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Demon Lord Guide
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V 1.0 - 03/17/20 by B.L. Timmins AKA Master Higgins on Gamefaqs AKA Dr. Morbis
everywhere else.
***NOTE***
This guide is for the NES version ONLY. The maps in the NES version are
different than the maps on the PC, so this guide is not cross-compatible.
INTRODUCTION
Demon Lord guide?!? What on earth is that all about? Well, here's the
situation: I like playing NES games; but perhaps more importantly, I like
*beating* NES games. Some are easier to complete than others, and some seem to
have no sort of ending at all, which is a real shame. And more than a few
appear to have murky or ambiguous endings that leave you to question whether
what you just witnessed or accomplished really is all there is to see or do in
the game. Wizardry: Knight of Diamonds falls squarely into this latter
category, only, in this case, the ambiguity comes from the manual. You see,
on the very last page of the rather hefty instruction booklet, at the very
bottom of the page, is written the following text:
Q) Are there any secrets or hidden levels in Wizardry?
A) Rumor has it that a Demon Lord resides somewhere on the 6th floor.
And that is the note the manual leaves you on as you head out on your
adventure into the dungeons of Wizardry. Now, it should be mentioned that at
no point during gameplay is this Demon Lord mentioned by any NPC or in any
text in-game, nor do you have to meet or defeat said creature to unlock the
ending credit scrawl. Thus, various questions arise, such as who is this Demon
Lord? Where is he in the game? And most intriguingly, what happens when you
defeat him (or can I truly consider this game beaten if I have not yet found
and defeated the Demon Lord)? Such is the scope of this guide.
In order to defeat the Demon Lord and see what happens afterward, we first
have to find the old bugger, who, as the manual mentions, is supposedly
residing somewhere down on the 6th floor. And that bottom floor is a strange
one because much of it is blocked off and inaccessable. And by the time you
finally do reach it, you're a couple of footsteps away from beating the game
anyway, so why spend any time down there at all? Well, to hunt down the Demon
Lord, of course, so let's get right to it.
COORDINATES OF THE DEMON LORD
Okay, I'm going to tell you straight off, the Demon Lord and his entourage can
be found on the following square in the sixth level of the dungeon:
2E,16N
That is to say he is on the second square East and the sixteenth square North
from the stairs located in the bottom left corner of the 20 x 20 grid, with
the stairs being on square 0E,0N. Sounds easy, right? Just head up to that
square and you're good to go. Unfortanetly, though, the Dumapic spell fizzles
on this floor, making things decidedly more difficult. It also doesn't help
that the path to the Demon Lord is entirely blocked off, with only two
possible ways to gain entry. Let us begin with the more legitimate one...
OPTION 1: THE PATH OF THE CHOSEN ONE
The first way to find the Demon Lord requires a little big of legwork, but the
payoff is that once you are on the right path, you will always know exactly
where you are. Here are the prerequisites:
Step 1 - Create a party and beat the game in the traditional manner, so that
at least one character who is able to equip the KOD regalia will be
Knighted (designated with a 'K' after his name at the top of his
character inspection screen - or a 'G' for the one who personally
recovered the Staff of Gnilda).
Step 2 - Now recover all of the pieces of the KOD regalia again, essentially
running through the game a second time, and give them to your chosen
Knight, who will then equip them.
Step 3 - Now have your KOD-equipped Knight make a solo journey back down to
1E,4N on the sixth floor (where you went last time to prove your
worth and receive the Staff of Gnilda).
This time, if the character you take to this location is a lone KOD-equipped
Knight, instead of receiving the Staff of Gnilda and being teleported back to
the first floor, you will instead be teleported to the otherwise blocked-off
path to the Demon Lord, after being presented with the following words:
"It is beyond my support from here on. Take care and go."
Ominous, for sure, but support will still be present for us here, in the form
of a step-by-step guide. If you follow the directions below to a 'T' you will
arrive in due course at the foot of the Demon Lord.
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Step-by-Step Path to the Demon Lord
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Note that I have included grid coordinates to assist any who might wish to
cross-reference their travels with a map. The starting location is the
square you are teleported to after arriving at 1E,4N as a solo Knighted
character with all of the KOD regalia equipped. It is assumed that you will
appropriately deal with any ensuing enemy encounters in your path. Also
note that the game likes to play tricks on you with some doors being only
occasionally visible, so if you're instructed to go through a door but
you don't see one in front of you, just press A to go through the wall.
Now let's begin, with you having just been teleported from 1E,4N:
-You are in a single-square room (3E,3N) with no visible doors, facing North.
Turn around and press A to escape. Upon exit you will be facing South.
-Take one step forward and turn left (East). Take three steps forward
and you will be facing a door (6E,1N).
-Go through the door and take two more steps forward. Turn left (North)
and take two more steps forward to face another door (9E,3N).
