorls (they're fake) and proceed N through the
door.
Head N and W down the hallway. The door to the S has a fight with some Wraiths
(... or maybe that was randomly generated). There's a secret door at the W end
that hides a treasure room. To the N is a room with some fire. Look N for two
false walls, then E for another secret door and another treasure room. There's
another treasure room at the W end of this hallway.
If you really need more, you can search the E end of the first E/W hallway.
Watch out for the pit trap. Unfortunately the door to the N leads into a
teleporter maze, but it's not too bad. The secret door with the last treasure
room is just S of the entryway to the maze. If you go N, E, and carefully S,
you can find the secret door without hitting any teleporters. Just don't open
the coffins.
To get out, just yell your recall word. What, you didn't cast S6:KAERU before
coming down here? The hell do I write these walkthroughs for, anyway?
*sighs* Okay, fine.
LEVEL 4: Head back to the staircase that brought you down here. Take it up.
LEVEL 3: Walk E and N to find the down staircase. Take it down.
LEVEL 4: Circle W N E and take the up staircase.
LEVEL 3: Go straight S (avoiding the sinkhole), then W. Circle clockwise to
find another up staircase.
LEVEL 2: A bit N of you there's a sinkhole.
LEVEL 3: You're in a brick-lined area. Feel free to raid one more treasure room
at the end of the hallway W, but come back here and take the stairs up when
you're done.
LEVEL 2: Circle clockwise. Be careful to avoid the sinkhole as you proceed S,
although it just drops you back down to where you were on Level 3. Before you
turn N, head S instead and find a false wall to the S, then step E. Just when
you can see the stairs, step S to avoid the sinkhole, then take the stairs up.
LEVEL 1: This is the secret room full of Hobake. The false walls are to your W;
don't forget to skip the sinkhole in the center of the 3x3 room on your way
out.
5.56 BLACK ISLES [#556#]
Frustratingly, DEATHLORD goes back and forth on whether it offers you "direct"
sailing clues that literally mean "start at this point and sail straight in
that direction and you will find the next thing". Sometimes it says "go south"
when it really means "meh, it's sort of westish and a bit south I guess?"
This is one of the former kind. When the merman tells you to sail north from
Cross Rock, he means "don't stop until you hit land". Never mind the fact that
the Black Isles are actually much closer if you go south (five sectors), if you
get spooked and start waving back and forth looking for a new island, you're
pretty likely to find the Isle of the Dead WNW of Narawn and miss the Black
Isles altogether.
At least if you do that you won't find the Red Shogun, so hopefully you'll keep
looking...
The Black Isles themselves are fairly sparse; there's four of them, although
they're spread across the map E-W so if you're sailing north or south you're
likely to find at least one of them.
The SE island has a small signpost on it that says
"What lies behind the Red Shoguns [sic] Castle?"
which repeats a clue you may have collected in the ruin of Wakai, if you spent
any quality time on Osozaki. (I hope you didn't do that.)
Said castle is on the larger central island.
5.57 RED SHOGUN'S CASTLE [#557#]
Services: healing (Depetrify), tools, melee weapons (Naginata), missile weapons
(Heavy Bow), armor (Yoroi)
Malakorr the necromancer lives outside the castle, in the SE forest. He's a
pleasant fellow, and for a small bribe he'll tell you that the RED SHOGUN, who
rules here, is hiding the Ruby RING, which grants immunity to fire (by casting
Z4:HITATE with unlimited charges). This (and the Emerald Rod) is so supremely
useful that I can't blame the game for putting the best Relic at the end of the
most strung-out and hard-to-follow trail of clues, but *boy howdy* would it be
nice to have this item earlier in the game.
Around the world, there have been numerous hints about the dungeon behind the
castle, but few that point to the existence of a word within. Around here, you
can ask about a DUNGEON, or a Shizen hiding in the forest near Malakorr's place
will tell you about it for a bribe.
Anyway, we'll get to the dungeon in a bit, let's explore the place first and
then get the Ring. Head into the palace itself along a long diagonal path and
find the Shogun. For grins, get the Shogun himself to tell you about the
dungeon, the ring, and himself.
Head E. The "Water Hole" is empty, although there is water. Opposite that
you'll find a model ship floating in a pool. You can't board it or attack
it(?). Goro has a Supplies shop; I suggest stocking up on lockpicks. A Kichigai
tells you to "go see Malakorr", which might cause you to explore the SE
quadrant of the map if you haven't already. I don't recommend fighting the Mist
Dragon, but you can get healed in his temple. The temple also has a treasure
room; there's a secret door in the N side of the W firepit.
To the N is the Shogun's quarters. There are some Golem guards. Golems hit
really hard -- 40+HP at times! -- and come in packs as large as 15. (I have
heard rumors that Golems can slay outright, but I have never been hit by one.)
If you find the secret passage in the NE and follow it around, you'll find some
stairs down to another treasure room, also full of Golem guards. Ouch. Fighting
the Golems for XP is probably more interesting than the loot you'll find down
there. The good news is, with the temple right outside, you can afford to waste
200GP per front-line fighter on temple healing because you can just come right
back down here and make that money back.
Now head back to the Shogun's audience room and explore the S wing. You'll pass
the Castle Armory, and then down a short hall to the E, the weapons shops.
To your W is a door that leads into the prison; be careful, there are Smoke
Demon guards on the loose there. In one of the upper cells, there's a
Mahotsukai who tells you that someone escaped from one of the lower cells. Hm,
maybe we should check that out? Sure enough, searching the SW cell reveals a
secret door with a passage that leads outside.
I know that seemed completely pointless, but bear with me. Back out in the main
corridor, there's a gate to the S. Smash it open and you'll find some Golem
guards standing in front of an energy field. You absolutely need to get past
them, so you only have two options at this point:
a) Cast a ton of M4:UGOKU and hope you get lucky
b) Attack and kill the Golem, turning the citizens of the castle against you.
Beyond the Golem (and the Rakhammon's Curtain) is a Mahotsukai who tells you to
"search the walls". What a random time for DEATHLORD to throw you a completely
obvious hint! Like, have you some not yet learned to search EVERY WALL ALL THE
TIME EVERYWHERE by this point in the game? Anyway, find the secret door E and
the treasure chest beyond it with the Ruby Ring. It grants -2AC, so give it to
your Shizen in the front ranks.
Now you have to get out of here. If you M4:UGOKU'd in, you'll probably try to
get out the same way. Good luck. If you killed the guard, the easiest way to
sneak out of the Castle is to go back into the prison and out the secret
passage in the SW, which is why we bothered with that little side trip a couple
of paragraphs ago.
I got *super* lucky and was able to M4:UGOKU in and out on the first try,
despite being prepared to save-scum a lot to make it work. I even got
teleported from the Ring chamber out to the entryway so exiting was trivial.
Now to check out that dungeon everyone keeps talking about.
5.58 DOORS DUNGEON [#558#]
As was foretold... several times, at this point... the entrance to the Doors
Dungeon is "behind", or rather 1N, of the Red Shogun's Castle. To get there you
need to "sail around back", step onto the little patch of forest, and then
(E)nter the mountains. There is no marking indicating the existence of the
dungeon, you just have to decipher the hints and do the right thing in the
right place.
DEATHLORD, as I have said on numerous occasions throughout this walkthrough,
hates you. To be fair, I can't think of another one-square patch of forest
surrounded by mountains like that, so it does look pretty suspicious. And it is
hinted at *many* times. But wait! You haven't even seen what lies inside this
dungeon yet.
