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**************************CHAPTER 1****************************
Watch the entrance sequence to figure out what's going on. Better yet,
buy Avernum 1!
Q: Kill the nephar chieftain
Q: Find the stolen arrow supply.
You start off in Fort Ganrick. Walk around a bit and get acquainted
with what's going on. Go east and get equipped with the stuff you find
in there.
HINT: In general, try to figure out if something is better than what
you've got. For instance, a stone spear has stats of 2-20 -1, whereas
an iron spear has stats of 2-20. The stone spear has an average damage
rating of 10, but the iron spear has an average damage rating of 11.
Go for iron. This is pretty much always true. The hierarchy of items
is bronze/crude/poor/stone < iron < steel < blessed.
HINT: Look in items. Press "L" and choose something. The best stuff
is found in crates, barrels, dressers, bookcases, desks, and of course
chests. On rare occasions, you can find stuff in other objects- for
instance, in Fort Ganrick, there are some casks in the equipment room
which have some cheap wine hidden in them, which you can take (go ahead
and take them, you can sell them in Chapter 4).
HINT: Stealing: It ain't a crime if you don't get caught. Many items
have a "NY" next to them. If you try to take the item, and someone is
watching, you get in trouble (and may even instantly die). There are
ways around this. For instance, there's a desk in the southeast, which
has some copper coins. Close the door behind you after entering this
room, and steal them, making sure no one can see you. This'll happen a
lot, and I'll only mention it at the first couple of towns, unless it's
something notable.
HINT: There's a big selection of food in this game. Generally, I go
for the lightest (greens), and ignore the heavier lizard haunches and
fine meals. If you want variety, pick up all that you can. You should
never need to buy food, as there's always plenty lying around.
HINT, from luthien on the spiderweb message boards: If you're loading
up on loot and hit the max items, you can pick up a couple more things
if you equip the non-magic jewelry (or any other items like bows and
missiles that you don't already have equipped). This is typically only
useful earlier in the game before your characters are completely decked
out.
Go north and talk with Commander Vidican and get the quest. Then
leave, quickly. You can come back after you've gained a few levels.
HINT: Quests are your main source of reputation, and a good source of
gold and xp. Whenever you complete a quest, be sure to get your
reward! Uncompleted (ones where you've not received a reward) quests
can be found under "Current quests" in the character info screen.
Back to top.
THE OUTDOORS.
All right. The great outdoors. There are several encounters with
enemies nearby. In general, be nice to guards and never surrender your
money to bandits. Those lizards can't be corralled, as far as I know.
There are goblins, mushrooms, undead, and bandits all nearby with
unique encounters.
HINT, from luthien on the spiderweb message boards: Since loot and
experience are so valuable, I will usually save the game right before
any wandering encounter. Then reload the game to make sure I get the
maximum number of enemies. 8 bladesman, 6 empire archers is better than
5 and 3...
You're also likely to run into spiders, nephilim, and bats. Here we
reach a dividing point. You have two significant options: Either go
east to Formello and pick up Becca, or ignore the NPCs all together.
It depends on your playing style. Becca is quite powerful, and has
more points as a level 7 character than any of your guys will, but
she's not Yours. She was pre-made, and not handpicked like your
characters. Still, if you're following this walkthrough that won't matter all
that much, and you can always change her name, and picture and make her
Yours. It's your choice. If you do go to pick her up, first go to
Formello and trigger the cave quake (just walk towards the east), then
ask her to join you. Else, head on to:
Back to top.
Q: Kill the bandits
Q: Deliver iron bars
Q: Deliver marriage proposal.
Just south of Fort Ganrick is Fort Draco, an important industrial hub.
There's some important stuff going on here. Anfrond, a mage sitting in
the east, is having trouble with bandits. Killia needs iron bars.
Harg is too scared to ask Rose to marry him. These are all quests. Go
ahead and talk to these people to start the quests. There's some good
stuff to steal too. Go into Boutell's shop, close the door, and wait
for him to disappear into the black (make sure he's not just off the
screen, press the arrow keys in the corner to move your sight). When
he's gone, take the Iron greatsword (nice powerful early weapon), and
move up, do the same and take his iron bar. Then, in the boat shop, go
into the SW room after unlocking it, close the door behind you, and
pillage it. Then leave, find the barrel/crate with an iron bar in it,
move the crate to her room, close the door, and take it. Now you've
got a bit more money. Then go NW, outside of the city walls, and find
the separated building. The saleswoman is rather nervous (buy some
lockpicks from her). Something funny is going on here... Go out
around back and down the trapdoor. This is your first dungeon! Cast a
light spell or use a torch or candle to be able to see. Walk on down,
and you'll run into a batch of soldiers. Uh oh, they're not friendly.