-Go through the door and turn right (East). Take three steps forward and
press A to go through a hidden door.
-Step forward once, turn right (South), step forward again and turn left
(East), to be facing another door (14E,3N).
-Go through the door and turn left (North). Take one step then turn right
(East) and take another step forward. You are facing another door (16E,4N).
-Go through the door and turn left (North). Take three steps and turn left
(West) and take three more steps. Now turn right (North) and take four
steps to arrive at another door (14E,11N).
-Go through that door and turn left (West). Take two steps then turn right
(North) and take two more steps. Press A to go through a hidden door and
be teleported to another hallway (19E,4N). You should still be facing North.
-Take two steps forward. You are facing a door (19E,6N).
-Go through the door and take three steps forward. Turn right (East) and
take one step forward. Turn left (North) and press A to go through a hidden
door.
-Take one step forward. You are facing a door (0E,12N).
-Go through the door and take three steps forward. Press A to go through a
hidden door.
-You are in a single-square room (0E,17N) with a spinner and two exits: North
and South. You came from the South exit and want to take the North exit.
You will be facing a random direction due to the spinner. Take one of the
exits out. If, after exiting, the next room's layout allows you to turn
right and take three steps to be facing a door, it is the correct exit.
If upon exiting, you cannot turn right and walk three steps to be facing a
door, it is the wrong exit and you will need to go back and re-enter the
small room with the spinner.
-As per above, exit the spinner room via the north exit and turn right (East).
Take three steps. You are facing a door (3E,18N).
-Go through the door and turn left (North). Take one step and turn right
(East). Take three steps and press A to go through a hidden door.
-Step forward three times and you will be teleported to a new location, facing
East (1E,5N).
-Take four steps forward and press A to go through a hidden door.
-Turn left (North) and take two steps forward. Press A to go through a hidden
door.
-Take three steps forward, turn right (East), and take four more steps
forward. Turn left (North) and take one step forward to be teleported to a
new location (3E,13N).
-You are in a single-square room with one way out: a door, facing south. Exit
via that door and dispatch the ensuing enemy encounter.
-You are now in a 2x2 square room, facing South. The Demon Lord is in the
next room through a hidden door on the wall beside the visible door you just
came from. To reach him, turn right (West), take one step, and turn right
again (North) and press A to go through a hidden door. Just be aware that
once you go through this door, there is no way out of the next room, except
by beating the Demon Lord or using the spell Malor.
-After going through that last hidden door you are now at 2E,13N. The Demon
Lord is three steps ahead of you at 2E,16N. But, *VERY IMPORTANT* before you
take those three steps, you MUST make sure you have an empty slot in your
character's inventory in order to trigger the battle with the Demon Lord! If
your inventory is full, the Demon Lord fight will NOT be triggered.
-So, once you've made sure you have an empty slot in your inventory and
you're ready to go, take three steps forward to trigger your solo encounter
with the Demon Lord and his underlings (Details of which are further below).
OPTION 2: RANDOM TELEPORTATION - A PATH FOR THE REST
As I said earlier, there are two ways to reach the Demon Lord. The solo path
of the chosen one is detailed above. The only problem with that route is that
it must be done alone, and you better be a really, really, REALLY high-level
Samarai with a Muramasa Blade if you think you're going to be winning that
final battle by yourself. Fortunately, there is another way to reach the
Demon Lord, and you can do it with the whole team on board. The only real
downside is that you have to understand the layout of the 6th floor of the
dungeon really well in order to be able to get your bearings after each
teleportation. Here's how it works:
Step 1 - Get your team ready and head into the dungeon, specifically to 8E,4N
of the first floor, and Malor straight down 4 floors to floor 5. Now
take the stairs down to floor 6.
Step 2 - Wander around floor 6 randomly looking for encounters with enemies
from going through doors (so they'll drop chests). After each
victory, identify the trap, and if it's a teleport trap then trigger
the trap INTENTIONALLY.
Step 3 - Repeat Step 2 until you are randomly teleported into the blocked off
section of Floor 6 that is on the path to the Demon Lord. This will
require you to be able to recognize and understand where you are when
that eventually happens.
Step 4 - Follow the step-by-step guide above (if necessary) and make your way
along the rest of the path to the Demon Lord. Be sure to check that
at least one of your party members has an empty slot in his
inventory, and trigger the battle when ready. Now it's time for...
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The Encounter with the Demon Lord
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Alright, so you've finally made it to the Demon Lord, and that really is half
the battle, but now the question becomes: what exactly are you up against?
Well, more than just the Demon Lord, apparently. It turns out he has friends,
or underlings, or whatever you want to call them, but whatever they are, they
want you dead just as much as he does, though the size of his party can vary.
