Version 1.5
(version note: This version lists most quests through the end of the game. A few minor quests are missing. If you have a burning desire to write up one of these missed quests, like the Fire Lord quest, email [email protected] and you can talk about including your description.)
References made in this document refer to the following website:
Quests.
The following is a list of quests subjectively ranked from easiest to hardest, in a suggested order of completion. As it stands now, this list should not spoil the game insofar as it doesn�t tell you where everything is. The chief aim is to give you a rough idea of what quests to do when. Quests in boldface type are required.
My party was composed of a paladin, an archer, a cleric and a sorcerer, all with bows. If you have one of the strange but bold parties (e.g. all knights or all druids), you may skate through some of the hard quests while getting mired down in the easier ones.
One final note: One of the key features of MM6 is its nonlinear setup. Even though I spent time writing this, I would discourage anyone from using this list as an express train to finishing the game in record time. To paraphrase the Cliff�s Notes disclaimer, this guide is for educational use only and is not intended to replace the original, nonlinear adventure.
Enjoy!
Part I. Wet Behind the Ears (beginner)
Quest: Deliver the letter.
Received from: You have it at the beginning of the game
Location: NS Inn
Special Problems: none
Difficulty: none
Description: Give the letter to Potbello; take money.
Quest: Deliver the letter (again)
Received from: You already have it!
Location: Castle Ironfist (the castle itself)
Special Problems: Baa people attack you on the road, but they are a pushover.
Difficulty: very easy
Description: Walk to Castle Ironfist and deliver the letter to Humphrey in the castle. He will give you the first of the high council quests (noted later). Before you leave New Sorpigal, you may want to get the remaining NS quests (received in New Sorpigal but taking place in Castle Ironfist. See below). Note: For many of these early cross country adventures you may choose to use the various stables across the land. See the website for stable schedules.
Quest: Goblinwatch (get code)
Received from: Janice (New Sorpigal Townhall)
Location: SW of New Sorpigal (close by)
Special Problems: Rats and Suckers cause disease; Goblin Kings break items; chests have strong traps for this level.
Difficulty: easy
Description: It is possible to find the code quickly and leave most of the dungeon virtually unexplored. For experience, weapons and money, however, explore every nook and cranny�including what lies beyond the keypad doors (see webpage for goblinwatch code hints). If you take the time to rid this place of all critters, you will be in good shape for the next quest. Otherwise, beware. The next one is tougher.
Quest: Abandoned Temple of Baa (4 quests in one!)
Received from: Andover Potbello (NS Inn), Buford (NS house), Hejaz (NS house), Violet (NS house)
Location: W of New Sorpigal (close by)
Special Problems: You will spend most of your time poisoned and diseased; chests have heavy warding spells; huge
Difficulty: easy to medium
Description: 1) Your goal (if you talked to all four people) is to find the candelabra, kill the spider queen (and take her heart), collect the cobra eggs and save the girl. This dungeon is nasty for beginners because all critters fight with disease or poison attacks and the cobras strike particularly hard. Watch out in particular for the red queen cobra. 2) You can choose to do just one quest at a time, but there really is no point in doing so. 3) In the spider heart quest, as in many others, you will not see a final fantasy style Boss that you must fight to get the heart. The queen is just a big spider surrounded by other big spiders, so be sure you have her heart when you leave the dungeon. 4) Finally, if you bring the candelabra back to Potbello, you will lose reputation points; part of the money you made on the quest, however, if donated to the temple, will bring your rep back up with considerable gold left over. It is worth it.
Quest: Sorcerer to Wizard Quest
Received from: Newton (Mist)
Location: Bootleg Bay
Special Problems: You may need to fight a few tough critters (for your level) but they can be avoided
Difficulty: Easy
Description: Have ALL of your characters drink from the magic fountain, NE of Harecksburg in Bootleg Bay. Here, as everywhere else, be sure to receive the quest first and return to the quest giver afterwards.
Quest: Rescue Sherell
Received from: Tormini (Free Haven house)
Location: Bootleg Bay
Special Problems: Headhunters may be somewhat tricky.
Difficulty: easy
Description: At this point, you should easily annihilate the assorted cobras and headhunters in this dungeon. If not, either slug your way through carefully, try another quest or rethink your gaming strategy. Another option involves roaming the countryside killing everything in site (with bows) to raise your experience. Inside the temple, do not pick up the bones unless you want your rep to drop. If you do pick them up, sell them in Rockham for a finder�s fee (and watch your rep drop even more).
Quest: Destroy the Crystal
Received from: Winston Schezar
Location: Bootleg Bay (house part of village temple)
Special Problems: Master monks may give you fits, but most of the critters are easy.
Difficulty: easy
Description: This quest is fairly easy, but two master monks in the temple have an incredible armor class. I took a level 45 party in there (ok, so I missed this quest earlier) and it took my normally agile party five or six tries to even hit the darn things. But all in all, this dungeon is really a piece of cake because it is very small and mainly full of rats.
Quest: Save Sharryl
Received from: Fairchild (NS Townhall)
Location: Shadow Guild (W of Castle Ironfist)
Special Problems: Tough fighters pound you and thieves steal from you
Difficulty: Easy to medium, if you have bows.
Description: This is one of the smallest dungeons in the game. If you have a bow, you can mess up most of the enemies before they get anywhere near you. A good basic (if cowardly) strategy: run in a room, run out and down the long hall. As they approach you, pump them full of arrows. Repeat.
