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Might & Magiv VI: Mandate of Heaven |
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Story
Monsters Quests Classes Gameplay My review
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QUESTS Quest: Deliver the letter to Andover Potbello. Received from: You have it in your inventory at the beginning of the game Location: New Sorpigal tavern. Special Problems: none Difficulty: none Description: Talk
to Potbello at the tavern, collect the reward. Quest: Deliver the letter (again) Received from: You still have it! Location: Castle Ironfist (the castle). Special Problems: Baa people attack you on the road, but they are a pushover, and they can easily be avoided by walking over the hill to the right. Difficulty: very easy Description: Walk
to Castle Ironfist and deliver the letter to Humphrey in the castle. He
will give you some money and the first of the high council quests. Quest: Get the code to Goblinwatch keep. Received from: Janice (New Sorpigal Townhall) Location: SW of New Sorpigal (close by) Special Problems: Rats and Suckers cause disease; Goblin Kings break items; chests have strong traps for this level. Difficulty: easy Description: It
is possible to find the code quickly and leave most of the dungeon
virtually unexplored. For experience, weapons and money, however, explore
every nook and cranny…including what lies beyond the keypad doors. If
you take the time to rid this place of all critters, you will be in good
shape for the next quest. Otherwise, beware. The next one is tougher. Quest: Abandoned Temple of Baa (4 quests in one!) Received from: Andover Potbello (NS Inn), Buford (NS house), Hejaz (NS house), Violet (NS house) Location: W of New Sorpigal (close by) Special Problems: You will spend most of your time poisoned and diseased; chests have heavy warding spells; huge Difficulty: easy to medium Description: 1)
Your goal (if you talked to all four people) is to find the candelabra,
kill the spider queen (and take her heart), collect the cobra eggs and
save the girl. This dungeon is nasty for beginners because all critters
fight with disease or poison attacks and the cobras strike particularly
hard. Watch out in particular for the red queen cobra. 2) You can choose
to do just one quest at a time, but there really is no point in doing so.
3) In the spider heart quest, as in many others, you will not see a final
fantasy style Boss that you must fight to get the heart. The queen is just
a big spider surrounded by other big spiders, so be sure you have her
heart when you leave the dungeon. 4) Finally, if you bring the candelabra
back to Potbello, you will lose reputation points; part of the money you
made on the quest, however, if donated to the temple, will bring your rep
back up with considerable gold left over. It is worth it. Quest: Sorcerer to Wizard Quest Received from: Newton (Mist) Location: Bootleg Bay Special Problems: You may need to fight a few tough critters (for your level) but they can be avoided Difficulty: Easy Description: Have
ALL of your characters drink from the magic fountain, NE of Harecksburg in
Bootleg Bay. Here, as everywhere else, be sure to receive the quest first
and return to the quest giver afterwards. Quest: Rescue Sherell Received from: Tormini (Free Haven house) Location: Bootleg Bay Special Problems: Headhunters may be somewhat tricky. Difficulty: easy Description: At
this point, you should easily annihilate the assorted cobras and
headhunters in this dungeon. If not, either slug your way through
carefully, try another quest or rethink your gaming strategy. Another
option involves roaming the countryside killing everything in site (with
bows) to raise your experience. Inside the temple, do not pick up the
bones unless you want your rep to drop. If you do pick them up, sell them
in Rockham for a finder’s fee (and watch your rep drop even more). Quest: Destroy the Crystal Received from: Winston Schezar Location: Bootleg Bay (house part of village temple) Special Problems: Master monks may give you fits, but most of the critters are easy. Difficulty: easy Description: This
quest is fairly easy, but two master monks in the temple have an
incredible armor class. But all in all, this dungeon is really a piece of
cake because it is very small and mainly full of rats. Quest: Save Sharryl Received from: Fairchild (NS Townhall) Location: Shadow Guild (W of Castle Ironfist) Special Problems: Tough fighters pound you and thieves steal from you Difficulty: Easy to medium, if you have bows. Description: This
is one of the smallest dungeons in the game. If you have a bow, you can
mess up most of the enemies before they get anywhere near you. A good