The reason everyone calls this "the Doors Dungeon" is not because you're going
to light anyone's fire, but you will be breaking on through to the other side
an awful lot. You see, the first and second floors are made up of nothing but
doors. You're going to have to pick and/or bash dozens of them open in order to
get down a level, which is why I told you to stock up on lockpicks. You'll
break them all, don't worry.
In order to get through this dungeon, you need to know the trick that I first
discussed in Shumi's Tower, which you may not have bothered to do. So here it
is again: some doorways are false doors. They look just like normal doors but
can't be opened. The way you can tell the difference is that if you try to
(P)ick the lock, it says "Nothing there!" So, armed with that bit of knowledge,
here we go...
LEVEL 1: You may not really know why you're here, although you know that
there's "something hidden" on a lower level, and that's often a good sign. Sure
enough, here's a signpost right in front of the stairs telling you that there's
a word on Level 7. You'd think that was a straightforward hint, but you'd be
wrong... *evil cackle*
You'll be haunted by Evil Spirits, which are invisible creatures. Can they walk
through closed doors? Who knows! They're invisible.
The exit is in the SE, and it teleports you to level 2. You generally want to
go S first, then E in order to get there most efficiently.
You really want a map, but this algorithm will *just about* get you there:
1. Can I go South? Go South.
2. If not, can I go East? Go East, then go back to step 1.
3. If not, was my last step East? Go North, then go back to step 2.
4. If not, was my last step West? Backtrack East, then go North and go to 2.
5. If not, go West, then go back to step 1.
The trick is that when you do arrive at the teleporter in the SE and make your
way down to Level 2, it quietly teleports you to a place where there are some
open doors that cleverly look exactly like the trail you left behind you on
Level 1. Because DEATHLORD hates you.
LEVEL 2: There's no good algorithm for this maze, but generally head NNE until
you can't, then ESE until you find a 3x3 area of already-opened doors. They're
filled with Evil Spirits, by the way, so try (A)ttacking into the open space
until it doesn't work anymore. The middle door teleports you down to Level 5.
"What happened to Levels 3 and 4," I hear you cry? Well kids, here's a strange
thing about DEATHLORD dungeons. Each block of four adjacent levels (1-4, 5-8,
etc.) is laid out as a single map in memory. If the levels have been built a
particular way, it's entirely possible to walk from one floor to an "adjacent"
floor. Levels 1 and 2 don't quite do this (they actually use a teleporter), and
the "missing" levels 3 and 4 are filled with false doors. You can use M7:UNPAN
to check my math. Anyway, levels 5 through 8 were designed as a group. Although
they could have used the adjacency thing, they actually also use teleporters --
except for one particularly vicious trick that the designers play on you, which
we'll talk about in a minute. Of course, the sign at the entrace says the word
is on Level 7, so you have to get down that far. But only casting Z1:ICHIHAN
will tell you what floor you're actually on, and you'll never find levels 3 or
4 without casting very high-level spells.
Anyway, the next four levels are arranged as if they are a very long NW/SE
corridor. Teleport traps are arranged such that if you walk NW, you will loop
back on yourself, and if you walk SE, you will be teleported to adjacent levels
(5 > 8 > 7 > 6, just to be annoying) and seemingly continue down the corridor.
Eventually, at the SE end of the corridor, a teleport takes you back to the
entrance.
LEVEL 5: This part of the hallway is empty. Get in the habit now of prodding
for false walls as you walk, though, because when you get to...
LEVEL 8: ... you'll find one to the E and one to the S. There are two false
walls and then a secret door. To the E you'll find three 3x3 rooms full of
magic pools. That's 12 ability points, if you're patient. The one to the S is
guarded by some Dark Toshi, but has three *very* rich treasure rooms. The pots
here contain 500-1000gp *each*.
But here comes the vicious trick I mentioned. In the S treasure room, there's a
false wall W. Follow that passage and you'll find a portcullis that shows you a
room on level 7 -- because level 7 is to the "left" of level 8 in DEATHLORD's
memory layout -- that contains the word. But the portcullis is a FAKE. To be
even more obnoxious, M4:UGOKU won't get you to the other side of that gate no
matter how many times you cast it, because you'd be trying to cross from "level
8" to "level 7", and UGOKU is programmed not to let you do that.
Back out in the diagonal hall and a little further on, there's another false
wall to the E with more treasure rooms. These are full of crates, which means a
chance (albeit slim) at good loot. I reloaded a few times to try the random
number generator and found a bunch of good armor (Toshi and Sable Cloaks, +1
and +2 armor) and a few weapons (Berzerk Sword).
Keep walking SE, prodding the E wall as you go, until you hit another
teleporter...
LEVEL 7: The first secret door W has coffins. One coffin in each room contains
Undead Ronin, who are some of the harder monsters in the game; instant death is
no fun, and their skill level is higher than most. You'll also run into Dark
Toshi (easy), Djinn, Couatl, Mimics (they look like crates), and Gorgons;
getting STOned is no fun in this game, until your Shisai hits level 24(!) and
can cast S7:YAWARISHI.
The second secret door W is the winner. Three more treasure rooms full of
crates. The S room has two secret doors in the SE corner that led to the room
with the sign that we saw earlier. This time you actually get to read the word:
DARAKU
One more teleporter in the SE corner takes you to LEVEL 6, which is completely
bare (so you can stop slamming into walls). Level 6 allows you to walk all the
way to the end of the corridor, at which point it teleports you back to the
dungeon entrance.
5.59 LOST ISLES [#559#]
In Towne Royal (and several other places on Asagata) you got a hint that
there's an island just north of Towne Royal. This is another "direct" sailing
clue; if you position your boat N of Towne Royal and sail three sectors
straight north from there, you will in fact hit the portion of the Lost Isles
containing the Cave of the Four Elements. That's doubly important because it's
totally possible to sail right through the sector containing the Lost Isles
without ever seeing land, if you get unlucky.
Of course, we don't know why we're going here, what this place is called, or
really what we're looking for. We just came here because some people told us
there was an island, we still need two more words, and we're nearly out of
other ideas. I can't say that "process of elimination" is my favorite way to
win CRPGs, but here we are.
5.60 CAVE OF THE FOUR ELEMENTS [#560#]
Before entering, you should know that this is a one-way dungeon: the exit from
Level 1 to Level 2 is a chute and the only way up is to get all the way down to
the bottom of Level 4. On the other hand, it's such an easy dungeon once you
have the Ruby Ring that you don't really need S6:KAERU unless you feel like you
want an insurance policy (or are just in the habit of doing so). You could
totally hit this dungeon much earlier if you just want to blow a lot of
castings of Z4:HITATE.
LEVEL 1, EARTH: At the entrance you find a sign identifying this place as the
Caves of the Four Elements. Level 1 is earth: a standard cave maze. You'll find
a bunch of Rock Spirits about. For a player without a walkthrough, the trick to
this one is to map the whole floor, then realize that there's a missing bit in
the middle, and find the false wall that takes you inside. There's a chute in
the northern most square of the cross-shaped secret room.
LEVEL 2, AIR: Most easily identified when you start finding Wind Spirits and
Djinni. Because this level represents air, the cute design trick is that every
wall is false. In fact, to advance, you have to start exploring the false walls
in each corner. The stairs are in the extreme NE, but you'll need to avoid
teleporters to reach them; walk all the way to the N wall, then take one step
S, walk E to the wall, then step N onto the stairs.
