YET ANOTHER DRAGON WARS WALKTHROUGH
by Ben Cordes <
[email protected]>
Version 1.5, October 2015
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#]
2 CREATING CHARACTERS [#200#]
2.1 ATTRIBUTES [#201#]
2.2 SECONDARY ATTRIBUTES [#202#]
2.3 SKILLS [#203#]
2.4 GENERAL NOTES [#204#]
2.5 SAMPLE CHARACTERS [#205#]
2.6 NPCs [#206#]
2.7 LEVELING UP [#207#]
3 COMBAT AND GENERAL INFORMATION [#300#]
3.1 COMBAT BASICS [#301#]
3.2 HEALTH AND STUN [#302#]
3.3 COMBAT STRATEGIES [#303#]
3.4 DEALING WITH LOOT [#304#]
3.5 MANAGING SAVE FILES [#305#]
3.6 WEIRD THINGS [#306#]
4 THINGS AND STUFF [#400#]
4.1 WEAPONS [#401#]
4.2 ARMOR [#402#]
4.3 UNIQUE ITEMS [#403#]
4.4 SHOPS [#404#]
5 MAGIC [#500#]
5.1 LOW MAGIC [#501#]
5.2 HIGH MAGIC [#502#]
5.3 SUN MAGIC [#503#]
5.4 DRUID MAGIC [#504#]
5.5 MISCELLANEOUS MAGIC [#505#]
6 WALKTHROUGH [#600#]
6.0 Magan Underworld highlights [#6MU#]
6.1 Purgatory [#601#]
6.2 Slave Camp [#602#]
6.3 Phoebus (side trip) [#603#]
6.4 Forlorn Isle and Slave Estate [#604#]
6.5 Tars Ruins [#605#]
6.6 Tars Underground [#606#]
6.7 Guard Bridge #1 and Isle of the Sun [#607#]
6.8 Mystic Wood (1st) [#608#]
6.9 Guard Bridge #2 [#609#]
6.10 Phoebus [#610#]
6.11 Phoeban Dungeon [#611#]
6.12 Lansk [#612#]
6.13 War Bridge and Quag Island [#613#]
6.14 City of the Yellow Mud Toad [#614#]
6.15 Mystic Wood (2nd), Isle of Woe [#615#]
6.16 Smuggler's Cove (1st) [#616#]
6.17 Necropolis [#617#]
6.18 King's Isle [#618#]
6.19 Magan Underworld (Irkalla) [#619#]
6.20 Bridge of Exiles and Snake Pit [#620#]
6.21 Kingshome Dungeon and Kingshome [#621#]
6.22 Byzanople Siege Camp [#622#]
6.23 Byzanople [#623#]
6.24 Lansk Undercity [#624#]
6.25 Smuggler's Cove (2nd) [#625#]
6.26 Freeport [#626#]
6.27 Lanac'toor's Laboratory [#627#]
6.28 Rustic Isle and Game Preserve [#628#]
6.29 Scorpion Bridge and Magic College [#629#]
6.30 Mystic Wood (3rd) [#630#]
6.31 Dragon Valley [#631#]
6.32 Sunken Ruins [#632#]
6.33 Dwarf Clan Hall [#633#]
6.34 Old Dock and Pilgrim Dock [#634#]
6.35 Salvation [#635#]
6.36 Nisir [#636#]
6.37 Magan Underworld (Endgame) [#637#]
7 FINAL NOTES [#700#]
7.1 FINAL STATS [#701#]
7.2 EXTRA: THE SPEED RUN [#702#]
1 ADMINISTRIVIA [#100]
1.1 COPYRIGHT NOTICE [#101#]
This walkthrough is copyright (C) Ben Cordes, 2012-2015. 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#]
Information from the following resources was used in creating this walkthrough.
The people who collected this information made my experience of playing Dragon
Wars again much better and I am indebted to them all:
Andrew Schultz's walkthrough and maps:
http://www.gamefaqs.com/pc/564812-dragon-wars/faqs/7803
Classic Gaming's Dragon Wars page:
http://www.classicgaming.cc/pc/dragonwars/
1.3 VERSION HISTORY [#103#]
v1.0, Jan 2012: completed walkthrough
v1.1, Jun 2012: fleshed out General Information section
v1.2, Jun 2012: better section headers, second playthrough
v1.3, Aug 2012: fleshed out the Speed Run
v1.3.1, Mar 2013: updated license
v1.4, Jun 2014: added equipment tables, renumbered sections
v1.5, Oct 2015: reflowed text, editing
1.4 INTRODUCTION TO THE GAME [#104#]
Dragon Wars is a classic CRPG that stands as the spiritual successor to the
Bard's Tale series. Some would call it "the missing Bard's Tale IV", although
that's a bit of a misnomer now that the Bryan Fargo-led inXile Entertainment is
actually producing a modern BT4 game. But, I digress.
I'm assuming you've read the game's manual and the reference card; they'll give
you the background story, and teach you how to move around and do stuff. It's
worth noting (mostly because it didn't fit anywhere else in the walkthrough)
that many of the proper nouns in this game (Dilmun, Namtar, Nisir, Utnapishtim,
etc.) are taken from Mesopotamian mythology and/or the Epic of Gilgamesh, which
provides an interesting backdrop and helps explain the twists on the standard
swords-and-sorcery epic-fantasy background story we're all accustomed to.
You'll also find a list of spells in the manual, but you won't need it because
I've listed them all along with a lot more information than is available there.
Also, there are several red herrings and/or places where the manual is simply
incorrect, whether intentional or not.
At the end of the manual is a list of paragraphs. These help flesh out the
story as you go, and give you some hints and other bits of direction. In the
walkthrough, I've marked the places where the game directs you to the paragraph
list with "(pxxx)" where xxx is the paragraph number. Careful, not all the
paragraphs are real! But the fake ones are often funny and worth reading. I
also recommend finding a text file with the paragraphs, instead of squinting at
your PDF of the manual.
Before you do anything else, make sure you have a backup copy of the game
files, specifically GAME1, GAME2, and DRAGON.COM. See section 3.5 for more
information on why.
If this is your first time playing the game, take the starter party and take a
stroll around Purgatory for a while. Get used to the flow of combat and
(probably) get your ass kicked a couple of times. You can always start a new
game. When you're ready to start exploring Dilmun for real, come back here.
2 CREATING CHARACTERS [#200#]
Unlike many other CRPGs, Dragon Wars doesn't force you to roll dice, or at
least, doesn't force you to hit the space bar a million times while it randomly
generates statistics for you until you get ones that are high enough to make
you happy. Instead, you start the game with very pedestrian statistics (10 in
everything, no skills) and 50 advancement points (hereafter AP) to distribute
as you wish among your attributes and skills. This is a far less frustrating
way to create characters! On the other hand, you have all the options you
could ever want.
Before we get to my recommendations (skip down to Section 2.5 for that) let's
talk about all the different ways you can spend AP.
2.1 ATTRIBUTES [#201#]
Key: The number in brackets is the number of AP required to increase the
attribute by 1.
[1] Strength (STR) directly affects your melee damage. If you have higher STR
than the minimum for the weapon you're wielding, you will deal additional
damage with it.
[2] Dexterity (DEX) is the stat of truth and light: it increases your AV and
DV, the two most important attributes in the game, and also determines combat
order.
[1] Intelligence (INT) increases your magical attack ability somewhat, and
according to the manual, affects your ability to learn new spells. (In
practice, the chance of failure is negligably low, and you can always Save
right before reading a scroll just to be sure.)
[2] Spirit (SPR) is the prime spellcasting stat: it directly affects Power (aka
mana, spell points, etc.) and also helps you defend against magic cast at you.
[2] Health (HP) does what it says on the tin. If this is your first RPG ever
and you don't know what Health is for, go read the bloody manual (or the
section on Combat Basics, below).
2.2 SECONDARY ATTRIBUTES [#202#]
These are derived from the primary attributes and/or your equipment; you can't
change them directly with advancement points.
- Power (POW): Equal to 2 x SPR. Each spell you cast has a Power cost. Some
spells allow you to pick how many points you spend; more Power gives you a
more, well, powerful effect. (More damage or longer duration being the two
most common.)
- Stun: Equal to HP. See Section 3.2 for more on Health and Stun.
- Armor Class (AC): Starts at 0 and goes up. As opposed to some other games,
where AC is a measure of how difficult it is to hit you, in Dragon Wars, a high
AC reduces the damage you take *after* an opponent hits you. It is quite
possible to have a high enough AC that a successful hit does no damage.
Unsurprisingly, putting on armor increases your AC. Some other items
(including some weapons) will also modify your AC.
- Attack Value (AV): Starts at DEX / 4 (round down). Determines how good you
are at hitting your opponent with weapons and spells. Also modified by weapons
(usually +) and heavy armor (usually -).
- Defense Value (DV): Starts at DEX / 4 (round down), and doesn't get modified
by much of anything, for good or for ill. Determines how hard it is for an
opponent to hit you.
2.3 SKILLS [#203#]
One of the things that makes Dragon Wars such a classic game is that the
designers allowed for multiple solutions to almost every puzzle in the game.
You can usually fight your way through, but you also often have the choice of
one or more skills you can use, and in a pinch, sometimes just using an
attribute is good enough as a substitute. So the concept of which skills are
"necessary" or not is a little odd.
Key: The number in brackets is the number of AP required to gain a rank in the
skill. Magic skills have two numbers; the first number is for rank 1 and the
second number is for further ranks. If the cost is preceded by a (+), I think
it's a useful skill to take, and if it's preceded by a (-) it isn't.
[+1] Arcane Lore: In general, the Lore skills will do nothing more than grant
you the odd paragraph here and there. However, Arcane Lore is necessary to use
the magic well in the Underworld and the transportation Nexii, and you really
want to be able to do that.
[-1] Cave Lore: Ulrik has it. You don't need it.
[-1] Forest Lore: Gets you a few extra Paragraphs.
[-1] Mountain Lore: Paragraphs. Also, Mountain Lore 2 allows you to use the
two-handed Mountain Sword, which is a nice mid-game weapon, but it's not worth
spending the AP on it.
[-1] Town Lore: Paragraphs.
[+2] Bandage: Possibly the most useful skill in the game. Outside of combat,
using this skill heals you for free up to (ranks+10) Health. You don't need to
keep enough ranks to heal your fighters completely, but you should be pretty
close, and definitely enough to heal your mages. Give this skill to one PC,
and expect them to need 10 ranks by the endgame, which means they won't have
any other skills and might lag a bit behind the rest of the party on
attributes.
[+1] Climb: Get 3-4 ranks, but only one PC needs it. Useful in a handful of
places, it can grant you more loot and allow you to see some extra story on the
side.
[-1] Fistfighting: Useless after about 1/4 through Purgatory. Don't bother
taking it in the first place.
[-2] Hiding: Louie has 2 ranks. There are a couple of uses for it, but it's
always optional.
[+2] Lockpick: 2 ranks is pretty much required, 3-4 ranks is very useful. In
theory, 7-8 ranks will allow you to skip some harder puzzles, but in practice
there's always another way around and there are better uses for the AP.
[-1] Pickpocket: See "Hiding".
[-1] Swim: Ulrik has it, so the one place you actually "need" it, you have it.
Otherwise, it's only useful if you insist on leaving Purgatory the hard way,
and even then you don't actually need it. I wish someone had told me that the
first time I played this game (in 1992).
[+1] Tracker: In one place, you can use this to advance quickly across a map,
skipping potential encounters and traps. In another, you can use it for a side
story and a magic weapon you might not even need. Go ahead and spend 1AP on
*either* this or Bureaucracy, but not both.
[-1] Bureaucracy: Can be used in a couple of places, but there are always
alternate solutions to those puzzles. Slightly less useful than "Tracker", so
it falls below my "worth it" line. (Be careful entering the Slave Camp without
it, though.)
[+10/2] Druid Magic: No two ways about it -- CREATE WALL and SOFTEN STONE are
mandatory in order to complete the game. Druid Magic is also generally useful
so I recommend giving it to one spellcaster at creation. Because it's
mandatory, though, there's a place where you can pick it up in-game, so you
could try not taking it now and letting a strong fighter pick it up later (see
Section 6.8). As a final note, Druid Magic has no variable-power spells.
[+10/2] High Magic: Some useful stuff here, and good (if expensive) zap spells.
[+5/2] Low Magic: It's handy for everybody to be able to cast Low Magic spells,
so save up points or use Irkalla (see Section 6.0) to give this to Ulrik and
Louie. If you want, have one PC take 3 ranks so they can wear a Mage Ring
(+1 AV/+4 AC).
[+10/2] Sun Magic: Pretty much where it's at in terms of good magic. You do
pick up Valar in Phoebus though and he comes with it, so you might skip it.
[-2] Axes: Ulrik already has 3 ranks; give any Axes you find to him, and don't
bother spending any points on it yourself.
[-2] Flails: There are several good Flails in the mid-game, so this skill isn't
completely useless, but read the notes in Section 2.4 before you drop any AP on
weapon skills.
[-2] Maces: See "Flails".
[+2] Swords: The best weapons in the game are Swords (Dragon Teeth, the Sword
of Freedom) so if you're going to spend points on weapons skills after you hit
DEX 20, I'd recommend here.
[-2] Two-handers: Technically, you can do more damage with a Two-hander than
you can with a Sword most of the time. But the requirements are pretty
onerous, they tend to have sucky AV bonuses (or even penalties), and there are
so many good one-handed Swords floating around that it's not really worth the
bother. On the other hand, the Dragon Sword does almost as much damage as the
Sword of Freedom... Do note that you can use a Shield (but not a Large Shield)
and a 2H weapon at the same time.
[+2] Bows: Having the additional support damage from your back row can be handy
in the early game, and the Gatlin Bow / Magic Quiver combo is pretty great (up
to 63d4 if you're within 20'), so you might want to throw a point or two in
Bows for one of your mages (who often have lower DEX, and so lower AV). You can
also use a Shield and a Bow at the same time.
[-2] Crossbows: (a) it's a weapon skill (b) the Tri-Cross / Dead Bolt
combination is not as awesome as the Gatlin Bow / Magic Quiver because the
Tri-Cross can only fire three bolts at a time, and you have to cast S:CHARGER
to replenish the Dead Bolt.
[-2] Thrown Weapons: The combat mechanics just make them too hard to use; see
Section 3.1.
2.4 GENERAL NOTES [#204#]
When creating and advancing your party, keep the following in mind:
- Plan your party around the NPCs you'll pick up (see section 2.6). Characters
1-4 in the marching order are the only ones that can melee, so you'll want four
fighter types and three mages behind them. Ulrik's an obvious choice for the
front lines. Louie could swing either way (he's got a high SPR for a fighter)
but he doesn't start with any magic skills, and 15 AP is hard to come by.
Valar is a great Sun Magician (but you might want a second one anyway). By the
time you can pick up Halifax, he's probably not any better than how much you've
advanced Louie. In general, creating two fighters and two mages is probably
your best bet.
- One of your mages will want STR12 in order to use a Broadsword, at least
until you pick up Louie.
- Fighters will need at least STR17 to use all the good Swords, so anything
over that will give your damage a boost. You need an 18 to fight Enkidu. A 20
is the minimum to use the good Axes, a 22 gets you all the Two-handers, and
some statues can only be moved with a 23 or better.
- Fighters will need all the AV and DV they can get. DEX20 is a good idea, if
not right off the bat, as soon as possible. Pretty much nothing else affects
DV, unfortunately.
- In the late game, DV is more useful than AV. Fortunately, near the endgame
you'll get a +3 bonus to most stats, so shooting for DEX21 is a good idea by
the end of the game. Spending the AP to get to DEX24 is probably not worth it.
- Mages can start with a lower DEX and work their way up later. Also, it's not
a terrible idea to take the manual's suggestion and leave your Druid mage with
a low DEX so that they can cast healing spells at the end of the round.
- Intelligence is more useful for mages than fighters, but its effects are
pretty invisible; I've beaten the game without increasing anyone's INT past 10,
so if you're looking for a "dump stat" this is it.
- Don't let your fighters' Health stats outpace your healer's Bandage skill by
more than 1 or 2 points. See the entry for "Bandage" in section 2.3.
- You are not required to have ranks in a weapon class in order to use weapons
of that class. Anybody can use a War Flail, even if they don't have ranks in
Flails. However...
- AV is often modified by the weapon you're carrying, but if you have the
appropriate skill for that weapon, it's also increased by the number of ranks
you have in that skill. The game won't show you this when you look at your
character information screen, but it does factor into the rolls. So if you
have a 20 DEX your base AV is +5; if you also have Flails 2 and are wielding a
War Flail, your effective AV is +7. However...
- I found it better to spend AP on DEX to boost my base AV rather than spending
it on weapons skills. Even though it's much more expensive (8AP on DEX gets
you +1AV and +1DV, as opposed to 2AP for +1AV for weapon skills), I found that
I changed weapon types too much to lock myself into one type by taking skill
ranks. The one exception is Swords; at the end of the game you wind up either
using Dragon Teeth or the Sword of Freedom, both of which use the Swords skill.
So maybe you can sink a few AP there after you've hit DEX20.
- When planning out your mages, spread out your skills. It is generally
possible to develop two spellcasters in any given school of magic, but it costs
a lot of AP and I don't recommend it. There are multiple copies of most spell
scrolls, however, some of them are hard to get (Dragon Valley is no fun), and
some spells only have one copy (most notably S:INFERNO). That being said, if
you're going to double up, consider developing two Sun mages. Section 5 has
the locations of all spell scrolls in the game, which you may find useful to
read before deciding.
- Opinions vary widely on whether it's worth taking multiple ranks in magic
skills. For schools with variable-power spells, it obviously raises the power
ceiling. However, it's possible that more ranks will also increase the
effectiveness of fixed-power spells. I didn't find this to be true; your
mileage may vary.
2.5 SAMPLE CHARACTERS [#205#]
Here's a sample set of characters that I took through the game.
THOG: STR19 DEX20 INT10 SPR10 HP15
Low Magic 1, Climb 2, Lockpick 2
Upgrade path: Climb 4, Lockpick 4, Swords 1+, STR20+, Low Magic 3, HP20
ALEX: STR16 DEX20 INT10 SPR10 HP15
Low Magic 1, Bandage 4, Tracker 1
Upgrade path: STR18+, Bandage 10, HP20
ARTHUR: STR12 DEX12 INT13 SPR19 HP13
Low Magic 1, Druid Magic 1, Arcane Lore 1, Bureaucracy 1
Upgrade path: DEX13, Druid 3, INT15, HP15, SPR++
VALERIE: STR10 DEX16 INT15 SPR16 HP13
Low Magic 1, High Magic 1
Upgrade path: High 3, DEX20+, Bows+, HP15, SPR++
2.6 NPCs [#206#]
The game's NPCs are in a fixed place, and always appear with the same
stats and same level, no matter when you pick them up.
ULRIK: Level 3, STR20 DEX17 INT08 SPR14 HP15
Where: Purgatory bar
Starting skills: Cave Lore 3, Swim 1, Axes 3
Upgrade path: Low Magic 1, DEX21, HP20
LOUIE: Level 2, STR14 DEX16 INT16 SPR16 HP15
Where: Slave Camp
Starting skills: Hiding 2, Pickpocket 2
Upgrade path: Low Magic 1, DEX21, STR18, HP++
VALAR: Level 2, STR11 DEX14 INT18 SPR16 HP19
Where: Phoebus bar
Starting skills: Low Magic 1, Sun Magic 1
Starting spells: L:everything,
S:SUN STROKE, HEAL, ARMOR OF LIGHT, GUIDANCE
Upgrade path: Sun Magic 3, DEX17, SPR++
HALIFAX: Level 16, STR21 DEX18 INT14 SPR14 HP23
Where: Freeport bar
Starting skills: Arcane Lore 2, Cave Lore 3, Climb 1, Swim 2, Maces 3
Starting Equipment: Long Mace, Large Shield, Chain Armor
Upgrade path: don't bother
2.7 LEVELING UP [#207#]
DW's advancement system is pretty speedy at first (you can hit level 4 without
leaving Purgatory or really trying hard) and quite slow later.
Experience is handed out equally to all party members who are alive (note: this
includes Stunned) at the end of a battle. So chances are good that all four of
your original party members will continue to level up at exactly the same time
for the entire game.
Note that when you hit a new level, the game resets your XP counter to 0, so
the number you really care about is "how much more until next level?" Level 2
requires 100xp; each level beyond that, the target number goes up by (100 x N),
where N is the level you currently have. So going from level 2 to level 3, the
target is (100 x 2) + 100 = 300xp. From there it's (100 x 3) + 300 = 600 xp to
level 4, and so on.
You can also calculate this directly as (50 x N x N+1) if you're going from
level N to level N+1.
In other words:
2nd +100
3rd +300
4th +600
5th +1000
6th +1500
The good news is, once you reach 12th level, all levels after that require the
same +6600xp to advance. So at least the curve stops getting steeper. I
finished the game at 13th level the first time through.
Every time you hit a new level, you get 2 AP to spend. Hit (X) and then pick a
character to spend them. Note that you don't have to spend AP as soon as you
get them; you can hold on to them (if you're saving up for a new Magic skill,
for instance). Sometimes it's better to wait on that Health upgrade until your
Bandage specialist gets another rank...
See the previous sections (2.4 - 2.6) for more details on my suggested
improvement paths for your PCs. And when you're planning out your advancement
path, remember that you're only going to gain 25-30 additional AP over the
course of the entire game beyond what you get at character creation.
3 COMBAT AND GENERAL INFORMATION [#300#]
3.1 COMBAT BASICS [#301#]
The Dragon Wars combat system uses a turn-based combat system that will be
familiar to fans of Bard's Tale or most other early CRPGs. Of the seven
character slots in your party, only the first four can attack with melee
weapons. Note that this is true even if your melee weapon has a ranged attack,
like the Axe of Kalah; you must still be in the front four in order to (A)ttack
with it. Also, it cuts both ways: only the first four slots can be attacked
with melee as well, so your spellcasters are safe(ish) in the back line.
Thrown weapons count as melee weapons with range, which is to say, you have to
be in the front rank to use them(?!). Thrown weapons are single-use, so once
you (A)ttack, you have no equipped weapon anymore, and you have to waste your
next turn readying a (N)ew weapon. Only the Trident comes back to you after
you use it (even the Boomerang doesn't, weirdly), and by the time you find it
you already have Dragon's Teeth which are way better. I can't think of a
situation in which it would be better to have a thrown weapon than a melee
weapon, even for a back-row mage who suddenly finds themselves in the front
four.
Anyone can attack with missile weapons. Note that the weapon determines the
range, but the ammunition (quiver) determines the damage. Bows are kind of
nice in the early-game because you can get additional attacks from your back
row, but managing an inventory full of arrows gets annoying fast in the
mid-game. Most quivers don't do much damage, although there's a bug you can
exploit to get copies of the better ones. On the other hand, the Gatlin Bow /
Magic Quiver combination is amazingly deadly. My advice is to get bows for
your back row as soon as possible, and when you get sick of buying arrows all
the time, get rid of them.
At the start of each combat round, you're presented with the options to
(F)ight, (Q)uickly fight, (R)un, or (A)dvance. In reverse order, (A)dvance
takes up your whole turn and moves the whole party 10' closer to the opponents.
(R)un directs every indivdual party member to try to flee from combat.
(Q)uickfight gives you fewer options than (F)ight, but they both allow you to
give individual orders to each character.