Quest: Chimes of Harmony
Received from: Janice (NS Townhall)
Location: Temple of Baa (SSW of the Castle Ironfist)
Special Problems: skeletons are fairly easy, but outnumber you 50:1; spiders poison you and clerics pound you from afar.
Difficulty: medium, due to sheer volume of opponents; clerics can cause serious hurt from afar
Description: If you clear the entire area of all critters, you will be rolling in experience. Do not take this dungeon lightly, however. It is one of the most populated places in the land.
Quest: Harp, orders
Received from: Fairchild (NS Townhall); Besper (Ironfist village)
Location: Dragoon Caverns (S of Castle Ironfist)
Special Problems: oozes are immune to most attacks except spark and flame; fighters are tough
Difficulty: medium; not a particularly deadly dungeon, but very very frustrating.
Description: Make sure at least two of your characters are able to hurt the oozes, otherwise you are in for a long night. The green oozes poison you and the other oozes destroy your armor and weapons. Oozes don�t cause much physical damage, but they are devilishly hard to kill and they love destroying all your hard-earned possessions. This dungeon is the most frustrating of all the early dungeons. Be patient. Note: Other players have correctly noted that you can avoid the oozes because the treasure beyond them hardly warrants the task of taking the slimies out. Duly noted. Thanks goes to Mark.
Interlude 1: At this point, your characters should be fairly beefy and ready to take on the rest of the world. You should now seriously consider promoting one of your characters to Water Master for the following reasons: 1) when you go to Free Haven, you can buy decent items and enchant them, selling them for a profit (if you have a high merchant skill); 2) Soon you will be fighting some resilient critters, and the low-level poison spell, when used at point blank range, can be devastatingly effective; 3) Water walk is one of the essentials of this game; 4) Town Portal and Lloyd�s Beacon, at master level, make traveling a cinch. Some of the high council quests are ludicrously easy if you have these spells.
You also want one character to have the Air Magic Fly spell. And, while my goal is not to give tips on spell use, it is strongly encouraged you develop some powerful cure spells, mass damage spells and a few other offensive juggernauts.
Finally, a word on reputation. Other than any special role playing elements you may impose on yourself, reputation only has two uses. One, a low or high reputation may require you to beg or bribe certain NPCs. Two, and most importantly, the master level of light magic can only be gained by someone with a saintly reputation. Since, in general, the major quests boost your reputation more substantially than the minor quests, I highly recommend boosting your rep level to respectable by donating at a temple. Then, complete several of the major, but simple high council quests and promotion quests. You should receive Saintly status in no time at all. As soon as you reach saintly status, go ahead and boost your light magic user to master. It only requires expert level, 4 skill levels and a saintly rep, so it is fairly easy to get. This way, you won't have to worry about your rep ever again. You do not want to be in the position of needing light mastery only to discover that you don't have any quests left to boost your rep.
Part 2. The World Is Your Oyster (Beginner to Intermediate)
Quest: Knight to Cavalier promotion
Received from: Temper (Temper Castle E of Free Haven)
Location: Rockham
Special Problems: You may run into some fire archers. If you do, you may want to run. They are tough for youngsters.
Difficulty: easy
Description: Temper tells you to get a nomination from Chadwick Blackpoole in Rockham. Rockham is the western village of Free Haven. BTW, while you are in Temper, go ahead and receive his High Council Quest. Note: you can do this promotion quest earlier in the game, but some of the random critters in Free Haven are mildly potent for beginners.
Quest: Find Nicolai
Received from: Castle Ironfist
Location: One of the circuses (see webpage for circus schedule)
Special Problems: Depending on which circus you go to, you may run into anything from headhunters to werewolves. I suggest using the Bootleg Bay circus. The Bootleg Bay critters are relatively weak.
Description: Go to the Bootleg Bay circus (for an easy quest) or to any of the others. He is in the main tent.
Quest: Cleric to Priest promotion
Received from: Stone (Village of Hargraeve, SE of White Cap)
Location: Free Haven
Special Problems: Getting to Stone Castle
Difficulty: super easy, in and of itself; but, receiving the quest requires you to fly over mountains swarming with harpies. Also, watch out for the fire archers casually standing around with the citizens.
Description: If you fly away from the harpies (on the way to Hargraeve), this quest is a cakewalk. See the Free Haven map on this web page for the location of the stonecutter, the carpenter, and the abandoned temple. Note: Several people have pointed out that flying is not necessary. They are correct. You can approach Stone Castle on foot from the other side of the mountain chain. Since I use Town Portal a great deal, I tend to forget that walking can get you there just as well. Walk from Free Haven or Silver Cove to enter the proper side of the mountain chain. If you are on the wrong side, you cannot traverse the mountain. Or do what I did and teleport to White Cap and then fly. Thanks to Cougar and others.
Quest: High Council Anthony Stone Prince of Thieves Capture
Received from: Stone (Village of Hargraeve, SE of White Cap)
Location: Free Haven sewers
Special Problems: Getting to Stone
Difficulty: easy in and of itself; but, receiving the quest requires you to fly over mountains swarming with harpies
Description: If you fly away from the harpies (on the way to Hargraeve), this quest is fairly easy. In truth, you could have cleaned out the sewers near the beginning of the game; but I doubt you could have flown and withstood a few pommels from harpies near the beginning of the game. Note: Several people have pointed out that flying is not necessary. They are correct. You can approach Stone Castle on foot from the other side of the mountain chain. Since I use Town Portal a great deal, I tend to forget that walking can get you there just as well. Walk from Free Haven or Silver Cove to enter the proper side of the mountain chain. If you are on the wrong side, you cannot traverse the mountain. Or do what I did and teleport to White Cap and then fly. Thanks to Cougar and others.
