-------------------------------------------------------------------------------- GOTHIC 2 - Guide by Ellusion -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Gothic 2 version 1.31 English Gothic 2 is (c) Piranha Bytes All reference concerning this guide via mail to gothic2@ellusion.no, please. Guide is version 0.95 as of 02/09/03 FOREWORD & COPYRIGHTS -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- When an exciting grand rpg like Gothic 2 landed in my mailbox, I rushed to GameFaqs to get some background info and tips on putting me on the right path. You see, I'm one of those gamers that really want the most out of the games I play and I can often be found starting a game over and over again to get it 'right' - lots of additional gaming hours in that and it just gives me a better experience. However, as I said heading out to find a FAQ on this, to my astonishment there were sadly none at the time. I've been thinking of writing a FAQ for a game for a long time to brush up on my english writing skills a bit, and here was an opportunity to do just that. So here we are, my first attempt at writing a FAQ/Guide, and also what appears to be the first for the English version of Gothic 2. Let it be said that I'm not German, nor a native english speaker, and that I never played the original Gothic prior to Gothic 2. Once I got started writing this though, I soon realized the scope of it was simply massive. There's so much to tell (or simply me ranting on), and I quickly realized it would take months to get everything I wanted in here. Instead of waiting for the whole thing to be complete before releasing, I thougth other players like me would still like to get atleast something helping them along, and hopefully also be able to share their experience with me and this FAQ as they went along. Thus that is the basis for it - I hope to complete this in steps and also take on any tips and follow-up information you would be as kind as to reveal. There are bound to be a lot of things missed, outcomes to various quest trees, consequences of actions and so on, and I would be more than happy to hear about it for inclusion in this FAQ (properly credited when used of course). If you have ANY information you want to share, don't hesitate to send me a mail about it at gothic2@ellusion.no - Thanks. Do note that I'm not a helpline for this game, and will not answer any questions on how to accomplish things in the game, wether the problem in question is covered in this guide yet or not. Please understand this - the guide is taking an extraordinary time to write as it is. For contributors, I don't normally reply unless there is something to clarify, but know that you have my heartfelt thanks. Credits given to contributors are given in the order that I recieve them, so unless you have additional noteworthy information, the first contributor to make me aware of something I didn't know in adavance is credited for the contribution. There are a lot of contributions at this point, and they will get added in due time - just don't expect to see your contributions added in the immediate following versions. Also, until the guide reaches a 1.0 version, please contribute to the context so far, and not half a novel about the upcoming chapters not covered in the guide yet - that will come in due time, and if you see something missing then, please add what you have. Copyrights automatically apply to this document according to law wether stated here in full or not. You can not reprint any of the material within without written permission, nor bring this document to a printed or digital medium (magazine, CD etc) without permission. Neither can you host this document without permission. If you want to host this document, contact me. You can always find the last version at www.ellusion.no, or any of the below guide/faq sites: - http://www.gamefaqs.com - http://faqs.ign.com VERSION HISTORY -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 020903 Version 0.95 - Chapter 5 nearly complete, with full complements of quests for both Paladins and Mercenaries, with 35 entries. - A few major revisions to the guide, where some smaller areas were combined into one. This subsequently shifted all the other areas around too, so the new lineup is: 1.Xarda's Tower, The Valley, and Road to Khorinis - 2.City of Khorinis - 3.Akil's Farm, The Dead Harpy, and Surroundings - 4.Onar's Farm and Land - 5.Roaming the New World - 6.The Monastery - 7.The Pass - 8.The Valley of Mines - 9.The Castle - 10.The Halls of Irdorath. This also lead to a good cleanup on the growing list of quests and the whole thing should be a bit more reader-friendly and easy to use. Some crossreferences probably got screwed up too, so if you spot any, please let me know. - Added a new appendix called Bugs, where you can read up on possible bugs and thus avoid them. - Added A11.5, an unlimited xp/gold exploit for paladins - Added C3.3.P6 Access to the Ship for paladins - Edited the info in C2.3.Q4 on the sextant for Ramirez - Added C4.4.Q1 Deprivation for paladins - Begun a much more comprehensive guide to the three guilds, by adding pointers to weapon skills, secondary skills, how to spend LP and so on for paladins and mercenaries so far. It's added to the entries for the guilds at the start, I1.1 and I1.2. If you have any pointers to add here, please do. - Finally added the statboosters 'Donations to Daron' and praying to the statues of Innos after much request. - Added a new info section called I4 Settings, detailing some alterations made to the game ini file. - Keep the suggestions and additions coming! I really appreciate all the feedback and it will make the guide bit by bit as I come around to it. The whole guide will also go through a spellchecker soon, and I am aware of the many spelling errors. 010803 Version 0.85 - Added a near-complete chapter 4, the dragon hunt, for paladins and mercenaries, containing 41 entries so far. - Amazed by all the small treasures hidden around that I still find now after what must surerly be 300+ hours with this game, I had to add C2.2 with 'A Strange Amulet'. Well worth a read and a rather peculiar entry. - Added I3 Training your combat skills - Added forging as a section to skills appendix (A1) with several swords to forge. Also rearranged the order some and moved alchemy into the skills - Added C3.6.Q6 The Judge's Lackey - Added C3.6.P7 Another Pot of Stew - Added C3.6.P8 A Graveyard Sorrel - Added C3.6.Q7 Shadowbeast Horns for Buster - Added C3.8.Q5 The Forged Mineshares - Added additional info on the differences on completing a lot of quests in chapter 3 as a mercenary - Added C3.2.Q2 Maleth's Walking Stick, for mercenaries - Added a point of interest to the beginning of chapter 3, returning you the valley of mines for some last chance pickpocketing - Complemented the chapter start sections (C2, C3 & C4) with some reflections on average levels and progress, including my own level experience for comparison so you can see how you fare - Added C3.3.S3 Fingers' Chest for those not taking advantage of this earlier - Added more hunters and hunting skills - Added C2.10.P14 A Stone Circle & Elixir of Spirit, and changed the order of interest there a bit - Added C2.10.P17 Demon's Lair & Life Elixirs - Added C2.10.P18 Ancient Demon Tower - Added C2.10.P19 A Ring of Dexterity - Added A12.4 Unlimited Experience & Gold, part II 210703 Version 0.75 - Chapter 3 almost complete, with emphasis on Paladin for now. Chapter 3 touches on nearly all areas in the new world and has a total of 35 new entries so far. - Added 6 more points of interest to C2.10, Valley of Mines - Added appendix A11, Combat Tactics with info on how to combat several creatures, including Dragon Snappers, Snappers, Orc Scouts, Orc Warriors, Skeletons, Shadow Warriors and Crypt Guards. - Added information I2, Training your Attributes. This might seem like an odd sequence, but rest assured other information appendixes will follow, like classes, training your combat skills, combat in general and so on, they are just not all that finnished yet while the attribute training section was =) - Added appendix A12, Exploits & Unintended Advantages, with information on how to gain unlimited gold and experience, as well as some additional goblin berries and dragonroots - Added appendix A13 Magic Rings & Amulets, an overview of the various rings and amulets and what they do, as well as references to the guide where and when you can find these items. The list is a work in progress. The appendix sequence is a bit chaotic at the moment and will probably change in the future. - Updated C1.3.Q26 and C1.7.P4 with more info on the ring of invincibility - Added A7.11 Sergio's Two-Hander Tip - Added several new entries to the various weapon/armor/item and similar tables - Added a paragraph to "foreword and copyrights" about the contributions, mailing me with questions and other reference. - And probably a whole lot of things updated that I forgot I did. 160703 Version 0.7 - Added chapter 2 area 9, The Pass with 2 entries - Added chapter 2 area 10, The Valley of Mines with 19 entries - Added chapter 2 area 11, The Castle with 8 entries - Added Khorinis and Onar's Farm areas for chapter 2, with 6 and 3 entries - Added a very rewarding alternate sidequest into the city, C1.2.S2 - Added additional info to several quests from contributors - Added a point to the Dead Harpy area about the goblin cave since there's so many of the little buggers in there I felt it deserved it's own entry. - Added 3 more entries to C1.7 and rearranged the list order a bit - Added a new entry to area 8, on how to get into the monastery in chapter 1 without joining the mages - Added a C1.3.Q26 Snapper's Claws - Added C1.3.P14 Bromor's Backroom - Added C1.6.S1 Wasili's Old Coins - Added C1.2.P6 Back to the Valley - Expanded on the info in C1.4.Q1 - Expanded on the info in C1.6.Q14 - Expanded on the info in C1.3.S4 - Added some info to C1.7.S1 with a magic ring - Added more beasts to the Experience & Loot appendix - Added the two books from Lutero to the Skills & Statboosters appendix 070703 Version 0.6 - Added another section dealing with information it would be good to know before starting play, marked 'I' and located before the chapter guide. First additions here are a quick overview on the three different guilds. - Added new area (7) Roaming the New World with 4 entries so far (chapter 1) - Added new area (8) The Monastery with 18 mage related quests (chapter 1), 1 sidequest and 1 point of interest. This also details how to join the mages and becoming a full Fire Mage - Moved "How to get Into the Monastery" to the Monastery area - Added 4 more quests to area 6, Onar's Farm - Added 1 new quest to area C1.3 Khorinis (Jack's Lighthouse) - Added 2 new quests to Onar's farm, one being the first task as a Mercenary - Added Dragomir's Crossbow quest to Dead Harpy area - Completed the info on C1.6.P4 - Added Sagitta and Constantino to the Alchemist Trainers - Added Hunters Gaan and Grimbald - Added more potion recipies and weapons - Completed the Herbology list - More foes added to the Experience & Loot appendix 040703 Version 0.55 - Added Appendixes for Weapons, Armor, Herbology, Experience & Loot, and a Levelchart, all works in progress. - Added the Dead Harpy, and Onar's Farm areas - Added more Points and Quests to Khorinis as well as rooting out some loose threads there. - Completed the Foodstuffs appendix - Added more Trainers - Some spelling errors, namechanges etc 020703 Version 0.4 - Decided to release the version in it's current state so people would get atleast something to start on. Hope it was enough to begin with. - Cleared out all (I hope) placeholder spots for further inclusions, some spellchecking and proofreading to make sure it made sense so far. - Removed several Appendix sections that wasn't near completion. Look for them in the next version. 010703 Version 0.35 - Added Akil's Farm area with quests and info. - Added more of the Khorinis chapter 1 quests to near completion - Further added appendixes and info 300603 Version 0.3 - Completed the first areas, got much of the Khorinis quests in place. - Added more appendixes 280603 Version 0.2 - Added the Xardas Tower sections, Lobarts Farm and begun some appendix sections 270603 Version 0.1 - Began this guide and realized how massive the scope was and that I might have made a mistake. Decided to do it anyway =) ABOUT THE GUIDE -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Due to the nature of Gothic 2, I felt writing a step by step walkthrough would defeat the purpose of experiencing such a game. Instead everything is divided first into chapters and then into general areas like cities, stretches, outposts etc. For each chapter and area there are specific quests as given to your Questlog (L), and also sidequests and points of interest. Quests are specific entries that show up named in your Questlog and are marked "Q" in the index. Sidequests are small 'quests' or tasks you can partake in or fulfill if you like but wont show up in your questlog. The sidequests still give experience though. Sidequests are branded "S" in the index. Points of interest are neither quests nor give you any direct experience, but may still give you a challenge and some good items - examples would be a hidden cave, a hidden corpse, a cache of coins, a tip or trick, or a weapon off the beaten track etc. Points of Interest are marked "P" in the index, but not everything is listed unless there is something of special importance. A regular cave with a few monsters and coin won't show up as a point of interest unless it serves another purpose. The quests in your questlog (L) are placed in the chapter and area where you recieve them, but contain notes if you cannot finnish the quest within the same chapter you recieved it. Some quests may also be a lot harder than others, but theoretically possible to finnish within a certain chapter. In those cases the quest belongs to the chapter it was first obtainable. Most quests and sidequests also spans over several areas and even chapters, so the way they are listed here is simply what I found to be a convenient way of doing them without touching on too many areas at once. As an example, the city quests often touch on the various guilds, going in and out of an area and often branching off into multiple quest trees before completion. In these cases I try to finnish up and list all "stand alone" quests you can get and complete, without them neccecarily happen strictly in a step by step manner (ie, walk left take this quest, walk further left and do this quest). It doesn't really matter in what order you take most of the quests either, I've just listed them in the manner I find them most fitting to take and complete. The whole idea still is that you explore the game world and pick up quests as you see fit, then come back and crosscheck them here by looking for their names as they show in your questlog. Quests are also divided by guild alignment since many quests are only obtainable when you belong to a certain guild. These quests are most often listed at the end of the chapter or area questlist. Everything is then further outlined in the descriptions, like wether the thing is a quest, sidequest, or point of interest. Last, not everything is