Those individual options are:
(A)ttack / (A)ttack blow, (M)ighty blow, (D)isarm: In Quickfight, assumes
normal ("attack blow"). Otherwise, you can pick Mighty (more damage, lower
chance to hit) or Disarm (almost never a good idea). I never remembered to use
Mighty blow and there's not really any reason to do so. Fortunately A-A is a
pretty easy key combination to hit.
(D)odge: temporarily boosts your DV.
(B)lock attack: Stops the first melee attack against you (not guaranteed).
Useful sometimes against really powerful single opponents (like Namtar), if
you're facing opponents with really high AC, or if a mage winds up in the front
four while you shuffle a stunned fighter back up. Not available in Quickfight.
(C)ast spell: If you know more than one school of magic, you have to pick one,
then a "type" of spell: (C)ombat, (H)eal, or (M)isc. Then you get a list of
spells.
(U)se item: Dragon Stone, Healing Potion, or other magic item.
(N)ew weapon: equip a different weapon.
(L)oad weapon: equip a different ammunition item.
(R)un: order this character to flee combat. Doesn't always work!
(M)ove / (A)head or (B)ehind: Shuffles the marching order in the middle of a
turn. A character who moves Ahead swaps with the character in front of them,
and vice versa. The game will not allow you to move a single character
multiple places in the order in a single turn, so don't even try; you'll wind
up wasting actions. For instance, don't tell #3 to move Behind while telling
#4 to move Ahead, and don't tell both #3 and #4 to move Ahead. The results
will be hilarious depending on which character acts first! (Hint: not actually
hilarious.) Not available in Quickfight.
At any time while giving individual orders, you can press ESC to back out of a
menu or skip back to a previous player. When you've given an order to every
party member, you get a chance to confirm before executing the actions.
TARGETING GROUPS: Once you've chosen an action, if there are multiple groups of
enemies, you get to pick which group you want to attack. If, when your turn
comes up in the initiative order, the group you're attacking is out of range or
no longer has any live opponents, then your action is wasted. So execution
order (and therefore DEX) matters!
3.2 HEALTH AND STUN [#302#]
The most novel aspect of combat in Dragon Wars is the multi-tier health system.
Everybody has two sets of hit points, Health (the orange bar) and Stun (the
green bar). In general, Stun is affected more than Health, which is to say
that you are far more likely to run out of Stun than you are to run out of
Health. If either value hits 0, you become incapacitated ('stunned' or 'dead',
respectively). Characters that are incapacitated at the end of the combat
round are shuffled to the end of the marching order; if you're not in combat,
they stay where you put them. Dead characters cannot practically* be
resurrected.
(* It is literally possible to do, but so annoying as to never be worth your
time. You're better off restoring from your last save game. If you really
want to know, there are directions down at the bottom of this section. I
haven't even included a quicklink because you'll never use it.)
After combat ends, all non-Dead characters automatically heal Stun up to full.
Health damage is permanent until you heal it. Between combats, the best way to
restore Health points is to Use the Bandage skill. Bandage always works, takes
no time (i.e. you can't be interrupted in the middle of healing your whole
party even though it's multiple actions), and always brings you up to
(10+skill) Health and Stun. This is why it's important for your healer to have
a skill value that's (nearly) high enough to heal your fighters. You'll pretty
quickly develop the muscle memory of typing (U)se (#) (S)kill (A)bility
(B)andage over and over. If you're clever when building your party and don't
give your healer any other Ability skills (or any other skills at all), you can
save keypresses.
During combat, the only way to heal is through magic. Healing spells work so
long as you have living casters. You can also Use healing potions, of which
you'll find a couple along the way. Healing magic restores Stun as well as
Health, and will revive a Stunned character. It is totally possible (and often
a good idea) to cast a healing spell on a character who might become Stunned
during a round. If they are Stunned early in the round, the healing spell will
revive them later, and they won't get shuffled to the bottom of the marching
order at the end of the round if they're still standing. This is why it's not
a bad idea to give your Druid a low DEX: they will act towards the end of the
round, and D:CURE ALL is pretty awesome.
Beware of the effects of magical healing on Health and Stun. As I said before,
Stun is affected more than Health, and that's true in both directions. If
you're in a long, drawn-out battle, it's quite possible to run out of Stun a
couple of times and find yourself dipping into the single digits of Health even
after healing back up to near-full Stun. This is how characters die
prematurely. Keep an eye on that orange bar.
Don't ignore the party reshuffling aspect of Stunned characters. There's not
much worse than having your primary healer suddenly find themselves in the
front line taking melee hits when you really need them to revive a Stunned
fighter who's now in slot 7. I strongly suggest giving your slot-5 spellcaster
some reasonable cast-off armor so that they don't get totally screwed when that
happens. As I said above, the game doesn't allow you to shuffle multiple slots
in a single round, so it can often take a while to shuffle that fighter back
into the front lines. Be very careful how you manage the Move actions when
this happens.
If you find you have to reorder your party in combat (and you will), beware of
casting healing spells at the same time. When you choose a party member on
which to target the heal, you are actually selecting a SLOT, not a PERSON. If
two PCs swap before the spell is cast, it will land on whoever is newly
occupying that slot. Consider the relative DEX scores of the caster and the
recipient when trying to heal a moving target.
3.2.1 RESURRECTING DEAD CHARACTERS
Step 1: Get to the Necropolis. No, really. Seriously, I feel like the
developers were trolling us here.
- In order to get to the Necropolis, you have to go to Quag. Murk Trees are
potentially deadly no matter how good your AC is, and you have to fight at
least one combat with them in order to get to Smuggler's Cove.
- It's already like halfway through the game before you can get to the
Necropolis for the first time. Maybe you're coming back for a second trip
and you already fought Ugly's pirates and you have his ship. Okay, you still
have to fight off two really annoying Guardians and who knows what else in
the S half of the Necropolis map.
- If for some reason you don't have Arcane Lore -- say, because your mage with
it is the one who died -- it's even harder to get here... AND you need it to
use the Well of Souls, so you're screwed anyway. You may as well go pick up
Halifax in Freeport; at least he has Arcane Lore.
- The Underworld building that houses the Well of Souls is immune to D:SOFTEN
STONE, so it's not like there's an alternate path to get here.
I have literally only ever raised a dead character to see how it was done. (I
was already in the Necropolis and someone died from a Ghoul bite, so I figured
I'd try it out.)
So that being said, here's how to do it: Take Ugly's boat to the Necropolis.
Enter the building, fight off both Guardians, exit the room, go straight S,
through a door, 2W 1N through a door, and 1W. Those stairs take you down to
the Underworld. Follow the corridor all the way around until you hit a pit,
step into the missing corner, and (U)se Arcane Lore. Then, toss a DEAD body
into the pit (p128), and it will be returned to you alive but STUNNED. (U)se
Bandage on it and you've got a resurrected party member. Congratulations.
3.3 COMBAT STRATEGIES [#303#]
The #1 problem that you will be faced with while in combat -- well, okay, aside
from actually just staying alive / unstunned -- is how to close into melee
range with your opponents. The computer, I'm sorry to say, cheats: it knows
whether or not you've given the Advance order to your party before it assigns
orders to the monsters, and if it behooves the monsters to sit and wait for you
to advance, they will.
Here's a particular example: one group of monsters is 20' away from you. If
you Advance, they will choose Attack actions. If you go first, you step into
melee range, and they get free hits. On the other hand, if you stand your
ground and give Attack actions, there's a chance that they will Advance first
and then you get free hits. This is almost always the right idea, even at the
cost of a few wasted swings at monsters that are too far away. The exception
is if you're fighting multiple groups, and the distant group has a ranged
attack, and you need to close to a certain distance in order to hit them with
your ranged attack and/or spells.
Melee weapons with a ranged attack are incredibly useful. You don't have to do
anything special to activate the ranged attack; simply (A)ttack a group of
enemies that is more than 10' away (but hopefully closer than the maximum range
of your melee weapon) and you will attack as normal. Note that some reach
weapons do different damage at distance than they do at 10'; see the weapon
tables in Section 4.1. I found that I often prioritized having 'reach' over a
weapon that did more damage at 10'. You may have different preferences
or combat styles.
Also remember that some armor and weapons have additional magical actions that
can be useful in combat. (U)sing the weapon during a combat round will
activate the spell on your turn. For example, if you Use the Druid's Mace in
combat, it casts D:CURE ALL, which coincidentally is the best group-heal spell
in the game.
I've tried to lay out useful strategies for some of the harder encounters in
the walkthrough. But mostly you'll just figure this stuff out by the time you
leave Purgatory.
3.4 DEALING WITH LOOT [#304#]
Like many CRPGs of the era, the economy of Dragon Wars is kind of broken.
Money is basically never an issue. Sure, you start in Purgatory as a bunch of
penniless paupers, but who cares? The Arena will give you everything you need
to get started. From then on you should have no problems keeping yourself
well-funded. I ended the game with almost $60k. Inventory management becomes
a huge headache if you try to keep and sell everything. If you find yourself
with more than $10k in cash, you should feel free to start dropping stuff
instead of hanging onto it to sell.
You also have the option of not picking up things in the first place. When
presented with a chest, if you leave some things behind, they are likely to
stay there and you can come back for them later (at least until you leave the
map). Don't worry about accidentally "leaving" a chest in order to shuffle
your inventory around; just hit Esc once or twice and the chest should come
back. There are a few exceptions to this rule, which I've tried to note when I
found them.
The game generally does a nice job at providing equipment upgrades at the right
time, instead of forcing you to buy them. You'll farm enough gold to buy your
first round of equipment in Purgatory, but it's optional. From then you
probably won't buy another piece of armor or weaponry until Freeport, which is
almost 2/3 of the way through the game.
When you do go to sell stuff, you can largely sell anything anywhere for half
of its purchase price. The useful places to sell things are the Purgatory
Black Market, the Lansk Undercity shops, the Byzanople Siege Camp Black Market,
and the Mud Toad souvenir shop. Several items have no purpose beyond their
resale value; when in doubt, see Unique Items, section 4.3.
All of the hint guides basically tell you to horde Dragon Stones as if they're
the most precious resource on Oceana. This is RIDICULOUS. First of all,
there are several spots where you can regenerate Power without using a Dragon
Stone, so you only really need them for deep dungeon dives. Second, you'll
find Dragon Stones all over the place. And third, most of the good shops have
them for sale, and as I said money will never really be an issue. So use a
Stone whenever you want and don't worry about stuffing your mages' inventory
full of them. Make sure you always have a handful, and if you can't remember
where the last stash was, buy a few more.
3.5 MANAGING SAVE FILES [#305#]
Assuming you're working with the DOSBOX emulator, Dragon Wars keeps its data in
two files, DATA1 and DATA2. DATA2 is static data, but DATA1 is where your game
is saved. So you can back up your save game at any point by copying the DATA1
file to a different name. If you need to restore, quit the game first, then
copy a backup file on top of DATA1, and restart. You can use this trick to
have multiple parties, too.
It's a good idea to make a backup before you enter any new zone. I wound up
with two dozen or so backups called DATA1-slave-camp, DATA1-tars, and so on.
3.6 WEIRD THINGS [#306#]
Some random notes collected on my journies through Dilmun...
I mentioned this already under the Health and Stun section, but I find the
"target a slot, not a party member" thing to be very strange and also very
annoying. "Hey, you're not Thog!"
There's a big blank spot in the middle of the Purgatory map. You can come back
later in the game and use D:SOFTEN STONE to get into it, and you'll find an
open area with a couple of 1x1 rooms, but there's nothing interesting there.
If you're running around behind the walls of Purgatory, and you encounter some
King's Guard, and you run away, the game dumps you back at the start square.
Whenever you see a low wooden fence, you can cast D:SOFTEN STONE on it. It
removes the fence, but nothing else changes. (If you weren't able to move
through/past the fence before, you still can't.)
When you take the +5AP leap of faith in the Underworld, turn left. You can
walk all around the abyss, although the automap won't fill anything in while
you're there, and you can't get back onto dry(?) land anywhere else. Also, you
will still get random encounters.
Similarly, in the Dwarf Clan Hall, if you use D:SOFTEN STONE to get between the
Forge part and the Clan Hall part and then go wandering through the walls, you
can walk off the map as far as you like in any direction. The game will keep
track of where you are, but once you leave the 16x16 grid, the Automap fails to
fill squares in. Eventually you will wrap all the way around and find the
opposite wall, like Columbus trying to find India. My guess is that happens
at 256 steps but I didn't bother to count.
Game maps reset whenever you leave them... mostly. In particular this means
that any wall that you SOFTEN regenerates if you leave and come back, and most
"fixed" encounter points will reset as well. But I said "mostly"; certain
fixed encounters are "unique" and you only get to do them once (Humbaba,
Mystalvision, etc.) And once you plug in the leak (or repair the statue of
Lanac'toor) in Mud Toad, it stays plugged. Starting a new game, of course,
resets everything about the game state (but not about your characters; see
section 7).
Speaking of unique encounters that shouldn't reset, Dragon Wars *mostly* does a
good job maintaining continuity. But occasionally things happen that don't
make sense; events repeat themselves, dead people come back to life, etc.
There's only so much you can do with "global state" in games from this era,
after all. One example: if you win the battle in Kingshome, then go back to
Phoebus, Buck Ironhead is still there and you can still enlist in the army.
You're sent to the Siege Camp again, which is empty.
I should note, though, that this is also an example of how the developers wrote
in multiple solutions to everything, including the problem of navigating
between islands. You can "enlist" in Phoebus and get transported to King's as
many times as you want, so if you find yourself without Arcane Lore and don't
know about the Underworld, you can still get back and forth. The ferry between
Lansk and the Old Dock can get expensive, but also solves this problem.
There are a couple of "duplicated" items that aren't quite the same. The
Boomerang you pick up in Kingshome does much more damage than the one you find
early on a bridge (but Thrown Weapons still suck). Also the Kingshome Pole Arm
is in fact a better weapon than the standard Polearm. Apparently Namtar's
weaponsmiths invented a new model with a space in the middle. On the other
hand, the Large Shields you get in Freeport for 100gp (they normally cost 10x
that much) seem to be just as good as those you find elsewhere. And the
MagicAxe you find in the Byzanople Crypt seems to be the same as the Magic Axe
in Kingshome.
After you get Ugly's boat, the teleporter in the Necropolis at the end of the
spider hallway works differently depending on what kind of computer you're
using to play the game. On the PC, it teleports you back to your boat. On the
APPLE, it teleports you to somewhere in Dilmun and ghost-sails the boat back to
Smuggler's Cove.
The Dead Bolt does some serious damage (1d20), but it also has a very odd
feature: you can cast S:CHARGER on it to refill it as if it were a magic item.
It's the only quiver that this works on. I'm guessing that this is a bug and
not an intentional design decision.
In Lanac'toor's Lab, if you take the stairs back up to Mud Toad, the statue of
Lanac'toor is mysteriously broken again. As soon as you take any move
(including checking the automap or turning), the statue reforms.
You can exit the Magic College map to the N, even though it borders the water
on the Dilmun map. The game pretends you exited to the E, instead.
If you're on Forlorn and you enter Purgatory from the N, then immediately turn
around and leave, it drops you back in Dilmun 2E of where Purgatory actually
is.
If you're playing on a PC, the item beneath the statue on the Old Dock is a
PS/2. If you're playing on an APPLE it's a IIgs. It does the same thing
either way.
4 THINGS AND STUFF [#400#]
What good would an RPG be without stuff to collect? Dragon Wars strikes a
nice balance between needing to pick up a bunch of items for plot reasons,
having a few items that are completely useless and have no value, and some
stuff in between. There are a few negatives though, namely that it is
possible to collect and then throw away certain items that are essential
to particular plot lines and can never be recovered once discarded.
4.1 WEAPONS [#401#]
Asking a shop owner to (E)xamine a weapon will usually reveal its base
requirements (Strength, skills) and what type of weapon it is. Weapon type
relates to the weapon skill; if you have ranks in the skill, you get an AV
bonus when using a weapon of that type.
Prices listed are the purchase price; sale price is 50% of that. Some items
can't actually be purchased, so the purchase price listed here is simply 2x the
sale price, if selling the item is possible.
"Str" and "Dex" indicate the minimum values required to wield the weapon.
"AV" and "AC" show the modifiers to those scores when using the weapon.
Item............ Price Dmg Str AV AC Other
AXES
Small Pick 50 1d4 4
Pick 60 1d6 7
Hand Axe 60 1d6 5
Battle Axe 70 1d12 17 -1
War Axe 700 1d12 18 -3
Rusty Axe 2000 1d20 18 -3
Axe of Kalah 7000 1d12 18 +4 50' range (1d20 dmg)
Magic Axe 700 1d30 20 +1
Nature Axe -- 1d30 18 -6
FLAILS
Flail 40 1d6 10
War Flail 400 1d12 10
Bladed Flail 1000 1d12 10
Runed Flail 2000 1d20 14 +2 +1
Barbed Flail 2000 1d30 16 +2
Spiked Flail 3000 4d20 16 +2 +1
Item............ Price Dmg Str AV AC Other
SWORDS
Dagger 30 1d4 3 +1
Ruby Dagger 40 1d4 3 +3
Shortsword 50 1d6 8 +1
Broadsword 60 1d8 12 +1
Hook 60 1d8 10 +1
Firesword 900 1d12 17 +2 +1
Lance Sword 60 1d20 12 +1 30' range
The Slicer -- 1d30 17 +4 +2
Glow Sword 1d30 24 +1
Dragon Tooth 6000 2d20 12 +8 +2 60' range
Sword of Freedom -- 1d100 15 +15 +5 casts S:INFERNO if blessed
TWO-HANDED WEAPONS
Polearm 90 1d10 13 +1
Greatsword 80 1d12 17 +1
Magic Sword 80 1d12 17 +1
Grand Sword 5000 2d12 22 +1
Mountain Sword 2000 1d30 -- +3 +2 requires Mountain Lore 2
Holy Lance 9000 3d20 13 +4
Heavy Sword 8d10 25 -3
Dragon Sword 5000 4d20 21 +3
Item............ Price Dmg Str AV AC Other
MACES
Mace 40 1d8 10
Old Peg Leg 200 1d8 10 +1
Hammer 40 1d10 12
Long Mace 2000 1d20 15 +1 20' range
Holy Mace 4000 1d20 12 +2 +1 casts S:EXORCISM
Druid's Mace 2000 1d20 12 +2 +2 casts D:CURE ALL
Throw Mace 4000 2d12 18 +1 30' range (1d12 dmg)
Spiked Mace 2d20 18
Crush Mace 4000 4d10 15
Spell Staff 7000 1d8? 10 +5 +8 requires Low Magic 1
Item............ Price Dmg Str AV AC Other
Item............ Price Dmg Rng Dex AV Other
BOWS
Bow 60 20' 10
Long Bow 90 40' 14 +1
Great Bow 310* 50' 16 +2
Archer's Bow 900* 50' 18 +3
Magic Bow 60* 70' 10 +4
Gatlin Bow 60* 20' 10 Can fire x1, x3, or all
Crossbow 60 30' 12
Tri-Cross 600* 30' 15 +1 Can fire x1 or x3
AMMUNITION
Arrow 50 1d6
White Arrow 150 1d8
Silver Arrow 500 1d12
Grey Arrow 50 1d20
Magic Arrow 700 1d20
Magic Quiver 50 1d4 Auto-refills every round
Bolt 60 1d4
Long Bolt 200 1d4 +20'
Pierce Bolt 1200 1d6 +1
Mega Bolt 600 1d20
Dead Bolt 100 1d20 Refill with S:CHARGER
Item............ Price Dmg Rng Dex AV Other
THROWN WEAPONS
Javelin 40 1d6 30' 12
Spear 1d8 40' 12
Holy Spear 40 ? ? 14
Bomb 200 ? 10' --
Fire Spear 400 1d12 50' 14
Boomerang (brdg.) 700 1d12 50' 12 +2 -1 AC
Boomerang (Khom.) 2000 2d20 50' 14
Barbed Spear 4000 1d20 40' 16
Trident 4000 2d20 40' 15 returns to thrower
4.2 ARMOR [#402#]
Item........... Price AC AV Other
BODY ARMOR
Cloth Armor 25 +1 0
Pilgrim Garb 20 +1 0
Royal Robe 2000 +1 0
Mage Cloth 2500 +3 0 requires Low Magic 1; casts L:MAGE LIGHT
Leather Armor 50 +3 -1
Brigandine 80 +4 -1
Scale Arm. 250 +6 -2
Chain Arm. 310 +7 -3
Magic Chain 6000 +7 0
Plate Mail 3100 +10 -5
Magic Plate 50000 +10 -2
Heavy Plate 4000 +12 -6
Dragon Plate 3100 +14 -3
GLOVES
Gauntlets 700 +2 0
Silver Gloves 2000 +3 0
Item........... Price AC AV Other
SHIELDS
Shield 1000 +2 0 requires Str 10
Fire Shield 5000 +2 -2 requires Str 12
Large Shield 1000 +3 -2 requires Str 12
Magic Shield 10000 +4 0 requires Str 10
Dragon Shield 12000 +5 0 requires Str 10
HELMS
Helm 1000 +1 0
Gem Helm 2000 +2 0
Black Helm 3000 +3 0 casts M:ZAK'S SPEED
Dragon Helm 7000 +4 -1
BOOTS
Lucky Boots 2000 +1 0
Golden Boots -- +2 0
RINGS
The Ring 1250 +2 +2 casts H:CLOAK ARCANE
Mage Ring 2000 +1 +4 requires Low Magic 3
Magic Ring -- +1 +2
4.3 UNIQUE ITEMS [#403#]
Being a list of every item in the game I haven't already mentioned (and a few I
have), where to get it, and what to do with it.
Ankh:
* purchase at Mud Toad souvenir shop
* give to Lansk Undercity dragon
Battle Wand:
* get in Lanac'toor's Lab
* casts H:BATTLE POWER
* sells for $1500
Beast Horn:
* get at the statue of Enkidu in the Mystic Wood
* use at the statue to wrestle Enkidu
* casts D:BEAST CALL
* sells for $250
Blow Horn:
* get in the Phoebus Dungeon
* casts D:WHIRL WIND
Bones:
* get on Scorpion Bridge
* useless
Citizenship Papers:</pre><pre id="faqspan-2">
* get from Arena battle in Purgatory
* get from old wizard's house in the Slave Camp
* purchase in the Lansk Undercity
* use to cross the Forlorn Guard Bridge
Crown:
* get in Kingshome
* sell for ???