Quest: High Council Loretta Fleise Price Fixing
Received from: Loretta Fleise (Silver Cove)
Location: All the stables
Special Problems: Some of the stables provide service in extremely lethal areas
Difficulty: Easy if you have town portal and running shoes
Description: Basically, just portal to the towns appearing on the portal map and run to all the others. Some of the towns are surrounded by nasty critters, including minotaurs (run, man, run). Darkmoor is overrun by the undead, but none of them are particularly lethal. Note: Doing this quest lowers your rep one full level. Keep this in mind when questing for Saintly status. Thanks to Stefan for the tip.
Quest: Archer to Battle Mage promotion (retrieve dragon tower keys)
Received from: Stromgard
Location: Icewind Keep
Special Problems: Getting there is tough. The dungeon is easy.
Difficulty: Easy to medium if you have portal, meteor shower, and fly.
Description: Stromgard Castle is E of White Cap. Icewind Keep is SW of White Cap. Along the way to Icewind (flying if possible), you will see hordes of Magyars and Fire Archers surrounding the entrance. You may also see a few Harpies. However, if you have fly spell and meteor shower, you can clean out the area with ease. Just hover and let fly with the meteors. The dungeon itself is well populated with guards and ogres but they should be easy to defeat at this point. Note: Star shower works really well also. In fact, between star shower and meteor shower, the air magic spell seems to be the better of the two. Thanks to Mark.
Quest: Battle Mage to Warrior Mage promotion
Received from: Stromgard
Location: All 6 active dragon towers (dragon towers: large towers that fire fireballs at flying parties)
Special Problems: Town portal makes this quest one of the easiest in the game
Difficulty: very easy, but you need Battle Mage status before you can take this one on.
Description: The only towers you need to visit are the ones on the Town Portal map.
Quest: High Council Quest Stromgard Winter Stoppage
Received from: Stromgard
Location: Kriegspire mountain chain (hermit hut)
Special Problems: Kriegspire is drake, minotaur and earthman country
Difficulty: easy unless a swarm of drakes surrounds you
Description: You must have the fly spell. At this early level in the game, fly like hell straight to the hermit hut. Talk to the hermit. Fly like hell out of the area. If the drakes start swarming around you, you are lizard fodder. Save before you do this quest. The first time I tried it, I was decimated by a swarm of drakes. The second time, however, I used Wizard�s Eye to effectively avoid all the firebreathers.
Quest: Great Druid promotion
Received from: Fleise (Silver Cove castle)
Location: Circle of stones (northern isle of Silver Cove)
Special Problems: Only works four times a year and unless you are very quick and very lucky, gargoyles will jump on you.
Difficulty: easy to medium, due to gargoyles
Description: It's possible to do this quest early on, especially if you have druids in your party, but gargoyles are a complete pain in the neck and in good supply. The Diamond Gargoyle ranks very high on the irritation scale because they are either immune to physical attack or very close to it. The diamonds also enjoy paralyzing your party members. If you are flying and your air magi is paralyzed, your party will become a messy imprint on the terrain below.
Interlude 2: The next quests start testing your mettle as an adventurer. Many of them are tough whether you are level 30 or level 50 because the enemies have special attacks and immunities. If you find a dungeon hard to clear, you can do three things: 1) fly around the easier land areas annihilating everything you see; 2) bring your characters up in skills such as dual weapon use; 3) get better spells; and/or 4) go to another quest.
On point number four, I should point out what my party had at this point in the game in order to give you an idea of what I used to clear the dungeons. If you have less skill than my party, more skill or different skill, my rankings from here on out may be worthless for you. Basically, my paladin and archer used sword and spears simultaneously. My sorcerer was equipped with most of the fire and water spells and my paladin and my cleric had most of the anti-status effect spells. Also, unless you are a gaming purist, I strongly recommend you look into the Circus loophole strategy noted below. Some may consider this a cheat, but if you can complete the task laid out, you will see it is no cakewalk. For my money, performing the circus trick is no more cheating than buying a weapon, enchanting it, and selling it for profit. If you find a loophole in the lands, you should exploit it. I'm not talking about programming bugs here, I am talking about good old fashion opportunism. There are some programming bugs in the game, but I would encourage you not to use them. Kills the fun, IMHO.
Part 3: True Grit (Intermediate)
Quest: Arch Mage promotion (Corlagon's Estate quest - Crystal Terrax hunt)
Received from: Newton (Mist)
Location: SW corner of Ironfist land
Special Problems: This dungeon is a good old fashioned "wander through the labyrinth and push buttons" affair; the ghosts have the potential to knock you unconscious in one blow AND age you permanently.
Difficulty: easy to medium
Description: Hopefully, this quest will ease you into the more difficult ones to come. The monsters (spectres, skeletons, etc) are not too powerful and the long hallways usually allow you to launch a good 10-20 bow shots before the undead monsters get anywhere near you. On the other hand, this dungeon is a huge maze where you must push a button on one end, walk to the other end, push another button, etc. If you get seriously wounded and do not have access to Town Portal or Lloyd's Beacon, this easy to medium dungeon can become a nightmare. For most adventurers, however, it should be a cakewalk. Don�t take the final power lich too lightly. He may look like a silly skeleton in a funny hat, but he is lethal.