actually outlined in the guide like a step to step guide - that would simply just ruin your gaming experience and be a guide that took a year to write. There won't be specific monster entries or down to the coin entries of what to find where, but rather a point to point guide where you get what's coming to you inbetween. Of course, if a dark cave opening contains something that would smack you down in a single blow, or a certain item that is highly useful can be found, it will be mentioned as a point of interest, but other than that don't expect a x/y coord of every Healing Plant or Wolf present in the game. Most of the 'inbetweens' you need to know are outlined in their own appendix sections, like "herbology" or "combat". Walk around, talk to the people and generally explore, then come back to this guide and look up the various quests to see if you got it 'right' or if there was something you forgot or possibly another outcome if you want to get in on everything. Most of all, have fun with your own experience and use this guide as you see fit. CREDITS & CONTRIBUTORS -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Geir Gundersen - For several tidbits of information and alternate ways of completing quests Darf [darf@bellnet.ca] - For cluing me in to a rewarding alternative on getting into the city of Khorinis, as well as some additional info to several quests xerxes0 [xerxes0@cox.net] - for even more alternate ways into the city of khorinis and Wulfgar's training tip The Wonderer [thewonderer@gmx.net] - For additional tips to many quests. TheGreat Moose [dunos_2000@hotmail.com] - For pointing out the alternating between the two 'all AC' rings in the game and how one will replace the other. Also a couple errors in the statistics. Slayer - for additional bows, pointing out some spelling errors and a tip concerning C1.5.P2 JemyM - for some bug additions INDEX -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Each idex entry has a corresponding ID (like C3.1.1). Using the Search function of text documents (CTRL+F) can help you look up a specific quest or item of interest from the index and then let you jump directly to that information without going through everything else. As a whole the structure of the guide is split into info (I), for items of interest you might want to get an understanding for beginning play, like game mechanics, the factions and so on. Next comes the chapter guide (C) with listed quests, sidequests and points of interest. Last you'll find the Appendixes (A) dealing with a breakdown of statistics, skills, trainers, alchemy recipies, and similar. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- I INFORMATION -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- I.1 GUILDS I.1.1 Paladins I.1.2 Mercenaries I.1.3 Mages I.2 TRAINING YOUR ATTRIBUTES I.3 TRAINING YOUR COMBAT SKILLS I.4 SETTINGS -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- C1 CHAPTER 1 - THE MENACE -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- C1.1 XARDA'S TOWER, THE VALLEY, AND ROAD TO KHORINIS C1.1.Q1 The Eye of Innos C1.1.P1 The Chest behind the Porticullis C1.1.P2 A hidden corpse C1.1.P3 Down to the valley C1.1.P4 Lester C1.1.S1 Lester's Shadow C1.1.Q2 Wanted Notes and Bandits C1.1.Q3 The Bandits at Lobart's Farm C1.1.Q4 How to Get Into the City of Khorinis C1.1.S2 Another Way In C1.1.Q5 Lobart's Work Clothes C1.1.Q6 Harvest the Turnip Field C1.1.Q7 Bring the Turnips to Hilda C1.1.Q8 A Pan for Hilda C1.1.Q9 For a Bottle of Wine C1.1.P5 A Useful Herb C1.1.P6 More Bandits C1.1.P7 Back to the Valley C1.2 CITY OF KHORINIS C1.2.Q1 Getting into the Upper Quarters C1.2.Q2 Apprentice in Khorinis C1.2.Q3 Matteo & Gritta C1.2.P1 Pablo's Wanted Poster C1.2.Q4 Furs for Bosper C1.2.Q5 Blessing of the Gods C1.2.Q6 A Great Challenge C1.2.Q7 Herbs for Constantino C1.2.S1 Abuyin's Prophecy and Tobbacco C1.2.Q8 Canthar's Favor C1.2.Q9 A Brazen Thief C1.2.Q10 A Merchant's Gold C1.2.Q11 Bandit Raids C1.2.P2 Zuris' Herbs C1.2.P3 A Dead Militia Man C1.2.Q12 The Experiment C1.2.S2 Edda's Statue C1.2.Q13 Mad Fellan C1.2.S3 Lares' Trip C1.2.Q14 Information for Garvell C1.2.P4 Hunting with Bartok C1.2.S4 Alrik's Fights & Missing Sword C1.2.Q15 The False Messenger C1.2.Q16 Baltram's Shipment C1.2.S5 The Fishmonger C1.2.S6 Entrance to the Thieves Guild C1.2.Q17 Constantino's Ring C1.2.P5 Matteo's Leather Armor C1.2.Q18 Bosper's Bow C1.2.S7 Coragon's Silver C1.2.P6 The Sewer Stash C1.2.S8 Lehmar's Ledger C1.2.P7 The Island Stash C1.2.P8 Beaches & Shipwrecks C1.2.P9 Thieves Secret Headshake C1.2.P10 A Thief in the Night C1.2.P11 Ripping off Lehmar C1.2.S9 Valentino C1.2.P12 The City Guard Towers C1.2.Q19 The Blood Chalices C1.2.P13 Robbing the Upper Quarter C1.2.Q20 Bandits at Jack's Lighthouse C1.2.Q21 Member of the City Guard C1.2.Q22 Paladin: Where is Peck? C1.2.Q23 Paladin: A Package Full of Weed C1.2.Q24 Paladin: The Weed Deal C1.2.Q25 Paladin: Problems at Lobart's Farm C1.2.Q26 Snapper's Claws C1.2.P14 Bromor's Backroom C1.3 AKIL'S FARM, THE DEAD HARPY, AND SURROUNDINGS C1.3.S1 Two Brothers C1.3.Q1 A Farmer in Need C1.3.Q2 Bottoms Up C1.3.Q3 Dragomir's Crossbow C1.3.P1 A Burnt Down Camp C1.3.P2 Paladin's Rest C1.3.P3 Goblin Mayhem C1.4 ONAR'S FARM & LAND C1.4.P1 Buster C1.4.P2 A Nest of Field Raiders C1.4.Q1 The Hungry Hunter C1.4.P3 Trolls! C1.4.Q2 Four Wolves for Pepe C1.4.Q3 Kick Bullco's Butt C1.4.Q4 A Good Fighter C1.4.Q5 Rod's Sword C1.4.Q6 Respect C1.4.Q7 For a Fistful of Herb C1.4.Q8 The Package of Weed C1.4.Q9 Jarvis' Challenge C1.4.Q10 Member of the Mercenaries C1.4.Q11 Drive Away the Militia C1.4.Q12 Collect the Rent C1.4.P4 Dueling C1.4.P5 A Golden Plate C1.4.Q13 Stew C1.4.P6 Dexter's Bandit Camp C1.4.Q14 The Lazy Farmer C1.4.Q15 The Forbidden Pasture C1.4.Q16 The Sun Aloe C1.4.Q17 The Snorting Creature C1.4.Q18 Black Hide C1.4.S1 Wasili's Old Coins C1.4.P7 Inubis' Tomb C1.4.Q19 Mercenary: An Offer of Peace C1.5 ROAMING THE NEW WORLD C1.5.P1 An Inaccessible Riverbed? C1.5.P2 The Magic Golem C1.5.P3 The Temple Ruins C1.5.P4 A Tomb and Steingolems C1.5.P5 A Hidden Path C1.5.S1 The Black Troll C1.5.P6 The Dragonslicer C1.6 THE MONASTERY C1.6.Q1 Getting into the Monastery C1.6.P1 Sneaking Into the Monastery C1.6.Q2 Mage: Serving the Community C1.6.Q3 Mage: Opolos and the Recipe C1.6.Q4 Mage: Opolos and the Library C1.6.Q5 Mage: The Chamber of the Novices C1.6.Q6 Mage: Figth Training for Babo C1.6.Q7 Mage: Babo and the Garden C1.6.Q8 Mage: Prayer for the Paladins C1.6.Q9 Mage: Isgaroth's Problem C1.6.Q10 Mage: The Mutton Sausages C1.6.Q11 Mage: The Wine Delivery C1.6.Q12 Mage: Seven Herbs C1.6.Q13 Mage: The Lost Recipe C1.6.Q14 Mage: A Short Trip to the City C1.6.Q15 Mage: The Test of Fire C1.6.S1 Mage: A Little Help from Dyrian C1.6.Q16 Mage: The Living Rock C1.6.Q17 Mage: The Path of Believers C1.6.Q18 Mage: Create a Rune C1.6.P2 Mage: A Gift of Spirit -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- C2 CHAPTER 2 - RETURNING TO THE COLONY -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- C2.1 XARDAS' TOWER, THE VALLEY, AND ROAD TO KHORINIS C2.1.P1 A Strange Amulet C2.2 CITY OF KHORINIS C2.2.Q1 Evidence C2.2.Q2 Fernando's Business C2.2.P1 A Good Read C2.2.Q3 The Message C2.2.S1 A Second Prophecy C2.2.Q4 A Sextant C2.4 ONAR'S FARM & LAND C2.4.Q1 Mercenary: Another Task C2.4.P1 Mercenary: Medium Mercenary Armor C2.4.P2 Sagitta's Stock C2.7 THE PASS C2.7.P1 An Alternate Route C2.7.P2 An Orc Camp C2.8 THE VALLEY OF MINES C2.8.P1 Diego's Leather Bag C2.8.P2 Teleport Rune: Valley of the Mines Pass C2.8.P3 A Dead Paladin & Rune C2.8.Q1 Bad News C2.8.P4 An Underwater Cave C2.8.P5 Den's Body C2.8.P6 A Nest of Dragonsnappers C2.8.S1 Paladin Marcos' Ore C2.8.P7 The Waterfall C2.8.S2 Greppert & Kervo C2.8.Q2 Help for Marcos C2.8.P8 An Amulet of Strength C2.8.S3 Olav's Demise C2.8.S4 Paladin Silvestro's Ore C2.8.P9 A Cliffside Cave C2.8.P10 A Lone Sorrel C2.8.S5 Paladin Fajeth's Ore C2.8.Q3 Snapper Hunt C2.8.Q4 Tengron's Ring C2.8.Q5 Bilgots Curse C2.8.P11 Snowy Area & Elixirs of Life C2.8.P12 Ambush! C2.8.P13 Mage Rune of Ice Arrow C2.8.P14 A Stone Circle & Elixir of Spirit C2.8.P15 A Skinny Shadowbeast & Elixir of Strength C2.8.P16 A Bold Hunter C2.8.P17 Demon's Lair & Life Elixirs C2.8.P18 Ancient Demon Tower C2.8.P19 A Ring of Dexterity C2.9 THE CASTLE C2.9.P1 Getting into the Castle C2.9.P2 Castle Transport Rune C2.9.Q1 Meat C2.9.Q2 Gold for Brutus C2.9.Q3 Rescue Gorn C2.9.P3 Paladin: Heavy Militia Armor C2.9.Q4 Diggers and Ore C2.9.P2 Robbing the Castle -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- C3 CHAPTER 3 - THE EYE OF INNOS -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- C3.1 XARDAS' TOWER, THE VALLEY, AND ROAD TO KHORINIS C3.1.S1 Report From the Mines C3.1.S2 Report of the Dragons C3.1.Q1 Healing for Hilda C3.1.Q2 Mercenary: Maleth's Walking Stick C3.2 KHORINIS C3.2.P1 Meeting With Lord Hagen C3.2.Q1 Diego's Gold C3.2.Q2 Diego's Business C3.2.S1 Comfort Gritta C3.2.S2 A Third Prophecy C3.2.Q3 Something Lost? C3.2.P2 Khorinis Merchants' Stock C3.2.P3 Paladin: A New Sword From Peck C3.2.P4 Paladin: Joining the Order C3.2.P5 Paladin: A Magic Blade C3.2.P6 Paladin: Access to the Ship C3.2.S3 Fingers' Chest C3.3 AKIL'S FARM, THE DEAD HARPY, AND SURROUNDINGS C3.3.Q1 Moonshine C3.3.Q2 Sheep Thieves C3.3.P1 Tavern Teleport Rune C3.4 ONAR'S FARM & LAND C3.4.P1 Seeker's Curse C3.4.P2 Pass of Khorinis Teleport Rune C3.4.P3 Lester & Xardas Teleport Rune C3.4.Q1 Alone and Helpless C3.4.Q2 The Banished Farmer C3.4.Q3 Torlof's Fear of the Dark Man C3.4.P4 Lee & Teleport Rune Landlord C3.4.S1 Gorn Made It C3.4.Q4 Bennet is in Jail C3.4.P5 Farm Merchants' Stock C3.4.P6 Mercenary: Heavy Mercenary Armor C3.4.Q5 The Crawler Armor C3.4.P7 Another Pot of Stew C3.4.P8 A Graveyard Sorrel C3.4.Q6 Mercenary: The Judge's Lackey C3.4.Q7 Mercenary: Shadowbeast Horns for Buster C3.6 THE MONASTERY C3.6.Q1 Documents C3.6.S1 Information for Opolos C3.6.Q2 Paladin: The Power of the Stars C3.6.P1 The Treasury C3.6.Q3 The Eye of Innos, Continued C3.6.Q4 Paladin: The Desecrated Shrines C3.6.S2 Paladin: Consecration of the Sword C3.6.Q5 Mercenary: The Forged Mineshares C3.8 THE VALLEY OF MINES C3.8.P1 Last Chance -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- C4 CHAPTER 4 - THE DRAGON HUNT -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- C4.1 XARDAS' TOWER, THE VALLEY, AND ROAD TO KHORINIS C4.1.P1 Lizardmen in Khorinis! C4.1.Q1 Lobart's Orc Problems C4.2 CITY OF KHORINIS C4.2.S1 A Fourth Prophecy C4.2.P1 Merchant's Restock C4.2.P2 Mercenary: Baltram's Deal C4.2.P3 Paladin: Magic Runes C4.2.Q1 Paladin: Hordes of Orc Elite Warriors C4.3 AKIL'S FARM, THE DEAD HARPY, AND SURROUNDINGS C4.3.Q1 Paladin: Deprivation C4.4 ONAR'S FARM & LAND C4.4.P1 Two-Handed Combat C4.4.P2 Sagitta C4.4.Q1 Mercenary: Dragon Eggs C4.4.S1 Lee and the Dragon Eggs C4.4.P3 Mercenary: Bennet's Battle Blades C4.4.S2 Mercenary: Bennet and the Dragon Eggs C4.5 ROAMING THE NEW WORLD C4.5.P1 An Orc Warlord C4.6 THE MONASTERY C4.6.S1 Jorgen a Novice? C4.6.S2 Mercenary: Kill Pedro C4.6.Q1 Paladin: Neoras' Dragon Egg Brew C4.8 THE VALLEY OF MINES C4.8.P1 First Dragonhunter Encounter C4.8.P2 Assault on Fajeth's Camp C4.8.Q1 Ur-Shak C4.8.P3 Demontower Revisited C4.8.S1 Engrom is Lost? C4.8.Q2 I Gotta get out of Here! C4.8.P4 Hunting Dragons C4.8.S2 The Swamp Dragon Pandrodor C4.8.P5 Recharging the Eye of Innos C4.8.S3 The Stone Dragon Pedrokhan C4.8.S4 The Fire Dragon Feomathar C4.8.Q3 Two Ice Giants for Sylvio C4.8.S5 The Ice Dragon Finkregh C4.9 THE CASTLE C4.9.Q1 Lost in Darkness C4.9.Q2 Theft C4.9.Q3 Angar's Amulet C4.9.Q4 The Filthy Sty C4.9.Q5 Hunger C4.9.Q6 Jan and the Smithy C4.9.Q7 Fero's Sword C4.9.P1 A Little Help from Oric C4.9.Q8 Hosh-Pak C4.9.P2 Mercenary: Medium Dragon Hunter's Armor C4.9.P3 Paladin: Dragon Blood for Jan -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- CHAPTER 5 - DEPARTURE -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- C5.1 XARDAS' TOWER, THE VALLEY, AND ROAD TO KHORINIS C5.1.P1 Xardas' Letter C5.1.P2 Lobart's Demise C5.2 CITY OF KHORINIS C5.2.S1 A Fifth Prophecy C5.2.P1 Provisioning C5.2.S2 The Thieves Guild C5.2.P2 A Few Goblin Berries C5.2.P3 Empty the Pockets C5.2.P4 Mercenary: Access to the Ship C5.2.P5 Paladin: New Paladin Runes C5.2.P6 Before you Leave C5.3 AKIL'S FARM, THE DEAD HARPY, AND SURROUNDINGS C5.3.P1 Looting C5.3.P2 Another Goblin Berry? C5.4 ONAR'S FARM & LAND C5.4.P1 Thekla's Last Pot of Stew C5.4.P2 Sagitta's Sorrels C5.4.S1 Lee's New Bodyguard? C5.4.Q1 Sekob Misses His Wife C5.4.Q2 Rosi's Flight C5.4.P3 Lifting Pockets C5.4.P4 Mercenary: Dragon Weapons & Heavy Armor C5.4.Q3 Mercenary: The Show-off C5.6 THE MONASTERY C5.6.S1 The Monastery Cellar C5.6.Q1 I Need A Ship C5.6.Q2 Who Will Be My Captain? C5.6.Q3 No Travelling Without A Crew C5.6.Q4 Return to the Tower C5.6.P1 Pickpocketing in the Monastery C5.6.S2 Paladin: Second Consecration & Paladin's Armor C5.6.S3 Mercenary: A Strange Almanac C5.8 THE VALLEY OF MINES C5.8.P1 Biff C5.8.P2 Fear & Looting in the Valley C5.8.P3 The Great Orc Wall C5.9 THE CASTLE C5.9.P1 The Castle Storeroom C5.9.P2 Gerold's Goblin Berry C5.9.P3 Picking the Castle Clean C5.9.P4 Letting the Orcs In -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- APPENDIXES - GENERAL INFO -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- A1 SKILLS A1.1 General Skills A1.1.1 Sneaking A1.1.2 Opening Locks A1.1.3 Pick Pocketing A1.2 Hunting A1.2.1 Hunting: Skinning A1.2.2 Hunting: Remove Mandibles A1.2.3 Hunting: A1.3 Forging A1.3.1 Forging: Self-forged Sword A1.3.2 Forging: Ore Longsword A1.3.3 Forging: Ore Two-Hander A1.3.4 Forging: Ore Bastard Sword A1.3.5 Forging: Heavy Ore Two-Hander A1.4 Alchemy A2 TRAINERS A2.1 HUNTERS A2.1.1 Bosper A2.1.2 Grom A2.1.3 Gaan A2.1.4 Grimbald A2.2 ATTRIBUTE TRAINERS A2.2.1 Laras A2.2.2 Carl A2.2.3 Harod A2.2.4 Torlof A2.3 MELEE TRAINERS A2.3.1 Alrik A2.3.2 Wulfgar A2.3.3 Buster A2.3.4 Rod A2.4 RANGED TRAINERS A2.4.1 Bartok A2.4.2 Niclas A2.4.3 Dragomir A2.4.4 Ruga xxx A2.5 ALCHEMISTS A2.5.1 Ignaz A2.5.2 Constantino A2.5.3 Sagitta A2.6 BLACKSMITHS A2.6.1 Harad A2.6.2 Bennet A2.7 MAGE TRAINERS A2.7.1 Vatras A2.8 OTHERS A2.8.1 Thorben A2.8.2 Bartok A2.8.3 Jesper A2.8.4 Ramirez A2.8.5 Cassia A3 WEAPONS & STATS A3.1 One-Handed Weapons A3.2 Two-Handed Weapons A3.3 Bows A3.4 Crossbows A4 ARMOR A5 SKILLS & STATBOOSTERS A5.1 Apples A5.2 Dark Mushrooms A5.3 Coragon's Special Beer A5.4 Rengaru's Pick Pocketing Tips A5.5 Book: The Divine Power of the Stars A5.6 Potions A5.7 Thekla's Stew A5.8 Wulfgar's One-Hander Tip A5.9 Book: Southern Defense Art A5.10 Book: Double Blocks A5.11 Sergio's Two-Hander Tip A5.12 Donations to Daron A5.13 Statues of Innos A6 HERBOLOGY A7 FOODSTUFFS A8 EXPERIENCE & LOOT A9 LEVELCHART A10 COMBAT TACTICS A11 EXPLOITS & UNINTENDED ADVANTAGES A11.1 Unlimited Gold A11.2 Unlimited Experience A11.3 Additional Goblin Berries & Dragonroots A11.4 Mercenary: Unlimited Gold & Experience A11.5 Paladin: Unlimited Gold & Experience A12 MAGIC RINGS & AMULETS A13 BUGS -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- I - INFORMATION -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- I.1 - GUILDS There are three possible guilds to join in Gothic 2, and although made up of different tiers, they will be refered to here as the Paladins, Mercenaries and Mages. Note that you cannot belong