LEVEL 3, FIRE: Also a false wall maze, but a much trickier one, with pockets of
false walls surrounded by real walls and fire. With the Ruby Ring (and a good
map) you shouldn't have any problems navigating across the fire corridors to
find the safe pockets of false space. To be honest, if you run the maze
perfectly you only need to step on 18 fire squares, which isn't too bad even if
you don't have the Ruby Ring and don't want to spend lots of spell points on
Z4:HITATE. Fire Spirits hit slightly harder than their upstairs brethren.
From the entrance, head S, then W to a 2x2 island, then S. S again to another
island, then W; S again and W; N to an island and W; N to the windows and E; E
to an island and N; W to an island and W; N into the corner and W. Now, hug the
N wall and walk E until you hit a teleporter which takes you to the stairs.
LEVEL 4: WATER: Four ships? That's not ominous or anything... The game only
does that if it thinks you might get stuck and need to come back. Given there
are no up staircases in this dungeon, I suppose that makes sense.
Anyway, no false walls here, just a long water spiral full of sea monsters.
This is a level of attrition. Sea Spirits don't have any special attacks, but
they hit twice a round and take a beating. Eventually you'll find your way into
the center ring. The S tip of the central island has a secret door. Follow
that N until you enter the Word room.
But DEATHLORD has one more brutal trick for you. It looks like you have to step
into the room to get to the word, but if you do that you will hit a teleporter
that takes you all the way back to the entrance. Remember what I said about
four ships? This is why. Instead of stepping into the room, the walls to either
side of you are false, and you'll need to step around them in order to get to
the N side of the room to read the word: OSORERU. *Then* step on the teleporter
to exit.
5.61 ISLE OF THE DEAD [#561#]
Time for the last dungeon and the last word to collect.
You got a handful of clues on Narawn telling you to sail "a little bit north"
and west in order to find an island with a pyramid that contains a word. Some
Smoke Demons referred to it as the Pyramid of the Old Ones; on Giluin they
called it the Isle of the Dead. Frankly, that's about as complete a hint
package as you get: where it is, what it's called, what the dungeon is called,
and why you want to go there. I guess DEATHLORD has to throw you a bone every
now and then. I mean you only had to visit *two* separate continents to find
all that out; that's not bad.
Anyway, one sector north and three west of Narawn you'll find the Isle; there's
nothing here besides the Pyramid, which is in the SW corner.
5.62 PYRAMID OF THE OLD ONES [#562#]
You REALLY want to cast S6:KAERU before entering this dungeon. It is
technically possible to exit without it but *boy howdy* is it annoying!
The Pyramid is definitely a difficult dungeon, but it mostly has to do with the
logistics of navigating it. For the most part, it's just a tunnel maze of
one-square-wide hallways. The problem is, you'll find a handful of non-hostiles
here, but because of the utter frustration of waiting for them to get out of
your damn way, you're probably going to have to kill them.
As for those "friendly" humans, Yakuza will ask "Which way OUT?", but "your
guess is as good as mine". Another will tell you to sail one sector S, then W,
but how did you even get here if you haven't already been to Narawn?
LEVELS 1-4 are arranged as if they are a single floor. See my comments on the
bottom half of the Doors Dungeon for more on how DEATHLORD arranges its dungeon
levels in memory to occasionally allow a 4x dungeon floor, which is what we
have here. Exits from the dungeon can be found through false walls in the
exterior walls, but they're not all that easy to find.
Enter from the N. I'm not going to try and guide you through here; if you enjoy
making maps, you should do so liberally here, and if you don't, go download
Andrew Schultz's. I will say, if you're going to make your own maps, the down
stairs are hiding behind a false wall, so take what you've learned from
DEATHLORD so far and remember to bash into every wall in case it's false.
(There aren't any secret doors in the entire complex, so at least you don't
have to (F)search as well.)
If you really take your time and explore this maze, you'll find a bunch of
signs left by a guy named Yorik. Alas, poor Yorik, he ran out of food and died,
but not before he beat you to the punch on a number of treasure crates. Some of
the NPCs running around here know who he is, too.
LEVELS 5-8: Another multi-cell maze, though this one is really more distinctly
four levels that are joined with a few hallways. Also, you now need to cast a
light spell. You're in a 5x2 area of false walls; proceed S to find the
hallway. Some of the floors are dark and some have brick tile, but otherwise
this is just another tunnel maze. Ignore the treasure rooms, the pots aren't
worth it. And beware of Mimics, except it's 100% impossible to tell what's a
Mimic and what's not, so you'll really just run into them all over the place.
The chute down (note: no stairs) are in the SE, again behind a false wall;
beware the two pit traps in front of it.
Despite the fact that you can walk directly from level 7 to level 8, there's a
chute in the SW of level 7, near Yorik's will and testament, which drops you
onto a square on level 8. This shit is messed up, yo.
LEVEL 9: You're dropped into what looks like a regular tunnel maze, but turns
out to be a false wall maze. You have to find your way into the far NW corner
to proceed. Good luck.
LEVEL 10: What's better than a tunnel maze? A tunnel maze full of unavoidable
chute traps and teleporters! At least they're not false walls.
Solution: 2S 2E 1N 2E 4S 2E 1S 2E 2N 2E 3N 4E 1S 4E 2S 2E 2S 2E 1S 2E 4S 1E 2S
1W 4S 1W 2S 1E 2S 1E 3S 2W 1N 1E 2N, which teleports you down into a corner.
LEVEL 11: If you fell down a chute, your best bet is probably to just walk N
and W to a staircase that will take you back up to Level 10 so you can try
again. You might hit a teleporter along the way that takes you back to Level
10, or even the start of the false wall maze on Level 9. Sorry.
If you got here through the teleporter I described above, step 2W to hit
another teleporter down.
LEVEL 12: Another tunnel maze, fortunately a fairly straightforward one.
Solution, based on fork points in the maze: S (immediately after being
teleported here), N, W, W, E, E, E, N. Watch out for the pit in the center of
the word room.
The word is SEIYOKU. Now yell your escape word and get out of here.
Wait, you really didn't cast S6:KAERU and you want to know how to get out? I
hope you're looking forward to navigating the two enormous maze levels in
reverse...
From the word room, go S to exit, the follow these fork points: S, S, N, W.
That should lead to a staircase up to Level 11. From there, do this (although
the solution isn't exactly necessary because there aren't any chutes here): 2S
3E 3S 3E 2S 2E 2S 2E 1N 5E 1N 2E 2S 3E 3S 3E which should teleport you back to
the chute down from Level 8 to Level 9. IMMEDIATELY STEP W into the pit, lest
you be dropped back down the chute into the false wall maze.
You now have to work your way across the 5-8 maze, up the stairs, and then
across the 1-4 maze. Then you need to find an actual exit, because I didn't
tell you where any of them were.
*** PART III: ENDGAME
Our heroes have traveled around the world, visiting a dozen continents. They've
collected the seven words and six relics that were foretold to stand between
them and the Deathlord. And, despite the monster's insistence, they've proved
their competence in countless dungeons, towns, and wildernesses.
The only thing left is to find the Deathlord himself, hiding at the bottom of
the dungeons of Hell, and end his scourge once and for all.
5.63 HELL ISLAND [#563#]
Time for the final assault. Hell Island is one sector north and four west of
Chigaku, presuming that you have the Sharktooth. Land on the patch of open
terrain, cast S6:KAERU one last time (no really, you're going to want it), and
rest up.
"Via ad Infernum" means "the road to Hell" in Latin.