Quest: High Council Wilbur Humphrey Find Shield
Received from: Humphrey (Ironfist Castle)
Location: Blackshire chest box (south of Blackshire)
Special Problems: Werewolves
Difficulty: medium
Description: Fortunately, all you need to do is open one chest located in an open area S of Blackshire. Unfortunately, the chest requires a high level disarm skill (7 or more) and is surrounded by werewolves. The weaker werewolves disease you with alarming frequency. The greater werewolf has two special attacks: 1) He knocks you unconscious with one blow, regardless of your HPs and 2) he breaks even your strongest armor and weapons. Some people consider werewolves to be one of the game�s most frustrating early opponents because even if you are super-powerful, they still cause disease and weapon erosion with remarkable frequency.
Quest: The circus trick (not a part of the game per se)
Received from: none
Location: any of the circuses; Dragonsands
Special Problems: winning the circus game and avoiding the dragons
Difficulty: medium to hard, with some luck.
Description: In the previous quest�s chest, you should have found at least one item that boosts one of your stats enormously. I found the Atlas cloak (+100 might), so I will use that as an example. I put the Atlas cloak on my strongest character and souped him up with all the might accessories and spells I could find. Then he played the Might game at the circus. He won easily. After he won 8 golden pyramids, my party then flew to the Abdul Resort in Dragonsands to collect some of the game�s best weapons and armor. Easy right? No. The southern part of Blackshire and all of Dragonsands are heavily populated with Wyrms. Wyrms cannot fly and you can (or you can forget this quest), but in order to go from Blackshire to Dragonsands, you must land to walk across the border. Even if you land in an unpopulated part of Blackspire to cross, as soon as you appear in Dragonsands, you will more than likely face about 20 Wyrms from all directions; before you can cast Fly again, you are dead. The best bet is to fly along the southerly road to make the border crossing. Wyrms are not as frequent along the road. Unless you have amazing luck, expect to reload your game several times.
Quest: Shrine of the Gods
Received from: none
Location: Dragonsands (kinda to the east and in the center)
Special Problems: Dragons.
Difficulty: medium to hard, with some luck.
Description: If you are successful with the circus trick, you might as well visit the shrine of the gods on the way back. The shrine boosts all your stats permanently. Isn't it curious that the shrine itself seems way to big for one obelisk?
Quest: Dragoon�s Keep (Mordred)
Received from: Phelps (Free Haven house)
Location: Dragoon�s Keep (S of Free Haven)
Special Problems: Hard-hitting fighters destroy equipment
Difficulty: easy to medium
Description: Depending on the level of your character, you may be able to complete this quest earlier in the game. However, the fighters here have strong attacks and hard armor, so be forewarned. Having the circus weapons helps immensely.
Quest: Silverhelm (paladin to crusader promotion, proof of illegal activity)
Received from: Scrivener (Mist Townhall), Humphrey (Ironfist)
Location: Silverhelm (Mist)
Special problems: By now, you shouldn�t have too many problems.
Difficulty: easy to medium due to enemy volume
Description: Since this quest is located in Mist, some people believe that it is a dungeon to be taken on early in the game. It is not. You can (and I did), but you will spend a lot of time running and shooting and that is just plain dull and frustrating. By completing it now, you should work through it fairly easily. Watch out for the monks. They are surprisingly powerful. IMPORTANT NOTE: Be sure to pick up Gharik�s key! You will need it for the Gharik�s forge quest.
Quest: High Priest promotion
Received from: Stone (Stone Castle, Village of Hargraeve (Frozen Highlands))
Location: Temple of the Sun (N L-shaped isle of Bootleg Bay)
Special problems: fairly easy, except for the minotaur king
Difficulty: easy (if you avoid the minotaur king); medium (if you fight the minotaur king)
Description: First, don't take that first group of monks too lightly. Monks have surprisingly high armor classes and decent long ranged attacks. Don't get into a projectile war with them. Get up close and personal. The minotaur king needn't be too difficult, but keep in mind he can kill (not knock unconscious, kill) one of your characters with one touch. He is also a powerful melee fighter with high HPs (800+). You can avoid him if you want because, frankly, the various chests in the room don't carry anything too exciting.
Quest: Hero Quest
Received from: Humphrey (Castle Ironfist)
Location: Dragon Lair (due N of Darkmoor Village)
Special Problems: One big red dragon.
Difficulty: easy to hard, depending solely on your abilities
Description: Either you kill it or you don't. That's the quest. He has 800+ HPs and some strong elemental attacks, but since he is alone, you can let loose with some of your most powerful attacks without having to worry about a huge dungeon to clear. I have put this quest early up on the list not because it is necessarily easier than the following quests but because it is such a simple dungeon (one room). It wouldn't hurt to just pop in and see if you can take him out early. If you can't, try later. If you take him out quickly and easily, you might want to move on to the Devil Outpost quest listed below. It is also a one room show (but with more enemies).
Quest: Ethric�s Skull
Received from: Cartman (Free Haven house)
Location: Ethric�s tomb (SW of Free Haven)
Special problems: Liches are surprisingly difficult to kill
Difficulty: easy to medium, thanks mainly to the liches.
Description: At first, you may wonder why I have ranked this dungeon all the way down here. For most of the dungeon, you will meet (and easily brush aside) a few skeletons and ghosts. In the last part, however, you will meet liches for the first time. The lesser liches dispel all of your protective magic and the power liches are just damn difficult to put down. Many of the liches� attacks will concentrate on your sorcerer, so be prepared.
Quest: Werewolf Lair
Received from: Maria
Location: Wolf Lair (S of Blackshire)
Special Problems: Werewolves (see above) and oozes (see above)
Difficulty: medium, not as much for the attack strength of the enemies (which is still considerable) but for the irritating things the enemies do to you; this dungeon also regenerates werewolves at key passages.