Kill them, they're not too hard, and take all their stuff.
HINT: When you kill things and finish quests, you get xp. Get enough,
and you gain a level. The maximum obtainable level is 50, but this is
hard to obtain with a normal party.
From luthien on the spiderweb message boards: It appears that the
penalty for experience is random. If your penalty is -50%, I think the
50% is applied by giving each point a 50% chance of occurring. Either
that or some other distribution. I've completed quests worth 30 XP
where the 50% penalty character will get anywhere from 10 to 20 XP. The
moral of the story is, save before you complete a quest or some other
big-XP action. It will be hard to get max XP for all your characters,
but at least you can prevent one PC from getting cheated too much.
NOTE: Although I've not checked, it is possible that the reverse is
true for having an experience bonus (taking the negative traits like
brittle bones). Let's say you have a bonus of 15% to xp. With each xp
point gained, there is a 15% chance of gaining another xp point.
Equip anything that's stronger than what you've got on, then take
anything else that's worth money and isn't nailed down.
HINT: You may find yourself unable to carry any more. There are a few
ways around this, from Zeviz: There is also a (slightly cheating) way
to carry much more than your weight allowance. When you are trying to
equip an item, it does not go through the weight check. So if you equip
that super heavy Empire armor straight from the ground, you'll be able
to carry it even if it takes you over your weight allowance. And from
TIE187: Also, if your party has a strength bracelet, you can pass it
around and equip it on each character when they're picking up loot. It
adds 60 stones to the character's carry capacity, up to 350 stones.
Again, "the problem is that you can't drop anything since you won't be
able to pick them up again."
Then go back up the stairs. You can sell your stuff to Orson to get
the best prices (drop the ore, meal and wine- these are later quest
objects). Or, you can go to:
Back to top.
Q: Kill the salamanders.
A bit east of Fort Draco is Tor's homestead. A nice place, though
there are some vicious lizards in the pen just east of the entrance.
You can kill them if you want. There's a nice strength elixir ripe for
stealing in the northern building. Go and talk to Tor and see what's
wrong. Seems as though he needs to hire an exterminator. That'd be
you. Go and find his salamanders and kill them. They're not too
tough, though they have flame fields around them. Then go back and
talk with him. For this, you get a shielding charm (acts like armor),
10xp, one rep, and the ability to train in BARTER.
HINT: Throughout the game you are occasionally given opportunities to
obtain and increase special skills. These can be very powerful.
------------------------SPECIAL SKILL----------------------------------
Barter is a very useful skill. It increases the selling prices of your
items. Get 5 points for everyone, pretty much as soon as you can.
Don't bother training in this skill, though, just get Tor to max you
out. Every time you get 150 coins or so, come back and have him
educate you. You'll quickly max out your skill. 60% is the maximum
selling price obtainable through any means.
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Go back to Fort Draco and sell off your equipment. You may have enough
money to go and buy more points in Barter, though you can wait till you
get some multiple of 150c to go and learn, if that's less tedious.
Eventually, with enough barter, Orson will buy your iron bars for more
than 25c, making the Killia quest obsolete. (Additionally, from Alex on
the spiderweb message boards: Healers always buy items at the maximum
selling price. The only, and somewhat annoying, exception is the shade
in chapter 2. It doesn't buy anything - kill it! ). Go back to the NW
and go down the trapdoor, and kill everyone you find down there.
You'll kill the leader, the quest objective. There's a secret door
that leads to a trapped hall with crates that have some decent supplies
in them. Soon you'll run into an apprentice mage and some soldiers,
kill them, and look at the bookshelf. You'll get firebolt level 2, a
nice spell. Pick everything up, sell it and repeat as necessary. The
NE section of this dungeon is filled with rats, including the annoying
vapor rats. Kill them, and you may get a couple of furs to sell. Go
up and tell Anfrond what you've done and you'll get 1 rep, 15xp, and
150c.
Now you can head back to Fort Ganrick. You'll soon get into a fight
with nephilim. Kill them, and make sure that neither Gridley (the non-
soldier) nor Commander Vidican get killed. You'll get a map for this.
Use it to get a password. You can talk to Gridley for another quest,
the "Find the stolen arrows quest." From here I'd suggest heading down
to Formello and talking with Rose, in the inn. Then go back and talk
to Harg, telling him the good news. He'll throw a shielding ring down
(take it, 5xp as well) and stop talking with him. You'll lose a
reputation point if you don't.
Back to top.