There's a fairly simply maze in the bottom half of the island: go E, E, N, E,
N, W, W, W. Now, use the Ruby Ring a lot to walk through the fire, and if you
pay attention to how many steps you take before you have to use it again,
you'll be able to save yourself some HP in the long run. To get to the center,
head W from the start of the fire, circle clockwise until you hit 12:00 and
turn S, then head E and continue to circle clockwise until you hit the
blackness. Head N to find the entrance to the keep.
5.64 SKULL KEEP [#564#]
The Keep is an 'indoor' area, which means three things: (1) it's self-lit (2)
you can't sleep here (3) there are no wandering monsters. It's full of darkness
tiles so you'll be operating under "torchlight" conditions.
The place is lousy with Demons of all kinds. Smoke and Vapor Demons can
paralyze, but by now your Kishi should be able to cast S3:MOTUNASU. Acid Demons
don't do anything special. The Emerald Rod slays demons and grants -6AC so it's
a pretty obvious choice here. Before you take on the Keep, this is a good time
to rejuggle your equipment to lower your average AC in the front line.
There's no trick to the path here. You've got straight hallways, usually with
false-wall guardposts like you see in towns, interspersed with diagonal
hallways full of energy fields that you'll need to step carefully around. When
you reach the last diagonal hallway, search for secret doors to find your way
forward. When you open the last door, there's a ton more Demons waiting for
you. Search N again and find another room of Demons. Do it again and enter
Cerberus's lair; he'll probably be waiting for you. Walk across the water with
G6:UKU or use the Blue Crystal to walk through the energy fields.
Before you descend into hell, heal everyone, then use a macro to wait a long
time to restore spell points. There aren't any wandering monsters here,
remember.
5.65 HELL [#565#]
Remember Malkanth, also known as "Hell on Earth", and how it was divided up
into four different parts? The Hell dungeon is divided the same way. It's 16
levels deep and divided into four chunks: Shadow, Fire, Acid, and Death. Each
section has a lord, but you can skip all of them except the Deathlord himself.
LEVEL 1: "You have entered the realm of Malokorai of the Shifting Shadows, Lord
of the Dark." Step E and (U)se the Lantern to cast light; nothing else will
work down here.
Watch out for Dark Demons, who level drain. Ha! Just kidding, they're black
squares, so you won't be able to see them coming. Shades also level-drain.
Lost Souls are cannon fodder that summon help, but they go down to HIBANA.
The level itself is kind of pointless; there is a pool of acid and a pool of
fire, but neither is worth exploring. Along the N wall (where you came in)
there are several teleporters. Most of them teleport you to other parts of this
level; two of them take you down to Level 2.
From the sign, go either 1S 2E 1N or 1S 3W 1N. Both of those teleporters will
take you to Level 2.
LEVEL 2: Step S to make sure you're on Level 2 (you should see water) and avoid
some more teleporters that take you back to Level 1. (This is a brutal teleport
trap, if you don't have a map in front of you.) Then walk E until you pass
through a false wall. When you come out the other side, head S until you see
water, then E and N to the stairs down.
LEVEL 3: Head W until you find a stone wall, then circle clockwise. You'll end
up in front of a gate. This is the first Gate of Hell, which can not be smashed
down. You've heard about these gates in Wakiza and Akhamun-Ra's Pyramid; the
only way to pass them is to (Y)ell one of the seven Words that you learned.
There's no obvious order; the first word is YOKUSEI (from the Chessboard
dungeon). Yelling it teleports you to the opposite side of the gate; proceed N
to the stairs down.
LEVEL 4: You're dropped into a wide N-S hallway. Opposite you is a fake
staircase; ignore it. To the N is the next gate (NIKUMU, from the Kobito
Mines). Beyond that is some water; you can pick up 12 magic pools here if you
want.
W of here you'll find some fake Shades. You can't attack them; it turns out
that you need to find the adjacent false walls so you can step around them
instead. If you want, you can fight off Malokorai the Dark Lord, but he can
level-drain and cast ZUMA, KOROSU, and UNMEI. Not a friendly dude. And
completely optional.
Head S, skip the treasure rooms (there are Dark Demons waiting inside), and
navigate the fire maze (or just use the Ruby Ring) to find the stairs.
Deep breath; you're 1/4 of the way there. The next realm is the realm of Fire,
so you're going to need the Ruby Ring a whole lot.
LEVEL 5-6: The Lantern is no good down here, so before you step downstairs, use
the Ring. Step S, then cast S3:MOAKARI. Then walk E until you find a safe
square.
The sign you skipped over says "You have entered the domain of Frashaak of the
Consuming Flame, Lord of the Eternal Fires."
Wind your way around through two levels (there's a teleporter in the NW of
Level 5 that makes it look like you're on one very large level) until you find
some stairs. There are four staircases; they all take you to Level 7, but use
the one in the SE because it's the quickest.
LEVEL 7: Head straight E and pass through a false wall to find the stairs down.
You can rest on the false walls if you want; Lost Souls aren't much of a
problem, but Firebats suck a lot, and there's still Blaze Demons and Smoke
Demons to be dealt with. Consider (N)egotiating or fleeing.
LEVEL 8: Step S into a false wall. Then walk W a bunch and a bit N. The third
Word gate is there (SEIYOKU, from the Pyramid of the Old Ones), but just N of
there is a real honest-to-god portcullis that you'll need to bash down. Say it
with me: DEATHLORD hates you.
You now enter the halls of the Lord of Fire. He's at the N end of the room;
again, you can skip the battle.
W of him there's a false wall with four magic pools, another room with four
more to the S, and his "personal chambers" to the N (mind the pit). Find a
secret door in the NE corner of that room for some cash, in case you've blown
it all negotiating with monsters.
Across the hall from that false wall (and S) is a room with dark, fire, acid,
and energy fields. Don't drink from the pool, head N into the acid (Emerald Rod
at the ready), Yell the next word (DARAKU, from the Doors dungeon), and advance
to the next section.
Halfway there. If you haven't guessed, you're heading to the realm of Acid. Get
your Emerald Rod ready.
LEVEL 9-11: "Thou art entering the domain of his most horrible presence Jhelag
of the Writhing Tentacles." I really appreciate the shift to the familiar /
derogatory form of "you", here. Good stuff from the Lord of Acid.
Hollow walls to either side of the sign. Much like the realm of fire, these
three levels are made to seem like one by the clever use of teleporters. You
get a couple of break points as you walk along the corridor; when the corridor
forks, head W instead of S to teleport to Level 10.
Continue winding around the long acid-filled corridors, and when you find the
energy fields inside some pillars, head SW to find the next teleporter.
Wind around to another pillar-surrounded room, and head N. There's a false wall
in the brick, and the stairs down are right there.
LEVEL 12: Two rooms S, a corridor W, and three rooms N (mind the pit) with a
magic pool in each one. I can't imagine a player being willing to take the risk
on the HP or MP restoration this deep in a dungeon; I'd rather rest and wait
for combat. Find the false wall W and traverse another acid-filled corridor.
The fifth gate awaits (FUSHIN, from the Troll Hole). Walk over more acid, then
use the Blue Crystal to pass a energy field and enter Jhelag's chambers.
The W half of this level is a mirror image of the E half, for the most part.
You'll find the sixth gate (OSORERU, from the Cave of the Four Elements) along
the way.
Now for the final plunge. In the realm of Death you'll find every monster
you've faced so far, plus Vampires, Liches, and Undead Ronin. Definitely try
not to fight them because level drain is the worst. To some degree, level drain
doesn't matter when you're this close to the end. But if you go too far, your
to-hit and saving throws will start to suffer.