Description: This quest may be a minor one, but I believe it is crucial for your later attack on Gharik�s Forge. If all of your characters have expert or master learning (and even if they don�t) you will get tons of experience and level ups that will help in your attack on the Forge. The dungeon is huge and crawling with werewolves. But, because it is huge, you can use arrows to maximum effect. After receiving the pearl, give it to Balthasar (the ghost) and then enter the smaller area of the dungeon to defeat the main werewolf. Some key problems: 1) Certain nodes in the dungeon regenerate werewolves indefinitely every time you pass them. 2) This place is filled end to end with werewolves and a few token oozes. Other than Gharik�s Forge, this dungeon rates highest on the sheer irritation scale because werewolves can knock you unconscious with one hit, disease you and break your items. And oozes are difficult to get rid of, even at this level. Oh yeah, oozes break your items too. Do not take this dungeon lightly. If you complete it, however, you could easily move up 5 or 6 levels (depending, of course, on your starting level).
Quest: Arch Druid promotion
Received from: Fleise (Silver Cove castle)
Location: Temple of the Moon (Free Haven NW)
Special Problems: Gorgons turn you into stone and great druids take all your spell points
Difficulty: medium, but vewy tedious
Description: This dungeon is tedious mainly because the creatures are fairly weak but have highly annoying status spells. The gorgons turn your party into stone and the grand druids take away your spell points. As a final insult, there are so many cobras in the rooms, any projectile spell will hit a level 1 cobra before it takes out the more important gorgon. In short, there may be a tendency to take this dungeon lightly by running through it in real time, but a better strategy may be to proceed carefully.
Quest: Deface druid altar
Received from: Eleanor Vanderbilt (Silver Cove house)
Location: the Monolith (SSW of Silver Cove)
Special Problems: Earth elementals are fairly stalwart; getting there may be a problem
Difficulty: medium
Description: 1) This is my favorite dungeon so far, from a strict design point of view. Basically, it is an underground arbor of evil. Other than that aesthetic note, take a little care with the earth elementals, but otherwise kick some butt. 2) You may have problems getting to the monolith because of the gargoyles. This goes for the great druid quest as well. They are everywhere and they paralyze party members with great abandon. On the other hand, this may have been a problem for me due to the make up of my party. Their favorite target to paralyze is both the cleric and female party members. Unluckily for me, the person who held the only cure paralysis spell was both female and a cleric, so I had some serious problems fighting these numerous and swarming gargoyles. But again, if your party makeup is different, you may breeze through them.
Quest: High Council Temper Quest: Get Those Demon Plans!
Received from: Temper (Free Haven SE castle)
Location: Devil Outpost - Kriegspire (S face of central mountain chain, roughly NW of castle)
Special Problems: Demons take all your magic points.
Difficulty: medium to hard due to attack strength and vitality of enemies
Description: I was not sure where to put this quest. Gharik�s forge is a cunning contest between superior intellects. The devil�s outpost is more like roadhouse sponsored heavyweight boxing. When you walk in the single room, all the demons rush you. If they kill you, they win. If you kill them, you win. No levers, no buttons, no word scrambles�just good ole fashioned ass whipping. If your party relies solely on brute force, you should have no problems with this quest. If your party relies more on stealth and wit, then you had better stealth and wit yourself into the main room and run like crazy as the demons launch fireballs at you and take away all your spell points. Or, you may choose to do Gharik�s Forge first to earn more experience. It should be noted, as I said above, that a point blank barrage of master level poison balls or spark blasts are incredibly effective against these demons�as long as the demons haven�t usurped your spell points. The demons are also fairly slow in attack speed.
Quest: Find Snergle. Kill him.
Received from: Avinril Smithers (Unmarked pub in Darkmoor village - Prima hintbook is wrong on location)
Location: Snergle Mines (E of Darkmoor) and Snergle Caverns (NW corner of Ironfist area)
Special Problems: Tons and tons and tons of dwarves
Difficulty: Mines (easy); Caverns (medium to hard, due to incredible number of opponents)
Description: At this point, 90% of this two-part quest should be very easy. The final room of the Snergle Cavern, however, is tricky because when you enter the it, about 30 dwarf lords sneak up from behind and about 50 wait for you in the cavern�a very good ambush. The problem: while you are taking out one side of dwarves, the other side hacks at your back. If you fight both sides simultaneously, the damage you incur will be even greater because you won't be making a serious dent in either side. The dwarf lords also break even the best armor with great frequency. The easiest way to beat these guys is to set a beacon in the large cavern just before the final one. As soon as the trap is sprung, teleport back to the beacon. Then you can take out only one front of dwarves at a time. Even with this trick, however, mass damage spells are highly recommended because there are just so damn many of these things.
Quest: Champion Quest
Received from: Temper (Free Haven Temper Castle)
Location: Warlord's Castle (NW of Silver Cove)
Special Problems: Cuisinart.
Difficulty: medium to hard
Description: This castle is a mixed bag. Most enemies you encounter are easily dispatched. The Death Knights and Cuisinarts, however, are fairly tough and have the strongest armor class of anything you have faced before. They are also lightning quick with their swords. In the end, however, if you use point blank poison and some strong pommels from your fighters, they are not too bad. The goodies you find in this castle far surpass anything you have seen before. Halfway through the castle I had already accumulated 50K of gold and items and I wasn�t even done yet. So if you cannot kill everything, you may at least get a bankful of gold to finance another effort later.