Dragon Gem:
* get from Lansk Undercity dragon
* give to Dragon Queen in Dragon Valley
* use to destroy Namtar's Army in Nisir
Dragon Horn:
* get in the Dwarf Clan Hall treasure rooms
* casts S:RAGE OF MITHRAS
* sells for $3000
Dragon Tears:
* get in Dragon Valley, southern cache
* sells for $2500
Driftwood:
* get in the Sunken Ruins (topside)
* useless
Enkidu Totem:
* get from the island shrine in the Mystic Wood
* use to cross the Scorpion Bridge
Flotsam:
* get in the Sunken Ruins (topside)
* useless
Golden Boots:
* get in Mud Toad after closing up the leak
* equip for +2 AC
* use to hop to Irkalla's island in the Underworld
* use to hop to the island in the Mystic Wood
* use to hop to the island in Freeport
* use to hop over the gap in Salvation
Governor's Pass:
* get by following the Lansk bureaucracy maze
* purchase in the Lansk Undercity Ministry of EZ Paperwork
* use to cross the War Bridge
Healing Potion:
* get in the Tars Underground
* get on the Lansk Guard Bridge
* get in the Dwarf Clan Hall treasure rooms
* use to cast S:HEAL on the target of your choice
* cast S:CHARGER to restore uses
Hook:
* get after killing Ugly and his crew
* useless
IBM PS/2 (or Apple IIGS):
* get from under the statue on the Old Dock (req. STR 23)
* equip for +4 AC
* use to cast S:GUIDANCE, infinite charges
* sells for $50
Ice Wand:
* find under the statue on the Old Dock
* casts H:ICE CHILL
* sells for $1000
Jade Eyes:
* get after killing Ugly and his crew
* use to open the entrance to the Dwarf Clan Hall
Jewels:
* get in the Snake Pit
* sells for $4000
Kings Ticket:
* purchase in the Lansk Undercity Ministry of EZ Paperwork
* use to board ferry to King's Isle in Lansk Undercity
Lanac'toor's Spectacles:
* get in Lanactoor's lab
* use to open the entrance to the Magic College
Laugh Staff:
* get in the Magic College as a reward for finishing the test
* very likely has no use or value
Luck Wand:
* get with the king's treasure in Snake Pit
* casts L:LUCK, has infinite charges
* sells for $1000
Mage Ring:
* get in the Kingshome Dungeon
* equip for +1 AV and +4 AC (requires Low Magic 3)
* sells for $1000
Magic Lamp:
* get in Mog's Slave Estate
* casts a *permanent* L:MAGE LIGHT
* can't be sold
Magic Ring:
* get in the Phoebus Dungeon
* equip for +1 AV and +2 AC
* can't be sold
Mirror:
* get in several places in the Slave Estate
* use to avoid fighting the Gaze Demon in the Slave Estate
Mushrooms:
* get in the Mystic Wood
* give to Nergal in the Necropolis
Old Peg Leg:
* get after killing Ugly and his crew
* terrible weapon, sells for $100
Parrot:
* get after killing Ugly and his crew
* useless
Rare Books:
* get in Kingshome art closet
* sell for $1000
Royal Robe:
* get in Kingshome art closet
* equip for +1 AC
* sell for $1000
Shovel:
* get in the Phoebus Dungeon
* use in the Phoebus Dungeon to dig through the cave-in
Signet Ring:
* get in the Snake Pit
* use to board the ferry in Snake Pit
* use to enter Kingshome
Silver Key:
* get from Nergal in the Necropolis
* give to Irkalla
Sing Ring:
* get in the Magic College as a reward for finishing the test
* very likely has no use or value
Skull of Roba:
* get in the Sunken Ruins after the clam opens
* use in the Dwarf Forge
Soul Bowl:
* get in the Magic College as a reward for finishing the test
* use on Zaton's grave site in the Mystic Wood
Speed Wand:
* get in the Underworld from the cache near the Mystic Wood stairs
* casts M:ZAK'S SPEED
* sells for $1000
Stone Arms:
* get in the Tars Underground
* use on the statue in Mud Toad
Stone Head:
* get in the Snake Pit
* use on the statue in Mud Toad
Stone Legs:
* get in Freeport
* use on the statue in Mud Toad
Stone Trunk:
* get in the Necropolis
* use on the statue in Mud Toad
Sword of Freedom:
* get on Irkalla's island in the Underworld
* use on the statue of the Universal God on Salvation
The Ring:
* get in the Mystic Wood by Swimming in the pond
* equip for +2 AV and +2 AC
* use to cast H:CLOAK ARCANE
* sell for $1250
Wand:
* get in the Mystic Wood from some Water Spirits
* use to cast S:MAJOR HEALING
* sells for $200
Water Potion:
* get from Irkalla
* use to enter the Sunken Ruins
4.4 SHOPS
There are a handful of cities throughout Dilmun that have stores where you can
buy, and more importantly sell, various items. They're listed here roughly in
game order. Learn the locations of these shops early, because you'll use them
frequently, and some are more convenient than others.
Most shops specialize in what goods they sell, but note that you can sell
anything (with value) to any shop regardless. Prices listed are the purchase
price; items sell for 50% of their purchase price. Most items have consistent
pricing, with a couple of very notable exceptions (larger packs of Bolts in Mud
Toad, Large Shields in Freeport).
As a side note, Dragon Stones are often sold under "Armor".
* PURGATORY: Black Market
Weapons
60 Hand Axe
50 Small Pick
60 Pick
70 Battle Axe
40 Flail
40 Mace
30 Dagger
50 Shortsword
60 Broadsword
80 Greatsword
Bows
60 Bow
90 Longbow
60 Crossbow
50 Arrow (#20)
60 Bolts (#20)
40 Javelin
Armor
25 Cloth Armor
50 Leather Armor
80 Brigandine
250 Scale Armor
250 Dragon Stone
* PURGATORY: Magic Shoppe
-- L:MAGE FIRE
-- L:DISARM
-- L:CHARM
-- L:LUCK
-- L:LESSER HEAL
-- L:MAGE LIGHT
* LANSK UNDERCITY: Doctor Death's Killing and Maiming Emporium
60 Broadsword
80 Greatsword
60 Bow
90 Longbow
60 Crossbow
50 Arrow (#20)
60 Bolt (#20)
40 Javelin
* LANSK UNDERCITY: Exeter's Fine Shields and Armors
20 Cloth Armor
50 Leather Armor
80 Brigandine
250 Scale Armor
310 Chain Armor
3100 Plate Armor
1000 Shield
1000 Large Shield
* LANSK UNDERCITY: Ministry of EZ Paperwork
200 Governor's Pass
50 Kings Ticket
100 Citizenship Papers
* LANSK UNDERCITY: Illegal Magic Shoppe
100 D:CREATE WALL
100 D:WOOD SPIRIT
100 D:CURE ALL
250 Dragon Stone
* MUD TOAD: Souvenir Shop
10 Lantern
50 Ankh
250 Dragon Stone
70 Shortsword
80 Broadsword
100 Greatsword
80 Bow
60 Bolt (#30)
50 Arrow (#20)
* BYZANOPLE SIEGE CAMP: Black Market
Weapons
1000 Bladed Flail
70 Mace
30 Dagger
50 Shortsword
60 Broadsword
90 Polearm
Bows
60 Bow
90 Longbow
60 Crossbow
50 Arrow (#20)
60 Bolt (#20)
Armor
310 Chain Armor
1000 Shield
1000 Large Shield
* BYZANOPLE: Bart's Weaponsmithing
Swords
500 War Flail
1000 Bladed Flail
50 Mace
30 Dagger
50 Shortsword
60 Broadsword
90 Polearm
2000 Long Mace
Bows
60 Bow
90 Longbow
60 Crossbow
50 Arrow (#20)
60 Bolt (#20)
40 Javelin
4000 Barbed Spear
* BYZANOPLE: Marik's Armory
250 Scale Armor
310 Chain Armor
3100 Plate Armor
1000 Large Shield
250 Dragon Stone
* FREEPORT: Ryan's Armor
250 Scale Armor
310 Chain Armor
4000 Heavy Plate
100 Large Shield
* FREEPORT: Freeport Arms
1000 Bladed Flail
40 Hammer
200 Long Mace
* FREEPORT: Bewitching Potions and Elixers
250 Dragon Stone
* FREEPORT: Magic Inc.
1000 H:DAZZLE
1000 H:MYSTIC MIGHT
1000 H:REV. GLAMOUR
1000 H:SALA'S SWIFT
1000 H:VORN'S GUARD
1000 H:COWARDICE
1000 D:SOFTEN STONE
5 MAGIC [#500#]
Throughout this document, when I refer to spells, I'll prefix it with the
school of magic (L:ow, H:igh, S:un, D:ruid, M:iscellaneous). That should make
it easier for you to remember who's got what spell, unless you decided two Sun
Magicians was a good idea.
Spells are roughly sorted into five categories, though not every school has
spells in every category.
1) spells that heal or buff the party
2) "zap" spells that damage one or more enemies
3) miscellaneous spells that affect your enemies
4) other miscellaneous spells
5) useless crap (aka summoning spells)
This is close to but not quite the same as the game's distinction between
"Combat", "Heal", and "Misc" categories.
Key: Numbers in brackets are the Power cost (*:variable), number of targets
(1:one, +:group, *:all), and range if applicable. "Efficiency" for zap and
healing spells is listed in max damage divided by power cost.
Note that if a spell has variable Power cost, you can choose how many points to
spend on it. The maximum you can spend is twice the number of ranks you have
in the appropriate skill. 3 ranks gives a range of 1-6 Power points per cast,
which is plenty.
I've also listed where spells can be found (either on scrolls or when otherwise
granted to you by the game), to give you an idea of when you'll pick something
up (or in case you're a completist and want to say that your mage has ALL TEH
SPELLS).
5.1 LOW MAGIC [#501#]
All Low spells can be found for free in the Purgatory magic shoppe. Nowhere
else matters, because if you ever need them again (say, after giving Low Magic
to your fighters later in life), Purgatory is never really all that far away.
However, you'll also find them scattered about on scrolls, mostly on Forlorn
but sometimes elsewhere.
[3,1] CHARM heal 1-2; +1 AV for duration of battle
[2,1] LESSER HEAL heal 1-4 {eff:2}
[3,1] LUCK +2 DV for battle
[2,1,30'] MAGE FIRE zap 1-8 {eff:4}
Useful for: a "missile weapon" for your front-line PCs
[4,1,30'] DISARM
Useful for: fending off Ugly's crew, see section 6.25
[*] MAGE LIGHT 3hr/pt
5.2 HIGH MAGIC [#502#]
[3,1] HEALING heal 1-6 {eff:2}
Found: Slave Camp
[6,*] GROUP HEAL heal 1-6 {eff:1}
Found: Magic College
[4,1] MYSTIC MIGHT +15 STR for battle
Found: Freeport (Magic Inc), Dwarf Clan Hall
[8,1] SALA'S SWIFT +8 DEX for battle
Suggested alternative: M:ZAK'S SPEED or a Black Helm
Found: Freeport (Magic Inc), Dragon Valley
[6,*] VORN'S GUARD +2 AC for battle
Found: Freeport (Magic Inc), Dragon Valley
[*,*] CLOAK ARCANE +2 AC, 1hr/pt
Found: Slave Camp
[*,1,30'] FIRE LIGHT zap 1-6/pt {eff:6}
Useful for: good variable-power zap-one spell
Found: Slave Camp, Tars Underground, Necropolis, Magic College
[*,1,50'] ICE CHILL zap 1-4/pt {eff:4}
Useful for: 50' range
Found: Lansk Guard Bridge, Magic College
[6,+,30'] ELVAR'S FIRE zap 2-12 {eff:2}
Useful for: Poog's Vortex is better unless you need the range
Found: Tars Ruins, Magic College
[11,+,20'] POOG'S VORTEX zap 4-24 {eff:2.18}
Useful for: zap-group
Found: Phoebus, Magic College
[15,*,30'] BIG CHILL zap 4-24 {eff:1.6}
Useful for: zap-all
Found: Necropolis, Byzanople Underground, Magic College
[2,+,40'] REVEAL GLAMOUR dispell illusion
Useful for: the Magic College test
Found: Mud Toad (militia), Freeport (Magic Inc)
[*] SENSE TRAPS skip over any traps for 2hr/pt
Useful for: getting to the Tars Underground, getting a chest on a bridge
Found: Slave Camp
[3,1,30'] DAZZLE enemy misses next turn, sometimes
Found: Byzanople Underground, Freeport (Magic Inc), Magic College
[8,+,60'] COWARDICE group runs away, sometimes
Found: Freeport (Magic Inc), Dragon Valley
[*] AIR SUMMON nearly useless
Useful for: one route through the Nisir
Found: Tars Ruins, Sunken Ruins
[*] WATER SUMMON useless
Found: Mud Toad (militia), Sunken Ruins
[*] EARTH SUMMON useless
Found: Sunken Ruins, Pilgrim Dock
[*] FIRE SUMMON useless
Found: Magic College
5.3 SUN MAGIC [#503#]
[3,1] SUN LIGHT heal 1-6 {eff:2}
Found: Forlorn Guard Bridge
[4,1] HEAL heal 2-8 {eff:2}
Found: Never, but Valar comes with it
[6,*] MAJOR HEAL[ING] heal 1-6 {eff:1}
Found: Phoebus Dungeon (Mystalvision), Mud Toad (Berengeria)
[5,*] HOLY AIM +2 AV for battle
Found: Phoebus Dungeon (Mystalvision), Mud Toad (Berengeria)
[8,*] BATTLE POWER +10 STR for battle
Found: Game Preserve (Bandits)
[5,*] MITHRAS' BLESS +3 DV for battle
Found: Phoebus
[6,1] ARMOR OF LIGHT +2 AC for battle
Found: Valar, Phoebus Dungeon (Mystalvision), Mud Toad (Berengeria)
[*,1,20'] SUN STROKE zap 1-8/pt {eff:8}
Useful for: best variable-power zap-one spell
Found: Valar, Slave Camp, Tars Underground, Phoebus
[*,1,70'] RAGE OF MITHRAS zap 1-6/pt {eff:6}
Useful for: 70' range(!)
Found: Mud Toad (Berengeria)
[5,1,50'] EXORCISM zap 6-36, undead only {eff:7.2}
N.B.: The manual says this affects a group, but it LIES.
Found: Tars Ruins
[*,*,40'] INFERNO zap 1-4/pt {eff:4}
Useful for: EVERYTHING, once you have it
Found: Necropolis
[*,+,90'] WRATH OF MITHRAS zap 1-4/pt
Found: Never, but monsters will use it against you!
[20,*,60'] FIRE STORM zap 6-36 {eff:1.8}
Found: Lanac'toor's Laboratory
[8] CHARGER recharge magic item
Found: Freeport (Order of the Sword)
[*] DISARM TRAP 2hr/pt
Useful for: the Magic College test
Found: Phoebus Dungeon (Mystalvision), Lansk Guard Bridge
[*] GUIDANCE magic compass, lasts 3hr/pt
Found: Tars Ruins
[*] RADIANCE 2hr/pt, 40' range
Suggested Alternative: L:MAGE LIGHT
Found: Valar, Lansk Guard Bridge
[5,+,40'] FIRE COLUMN prevents group from advancing; useless
Found: Game Preserve (Bandits)
NOTE: appears in the spell list as COLUMN OF FIRE
[*] SUMMON SALAMANDER useless
Found: Mud Toad (Berengeria)
5.4 DRUID MAGIC [#504#]
[4,1] GREATER HEALING heal 1-6 {eff:1.5}
Suggested Alternative: L:LESSER HEAL; this isn't very efficient
Found: Slave Camp, Mystic Wood (Enkidu, Zaton)
[6,*] CURE ALL heal 1-8 {eff:1.3}
Useful for: best group-heal spell
Found: Lansk Undercity, Mystic Wood (Zaton)
[4,*] SCARE +2 AV for combat
Found: Slave Camp, Mystic Wood (chest, Enkidu), Necropolis
[6,1,40'] DEATH CURSE zap 3-18 {eff:3}
Useful for: good zap-one, but fixed-power
Found: Tars Underground, Mystic Wood (chest, Enkidu), Phoebus
[12,+,30'] FIRE BLAST zap 4-24 {eff:2}
Useful for: good zap-group, acquired early
Found: Mystic Wood (chest, Enkidu)
[4,*,60'] INSECT PLAGUE -2 AV, -2 DV for combat
Found: Mystic Wood (chest, Enkidu), Necropolis
[4,*,40'] WHIRL WIND push a group back 30', sometimes
Found: Mystic Wood (Enkidu)
[5,*,60'] BRAMBLES enemy misses next turn, sometimes
Found: Mystic Wood (Zaton)
[5] CREATE WALL
Useful for: repairing the Mud God's temple wall
Found: Phoebus, Lansk Undercity, Mystic Wood (Zaton)
[6] SOFTEN STONE
Useful for: getting around dungeons
Found: Freeport (Magic Inc, Order of the Sword)
[*] BEAST CALL useless
Found: Mystic Wood (Enkidu, Zaton), Snake Pit (crazy old druid)
[*] WOOD SPIRIT useless
Found: Mystic Wood (Zaton), Phoebus Dungeon (Mystalvision),
Lansk Undercity
[*] INVOKE SPIRIT useless
Found: Mystic Wood (Zaton)
5.5 MISCELLANEOUS MAGIC [#505#]
[10,*] ZAK'S SPEED +15 DEX for combat
Found: Lanac'toor's Laboratory
[15,1,50'] KILL RAY zap 10-80 {eff:5.3}
Found: Lanac'toor's Laboratory
6. WALKTHROUGH [#600#]
Instead of just breezing through the game as quickly as possible, I've written
this walkthrough with the intent of *mostly* sticking to what feels like the
most natural progression of the story (to me) and hitting just about everything
there is to do in the game. Of course, Dragon Wars is a non-linear RPG, so
there are lots of places where you can divert from this path or skip entire
sections and still win the game.
Where I've chosen a slightly odd path, I've inserted a 'GAME NOTE' into the
walkthrough to explain what we're doing. You're definitely taking advantage of
foreknowledge of the game in these cases. Of course, you're always free to
play the game in whatever order you want, and just use my help in whatever city
you happen to find yourself in.
I've included a "Speed Run" in section 7, so if you have high-level characters
already and just want to get through the game as fast as possible, check that
out.
6.0 MAGAN UNDERWORLD HIGHLIGHTS [#6MU#]
The Magan Underworld is a large uber-map that lies 'under' Dilmun. You don't
start the game here, but it comes into play a lot; there are lots of connection
points between the Underworld and "topside". It's possible to use these points
to get around pretty quickly and heavily circumvent the story arc. You're only
"required" to come to the Underworld a few times for the story, and by the time
that happens, you should be pretty well-equipped to handle the beasts you'll
find down there. If you stray down there too early in the game, well, don't
say I didn't warn you...
Things to do in the Underworld:
1. From the Purgatory stairs, go 1E and N to the wall. Walk around to the WN
and inside the building there are stairs to the LANSK UNDERGROUND.
2. From the Lansk building, go W. In the little penninsula there's a pool that
will restore 100% of your party's Power.
3. From the Purgatory stairs, go 2W then S. Walk through the fire (ow) and
find the locked chest with The Slicer (1d30/+4AV/+2AC) in it. 1W 3S from the
chest, there are stairs up to the DWARF CLAN HALL forge. 5N 1E from the chest,
there's a cavern that gives some exposition to your quest (p127).
4. From the Lansk building, go E. Hug the chasm wall and you'll come to a
door. So long as you've sacrificed something to Irkalla at one of her statues
topside, you'll be allowed through. Go 2W and N from there, then take a leap
of faith N. Everyone in the party gets 5 AP, but you can only do this once per
game. (Of course, you can start a new game with the same characters and do it
again, but that would be cheating.)
5. From the Purgatory stairs, go 6E (you actually have to walk around a pool to
do this) to the stairs up to the TARS RUINS UNDERGROUND.
6. From the Purgatory stairs, go 2N and then walk in either direction until you
hit the stairs for the MYSTIC WOOD. Most often, you'll be going back and forth
from this stair to the recharge pool. From the Wood to the Pool, go N until
you hit the wall, then W until you hit the shoreline, then N to the pool. From
the Pool to the Wood, go S to the shoreline. Go E until there's a stone wall
to your left and you step on a bush, then turn S and walk until you hit the
stairs to the Wood.
7. From the Tars Ruins stairs, go S for a long time and 1E to find SALVATION.
Bandage after the fairies take their toll of life. This is also where you need
to bring Namtar's body during the ENDGAME.
8. From the Mystic Wood stairs, go 4S 4W for a locked chest: 10 Dragon Stones,
the Rusty Axe (1d20/-3AV), some Bombs (ignore thrown weapons), and a Speed Wand
(casts M:ZAK'S SPEED, which is super-useful). Careful, there is likely to be a
significant battle with Underworld denizens here.
6.1 PURGATORY [#601#]
To start the game off, you're dropped unceremoniously into Purgatory, the
nastiest slum you'll ever have the displeasure to visit. First order of
business is to get the heck out of here... then see about this Namtar chap.
Let's find some additional muscle. Turn E, walk through the gap in the wall,
then walk N and look W to find the Purgatory bar. You'll know you've found it
when a bunch of drunks jump you. Fight them off and you should be level 2
already.
The barkeep will tell you about the secret door out of here in the SW tower, as
well as the one in the NW corner that gets you into the wall. He also hints at
the swimming route, and the fact that you should pay your respects to Irkalla
before trying to enter her Realm in the Underworld. All of these things are
true, but what we're really interested in is picking up our first volunteer,
Ulrik. Reorder your party immediately (put Ulrik in front of your mages).
Then go S, W, N to the arena. Drop all of Ulrik's stuff, then go in (p4).
The master of the arena will happily give you whatever equipment you want, so
long as the total number of full inventory slots in your party is less than 15.
But Leather Armor isn't all that great. Fortunately, the Black Market is right
around the corner and they'll be happy to sell you some Scale Armor for 250gp
each. Now how are we going to get some things to sell...?
Get 15 Battle Axes from the arena. Go N until the combat with the Gladiators
starts, then run away. You'll lose all your gold, but keep your equipment.
Now you can go 4W 2N 1W 1N 2W 1N to the Black Market and sell the axes for 15 x
35gp = 525gp, which is just enough to buy two Scale Armors (+6AC/-2AV).
Go back to the arena and do the whole thing again: you'll only have enough cash
to buy one more suit of Scale. Do that twice more until everyone in the party
has Scale. AC6 is quite good for this early in the game. Go back to the
arena one more time and get real weapons: a Battle Axe (1d12/-1AV) for Ulrik,
Broadswords (1d8/+1AV) for the other three frontliners, and a Bow and some
Arrows (1d6) for your high-DEX mage. (Remember it only works at 20', but at
least you can attack from the back row.) Then fill up on Battle Axes to sell
one more time.
You can come back and beat up the arena gladiators any time you want; you get
some nice XP and a set of Citizenship Papers out of the deal, which you don't
need (there's another set in the Slave Camp and they're not necessary anyway).
Now let's get some magic for our magic users (i.e. everybody but Ulrik). From
the Black Market go S to the main road, then W and kill some Jail Keepers.
This will take a while, but they won't be able to damage you too much. Go S,
skip over the Slave Market (p67), go to the statue of Namtar (p9), then turn W
and head straight into the Low Magic shop (p10). Ironic, that. Get scrolls
for everybody and learn the spells. You're now pretty fearsome, as Purgatory
goes. Get one extra scroll -- it makes a great sacrifice.
Speaking of sacrifices, let's go visit Irkalla. Due S of the Low Magic Shop
there's a wall. Follow it with the right-hand-rule and you'll find a door.
Tucked into the larger space beyond that first room is a statue (p3) of Our
Lady of the Underworld, Irkalla. Sacrifice a Low Magic scroll to her. If she
is "silent", go get another one and try again with someone else. If she is
"pleased", you're in good shape. 1S 1W of her statue are the Apsu Waters,
which will take you into the Magan Underworld for the first time.