LEVEL 13-14: "You have entered the realm of his most noble countenance, the
Prince of Demons and the Lord of Death." Right-o.
A game's got to be funny right up to the end, I guess. The "No Admittance" club
is a fake staircase. Ho ho ho.
Head E. The stone walls are false if you don't want to walk through either the
fire or the acid. In the darkness to the E, head E and N until you teleport to
Level 14. This one's a little less artfully designed; when you teleport, you'll
be able to see the walls behind you shift. Then follow around to the next
teleporter.
LEVEL 15: Step N, then find the center. Depending on which square teleported
you here, it might be either E or W.
All of the pools you find down here are magical. Head N down the hall of
statues. If you duck to either side you can find some very rich pots. At the N
end of the hall you'll pass a ring of acid, a ring of pit traps, and a ring of
fire before approaching the seventh gate. Yell the final word (CHIJOKU,
appropriately enough from the Staircase dungeon) and get teleported to the
bottom floor.
LEVEL 16: A maze of Arkhan's Walls, so tread carefully. Take it slowly so you
don't zap all your HP; or, proceed blindly into the center and give up 78% of
your HP before taking on the Deathlord.
Walk W, keeping the outer wall to the N; when you get to the NW corner, turn S.
When you get to a four-ish way intersection, head S and follow that corridor NE
to the center. Save your game, back it up, cross your fingers, and do whatever
you're going to do, because this is the big one.
HOW TO FIGHT THE DEATHLORD: The Sunspear is the only physical weapon that will
hurt him; all others do 0 damage if you hit. The Deathlord level-drains, hits
for 40+ damage, and casts KOROSU. He also has around 250 HP, so five or six
shots with the Sunspear should do it. I recommend focusing on having your
Mahotsukai cast M3:ISOGU to grant an extra attack per round; it works on the
entire party, but only the fighter with the Sunspear will be effective. Believe
it or not, M1:TODO is also effective, but it only does 3-24 damage and a second
attack with the Sunspear is almost certainly going to do more than that.
Other useful spells are Z1:HIKAKOMU and G1:SHOTEN, which buff the to-hit of a
single fighter; S3:ONKEI which buffs the entire party's to-hit; S4:MAKATAI and
G4:MANIJIN, which buff the AC of the whole party; and Z2:KINO which buffs the
AC of one person.
As for tactics: cast haste, buff your AC, pray for more physical attacks and
fewer castings of KOROSU (or level-drains), and you may be able to finish him
off in three or four rounds. I got away with only one level drained.
When you beat him you get the following message:
A chilling scream surrounds you as the Evil One is consumed by white flames.
Amid the ashes you find a pulsing Black Orb.
You then need to take the Black Orb. It's a Magic Item (slot 5) so you won't be
able to give it to some party members.
5.66 KODAN: RETURN TO THE EMPEROR [#566#]
Once you have the Black Orb, all that's left is to head back to the Emperor.
There are three ways to do it:
1) It is technically possible to walk all the way back out of Hell, board your
boat, and sail back to Kodan. The Deathlord's chamber is safe to sleep in
because you're protected by the energy fields, but I wouldn't want to fight my
way back out.
2) (Y)ell your S6:KAERU escape word, which may or may not involve sailing
depending on where you cast it. I recommend this way.
3) Dismantle your party, assemble a new one, and re-start the game outside
Kawa. I personally think this is cheating, but hey if something goes wrong and
your recall spell doesn't work, go for it.
Once you're back on Kodan, head to the Emperor's Palace and (OI)ffer him the
Orb. You'll have to switch back to the Boot disk at this point. A pastoral
scene will appear along with scrolling text:
And so it came to pass that the evil tyranny of the Deathlord was broken by
the heroic efforts of 6 adventurers: (character portraits and names)
Because of their deeds, the cause of much of the evil in the lands was
banished, and the people knew peace at last. In the days that followed, a
great shrine was raised by the people and it was called the Hall of Heroes.
Inside the shrine stood the statues of many heroes of legend, but among their
ranks stood a statue that was dedicated to: (character names)
In this way did the legend of the mighty quest live on for all time!
The end
6 FINAL NOTES [#600#]
Congratulations on defeating DEATHLORD! In the following section we'll cover
some more supplementary material about the game, including what the data disks
look like, some tables and charts, and how to beat the game as quickly as
possible.
6.1 SAMPLE PARTY [#601#]
Here's the party I took through the game. Although to be honest, I started with
a Ryoshi in the third slot, then swapped him out for a Shizen around level 13.
You won't even notice, though, because I spent a bunch of time channeling XP
into the Shizen to catch up with the rest of the party (see section 2.4).
One additional note: I made judicious use of save-scumming to both guarantee
near-max HP gained per level and also to increase several stats with magic
pools. If you tried to play this game straight, your level 24 characters would
not be this strong.
Aoki: good female Human Kishi, level 24, age 28
St18 Co18 Sz18 IQ17 Dx16 Ch18 Pow25 HP280 AC-8
Sunspear, Yoroi +1, Silver Shield, Kabuto, Ruby Ring
Kushizu: good female Ogre Samurai, level 23, age 40
St19 Co18 Sz14 IQ12 Dx16 Ch11 Pow-- HP274 AC-7
Katana, Yoroi +1, Golden Shield, Falcon Helm, Black Orb, Lantern
Sukito: neutral male Human Shizen, level 24, age 29
St18 Co18 Sz12 IQ16 Dx16 Ch16 Pow30 HP248 AC-9
Emerald Rod, Do-Maru +2, Silver Shield, Gold Jingasa
Mikumo: good male Human Shisai, level 24, age 25
St18 Co16 Sz08 IQ16 Dx16 Ch16 Pow28 HP256 AC-4
Rod Of Death, Sling, Do Maru+1, Silver Shield, Gold Jingasa, Ring Of Life
Bito: neutral female Human Genkai, level 24, age 39
St11 Co16 Sz08 IQ16 Dx16 Ch08 Pow29 HP158 AC+6
Rod Of Light, Sable Cloak, Gloves, Blue Crystal
Ishino: good female Human Mahotsukai, level 24, age 24
St17 Co16 Sz17 IQ18 Dx13 Ch17 Pow30 HP147 AC+2
Powerstaff, Sable Cloak, Gloves, Sharktooth
6.2 TRAIL OF CLUES [#602#]
DEATHLORD is extremely non-linear. I've written this walkthrough with the
knowledge gained from having beaten the game, so I've pointed you in directions
that make sure that you don't get outclassed while still ensuring that you pick
up clues "in story order", i.e. I don't have you visit a place before it's
possible to know about it. If you played without a walkthrough, it is possible
(though pretty unlikely) that you could luck into the same order that I've
written things here.
But in the modern era, everywhere you look for information about this game,
people talk about how hard it is, how confusing, and how the clues don't make
any sense. So I've tried to construct a rough map of all the islands in the
game and the major plot arrows, just to make sure that it does make some sort
of sense and that it is possible to get from A to B without randomly floating
around the ocean and hoping to come across a new continent. Because, you know,
people *did* beat this game in 1988...
Remember that the world map that comes with the game shows you the existence of
Kodan, Nyuku, Asagata, Akmihr, and Chigaku. You have to find them, but you know
roughly where they are. So we're looking for the rest of the continents, the
location of the dungeons and an idea which ones have words in them, and the six
relics (not counting the Black Orb).