basic (if cowardly) strategy: run in a room, run out and down the long
hall. As they approach you, pump them full of arrows. Repeat. Quest: Chimes of Harmony Received from: Janice (NS Townhall) Location: Temple of Baa (SSW of the Castle Ironfist) Special Problems: skeletons are fairly easy, but outnumber you 50:1; spiders poison you and clerics pound you from afar. Difficulty: medium, due to sheer volume of opponents; clerics can cause serious hurt from afar Description: If
you clear the entire area of all critters, you will be rolling in
experience. Do not take this dungeon lightly, however. It is one of the
most populated places in the land. Quest: Harp, orders Received from: Fairchild (NS Townhall); Besper (Ironfist village) Location: Dragoon Caverns (S of Castle Ironfist) Special Problems: oozes are immune to most attacks except spark and flame; fighters are tough Difficulty: medium; not a particularly deadly dungeon, but very very frustrating. Description: Make
sure at least two of your characters are able to hurt the oozes, otherwise
you are in for a long night. The green oozes poison you and the other
oozes destroy your armor and weapons. Oozes don’t cause much physical
damage, but they are devilishly hard to kill and they love destroying all
your hard-earned possessions. This dungeon is the most frustrating of all
the early dungeons. Be patient. Quest: Fire Lord Received From: The Fire Lord Himself, the face on the wall in the first room of this dungeon. Location: SW corner of Bootleg Bay Special Problems: Falling damage, if you don't have the feather fall spell, get it. Difficulty: Easy to hard, depending on when you attempt the quest (what level) Description: The
Fire Lord needs you to unward a door in his dungeon, and to do this you
need to kill a creature (a VARN guardian). There are several steep
dropoffs, so if you don't have the feather-fall spell, expect to spend a
lot of time resting and healing. The other inhabitants are pretty easy,
just goblins and ogres. The Fire Lord will tell you that if you get lost
in the dungeon to just 'talk' to one of the faces on the walls and you
will be transported back to the start. He also tells you that if each of
your characters is not carrying amber (which can be found in the dungeon)
the teleport cost health points. Pick up whatever amber you find as
sometimes the teleport uses up the amber a character is carrying (After
you teleport, make sure you still have amber). Quest: Knight to Cavalier promotion Received from: Temper (Temper Castle East of Free Haven) Location: Rockham Special Problems: You may run into some fire archers. If you do, you may want to run. They are tough for youngsters. Difficulty: easy Description: Temper
tells you to get a nomination from Chadwick Blackpoole in Rockham. Rockham
is the western village of Free Haven. BTW, while you are in Temper, go
ahead and receive his High Council Quest. Quest: Find Nicolai Received from: Castle Ironfist Location: One of the circuses (see webpage for circus schedule) Special Problems: Depending on which circus you go to, you may run into anything from headhunters to werewolves. I suggest using the Bootleg Bay circus. The Bootleg Bay critters are relatively weak. Description: Go
to the Bootleg Bay circus (for an easy quest) or to any of the others. He
is in the main tent. Quest: Cleric to Priest promotion Received from: Stone (Village of Hargraeve, SE of White Cap) Location: Free Haven Special Problems: Getting to Stone Castle Difficulty: super easy, in and of itself; but, receiving the quest requires you to fly over mountains swarming with harpies. Also, watch out for the fire archers casually standing around with the citizens. Description: If
you fly away from the harpies (on the way to Hargraeve), this quest is a
cakewalk. You can also approach Stone Castle on foot from the other side
of the mountain chain. Walk from Free Haven or Silver Cove to enter the
proper side of the mountain chain. If you are on the wrong side, you
cannot traverse the mountain. Or teleport to White Cap and then fly. Quest: High Council Anthony Stone Prince of Thieves Capture Received from: Stone (Village of Hargraeve, SE of White Cap) Location: Free Haven sewers Special Problems: Getting to Stone Difficulty: easy in and of itself; but, receiving the quest requires you to fly over mountains swarming with harpies Description: If you fly away from the harpies (on the way to Hargraeve), this quest is fairly easy. In truth, you could have cleaned out the sewers near the beginning of the game; but I doubt you could have flown and withstood a few pommels from harpies near the beginning of the game. You can also approach Stone Castle on foot from the other side of the mountain chain. Walk from Free Haven or Silver Cove to enter the proper side of the mountain chain. If you are on the wrong side, you cannot traverse the mountain. Or teleport to White Cap and then fly. Quest: High Council Loretta Fleise Price Fixing Received from: Loretta Fleise (Silver Cove) Location: All the stables Special Problems: Some of the stables provide service in extremely lethal areas Difficulty: Easy if you have town portal and running shoes Description: Basically,