Here is what you will be dealing with:
THE DEMON LORD'S WAR PARTY
Quantity Unidentified Title Identified Name HP Range per Monster
-------- ------------------ --------------- --------------------
1 Demonic Figure Demon Lord 26D8+100 (126 to 308 HP)
1 Skeletal Figure Lycurgus 17D10+50 (67 to 220 HP)
1 to 6 Demonic Figure Greater Demon 11D8 (11 to 88 HP)
0 to 4 Demonic Figure Ferocious Fiend 8D10 (8 to 80 HP)
As you can see, you will be dealing with anywhere from three to twelve enemies
in this encounter. And this is a spell-heavy bunch, so be ready to face the
most damaging spells in the game, including Tiltowait. If your character(s)
levels are low, you will not realistically last very far beyond the first
round of combat. Ergo, there are pretty much only two winning strategies
for tackling the Demon Lord: bring a massively over-levelled solo Samarai with
the Muramasa Blade and hack his party to bits, or bring a party with at least
one Level 13 Mage and cast Haman or Mahaman to silence all monsters, after
which you can plink them to bits at your leisure as they continue to try and
cast all of their spells in vain.
If you can beat the Demon Lord and the rest of his ilk, congrats. After the
battle, you'll be presented (via a chest) with a rather unique item...
THE DEMON'S STONE / DAMIEN STONE
This prize you receive for defeating the Demon Lord is an interesting item,
insofar as it has different properties relative to what state it is in. If
you recall, the room you are in is a dead end with no way out, unless you've
brought a Mage with the Malor spell. But what if you brought a solo Knight
or a group of characters who don't happen to have that spell? Or, what if
all of your charges for that spell level have been exhausted? It wouldn't be
very fair to have the game leave you trapped in that room for all eternity
right after defeating the toughest enemy in the game. Well, after receiving
this item, you're not. You see, the first time you use this stone outside of
battle, it casts Malor to help you escape. Afterward, it is essentially a
new and different item. The situation can be summed up like this:
Name before first usage --------> Demon's Stone
Spell cast on first usage ------> Malor (Teleport spell)
Name after first usage ---------> Damien Stone
Spell cast after first usage ---> Zilwan (Destroy undead monster in battle)
So, in effect, the item you receive for defeating the Demon Lord is the
"Demon's Stone," which will cast teleport when used, but after you've used it
once to cast that spell, it turns into the "Damien Stone" which casts Zilwan
whenever it is used in battle, and can also be used to return a character
from the status of "Lost" to "Dead." It is also worth noting that any time
you use the Equip command with the character holding the Damien Stone, the
following question will appear on the item equip screen:
"Will you invoke the special power of your Damien Stone?"
If you select NO, nothing happens; however, if you select YES, your character
is immediately turned into a pile of ashes. Don't say I didn't warn you!
So only one question remains now: does obtaining this item in any way trigger
a cut scene or alternate ending?
EPILOGUE
Unfortunately, the answer is no, there is no new script or special ending to
be found after defeating the Demon Lord. Going back to the Castle without
using the item (still a Demon's Stone) triggers nothing, nor does returning
with the item in the form of a Damien Stone trigger anything either; likewise,
returning to 1E,4N on the sixth floor with a Knighted KOD-equipped character
holding either the Demon's Stone or the Damien Stone doesn't prompt anything
new at all. So it is safe to say that there is no second ending for this
game.
HOWEVER, if you return to 1E,4N on the sixth floor with a character who has
NOT been Knighted but nevertheless has equipped all of the KOD items required
to beat the game AND who is also carrying the Damien Stone (equipped or not),
the game will give the same wall of text that ends with "Behold! The Staff of
Gnilda," after which the game will sometimes - but not always - glitch out!
If it does, you will NOT be teleported to the first floor to continue back to
the castle; the game will freeze with various random colors and symbols of
garbage covering the entire screen! Now I don't know if this is because you
have triggered an alternate ending that was never programmed (wishful
thinking) or if it's just the result of faulty programming, but whatever the
case, that's what sometimes happens when you bring a non-Knighted character in
there with all of the KOD items equipped AND the Damien Stone in his
inventory. So I guess that's about as thorough as you can get to finishing
off this dungeon crawler.
Anyway, finding and defeating the Demon Lord is definitely a feat in itself,
and the prize you receive does have some usefulness in its ability to cast a
pretty decent spell for free for as long as you wish to keep running around
the dungeon afterward with that stone. But beyond that, this pretty much
closes the chapter on the ever-elusive Demon Lord in Wizardry: Knight of
Diamonds for the NES.
This guide was made for display on www.gamefaqs.com and is copyright 2020
B.L. Timmins. I don’t care who distributes, displays or promotes this
document, as long as it is left unaltered and wholly intact. I can be
reached at bltimmins at symbol shaw dot ca if any mistakes in this guide
are found.
Final Note: A very special thanks goes out to Michael Zazulak for first
bringing to my attention the existence of the Demon Lord and setting me off
on the right track with my search.