KODAN: you learn about OSOZAKI, and that Senju is hiding in Twin Rivers on
NYUKU. There's also a pointer south towards SIRION.
NYUKU: you get a pointer towards NARAWN and the Lost Lagoon, and Senju wants a
Crystal before he'll give you the Spear.
CHIGAKU: you get another pointer towards OSOZAKI, and another pointer towards
the Lost Lagoon. Plus a WORD in the Troll Hole.
OSOZAKI: you learn about the Doors Dungeon behind the Red Shogun's palace, but
there's several other hints about it elsewhere.
AKMIHR: you learn about the relics and words, the location of the SHARKTOOTH,
and the fact that Senju has the SUNSPEAR. You also find the EMERALD ROD but
can't get it without a Crystal, and you find another WORD in the Mines.
ASAGATA: you learn the location of the LOST ISLES, get a pointer towards the
Kobito Mines and one kind of towards Greenbanks.
NARAWN: you find the BLUE CRYSTAL and the SHARKTOOTH, learn about a word and
get a pointer towards the ISLE OF THE DEAD, and get a pointer towards GILUIN
and the Temple of Oceanus.
SIRION: You get the LANTERN, two WORDS, and a pointer towards TSUMANI.
TSUMANI: you learn about the relics you already learned about on Akmihr, and
get a pointer towards the BLACK ISLES.
LOST ISLES: you discover the Cave of the Four Elements. There's no indication
that there's a WORD there, but you find one anyway(?)
GILUIN: you get a pointer towards HELL ISLAND and one towards the Pyramid of the
Old Ones.
ISLE OF THE DEAD: you pick up a WORD in the Pyramid of the Old Ones.
BLACK ISLES: you find the RUBY RING, and learn about the dungeon 'behind' the
palace. Lots of people tell you to go there, but only a sign within the
dungeon itself tells you that there's a WORD.
So the plot arrows do add up. In a playthrough without foreknowledge, I expect
there would be a ton of backtracking, not least when you step into a dungeon
that's clearly too strong for you -- or else you lose your party and have to
restore from a backup. Assuming you have them.
Of course, I say that the arrows "add up"... but I haven't included in this
section all the arrows that point you to the wrong places, like the vague "head
south but really I mean west" hints that aren't actually useful. DEATHLORD is
full of just enough direct hints that the non-direct ones feel really slimy,
and you learn not to trust any of them.
And that's not to mention the fact that you don't always know whether you're
walking into a dungeon that houses a word or just a random sixteen-story death
trap. Many of the words are advertised (the Kobito Mines couldn't be more
clear) but there's no reason for you to know why you're diving the Cave of the
Four Elements or the Doors Dungeon until you get there.
6.3 BONUS: THE SPEED RUN [#603#]
Okay, enough complaining. Now that we know how to beat the game the right way,
how can we do it quickly?
Unlike some other CRPGs, DEATHLORD doesn't really give you the opportunity to
"start over". Sure, you can disband your party, reload from the write-protected
base Scenario disks to reset the game world, and start a new game on Kodan. But
you keep all your equipment, including the Relics, so there's nothing stopping
you from knocking on the Deathlord's door immediately. In fact, as I alluded to
at the end of the walkthrough, if you have the Black Orb, you can literally
just walk a few steps W to the Emperor's Palace and turn in the Orb to win the
game. What's the point?
So we're really talking about the fastest way through with a new party, then.
To a certain extent, the only thing that you literally must do in order to beat
the game is defeat the Deathlord, collect the BLACK ORB, and return it to the
Emperor on Kodan. You "need" six Relics and seven Words to "win", but the Words
are here in this document, and do you really *need* all the Relics? Well...
* You can theoretically kill the Deathlord without the SUNSPEAR if you cast a
lot of M1:TODO, but I wouldn't want to try it.
* You can't even get to him in the first place without the SHARKTOOTH (to find
Hell Island) and a BLUE CRYSTAL to pass through energy fields.
* To navigate Hell you have to cross huge fields of fire and acid, so you
pretty much need the RUBY RING and EMERALD ROD as well unless you have insane
amounts of POW available to you.
Okay, so practically speaking we need all the Relics in order to beat the game.
(You can navigate the first four levels of Hell blind without the LANTERN, but
that's the easiest relic to acquire, so why not just get it?) If you're willing
to read the words out of this document, you don't have to dive a single
dungeon. Of course, dungeons are where you're going to gain most of your
experience, and you really want high-level spells to take on Hell (the
likelihood of needing to cast S7:MOINOCHI at least once is high), but you can
still save yourself some pain.
The quickest route looks like this: start in Kodan, and grind until you get a
boat (and level four spells). Of course, that's dozens of hours of gameplay by
itself. From Kodan, head SSW to Narawn, visit the Lost Lagoon to pick up two
Crystals, then stop by Fort Demonguard and Malkanth to get the Tooth (which
doesn't involve much combat, but you kind of want Z4:HITATE). Head SSE to
Sirion and pick up the Lantern, then NE to Akmihr and use a Crystal to get the
Emerald Rod. (Good luck with the Sand Dragon, but you can do some grinding in
the Kobito Mines.) Head ENE, find the Black Isles, and raid the Red Shogun's
Castle for the Ruby Ring. Sail NE to Nyuku and trade one Crystal for the
Sunspear. You now have all the artifacts, so all you have to do is grind until
you feel ready and then head to Skull Keep.
6.4 HEX EDITING [#604#]
On the Apple II, character data is largely stored on the Scenario A disk, track
13, sectors D and C (yes, I said that in the correct order). Each sector has
256 (0x100) bytes, so put the two together and you get a 512 byte array,
addressed from 0x000 - 0x1ff.
However, before you go ripping apart a disk image to modify your characters,
keep in mind that the disk images your emulator is using are probably .NIB
files (nibblized), which store a bit-accurate representation of the floppy
disk. Apple DOS doesn't store bytes in a straightforward format, so you won't
be able to simply read values out of the nibblized images, you'll have to
decode them first. If you're really interested in how all this works, I
recommend strolling through Chapter 3 of Beneath Apple DOS, available for free
at archive.org:
https://archive.org/details/Beneath_Apple_DOS_OCR
If you're using Linapple as your emulator (and possible Winapple as well), it's
far easier to save a snapshot (memory image) and look through that (or modify
it) with a hex editor. The character data starts at 0x00fd70 in the snapshot.
Most of the data is laid out by attribute, and of those, most values are one
byte. For example, your party's STRENGTH attributes are stored at bytes 0x072 -
0x077, and contain a value from 0 to 255. However, several attributes (like
gold, or experience) require two bytes, which are usually next to each other.
This gives you a value from 0 to 65535, although few attributes actually hold
values that high. (Gold is capped at $10000, for example.)
Character names (and other strings) have been stored as 7-bit ASCII bytes XOR'd
with 0x65. In addition, if the last bit (0x80) is set, then that character is
the last one in a string.
Addr. Contents
0x000 Name (#1)
0x009 Name (#2)
0x012 Name (#3)
0x01b Name (#4)
0x024 Name (#5)
0x02d Name (#6)
0x036 Status (1-6), bitmask
0x1:??? 0x2:Starving 0x4:Poisoned(TOX) 0x8:Diseased(DIS)
0x10:??? 0x20:??? 0x40:Dead(RIP) 0x80:Petrified(STO)
0x03c Armor Class (1-6)
In-game, AC starts at 10 and goes down. This number starts at 0 and goes up,
so to translate you should subtract this value from 10.