Check out 6.0 for more on the Underworld, but first a note: if you get into a
random encounter down there, RUN. Good things to find on this trip are the
Recharge Pool (6.0.2), the Slicer (6.0.3), and the chest with the Rusty Axe
(6.0.8). That's a major melee upgrade. Don't get scared by the -3AV on the
Axe, Ulrik's got 3 ranks in Axe which will cancel it out. Also check out
Exposition Cavern near where you pick up the Slicer, then hightail it back to
Purgatory.
One thing to note is that leaving a map and re-entering it resets the fixed
encounters... which is most of the fights you run into in Purgatory. But hey,
at this point you should mostly be cruising, so it's pretty much just free XP.
One-offs like the Arena and the Humbaba don't reset though.
Work your way around Purgatory anti-clockwise, filling in your map. In the SW
quadrant of the map you'll run into the self-proclaimed King of Purgatory,
Clopin Trouillefou (p77). DO NOT claim to be a beggar. He will give you a
quest to defeat the Humbaba, then dump you back on your starting square.
Unfortunately you have to do this every time you step on his square (until you
actually beat the Humbaba). Fortunately there's nothing else of interest in
this quadrant, so you should feel free to skip it.
In the S-central part of the map (either S-then-E from Clopin's court, or from
the starting square, go 3W, S, then E) there's a pool that will recharge your
Power. This is a good location to remember.
Keep working around Purgatory anti-clockwise. Find, but don't take on, the big
guard battle to the S of your starting location. Find the morgue in the SE.
Ignore the healer in the NE. Fight off the Humbaba in the NE (restore magic
first) for 200xp, then go back to see Clopin again for 1000gp. You'll never
need for money again. At this point you should be level 5 or so and ready to
move on out of here.
WAYS OUT OF PURGATORY: (roughly in order from easy to hard)
1. Find the morgue (p5) in the E-then-S corner. (U)se Dexterity or Hiding
(p69) and you wind up in Dilmun just SE of the Slave Camp, minus some health,
but standing next to a pool that will refresh your magic and health. This is
your best bet if you don't have the Bureaucracy skill, so entering the Slave
Camp is easier.
2. Find the pool in the NW corner. Turn W and kick forward twice; a secret
door takes you through the wall. Go S to the SW corner and find another secret
door to exit. The Slave Camp is just SW of Purgatory.
3. Travel through the Magan Underworld and surface somewhere else. This is
really easy to do in theory, but if you aren't strong enough for the Gladiators
or the door Guards, you're probably not ready for much else in Dilmun, either.
4. Sell yourself in the Slave Market (p58). The Slave Mines are annoying but
not difficult (see section 6.1.1).
5. Beat the guards S of where you came in. Walk S then W to get to the SW
corner of the Purgatory Wall and use the secret door to escape (same as 2).
6. Beat the guards, then go E and find a corner with some text. (U)se Ulrik's
Swim skill and you jump into the water. Turn S and start swimming. Anyone
without Swim will take damage at each step, but rotating in place is free --
and so is (U)sing the Bandage skill! Who needs Swim? This drops you in the
same place as (1).
6.1.1 SLAVE MINES (Not recommended)
If you decide to sell yourself at the Purgatory Slave Market, you wake up in
the Mines shackled in chains and missing all your equipment and gold. See, I
told you this was a bad idea. Chains drop your AV to -10, so if you do get
into a fight, your only shot is to use magic. Thank god we don't care about
somatic components in this game. Feel free to explore randomly if you want;
there are only a couple of encounters and they're all mostly beatable with
L:MAGE FIRE, although Guards can be kind of tough. The map wraps around, so
the Automap can be hard to use sometimes.
Forgive the practical nature of this section. There's not a whole lot of story
to be found down here -- Mog treats his slaves pretty badly, and right now
that's all you have going for you. Generally speaking, the 'solution' to this
dungeon is to break your chains, find your stuff, beat up the guards, and get
out of here. That's a multi-part puzzle, though.
1. From your cell, go 1S and W until you hit a T intersection. Turn N and
follow the hallway until you hit a large room. Go 3N 3W and N through the
door. In that room you'll find a Battered Cup.
2. Exit that room, then go 1E 5N 1E 2S 2E. In that room is an old pick Handle.
3. Backtrack to the hallway, then go all the way E until you hit a door. Go
through it; the room smells very bad. In the N corner of this room, your
equipment has been tossed into a trash pile, but you can't get it while you're
wearing these chains. Go through the S door instead, then go S again. In the
S corner of this room is a trickling spring. (U)se the cup to collect some
water. Exit through the W door.
4. Backtrack by going N and then W. Pass the door into (2) and turn N at the
next intersection. The open room is what passes for slave quarters (p60). In
the NW corner is a dying man in need of a drink. (U)se the cup again (p61),
and when he dies, take his boot Laces.
5. Go S until you hit a wall, then W, then S, etc. until you find a 3x3 room.
In the middle of it is a pile of Rocks (and some Dragon Stones).
6. (U)se any of the three miscellaneous items (but not the Cup) to fashion a
Crude Hammer (p49). (U)se the Hammer to break your chains. Return to room (3)
and get your equipment. This is the most annoying part, because you have to
redistribute all your stuff back to your party members. Note that you have
lost all your gold, which probably wasn't much to begin with anyway.
The exit is just S of room (1). Before you go there, wrap around to the S wall
and explore until you find a hidden door to the N with a secret chest. (When
you find the fight with some guards, you're in the right place.) The Magic
Sword is an upgrade over the Polearm and the Gauntlets are your first piece of
miscellaneous armor, but there's nothing here that's really compelling. The
Pierce Bolts are expensive, at least.
You'll need to fight off some guards to get out (p62). Stairs take you up into
the shack in the NW corner of the Slave Estate; I recommend heading for the W
edge of the map and exiting to the S as quickly as possible. Purgatory is SW
of the Slave Estate, and the Slave Camp is SW of Purgatory.
6.2 THE PURGATORY DAY SPA AND SALON (Slave Camp) [#602#]
There are two ways into to the Slave Camp. If you chose Purgatory Exit #1 or
#6, you're entering the Slave Camp from the S, and everything's fine (p16).
Otherwise, you're entering from the N or the W, and the people in the camp
won't trust you. DON'T MOVE, just (U)se your Bureaucracy skill. If you screw
up, the camp residents flee, including Louie.
Speaking of Louie, head to the SE corner of the map and pick him up. Go N from
that building until you hear moans of pain; (U)se Bandage or (C)ast a healing
spell on him and he'll tell you (p19) about the secret door in Purgatory, if
you didn't already know about it. When he dies you pick up two scrolls,
D:GREATER HEAL (which is basicallly useless and you can sell it) and S:SUN
STROKE (which is useless unless you already have a second Sun Magician).
Follow the wall of that building N, go into the trees, and find the indentation
in the back of the building. Your lockpick can open it. Chain Armor
(+7AC/-3AV) is an upgrade over Scale, so trade a suit of Scale to Louie.
H:HEALING is just okay, and you might never use H:SENSE TRAPS, but H:CLOAK
ARCANE and D:SCARE are nice buff spells.
Wandering back around to the S wall of this building, someone will peer at you
through a door. The old wizard won't let you in unless you impress him, so try
(U)sing any of the Magic skills. He lets you at his cache of items, most of
which aren't useful. If you already have Citizenship Papers from the Purgatory
Arena you don't need another set. H:FIRE LIGHT is great, has variable power,
and a 30' range. The War Axe (1d12/-3AV) is worth 350gp but in all other
respects is worse than a Battle Axe. The War Flail (1d12), Hammer (1d10,
Maces), and Polearm (1d10/+1AV, Two-handers) are all upgrades over a
Broadsword. The Ruby Dagger (1d4/+3AV) can go to your mage, who will make use
of the AV bump when attacking with spells. Everything you don't use can be
sold.
Explore the rest of the Slave Camp. To the W there's a building with a blind
man singing (p68). To the N and slightly E there are some guys gambling who
will update you on current events (p88). In the NW corner you can visit the
universal shrine and learn a bit more about Irkalla (p22). On the E road that
runs N-S, there's a campfire where you can have a hot meal (p63) and have your
wounds healed. It's sort of like the YMCA.
That's about it for the Slave Camp. If you didn't come in that way, exit to
the S and go find the health/magic regen pool at the end of the land. Then go
back to Purgatory; the front gate is just NE of the Slave Camp.
6.3 ROUNDING OUT THE PARTY (Phoebus) [#603#]
GAME NOTE: You're not really supposed to hit Phoebus for the first time for
another couple of sections. But if we go pick up the next member of the party
now, you'll have more chance to level him up during the next couple of big
fights and he'll be closer in overall XP to the rest of your party.
Head back into Purgatory. Take the secret door in the SW corner and fight off
your friends the door guards. If you haven't beaten the Arena yet, do so to
give Louie some experience. Head up to the Black Market and sell off a bunch
of stuff you don't need. Then go to the Apsu Waters and hit the Underworld.
Remember to run from any fight you get into, unless you've got good save files.
Find the Mystic Wood (see 6.0.6) and read (p70). You're just visiting on the
way to Phoebus, though, so go N to exit to Dilmun. Phoebus is 3E 4N, but
you'll hit a bunch of Goblins arguing about their brothers (who you haven't
killed, because you went around them by going through the Underworld. Oddly,
this combat doesn't regenerate after you kill them, but their "brothers" do).
Now you can enter Phoebus (p26, p25). Go 9N 6E 5N and find the Icarian Triumph
Tavern. Valar is inside. The barkeep knows that some statues can be moved
(huh!), that the scorpion people like the nature god Enkidu, that there's a
trap in Freeport to be wary of, and that the Lansk dragon has a secret.
Retrace your steps back to the Mystic Wood, find the well in the NW corner, and
(U)se Climb to get back down to the Underworld.
Before you go back up to Purgatory and continue with the game in the order it's
supposed to be played, this is a good time to visit Irkalla's Realm for the 5
AP bonus (see 6.0.4). Give Low Magic to anybody who didn't have it. This is a
good time to bump your spellcasters up to 3 ranks in their higher Magic. Once
you've done that, go up to Purgatory and get Low Magic spells for anybody who
didn't have it already. (You can probably even take on some of the Underworld
denziens at this point, so long as there aren't more than 1 or 2 of them.)
6.4 NICE ISLAND YA GOT HERE... (Isle of Forlorn, Slave Estate) [#604#]
Exit Purgatory through the secret door. If you need to, recharge at the pool
SE of the Slave Camp. Then walk to the eastern half of Forlorn. Ignore the
bridge for now. The Slave Estate is on the N side of the island, but before
you do that, check out the arms cache hidden in the rocks 3W 1S of Purgatory
(4S 1W of the Slave Estate). There's not much here that's useful except your
third suit of Chain Armor. Don't even bother picking up the Low Magic scrolls.
Inside the Slave Estate, walk along the wall to the E until you see the sign
about the statue garden, then N along the water. Gosh these statues are
awfully lifelike aren't they! I keep expecting one to speak to me. When you
get to the NE of the building, go in the door there. In the center of the 3x3
room there's a treasure cache with your second Ruby Dagger for your mages.
(Remember that AV helps with targeting spells as well as physical attacks.)
Go through the door to the S (p105). Go W, fight off some Goblins, and keep
going until you find a spot where the floorboards creak. (U)se Strength to
break through and find a hidden, locked chest. The Magic Lamp will cast a
permanent(!) L:MAGE LIGHT for you, and you can't sell it. The armor's all
worth a few points of AC and none of it carries an AV penalty, so distribute it
at will -- note that you CAN equip a Shield and a Two-hander at the same time.
Go W through the secret door in the wall and fight off a nasty snake for a
little bit more loot. Make sure to pick up a mirror from the stash in the SW;
you'll need it in a minute.
Go back to the room with p105 and go S again. The dining room is long
forgotten. Head W into the indoor statue garden. Man, these statues (p117)
get weirder and weirder, don't they? And who's this rich dude? It's an odd
statue if it's supposed to be the owner of this estate. Go W again (p1). Huh.
So if these were carved, then who -- oops, found some more goblins.
Let's continue in the same direction we've been going; go E back through the
garden, then S again. That's odd, what's with all the smashed mirrors? Good
thing I picked up a whole one a little while ago, eh? Head W down the hallway
again -- dammit, more goblins! These guys hurt a little, but they're worth
good XP, too. There's a journal (p99) in the NE corner of this room. Ah ha,
now it's starting to come together: those bad statues are Mog's, the good ones
are the assistant's... and that statue of a rich guy in the sculpture garden is
starting to make a little more sense.
Might as well track this thing down, if it's still here. Head W again.
Wait... if there are mirrors right here, then why did I have to pick one up
from the secret room? I... well... I guess the game designers are being nice.
I WONDER IF I NEED TO USE IT WHEN I FACE THE THING IN THE NEXT ROOM?
(p103) ...really? "The Master is in"?
You have two choices here. If you step into the NW corner, the Gaze Demon will
shatter your mirrors and you'll have to fight him. Your best bet here is to
close to melee as fast as possible to avoid too many breath attacks, then hit
him with magic. If you have a high enough DEX he should only get you once with
the breath weapon. (Don't try to take him out from 30' -- S:SUN STROKE doesnt
reach that far!) Go ahead and burn 6pt spells on him, you'll need to do around
100hp to kill him and his DV is really high so your fighters are likely to miss
a lot.
The easy way out is to stay 1 square away out of combat and (U)se the mirror.
Lots of exclamation points!!! and a new statue for your trouble. Either way,
you're done here. Go refresh at the Slave Camp Swimming Pool. Might not hurt
to sell some stuff off at the Purgatory Black Market too.
6.5 ...SHAME IF ANYTHING "HAPPENED" TO IT (Tars Ruins) [#605#]
The ruins of Tars are in the W part of Forlorn. Wow, this place is in trouble.
Wow, your mage with Arcane Lore actually used it for something!
If you run into Spitting Lizards, run and try again. The encounter will
regenerate with different monsters. If you run into groups of Spiders, use
H:ELVAR'S FIRE to take them out. "But I don't HAVE Elvar's Fire!" I hear you
cry. Well, let's fix that.
Start out by heading S along the W edge of the map. In the SW corner you'll
hit a random fight, then find some good scrolls. H:ELVAR'S FIRE is your first
group-zap spell. S:EXORCISM is also a nice zap, but it only works on one
undead at a time, no matter what the manual says. S:GUIDANCE will come in
handy sometimes, but Valar already has it. H:AIR SUMMON is almost completely
useless... but ya never know, you may as well go ahead and learn it.
Now head E along the S edge, then N along the E edge. Take out the Guardian
Snake (he hurts) and steal his treasure. The Firesword (1d12/+2AV/+1AC) is
pretty good until you get to the second Guard Bridge, and the Large Shield
(+3AC/-2AV) makes a nice AC bump for the guy with the Slicer. What, you
haven't gone to get the Slicer from the Underworld yet? Okay, we'll go get
that in a few minutes.
In the middle of the map there's a 3x3 area with a series of murals on the
walls. If you (U)se Arcane Lore here, you get some backstory (p23) about how
dragons are used as a deterrent. It's possible this is a clue about what to do
with the dragon in the Lansk Undercity, but that seems like a stretch.
Cast H:SENSE TRAPS and head to the NE corner. There's a pit you can avoid (it
hurts a LOT, but you can also just heal afterwards), and then a giant stone
slab that you'll need to (U)se Strength to move. (STR 21 wasn't always enough,
but you can re-try.) That takes you to the Tars Underground.
If you have to leave Tars and come back (say, to refresh before heading to the
Underground), you can also use this trick: 4E of where you enter, there are
signs of a previous party. (U)se Tracker to follow them, and your guide will
lead you straight to the slab, dodging the pit along the way. Avoids any
random encounters while crossing Tars, too.
GAME NOTE: You might notice that the combats here in Tars are harder than most
things you've fought so far. The same will be true of the Tars Underground,
only more so. Even though the Ruins are right here at the end of Forlorn, I
think the game designers intended for players to either not be able to move the
slab, or to bail out after the combats are too hard. Eventually -- all the way
down in Section 6.26, a really long time from now -- you'll get a hint in
Freeport that will point you back here to get the Stone Arms so you can repair
the statue of Lanac'toor. If you're willing to work through some tough fights,
you can probably handle the Underground now, in which case read on. You can
also skip it, in which case you should jump ahead to Section 6.7 (or skip the
bridge altogether and go straight to the Mystic Wood in 6.8) and come back to
Tars later.
6.6 LOOK! AN ACTUAL DUNGEON! (Tars Underground) [#606#]
Use the Magic Lamp for some light, and have Valar cast Guidance for a sense of
direction.
Start off by going 1N 3W 1S (yes, this is a secret door; you can tell because
your footsteps sound hollow). The Stone Arms are inside. Don't drop these,
you need them to solve a puzzle much later in the game.
If you need to get to the Underworld (for instance, to go get the Slicer), you
can do so 1N 1E 1S through another secret door with more hollow footsteps.
(U)se Climb to activate the shaft down to the Underworld.
2N of the entry stairs you'll find a rotting body. I couldn't figure out
anything to do with it. The room N of there has a nasty combat with a handful
of Adventurers and a Wizard. Stand back and blast them with Mage Fire until
they get close. Then attack the Adventurers and blast the Wizard from range.
There's a funny message in the NE corner of this room, a nasty fight in the NW
corner, and a secret door in the SW where your footsteps sound hollow (are you
sensing a trend here?) with nice cash and some spells. You probably don't need
S:SUN STROKE or H:FIRE LIGHT again, but D:DEATH CURSE is handy (40' range!).
From the entry stairs again, 3E 2N there's yet another secret door. This time
you get a Healing Potion (casts S:HEAL on target of your choice) and some
Dragon Stones out of the deal. You might as well be selling the Dragon Stones;
it's way easier to carry around money than items, and you can always buy them
back later. Hang on to a couple, maybe.
The rest of the map is not really worth exploring. The combat is pretty hard,
the XP is okay, and it's more likely to drain your resources than do you any
good. Time to head back to the surface, and to a new island.
6.7 GUARD BRIDGE #1 and ISLE OF THE SUN [#607#]
Visit the bridge between Forlorn and Sun, which is just N of Purgatory. Read
(p12). Before you approach the bridge itself, go 3E 2N and find an arms cache.
The Bladed Flail (1d12) isn't any better than the War Flail but sells for way
more money. The Helm and Shield are free AC points. S:SUN LIGHT is not
amazing (1-6/3pts instead of L:LESSER HEAL's 1-4/2pts).
To the W of the bridge there's a rock with a message written on it. Restoring
the masters of magic is definitely on our agenda, so this is good to know. And
I wonder if those Stone Arms we turned up will be useful? (Oh. You skipped
Tars and came straight here? Ignore what I said about the Stone Arms then.
It's the name of a bar. Yup. Promise.)
The bridge guards are pretty nasty. Your choices are to show your Citizenship
Papers and pay a toll (70gp not so bad, really), or to step forward defiantly
and fight off the guards. Keep in mind that the guards can kill you, so save
first if you decide to fight. Blast 'em with big spells. If you happen to
come back through here heading towards Forlorn again, the guards will look at
you funny, but let you pass when you show your papers.
Feel free to drop your Citizenship Papers any time. This is the only place you
need them, pretty soon you'll be able to take on the guards without a problem,
and if you ever get really stuck you can buy another set in Lansk.
Step onto the bridge (p13). If you want to pick up some experience cheaply,
hold down the ESC key for a while. Eventually you'll get jumped by a pack of
rats. They're worth 10xp each and have 1HP; one shot with any group-zap spell
should wipe out the bunch. (A 1pt S:INFERNO is the best value for money here,
but you don't have that spell yet. H:ELVAR'S FIRE will do it, but 6 Power is a
lot right now.) Go S, recharge, beat the bridge guards again, and take out
some more rats. Do this until you're bored, then exit to the N.
You'll be welcomed to the Isle of the Sun by a bunch of Goblins, but they
shouldn't give you much trouble; blast them with Mage Fire from 30' and attack
when they get closer.
Feel free to explore the island; nothing else will attack you, since you
cleared out the other batch of Goblins when you picked up Valar a couple of
sections ago. If you're feeling the need to restore spell points or have some
other reason to go back and forth to Forlorn, you may find it less trouble to
hit the Mystic Wood and use the Underworld, rather than fighting off the guards
on the bridge (which will suck up spell points).
6.8 ISN'T IT GOOD (Mystic Wood) [#608#]
Speaking of the Mystic Wood, while you're exploring the island, circle around
and enter the Wood from the S. Step 1N and then start going W. You'll find a
stone that marks the grave of Zaton. Remember this place; we'll come back.
Go to the extreme SW corner of the map and find a locked chest with some Druid
Magic spells in it. You might already have DEATH CURSE and SCARE, but if you
leave them here they'll disappear. Take FIRE BLAST (zap all, not just 1
group!) and INSECT PLAGUE.
You're better off running from most fights here, they're pretty hard.
A few spaces N of there is a nasty fight with some Water Spirits. They're
tough, but you've got two spellcasters with mass-effect zap spells. Burn up
your Power; you can always run down to the Underworld to recharge. Your reward
is some heavy armor: Plate Mail (+10AC/-5AV), Gauntlets (+2AC), a Wand that
casts S:MAJOR HEALING (a group heal spell), a Great Bow (+2AV/50'), and some
Dragon Stones.
Directly W from the Water Spirits is a Transportation Nexus, which you can use
to get to King's Island or Quag Island, so long as you've got someone with
Arcane Lore in your party.
In the NE corner there's a spot where you can harvest some Mushrooms. These
are a quest item for later, so hang onto them.
From the Mushroom spot, go 1E 6S. There's a lake here, and something more
interesting to do later, but for now face S towards the lake and (U)se Ulrik's
Swim ability. You'll get a message that the lake is too hard to swim across,
but you find The Ring (+2AV/+2AC, casts H:CLOAK ARCANE) which is a nice piece
of miscellaneous magic armor.
Now comes the fun part. Make sure Louie's got STR18, then visit the druid's
shrine in the NW corner (p6). Go up to the statue and pick up the Beast Horn,
then (U)se it (or just Use your IQ attribute). Enkidu himself comes to life
(p73) and offers to wrestle. You need STR18 to win and you may not get it the
first time. When you do win, Enkidu grants you Druid Magic 2 along with most
of the combat spells. This is a great way to take advantage of Louie's
abnormally high SPR and INT. You don't need the Beast Horn after this; if you
(U)se it again, it just casts D:BEAST CALL.
The list: D:DEATH CURSE, D:FIRE BLAST, D:INSECT PLAGUE, D:WHIRL WIND, D:SCARE,
D:GREATER HEALING, D:BEAST CALL
6.9 WE'RE ON THE ROAD TO NOWHERE (Guard Bridge #2) [#609#]
GAME NOTE: Story-wise, it makes more sense to hit Phoebus next. You're only
here on a side-trip; the fights are hard but the loot is awesome. Save and
backup before taking on the bridge, and if it proves too hard, go gain some
more experience in Phoebus first (6.10) and then come back before you take on
Mystalvision.
This bridge is much more heavily guarded than the first one was.
If you've got Lockpick 3, enter the building on the S part of the bridge.
Cross the room to the NW corner and open the locked chest. It's possible that
the guards will wake up during any part of this process. You can reduce the
chances of that happening by (U)sing Louie's Pickpocket skill to steal a key
from the sleeping guards, then opening the chest with the key instead.