Then you can head off to the nephil caves. There's a secret passage to
the northern part of the caves above the obvious lower cave entrance,
go here first. You'll get into fights with nephilim, goblins, undead
and hydras on this level. Nothing too difficult at this point.
Eventually you'll make it to a door, and will automatically use the
ghath password to get into the larger parts of the caves. This is one
of the larger levels. Kill anything that moves, with the exception of
Arum. Points of Interest: Arum is held captive in far SE, and his
deceased friend was held in the cell right above him. Check the
friend's body for a Beast Call Crystal.
HINT: You'll occasionally find one of the really nice learning
crystals. They're small blue things that come in three flavors-
abilities, skills, and energy pulse. Ability crystals give you a new
ability, like lay on hands or something. Skill crystals teach you 3
points in a given skill. Energy pulse crystals just dumbfound you, but
are good to sell at 599c apiece.
You can free Arum (1rep 5xp) after slaying the nephar chieftain.
Towards the SW there is a tunnel that'll let you leave to sell your
items. There's a lot of loot in this dungeon, but even obsessive-
compulsives like me aren't going to bother with stone daggers, I'd
suggest just picking up the better-selling items. South of the evil
altar there is a bookcase with the very useful spell Move Mountains.
You only get first level, though. East of the big room is the nephar
chieftain. Kill him to finish the quests. Go a bit SE to kill some
nephil shamans, and get to their book. Destroy the book (don't read
it!) for 5xp. Go NE of the nephar chieftain room and you'll fight a
nephil chieftain. Kill him and go into his room. On the west side,
there's a secret passage which will lead to two poison fungi and the
treasure room.
HINT: Those are magic barriers. There are three types: fire, which
can be walked through for damage, force, which are impenetrable but can
be removed with a dispel barrier spell, and Big and Weird, which are
those which are separating Avernum and which you'll run into again
later.
Fortunately the lower one is a fire barrier. Walk into it to get a
poor chain mail and rogue leather (very nice- improves tool use, and is
1-4+3). That's about it for here.
Back to top.
Q: Find healing herbs
Q: Destroy evil altar.
Go back to Fort Ganrick to get your reward (3rep, 20xp, ~400c). Now
you should have nice bit of loot. You may even have maxed out your
barter skill. Time to spend some money! Follow the road to get to
Formello. If you've picked up Becca, you've already triggered the cave
quake. If not, that'll happen, and a vahnatai will tell you to come
and explain your actions (Chapters 2 and 3). This opens up a tunnel to
the vahnatai lands. Go there when you feel you're ready to move on.
Otherwise, there are three main ways of burning off cash here: mage
spells, priest spells and the pathfinder skill. Near the center of the
town is a mage who sells mage spells. See the mage spells section to
see my opinions on what to buy. The priest to the north sells priest
spells, and the PATHFINDER skill.
------------------------SPECIAL SKILL----------------------------------
Pathfinder is a nice and useful skill. It allows you to walk on places
which normally hurt you, like swamps, magic-zappers, and even lava. As
such, possessing enough of this skill makes the safe travel spell
completely obsolete. By everyone 5 points, except for one character.
For this one character buy only 2 points. You'll find a learning
crystal later on which will give you three more points in this skill.
Don't bother training in this skill, as there is no benefit to getting
more than 20 (or even ~17 for that matter).
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This spell costs a lot of cash, comparatively, but it's still a good
investment. Also in Formello is Stoppard, who'll buy healing herbs at
30c a pop. If you need money, go for it. I prefer holding onto those
herbs, but that's just me. Next to Stoppard's store is Townshend's
store. Townshend provides an important service: Identification. Those
odd rings and minor magical items can be identified here, for a cheap
price. Commander Graham will give you a quest: Destroy the evil
nephilim altar. In order to do this, you'll need the ritual of
sanctification. The wizard's apprentice will give you give you hints
about this. In order to get it, leave the town wall through the west
and head north on the east side of the moat. Go as far north as you
can, then walk east through the secret door. Read the book and
everyone who has a point in priest spells will get this ritual (one of
the reasons to give a point of priest spells to a second person). In
the Inn you find Rose, as mentioned earlier. The innkeeper is also
having problems with a ghost, and you can help him out by destroying
it. Do so and you'll be allowed to sleep at this inn for free.
There's a gold ring, which you can steal, east of the mayor's room. You
may want to save it for a later chapter 4 quest, but it's up to you.
That's about it for Formello.
Back to top.
Nearby this dungeon is a special encounter outdoors. You can help some
soldiers fight some nephilim, and get a healing elixir as a reward.