to more than one main guild like this, and once you have joined a certain guild, there is no way back. Ever. Except starting a new game. Please read up on the three guilds to get a better understanding of the quest order, how they are marked with each guild, and most of all what the differences are. I.1.1 Paladins This is the first guild you'll come into contact with, and also the easiest and most convenient to join with if you just want to get things going. Paladins are a mix of fighter and mage and will rely both on strong weapon skills as well as magic later in the game. The first 'tier' here is to become a member of the City Guard or rather Militia in Khorinis. From a member here you can later progress to become a Paladin. There is a bit of confusion here as you'll see references to Militia, City Guard and the Paladins all over, but in effect they all belong to the same grouping. If you join the City Guard with Andre, and get your Militia Armor on you are on the rigth track if Paladin is what you intented to become. All quests requiring you to be a member of this guild is marked 'Paladin Quest' even though you are still just a city guard at first. Paladin Setup Paladins are a class-type in itself, a warrior/mage setup and you don't really have much variation when choosing this guild. Your primary skill will most likely be Strength, relying on either one- or two-handed weapons. It's quite possible to go the way of Dexterity and use either bows or crossbows as your main weapon, but as far as paladin-only weapons, you are limited to swords. When you decide on one main attribute - strength or dexterity - it's a good idea to sort of ignore the other. Meaning, if you plan on using strength, don't go training dexterity. Similarily, don't worry about 'maxing' your off attribute, but rather make us of any stat boosters you can for this skill as you go. This is not to say that you should completely ignore your off attribute, but it will rather raise naturally by items found. No matter what you decide to go with as a main attribute, the off attribute can easily reach 100+ and will be sufficient to do anything you like with it - with dexterity that means all pickpocketing and thief related things, and with strength it means you get to use pretty much any weapon you wish although dexterity is your main attribute. Weapons Personally I preffer two-handers with paladins (and for mercenaries for that matter) due to their increased damage and longer range. When you break it down, there really are no game-affecting differences between one or two handers, and you will do very well with both. High-damage two-handers can be a bit tricky to find at first, but later in the game they will outdamage the one-handers considerably. There is also the matter of being able to train your two-handed skill to 100% with 10LP less than for one-handers. For two-handers, except to spend a minimum of 33 LP in one-handers to gain a 'Master' competence level: - 10% Base - 10% From wearing Alrik's Sword - 2% From Wulfgar's Training Tip (See xxx) - 5% From reading the Book Southern Defense Act (See xxx) - 33% From regular training using 33 LP = 60% Master Then you can spend 85 LP reaching 100% two-handed skill: - 10% Base - 5% From reading the book Double Blocks (See xxx) - 85% From regular training, using 85 LP = 100% Master For one-handers, the cost is a bit higher since you won't actually use Alrik's sword in combat. To reach 60% in one-handed weapons, you need: - 10% Base - 5% From reading the book Double Blocks - 45% From training, using 45 LP And then work on your one-handed skill: - 10% Base - 2% From Wulfgar's training tip - 5% From reading the book Southern Defense Act - 83% From regular training, using 83 LP Total cost for mastering two-handed weapons is 118 LP, or 12 levels. Total cost for mastering one-handed weapons is 128 LP, or 13 levels. For paladins, I wouldn't want to ignore ranged weapons still. Any class/guild will find great use in having a ranged weapon handy. Personally I never saw bows as a suiting ranged weapon for paladins, and chose to go with crossbows. You don't really need to train either skill, but doing so will make it a little less frustrating hitting your targets. For both paladins and mercenaries, I usually raise crossbow to 30%, expending 20 LP doing this. Magic Paladins will recieve their first rune when they become paladins after serving as militia, in chapter 3 at the earliest, after solving the quest 'Bennet is in Jail' (See C3.6.Q4 and then C3.3.P4). Paladin's selection of runes are very limited, and you will also find several of them. Recieving a rune costs 5 LP and is done simply by recieving a rune to use from your inventory. The paladin magic is split in two types, healing and combat. You can save yourself some LP by ignoring the less powerful runes in favour of the greater ones, ie no need to learn Lesser Healing when you could get Greater Healing instead. Doing this means only a short time of your life as a paladin will be spent actually using magic, so feel free to take whatever you can if you like the casting aspect. You will however need mana if you are going to use magic. Training mana cost double for paladins, and you have to spend 10 LP for every 5 MaxMana you train, up to 250. You don't need that much mana really, so around 100 should be enough, then raise it artificcially by items, and potions if needed. Mana is nevertheless a high-cost avenue for paladins, and you should expect to spend 150+ LP on this. Secondary Skills Paladins don't really need any of the secondary skills, but if you have to pick one - and trust me, you will have more than enough LP to do so - it would be alchemy. Learning the healing potions aren't really needed as paladins will generally use their healing runes, but it is required to learn the best recipies. Learning all 3 healing potions will enable you to learn to make Elixir of Strength, costing a total of 20LP. This will favour your combat skills the most and enable you to brew about 10-12 strength potions raising your strength by 50-60. You could also opt for the mana line, learning all 3 mana potions and then open up Elixir of Spirit that raises MaxMana by 10+, for about +50-60 to MaxMana using all your King's Sorrel, but I only reccomend this for the paladins that plan on relying on their magic for the most part. Going both ways will set you back 40LP, and will have you splitting the Mana or Strength potions - Each such potions uses a King's Sorrel plant, and you have a finite amount of them. For other skills, paladins don't really need or have much use of any of them. None of the hunting skills will give anything other than a monetary return, and forging will only let you make a few of the swords where you find or recieve way better ones pretty soon. Thieving skills can be just as useful to paladins as the two other guilds, and I reccomend learning them. They are Sneaking, Picking Locks and Picking Pockets, setting you back 15LP. It could be argued that the paladins are great protectors of the law, but really, there is nothing stopping you from being a goody paladin during the day, and robbing the people you protect at night. Apprenticeship Paladins can basically sign up with any of the three apprenticeships in Khorinis, but none of them will anything but a monetary advantage. If I had to pick one, I would go with Constantino, because he won't require you to learn any skills and will give you a good price on the hundreds of mushrooms you most likely will never use. Advantages & Disadvantages - Paladins won't get the best weapons in the game, but their melee weapons are in turn much less stat dependant. The best one-handed weapon for instance, require only 40 Strength. - Paladins will get the best armor in the game and can achieve as high 130 AC vs. weapons and arrows. - Training Mana is expensive for Paladins as the training cost is double that of mages. Each point of Mana costs 2 LP to train. - Paladins only have a limited array of magic (combat and healing), but in turn these can mostly all be found and thus require very little LP to master. General Paladin Tips - Wait with the 10 prayers to Innos until you have joined the order and become a paladin in chapter 3. You will get double the bonuses for up to +20 strength, +20 dexterity or even +40 extra mana (ignore the HP here). The mana in this case is the most LP saving as with double cost you are looking at 80LP for 40 more mana. I.1.2 Mercenaries The mercenaries are pure fighters and also likely the second guild you'll come into contact with. Signing up with the mercenariers involves several quests and tasks before you are initiated. A mercenary is a pure fighter specializing in the heaviest weapons, dealing damage and generally kicking ass. Mercenaries will never learn magic outside the use of scrolls. Due to this, training Max Mana is twice as expensive. The second tier of this guild enables you to become a Dragon Hunter - the ultimate fighter, but for purpose of branding the mercenary-only quests, all such quests are marked 'Mercenary Quest' even though you can later become a Dragon Hunter. Mercenary Setup Mercenaries are supposed to be the prime fighters and will have no access to magic. This is both a boon and a disadvantage, as there's only so much you can actually spend your hard earned LP on. There's the melee and ranged weapons, but as with paladins you will master your weapon of choice fairly early, and thus have a large portion of LP left that isn't so obviously spent. Strength is the attribute for melee fighting and dexterity for ranged combat. Mercenaries can normally become masters at one, but also very good at the other. I reccomend going melee and then working up a little skill in ranged as you go. Weapons The same weapon setup for paladins apply to mercenaries as well, so have a look at the breakdown there. Ranged weapons are not to be overlooked either, so always carry a bow or crossbow - training either of the ranged skills to 30 or 30/60 is no problem for a mercenary. In addition, mercenaries will get access to much stronger weapons than paladins or mages. Secondary Skills Once the weapon skills are done and away with, mercenaries will have a load of LP to spend on secondary skills, and is in fact the only proffesion who will experience the most of them. Forging is a good skill for mercenaries, as all the best weapons has to be made. This is also only available to mercenaries as the smith Bennet will only teach mercenaries. Forging works a little different than alchemy, in that you only need prior knowledge of forging basics to be able to make swords - you don't need to know a "level 1 sword" to make a "level 2 sword", and can simply wait until the best swords can be learnt and learn those for minimal LP use. New forging techniques follow the chapters where the best forged swords are available in later chapters. Alchemy is also good for mercenaries, where they will almost exclusively concentrate on the healing potions to end up with the permanent Strength potion. You could also go the way of the mana potions to reach the permanent dexterity potion, but that is 3 recipes you will never use. Alchemy to make use of strength potions will set you back 20LP Thieving skills I would say is almost mandatory for mercenaries. A lot of the equipment mercenaries need cost a lot and they are the proffesion that will burn through the most gold. Sneaking, Lock Picking and Pick Pockets set you back 15LP Hunting seems at first fairly useless, but mercenaries have a few avenues here where they take direct advantage of the hunting skills. With the excess of LP several of these skills could be well used by mercenaries: - Skinning is an ok skill and will bring in a lot of gold. - Take Shadowbeast Horns can be used to gain a lot of experience later - Remove Dragon Scales is required to get the best armors - Take Dragon Blood is used to make the best forged weapons Apprenticeship Mercenaries could just as easily sign up with any of the masters, but two stand out more than others. Harad will give mercenaries a huge amount of gold both early and throughout the game, as well as making use of a skill they will probably learn anyway. Bosper is also a good choice, where skinning and selling the skins at full price will give a slow but steady income. Constantino and the mushrooms is also a choice, but the mushrooms are finite, and you could really just skip running all over the forrest picking them up. Advantages & Disadvantages - Mercenaries appear to have the highest upkeep in terms of buying weapons and armor, but in turn have also the easiest venues of making money. - Mercenaries get the best melee weapons in the game. - Mercenaries do not have to think about magic or mana, and thus have way more learning points to spend on other skills for exploration purposes. - Mercenaries have the quickest and easiest access to good trainers. General Mercenary Tips - Do not learn forging if you can wait. In chapter 5 you will learn to forge the best weapons in the game for free. - Use Torlof to train your Strength to 90, then apply every trick in the book, including Thekla's Stew, Apples, prayers to Innos etc. A high strength from early on will make you a combat champion. - Don't ignore ranged weapons. You have enough LP to reach Marksman (30%) or even Master (60%) in either one, and you will find great use of the ranged advantage. I.1.3 Mages The third and last option - to become a mage you will have to seek out the Fire Mages in the Monastery on your own will and join them. You'll start out as a Novice and then later become a Fire Mage when you have fulfilled all the tasks of a novice and then passed the Test of Fire. Fire Mages rely solely on magic spells cast from permanent runes they create of increasing power. That is not to say a mage will not use weapons, but it will be more expensive for them to train. Mana is the most important attribute of a mage, and it costs the normal amount of learning points to train where it costs double that for mercenaries and un-guilded. Once a Novice, training will still be at the normal cost so it's quite possible to train up to a considerable level of melee and ranged skills, but once a Fire Mage, the cost of training Strength and Melee skills will double making it nearly a total waste training these skills further. For the purpose of defining mage-only quests, they are named "Mage Quest" in the guide, wether they apply to Novices or Fire Mages. I.2 - TRAINING YOUR ATTRIBUTES Attributes are Strength, Dexterity, HitPoints and Mana. Of the four, only 3 can be trained, and the last - HitPoints, have to be raised via potions or magic rings/amulets, simply levelling up, or even transforming into another creature. Strength and Dexterity can be trained to 90 in chapters 1-5, and to 100 in chapter 6. Mana can be trained to 250 in chapters 1-5. Normally, you are going to be concentrating on either of the 3 and would naturally want to get your prime as high as possible. Even though 100 is regarded as the 'top' it's possible to raise these skills a lot higher, and you do get an immediate return for doing so, but that requires a shear bit of effort. First there are potions for raising either Strength and Dexterity by +5, or Max Mana by +10. Then there are a multitude of