0x042 Max HP, low byte (1-6)
0x048 Max HP, high byte (1-6)
0x04e Current HP, low byte (1-6)
0x054 Current HP, high byte (1-6)
0x05a Race (1-6), enum
0:Human 1:Toshi 2:Nintoshi 3:Kobito 4:Gnome 5:Obake 6:Troll 7:Ogre
0x060 Class (1-6), enum
0:Senshi 1:Kishi 2:Ryoshi 3:Yabanjin 4:Kichigai 5:Samurai 6:Ronin 7:Yakuza
8:Ansatsusha 9:Ninja 10:Shukenja 11:Shisai 12:Shizen 13:Mahotsukai 14:Genkai
15:Kosaku
0x066 Level (1-6)
0x06c Level-ups (1-6)
0x072 STR (1-6)
0x078 CON (1-6)
0x07e SIZ (1-6)
0x084 INT (1-6)
0x08a DEX (1-6)
0x090 CHR (1-6)
0x096 Current POW (1-6)
0x09c Max POW (1-6)
0x0a2 *unknown
0x0a8 *unknown
0x0ae *unknown
0x0b4 *unknown
0x0ba *unknown
0x0c0 Gender (1-6) 0:Male 1:Female
0x0c6 Alignment (1-6) 0:Good 1:Neutral 2:Evil
0x0cc Age (1-6)
0x0d2 Food (1-6)
0x0d8 Gold, high byte (1-6)
0x0de Gold, low byte (1-6)
0x0e4 Torches (1-6)
0x0ea *unknown
0x0f0 *unknown
0x0f6 Experience, low byte (1-6)
0x0fc Experience, high byte (1-6)
0x102 *unknown
0x108 *unknown
0x10e *unknown
0x114 *unknown
0x11a *unknown
0x120 Equipment (#1), see below
0x140 Equipment (#2)
0x160 Equipment (#3)
0x180 Equipment (#4)
0x1a0 Equipment (#5)
0x1c0 Equipment (#6)
0x1e0 *Unknown, but doesn't appear to be character-specific
Each line of equipment takes up 32 bytes and represents data about your
inventory. Empty slots have the value 0xff; other values are listed in the
EQUIPMENT tables elsewhere in this document.
0x00 Hand weapon
0x01 Missile weapon
0x02 Body armor
0x03 Shield
0x04 Misc. armor
0x05 Tool
0x06 Misc. magic item
0x07 Scroll
0x08 Hand weapon charges (if any)
....
0x0f Scroll charges (if any)
....
0x1f Ship 0x00:yes 0xff:no
6.5 APPENDIX: MONSTER LIST [#605#]
Much like equipment, the monsters in this list are divided into categories
based on what types of weapons are most effective against them. For example,
the DRAGONSLAYER does double damage against everything in the "Dragons"
category. This data was obtained from a binary dump of the disk images, so it
should be accurate, but there are definitely some inconsistencies. For example,
several monsters are listed with type 5, but no weapon claims to "slay" type 5
creatures, so it's unclear what effect this has in-game. (Andrew Schultz's
monster list claims these are monsters you can't run away from.)
One extra bit of weirdness: there are 130 monsters on this list, but there are
two idential entries for GUARDS, and no one has ever reported seeing a DOOM
GOLEM or a SAFIR in the wild. That makes a tidy 127 monsters... but it's still
weird that there are entries for two monsters that don't exist.
Column 1 is the maximum number of enemies that can be found in a group. This
number is sometimes wrong; KOBITO should only be found in groups up to 12, but
I've seen groups up to 16 in the Mines.
The column "$$" is a byte that describes the treasure you get off a monster.
Andrew Schultz has a breakdown of how he thinks this works in his "Monster
List" available on GameFAQs. Similarly, the "HD" column is a relative measure
of hit points; HD stands for Hit Dice in old AD&D terminology. I haven't
verified Andrew's work, so rather than repeat what he said, you should just go
read his file.
Special attacks:
* Some monsters can (SUMMON) allies.
* Level (DRAIN) is possibly one of the most annoying things for a CRPG monster
to do to you ever. You don't lose your XP, but you do lose 1 level.
* (BREATH) weapon: damage is proportional to the monster's remaining HP, so the
more you hit it, the less breath damage it does.
* (PAR, PAR*) cause PARalysis to one person or the entire party. Attacks
causing the other conditions (STO, TOX, ILL) are also possible.
* (Zap) is similar to TODO.
* (Zap*) is similar to MOTU, but seems to have multiple levels of damage (I-VII)
Several special attacks are lethal:
* Some enemies can (CRIT)ical hit, i.e., slay on a successful attack
* (SCREAM) Banshees have a lethal 'scream' attack that targets the entire party.
* (RIP*) is similar to the spell KOROSU.
## Name AC Damage XP $$ HD ? Special attacks
Type -: regular monsters
10 ANSATSUSHA +5 1-8 11 4 3 1 TOX
4 BARLICAN +7 2x 1-12 15 6 10 2 --
2 BEHOLDERS -1 1-20 46 24 20 1 Drain, PAR, STO, RIP*, Zap*(III)
10 BRIGANDS +8 1-8 9 3 2 2 --
6 CENTAURS +4 3x 1-8 16 8 8 2 --
4 COUATL +3 1-12 25 12 12 3 Zap, PAR*, Zap*(III)
12 DARK TOSHI +2 2x 1-8 17 8 4 1 TOX
10 DEMONGUARD -2 2x 1-14 22 10 10 1 --
6 DJINNI +4 2x 1-15 23 14 10 3 PAR, Zap
4 FIRE SPIRITS +6 2x 1-14 21 16 10 0 --
8 GENKAI +4 1-6 11 4 2 3 Zap*(I)
1 GOOD WIZARD 0 1-32 53 31 24 0 RIP*, Zap, Zap*(V, VII)
5 GORGONS +2 2x 1-15 32 12 14 2 STO