Quest: Save Emmanuel
Received from: Joanne (Blackspire house)
Location: Star Island Temple of the Snake (Island in small lake E of Blackshire)
Special Problems: Gorgons turn you into stone; traps galore; gold dragon; the secret character (not in Prima hintbook!)�
Difficulty: medium to hard
Description: Like most of the later quests, the ease of this temple is directly related to the makeup of your party. If one of the gorgons turns your water-walker and flier into stone, and if you have no way of turning him back to flesh, it's reload time. Fortunately, the gorgons are very gullible and their stone attack seems to only work up close, so use the ole run in/run out/launch arrows trick to maximum effect. The dungeon is also full of traps, but the damage incurred on your party should be laughable at this point. Also, beware of the Gold Dragon. He is not too tough, but he is tough. And then there is the secret character�search for him.
Quest: The pedestal quest.
Received from: Twillen (Blackshire house)
Location: Place statuettes on pedestals throughout the land
Special Problems: Some pedestal locations are grisly.
Difficulty: medium to hard due to location of some of the pedestals.
Description: If you are a skillful runner, you may choose to do this quest earlier in the game. Essentially, this quest is the antithesis to the dragon tower quest because none of the pedestal locations are reachable from the town portal spell, so this requires you to travel in some pretty hostile territory including Dragonsands, Kriegspire and the infamous Sweet Water badlands.
Quest: High Council Newton Quest: Gharik�s Forge
Received from: Newton (Mist)
Location: New Sorpigal! (NE Island)
Special Problems: Magicians, magicians, magicians; fire damage
Difficulty: hard because the terrain is tricky and all enemies are lethal projectile users
Description: I don�t know how to begin explaining the difficulty of the forge: 1) If you are not strong enough, the rooms of magicians will annihilate you in short order. This is why the werewolf quest is a key quest�.boost those stats! 2) The entire dungeon is full of random fire balls and flowing lava 3) The big room: The last big room is filled with magicians and fire elementals. If you do not have Lloyd�s Beacon, you will have a hard time winning because the magicians and elementals all have powerful long range attacks and, frankly, none of your magical or mundane projectiles will deal out equal damage. My strategy was simple and very effective. I ran into the room and set Beacons in several places. Then I left and cowered in the doorway. When the creatures started congregating near one of my beacons, I teleported to the beacon and began pummeling them at close range. Physical damage works best because the magicians are immune to electricity and mostly immune to all other magic, and the fire elementals are immune to fire and mostly immune to everything except water and lightning. Also, use "protection from fire" and "protection from electricity" if you have them. If you have a high level fire protection and a high level electricity protection, you may find the forge pretty simple. I didn�t have these, so I couldn�t tell you.
Interlude 3: Some people consider Gharik's Forge quest the most difficult and frustrating in the entire game. In spite of this, it, along with the other council quests, is required before many of the following quests can even take place, so forget about doing any of the following until you have completed your duties with the council. There are a few exceptions to this rule, but all in all, if you haven't completed them, read no further.
At this point, if you haven't at least bought the light and dark magic skills, do so now. Also, depending on the makeup of your party, you may soon discover a substantial shift in the makeup of your party. If your paladin or archer dominated the first half of the game, you may soon learn pure magic becomes more and more important from here on out.
Also, if you haven't learned light mastery yet, learn it post haste. The longer you put it off, the fewer chances you have to boost your rep to Saintly status.
With a few exceptions, many of the following quests are not very difficult but, as noted above, the game dictates their completion only after the previous pre-requisite quests.
Part IV: Here there be monsters (Advanced)
Quest: Expose the traitor!
Received from: Humphrey (who gives you the Baa cloak)
Location: Kreigspire (NE of Kriegspire village)
Special Problems: Magicians, druids and clerics pack quite a wallop from afar; they are also resilient (though not immune) to most magic attacks.
Difficulty: medium to hard; not harder than the forge, but containing the forge's pesky warlocks and magicians.
Description: You need at least an 8 in perception to open many of the doors here. Also, if you touch the Baa God bas relief, you will gain experience but lose reputation. If you have mastery in light already and feel no reason to stay saintly, touch it to your heart's content. Finally, this dungeon is not that difficult, just time consuming. The final battle arena is filled with 100 odd magicians, druids and clerics, so any magical protection you can muster will be helpful. You may also want to target the grand druids, if given a choice, because they usurp all your spell points. Otherwise, show them the error of their ways.
Quest: The Obelisk
Received from: No one in particular.
Location: Everywhere
Special Problems: There is one obelisk per map area. You cannot finish this quest until you complete all the high council quests and receive the Queen Catherine to visit Hermit Isle. Otherwise you could have probably completed this ages ago if you are quick on your feet.
Difficulty: medium to hard; some of the creatures surrounding the obelisks can be tricky.
Description: If you want, you can run and touch the obelisks without facing a single foe. At this point, however, you may want to try your hand against some of the stronger opponents such as the titans, the dragons and hydras. Soon, you will not be able to run from tough creatures, so you might as well start fighting them now. The obelisk quest has several quirks you may choose to view in this website, but at least try to solve the puzzle yourself.
Quest: Dark Master quest (not a quest per se)
Received from: The evil within you.
Location: Paradise Valley village
Special Problems: Titans
Difficulty: medium to hard because the Titans have a run of the town
Description: To receive dark mastery, you need to find the dark master in Sweetwater village and Sweetwater is Titan country. Unless you are quick on your feet, you will not be able to avoid monstrous hits from these giants as you go from house to house trying to find the dark master. Luckily, there is an inn in Sweetwater, so this makes the battle much easier. That, and some of the supercharged Dark and Light spells. Note: Some readers have correctly pointed out that meteor shower and star shower can make quick work of the titans. This is true, but it should be noted that the titans don�t all group together in one nice little clump. Most roam the town on their own initiative, making the shower and meteor showers fairly inefficient. But here, as always, choose what works best for you.