H:ICE CHILL isn't as strong as H:FIRE LIGHT but it hits at 50', S:DISARM TRAP
comes in handy later, and S:RADIANCE has a higher range than L:MAGE LIGHT
(meh). There's also another Healing Potion, a Runed Flail (1d20/+2AV/+1AC), a
Grey Arrow (1d20), and 500gp.
BUG: The game doesn't seem to remember that you've looted this chest. You can
come back an infinite number of times to get multiple copies of the loot. In
particular, multiple Healing Potions are great to have around (it's a
zero-power healing spell that anybody can "cast"!) and if you're still using
bows in the back line, you can't get any better than the Grey Arrows for
damage.
Now cross the bridge. Don't submit to customs inspection, fight off the
Pikemen. If you can't take them out, you definitely won't be able to handle
the next two battles. Go into the Armory building on the N side of the bridge,
get kicked out and go in again. Fight off another batch of Pikemen. Cast
H:SENSE TRAPS, then go through the door to the S and avoid falling in a pit.
Bandage if you need to. Then pick up a lot of nice weapons in the next room,
including a bunch of Dragon Stones. Give the Holy Mace to your #2 fighter, the
Axe of Kalah to Ulrik, the Runed Flail to Louie, and the Gem Helm (+2AC) to
whoever needs it most. The Firesword is now your fifth-best melee weapon:
The Slicer 1d30 STR 17 +4 AV, +2 AC
Runed Flail 1d20 14 +2 AV, +1 AC
Holy Mace 1d20 12 +2 AV, +1 AC, casts Exorcism
Axe Of Kalah 1d12 18 +4 AV; d20 at 50'
Firesword 1d12 17 +2 AV, +1 AC
Note the special properties on the Axe of Kalah: it does more damage when you
throw it (1d20/50'), and it comes back to you automatically. The Boomerang
(1d12/50'/+2AV/-1AC), on the other hand, doesn't come back. I don't make this
stuff up, folks, I just write the walkthroughs.
On the way out you'll get jumped by a nasty group of guards. Make sure you've
used Dragon Stones to replenish Power before you cross the pit room again;
you'll use a lot of magic in this fight.
Exit the bridge to the S. You probably need a recharge, so use the well in the
Mystic Wood to jump back to the Underworld and bathe in the recharge pool.
Then head to Phoebus.
6.10 'SS' IS SHORT FOR 'SAVE GAME' (Phoebus, for real) [#610#]
Phoebus is in the NW corner of the Isle of the Sun.
The main peril here are the Stosstrupen wandering around. They will stun you
for 20+ HP at a shot, but at least it's just Stun damage. You can definitely
take out one before you all go down, two might be hard, more than that should
send you for the (R)un button. When the game tells you that smart people don't
walk here, don't go in the nearby door -- there are 10 Stosstrupen inside.
Midway up the W wall (10N 7W of the entrance) there's a small 2x1 room guarded
by a bunch of thieves. Wipe the floor with them and step S to find a locked
check with some nice scrolls. D:CREATE WALL is crucial to completing the game,
though you can also buy it in the Lansk Undercity. H:POOG'S VORTEX is the big</pre><pre id="faqspan-3">
brother of Elvar's Fire, and S:MITHRAS' BLESS is a nice defensive buff spell.
S:SUN STROKE you've already found twice over, and if you've been following this
walkthrough in published order this is the second or third version of D:DEATH
CURSE you've found.
Remember the bar where you picked up Valar? Go W from there. First you'll hit
a bunch of rats. The wild dogs just past them will give you a little bit of a
harder time. Beyond that is a room with a locked chest. You can give the Mage
Cloth to your bow-mage in the 7th slot; +3AC/-0AV is worth it. Magic Plate is
+10AC/-2AV which will do nicely for a front line fighter. Ignore the Fire
Spear (1d12/50'); thrown weapons aren't worth the time it takes to equip them.
Ignore the parade grounds in the SE. If you go in, you'll be drafted into the
army (or have to pay 350gp to avoid it) and sent to Byzanople Siege Camp on
King's Isle, which is a place you don't want to go right now.
The last place you want to check out before visiting the kook who runs this
place is in the NW corner. There's a 1x1 room with a big batch of Soldiers out
front, plus a Stosstrupen. Drop H:POOG'S VORTEX on the Soldiers (one should be
enough for you to mop up the rest in melee), and beat up the Stosstrupen as
quickly as possible. A second suit of Plate Mail (+10AC/-5AV) may seem like a
tough sell for Ulrik, but remember that he has a 3 points in Axes, so his AV is
higher than it seems. The Tri-Cross (30'/+1AV) is neat because it shoots one
or three bolts at a time. But the real prize here is the Magic Shield (+4AC).
Mystalvision is waiting in the N central part of Phoebus. You might want to
hit a recharge pool and maybe pick up some extra Dragon Stones somewhere first
though. At the end of the central N-S street you'll hit a combat with some
Stosstroopen. Circle to the N and fight off the guards. Try to be sparing on
Power here, you'll need it soon. Enter the Temple of the Sun and request an
audience with Mystalvision (p66). Then get your asses handed to you by the
Stosstrupen. DON'T BOTHER TRYING TO WIN. SAVE YOUR POWER. It's just Stun
damage, and even if you do win (say, you're on your second trip through the
game with 15th level characters), the game casts a "powerful sleep spell" on
you and throws you in the dungeon anyway!
6.11 RIDDEN OUT OF TOWN ON A RAIL (Phoeban Dungeon) [#611#]
You wake up in the Phoeban dungeon. After nine days (40-odd turns) of
captivity you escape (p101). Circle to the E and you'll hear moans. (U)se
Lockpick and find out from another prisoner that apparently they're torturing
"The Druid". Huh.
In the NW corner (p102) you sneak up on the guard. You can either fight them
off by stepping forward (use a lot of magic), or (U)se Louie's Hide skill to
get past them. In either case, if you fail, you get thrown back in the jail
cell and get to try it all again. (Aren't you glad I told you to bring Dragon
Stones?) Eventually, go through the door to the N.
Turning E and going N from there, you reach a large pit with an angry dragon in
it, and a hunchback trying to feed him. Ignore it* and go N and W. Turn S
into the first door. There's a fight in the SE that you can probably handle.
Go W again and find the tortured Druid that the prisoner was talking about.
(U)se Bandage on him to get a password.
*If you prevent the hunchback (p104) from throwing the prisoner into the pit to
feed the dragon, the dragon destroys Phoebus (p89) and everyone in it, dropping
you back in Dilmun with no more Phoebus. I suppose if you're stuck and can't
figure out else how to get out of the dungeon, this'll do it, but you lose
Berengeria. On the other hand, it's pretty entertaining to allow the prisoner
to be tossed into the pit, too.
Go back the way you came, but pass the jailer's room and go W, S, W, and N.
The large open room has a chest in the NW corner with some low-value stuff: a
Mace, a few Daggers, a Battle Axe, Leather, Scale, Chain... and a Shovel. You
can use the Shovel to dig out the cave-in later on your way out of here if you
want, but it's not necessary.
Go through the door in the NE and give the password that the Druid told you to
access the Phoeban treasure vault. You find a Blow Horn, which casts D:WHIRL
WIND (meh), a Magic Ring (+2AC/+1AV) which does the same, the Magic Quiver
(1d4), which never runs out of ammo, and a handful of Dragon Stones. The
damage on the Quiver isn't great until you get the Gatlin Bow, but at least you
don't have to keep buying arrows. You'll need to give the password again(?) to
get out of here.
You can explore the rest of the dungeon, but it's mostly hard combats
with Dungeon Guards of one sort or another. Your best bet is to take
on Mystalvision first, then come back and mop up if you want the XP.
That being said, go back past the dragon and up to the N. Mystalvision's there
with a bunch of his Old Jailer friends. Wait for Mystalvision to close within
range of your longest-range spells, then hit him; while you wait, drop some
area-effect zaps on the jailers. (Remember that Ulrik can throw the Axe of
Kalah up to 50'.) Focus on Mystalvision as much as you can and mop up the
jailers. Mystalvision doesn't really die, he just fades away. But you get
some of his magic scrolls: S:ARMOR OF LIGHT, S:MAJOR HEAL, S:DISARM TRAP
(already have it), S:HOLY AIM, and... D:WOOD SPIRIT? On top of being useless,
what the heck is that doing here?
Now for the mop-up. In the short NS hallway with the armory, the S door is
locked, and behind are some Guards and a Guard Captain. In the room E of there
you'll find another fight with some Guards. There's a secret door in the S of
this room, or one in the S of the jailor's room, that leads to a passageway
that's blocked by a cave-in. If you grabbed a Shovel from the armory, you can
(U)se it. Otherwise you can Climb. Follow the passageway all the way around
and climb the stairs, where Berengeria's friends will help you escape.
Don't worry about the "leave quickly" warning. You can chase after the Ominous
Fellow, but he'll run away from you. Make sure you go back over to the Icarian
Triumph to meet up with Berengeria before you leave; unfortunately it seems
that he's fled to the Yellow Mud Toad. (Note: if you don't do this, then
Berengeria never shows up there, and you don't get your spells!) Time to leave
this island then...
GAME NOTE: There are two ways to get to Quag Isle from here. You can either
cross the bridges the "proper" way, or go back to the Mystic Wood and use the
Transportation Nexus to take you there. That may not seem like much of a
shortcut, but wait until you get stuck in the Lansk Bureaucracy. Also reduces
your changes of accidently hitting some Murk Trees. Your choice. If you
decide to take the Nexus, skip to 6.13 below.
6.12 THE MOST BORING CITY IN THE WORLD (Lansk) [#612#]
Recharge. Hit the Bridge on the N side of the Isle of the Sun and fight off
the Pikemen (again, assuming you raided their barracks in 6.9). Exit the
bridge to the N and find Lansk, the only building on the little islet here.
What a lovely place! (p64) Lansk is comprised of an inner ring and an outer
ring of buildings, broken up into four quadrants. In the center (p35) there's
a giant gleaming fortress with the city's defense dragon within. Fat and
bloated, just like the political machine that runs this town.
Watch out for the combats; the Civil Servants will endlessly call for help, the
Citizens run away, and the Adventurers are pretty tough because their Mage
friend casts S:WRATH OF MITHRAS on you from 90'. (You never even GET that
spell!)
The only real prize in this place is the Druid's Mace (+2AV/+2AC), which gives
an additional point of AC over the aforementioned Holy Mace, and casts D:CURE
ALL instead of S:EXORCISM. It's in a locked chest, inner ring, SW quadrant, W
side near the middle. You're free to go in there, get the Mace, and get out
with your sanity... or try to navigate the bureaucracy.
p.s. If you do go get the Mace, it's probably worth hanging onto even if you
don't use it as a weapon. You can pretend it's a Healing Potion that casts a
group heal instead of a one-off.
There are a handful of "useful" buildings about, all of which are labeled.
Here's the right order to visit them in:
1. Governor's Office, outer ring, SW quadrant, S side (3N 3W of where you come
in). Collect the papers. They'll direct you to the Office of Interior
Affairs, which doesn't exist. Instead, go to the...
2. Department of Lubrication, outer ring, NW quadrant, N side near the middle.
(U)se your papers. If, instead, you (U)se Bureaucracy and offer at least
500gp, the official opens the stairs down into the Undercity (6.24). Apart
from picking up D:CURE ALL, you don't need anything down there right now, and
you can always get there from the Magan Underworld for free.
3. Visitor's Information Bureau, inner ring, SE quadrant, S side near the
corner. Trade your papers for a Governor's Pass, which makes it easier to
cross the bridge to Quag.
You can also visit these lovely offices:
- Visitor's Registration Department, outer ring, SW quadrant, S side (1E of the
Governor's Office). You're directed to the Visitor's Information Bureau.
- Quarter Master's Office, outer ring, NE quadrant, E side at the corner.
Slaveholder Mog has died, and you've inhereited his estate! (Um.) This
fails to have any effect on the rest of the game; you can even go back to
Purgatory, sell yourself to the Slave Market, and get thrown into your own
Slave Mines.
- Office of the Bureau of Departments, outer ring, NW quadrant, W side.
That's it. Get outta here before you die of boredom.
P.S. It's worth noting that the Governor's Pass is worth $100, and the
Governor's Office will give you as many sets of papers as you want. It might
be the slowest possible method, but you can farm gold this way. You can also
buy a Governor's Pass for (no shock) $200 in the Lansk Undercity. But once you
cross the bridge to Quag you can sell the Governor's Pass at the first
opportunity; you won't need it.
6.13 YOU CAN'T FIGHT HERE, THIS IS THE WAR BRIDGE (Quag Island) [#613#]
Enter the bridge to Quag. The guard asks for your pass, and (here's a first!)
will actually let you by if you show it to him. Of course you can just try to
bull your way through, but Pikemen and Guards are kinda tough, and getting the
pass in Lansk isn't all that hard.
Murk Trees, I'm sorry to say, are capable of KILLING OUTRIGHT IN ONE BLOW. And
sometimes you have to face more than one of them. And there's one on the E
side of this map, in a straight line off the bridge. Rather than face it, take
a step to the N before exiting.
If you're up for a bit of surreality, you can visit the Quag Information Bureau
(p47) to the N after you cross the bridge. However, there's a random(?) chance
that the ladies in the Information Bureau will attack you with H:BIG CHILL! Ow!
When you exit the bridge, you're on Quag. Go 1N 3E and wind up on the
Transportation Nexus that takes you back to the Mystic Wood. Or maybe you used
the Nexus to get here in the first place. Whatever.
The Murk Trees are in fixed locations, which means you can avoid most of them.
As offsets from the Transportation Nexus:
1S 2W - This one trips you up going to or from the bridge, but you can walk
around it.
2S 3E - On the way to Smuggler's Cove, can't be avoided.
4S 4E - On the shoreline at the NE corner of Mud Toad.
5S 2W - On the shoreline tucked into a corner.
6S 3E - Standing in front of Mud Toad, can't be avoided. But this is the
best route to get to the city from the Nexus.
6.14 CITY OF THE YELLOW MUD TOAD [#614#]
"Perilously weakened", indeed (p29). Except for the part where I took the
Nexus to the Wood to the Underworld and recharged before I came in, amirite?
Step through the gate and turn immediately E, skipping the nasty fight
in front of you. Follow the wall with the right-hand rule. The first shop you
come across is a healer, which you can ignore. The second one is the
Lanac'toor memorbilia and souvenir shop (p30), where you can buy Dragon Stones
and sell off stuff if you want. (You can also buy an Ankh, which is one of
several ways to get the Dragon Gem from the Lansk dragon, but it's not
necessary.)
Cross the city to the N and enter the building opposite, which is the local
tavern. Berengeria is in the NE corner of the room and he has some scrolls for
you: S:RAGE OF MITHRAS (70' range!), S:HOLY AIM (have it), S:ARMOR OF LIGHT
(have it), S:MAJOR HEAL (have it), and S:SUMMON SALAMANDER (useless). The
barkeep will inform you of three useful things: you're going to want a powerful
ally to take out Namtar, that the temple keepers have some magic boots you
want, and that the four parts of Lanac'toor's statue have been strewn across
the kingdom. Fortunately, I told you about this already when we found Tars
back in Section 6.5, so I guess you could say that forewarned is... forearmed!
*puts on sunglasses*
E of the tavern there's a spot where the walls have crumbled and you can (U)se
Climb to get through. Save here, and use Dragon Stones if you need them,
because the upcoming battle is tough. Circle around and find the Mud Toad
Militia (p32). Unfortunately, as you walk away, they attack. Beat them from
distance as much as possible; use Mage Fire from your fighters, Ulrik's Axe,
and long-range mage spells. Once they're in range, hit 'em with group-zaps.
Melee if you need to.
Once you get past them you find the militia's armory. The Lucky Boots are a
free +1 AC. The Mountain Sword (1d30/+3AV/+2AC) would be nice, but you didn't
spend AP on Mountain Lore 2, did you? The Barbed Flail (1d30/+2AC) is a nice
mid-game weapon and might be an upgrade over the Runed Flail (1d20/+2AV/+1AC).
H:REVEAL GLAMOUR has a use here and there but H:WATER SUMMON is useless.
Follow the N wall into the NW corner, but save before you get there; you'll hit
a combat. I recommend running away from Crazed Militiamen and waiting until
the game generates something easier. Meet the priests of the Temple of the Mud
Toad (p17), who are concerned about the mud leaking into the city. Let's see
if we can help them out, shall we?
Walk into the center of the city where Lanac'toor's tower used to stand. Find
the statue (p20) and drop off the Stone Arms, if you brought them here from
Tars. (ForeARMED! Get it?!) That frees up an all-important inventory slot.
Then go 2N 2W to find the spring that's leaking mud. I bet this is what the
priests were talking about. Step back 1E and cast D:CREATE WALL to seal it up.
Then go back to the temple. The grateful priests (p113) give you the Golden
Boots, which are needed to finish the game (and do some other cool things).
We're all done here, at least until we find the rest of the statue parts. Exit
the city to the W instead of the S in order to avoid some Murk Trees. Next up
we're going to visit some pirates, but I bet you'd like to hit a recharge pool
right about now, so let's do that, and take a quick side trip through the
Mystic Wood to pick up a quest item along the way.
6.15 I ONCE HAD A GIRL, OR SHOULD I SAY, SHE ONCE HAD ME [#615#]
(Mystic Wood, Magan Underworld)
Take the Nexus from Quag to the Mystic Wood. Go straight E (although there is
a static combat along that path, so jog N if you want to avoid it) until you
hit the lake and the place where it tells you that there's a simple shrine
there. (U)se the Golden Boots to hop across the water. Approach the shrine,
then sacrifice a drop of blood by (U)sing a sharp weapon. Your reward is the
Enkidu Totem, which you can use much later in the game to avoid a big fight.
If you didn't get the Mushrooms on a previous visit to the Mystic Wood, this is
a good time to pick them up.
Later, after you find the Magic College, you'll want to come back here to
complete your collection of Druid Magic spells. But we can't do that yet.
Since this entire section is basically a big side trip, I'll mention another
one: Now that you have the Golden Boots, the game would like you to go visit
Irkalla's Realm (6.0.4) and find the Isle of Woe (p137). There she'll ask you
to find the Silver Key to release her, and promises to help you defeat Namtar
if you do. Since you're probably heading to the Underworld anyway to recharge,
you should do the neighborly thing, and stop by and say hello to Irkalla.
Otherwise, feel free to skip this bit, because it's a really pointless side
trip, and it's in an odd place, as you'll see in a minute.
6.16 SMUGGLER'S BLUES (Smuggler's Cove) [#616#]
Occasionally, the game doesn't give you much of a hint as to what to do next.
When you left Purgatory, there was all of Forlorn to discover. Even then, Tars
was probably too difficult for you when you found it. After that, it was
pretty obvious that the next thing to do was to take the big bridge over to
Sun. Then in Phoebus, you got a big Plot Arrow pointing you at Mud Toad -- not
that you knew where that was, exactly, but again there was a bridge to go over.
This is one of those times where the path forward is basically "Explore the
rest of the island you're on and see where that takes you." On Quag, with all
the Murk Trees lying around, that's likely to get you killed. On the other
hand, it's also entirely possible that you enlisted in the army at Phoebus and
got sent to the Byzanople Siege Camp on King's Isle, and then wandered around
there for a while. But that's the beauty of a non-linear RPG like this, right?
Having said that, get yourself back to Quag if you aren't already there. Save
your game, then go into the NE corner of the island and fight some Murk Trees.
The only place you haven't been yet is the N penninsula, which ends in
Smuggler's Cove.
The Cove is pretty tiny (p39). N of where you enter you can find a statue of
Irkalla (p3 -- hey, wait a minute, we read that paragraph already!). If for
some reason you've managed to make it this far into the game without
sacrificing something at one of her statues so you can visit her domain in the
Magan Underworld, I guess this is as good a time as any. Directly S of
Irkalla's statue is a Serpent Swimmer that you can fight.
Kick down the door to the W. You don't actually have the option to
attack the pirates, the game just repeats the message and kicks you out again.
Your choices are to speak "their language" by (U)sing Bureaucracy, or "prove
you're a thief" by (U)sing Lockpick, Hiding, or Pickpocket. In any case, offer
at least 50gp to get a much friendlier reaction (p41). Don't try the door to
the W: the pirates will fight to the (your) death, you can't take them (yet),
and the game won't let you escape. We'll come back when we're better prepared.
Instead take Ugly up on his offer, step through the door to the S, and board
the boat to be whisked off to the Necropolis (p43).
Speaking of preparations, make sure you have the Mushrooms from the Mystic
Wood, and you might want to carry a good stash of Dragon Stones.
6.17 ALL WE WANNA DO IS EAT YOUR BRAINS (Necropolis) [#617#]
You can walk around the outside of the building and exit in three directions,
if you want to see the little islet that the Necropolis sits on and where it is
in relation to Quag. (I might be the kind of completist who wants to touch
every square of the Dilmun auto-map. You might not be. I won't think any less
of you.) But you can't go anywhere out there; your only way forward is in.
Make sure you're healed up first, though.
Close to melee the Guardian. He has a breath weapon that stuns but doesn't
kill, so feel free to try several times (exiting and Bandaging each time). If
you get impatient, close to 20' and zap him with 6-point spells. Don't forget
Valar's S:MAJOR HEALING, which can keep your guys standing the one or two extra
turns needed to take out the Guardian. You'll need to do 75-80 HP of damage.
In the center of the room you'll find the Stone Trunk (part #2 of the
Lanac'toor statue) and some nice armor. Magic Chain (+7AC) makes a nice
upgrade for Louie, and the Black Helm (+3AC) casts M:ZAK'S SPEED.
BUG: If you hung onto the Tri-Cross and have a crossbow-mage, the Dead Bolt is
kind of handy, because you can cast S:CHARGER on it to refill it. Not quite as
awesome as the Magic Quiver. Also remember that you have to (F)ight, not
(Q)uickly Fight, if you want to fire a burst.
There's another Guardian guarding the exit door. Treat him the same way.
There are lots of fixed encounters in the S half of the map, which you mostly
want to avoid. It's especially important to conserve magic here. 2 Ghouls are
totally beatable, as are Skeletons. Large groups of Goblins will close like
they're going to attack you, then run away. Most other stuff you should run
from.
Exit the Guardian room, then walk S until you pass through another door. What
you're looking for is a secret door in the N wall, just E of here. Walk 1S 2E
1S 2E 2N. If you get into combat in this stretch, run until you get a good one
(Goblins and/or Ghouls). Save before you walk through the secret door.
Don't attack the Stone Demon, just advance as fast as possible -- it will
breathe at you, then run away when you get to 10'.
Walk most of the way around. When you can see the end of the tunnel, stop,
cast Cloak Arcane for 1pt, use Dragon Stones to regenerate your Power, then
save the game.
Advance to the end of the tunnel and encounter Nergal (p114). He drops you
into a fight with Goblins, Ghouls, a Wraith, and some Skeletons. (The numbers
are random, so if you get swamped you might benefit from run-and-retry or
kill-emulator-and-reload.) Your strategy looks like this: blow all your magic
and recharge when you need to. Wraiths breathe on you, so have your fighters
cast zap spells on round 1, and use S:EXORCISMs (don't forget the Holy Mace)
until he dies. Drop H:POOG'S VORTEX and D:FIRE BLAST on the Ghouls and
Goblins, and mop up in melee. (Focus magic on Ghouls and melee on Goblins.)