other items and events that can raise the skills further (See A7 Skills & Statboosters). There's even some items that will decrease your skill when worn, that allows you train the skill artifically. And last there are of course magic items that will boost these 3 skills even further. Example, let's train strength. First to the max of 90 in chapters 1-3. Save all your possible strength potions and items until chapter 6. In chapter 4 and out there is a special orc ring that decrease your strength by 20. So here we are in chapter 6, put on the orc ring, train your strengt from 70 to 100 (we had 90 from chapter 1, minus 20 from the ring). Remove the ring and you have 120 strength. Drink all the strength potions, and items (like Thekla's Stew) - it's possible to create and find in excess of 20 strength potions, so let's say you have 20 for the sake of this example. All those drunk, your strength would now be 220. Eat the 5 pots of Thekla Stew for another +5 strength, and chew your gums out on the apples you saved for another +1 strength. You might even have made a special dragon potion that adds +15 strength to top it all off. Put on your strength amulet and a couple strength rings...and you have an incredible 241 strength in this example alone. So what are you going to do with all that strength? There's hardly any lightly clad wimen around to impress, and in chapter 6 there's not much else to do that you couldn't already do ok with the 90 strength you came with. The conclusion here is really that it's not worth raising your attributes to the extremes this way. Personally, when doing melee as the primary skill, I train up to 90 as this isn't hard doing in chapter 1, and after that start making use of all the boosters I can find. That way the raised strength (or dexterity/mana) have a noticable effect there and then, and I get something in return for doing all the quests and work getting these boosters. I still end up having close to 200 strength in the end either way. The issue with Mana is a bit different, as the rule here is that the more you have the better you survive as a Mage. In this case I would seriously consider training as far as the 250 you're allowed before applying the various potions and boosters. Hit Points should never be much of a worry to you. You'll start with 40 and get +12 every level, as well as several items to further boost this, both permanent potions and items. If you find yourself dying all the time, it's not your hitpoints that are the cause, but rather your lack of combat skills, wether melee, ranged, or magical. That said, take note that you will be most likely to have one major skill you concentrate. That doesn't mean the two other skills should be totally ignored. For a strengthy melee fighter, dexterity will a have a nice return when using ranged weapons, and for a paladin a little extra mana never hurt. If you come across stat boosters that will raise a skill not your primary, I say make use of it right away as you'll be better off for it. I3 - TRAINING YOUR COMBAT SKILLS Training your skills in Gothic 2 is initially down to finding the correct trainer for the skill you want to train, pay them for their services one way or the other, and then spend 1 learning point for either a one percent increase or one point increase in the skill in question. From there on it get a little bit more advanced though. Offensive melee skills, One-Handed weapons or Two-Handed weapons act in accordance with eachother and consists of 4 competence levels. Once you train up to the next level of competence in one of them, the cost increase for training that skill will double. Not double as in one percent trained costs 2LP, but double in the matter that you are forced to train both melee skills at the same time and will have to spend 1 point on Two-Handed skill and one point in One- Handed skill at the same time. This is the dependancy rule of offensive skills. Once one offensive skill jumps to a higher competence level, you must either train both at once, or just the other, until both offensive skills are at the same competence level again. The competence levels for melee skills are: 10% Rookie 30% Figther 60% Master Say you've decided to concentrate on one-handed weapons. In effect, you haven't - you are going to concentrate on becoming a melee fighter, with emphasis on one-handed weapons. This is just they way things work, so you have to deal with it. Training your one-handed skill to 30% using 20LP in this case, would then make you a fighter one-handed and still a rookie two-handed. This is where the dependancy comes into effect for the first time. You can still continue to train your one-handed skill, but training the next 5 percentage now costs 10LP and will leave you with a 35% one-handed skill and 15% two-handed skill. Continually doing training this all the way will eventually put you at 100% one-handed skill and 70% two-handed skills, with 60LP 'wasted' on your two-handed skills. Of course you could always opt to fight with both type of weapons, but in effect there's really no reason to - the difference between one and two handed weapons are so small you really just want to use the weapon you like and are better trained with. The general rule here is that the two melee skills has to be within a 30% range of eachother. Seeing as you would obviously try to increase the skill for the weapon you are going to use as much as possible, there are some work-arounds and quirks involving the actual competence levels we can use. For two-handed weapons atleast, it's even 'possible' to drag the difference to a 51%, albeit not very likely. First, if the trainer you are training with has the appropriate skill level, it's quite possible to pull a skill level atleast 4% over its competence level before the dependancy take effect. Simply train one and one percentage until you hit either 29%, 59% or 89%, then opt to train 5% at a time and you will go up one competence level as well as leaving the preffered skill at 34%, 64% or 94%. From here on you have to pay double cost or bring the other melee skill up to the same competence level. Next there are items and instances raising your skill percentage (See A7 Skills & Statboosters), and these can be used to further widen the difference. Back to our one-handed skill, say we have used the 5% trick above to raise one-handed to 34% while two-handed is still at 10% - we could then read the Southern Defense Art book on top of it, and have 39% one-handed skill, then take Wulfgar's training tip, and now have 41% one-handed and still 10% two-handed skill. For two-handed skills there's even another useful item - namely Alrik's Sword (See C1.3.S4) wich is a magical oddity bestowing 10% one-handed skill. For one- handed users, this particular sword isn't very useful as such as it's simply not a very good sword to use regularily, but for two-handers, it's a real gem. Since training a particular weapon skill doesn't involve you wielding the weapon in question, two-handed fighters can train while having Alrik's sword equipped to superfically raise their competence level to another level, thus making it more efficient to train two-handed skill. Example: train two-handed to 34%, then equip Alrik's sword and now train one-handed with 10LP bring you to 30% (10% base, +10% from Alrik's Sword, +10% from 10LP) and competence level 'fighter' in both skills. Now, with Alrik's sword still equipped, continue training two- handed now at normal cost, up to 64%. Read the Double Blocks book, then remove Alrik's sword and bring out your favourite two-handed orc slicer - you'll now be a rookie 20% one-hander, but a Master 69% two-hander, with only 10LP 'wasted'. The reason should be obvious - you'll want to be the best you can be in the weapon of your choice, the earlier the better. This way you can actually make the LP spent work directly on the tasks at hand, more easily defeating your enemies and earning more LP. Further to the two-hander trick is a paladin that could even add another 2% to this, making the difference 51% between the two skills, but this last requires you to become a mage and not particulary fond of two-handers to begin with. Personally I'm not all that comfortable with this system, and would rather have seen all the wasted skillpoints in the melee type I never ever used put to better use trying out other skills like the hunting/alchemy/forging skills instead. Still, there's no way around except a few tips here and there, so lets deal with it. When it comes to ranged weapons, bow and crossbow, the system works exactly the same. Once you reach the next competence level in one of them, you have to train both at the same time. Sadly there are no readily available ranged weapons tricks and boosters besides the "4% above" trick. If you are mainly a ranged fighter, you live by the same rules as a melee figther and most likely solely rely on ranged weapons, but as a melee fighter (or Warrior), you'd want to invest a little in ranged weapons nevertheless, bringing one of them to 34% if you can. The competence levels for ranged weapons are: 10% Rookie 30% Marksman 60% Master Know that it's also possible to raise a weapon skill above 100%, but there really should be no reason to, atleast for melee weapons. The skill for melee weapons is a "chance to critically hit" percentage, and I see no reason how this could be higher than a critical hit every time. For ranged weapons this works a bit different as the skill level is a percentage indication on how good you are at hitting targets, targets in motion, and targets at range, so maybe here a higher than 100% skill will have some sort of return as I know you won't hit a creature 3 kilometers away with a bow, even with 100% skill (or 200% for that matter). I.4 - SETTINGS Seeing as the developer wanted to keep everything in Gothic 2 as similar to the original Gothic as they could, the game will default with many of these settings. New functionality have been introduced however, but you have to activate most of it manually. All these settings are adjusted by editing the file gothic.INI found in the /system folder. It's a good idea to make a backup of this file for safe keeping. An INI file can be edited using any text-editor, like Notepad, Textpad and similar. This section will not touch on in-game settings you can change from within the game, but rather explain some distinct features you might want to enable and that can only be done so by editing the INI file. QuickSave and QuickLoad [useQuickSaveKeys=1] You are going to save and load a lot, so you might as well get this on at first. In the original Gothic you didn't have this feature, but didn't do any less saving and thus it became a chore. This setting will enable or disable quicksave/quickload (keys F5 for save, F9 for load) and is found in the bracket called GAME. There are a couple bugs associated with this, so be sure to read up the buglist too. Blood Detail [bloodDetail=3] More a visual feature than anything else, but nice to know. The blood detail has 3 levels, but defaults to 2. 0 is off, 1-2 is amounts of blood displayed when you hit something or is being hit. Setting this to 3 will add a continued loss of blood to both you and your enemies, and is besides a nice effect, a good pointer on how hurt you really are. When this is set to 3, you will begin dripping blood whenever you go when you are below 50% and increasingly more the lower you get. The same applies for enemies, and should one run away this is a great way to track it down. This setting can also be found in the GAME bracket. Quick Potions [usePotionKeys=1] This will enable a sort of quick potion feature, where you can assign a key to either healing or mana potions, and drink them without the animation in the middle of combat. Some might feel this is too easy, but there are so many situations in Gothic where things suddenly go the opposite way of what you had planned, and quaffing a potion to get away instead of loading saves you a lot of trouble. Once this is enable, you can set up the keys in 'additional keys' in-game. The potion used is always the strongest one. Also found in the GAME bracket. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- CHAPTER 1 - THE MENACE -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- After the opening sequence, you are thrown right into a conversation with Xardas, a necromancer, who explains the setting for you. Orcs and dragons are afoot in the land and you need a special artefact to combat this menace. Exhaust Xardas conversation tree and lets get going. Realistic level range for completing chapter 1 should be from 1-18, although 20 is possible. C1.1 - XARDAS' TOWER, THE VALLEY, AND ROAD TO KHORINIS As Xardas said, everything you think can be of use to you, you can have - so pick up whatever you find lying around. There's also a bed here you can sleep in if you need after exploring the vicinity of the tower. There are 6 bookstands in the tower - one by Xardas, five in an upstairs room. You can read each for 25xp, for a 150xp total. There's a chest upstairs requiring a key you can find on a nearby table too. It contains 5gp, 2 Lockpicks, a Dagger and a scroll of Light. Keys quickly clutter your inventory so know that once used you never need a key again - it's usually a good idea to leave keys you have used in the chest you used them on or if on a door, close by. A Heavy Branch found by the fireplace downstairs make a better weapon than the dagger. A chest downstairs contain a couple Fireball scrolls, a Heal Light Wounds scroll, and some gold. Some torches and waterflasks can be found lining the shelves, as can a "Lab Waterflask" you'll need later for brewing potions. Hidden among the crates and barrels are some more coins too. Immediately exiting Xardas' tower, there's some Healing Plants along the tower wall to your left, hidden under some trees. It's often a good idea to turn on first person view when looking for herbs. Believe me, in this view you'll spot them easier and also don't slip off a ledge to certain death. The Wonderer adds: "There is another corpse behind xardas' tower, with a potion and 2 scrolls to get there you have to drop from the top of the tower to the lower platform and go around to the backside of the tower" At the very beginning, every coin counts and every rusty sword or similar is a treasure. Be sure to grab everything not nailed down and you'll be better off for it later. C1.1.Q1 QUEST: The Eye of Innos This quest will span several chapters and is the overlying thing you should pursue. For now, this quest should prompt you to seek out the paladins in the city of Khorinis, wich will take you through the following areas. Look for the completion and all it involves in C3.6.Q3, otherwise pay it no heed until chapter 3. C1.1.P1 POINT OF INTEREST: The Chest behind the Porticullis A gate prevents acess to a chest in Xarda's lab. Only a hidden lever will open this gate. Hidden levers and buttons don't show up as items you can interact with in-game, but can still be used if you are standing in front of them. Look for a button on the fireplace on the same level - top-right corner on the frontside of the fireplace. Behind the gate is a Mana Essence potion (+50 mana) and a chest with 20gp, a Heal Light Wounds scroll and a Fireball scroll. C1.1.P2 