<The Crystal Quests>
Quest: Memory Crystal Alpha
Received from: The Oracle (Free Haven)
Location: Supreme Temple of Baa (Hermit's Isle)
Special Problems: Hermit's Isle may cause some problems, but the actual temple is a joke at this point.
Difficulty: medium, but I list it here to clump all of the crystal quests together: a ridiculously easy quest.
Description: If you don't sail through this temple with relative ease, you may need to reconsider your strategy. My level 60 party rarely entered turn based mode and hardly ever cast a spell (aside from the occasional cure spell). I am a strong proponent of melee (as well as magic) and this dungeon is a good argument on my side. You will run into a ton of clerics, fire elementals and demons, and at this point it just seems silly to teleport every few minutes for more SPs when a gifted sword user can wipe out the entire temple in no time at all.
Quest: Memory Crystal Epsilon
Received from: The Oracle (Free Haven); (optional quest: Kriegpsire resident)
Location: Castle Kriegspire (Kriegspire)
Special Problems: The minotaur mages and minotaur kings can kill with one blow and they are super tough melee fighters with high ACs.
Difficulty: medium to hard
Description: The minotaur species is harder than the power liches and floating eyes put together, but unlike Darkmoor Castle, Castle Kriegspire is pretty small and the minotaurs pretty much all attack at once. Once you clear a few big rooms, you essentially have the run of the castle. For this reason, and for its lack of traps and grandiosity, Kriegspire is easier than Darkmoor, in spite of the obvious dominance of minotaurs over floating eyes and liches. Note: Find the jeweled egg for an additional quest solution (find quest in Kriegspire village).
Quest: Memory Crystal Beta
Received from: The Oracle (Free Haven)
Location: Castle Alamos (Eel Infested Waters village)
Special Problems: a large, convoluted, puzzle happy dungeon
Difficulty: hard, not so much for the battles as for all the running around and getting lost.
Description: If you already know the password and have a map, you can solve this dungeon and get the crystal in about five minutes. If you are a purist who scoffs at the use of hintbooks and webpages, get ready for a long night. The crystal is near the beginning of the dungeon, but an invisible force won't allow you to pass until you have the password. In order to get the password, you must find every blasted tree in the castle and read what the tree has to offer. Then you must decipher the cryptic tree comments to eventually find the equally cryptic password. Sigh. Along the way you will meet small armies of magyars, magicians and air elementals. I cannot honestly say that this is more difficult than Darkmoor, but this castle really irritated the hell out of me, so when I rank quests according to irritation level, this one will lead the pack.
Quest: Memory Crystal Delta
Received from: The Oracle (Free Haven); (secondary quest: Darkmoor citizen)
Location: Darkmoor Castle (Darkmoor)
Special Problems: Did power liches give you problems before? Try an army of power liches. The floating eyes wreak special status havoc. The castle itself is dark, confusing and full of traps.
Difficulty: hard to very hard, for any number of reasons listed below.
Description: This castle is flat out difficult. If you check out the rpg newsgroups on the internet, you will find that Darkmoor rates very high on the "profanity in posts scale"�much higher than any Gharik's Forge comments. Difficulties: 1) The castle has several separate areas with several separate levels each, so your automapping function is basically worthless. When you see it, you'll know what I mean. 2) While you are wandering around trying to figure out what the hell you should be doing, the castle itself removes all of your magical protection. Hour of Power and similar spells, even Wizard's Eye, are worthless here. My paladin had super high perception, so any claims the manual made about the increased ability to see traps is proven completely wrong. 3) Power liches roam the place like rats did in some of the earlier dungeons. 4) The floating eyeballs don't cause too much damage, but they are steady nuisances casting all kinds of status nastiness on your party. They are also surprisingly hard to kill. On the other hand, they do tend to clump together and I found Dragon's Breath extremely effective against them. Is there anything Dragon's Breath can't do? 5) Well, yes. It cannot hurt liches and in the final big room of the dungeon, you will be faced with a small army of them. The Destroy Undead spell is very helpful here. Note: If you visit one of the houses in Darkmoor you will receive a quest asking you to destroy the book of liches. The book of liches is in this dungeon, so you might as well take care of that too. Unfortunately, the oracle quest is very important and this side quest seems almost ludicrous in comparison, but you can do it if you want.
Interlude 4: From here on out, the quests follow a particular order and they will be listed as such. Because of this, my difficulty rankings are rather moot, but I hope to include a little more detailed information as to the individual makeups of each monster type. As before, I will not include any detailed dungeon walkthroughs, puzzle solutions or passwords.
If you do not use hour of power, day of protection, and other protective spells, start doing so now. You can probably make it through all the following dungeons without these handy spells but, like eating peas with a knife, if you do so, you must ask yourself: why?
A caveat to the following strategy junkets: in my many years of RPGing, I have found that I generally do things the hard way, partly due to style, but partly do to a certain lack of creativity on my part. So if any of you war hardened veterans out there have some juicy tidbits about the following dungeons, please email me. Otherwise, enjoy. These are the best.
Part V. Bad Things Come to Those Who Wait
Quest: Varn (find the cube)
Received from: The Oracle (Free Haven)
Location: Dragonsands
Special Problems: Genies and Varn guardians cause some problems, but the sheer size and complexity of Varn creates the most difficulty.
Difficulty: hard to very hard, for any number of reasons listed below.