This is an interesting, large level. There are two ways of exploring
this dungeon, from the south and from the north. From the south, you
can access a secondary level filled with lava and such. There's not
too much here, a few minor goodies, some gold, some fine leather armor,
and a wand of bolts. From the north is much more interesting. You
encounter a bunch of bandits and their hideout. For now, hold on going
up the ramp. Instead go out the staircases to the south, and work your
way to the body in the middle. You'll have to fight cave rats, mung
rats, vapor rats, plain bats and lava bats, but eventually you'll get
to a dead body with a Lay On Hands ability crystal. After getting
this, go on back to the bandit hideout and go up the ramp. Kill
everyone in this section of the hideout. To the east, you'll find the
stolen arrow shipment. In the northern room, there is a secret door
along the west wall with a passageway that leads through a fire barrier
to a bunch of annoying hordlings. Kill them, and look at the
bookshelf. You'll get 10 xp. That's it for here, so head on back to
Fort Ganrick and claim your reward (100c, 15xp, 1 rep.).
Back to top.
Now that all the newbie major areas are done, it's time to hit some of
the lesser areas. The strange cave has a very nice reward at the end.
This dungeon is found by going south from Fort Draco one map down, till
you see a sudden tunnel west. There's a secret door on the northern
wall, and you'll find the cave. Go in, and kill the three damn
gremlins. Then go north and kill the giant. Check the eastern wall of
the giant's lair for secret doors, then go grab his stuff. There's a
thinking cap there, which makes it all the worthwhile (a helm which
improves your mage spells).
Back to top.
Another minor cave with decent stuff is the remote clearing. It can be
found by taking the NW route from Formello, and is a hidden dungeon- a
few mushrooms mark its location. Inside, there are three nasty cave
slimes, and 2 viscous goos. Then you can get to the herb patch.
HINT: There are two types of herb patches- one is found on the outdoor
map as a special encounter, the other is found in an actual dungeon.
The latter are much better as they have more herbs than the outdoors
ones. There are 3 dungeon herb patches. Come back to them every 5-7
days or so to pick up some more herbs
Back to top.
Motrax is a kindly old dragon who's seen better days. This will later
be an important dungeon for you, but for now, there are two small things
to do. Commander Ko wants you to go kill some bandits (they're the
ones who demand 25c from you- you may have run into them already). Go
out and kill them if you haven't done so, then tell him about it. You
get 10xp and 1 rep for this. Behind Ko's office there are some tunnels
with lizards in them. Kill the lizards and take their loot. You don't
get any reward for this action.
Back to top.
Q: Kill the ogres.
You can get a boat in Fort Draco. There's a lot out there that makes
this a worthwhile venture. After rowing it outside, south of the fort
is a ledge along the east bank, which leads to a secret tunnel with a
ash bow on a dead body. Further south is an island with some lizards
on it. You can get off on the west bank and explore. There are some
shades nearby, talk with them for a quest.
HINT: Whenever presented with the option to be friendly, do so. More
often than not the others will react with friendliness or indifference.
If nothing comes of this, save, then attack.
The ogres they seek dead are to the south. In the meantime, you may
run into a batch of aranea. These suckers are annoying, and if your
difficulty is on higher than normal, they are rather hard to kill.
Destroying them nets you a wand. Further south is a small fort filled
with evil lizard men. Wipe the fort clean, freeing the prisoner (5xp).
Slith spears are good single-handed weapons. Fine slith spears are the
best one-handed spears out there. Go east from this fort, through a
secret door and you'll find the ogres. Kill them, then go back and
talk to the shades for 15xp. Then go west, then south, and you'll run
into some mushrooms. There's an abandoned town with a free iron bar,
and a nearby shop (Waldby). He sells crap for now, unfortunately.
Some people like to kill him and take his stuff, but I'd recommend
against it. He'll identify and buy your items. Further east from here
is an empire outpost. You can kill them and get their nice equipment,
and a set of blessed bolts. East of that is an empire supply cache.
If you have adequate luck (8 total, from Luthien), you can guess the
password and burn the place (looting does nothing). This is part of a
chapter 4 quest, so go ahead and torch it if you have the stats.
Back to top.
Q: Retrieve the GIFTSs eggsack.
West of Fort Draco are the spider lands. There are two types of
intelligent spiders here: the GIFTSs, and the aranea. Go to the
northern cave, the GIFTSs home, first. Make your way NW and talk to
the spider on the hill. He'll give you a quest. Then you can do two
things here: Plug up the aranea's hole in the center of the map, and
explore the dumb spider's cave in the NE of the map. You get nothing
for doing the former, but 200c for the latter, though you have to wade
through a bunch of spiders. Afterwards, go bathe in the pool, and
leave, heading south. You'll pass the special web barriers and will
find the aranea cave. These buggers really annoy me. They're not too
difficult on normal difficulty, but above that, and you'll have to take
them on one at a time. The GIFTS's egg case is in the NW. There's a
very useful farsight scroll in the NE (save your game, use it, then
reload). In the center, there is a batch of spiders sitting around.