POINT OF INTEREST: A hidden corpse At the lake where you found the entrance to the valley, there's an overhanging tree along a path to your left. Under this tree is a corpse and some items. A couple Fire Arrow scrolls, an Essence Healing potion, a Shortbow and some arrows. The shortbow will be of great use to you at this point, but conserve the arrows. C1.1.P3 POINT OF INTEREST: Down to the Valley Xardas mentions a secret passage down to the valley below. This can be found by walking down to the small pond and waterfall to your left just a short ways after exiting the tower. Besides a few monsters and adjoining cave adobes, the tunnel will take you a bit down and out onto a winding mountain path leading down to the valley floor. The valley is host to lots of herbs as well as wolves and rats. Lester can be found here at a campfire, and there's also a cave down here with some foes. C1.1.P4 POINT OF INTEREST: Lester From the second you set foot in the valley you can see a campfire a little ways off, where an old buddy from Gothic 1 is resting, namely Lester. Strike up a conversation with him and ask what happened. After his story about the black shadow, be sure to mention that he should go tell Xardas about it. Lester will rest in the Valley for a few days more then you can find him in Xardas' Tower (triggered by completing C1.1.Q4 How to Get Into the City of Khorinis). Lester can be a pain or a benefit either way you see it as he will charge any hostiles closing. If you want the experience for yourself, be sure to lure the monsters away from Lester, or try to get the last hit in so you get the 'kill' and thus the exp. C1.1.S1 SIDEQUEST: Lester's Shadows If you told Lester to go see Xadras about the shadow he saw, you can find Lester inside Xadras' Tower a few days later - after you have gained entrance to the city of Khorinis, sleeping in the bed in Xadras' Tower. Asking Xadras if Lester told him about the shadows will yield +25xp and a magic ring called Ring of Spirits, giving a +5 to Magic Protection (Armor Class). C1.1.Q2 QUEST: Wanted Notes and Bandits Further down the road you will eventually be greeted by a bandit standing guard in front of a staircase built into the mountainside. Unless you trail around him with good distance, he will initiate talks automatically. There's two outcomes to this encounter. You can be brupt and dont fall into his trickery - at wich point he will attack you. This is if you dont follow him into the small cave to see his boss (where you will be attacked anyway). It seems someone is looking for your head on a platter and has passed around mugshots of you and a promise of rewards. It's also possible to sweettalk the bandit though, and learn some good information as well as another quest to your Questlog. Tell him you come from the Mountains, and ask whom is looking for you. Then have him reassure you this isn't a trap, and tell a white lie about being tricked earlier. If you then mention you come from the convict colony (gothic 1) things will change. Seems this bandit is also from the colony and think the old fellows should stick together. From that point he will no longer attack you and you can gather a bit of information. Have him hand you the mugshot, then ask about who is behind it (not his boss inside the caves). For 10 gold he will reveal the name of this person. Exit the conversation and he will warn you about his 'gang' inside the cave and that they will probably beat you up. And they will if you go inside, so take it easy and lets deal with this a little later. You now have the quest "Wanted Notes and Bandits" in your Questlog. This quest will complete for +25xp when you finally find Dexter in his camp (see C1.6.P6) and talk to him for the first time. Darf adds: "You were indeed tricked earlier, this is one of the Quests from Gothic 1, so it's not a lie!" The Wonderer adds: "You dont have to pay the 10gold to the bandit to get Dexter's name if you dont have the cash on you, he realizes it too late." C1.1.Q3 QUEST: The Bandits at Lobart's Farm Following the road further down, you'll come across Maleth, a sheephearder working Lobart's Farm. He will also strike up a conversation with you when you close in. Telling him you were attacked by bandits, and then that you know the location of their hideout will give you this quest to 'take care of them'. If you talked and got to know the bandit guarding the entrance, when you return you can get +50xp if you warn him that the farmers want them dead. He will then stay out of the fight and walk up to a campfire further up towards Xardas' Tower. Inside the cave are Brago and another bandit. Each will yield +50xp when killed, and carry various foodstuffs, some gold and maybe a potion. The bandit also has a message offering coinage for your head from this Dexter person you was told about from the bandit outside. Brago carries a key to the chest here. Return to Maleth for your reward - 3 bottles of wine and +100xp. If you already dealt with the bandits the quest will complete as you speak to Maleth for the first time, and he will give you the same reward. Further, dealing with the bandits lower the cost of the farmer's clothes Lobart has another 10 gold (see Lobart's Work Clothes). C1.1.Q4 QUEST: How to get into the City of Khorinis Telling Maleth that you're on your way to the city when you meet him will give you some useful pointers here and spawn this quest. Seems getting into the city isn't as easy as it first seemed. The city guards are wary of convicts and thugs from the mountains and wont just let anyone in. There are several ways to complete this quest. One is getting the farmer's work clothes from Lobart and telling the guards you work there and are just after supplies. Another way is to talk to Canthar by the crossroads and accept his free gate pass in return for a favour later (see C1.2.Q8 Canthar's Favour). The last option is to bribe your way in at the cost of 100 gold. Getting the work clothes from Lobart and saying you're here to see the blacksmith is the only option that will net you any xp. +25xp and entrance to the city, as well as all the xp you get from completing the connected tasks involved in that. There's also another way into the city you shouldn't miss - see C1.1.S2 Another way in. C1.1.S2 SIDEQUEST: Another Way In Besides the three obvious options to get into the city of Khorinis, there is also another more lucrative option here - namely to get into the city without using the gates. Not only will this net you a handsome sum of xp for your efforts, but can also be done without upsetting the other quests. Meaning you can do this sidequest, and still work your way to Lobart's Work Clothes and getting into the city the regular way, quests and xp intanct. Before embarking on this little romp through the forrest however, it's a good idea to finnish the "A Pan for Hilda" quest, as Canthar the merchant will pack up and leave for the city once you have entered it for the first time. Also note that this little venture is very risky and probably aimed at more experienced players if you're just starting out. Anyway, here's how. First find your way up to the Statue of Innos again where you first met Maleth. On the other side of the road, you can make out the dense forrest on a lower level than the road, but it looks to be a higher drop than you can survive. Make your way to the point where the ledge starts and you can see the steep mountainside continue further. Ie, the absolute earliest opportunity to jump down (don't yet though). The fall here is too high and will kill you, but there's a little trick to be done here. If you jump off the ledge you're on, aiming to crash in mountainside - jumping off the ledge, but into the cliffside on your left - you will be bounced off it and into the ground, where the total drop only counts as a risky fall doing some damage and not killing you. It takes a few tries to get right, but keep at it and you should find yourself on the forrest floor below the ledge soon enough. Once down, you are in the close vicinity of a band of Black Goblins - probably way too tough to take on by this point, so lets try to leg it past them. Run as fast as you can along the cliffside and you should loose the goblins when you see this part of the forrest makes way to a greengrass strip and a small mountain alley. You can probably aslo see the top of a mast on a big ship anchored on the other side. At the very bend in this new alley, walk up the corner and there should be a sloope there that you can jump up on and not slide down again. Finding and getting up here should leave you atop a very narrow cliffside, where you will see the Paladin's ship and harbour on the other side. Run along the steep cliff - almost like a razors edge - all the way over to the bandit cave (see C1.1.P6). From here the grassy strip on top of the cliff ends, and you should see some makeshift tents to your left down on the beach. Take a careful sideways drop down on a mountain ledge just below the one you're standing on now, and from there, jump across to the roof of the nearest tent, and then finally drop from the tent roof onto the beach. Congratulations, you're now right smack inside the city of Khorinis. So for the sidequest here - make your way along the docks and don't talk to anybody before you meet Lares (C1.2.S3). He will utter a suprised remark, asking how you got into the city, and if you actually swam in. This will also net you a very handsome +500xp. There's also some other suprised remarks around, but you can now make your way out of the city again through the South Gate and continue what you were doing. The quest "How to get into the City of Khorinis" will still be in your questlog, and you can finnish it now by getting Lobart's work clothes and saying you are here to see the blacksmith as you would normally. Thanks to Darf who first clued me in to this fact. Xerxes0 also adds: "You can climb the wall off to the right of the south gate guards. As you walk along the wall a bit, there is a low spot that can be reached and climbed over, not that far from the city gate; but this is important, you must jump standing back a little bit, or you will be bounced back and not make it. It takes a bit of practice but it is a great way to avoid the guards and get in." And: "Another way into the city is outside the East Gate; walk up towards the light house, skirt the bandits there, stay to the left and walk all the way up and around the mountain; very high up to the ridge. Eventually you will come down near where the thieves guild is and you can also jump onto the wall of the harbor district and jump down." The Wonderer adds: "You can just go around the South Gate guards from the right side (from near the place where u can climb the wall) because only the left guard will stop you, stay away from him near the wall, until your are behind the right guard, then just go in." Several nice shortcuts into the city in other words, and something you shouldn't miss. C1.1.Q5 QUEST: Lobart's Work Clothes Lobart is the owner of the farm here and can be found in the middle of the farm yard. He also have some farmers clothes that would work well with getting into the city. The price for the clothes (a slight armor boost) starts at 70 gold when you first talk to Lobart, but by working his for a little while, you can bring the price down. The clothes can also be stolen to achieve your more pressing goal, but if you talk to Lobart again he will demand them back or you will get into a fight with the whole farm if you dont give them back. The price can be brought down quite a bit so it's usually a good choice to finnish these menial tasks for a bit of xp and learning the ropes around here instead. The clothes start at 70 gold, but can be brought down to 30 gold if you complete all the quests around here. They are: 1. Harvest the Turnip Field - Clothes for 60 gold. 2. A Pan for Hilda - Clothes for 50 gold. 3. For a Bottle of Wine - Clothes for 40 gold. 4. The Bandits at Lobart's Farm - Clothes for 30 gold. Once you have a price you can pay, Lobart will take your coin and tell you to get the clothes from a chest in his house (the side room with 2 beds) and that will complete this quest. C1.1.Q6 QUEST: Harvest the Turnip Field Tell Lobart you're looking for work and he'll get you started on your first task. Right next to him is a fenced in small field with Turnips growing in it. There's 25 of them in total. Pick them all up and talk to Lobart again for +50xp and completion of the quest. Regarding the Farmer's Clothes, Lobart will either give you 5 gold, or knock off 10 gold on the price of the Clothes. There seems to be a bug here though, since when you take the gold he still knocks off 10 gold on the clothes in addition since you helped him out. Once done he tells you to bring the Turnips to his wife in the main building. C1.1.Q7 QUEST: Bring the Turnips to Hilda Hilda can be found in the house. Talk to her and give her the turnips for completion of this quest and +25xp. With the turnips she can cook up some stew for you, wich is a very good food alternative to healing potions (heals 20, very cheap). If you spend some days at the farm, Hilda can cook you up some stew once per day. C1.1.Q8 QUEST: A Pan for Hilda Hilda mentions she just saw a farmer pull up to the crossroads a bit down from the farm and asks if you can go see if he has a pan for her. You can ask for 20 gold to pay for the pan now, or recieve it when you bring the pan back. Canthar the merchant can be found a short bit down the main road from the farm - just follow the road from where Lobart stands. Talking to Canthar for the first time will also trigger a follow up to the quest of getting into Khorinis (see C1.1.Q4 How to Get Into the City of Khorinis). Unless you have finnished The Bandits at Lobart's Farm quest and gotten the wine from Lameth, you can buy a bottle from Canthar for use in Vino's quest below. Returning to Hilda with the pan nets you +50xp and will bring the price of the clothes down another 10 gold. C1.1.Q9 QUEST: For a Bottle of Wine There's two fields connected to Lobart's farm besides the turnip field. In one of them are 2 farmers and a person called Vino. Talk to him and ask if they need any help. Since you're obviously not an experienced farmer Vino has nothing for you...maybe except getting the boys a bottle of wine. Give him the bottle you bought, or if you found a bottle somewhere else and he will tell Lobart you were a real help. For this you get +50 xp and the price of the farmer's clothes will go down another 10 gold. C1.1.P5 POINT OF INTEREST: A Useful Herb Behind Lobart's farm, up on a hill near a stone circle you can find a Goblin Berries herb - a very rare and expensive herb you can either eat for a permanent stat bonus, or use in a potion for an even greater boost. There is also another very rare herb up here, but it can't be found from start but must be triggered by another event in the city (see C1.2.P2 Zuris' Herbs) C1.1.P6 POINT OF INTEREST: More Bandits Following the road from Lobart's farm down to the city gates, you can see a dense forrest area to the left of the road. This area is host to several tough creatures that are sure to kill you at this point. However, if you complete the sidequest C1.2.P4 Hunting with