Description: While some may quibble about the overall graphics of MM6, Varn is a beautiful dungeon with wonderfully crafted creatures. The creatures aren't impossibly difficult, but they are crafty and numerous, each having special attacks and immunities. The genies: The genies have different powers according to rank, but since you rarely meet just one, I will list all the immunities and casting nastiness they have as a group: (1) They feast on males, (2) they put you to sleep, (3) they cause the fear status, (4) they are all immune to funky magic spells like mass curse, dark containment, shrinking ray etc. and (5) efreets are immune to fire. Also, sometimes the creatures cast fear on top of the asleep status. So, your character portrait may show a wide-awake scared person, when in fact he is a fast asleep afraid person, making him unable to fight. If your character goes a long period without getting his turn, make sure he isn't afraid and asleep, not just afraid. This is an unfortunate glitch in the game. Dragon's Breath works extremely well against these guys, but then so do most offensive spells. The guards of Varn: The sentinels and defenders are a piece of cake. The guardians are not so simple: (1) They are immune to every single school of magic with a few exceptions within three schools: shrapmetal, rock blast, implosion. Even though these three work, the other spells in the same schools do not. There may be a few more, but these were the only major spells I could use against them. Melee is extremely effective against them; (2) They break weapons, a lot; (3) Even though they have slightly fewer HPs, Guardians are far better than the cuisinart in almost every category including speed and armor class. They can also cast long range spells equal in damage to the magician spells. So, combine a souped-up cuisinart with a souped-up magician, and you have the guardian of VARN. That being said, at this point in the game you should be more than strong enough to take them out. Patrol units: These floating robots roam in one place only and are easily dispatched. Thankfully, there are no terminator units present at this point. Note: This is one of the longest dungeon quests in the game. If you do not use Town Portal and Lloyd's Beacon, you are in for a long night, perhaps even a long weekend. Please use them.
Quest: Control Center (get those blasters!)
Received from: The Oracle (Free Haven)
Location: The Oracle
Special Problems: the terminator robot eradicates you (no temple can help, but resurrect can)
Difficulty: hard to very hard, mainly due to high irritation factor
Description: Some people claim that blasters are worthless, making this quest worthless and completely optional. However, I used blasters to great effect in the final dungeon of the game and strongly recommend you at least try them. Basically, blasters can be fired nearly as fast as you can hit the "A" key, so they are certainly something to be reckoned with. More on blasters later. As for the creatures in the control center, two things: (1) Expect to spend most of your time repairing items. Every shot the robots fire at you takes away hit points and breaks an item in your inventory. If you have a ton of money and are ready to finish the game soon, go ahead and hire a Smith and an Armorer to repair your items or move everyone up to Repair Master. Otherwise, the long and tedious administrative work required in this dungeon will become even longer as you pass all weapons and armor to your sole repair guy. (2) The terminators have the power to eradicate your party members. If your guy is eradicated, only a resurrect spell can bring him back from the dead. If your resurrect guy is eradicated, it is reload time. Both #1 and #2 together makes this dungeon very sticky and I am not surprised many people don't find the subsequent blasters worth all the trouble. Note: Several players have noted that the temple you built in Free Haven can raise the eradicated. They also note that if you store all your money in the bank, you can just wait until your whole team is eradicated with no penalty. Thanks to everyone.
Quest: Free Archibald
Received from: The Oracle (Free Haven)
Location: Castle Ironfist
Special Problems: none
Difficulty: easy
Description: (1) Talk to Nicolai. (2) Get third eye from NW well. (3) Get Bell from Nicolai. (4) Free Archibald (top of castle) and make sure you have the scroll he gives you. Go to hive. Note: Freeing Archibald knocked one player from Saintly to Respectable status, so if you haven't received Light Master yet, don�t free Archie until you do, or you can forget it. Thanks to David Snyder.
Quest: The Hive
Received from: the oracle, I guess. Just go to the hive after you free Archibald
Location: Sweetwater
Special Problems: Town Portal and Lloyd's Beacon do not work; you cannot rest inside the Hive.
Difficulty: hard to very hard
Description: Frankly, the final quest in the game is pretty darn easy at this point. If you choose to use blasters, I strongly recommend using real time combat, not turn-based. I don't have any hard scientific data here, but when you enter a room packed wall to wall with demons, the blasters seem to work better in real-time than in turn-based combat. Also, don't forget your spells. These are not special demons immune to everything but blasters (forget what the oracle said, he lied), so kill them anyway you see fit. However, remember that you cannot teleport out of the dungeon, so you won't be able to do any of that "cast like crazy, then teleport to the temple, then return" monkey business. Finally, the hive queen is a pushover (two dragon's breaths killed her), but her minions come to her aid, making the battle more difficult. If you are tired of slinging demon meat around the room, enter the queen's chambers and back into the corner so that only she is visible. The other demons will become confused and you can take her out with ease.
Quest: Enroth
Received from: NWC
Location: Everywhere
Special Problems: none
Difficulty: easy to hard
Description: NWC used one of my favorite all time RPG design techniques with MM6: let the players continue playing after they beat the final boss. Now that you are supercharged and carrying blasters, you may enjoy going through some of the more frustrating early dungeons to lay waste to them. Or perhaps you may want to nuke all the towns because you are drunk with power. In any event, there is still a lot of stuff out there, so do what you want and thank NWC for allowing you to play on, even after the game is done.
Ver 1.5.
If you have any comments or constructive criticism, please email [email protected]. This is still a work in progress and I appreciate your input! I cannot emphasize this enough.