Kill them, then look at the rune. You'll get firebolt 3, very nice.
Head back to the GIFTS cave to get your reward: 10xp. Then search the
opened tunnel. A lot of nice treasure including a red empire pass, and
a ring of skill.
Back to top.
Far south of Fort Draco are the ruins of an old Avernum 1 fort (which
featured prominently in that game). In this fort is the altar that is
the object of the "destroy the evil altar quest" from Graham in
Formello. This fort is filled with skeletons, zombies, nephilim and
ghouls. If you have repel spirit 2 they aren't too much of a problem.
Points of interest: On the west side of the dungeon there are three
things. South there is a basilisk lair, with a nasty stone-gazing
basilisk sitting in it. North of that there is a cracked wall. Use
move mountains on it, and you'll reveal a demon. These guys aren't
easy. The best thing to do is get next to him and pound him into
kibble. Cast bind foe 1 every turn and he'll fall soon enough. Look
in the chest for a key which will help you later. In the NW corner
there's a secret passage with a wand of ice. Head east, and kill the
nephilim around the altar. Then (u)se your special ability "Ritual of
sanctification" after getting up next to the altar (you can't hurt it
physically, nor should you have a character sit down in it). This gets
you 10 xp. North of here is a secret door with a chest containing a
blessed cloak, which is better than anything you'll get anytime soon.
East of here is a nephil chieftain. Kill him and his cronies, then go
into the nearby door. In the room with a bookcase you'll find a chest
with an ankh in it, which will come in handy again later. Go south, and
break into the room with a bunch of nephil in it. Kill them, and you
can take their stuff. There is the very nice shielding spike (it looks
like a scalpel), you may want to give it to your mage. There's a
locked door nearby, but that'll have to wait. Go back to Formello to
claim your reward (10xp, 3 rep, ability to take scrolls).
Back to top.
NE of Motrax's cave are the fire lizard caverns. There's a decent
spell in here, as well as some quest items. The first floor doesn't
have too much on it, except for some fire lizard eggs in the NE. You
can grab some from across the lava, or if you have a high enough
pathfinder skill can just walk across and take them as you will. The
upper level is more interesting. There are several fire lizards here,
which can be pains in the butt, but aren't all that bad. The nearby
nest has a trapped drake's egg. Unfortunately, there's no way of
getting it without getting burned. In the NE there is a stalactite
blocking a path. Come back here again with move mountains 2 to get
some rubies. In the NW is a drake. He can be difficult if you are
unused to his attacks. Just keep binding him and he'll go down in no
time. He's guarding a shielding ring, another drake egg, and a
spellbook with Light 3. That's it for here.
Back to top.
East of Motrax's cave, are some empire troops. They're pretty well
hidden, but after you kill them you get another red pass. In the
tunnels north of the undead fort is a special encounter which, provided
you have enough luck, will give you a crystal which teaches you the
Anatomy skill. Hold on using it for now. Solberg's fort is reachable
by boat, but there's not too much there that's worthwhile. Plus you
have to fight a bunch of nasty demons, making this an upper level area.
There's a healing spring to the east of this area, but not too much
else. Out to the far west is a ledge with a bunch of snakes on it.
You can't get there yet. Likewise there's a building near Motrax's
cave across a little lake. You'll go there later as well. There are a
few other minor things laying around, but nothing major. It's time to
head on to Chapter 2!
Back to top.
Q: Travel down the dangerous waters.
Drop those excess arrows, scrolls, wands and potions off in a friendly
town. No one will bother them. Drop your important food (like greens
and dried meat), and take the food you don't care too much about (the
heavy lizard haunches) with you. You'll lose all your food in this
chapter. Drop all your cheap wine, meal and ore, they play a role in a
couple of minor quest later. Get everything identified, go to the
trainer, then head towards Formello. Enter the tunnel, fight the
hydras, then hop into the boat. Go out to the island and talk to the
vahnatai, Bentis-Ka. She'll tell you to go down the river to Avit, a
vahnatai city. Take the cloaks you find in her room. They are quite
useful, though blessed cloaks are still better. There's a slime
encounter outside to the south of the island, though you don't receive
anything for killing them. Go down the river, and continue down the
two waterfalls. You may lose some food, unless-
HINT, from TIE187 on the spiderweb message boards: When going over
waterfalls, I paddle next to a waterfall, save, go over it, and if I
lose food, I reload.
Back to top.