Bartok, you should have a clear way to explore this area further. To the very back of this forrest there is a Black Goblin camp with a chest, and also another path leading closer to the ocean where a group of bandits have their camp in a cave. C1.1.P7 POINT OF INTEREST: Back to the Valley Yes, we're not quite done here yet. At the small goblin camp you passed before coming upon the bandits, you might have noticed something moving on ledges below? This is sort of the opposite side of the valley, and not accessible going down into it, but actually from where you first spotted it at the goblin camp. Behind the trees here is a not so steep slope you can drop down to and continue along this side of the valley. There is no way down to the valley floor from here, but there are some foes to beat and some herbs to be found if you want it all. Reason this was mentioned last though, is that the creatures here are a tad tougher that what you can reasonably expect to beat while doing this section, so I reccommend coming back here later. There are some ledges leading down here in several steps, but be careful not to fall. Along the steep cliff side you'll find some regular herbs, a couple scrolls, some 6 nasty lizards, a couple giant rats, some meatbugs, and last 2 firece Wargs you shouldn't try to pet unless you can handle it. One advantage is that most of these can be pelted with arrows from the safety of a higher ledge. C1.2 - CITY OF KHORINIS Once inside the city you should run into a Paladin in shining armor, one Lothar who will initiate talks with you. He'll tell you about the rules of the city since it's under paladin control at the moment and also make it clear to you that your quest to see the leader of the paladins for the Eye of Innos quest is far from done. Thing is, only those employed by the paladins, or respected citizens of the town are allowed into the Upper Quarters of the city, naturally where the leader Lord Hagen is also located. Khorinis as a city is split into 4 'parts' - The master merchant area where you enter first, the upper city where all the rich folks live, the merchants square, and the docks. There's two main gates - the one you came in at first, the South Gate, and one in the merchants square, the East Gate. At this point most everyone will have a neutral stance towards you so just walk around and talk to people. You'll rack up various quests soon enough. The overlying goal for now though is to get into the upper quarters. The city will also be a place where you spend a considerable time in chapter one, so take your time and get it right. It's not uncommon to reach level 8 just doing tasks in and around the city. C1.2.Q1 QUEST: Getting into the Upper Quarters Although what you will be doing for the next hours is working towards this goal to see the leader of the Paladins, Lord Hagen, a lot of quests lead up to completing this quest. You could literary spend days of gameplay just exploring before doing this part so dont worry about it immediately. There are several ways to get into the upper quarter though. The first and most obvious one is to become a respected citizen of Khorinis. This can be done by getting work with one of three Master Merchants, involving quite a few quests in itself. Once an apprentice for either one, you automatically gain acess to the upper quarters. A second way is to become a member of the Militia, one of the three guild factions in the game. Normally you have to be a citizen of Khorinis to be considered for Militia work, but there are some shortcuts here. Once a Militia member, you automatically gain entrance to the upper quarters, as well as acess to Lord Hagen. Hooking up with the Mercenaries, the second Guild faction in the game, will also get you into the upper quarters and access to see Lord Hagen. See the Mercenary related quests for more info. And last, becoming a Fire Mage, the third and last Guild, will also get you access to the upper quarters and Lord Hagen. However, with all the options present, you can still go about your business for now and wait until later until choosing a guild to join as this is a permanent choice. Once guilded there is no way out. And besides, you still want to experience the part of the game that gets you access without any guild affiliation as it involves a lot of quests. This quest will complete when you pass the gate to the upper quarter, but doesn't give any direct xp. C1.2.Q2 QUEST: Apprentice in Khorinis Talking to almost any of the first characters you meet inside the city will clue you into this path and quest. Since only citizens get into the upper quarters, your goal now should be to become a citizen. This is only done by getting some proper work with a Master Merchant and this isn't as straightforward as it seems either. For one of the master merchants to accept you as an apprentice, the majority of the other merchants must agree to it. That means you'll have to get on the good side of atleast 4 of the 5 master merchants in the city to even have one of them consider you for an apprenticeship. Some of the quests for these merchants you'll partake in will be harder than others, but it's generally the best outcome if you can get them all on your side and not just the required minimum. With Master Merchant, it means the top dogs in the city - the ones with a proffesion that produce things for the city, not mere merchants peddling goods. There are plenty of merchants in the city but most of them basically just sell the stuff the master merchants produce. Of the 5 merchants, you will only be able to start an apprenticeship with 3 of them. Wich one that will be is entire up to you. - Complete "Matteo and Gritta" for Matteo's approval - Complete "Furs for Bosper" for Bosper's approval - Complete "Blessing of the Gods" for Thorben's approval - Complete "A Great Challenge" for Harad's approval - Talk to Constantino for his approval With 4 of 5 approvals in order you can complete this quest and sign up with either Bosper, Harad or Constantino, provided you have completed the quest for the Master you want to sign up with. Signing on with any of the three nets you +300xp. Although you would maybe want to finnish all 5 quests first, it doesnt net you any more direct xp from 'completing' this quest. How the apprenticeships work: Bosper will teach you how to skin an animal, and when you sign up with him, he'll only require that you drop by now and then and deliver some skins he can sell to the city. This isn't even a requirement as such and the only thing you'll hear is that he can get a little upset if you havent visited him in weeks. There are no repercussions though. The real advantage here though is that Bosper will buy all skins you bring him for their real value - an item's value is hardly what you get from normal merchants as they usually buy items at 30% it's value, rounded down. But here Bosper will pay full price for all skins you bring him. That includes Sheep Skins, Wolf Skins, Warg Skins, Shadowbeast Skins, Troll Hides, and Black Troll Hides. Since you know skinning already (or should), that's thousands of gold you'll earn extra when selling them back to Bosper instead of normal merchants. Also as mentioned elsewhere, I'm unsure if you can learn this skill from others than Bosper, while the skills the two other masters can teach you can be tougth elsewhere. It would be a drag to spend the LP on skinning and not reaping the benefits of full price skins in my opinion. Harod will teach you the basics of Forging (cost 5 LP) wich is a "Self-Made Sword". Without this skill you cannot learn more about forging and how to make the really nice weapons later on. Another trainer can also teach you this however, and that is Bennet in the Mercenary camp. Harod will also train your Strength up to a max of 50 if you sign on with him. The Self-Made Sword is really nice though, but better ones can be found and you can even find readymade Self-Made Swords without making them yourself. The advantage here is that you can get a nice one hander early on, and also that Harad buys these swords from you at full price - 100 gold per sword. And that is really what your task is with Harod, to make swords. You have to buy or find Steel, then process the steel into these swords and sell to Harod. Steel comes in limited supply however, and you should be satisfied if you can find 30+ pieces of steel through the chapters. It's still a hefty amount of coin though, and the advantage is quick easy money from early on. Compared to Bosper, you'll make more money at the very start. Constantino will teach you how to make potions with Alchemy. There's no real 'Basics' in Alchemy as learning any potion will make you a Learned Alchemist and thus allow you to learn more potion recipies from the various Alchemists around, but only a couple will teach you the 'first' - Constantino being one of these. Each and every potion in the game will cost 5LP to learn. You don't actually need to learn Alchemy from Constantino as his apprentice though - he really just wants you to gather herbs for him. The advantage here is that he will buy your ingredients for full value, wich will turn out to be quite some coin after a while. The downside here is that you really want these herbs for yourself for the strong potion making later in the game (yes, spending LP on Alchemy for this is really worth it - see Trainers, Alchemy, and Stats & Skill Boosters). Even though you can get some quick easy coin from start, you'd want most of it back later and have to pay him the same as you sold it for. Another problem would be that Constantinos inventory updates on chapter changes and you could stand to loose a lot of what you sold him. Of the three apprenticeships, I consider Bosper the most useful, Harad a good second if you intend to forge weapons, and Constantino the least useful. Don't dismiss Constantino as an Alchemist in himself though - once you have learnt the basics somewhere else, and completes his quest Herbs for Constantino, he can teach you some of the most powerful potions. C1.2.Q3 QUEST: Matteo & Gritta Starting with the first master merchant, Matteo in Matteo's Store to your left as you enter the city, before he will consider vouching for you as an apprentice you have to complete a task for him. Ask him about how to get into the upper square and you'll recieve the Getting into the Upper Square and Apprentice in Khorinis quests if you haven't already recieved them in your Questlog. It seems Matteo needs a small favour - Thorben's niece Gritta owes him a good sum of gold, 100 gold to be exact and he wants it back. Thorben is another Master Merchant in the city so Matteo won't involve himself directly although he would still like to see Gritta roughed up a bit. Thorben is the carpenter working just outside Matteo's Store a bit off. You can see him sawing on a log and some furniture scattered around outside his house wich is next to Bosper's. The entrance is around the corner, where you will find Gritta. Talk to Gritta and learn of her oh so miserable fate. It's possible to just rough her up and demand the money by threatening to sell her fancy clothes, but as with a lot of quests sweettalk and diplomacy will get you a lot further. Additionally, gold although scarce at the beginning will be in abundance. If you can pay a little gold and recieve some more experience instead, it's always the best choice in my book. There's also a bookstand in here that should most likely yield another +25xp as I dont think you can find that particular book anywhere else for a long time yet. With that you can offer to pay off Grittas debt to Matteo. Head back to Matteo and give him the 100 gold. You'll recieve 100xp for completing the quest, then ask him to help you get into the upper quarters. You now have Master Matteo on your side and he will agree with any apprenticeship you seek. This also nets you another 100xp. Don't forget to head back to Gritta to let her know you paid her debts, for another 50xp and a bottle of wine. This will also make Thorben more favourable against you. On a sidenote, Gritta does indeed have 100 gold on her for the debt, and you can knock her out later if you can't resist. C1.2.P1 POINT OF INTEREST: Pablo's Wanted Poster A city guard next to a tower in the middle of the city, by Harad the smith, will stop you first chance he gets and ask you about a wanted poster he has. This is Pablo, and the wanted poster is the same as the one you got off the bandits up at the road from Xarda's tower. Deny that it is you, and you'll have an option to clear up some matters that happens later in C1.2.Q8 Canthar's Favour. When you deny it, you get the option to ask Pablo where the bandits came from that they took "your wanted poster" off, but wait with doing this until after Q8. C1.2.Q4 QUEST: Furs for Bosper Bosper is the citys bowyer - making bows, crossbows, arrows and bolts - as well as dealing in furs. He owns and runs the "Deadly Arrow" just opposite of Matteo. Bosper is really interested in taking you on as an apprentice, but not as a bowyer but rather a hunter. To be considered for apprenticeship with Bosper you need to fullfill his quest, wich is gathering 6 wolfskins. This is also required if you want Bospers approval with any of the other masters. Before you go into this however, there's a couple points. You cannot do this quest without learning the first Hunter skill called Skinning, wich costs 5LP to learn. When you agree to do the get the furs and say "Teach me how to skin!" you'll learn this skill and 5 LP is deducted from your total (you should be level 1 atleast now). Many think this skill is learnt for free, and then later wonder why they have only 5 or 15 LP left. That said, Skinning is a really valuable skill wether you want to sign up with Bosper or not and will bring you in a lot of gold during the game. Have a look at Appendix A1.2.1 and read up on Skinning before making your choice though. If you choose NOT to do this quest for Bosper and 'save' the learning points, there's only one other way of getting his approval, and that is by completing the "Bosper's Bow" quest. A word of advice though. When breaking down the advantages and disadvantages of all 3 possible apprenticeships, it really just boils down to wich is more lucrative for you, ie just about how much gold you can make out of it - that is, besides becoming a citizen wich all 3 will do for you. Bosper is the one the one who will pay out the most gold in the long run, and Harod is the one paying out the most early on. Anyway, accepting this quest (it will go into your Questlog wether you do it or not) involves hunting down 6 Wolves or Young Wolves and deliver their skins to Bosper (you can even steal some skins if you can find them), for wich he will pay you 60 gold (full price). Once complete, ask if you will get his approval to sign up with another master and you recieve +100xp. To this wether you plan on signing on or not, with all the masters as it will net 100xp for gaining their approval. C1.2.Q5 QUEST: Blessing of the Gods Back to Master Thorben, the carpenter, we want his blessing to take up work as an apprentice too. You cannot work for Thorben as he's flat broke and in debt too (see a pattern in the family here?). Ask him for some work however and he'll tell you he'll atleast