15 GREMLINS +9 1-6 5 4 2 2 Summon
16 GUARDS 0 1-16 19 10 12 3 --
16 GUARDS 0 1-16 19 10 12 3 --
8 HARPIES +9 1-6 9 5 3 2 ILL
11 HOBAKE +5 1-10 10 3 3 1 --
13 KAIBU +8 1-8 9 2 3 3 --
14 KICHIGAI +6 2x 1-8 12 4 5 2 Summon
8 KISHI +2 1-12 14 5 5 3 --
12 KOBITO +4 1-8 14 4 7 3 --
8 KOSAKU +9 1-6 6 1 2 3 --
8 LIZARD MEN +9 1-8 9 2 4 1 --
15 LOST SOULS +10 1-2 5 1 1 1 Summon
8 MAHOTSUKAI +7 1-4 9 4 2 1 Zap
6 MANTICORES +4 1-16 19 7 9 1 TOX
1 MASTER NINJA -5 4x 1-20 52 26 31 0 Crit, TOX
6 MEDUSAS +7 1-6 20 6 6 2 STO
1 MERCHANT +8 1-4 6 1 2 2 --
16 MERCHANT +8 1-4 6 1 2 2 --
8 MERMEN +2 1-12 14 6 5 3 --
1 MIMIC 0 1-20 20 9 20 3 PAR
1 MIMIC +2 1-20 17 9 16 3 PAR
8 MINOTAURS +6 1-13 14 6 8 1 --
6 NINJA +3 3x 1-8 17 6 5 3 Crit
12 OBAKE +9 1-6 7 2 2 3 --
6 OGRE-MAGES +2 1-16 26 10 10 1 Zap*(IV)
8 OGRES +7 1-14 15 6 8 3 --
15 RAIDERS +4 1-10 12 5 4 2 --
4 ROCK SPIRITS +5 1-28 24 10 16 0 --
8 RONIN +3 1-14 14 5 5 3 --
8 RYOSHI +6 1-10 11 4 5 3 --
1 SAFIRS +9 2x 1-6 255 1 1 3 Summon
15 SAILORS +6 1-10 6 6 6 2 Summon
8 SAMURAI +2 2x 1-14 19 7 5 2 Crit
12 SENSHI +3 1-12 13 4 5 3 --
8 SHISAI +4 1-8 16 4 3 3 PAR*
10 SHIZEN +6 1-8 15 4 3 3 PAR*
6 SHUKENJA +4 2x 1-10 16 5 4 2 Crit
6 SPHINXES +4 2x 1-10 17 8 8 2 Zap
15 STONEBROWS -8 1-6 14 1 1 1 --
10 TOMB ROBBERS +7 1-8 10 4 4 0 --
12 TOSHI +6 3x 1-5 11 6 3 3 --
1 TRAPPER +5 1-20 17 8 8 2 --
4 UNICORNS +5 1-24 19 10 8 2 --
4 WIND SPIRITS +2 1-24 24 10 16 0 --
13 YABANJIN +6 1-14 12 3 6 2 --
10 YAKUZA +6 1-6 9 3 3 3 --
8 YETI +4 2x 1-14 16 6 8 4 --
Type 0: Dragons (Dragonslayer)
2 FIREDRAKES +2 1-20 28 10 8 1 Breath
2 MIST DRAGONS 0 1-24 35 14 16 0 Breath
2 SAND DRAGONS 0 1-24 36 14 18 0 Breath
2 SEA DRAGONS -2 2x 1-20 37 16 16 0 Breath
2 WIND DRAGONS 0 1-28 39 16 20 0 Breath
Type 1: Giants (Giantslayer)
8 CYCLOPS +4 1-24 24 14 14 2 --
6 FIRE GIANTS +1 2x 1-22 27 16 15 0 --
8 HILL GIANTS +3 2x 1-16 22 12 12 0 --
4 ICE GIANTS +2 1-32 27 15 14 1 --
10 NIATAMA +5 2x 1-16 17 8 8 3 --
6 STONE GIANTS 0 2x 1-16 25 14 14 0 --
8 TRICLOPS +4 3x 1-16 20 10 10 2 --
8 TROLLS +5 3x 1-8 16 6 10 3 --
Type 2: Demons (Holy Blade, Emerald Rod)
4 ACID DEMONS +4 1-20 21 12 10 0 --
1 ACID LORD -5 4x 1-20 57 30 30 1 Crit, PAR, RIP*
6 BLAZE DEMONS +6 2x 1-16 16 8 8 0 Crit, TOX
1 CERBERUS -6 2x 1-30 54 31 31 2 Crit, Breath
3 DARK DEMONS +4 2x 1-18 21 14 11 0 Drain
1 DARK LORD -4 2x 1-24 58 28 28 1 Crit, Drain, RIP*, Zap*(V)
4 FIREBATS +6 1-10 21 9 8 2 Breath
1 FLAME LORD -3 2x 1-26 60 29 29 1 Crit, RIP*, Zap*(V)
3 MOLOCHAI +2 2x 1-16 26 15 12 2 Drain
4 SHADES +2 1-20 26 14 11 3 Drain
3 SLIME DEMONS +3 4x 1-16 22 13 10 0 --
6 SMOKE DEMONS +5 1-20 22 10 9 0 PAR, PAR*
4 VAPOR DEMONS +4 1-16 19 11 9 0 PAR*, Zap*(I)
Type 3: Undead (Sword of Fire)
1 AKHAMUN-RA -4 1-32 53 24 31 1 Crit, ILL, RIP*, Zap*(III)
4 APPARITIONS +3 1-18 25 9 9 0 Drain, PAR
4 BANSHEES +1 1-16 33 12 10 2 Drain, Scream
6 GHOSTS 0 2x 1-16 31 12 12 3 Drain
12 GHOULS +7 2x 1-6 13 4 4 3 PAR
8 GUARDIANS +4 2x 1-16 18 8 8 1 ILL
1 LICH -2 1-24 52 24 24 4 PAR, RIP*, Zap*(V, VI)
1 LORIC -1 2x 1-20 50 28 22 3 Crit, Drain, PAR*, Zap*(IV, VII)
8 MUMMIES +2 1-24 22 8 10 2 ILL
4 PHANTOMS +3 1-16 21 7 7 2 Drain
6 SHADOWS +4 2x 1-8 17 5 5 2 PAR
15 SKELETONS +7 1-6 4 3 2 1 --
2 UNDEAD RONIN 0 2x 1-20 40 24 20 0 Crit
1 VAMPIRES -2 2x 1-24 38 16 16 2 Drain, Zap*(II)
4 WILL O WISPS -10 1-20 25 10 4 0 Summon, PAR
6 WRAITHS +3 1-15 20 6 6 2 Drain
15 ZOMBIES +7 1-10 5 3 3 2 --
Type 4: the Deathlord (Sunspear)
1 DEATHLORD -10 1-48 73 31 31 1 Crit, Drain, RIP*
1 DOOM GOLEM -21 4x1-127 0 31 31 1 Crit
Type 5: difficult / impossible to run away from
3 BEHEMOTHS +2 1-20 20 8 10 1 Summon
1 DIAMYO +2 2x 1-24 26 10 16 3 Crit
1 EMPEROR -4 2x 1-24 43 24 28 2 Crit
4 EVIL SPIRITS +4 1-10 19 10 6 0 PAR
15 EVIL TOMATOS +10 1-4 7 3 3 0 Summon
4 EVIL TREES +3 1-15 15 6 6 1 --
6 GOLEMS +3 1-32 27 10 16 3 Crit
10 GREEN SLIMES +6 1-10 18 6 10 0 TOX
6 ICE TOADS +8 1-8 16 4 2 1 Breath
6 ICE WOLVES +5 1-8 16 6 4 1 Breath
1 KAWAHARA +2 1-16 37 20 16 2 RIP*, Zap, PAR*, Zap*(IV, V)
1 KNIGHT +2 1-24 28 12 16 3 Drain
1 KRAKEN +6 8x 1-8 19 8 10 3 --
1 NECROMANCER +2 1-16 37 20 16 0 RIP*, Zap, PAR*, Zap*(IV, V)
2 PURPLE WORMS +2 1-32 46 28 31 0 Crit, TOX
1 RED SHOGUN -6 2x 1-31 54 24 24 1 Crit, RIP*, Zap*(IV)
1 ROOK +2 1-24 29 12 16 4 STO
6 SANDSQUIDS +3 1-8 13 4 5 1 TOX
8 SEA SERPENTS +5 1-16 17 8 6 0 TOX
4 SEA SPIRITS +2 2x 1-26 23 10 16 0 --
6 SNOW BEARS +5 2x 1-12 17 8 10 1 --
1 SULTAN -4 1-32 44 20 24 3 Crit
8 VIPERS +10 1-4 7 4 1 3 TOX
2 WEREBEARS +5 3x 1-16 27 16 18 1 TOX
4 WHORLS +10 4x 1-8 17 6 16 3 --
8 WOLVES +10 1-6 9 3 3 3 --