You should have a couple of 'off' turns where you can heal, recharge, and
reorder your party if you need to. You should also take care of everyone
nearby before the Skeletons even get close. Pepper them from distance and mop
up in melee if needed.
When you win, Nergal is amused (p115). Give him the Mushrooms you picked in
the Mystic Wood. He then demands that one of your party members serve him.
Pick anybody. Nergal does the classic circus geek trick (p93), with a pleasant
twist. In return, you get a few words of warning, a Silver Key, and some loot.
The Holy Spear (??) is a thrown weapon, which probably no one uses. H:FIRE
LIGHT, D:INSECT PLAGUE, and D:SCARE are duplicates. The big winners are H:BIG
CHILL, which is a zap-all version of POOG'S VORTEX, and S:INFERNO, which is
hands-down the most useful zap spell in the game: zap-all, good damage at
variable power (1d4/pt), and good range (40'). If Valar's got DEX20, you can
short-circuit many fights before they even begin.
You can drop the Mushrooms.
Now to find a way out of here. Retrace your steps to the N half of the map.
Go past the door to the Guardian room, then turn E and follow the wall all the
way to the end of the map. 3S from the corner is a door to the E.
The pathway out is filled with Spiders that will charge you 70' per round and
attack. Chances are pretty good they'll stun one or more of your players
before you can kill them, but that's okay. Just Bandage and save before
advancing, and don't bother using magic.
The cheap and easy way out, though, is to step through that first door into the
empty square, then drop a L:MAGE FIRE or a 1-pt S:INFERNO to torch all the webs
and empty the hallway. No more spiders.
Either way, at the end of the labyrinth there's a portal of power. If you're
playing on a PC and you "own" Ugly's boat, hitting the portal takes you back to
the dock where you came in. If you're playing on the Apple (I suspect this is
a bug) or Ugly gave you a ride to the Necropolis, the portal teleports you
somewhere randomly around Dilmun:
* The Bridge of Exiles
* Just N of Purgatory
* The Forlorn Guard Bridge
* Just S of the Slave Camp
* The entrance of Mud Toad
You're basically heading to the Bridge of Exiles next no matter what, but
you could probably use a recharge. Here's my suggestions:
1) If you got sent to Exiles, don't have a full inventory (there are a couple
of key items you need to get in the next few sections), and don't want to try
to fend off a bunch of Goblins right now, you can press on across the Bridge
and do the Snake Pit / Kingshome Dungeon loop. Go to Section 6.20, but make
sure that you come back and do 6.19 later when you get a moment.
2) If you got sent to Exiles and either have a full inventory and/or don't mind
taking on a big group of Goblins or two, go to Section 6.18 and explore King's
Isle. Then visit Irkalla in 6.19 and come back to do the Bridge of Exiles /
Snake Pit / Kingshome loop in 6.20.
3) If you got sent somewhere else, go visit Irkalla in the Underworld in
Section 6.19, then take the Nexus to King's Isle, read Section 6.18, and work
your way back to the Bridge of Exiles and Section 6.20.
6.18 KING'S ISLE [#618#]
Here are the things you need to know about King's Isle. King's is all about
the journey (and the Goblins), and not so much the destination. Careful
though, the Guard Goblins can be pretty nasty.
* There are five ways to get here: random teleport from the Necropolis
to the Bridge of Exiles, using the Transportation Nexus, enlisting in the army
in Phoebus (which sends you directly to the Byzanople Siege Camp), taking the
King's Ferry out of Lansk, or after completing the Snake Pit map.
* If you are exiting the Bridge of Exiles, you will get jumped by a large group
of Goblins. Use S:INFERNO and you should do okay.
* If you are exiting Kingshome, there are large groups of Goblins (are you
seeing a trend here?) 1E, 1S, and 1W of you. Going E is the safest bet because
it opens the Nexus, and you can walk around the other groups.
* If you came here via the Transportation Nexus, you are on the E peninsula of
the island. Hug the S coast and avoid Kingshome, and you can avoid all but one
batch of Goblins.
* If you took the Lansk ferry, you're on the Old Dock in the SE corner of
King's Isle. You can pay $500 to go back the other way if you don't have access
to the Nexus.
* If you came from the Snake Pit via the old ferrymaster, you wind up on the NE
corner of the E peninsula. The first time you step on this square (it's marked
on most of the maps you'll find floating around online) you are jumped by
Namtar's goons and tossed in the Kingshome Dungeon (6.21). This happens
immediately after you get off the ferry; you don't even get a chance to take an
action. But it only happens once.
The rest of the island is free of combats. Here are the major attractions:
* The Transportation Nexus is on the E peninsula in the SE corner. If you hug
the S coast (and avoid Kingshome) you'll avoid the Goblins.
* Kingshome is also in the NE corner. You probably won't need to enter
Kingshome through the front door, but you can if you have the Signet Ring.
* Byzanople is in the NW corner. You can enter through the Siege Camp if you
want. You can enlist in the army this way (see Section 6.22). Once you've
completed the Byzanople quest, the army clears out but you can still go into
the Siege Camp and use the shops there.
* The Dwarven Ruins are near the center of the island. You don't need to go
here until much, much later.
* The Old Dock, which takes you to Salvation, is in the SE corner. You don't
need to go here until much, much later.
* The Bridge of Exiles, which leads to the Isle of the Damned, is in the SW
corner, and is guarded by a group of Goblins.
6.19 RESCUING IRKALLA (Magan Underworld) [#619#]
No matter when you wind up in this section, you should probably hit the
recharge pool, visit Purgatory or Lansk to sell off a bunch of crap, and sort
through your armor to even out your fighters' AC. Then head back to the
Underworld.
If you haven't done 6.0.3 and read (p127), go do that now. One of the side
plots it alludes to is that Nergal is Irkalla's consort, and they don't seem to
be getting along. When you visited Nergal, he made reference to being 'in
exile', and that he knew what you were going to do with the Silver Key but
didn't care. So maybe we should go see what Irkalla thinks of all this.
Remember Irkalla's Realm (6.0.4)? Head back there, go E past the Advancement
Point BASE Jump, and into the peninsula in the NE corner. The game tells you
that there's an island. (U)se the Frog Boots, sorry, the Golden Boots to hop
over to the island and run into a hot chick in chains (p137).
ASIDE: As I alluded to in 6.15, it seems unlikely to me that a player who
didn't have a walkthrough in front of them would have discovered the Isle of
Woe *after* getting the Golden Boots from Mud Toad (you can't get there
otherwise), but *before* doing Smuggler's Cove and the Necropolis where you
pick up the Silver Key. p137 certainly seems to think that you have the Boots
but not the Key at this point. If you took a long detour after Mud Toad and
never found Smuggler's Cove, I guess it's possible...?
Anyway, you do have said Key, so go ahead and use it to free Irkalla. She
hands you a potion of water breathing (confusingly named the WATER POTION) and
sends you out to the Eastern Isles to find Roba's Skull. From there you need
to go to the Dwarven Forge for "your reward," which turns out to be every bit
as awesome as you might think when the Queen of the Underworld promises you
something. Trust me!
You can drop the Silver Key, if it wasn't consumed rescuing Irkalla.
6.20 LE ROI EST MORT (Bridge of Exiles, Snake Pit) [#620#]
The Bridge is totally unguarded and there's nothing interesting here. The door
to the W is one-way (p50), so you won't be able to come back across the bridge.
The good news is that this little islet has no encounters at all. The bad news
is that you're assaulted by the sound of mad screaming everywhere you go. Work
your way to the NW and enter the decaying city (p75).
Along the W shore, affectionately known as Toxic Beach, on the N side you'll
find the Stone Head, unguarded.
Along the N shore in the trees, you'll find a bunch of fresh pine branches.
Pick some up, hand them to Louie, then go to the SW corner where, along the S
shore, you'll find a madman who refuses to go inside. (U)se the Branches and
he'll teach you D:BEAST CALL, which is useless. This doesn't consume the
Branches (or chase off the guy), so hand them to your other Druid Mage(s) and
do it again. Then drop the Branches.
Now you can explore the buildings. Along the W shore there's some beach gear,
in case you want to relax on the beach to the soothing sounds of madmen
screaming. In the SE building there's a mad artist (p76). In the NE there's a
young man with a pike who insists that he's guarding the King's Boathouse.
Leave him alone for now.
Visit the ring of rooms in the center of the map. The NW room contains a
female(?) dwarf who gives you some information about the Dwarf Clan Hall quest
(p81). (This is the same Clan Hall that Irkalla referred to, if you've visited
her already.) The S room has a sad jester. There's a secret door in the N
wall of this room that leads to the skeleton of King Drake of Kingshome (p80).
Take his Ring. There's another secret door to the S of the king with some
loot. You don't need the Luck Wand (casts L:LUCK with infinite charges) or the
Mega Bolt (1d20! but you probably don't have a crossbow any more). The Magic
Bow (70'/+4AV) is the best bow in the game, in terms of range and AV. The
Grand Sword is an okay two-hander (2d12/+1AV), but requires STR22. The Crush
Mace (4d10) does twice the damage of the Druid's Mace (1d20/+2AV/+2AC) but
doesn't have the benefits. (Remember the Druid's Mace is useful as a magic
item even if you don't use it as a weapon!)
Now we need to find a way out of here. The kid in the NE is insistent that no
one enter the King's Boathouse, so (U)se the Signet Ring on him to show that
you mean no harm. He's right, there's a secret door in the N wall that leads
to a dock and an old man who will ferry you to the extreme NE corner of King's
Isle. Unfortunately, you're immediately ambushed and knocked out by a bunch of
guards.
Note: If for some reason you ever find yourself on the Isle of the Damned again
(say, you forget to pick up the Stone Head on your first trip), you can go back
to the Snake Pit and take the King's Ferry as often as you want.
6.21 THIS 'OVERCOME BY POWERFUL MAGIC' THING IS GETTING KINDA OLD [#621#]
(Kingshome Dungeon, Kingshome)
Oddly enough, your cell door is unlocked. Check out (Lockpick) the door 1S
from you (turn right when you exit) for a bit of comic relief (p53). The rest
of the hall is empty. Through the door to the S there are some Vicious Guards
(p65). A couple of 6-point zap spells should take care of them. If you lose,
they toss you back into your cell.
E through the door and down the hall a bit there's a fight with two Patrolmen
and a Stosstrupen. I was running pretty low on Dragon Stones at this point so
I conserved magic as much as possible. If you have some extras, go ahead and
zap all three of them to death.
At the first major intersection, the hallway to the S leads to a room with some
Stosstrupen. The (locked) door to the N leads to the surface. Ignore both of
these for now. Proceed E, N, and W. Skip the first door, there's a pointless
fight in there. The second door leads to the Kingshome Armory, but you'll have
to fight another Patrolmen / Stosstrupen combo. Blow everything you've got on
these guys, because there are Dragon Stones in the armory.
The armory is, as the game says, the jackpot. Besides all the Dragon Stones
you can carry, you'll find a second Black Helm; a Mage Ring (+1AV/+4AC), which
is why you bumped one of your fighters up to Low Magic 3; the Fire Shield
(+2AC/-2AV), which is worse than a regular Shield (+2AC/-0AV) or a Large Shield
(+3AC/-2AV); the Gatlin Bow, which has a short (20') range and no AV bonus, but
can fire an entire quiver at once (pretty vicious when paired with the Magic
Quiver); the Grey Arrows (1d20 each); the Throw Mace (2d12/+1AV, 1d12 at
30'); and a Magic Axe (1d30/+1AV). If you're looking for pure damage, your
best bets at this point are the Slicer, Crush Mace, Magic Axe, and Barbed
Flail. The Axe of Kalah and the Throw Mace are also nice because they have
ranged attacks, so you might prefer them depending on how you play.
GAME NOTE: The Gatlin Bow and Magic Quiver will turn your bow-mage into the
deadliest short-range fighter in the party. If you use (F)ight instead of
(Q)uickly Fight, you can have her fire on Full Auto, which fires all 63 arrows
at once. With DEX20 she's likely to hit for 50-100hp of damage so long as the
target's within 20', and the Quiver automatically refills itself after every
round. You won't be able to beat damage like that until you pick up the Sword
of Freedom.
I had just enough slots to take everything, and have two left over to trade
things back and forth between my PCs. But you only get one chance to clear out
this dungeon, so take whatever you can and consider dropping some older gear.
All that being done, go back to the rooms we skipped, Lockpick the door to the
N, and take the stairs up to Kingshome proper. Through the first door, you run
into the man(?) himself, Namtar. It's definitely time for some serious
exposition (p131), since you're a bit more than halfway through the game at
this point.
Once you leave Namtar's bedroom, it disappears.
You can come back to Kingshome and pick up the treasure on this floor later
(just (U)se the Signet Ring to get past the guards, p15), but if you go N and
then find the first door to the E there are two useful items that it might be
worth getting now: Magic Chain (+7AC/-0AV) might be better than Plate Mail
(+10AC/-5AV) if you feel like Ulrik's AV is too low, and there's another pair
of Lucky Boots (+1AC). Explore the rest of this hallway for a little bit of
history, and take note of the location of the wardrobe in the SW. That will
come in handy later.
When you're ready to leave, go S (p130). The exit drops you on King's Isle;
the Nexus is 1E 3S from here. Watch out for Goblins, though -- they've got you
surrounded. Use S:INFERNO and your brand new Gatlin Bow and you should be
fine. Hit the Nexus and refresh. And if you haven't freed Irkalla yet (6.19),
go do that now too.
6.22 YO DAWG, WHY YOU GOTTA FRONT (Siege Camp) [#622#]
One more thing to take care of on King's Isle. There are two ways in to the
siege camp:
1. Go to Phoebus and enlist in the army in the building in the parade grounds
in the SE corner (p86). You start in a nook in the W wall of the camp.
2. Take the Nexus to King's Isle, fight some Goblins, boldly walk in the front
door (p87), and enlist in the army (p59). You start just in front of the gate.
Once you're in, you're "stuck". If you feel like leaving for some reason, you
can fight off the guards in front of the gate. The Royal Guards have L:MAGE
FIRE, so I'd recommend blowing a bunch of magic. 300xp is nice, but you'll
need the magic later. When you leave and come back it seems that they've
forgotten you'd ever enlisted in the first place! Nice trick.
The building just N of the gate houses your 'commanding officer', Buck Ironhead
(p90). If you bother him a second time, he sends you to the 'front', aka the N
side of the map.
To the E of the gate is a building with a free healer in it. E and S of there
there's an open space. Tucked into the SW corner is a Silver Arrow (1d12).
You may also run into some drunk guards that you can beat up on.
The more useful loot is in the NE. From the healer, follow the E wall into the
NE corner, then turn W. At the end of the hall is a Lance Sword (d20/+1AV/30')
and a pair of Silver Gloves (+3AC). If you're collecting all the long-range
melee weapons (Throw Mace, Axe of Kalah), this is one of the set. But I've
been using L:MAGE FIRE as a ranged weapon instead, and the Lance Sword is an
inferior weapon otherwise.
Just S of that chest is the Black Market. Usefully, you can buy Shields
(+2AC/-0AV) and Large Shields (+3AC/-2AV) here, if you want to rebalance your
AC/AV. But you can also wait until Freeport where Large Shields are much
cheaper. I bought Shields for my back row just to bump their AC a little in
case they find themselves in the front four.
You're ready to hit the front; take the N exit.
6.23 THE SIEGE OF BYZANOPLE (Byzanople) [#623#]
Amazingly, Byzanople is still holding out successfully (p33) against Namtar's
army. You might have learned some about King Drake's family while you were
poking around Kingshome; they're the ones leading the resistance here.
There are three ways to get down into the Byzanople dungeons. If you're trying
to get through Byzanople as quickly and politely as possible, take the first
path (MEET THE PRINCESS), then join up with PRINCE JORDAN, raid the armory,
take the stairs up, and fight off the Kingshome army.
MEET THE PRINCESS: Go 1W (p34) to read a paragraph about the Byzanople
defenses. The hallway run is similar to swimming across the bay in Purgatory;
just Bandage as you go and you'll be okay. You're probably strong enough to
run all the way to the open space on the W side, where you can catch your
breath. The front door to Byzanople is impenetrable but there's another door
to the NW that (when Lockpicked) leads you to a flanking position (p21) where
you can sneak up on a bunch of royal scouts. If you attack, you wipe them out,
but the game makes you feel bad. If you hail them instead (p36), Princess
Myrilla leads you into the Byzanople Dungeon to meet her brother. Skip down to
'PRINCE JORDAN' below.
FIGHT THE HYDRA: Go 1E 1S 2E. (U)se Strength on the loose rock and find a
tunnel. Optionally, step 1N and fight a Hydra; he's a pushover for your
bow-mage. In the tunnel, (U)se Strength at the end to move the wall, then skip
the next paragraph.
TAKE THE TUNNEL: Go 1E 1N (p37) and you find a group of siege engineers digging
under the wall. Enter the tunnel, walk to the end, and (U)se Strength at the
end to break through.
If you came down through either tunnel, you're in a E-W passageway. Now you
have yet more choices to make:
COMMIT TREACHERY: Walk E, N, W, and S to find the stairs (and skip the fight
with Princess Myrilla). Climb the stairs and fight the Byzanople defenders,
working your way back to the main gate. Unlock it and the Kingshome army wins
(p71)... and you wind up in the Kingshome Dungeon again. (Boring.)
FIGHT YOUR WAY THROUGH: In the E-W passageway there's a door to the N. Go 2N
1E, fighting a bunch of guards, 1N though a secret door, then 3W. Unlock the
door to the N and confront Prince Jordan.
KILL THE PRINCESS: Go W into the N-S passageway. Princess Myrilla (a woman in
red and white) is there. If you kill her and her guards, you find a
"proclamation of peace" addressed to King Drake. And the game makes you feel
bad. Now you have to FIGHT YOUR WAY THROUGH, or you can COMMIT TREACHERY,
above.
HELP THE PRINCESS: Find the Princess, and agree to help the Prince. Bang your
head against the cell door for a few turns until she comes back and takes you
to see him.
Regardless of how you get here, you're now on your way to meet PRINCE JORDAN
(p108). If you decide NOT to join him, you have to fight him and his guards,
but they're not so tough. Then the game makes you feel bad, and tells you it's
now YOUR destiny to become king! You're now COMMITING TREACHERY, but you have
to FIGHT YOUR WAY THROUGH (in reverse), first.
If you agree to join him (p109), you get free run of the place; in particular,
the Byzanople treasure vault is one room over to the E, and it's now unguarded.
H:DAZZLE is new but not all that useful. H:BIG CHILL we have already. Aside
from a bunch more Dragon Stones, you can pick up another Magic Chain and Magic
Shield.
When you find the stairs up out of here, there's a locked door to the W that
leads to the Byzanople Crypt (p111). Don't bother; all you get is a MagicAxe
[sic], but you have one of those already. (p.s. Zombies aren't susceptible to
Exorcism, for some reason.) Instead, climb the stairs.
If you're on Jordan's side, you wind up back in the Siege Camp (p110). Walk
around the corner to the big fight against the Kingshome army: 15 Mercenaries,
15 Guards, 5 Royal Guards, and 2 Kingshomer Captains. You should know the
drill by now: lots of S:INFERNO to take out the big groups, then pick off the
small groups at distance as much as possible. The Kingshomer Captains have
lots of HP, but your bow-mage will help a lot. If you lose or run away,
Kingshome wins, and you wind up in the Kingshome Dungeon again. (Sigh.)
If you win, go back the way you came and take the secret passage into the inner
courtyard of Byzanople. There you can find healing, a weaponsmith with the
Long Mace (1d20/+1AV/20', giving you four melee weapons with reach), and an
armorer with Plate Mail, Large Shields, and Dragon Stones. You can also go
back down to the Dungeon level if, for instance, you forgot to loot the
Treasury down there.
Once you're ready to leave, go through the gate and exit Byzanople to the S.
Enter the Siege Camp; it's now empty, and you can exit it to the S as well to
return to King's Isle. It's worth noting that the Black Market still works, as
well as all the vendors in Byzanople town square, but that won't be super
useful to you going forward.
6.24 PUTTING THE 'FUN' BACK IN 'FUNDERWORLD' (Lansk Undercity) [#624#]
Remember that cesspool of bureaucracy, Lansk? Well, it turns out there's an
underground city, too. You can either get there from the upper city by paying
a bunch of grease money, or for free through the Underworld. You're heading
there anyway to recharge; go a bit E from the pool and enter the building, then
take the stairs up. Suddenly, it's like you're in New Orleans during Mardi
Gras (p121).
You should be able to handle the fights down here, and there are plenty, but be
aware that some of these can kill you.
The one thing you really need to do here is visit the dragon in the center of
the city. The entrance is on the E side; there's a secret door in the S of the
interior part of the wall, with a locked door behind it. It's a sad dragon
(p126), and apparently it has a boo-boo. (U)se a Healing Potion on it and it
will give you a Dragon Gem. (You can also cast any healing spell; or buy an
Ankh from the Mud Toad souvenir shop for 50gp and (U)se it on the dragon.)
If you take a tour of the corners, you can catch up on some of the mythology of
the realm. In the NW corner there's a statue of Irkalla (p122). (U)se
strength to move it, and you'll find a locked chest with a bunch of Dragon
Stones and a Glow Sword (1d30/+1AV), which requires STR 24. Yikes! Nergal
(p123) is in the NE corner, the Universal God (p124) in the SW corner, and
Enkidu (p125) in the SE corner.
Merchants: On the E side, just N of where you came in there's a healer, N of
that is an armor shop, and N of that is a weapons shop.
On the W side, the S-most building is "closed", but you can go through the
secret door in the NW corner and find a magic shop where you can buy D:CURE
ALL, the best group-cure spell in the game. You can also get a backup copy of
D:CREATE WALL.
N of the magic shop is the Ministry of EZ Paperwork, a shop where you can buy
important papers like Citizenship Papers or the Governor's Pass. The "Kings
Ticket" [sic] can be used on the N side by the docks to take a ferry to the Old
Dock on King's Isle. I suppose that's useful if you don't have enough Arcane
Lore to use the Nexus.
Opposite the magic shop there's a nasty combat, then stairs to the surface.
These are one-way unless you paid off the guy at the Department of Lubrication,
so I don't recommend ever taking them (because Lansk proper is an annoying
place to be, and not just because of the bureaucracy). So head back out via
the Underworld.
6.25 I'M ON A BOAT (Smuggler's Cove) [#625#]
Time to take out Ugly and pick up his boat; now that you have S:INFERNO, it
should be pretty easy. Take the Nexus back to Quag. It's not a bad idea to
stop by Mud Toad and drop off the statue parts that you have now, just to get
them out of your inventory. You can be amused by the programmers' laziness
with commas, too. Then go N to Smuggler's Cove again.
You'll have to do the Bureaucracy-and-bribe dance (see 6.16) again to get
through the door. Then go through the wrong (W) door. Oopsie! Did I do that?
Here's the secret to beating Ugly's crew. Ignore the Pirates at 10'. Have
your fighters cast Disarm on the Seadogs, since they can attack you from 20'.
Then drop S:INFERNO, D:FIRE BLAST (on the Seadogs), and H:BIG CHILL until the
first two lines drop (probably two rounds). Mop up with the fighters, and use
your bow-mage to take out Peggy and Ugly once they get within range. You win
(p24). If your fighters don't have Low Magic, this is a lot harder because the
Seadogs hit pretty hard. You might eke it out with reach weapons, or a lot of
Healing Potions.