give you his approval. However, Thorben is a religious man and doesn't trust just anybody. When asked about your own faith, it doesnt really matter what you answer - the end result is either way that you need to get the blessings of two persons. The first is Vatras the water mage, and the second from a priest of Innos (Fire Mage). First one is straightforward. Vatras can be found a little ways off through the underpass into the merchants square and temple, preaching to a crowd of onlookers. Talk to him and say you want his blessing. He'll ask you about your past, your purpose and your goal, and it's important that you answer these thruthfully (contrary to what Xardas told you about keeping it secret) otherwise he will see through your lies. Once you get your story straight you will get his blessing and +100xp. Next is a priest of Innos. The quickest here is a fellow called Daron by the East Gate, a shady character who will surerly become a TV-Preacher scam in a future life. He's in town to advice the paladins and lurks about in the merchants square (north from Vatras). Ask him about recieving a blessing and he'll count the contents of your purse. If you have 50 gold, he will take that as a donation and then give you his blessing. Alternately you have to ask him how much the going rate of donations are, and come back later when you have the dough. Getting his blessing yields +50xp It should theoretically be possible to recieve a blessing from other priests of Innos too (fire mages), but I'm unsure if it's possible. There's one priest at a similar temple as Vatras on the way to the fire mages monastary, but it's out of ways and surerly quite the dangerous trip at the level you are when first doing this quest. If anything, it seems like a lot of trouble to go through just to save 50 gold. If you know otherwise, please share. With both Vatras and Darons blessings in order, return to Thorben and ask for his approval. Chalk up one more Masters approval and another +100xp. Note that completing the Matteo and Gritta quest by paying her debts now pays off a little when talking to Thorben, as you see he can teach you the skill of lockpicking (he only does that to honest folks). He'll still charge 200 gold for it though, so you might want to hold off a bit on it for now (as a coincidence he owes the local moneylender 200 gold - more on that later). In addition he can sell you some lockpicks. Consult the Skills appendix for more info on LockPicking. C1.2.Q6 QUEST: A Great Challenge Right across from Thorben you'll see Master Harad, the blacksmith. Talk to him and you'll soon see that you won't get far with him before you can prove your worth. To Harad, that means only one thing - that you can fell an Orc. Harad can also take you on as an apprentice like Bosper, but for that and his approval to any of the other masters, you still need to fulfill his quest. He wants you to get a hold of an Orc weapon to prove you have killed an Orc, and nothing else will do. However, taking down an orc at that level is nigh impossible. Thus the challenge. Examining his words though, it says nothing about actually killing an Orc, we just have to deliver him an orc weapon and have him believe we killed one. That we can do fairly easy. Any orc weapon will do though, so if you dont want to finnish this quest now - come back at a later point when you've become a big strong fighter with multiple orc scrathes on your sword. Either way works, one quicker and simpler than the other. To find an orc weapon lying around, you need to exit the East Gate, trail north into a clearing beside the city wall, and find a cave there. There's some Loafers (bandits) inside but also an old statue of an orcish god and an orc axe Harad will accept as proof. If you care to wait a little bit with this, you can also finnish C1.3.P3 Hunting with Bartok, and you just might get yourself an orc weapon from a real kill. Another easy way would be to take the trip with Lares (C1.2.S3) and visit Onar's Farm - Cipher, one of the mercenaries there is selling an old Light Orc Axe for a mere 10 gold that Harad will take as proof too. Proving to Harad that you're good for anything will net you a nice +200xp and when asked about his approval, you'll get another +100xp. If you also got the approval of the other masters (Matteo, Bosper, Thorben), you're actually close to having them all now and could sign up as an apprentice already. The last, Master Constantino the Alchemist, doesnt really care either way and will give you his approval just like that so you have all five - you still need to talk to him though. However, read on to "Constantinos Herbs". Geir Gundersen adds: "If you find getting a orc weapon too hard, you can just talk to Harad again and he lowers the challenge to killing some bandits that have been attacking the merchants" - See C1.2.Q11 C1.2.Q7 QUEST: Herbs for Constantino In the underpass east of Harad you can find Constantino's shop. Constantino is an old grumpy geezer, but also the third master you can actually sign up with as an apprentice for. However, Constantino's last apprentice died from poisoning working the herbs and he says he simply won't bare loosing another apprentice. To convince him that you're the man for the job, you have to complete his quest wich involves gathering a whole lot of herbs. Push him about the matter and ask what it would take to become his apprentice and he will give you a list of herbs to gather. This list is hefty, so be warned. Besides the common plants you probably already have by roaming around so far, it includes one of each of the rare herbs like King's Sorrel, Goblin Berries, and Dragon Root. Another issue with this is that if you do complete the list, Constantino will take the herbs from you. Getting the rare herbs back involves dishing out the well over thousand gold it costs to buy them back from him - you cannot knock him out for this. The quest as such is nice to complete either way though, as Constantino will later teach you about Alchemy (See Appendix Alchemy and Skills). If you want to become Constantinos apprentice, you need to complete this quest. For other apprenticeships, Constantino will give you his approval for free - he doesn't care. So if you at this point want to complete the Apprentice in Khorinis quest and sign on with either Harod or Bosper, you can. Just be sure to get the quest about the herbs first as you can always complete this later. Finding one of all the herbs on his list will net you +200xp. C1.2.S1 SIDEQUEST: Abuyin's Prophecy and Tobbacco Sounds like a regular store in the indian or chinese quarter doesn't it? On your way to the East Gate through the city of Khorinis you'll run across this rather odd fellow by the name of Abuyin. In front of him are some carpets and water pipes and citizens gather here in the evening to relax with a good smoke. Abuyin also deals in phrophecies and for a fee, will read your future. This is chapter reliant, in that you will get one prophecy in chapter 1, a new one in chapter 2 and so on. To get your reading in chapter 1 you have to fork out 25 gold and you will get some hints as to what awaits, as well as +100xp. In addition, Abuyin deals in tobacco for his water pipes - a special blend of Apple Tobacco. Ask him about this and you will learn how to mix tobacco at an Alchemist Table (not a skill and does not cost LP), and get two portions of apple tobacco for free. To actually mix the tobacco, you do however need to learn Alchemy, even though learning to mix tobacco doesnt cost anything. It's sufficient to learn any one potion and the "basics" of alchemy and then you have the option to "..blend tobacco" when you use an Alchemist's Table. Once learnt you can mix 3 different types of tobacco using the apple tobacco as a base. This expends one Lab Water Flask per mix. The different ingredients for the new types of tobacco are Honey for Honey Tobacco, Dark Mushroom for Murky Tobacco, and Swampweed for Weed Tobacco. You cannot use these types or the original apple tobacco for anything sensible other than this little sidequest, atleast to my knowledge, so getting 3 bags of apple tobacco should be enough. Well, one of the types you mix can be sold back to Abuyin for 10 gold, but that is just waste of coin as the apple tobacco + lab water flask + ingredient costs more than what you get for selling the finnished product. What you do with the 3 types of new tobacco however is find 3 people around the world you can sample them on to see if you have a great business idea on your hands. Say goodbye to running around the bloody woods with a sword and hello to your own tobacco industry. No seriously, it's just an amusing little sidequest. - Give the Honey-Apple tobacco to Abuyin himself for +50xp - Give the Weed Tobacco to the Gardener working the garden behind the town hall Lord Hagen occupies for +25xp (requires access to the upper quarter) - Give the Shroom Tobacco to Dren the mercenary at Onar's Farm for +25xp C1.2.Q8 QUEST: Canthar's Favor Remember Canthar? The sneaky merchant outside Lobart's Farm that wanted to give you his free hall pass? He's now back in the city and sitting at a bench outside the barracks on the way to the East Gate. If you walk past him he'll force you into a conversation and also a quest you have to accomplish. If you took his Pass earlier he'll expect you to do this for him as a favor, if not he'll offer a weapon as a reward. It seems Canthar has his eyes on a merchant's stall by the gate, but unfortunately it's already used by a merchant named Sarah. With a little trickery he hopes to frame Sarah so Andre (the Paladin running the Militia Barracks) will put her in jail and he can get the merchant stall. Since you're more or less forced into this quest, lets get it over with. There are more outcomes to this than meets the eye at first. You can do what Canthar asks, by taking his forged letter framing Sarah and just giving it to her in a tradewindow, then go tell Andre what Canthar tells you to say - namely that Sarah is selling weapons to the landlord Onar whom the paladins and militia is fighting against. Do this by telling him you want to collect a bounty on a criminal and saying Sarah is selling weapons to Onar. This nets you +100xp and 100 gold. This will be enough to put Sarah in jail, and when you go back down again Canthar has taken the stall. Talk to him to recieve +100xp more, and a Ship Axe, an ok one hander worth 120 gold. Quest complete it seems. However, this quest has a quite moral overtone to it. It's pretty easy to sense that Canthar is the bad guy here and Sarah the good girl. You can turn the quest around halfway, by going straight to Andre (in the barracks courtyard up the stairs where you found Canthar sitting) and tell him how Canthar is trying to frame Sarah - this will put Canthar in jail instead, and you get the same +100xp and 100 gold for turning in a criminal. Then go see Sarah and mention what you just did - she'll give you a better weapon that Canthar did, a very nice beginner sword called a Pirate's Cutlass, also worth a bit more, 150 gold. In addition, you'll recieve +200xp this way instead of just 100 if you frame Sarah. The quest Canthar's Favor will now also show up in the Failed Quests category. Putting Canthar behind bars however have it's concequences. Canthar is a though bastard and if you do get him behind bars he will exact revenge upon you later in the game. He will be released from prison sooner or later (I think automatic in chapter 2, but happened for me already in chapter 1 due to a trigger explained below). When he does, Sarah is gone for good and he occupies her stall. But that's not all, Canthar has now convinced the other merchants in the square (Hakon, Jora, Zuris, and Baltram) that you are nothing but an escaped convict from the mining colony and they will all refuse to trade with you. The only way to clear things up are to talk to Canthar again and agree to pay his hefty demand of 500 gold and he'll promise to set things straight with the other merchants. So there you go, a choice to make. I'm unsure if doing the quest in Canthar's favor and framing Sarah has any further consequences. If you are strapped for coin, the 500 gold fee later on is a tough one - not that the merchants in question have much in the way of value to offer you. Zuris do sell apple tobacco and potions that are of use later though...but on the other hand, completing the quest in Sarah's favor does yield more xp and also a much better beginner weapon. Personally, I chose to go with Sarah and pay the 500 gold later. Due to my sticky fingers and generally questonable morale, I had more gold than I could carry anyway, so the extra 100xp and sword from Sarah was worth more to me than the 500 gold I chipped out. Your choice. With Canthar in jail for a while, you can later come back and talk to Pablo about where the bandits that had your wanted poster came from (see P1 Pablo's Wanted Poster), if you denied the fact at first. This will make Pablo report the fact that you are indeed wanted, and from the mining colony, and Canthar will overhear this from his cell. Head up to Andre to discuss the matter - doing this has no effect on your standing in the city, or your chances to join the city guard even though Andre says you should clear it up first - what it does is release Canthar from jail as the word of a former convict is suddenly void. If you wait a day after this, Sarah will be gone from her stand, replaced by Canthar and the merchants in the square suddenly all know you're a former convict and won't have any more dealings with you. If you talk to Canthar now, you can pay him 500 gold to clear the matter and you won't hear anything about this ever again. Personally, I like to get this matter out of the way in chapter 1 and be done with it. Otherwise it will happen automatically in chapter 2. The Wonderer adds: "You are not forced to take his quest when he does not know you're an escaped convict so if you ignore him while he is sitting outside of town, or if you get lobart's clothes before you speak to him and pretend to work for lobart, he wont bother you at all when you are back in town" And: "When you take the quest and put him in jail, you dont have to pay the 500gold later. You can visit him in jail and kill him. If you are too weak, you can attack him and run - with a little luck the guard will do the job. Just make sure he is finished and you wont see him again." C1.2.Q9 QUEST: A Brazen Thief Once you have the Canthar/Sarah quest out of the way, there's a couple more quests to pick up in the merchant's square. Talk to Jora by the stand closest to the gate, and you will learn someone stole his purse only a short while ago in full daylight. Offer to get the gold back for him and he will tell you all about it. Seems a person by the name of Rengaru ran off with his purse of 50 gold, but that he's so brazen he can still be seen hanging around the merchants square or maybe downing beer down at the free stand in the evening. Again offer to get the gold back for part of what was in it and you'll recieve this quest. Rengaru shouldnt be too hard to find - he's either standing by a lamppost between Sarah's stand and Canthar, or down at the landlord serving free beer. Once found, talk to him and he'll try to