just portal to the towns appearing on the portal map and run to all the
others. Some of the towns are surrounded by nasty critters, including
minotaurs (run, man, run). Darkmoor is overrun by the undead, but none of
them are particularly lethal. Quest: Archer to Battle Mage promotion (retrieve dragon tower keys) Received from: Stromgard Location: Icewind Keep Special Problems: Getting there is tough. The dungeon is easy. Difficulty: Easy to medium if you have portal, meteor shower, and fly. Description: Stromgard Castle is East of White Cap. Icewind Keep is SW of White Cap. Along the way to Icewind (flying if possible), you will see hordes of Magyars and Fire Archers surrounding the entrance. You may also see a few Harpies. However, if you have fly spell and meteor shower, you can clean out the area with ease. Just hover and let fly with the meteors. The dungeon itself is well populated with guards and ogres but they should be easy to defeat at this point.
Quest: Battle Mage to Warrior Mage promotion Received from: Stromgard Location: All 6 active dragon towers (dragon towers: large towers that fire fireballs at flying parties) Special Problems: Town portal makes this quest one of the easiest in the game Difficulty: very easy, but you need Battle Mage status before you can take this one on. Description: The
only towers you need to visit are the ones on the Town Portal map. Quest: High Council Quest Stromgard Winter Stoppage Received from: Stromgard Location: Kriegspire mountain chain (hermit hut) Special Problems: Kriegspire is drake, minotaur and earthman country Difficulty: easy unless a swarm of drakes surrounds you Description: You
must have the fly spell. At this early level in the game, fly like hell
straight to the hermit hut. Talk to the hermit. Fly like hell out of the
area. If the drakes start swarming around you, you are lizard fodder. Save
before you do this quest. Quest: Great Druid promotion Received from: Fleise (Silver Cove castle) Location: Circle of stones (northern isle of Silver Cove) Special Problems: Only works four times a year and unless you are very quick and very lucky, gargoyles will jump on you. Difficulty: easy to medium, due to gargoyles Description: It's
possible to do this quest early on, especially if you have druids in your
party, but gargoyles are a complete pain in the neck and in good supply.
The Diamond Gargoyle ranks very high on the irritation scale because they
are either immune to physical attack or very close to it. The diamonds
also enjoy paralyzing your party members. If you are flying and your air
magi is paralyzed, your party will become a messy imprint on the terrain
below. Quest: Arch Mage promotion (Corlagon's Estate quest - Crystal of Terrax hunt) Received from: Newton (Mist) Location: SW corner of Ironfist land Special Problems: This dungeon is a good old fashioned "wander through the labyrinth and push buttons" affair; the ghosts have the potential to knock you unconscious in one blow AND age you permanently. Difficulty: easy to medium Description: Hopefully,
this quest will ease you into the more difficult ones to come. The
monsters (spectres, skeletons, etc) are not too powerful and the long
hallways usually allow you to launch a good 10-20 bow shots before the
undead monsters get anywhere near you. On the other hand, this dungeon is
a huge maze where you must push a button on one end, walk to the other
end, push another button, etc. If you get seriously wounded and do not
have access to Town Portal or Lloyd's Beacon, this easy to medium dungeon
can become a nightmare. For most adventurers, however, it should be a
cakewalk. Don’t take the final power lich too lightly. He may look like
a silly skeleton in a funny hat, but he is lethal. Quest: High Council Wilbur Humphrey Find Shield Received from: Humphrey (Ironfist Castle) Location: Blackshire chest box (south of Blackshire) Special Problems: Werewolves Difficulty: medium Description: Fortunately,
all you need to do is open one chest located in an open area S of
Blackshire. Unfortunately, the chest requires a high level disarm skill (7
or more) and is surrounded by werewolves. The weaker werewolves disease