The Hook, Parrot, and Old Peg Leg are useless. The Pilgrim Garb can help you
sneak into Nisir but you don't need it (and you can get more in Kingshome if
you want). The Heavy Plate might be attractive (+12AC/-6AV). And the Jade
Eyes get you into the Dwarf Clan Hall.
The boat gives you the option to travel to a couple of fun places that you
can't get to with the Transportation Nexus. You can go back to the Necropolis
if really want to, or you can visit the three Eastern Isles (including Rustic).
We'll hit them all eventually, but let's start with Freeport.
6.26 I'M FREE AS A BIRD NOW (Freeport) [#626#]
Having our own boat is kinda fun! Freeport's far enough out (p45) that... oh,
who are we kidding? This is a computer RPG. You're just a few map squares
away. (You can leave the city and check out the island you're on and the world
map, but there's nothing out there.) But it is a beautiful city (p51), and
it's refreshing to not be encubmered with the weight of Namtar... at least for
a few minutes.
The town guards are easy enough to take out, but run from any Adventurers.
Ryan's Armor is in the NW, and Large Shields are a criminally cheap 100gp each
(which makes one think this might be a bug...) You can even buy Heavy Plate,
if you want. Slightly W of here is a healer, and Freeport Arms is to the S.
The Freeport City Council (p57) is in the W. Secretly, though, we already know
what happened to King Drake (he died in exile in the Snake Pit) and his son (we
helped him defeat Namtar's army in Byzantium... or you killed him).
To the S of there, you find a spot (p52) where it looks like you can leap
across to a small island with your Boots. Suddenly, the Sword of Freedom (p27)
is your's (ARRGH, REALLY? DID THEY NOT KNOW HOW TO USE AN APOSTROPHE IN 1989?)
for the taking. But waaaaaaait a minute... ozone? Didn't a bartender tell us
that Namtar had laid a trap for us in Freeport? Maybe we shouldn't touch the
sword...
Hop to the S again, and in the SW part of the city you'll find Bewitching
Potions and Elixers, where you can buy Dragon Stones. To the E of there is
Magic, Inc. You can buy whatever High Magic you don't have; the only useful
spell you probably don't already have is H:SALA'S SWIFT, and that will get
superseded by M:ZAK'S SPEED shortly. (You probably also don't have H:MYSTIC
MIGHT, H:VORN'S GUARD, and H:COWARDICE.) Go ahead and buy a copy of D:SOFTEN
STONE for Louie; you'll get another one for free in a minute.
In the SE you'll find the Tars City Council, in exile (p56). Remember the Tars
Ruins on Forlorn, that had much harder-than-usual critters to fight? Now the
game wants you to go back there and check out the underground. You may have
done that back in section 6.5 and 6.6, but if you haven't, you should do it
after we're done here. (It'll be a LOT easier now.)
Going N from there along the narrow bridge on the E side of the city, you can
find the bar where Halifax is hiding out. He is totally not worth picking up;
I'd bet your entire front line is Level 10 and DEX20 by now, and he's neither
of those. The barkeep's got some hints about the pieces of Lanac'toor's statue
(one of which is here!), the Dwarves, and the Dragon Gem (which you already
have).
(Translation of the barkeep's hints: the Broken City is the Tars Underground,
the Broken Tomb is the Necropolis, Broken Minds can be found in the Snake Pit,
and Broken Swords is what you're about to do to the Order...)
</pre><pre id="faqspan-4">
Just N of the bar is the Order of the Sword, which is a big fight. Don't screw
around with these guys, blow them up with group-zap spells, and pick off the
survivors with your bow-mage. Hand the Spell Staff (+5AV/+8AC) to your 5th
slot mage, the Stone Hands are the last piece of the Lanac'toor puzzle,
D:SOFTEN STONE is super-helpful, and we finally found S:CHARGER in case you're
still toting around the Dead Bolt (or need to top off your Healing Potions).
That's it for Freeport. Let's go put Lanac'toor back together; head back to
Smugglers's Cove, and go clear out the Tars Underground if you haven't gotten
the Stone Arms yet.
6.27 ...AND SEE WHAT'S ON THE SLAB (Lanac'toor's Laboratory) [#627#]
Leave Smuggler's Cove, head S, kill a tree, head S again, circle around to the
W, kill another tree, and enter Mud Toad. Go find Lanac'toor's statue and use
the rest of the parts. Stairs down into his laboratory are revealed.
Here's the thing: Lanac'toor's Lab sucks. The fights are annoying and
frequent, the monsters have distance and/or breath attacks, the place is kind
of a maze, and Andrew Schultz's map is wrong in terms of where the treasure is.
1W of where you enter the lab there's an extremely helpful journal among the
rubble (p107). Reading it, you learn of the existence of the Magic College,
and a hint that you'll need Lanac'toor's spectacles to find the entrance.
You'll also learn that there's an entrance to the Magan Underworld that should
maybe be sealed up with D:CREATE WALL, and that D:SOFTEN STONE is going to be
handy, but you should watch out for pockets of water. All of this is true, but
the spectacles are why we're here.
If you're willing to blow a bunch of spell points and get out of here as
quickly as possible -- and you should be -- do this: from the entrance, go 4S
2W 1S 1W 1S 2W. There's a wall in front of you; SOFTEN it. Then go 1W 1S and
cast SOFTEN again. This gets you into the treasure room and probably drains
most of Louie's Power. Go 3S to find some spell scrolls, 1W from there to find
the Spectacles, and 2W 1N from there to find a locked chest.
The useful things you get:
* Dragon Shield (+5AC/-0AV)
* Lanac'toor's Spectacles, which will get you into the Magic College
* Battle Wand, which casts H:BATTLE POWER (meh)
* another Healing Potion
* S:FIRE STORM, horribly inefficient, but longer range than INFERNO
* M:ZAK'S SPEED, which grants +15 DEX!
* M:KILL RAY, zap 10-80 at 50'
Your Druid probably has the highest Power in the party, so hand the MISC
scrolls to them, because these spells have a pretty high point cost. Note that
you have to have at least one magic skill in order to learn Miscellaneous
spells, but it doesn't matter which one.
Now get the heck out of here. You can either retrace your steps, or go to the
SE corner of the room and SOFTEN the S wall. In the center of the square room
there you'll find a one-way staircase down to the Magan Underworld, which is
probably where you're going next anyway since you've spent all your spell
points on SOFTEN STONE.
There isn't anything else useful or interesting here. If you feel like
wandering around a bunch more, you can cast D:CREATE WALL at the staircase down
to the Underworld, and it will stop all the wandering monsters from attacking
you. Note that if you are standing *on* the staircase when you cast it, you
build a wall around yourself and the only way out is down to the Underworld!
If you go wandering you can spend a bunch of time opening walls with SOFTEN
STONE. Be careful when you do, because a number of the hidden areas are
actually filled with pockets of water, and you'll get hurt when you open them
up. Just Bandage and you'll be fine. But you're also wasting your time (and
Power), because there REALLY isn't anything else in the Lab.
6.28 KILLED H'SELF A B'AR WHEN HE WAS ONLY THREE [#628#]
(Game Preserve)
Make sure you have the Enkidu Totem (6.15), then head back to the Cove and take
the boat to Rustic. The Royal Game Preserve is 4W 1S from where the boat drops
you. At the ford across the river, (U)se Tracker to find a Stag. Kill it --
if it's just going to stand there and wait for you, I recommend closing to 20'
and shooting it with your Gatlin Bow -- and you'll run into Old Jack (p92), the
warden of the preserve. (U)se your Signet Ring on him, and break the bad news
(p74). You get a Magic Bow (70'/+4AV) out of the deal, although you had one of
those already. If you have a few spare quivers lying around, it's not a bad
idea to hang on to this, even only temporarily, because you'll need your mages
to be able to deal physical damage in the next section.
Other options including (a) going to find Jack in his hut on the W side of the
river (use STR to break the ropes if you get snared); (b) when Jack approaches
you after killing the Stag, Use Bureaucracy and he'll throw you out of the
forest; (c) when Jack approaches, try to run away, then kill him for his bow.
On the E side of the river near the S edge of the map, you'll find a tough
combat with a bunch of Bandits that look suspiciously like Goblins. Their
Leader (60' away) will hit you with group-zap spells while the front line
mostly blocks. Close to 50' in the first round, and you can hit him with
M:KILL RAY, S:RAGE OF MITHRAS, and/or H:ICE CHILL. Do so until he dies
(75-80hp), then mop up the Bandits. Don't be afraid to use healing spells;
this is not an easy fight, and the Bandits can kill you. When you win (p91)
you find out that they weren't very good bandits(?!). But you get Magic Arrows
(d20!), S:FIRE COLUMN, and S:BATTLE POWER, which are unique if not all that
useful.
The only other thing the Game Preserve is good for is racking up XP, but the
fights involve a lot of magicians that have distance spells, so it's way easier
if you've got Dragon Teeth. What are those, you might ask? Well, keep
reading, they're a little ways down...
6.29 NOT FAR ENOUGH AWAY, IF YOU ASK ME [#629#]
(Scorpion Bridge, Magic College)
The rest of Rustic Isle is empty. You'll find the Scorpion Bridge in the SE
corner (p48), so named because of the two scorpion/person guardians. You don't
want to rumble with these two. Instead, (U)se the Enkidu Totem that you picked
up in the Mystic Wood to get past. You have a two-square-wide path to choose
from; stick to the N. When you enter the bridge you'll find a side tunnel to
the N, at the end of which is another Magic Shield (+4AC/-0AV) and another
Barbed Flail (d30/+2AC). These fights aren't too bad, but if you don't have
the Totem, the fight with the guard scorpions can be brutal. Don't go down the
side tunnel to the S; there's nothing there.
Exit the Scorpion Bridge and head to the NE. The only thing on this side of
the bridge is the Magic College. You can drop the Enkidu Totem (you don't need
it to get back across the bridge).
Once you find the College, the entrance to the building is hidden in the SW
corner. Where you see tracks, face the building and (U)se Lanac'toor's
spectacles. Utnapishtim The Faraway, the master of the college, welcomes(?)
you and will now pose you several puzzles. A "final exam", if you will. In
each room, you have to solve the puzzle, usually by casting a spell. There are
often multiple solutions, though I've listed what I believe to be the cheapest
in terms of spell points. Don't ever take a step into the room, just do the
right thing, and you'll be teleported to the next room immediately. (Sometimes
this is a bit of a visual trick, such as room 2 to room 3.)
Room 1: Cast H:ICE CHILL x 1pt to put out the fire.
Room 2 (p141): For the purposes of the story, you're supposed to try casting
H:ICE CHILL again, and when that doesn't work, cast H:REVEAL GLAMOUR to see
that it's an illusion. But you don't have to. You can immediately cast
S:INFERNO x 1pt (or L:MAGE FIRE) to melt the ice.
Room 3 (p142): Cast H:CLOAK ARCANE x 1pt to hide from the gargoyle.
Room 4 (p143): You must move into the opposite (SE) corner of the room to
attack the Philistine. The Philistine has 300HP and radiates anti-magic,
meaning that no spell you cast will work. Note that this includes healing
spells as well as the spell-like effects of using items, such as Healing
Potions, so you have to beat him with what you came in with. Your bow-mage
will help immensely here. If you get beaten, you have to start over.
Room 5 (p144): Cast S:DISARM TRAP x 1pt. Ha ha, the master of High Magic
hasn't ever seen a Sun Magic spell before. Ha ha. (You can also use D:SOFTEN
STONE here, but it's way more expensive.) There is no High Magic spell you can
cast to solve this puzzle.
Room 6 (p145): Ignore the fake Utnapishtim. (If you try to fight him, he
ejects you and you have to start over.) Make sure you have 3-4 empty slots in
your inventory, and proceed to Room 7. There (p146) take the Bowl. When the
treasure list pops up, take the Soul Bowl, H:GROUP HEAL (unique), and H:FIRE
SUMMON (unique, but useless); you have everything else already, although it's
worth noting that this is a complete collection of the High Magic Zap library.
You're then kicked out of the College.
The list: H:FIRE LIGHT, H:ELVAR'S FIRE, H:POOG'S VORTEX, H:ICE CHILL, H:BIG
CHILL, H:DAZZLE, H:GROUP HEAL, H:FIRE SUMMON
You can drop the Spectacles.
6.30 PEPSI BRINGS YOUR ANCESTORS BACK FROM THE DEAD (Mystic Wood) [#630#]
Let's make good use of that Soul Bowl. From the Magic College, cross the
Scorpion Bridge (a couple of fights there), go W, N, and E and back to your
boat. Take it to Smuggler's Cove, then hit the Quag Nexus and return to the
Mystic Wood. Head back to the Underworld if you need to recharge.
From the Nexus go 2W 4S to find Zaton's monument, and (U)se the Soul Bowl
(p79). You get a large selection of Druid Magic, much of which you already
have, but you can actually give Louie a complete set of spells now, if you
want.
The list: D:BRAMBLES (unique! still useless!), D:GREATER HEAL, D:CURE ALL,
D:CREATE WALL, D:INVOKE SPIRIT (also unique! also useless!), D:BEAST CALL,
D:WOOD SPIRIT
Now we're done with the Mystic Wood. I promise. You don't have to come back
here again except to get between the Underworld and the Nexus.
You can drop the Soul Bowl.
6.31 FOR DEATH AWAITS YOU ALL, WITH NASTY BIG POINTY TEETH [#631#]
(Eastern Isle, Dragon Valley)
Take Ugly's boat to the Sunken Ruins (p46). The Ruins are 1W 1N from your
boat, but first we're going to Dragon Valley, which is 5W 1N.
A personal note before we go on: The first time I played this game, back in the
early 90s, I got completely stuck on the last fight before Namtar, where you're
trying to clear out all of his armies before you attack him. I just couldn't
beat it. I knew about the Dragon Queen, I even had the Dragon Gem, but I'd
been completely unable to find her. Frustrated, I stooped so low as to buy the
official Hint Book, which hinted at but did not give the exact location of
Dragon Valley. When I discovered that I had simply MISSED A SQUARE of the
Eastern Isles world map, I felt like the biggest idiot ever. Now I'm an adult
with the Internet and there are walkthroughs for every game imaginable. These
are enlightened times, my friends.
Save frequently. Combats here are pretty nasty, and everything hits hard, but
you should have a pretty well-developed sense of tactics at this point. Dragon
Warriors are the most straightforward; they're just tanks. Fangers have a high
AC. Cockatrices have breath weapons, and you should take them out at range
with S:RAGE OF MITHRAS as soon as possible. Mages will cast D:BRAMBLES against
you once they get to 60'. Although that won't do damage, in large enough
quantities, it will stop you from doing anything, although your party can still
(A)dvance. You should run any time you see Mages; a combination of Mages and
Cockatrices is pretty much guaranteed doom.
Note that not everything is a fixed combat. It's often worth your while to run
the first time to see if the combat is still there (and maybe it got easier, in
the meanwhile).
First order of business is to acquire some Dragon's Teeth. Go 1N 3E 3N and
face a big group. Go 2W and face a smaller group. Then 1S you'll find a
dragon's skeleton. Give all four of your frontline fighters a Dragon's Tooth.
These things are so good (2d20/+8AV/+2AC/60') that it almost unbalances the
game, especially with the 60'(!!!) reach. You have *spells* that are weaker
than that. Even Ulrik should stop using the Axe of Kalah at this point. In
fact, this is the reason I told you not to put any skill points into any weapon
skills except MAYBE Swords.
You can drop The Slicer; it can't be sold, so even if you're still selling off
old gear for cash, it's worthless.
In the extreme NE corner of the map there's a locked chest with H:SALA'S SWIFT,
H:VORN'S GUARD, and H:COWARDICE. These are all useless, and all available in
for sale in Freeport, so even if you're a magic completist it's not really
worth finding this chest.
The Dragon Queen awaits you in the N central part of the map. No matter how
you try to get there you're going to have to fight off a bunch of Dragon
Warriors. They advance 30' per round, hit pretty hard, and have lots of HP,
but are otherwise beatable.
The Queen is NOT pleased with you (p134). Don't run! You have an ace in the
hole: the Dragon Gem, which you picked up in the Lansk Undercity. (U)se it
before she blasts you. She's still not happy (p120)... but she does agree to
come to your aid next time you use the Gem. Ignore her warning; I promise you,
it'll be worth her while. Just don't drop the thing!
Note: If you try to run away, the Queen and her brood attack. If by some
miracle her first blast (~15 Health from 150' away) doesn't immediately kill
your entire party, she blows you all the way back to the entrance of the map.
In the SW corner of the map there's a cache with a bunch of tasty stuff that's
worth getting. Dragon Eyes are like Dragon Stones but better (and couldn't
come at a better time). You also find a Holy Lance (3d20/+4AV Two-hander) as
well as another Dragon Helm (+4AC/-1AV) and Dragon Shield (+5AC/-0AV). I have
no idea what Dragon Tears are for but they sell for $2500 each.
Look, Dragon Valley is pretty tough if this is your first time through the
game, and you probably want to avoid as much combat as possible. Here's the
absolutely easiest path through Dragon Valley, and remember, any combat you run
into that I haven't explicitly called out is a random encounter and you can run
from it.
1) 1N 3E 3N (fight #1) 2W (fight #2) 1S to the Dragon's Teeth
2) 2N 3E (fight #3) 3N 1W 1N 2W ("Dragon roars") 3N (fight #4) 2W gets
you to the Dragon Queen
3a) 2S 1W 2S 1E 1S (fight #5) 1S 1W 1S 1W 2S (fight #6) 1W to the cache,
picking up all the fun color text along the way
-- or --
3b) 2E 5S 1W 1S 2W 1S 1W 2S (fight #5) 1W to the cache
4) 1E 2N 1E 1N 2E 1N 1E 2N 2E 2S 1E 2S 1W 4S 3W 1S to the exit
If you don't need to pick up the Teeth or the Eyes for some reason,
use this path: 1N 3E 3N (#1) 1N 1E (#2) 3N 1W 1N 2W 3N (#3) 2W to the
Queen, and reverse your steps back to the exit.
6.32 THE SKULL OF ROBA (Sunken Ruins) [#632#]
If you haven't rescued Irkalla yet (6.19), go do that first. You'll need the
Water[-breathing] Potion that she gives you.
Now that you have Dragon Teeth, head back to the Sunken Ruins. We're going to
reassemble the *real* Freedom Sword, not that fake one in Freeport that Namtar
turned into a lightening rod. The raw materials that we need are here.
Enter the zigzag path, fight off some Swimmers, and approach the door.
Lockpick 4 is enough to get through it, but if you didn't get that far, step 1N
and go through the secret door instead! Circle around and take the first
hallway W, keep circling and go through a secret door to the S.
In the SW corner of this room is a chest with a Spiked Flail (4d20/+2AV/+1AC).
That's some lovely damage, but the reach on the Dragon Teeth makes them so
amazingly superior it's not worth it. Kill some rats and enter the 1x1 central
room from the E. (U)se the Water Potion that Irkalla gave you to dive down
into the well.
The submerged part is also quite small, and wraps around on itself. S:GUIDANCE
can help here because there are some spinners. Go 4E (spin) 3N to find a giant
clamshell with the Skull of Roba, but don't take the skull (ow), take the whole
clam.
From the main stairs, then go 4N 2E and (U)se Lockpick on the locker. The
Bloated Corpses go down pretty quickly, and the Dragon Plate (+14AC/-3AV) is
really nice armor. The Dragon Sword (4d20/+3AV Two-hander, requires 21 STR)
and Trident (2d20/40' Thrown, comes back) would also be good weapons if you
didn't have the Teeth.
(The only weapons that can beat the Dragon Teeth on pure damage are the Holy
Lance, Spiked Flail, Dragon Sword, Heavy Sword (Nisir), and the Sword of
Freedom (coming soon). But none of those have range, several of them are
Two-handers so they need enormous STR to use, and you can't beat +8AV.)
From the main stairs again, go 2S 1W 1N through a secret door. A locked chest
holds three of the Useless Quartet (H:EARTH, AIR, WATER SUMMON) and a batch of
Dragon Stones that you might not need right now.
Climb back to the surface. As you do, the Clam shrivels away and you're left
with Roba's Skull, which is what you came here for in the first place.
You can drop the Water Potion.
6.33 EVERYBODY MUST GET [UN]STONED (Dwarf Clan Hall) [#633#]
Sell some stuff, recharge, yadda yadda yadda. Your next stop is the
Dwarven Clan Hall on King's Isle.
From topside, head to the S portion of King's Isle. Enter the Dwarf Ruins
area, approach the statue, and (U)se the Jade Eyes to open the way down.
W of the stairs you find a crystal wall that blocks your way to the forge.
S of the crystal wall you'll find the Gorgon that turned everybody to stone.
You should be able to take him out in one round.
N of the wall, go through a door. Don't go through the door to the W yet
(p118); if you try to steal the treasure before waking the dwarves, you'll have
to fight off the automatons. Instead go 1E 1N (p119) and cast D:SOFTEN STONE
to turn the Dwarves back to life (p38). Now you can raid the dwarves' armory
for free. W and N there's a Dragon Helm (+4AC/-1AV). The Bombs have only a
10' range, and thrown weapons suck anyway. You may have already bought
H:MYSTIC MIGHT in Freeport.
There's some more minor treasure in the N hallway. Go E N W; there are secret
doors in the W wall for three more rooms, but only treasure in two of them.
You might find another Spell Staff (+5AV/+8AC) handy. The Dragon Horn casts
S:RAGE OF MITHRAS. If you're like me, you haven't used up the two Healing
Potions you've already found, so you don't need a third; if you're not like me,
you probably exploited the bug back in section 6.9 to get seven of them, so you
definitely don't need an eighth.
To get to the forge, you can either return to the Underworld and take the
stairs up, or cast D:SOFTEN STONE a couple of times to get around the crystal
wall. Either way, now that the forge has a smith, (U)se Roba's Skull there and
he will fashion the Sword of Freedom. Exit W and take the stairs down to the
Underworld to go pick it up.
The Isle of Woe, in case you haven't been following along, is the island that
Irkalla was on. Head back to Irkalla's Realm (bandage after crossing the
fires), leap to the Isle with the Golden Boots, and head to the N shore (where
you might have noticed 'unusually calm' waters on a previous trip). There you
get a Lady of the Lake moment (p138) and, at long last, receive the Freedom
Sword (1d100/+15AV/+5AC). It hasn't got reach, but...
6.34 HICKORY DICKORY DOCK (Old Dock, Pilgrim Dock) [#634#]
This is it: you're into the endgame, now. We've cleared out the entire map and
done basically everything there is to do. The only thing left... is that giant
mountain (which you can't see, because let's face it, graphics tech wasn't that
good in 1989) right smack in the center of Dilmun. So if there's something
that you want to go back and do -- sell some gear, exploit the bridge loot bug
to stock up on Healing Potions, pick up Pilgrim Garb in the Kingshome wardrobe
-- this is the time to do it.
Once you're ready to climb Mount Salvation and go hunt down Namtar in the
Nisir, head to the one place we haven't been yet: the humble looking dock in
the SE corner of King's Isle.
When you enter on the E side, the first pier to the W is for the Lansk
Undercity ferry. You can buy a ticket for 500gp(!) in the Travel Bureau to
the S, then walk N and (U)se it to board. The return ticket is only 50gp at
the Department of EZ Paperwork in the Undercity (see 6.24)... but why on Oceana
would you do such a thing?