make a run for it. Give chase and catch up to him down on a plateu on the far side of the barracks. Talk to him again to 'catch' him for +50xp. Don't attack him to knock him out though, as that will make him hostile and even report you to Andre making you a criminal (imagine that, just like in the real world) Now, this is where things can turn - you have two options here based on what you want to do later in the game. You see there is a Thieves Guild in the city of Khorinis (should be obvious with all the thefts around, no?) and Rengaru happens to be a member of it. If you plan on joining the Thieves Guild yourself later, you'll want to work up some 'good will' with the guild, and letting Rengaru go will certainly be a step in the right direction. You can threaten him and get the 50 gold back for Jora, but if you want the thieves favour you have to let him off the hook and tell him to get lost, ie, not reporting him to Andre. Return to Jora and tell him Rengaru got away, then give him back his 50 gold for +100xp. Jora won't give you part of the stolen gold either way. This will also fail the quest A Brazen Thief, but put you in a better position with the Thieves Guild. If you have no interest in the Thieves Guild, or is trying to get accepted into the militia without being a citizen, you can simply tell Rengaru that you will make sure he's put behind bars. Reporting Rengaru to Andre will net you +100xp and 100 gold (not possible if you don't specifically tell Rengaru you will do so). Also return to Jora with his gold for another +100xp. This will complete A Brazen Thief and put you one step at odds with the Thieves Guild. C1.2.Q10 QUEST: A Merchant's Gold You will recieve this quest at the same time as A Brazen Thief, when talking to Jora, and it involves the gold stolen from him. Wether you complete A Brazen Thief in favour of the Thieves or the Militia, you can get the gold back from Rengaru by simply asking for it. Return to Jora and tell him Rengaru either got away or was caught, then give him his 50 gold back for completion of this quest. This will net you +100xp and put you in Jora's favour for the sidequest C1.2.S4 Alrik's Fights & Missing Sword. C1.2.Q11 QUEST: Bandit Raids Talk to Hakon the weapons dealer in the merchant's square by the East Gate. Asking about the paladins, how business is going and generally imploring will soon let you know Hakon was held up by bandits just outside the city. The militia has tried to track the bandits down without luck, lead by one of the militia men called Pablo. Talk to Pablo for a bit more information. Offer to take care of it and Hakon will offer 100 gold if you can do so. This doesn't involve bringing anything back, but rather finding and killing the bandits. This can be a bit hard though, as it involves 3 bandits that are stronger than the first ones you met. Level 4-6 maybe, some healing potions and a nice weapon should do. The cave in question is located a bit south of Akil's farm (see C1.3 for more info on the whereabouts of this farm). Exit through the East Gate and follow the road up to where the stone staircase will take you to Akil's farm. There's a road right next to it at the top, so follow this away from the farm. After a little while, leave the road to your left and you should spot a cave opening. Be very careful around here though, there are beasts lurking that will swallow you whole wether you're level 5 or 15. Saving is a good thing in any case when fighting the bandits or if you follow the road too far. Inside the cave are 3 bandits, two regular grunts with only branches, but also one tougher with armor and an axe and bow. It's possible to lure the two henchmen out and fight them together then come back and finnish the 'leader'. Once all three are dead you have practically completed this quest, but there is more to it. Search their cave carefully and pay attention to a special fish found in a chest in the inner chamber. It's a 'wierd looking fish' you can open from inventory like you would a bag of coins. Inside is a stinking note you should read. Aha, a link to the fence the bandits have in the city. We'll deal with this a little later (in 'The Fishmonger'), so for now just keep the note and head back to the city. Upon talking to Hakon again and saying you took care of the bandits, you'll complete the quest, recieve the promised 100 gold and +100xp. C1.2.P2 POINT OF INTEREST: Zuris Herbs In the merchant's square near the East Gate, you'll find Zuris the potion merchant. Ask him about wether he brews his own potions and he'll tell you about Constantino (who makes the potions for him) and how he needs an apprentice. First, this is just a pointer on completing the quest Herbs for Constantino as Zuris will tell you where Constantino goes to collect his herbs. Secondly and much more interesting, is that Zuris will tell you something about the rare herbs, such as King's Sorrel, and where you are most likely to find them. He will tell you about an old stone circle in the hills behind Lobart's farm, and that King's Sorrel usually grows near those circles. This little conversation will trigger two rare herbs. First, a King's Sorrel near the Stone Circle up behind Lobart's farm. The Sorrel can be found a little bit off the stone circle actually, on the lower ledge behind it. Look around the generic mushrooms growing there by the edge and you should find it. The second rare herb appearing is a Dragon Root just outside the East Gate. Walk over the bridge and turn left immediately following the dried out riverbed. The Dragon Root should have appeared by some bushes just where the riverbed ends. C1.2.P3 POINT OF INTEREST: A Dead Militia Man In the Bandit Raids quest, you probably heard how the Militia tried to hunt down the bandits but were unsuccsessful. Atleast one of the militia men died in the encounter and he has some interest belongings no one will claim. His dead body can be found just outside the East Gate. Cross the road and follow the mountainside towards Akil's farm. Be careful though, you'll come across a cave here with a little surprise in it. It's not the one we are after though, so trail past it and to a ledge further up. Standing on the top here you can see an even taller ledge that it looks like you can jump up and grab. Do so and discover the corpse of the militia man half-hidden under a tree. With his remains you'll find a militia short sword (worth 90 gold when sold), but also a Ring of Force that gives +5 to Strength when worn. C1.2.Q12 QUEST: The Experiment From the Master Merchants street, head down to the docks either through the passage behind Regis sitting on a bench by Matteo's Store, or down the main road, but immediately turn left along the wall separating the merchants and docks. All the way to the back here, close to Carl the smith, there is a house where Ignaz the slightly mad Alchemist lives. When you first meet him he will have an interesting quest for you. Ignaz has just developed a new spell and put it on a scroll he wants you to test out. In return he'll teach you how to brew a couple potions if you like. This quest is morally a little on the side, but works as nice introduction to the wonders of Oblivion - a handy tool for robbing people blind should that be in your interest. Oblivion will make a person forget any evil deeds they have either witnessed or been the victim of. Wether robbed or attacked, or any crime basically. In Khorinis, attacking anyone unprovoked will cause a stir, making everyone witnessing the action hostile to you (ie, not talking to you) and the the person attacked feel the same way after being knocked out. The person being offended will report you to Andre and you'll have to pay a hefty fine before that person will even talk to you again. If there were any witnesses, all of them will chip in on the report causing the fine to raise considerably for each and every witness. However, the way this works is that you wont be fined before actually going to andre to resolve the matter - the final fine will then be calculated based on how many persons are angry with you at the moment. Oblivion can be cast on such an angry person and they will forget what happened. This even works on people you have knocked down in a fight you started. It will NOT work on persons in combat-mode though, so stealing from someone and have them notice you, they will attack - casting oblivion then will waste the spell. You have to knock down anyone fighting you, then cast oblivion on them when they are down or after they have gotten up. People can attack you when first angry, but wont continue to attack you when you have defeated them, but rather walk away and sulk never talking to you again before you have paid your fine or made them forget it happened. And that's where Oblivion comes into play. You can even make a sport of defeating persons in town (they all give xp) and casting oblivion on them all if you have enough scrolls. This is also the way to rob people properly. Just be sure you don't have any witnesses, or you'll be burning Oblivion scrolls like crazy (expensive too, at 100 gold). This is really what Ignaz wants you to do - knock someone out unprovoked, and use the spell on them afterwards to see if it works. You can basically do this with anyone to complete the quest. For the morally inclined, there's even a person in town just begging to get a whopping wich everyone hates (see Valentino). Once you've tried it, return to Ignaz and tell him the good news for +100xp. Now Ignaz will sell you both potions, more oblivion scrolls and other alchemy stuff, as well as offer to teach you how to make potions. If you read through the "Apprentice in Khorinis" and signing up with the different masters, you'll see now why you don't particularily need to sign up with Constantino to learn Alchemy. If you learn your first potion from Ignaz, then complete Constantino's quest, Constantino will teach you even more potions. Potions all cost 5 LP to learn, so check up on the Alchemy appendix before jumping into this. C1.2.S2 SIDEQUEST: Edda's Statue On the other side of Ignaz' house, you can find Edda. She's cooking soup and if you bring her a fish, he will cook you some fish soup from it. She can only cook one bowl a day for you though. When you talk to her, she also mentions just in passing that the only thing she owned of value, a statue of Innos, has been stolen. If you can give her a statue if you have one for +100xp. Completing this little sidequest also puts you in favour with Carl the Smith up at Ignaz house, the only non-affiliated trainer who teaches Strength at first. Normally Carl charges 50 gold to train you, but if you give Edda a new statue of Innos, he will tell you how he appreciates it and do it for free. The max STR he can teach to is 30 though. Look at C1.2.P7 "The Island Stash" on where to obtain a Statue of Innos. This is to my knowledge the only place where you use a Statue of Innos for something, but you can get a whole lot more of them later in the game. They are worth a bit of gold to merchants I guess. C1.2.Q13 QUEST: Mad Fellan In the docks district, along the upper wall to the merchant's square, but in the opposite direction of the main road than that of Ignaz house, you can find a slaughterhouse with some sheeps outside. On a bench by the door Alwin is sitting. Talk to him to hear how fed up he is with his neighbors constant hammering. Offering to take care of it has the promise of 25 gold. Fellan, or Mad Fellan who lives next door (around to the back of the slaughterhouse - look for a man hammering) is obsessed with it raining too much and leaking into his house. He is slightly mad though as the quest implies, and although the obvious route would be to threaten him to stop, he's not really scared of you. Maybe that's mad of him. I haven't found any other way to stop him hammering than giving him a good beating. Fellan also won't report you or get mad if you beat him up, just don't leave any witnesses to the thrashing, for they surerly will report you. You can find Fellan alone later in the evening when everyone else is heading home to sleep, still hammering away. Just give him hell with any weapon (except bows or crossbows! See appendix Combat for more info) and talk to him afterwards. He will stop hammering but you will be responsible when it rains in his house - how can we live with that on our conscience? Head back to Alwin if he's still up and tell him the good news. You'll get +25xp and even 30 gold, more than what he initially promised you. C1.2.S3 SIDEQUEST: Lares' Trip Down at the docks, just south of the PegLeg tavern you will run into an old friend from Gothic 1, one Lares. Lares will clue you in on a couple pointers on what's going on with the paladins and about the mercenaries. Lares is connected to the mercenaries himself and is spying out the town for them. Lares is also a general trainer and can teach you dexterity for free (ie, no gold/quest but still costs LP) up to 30. The sidequest here though is that Lares can bring you on a 'guided' tour as far as The Dead Harpy tavern - he offers to take you there to see another old friend from Gothic 1, Lee, now the leader of the mercenaries. Wether you want to go there or not, taking this guided tour of the countryside is a good idea nevertheless. Because you'll be grouped with Lares, all creatures killed will be considered a 'group kill' and thus you get the experience. A thing with NPC's in general is that they are a lot more powerful than you in every aspect and will very seldom die even when fighting multiple foes. With this in mind, you can take this trip with Lares, have him kill all the critters along the way without lifting a finger and still get the xp, as well as clearing a path you'll use later. Once he drops you off at the Dead Harpy tavern, you can just head back to the city again. It's even possible to 'train' monsters along the path onto Lares to have him really clean up the place. When you get to far from him, he will stop and wait so just trail off a bit and see if you can find anything lurking. Once a monster notices you and decides you'd be a nice meal, run back to Lares and have him take care of it with a little help from you once he is the target. With this tactic it's easy to bring in maybe +1000xp or more from monsters killed along the path before heading home again. C1.2.Q14 QUEST: Information for Garvell Down at the docks, close to where you first met Lares, there's a shipbuilder named Garvell. Garvell is scared of the orc rumours and his hurrying his boys to finnish a boat so he can get out of there. Talk to him and ask if you can help him in any way and it's evident he wants to know as much as he can about what is going on with the orcs and paladins. There are 3 pieces of information you can find out and tell him for a little xp. The first two tidbits are about the orc army and even an orc spotted outside town. To discover this info you need to head back up to the Barracks and Merchant's Square area, where the Landlord is handing out free beer. Grab a couple beers from the stand and then talk to Rangar, a militia man standing by the beer stand. He's out of work at the moment so he's just hanging out drinking beer. Ask him about the situation and he'll calm you down. If you have beers in your inventor