In the SW corner of the map, there's a statue of the patron saint of computing.
You need STR23 or 24 to move the statue. Underneath you'll find H:EARTH
SUMMON, an Ice Wand, a bunch of Dragon Stones, and... a computer that casts
S:GUIDANCE, never runs out of charges, and grants +4AC if you equip it(!).
You can't cast D:SOFTEN STONE on any of the walls here.
To get to Salvation you want to board the pilgrim's ferry, but they won't let
you do that unless you look the part. You'll need to equip Pilgrim Garb, which
you can find in Kingshome (6.21) in the king's closet on the W side of the map.
If you're wearing the garb and step onto the E pier, you're transported to the
Pilgrim Dock (p82).
(Of course, you could totally skip this part and get to Salvation from the
Underworld, but I am trying to follow the story here. Mostly.)
The easy way through this map is to keep your Pilgrim Garb on. Enter the
dockhouse to the S, pass the guards, and exit to the E. There's a statue of
the Universal God there (p84).
The hard way is to switch back to regular armor. The Guard and Stosstrupen
combo is pretty vicious, but you should be able to handle it pretty well; just
keep using D:CURE ALL and S:INFERNO. Your bow-mage and the Freedom Sword ought
to pick off one each per round, and then it's just a question of attrition.
In the S of the dockhouse there's a locked door (requires Lockpick 3). Behind
are some more guards that you should be able to handle the same way. In the E
cell there's a crying prisoner (p83) with a hint on how to get out of here and
how to find Namtar.
If you lose any of these fights, you get dropped into the W cell. The wall to
the W has a secret door though, and takes you to a teleporter into Salvation.
6.35 SALVATION [#635#]
If you walked out of the Pilgrim Dock, you're briefly back on the Dilmun world
map, and the mountain itself is 2S of where you are now. Regardless of how you
enter Salvation*, you start in the same place (p98). If you want, you can
leave to the N and go back to the Dock, but you can't get back to King's Isle.
*: If you came up from the Underworld, you're somewhere else; keep reading.
Make sure you've switched off Pilgrim Garb and back to real armor. You can
discard the Pilgrim Garb.
Go E from the start, then S and E and find the shrine to the Universal God.
Get inspired (p97), then show him the Freedom Sword. That grants you a +3 in
all four primary attributes (except HEALTH, unfortunately). You'll want to use
'X' to examine the advancement screen for each of your characters; exiting that
screen convinces the game to translate your new SPIRIT score into an actual
increase in max POWER. It might be worth your while to try to go up another
level so you can boost everybody to DEX24 for the extra point of AV/DV, but
maybe not. Or maybe you were clever and came in here with DEX21 already.
Re-equip the Freedom Sword. It now casts S:INFERNO if you (U)se it in combat.
S of the entrance there are some nasty-looking pits. If you step into one
(actually, any of the pits anywhere on this map), you wind up in the Magan
Underworld near the Salvation stairs (6.0.7). So, actually, this wasn't a
one-way trip after all!
W of the entrance is the interesting stuff. In the S there's a "shrine" to the
Magan Underworld (p100), by which they really mean staircase. It works both
ways; you can leave here and come back via this staircase as much as you like.
To the W of here is another fight with more guards. They're guarding a locked
chest with Dragon Plate (+14/-3), a Dragon Helm (+4/-1), a Spiked Mace and
Heavy Sword (why are you even looking at new weapons at this point?), a Mage
Staff (+10/+0 -- the Spell Staff is better), and a bunch of Dragon Eyes. Note
that even Lockpick 4 might fail a couple of times before the chest opens.
To the E is a door that can be picked with Lockpick 4. Beyond are more guards.
Or, instead of going through the door, you can go 1S 1E, (U)se IQ, then (U)se
Climb, and skip the fight. Your choice.
Proceed to the SE and find Namtar's tower (p55). (U)se the Golden Boots to
jump across the chasm. The interior of the tower is dark, and as you proceed
forward, Namtar will scold you, then the floor will fall out from under you and
drop you into...
6.36 NISIR [#636#]
The Nisir is a giant dungeon that's hard to get around and has tons of nooks
and crannies. The fights aren't much fun either; if you hit one that isn't
obviously a plot fight, you can run from it. A single Lich is pretty easy to
take out at range with Dragon Teeth. Young Dragons are hard and hurt a lot;
one is doable, two is worth running from. Run from pretty much everything
else.
Make sure everybody has the Dragon Teeth equipped; you'll need the ranged
attack more than the Sword of Freedom's raw damage, at least for a little
while.
The good news is that there are only a couple of things you really want to do
here, and if you're not interested in revenge on Namtar's lieutenants
(Mystalvision and Buck Ironhead), you can skip them and head straight to the
big man himself (see NAMTAR, below).
You start out stuck in a natural cavern at the end of the world. If you panic
and feel like you need to get out of here, go 1N 2E 2S and find a set of stairs
that drop you next to the refresh pool in the Underworld. Heal, refresh, and
head back to Salvation to get to Nisir again. You can do this anytime you
want, but the map will reset...
BUCK IRONHEAD: Go N from the entrance until you hit the wall. Cast D:SOFTEN
STONE. The area immediately outside the cavern is full of "icy winds" that
will damage you and cancel any spells you have active. Go 1N, cast D:SOFTEN
STONE again, go 1N, then use the computer (S:GUIDANCE) and Magic Lamp (L:MAGE
LIGHT) again. Go W to the intersection, which has a spinner, then go N. If
you don't have S:GUIDANCE on, turn until you see a door ahead on your right;
that's W. Turn right once (N) then go forward.
Go N until you hit the wall, then turn E. Walk until you find the 2nd door on
the N, opposite a corridor to the S. Go S and walk until the next
intersection. You'll hit a spinner there. You want to turn E, which is the
direction with a door right in front of you. It might look like we went the
long way around, and we did, but it was to avoid a teleport trap. If you don't
trust my directions, how did you get this far in the game? ;)
Go through two doors (the game tries to tell you that you're on the right
track, which couldn't be less true) and forward until you hit the wall; turn
right and go 4S. Save here, then go 1W 1S 1E 1S. You'll hit a bunch of fights
with Lizard Men (75-90hp) and Namtar Guards (125-150) through here. Run and
try again until you get small groups. Before you go through the last door
(1E), switch back to the Sword of Freedom. Buck has between 200 and 270HP and
pretty good AC, but it shouldn't take you more than a couple of rounds of
hacking. And he's only worth 85xp.
MYSTALVISION: Retrace your steps until you get to the spinner in the main
hallway. Go back to the N, and when you hit the T intersection with the door
in front of you, save, then go through it. There's a random combat there.
Turn W and walk through the doors. If you take the long way (by hugging the N
wall) you'll skip two more combats. Eventually you'll end up in a hall that
hurts every time you take a step. It's like swimming across the Purgatory bay:
you can Bandage whenever you want, but even turning (or hitting Esc to pause!)
hurts.
Go 2N 4E, turn to the N, then use Bandage. Mystalvision waits 1N of you in the
center of the Solarium. He's not so tough; he'll cast weak INFERNOs on you.
Zap him with spells (make sure you use the ones that work at 40') and hit him
with the Dragon Teeth and he'll go down pretty quickly (~175hp). When he dies
(a lousy 100xp?!) he curses you by sending you to another cavern just W of the
one you actually started in. Worse, you're surrounded by random fights.
Instead, turn W, cast D:SOFTEN STONE, go 1W, and cast it again. You'll walk
through another icy pain-and-anti-magic wind.
NAMTAR, POST-MYSTALVISION: Okay, enough fooling around. 3N of here there's a
locked door to the W.
Proceed W and S through a couple of 3x3 rooms -- it's getting pretty grizzly
down here -- until you reach the swamp under the mountain. (If you rescued the
prisoner from the Dock, he told you about this place.) The exit's in the SW
corner. Go 1W through the door, then 3N 1W and cast D:SOFTEN STONE. Go 3W 1S
1E and get teleported. Skip to THE BIG ONE, below.
NAMTAR, WITHOUT THE LIEUTENANTS: If you want a quicker way through, you have
two choices.
1) Exit the starting chamber to the N, as described in the BUCK IRONHEAD
section. When you get to the spinner, continue W to the wall and go 2S. That
takes you to the same door as NAMTAR, POST-MYSTALVISION above.
2) Go into the SE corner of the chamber. Cast D:SOFTEN STONE to the S, walk to
the wall, cast D:SOFTEN STONE again. Step through, (U)se the computer totem
for GUIDANCE and the Magic Lamp for light, and Bandage. Go E and find a
spinner, then go either E or S. There's a railing over a chasm, beyond which
you can just see another balcony. In the SE corner, cast a 1pt H:AIR SUMMON
(huh, I guess that spell isn't *completely* useless...) and an elemental will
ferry you across to the other side.
From here, go E and then S. Namtar seems vaguely interested that you might be
here, or something. Head into the SW corner of this room and face S. Cast
D:SOFTEN STONE, go 2S, and cast D:SOFTEN STONE again. Then go 1S 1E 1S 2W 1S
1E, and continue on to THE BIG ONE.
THE BIG ONE: Be awe-struck at the amazing battle plain that lies in front of
you. Actually it's just a different part of the Nisir map. Sorry to break the
mystique. If you step 1N, there's a staircase that will let you completely
bail out. It drops you back on the Isle of Woe, which had better be what
you're feeling if you lacked the cojones to go face Namtar at this point.
This really is a point of no return, so do whatever you're gonna (use Dragon
Eyes or the like, Bandage, cast H:CLOAK ARCANE, whatever). You won't get
another out-of-combat turn until you beat Namtar three times.
Proceed S. When the game says you'd be a fool to go any farther, (U)se the
Dragon Gem. Actually, it's kind of fun to step 1S again and look at just what
you're up against. The standard draw seems to be 31 Lizard Warriors, 9
Enforcers, and 10 Young Dragons. Yikes. And if you beat them there's more
beyond! Anyway, use the Gem, unless you're beating the game multiple times
(and by "multiple" I mean like "twenty") with the same characters, because
otherwise you will not beat these guys. You get a fun couple of paragraphs as
the Dragon Brood Queen spanks Namtar's army, then scorches his body to a crisp.
Unfortunately, you're not done yet; Namtar springs back to life and faces you
in combat. You'll now have to kill him three times. I recommend erring on the
side of caution during these fights: if you're trying to choose between a
healing spell and an attack spell, cast the group-heal spell, even if it might
be redundant. It's pretty easy for Louie to die outright, and you won't be
able to bring him back if that happens.
Remember the following magic items, which you may not have used much:
Black Helm: casts M:ZAK'S SPEED for +15DEX to all party members
Battle Wand: casts H:BATTLE POWER for +10STR to all party members
Wand: casts S:MAJOR HEALING
Healing Potion: casts S:HEAL on anyone, not just the holder
Druid's Mace: casts D:CURE ALL
Manage your front and rear ranks carefully, and don't be afraid to (M)ove party
members around in combat to reorder. Between slayings, the game will rearrange
your party back into its original marching order, which might or might not be
good for you. Nothing worse than having Namtar resurrect with one of your
fighters sitting on 1HP, and he always goes before you do.
Chances are pretty good you'll need to kill DOSBOX from the command line and
reload a couple of times before you manage to knock him down for good without
dying. Although, if you get stunned out of combat, it seems the game sometimes
grants you a boon of partial healing (unverified), and sometimes Namtar is
closer than he was before.
Okay, onto the tactics. Kill Namtar once (around 800hp). The second time
(around 375hp), he'll close to 10' and then use D:WHIRL WIND to push you back.
He almost always goes first, but you can use that to your advantage. Just keep
attacking with the Dragon Teeth and you'll knock him down quickly enough. The
third time (somewhere between 900 and 975hp) is the hardest, because you're
already depleted and haven't had a round to rest in a while. You may have more
luck closing to 20' so your bow-mage can hit him, and countering his breath
weapon with D:CURE ALL and/or S:MAJOR HEALING. If you find yourself within
10', he will hammer you for around 20 stun per round; I suggest Blocking with
most of your front line and letting your bow-mage do the work.
6.37 ENDGAME (Magan Underworld) [#637#]
Once you do manage to beat Namtar three times, you get to pick up his body.
Doing so transports you to the Magan Underworld near the recharge pool. You
may also find that your wounds have been healed. Obviously, hit the recharge
pool (I bet that feels good).
2S of the recharge pool at the choke point is a battle with 30 Goblins, and
these are tougher than the normal ones. Block with your front line, blow all
your magic on big group-zap spells, and with a little luck you may wipe out the
whole group of Goblins before they can stun anyone. Namtar is getting weaker
(~200hp), so just clean him up again and hit the recharge pool again
afterwards.
You're free to wander the Underworld at this point, but now that you're in the
endgame, you're stuck down here -- none of the stairs up will work. Which is a
shame, because I really want to know what happens if you throw him into the
Well of Souls under the Necropolis. Ah well. If you're out of Dragon Stones
and feel like you need more (you don't, because you have the refresh pool now),
check out the cache near the Mystic Wood stairs (6.0.8).
When you're ready for the final fight (~1000hp), head down to the bridge with
the fairies that leads to the Salvation stairs. Ha ha! That's so cute when he
screams. Step up to any railing on this penninsula and (U)se his body to cast
it into the pit.
Congratulations!
7 FINAL NOTES [#700#]
Now that you've beaten Namtar -- actually, you can do this any time you want --
you can start over by reloading the game and indicating at the prompt that you
want to (B)egin a new game instead of (C)ontinuing your old one. You keep your
party as-is, including stats and spells, but (as happens when you get dumped
into Purgatory) not including any of your equipment.
The most notable use for this "cheat" is recycling the 5 AP Irkalla bonus
(W.0.4). All you have to do is start the game, pick up a scroll at the Low
Magic shop, sacrifice it to Irkalla's statue, visit the Underworld, find
Irkalla's Realm, and step over the rail. Repeat that as often as you like.
It's possible to build up a party that's good enough that you don't need any
armor or weapons to waltz through the Nisir. It's also a good way to get
higher Magic skills for your front line fighters; two trips to Irkalla equals a
skill point in Sun Magic, and seven high-point S:INFERNOs will go a long way
(although wow is it a pain to haul out to the Necropolis to get it every time
you restart the game). Just sayin'.
Otherwise, every map (mostly) resets every time you leave it, so the only other
thing that starting a new game does is reset some of the "unique" encounters
(Humbaba, Mog, Kingshome/Siege Camp, Necropolis, etc). I suppose if you drop a
unique quest item, this is your only choice.
7.1 FINAL STATS [#701#]
Here are some stats for my party after defeating Namtar for the last time.
THOG (Lvl 13, 760xp)
STR25 DEX24 INT13 SPR13 HP20 -- AV15 DV6 AC35
Climb 4, Lockpick 4, Low Magic 3, Swords 2
Armor: Heavy Plate, Silver Gloves, Dragon Shield, Dragon Helm, Mage Ring
Weapons: Freedom Sword, Dragon Tooth
Magic: L:all
ALEX (Lvl 13, 760xp)
STR24 DEX24 INT13 SPR13 HP20 -- AV10 DV6 AC29
Bandage 10, Tracker 1, Low Magic 1
Armor: Dragon Plate, Gauntlets, Magic Shield, Dragon Helm, Golden Boots
Weapons: Dragon Tooth
Magic: L:all
ULRIK (Lvl 13, 943xp)
STR23 DEX24 INT13 SPR17 HP20 -- AV10 DV6 AC30
Cave Lore 3, Swim 1, Low Magic 1, Axes 3
Armor: Dragon Plate, Gauntlets, Dragon Shield, Dragon Helm, Lucky Boots
Weapons: Dragon Tooth
Magic: L:all
LOUIE (Lvl 12, 5035xp)
STR21 DEX24 INT19 SPR19 HP18 -- AV13 DV6 AC26
Hiding 2, Pickpocket 2, Low Magic 1, Druid Magic 2
Armor: Magic Plate, Gauntlets, Magic Shield, Black Helm, Lucky Boots
Magic Ring
Weapons: Dragon Tooth
Magic: L:all, D:all except BRAMBLES
VALAR (Lvl 12, 4388xp)
STR14 DEX23 INT22 SPR23 HP19 -- AV10 DV5 AC22
Low Magic 1, Sun Magic 3
Armor: Magic Chain, Magic Shield, Gem Helm
Weapons: Spell Staff
Magic: L:all, S:all
ARTHUR (Lvl 13, 760xp)
STR15 DEX16 INT19 SPR30 HP15 -- AV14 DV4 AC14
Low Magic 1, Druid Magic 3, Arcane Lore 1, Bureaucracy 1
Armor: Magic Chain, Shield, Black Helm
Weapons: Mage Staff
Magic: L:all, D:all except WHIRL WIND, INVOKE SPIRIT,
M:ZAK'S SPEED, KILL RAY
VALERIE (Lvl 13, 760xp)
STR13 DEX24 INT19 SPR24 HP14 -- AV6 DV6 AC12
Low Magic 1, High Magic 3, Bows 1
Armor: Magic Chain, Shield, Helm
Weapons: Gatlin Bow, Magic Quiver
Magic: L:all, H:all except EARTH SUMMON
The lowest-level characters with which I've ever beaten the game (without
multiple Irkalla runs) were 12th level. Experience level, of course, is
basically irrelevant to the game except as a means for gaining AP, so you could
alternately call those 77AP (50 + 5 + 2*(12-1)) characters.
7.2 EXTRA: THE SPEED RUN [#702#]
Dragon Wars is a fairly non-linear RPG; you're not restricted in what order you
visit the various cities and dungeons, except that in some cases if you try to
go to one that you're not sufficiently equipped for, you can find yourself
stuck and unable to get out of where you are. But that's why you're backing up
your save files, right?
The "full" walkthrough that I've presented above touches every location in the
game, but you certainly don't have to do all of that in order to win. If all
you're interested in is getting through the game with the minimum amount of
work, then this section is for you!
In theory, the only object that you literally cannot win the game without is
the Golden Boots. Go to Mud Toad, plug up the leak, then visit the temple to
get the Boots. From there, you can get to Salvation through the Underworld,
use the Boots to jump the chasm, fall into Nisir, and waltz through Namtar's
army before taking out the man himself. Run the ENDGAME and toss Namtar into
the pit to win. I'm obviously skipping some steps, but this is the fastest
possible path through the game.
However, presuming that you aren't actually strong enough to beat Namtar's army
by yourself (although it is theoretically possible), you'll also want the help
of the Dragon Brood Queen. So we'll hit the Lansk Undercity to get the gem,
and fight our way across Dragon Valley in order to confront the Brood Queen.
That makes the endgame much easier.
Now I'm assuming that you've already beaten the game once and are playing
through a second time with high-AP characters. Even so, it's not really
practical to try to beat the game without any equipment at all. Buff spells
like M:ZAK'S SPEED, H:CLOAK ARCANE, S:MITRHAS' BLESS, etc. are useful, but will
only get you so far. So we'll also make a couple of pit stops for Dragon's
Teeth and a bunch of good armor, along with the more mandatory quest items
above. (I'm not going to bother with the Sword of Freedom, because it's a long
quest to lots of places I'd otherwise skip, and you probably won't miss it.)
Okay, caveats aside, this is an outline of the "fastest practical" way through
the game. We're shooting for AC 20 or higher for all fighters, plus the Gatlin
Bow / Magic Quiver combination to turn one of your mages into a pincushion
powerhouse. On a good day, this run takes me about an hour. Obviously, you
could go collect another ~10 points of AC for each player, but I called this
"the Speed Run" for a reason.
1. Purgatory
- Get a scroll from the Magic Shoppe.
- Pray to Irkalla and enter the Apsu Waters.
2. Underworld
- Get the Slicer.
- Get the 5 AP bonus.
3. Mystic Wood
- Wrestle Enkidu, unless everyone in your party has Druid Magic already.
- Get The Ring.
4. Phoebus
- Rats/Dogs treasure room, NE: Magic Plate
- Guarded treasure room, NW: Plate Mail, Magic Shield
- Let Mystalvision throw you in the dungeon.
5. Phoeban Dungeon
- Magic Mouth treasure vault: Magic Quiver, Magic Ring
- Let the dragon destroy Phoebus (faster than fighting your way out)
6. Lansk Undercity
- Go through the Underworld into Lansk. (You could cross the Guard Bridge
instead if you need intermediate weapons like the Axe of Kalah.)
- Heal the dragon to get the Dragon Gem.
- Buy a copy of CURE ALL ($100) for your newly-minted Druid.
7. Kingshome Dungeon
- Take the Nexus to King's Isle.
- Get knocked out by the guards in the NE corner.
- Find the Treasury: Gatlin Bow, Black Helm, Fire Shield, Mage Ring
8. Kingshome
- Meet Namtar.
- Go N into the halls and E to the treasury: Magic Chain, Lucky Boots
9. Yellow Mud Toad
- Take the Nexus to Quag.
- Fix the wall, get the Golden Boots.
10. Smuggler's Cove
- Slaughter the crew, get the boat and a suit of Heavy Plate.
11. Dragon Valley
- Get the Dragon's Teeth.
- See the Queen, use the Dragon Gem.
- Armor in the SW: Dragon Helm, Dragon Shield, and Dragon Eyes
13. Salvation
- Go up from the Underworld.
- Guarded chest to the W: Dragon Plate, Helm
- Use IQ and Climb, then cross the chasm with the boots and fall.
14. Nisir
- Go N E S to the stairs, use D:SOFTEN STONE twice to the S.
- Recast L:MAGE LIGHT and H:CLOAK ARCANE.
- Go E, hit the spinner, go SE, cast H:AIR SUMMON (1pt) to cross the
wide chasm.
- Go S, into the SW corner, use D:SOFTEN STONE twice to the S.
- Hit the teleporter to find Namtar's army. Use the Dragon Gem.
- Kill Namtar three times.
15. Magan Underworld
- Run the ENDGAME.
Everything else is just gravy, but here are some other big 'quests' you can do.
- MASTER MAGES OF DILMUN: First, kill Ugly for his boat. Collect the four
parts of the statue of Lanac'toor. The Arms are in Tars Underground, the
Legs are held by the Order of the Sword in Freeport, the Trunk is in the
Guardian room of the Necropolis, and the Head is in Snake Pit. Reassemble the
statue in Mud Toad for access to Lanac'toor's Lab, and get the Spectacles and
the Miscellaneous Magic. Get the Enkidu Totem from the Mystic Wood, use it to
cross the Scorpion Bridge (or fight the Scorpions, ow), and go to the Magic
College. Solve Utnapishtim's puzzles for a bunch of High Magic. Take the Soul
Bowl to the Mystic Wood for a bunch of Druid Magic. Note that if you're
playing a second time through with the same characters, you get to keep all
your spells, so this may not be useful unless you're trying to teach new
schools of magic to someone in your party.
- THE SWORD OF FREEDOM: Get the Mushrooms from the Mystic Wood. Kill Ugly to
get the Jade Eyes and his boat. Go to the Necropolis and feed the mushrooms to
Nergal for the Silver Key. Visit Irkalla on the Isle of Woe to release her and
get the Water Potion. Go to the Sunken Ruins, use the Potion, and get the Clam
with the Skull of Roba. Restore the Dwarves in the Clan Hall with Soften
Stone, give the Skull to the smith, then go back to the Isle of Woe. Now when
you're in Nisir you can get the +3 attribute bonus (but you can only do this
once per character, even if you restart the game).