you with alarming frequency. The greater werewolf has two special attacks:
1) He knocks you unconscious with one blow, regardless of your HPs and 2)
he breaks even your strongest armor and weapons. Some people consider
werewolves to be one of the game’s most frustrating early opponents
because even if you are super-powerful, they still cause disease and
weapon erosion with remarkable frequency. Quest: Dragoon’s Keep (Mordred) Received from: Phelps (Free Haven house) Location: Dragoon’s Keep (S of Free Haven) Special Problems: Hard-hitting fighters destroy equipment Difficulty: easy to medium Description: Depending
on the level of your character, you may be able to complete this quest
earlier in the game. However, the fighters here have strong attacks and
hard armor, so be forewarned. Having the circus weapons helps immensely. Quest: Silverhelm (paladin to crusader promotion, proof of illegal activity) Received from: Scrivener (Mist Townhall), Humphrey (Ironfist) Location: Silverhelm (Mist) Special problems: By now, you shouldn’t have too many problems. Difficulty: easy to medium due to enemy volume Description: Since
this quest is located in Mist, some people believe that it is a dungeon to
be taken on early in the game. It is not. You can, but you will spend a
lot of time running and shooting and that is just plain dull and
frustrating. By completing it now, you should work through it fairly
easily. Watch out for the monks. They are surprisingly powerful. IMPORTANT
NOTE: Be sure to pick up Gharik’s key! You will need it for the
Gharik’s forge quest. Quest: High Priest promotion Received from: Stone (Stone Castle, Village of Hargraeve (Frozen Highlands)) Location: Temple of the Sun (N L-shaped isle of Bootleg Bay) Special problems: fairly easy, except for the minotaur king Difficulty: easy (if you avoid the minotaur king); medium (if you fight the minotaur king) Description: First,
don't take that first group of monks too lightly. Monks have surprisingly
high armor classes and decent long ranged attacks. Don't get into a
projectile war with them. Get up close and personal. The minotaur king
needn't be too difficult, but keep in mind he can kill (not knock
unconscious, kill) one of your characters with one touch. He is also a
powerful melee fighter with high HPs (800+). You can avoid him if you want
because, frankly, the various chests in the room don't carry anything too
exciting. Quest: Hero Quest Received from: Humphrey (Castle Ironfist) Location: Dragon Lair (due N of Darkmoor Village) Special Problems: One big red dragon. Difficulty: easy to hard, depending solely on your abilities Description: Either
you kill it or you don't. That's the quest. He has 800+ HPs and some
strong elemental attacks, but since he is alone, you can let loose with
some of your most powerful attacks without having to worry about a huge
dungeon to clear. It wouldn't hurt to just pop in and see if you can
take him out early. If you can't, try later. If you take him out quickly
and easily, you might want to move on to the Devil Outpost quest listed
below. It is also a one room show (but with more enemies). Quest: Ethric’s Skull Received from: Cartman (Free Haven house) Location: Ethric’s tomb (SW of Free Haven) Special problems: Liches are surprisingly difficult to kill Difficulty: easy to medium, thanks mainly to the liches. Description: For
most of the dungeon, you will meet (and easily brush aside) a few
skeletons and ghosts. In the last part, however, you will meet liches for
the first time. The lesser liches dispel all of your protective magic and
the power liches are just damn difficult to put down. Many of the liches’
attacks will concentrate on your sorcerer, so be prepared. Quest: Werewolf Lair Received from: Maria Location: Wolf Lair (S of Blackshire) Special Problems: Werewolves (see above) and oozes (see above) Difficulty: medium, not as much for the attack strength of the enemies (which is still considerable) but for the irritating things the enemies do to you; this dungeon also regenerates werewolves at key passages. Description: This
quest may be a minor one, but I believe it is crucial for your later
attack on Gharik’s Forge. If all of your characters have expert or
master learning (and even if they don’t) you will get tons of experience
and level ups that will help in your attack on the Forge. The dungeon is
huge and crawling with werewolves. But, because it is huge, you can use
arrows to maximum effect. After receiving the pearl, give it to Balthasar
(the ghost) and then enter the smaller area of the dungeon to defeat the
main werewolf. Some key problems: 1) Certain nodes in the dungeon
regenerate werewolves indefinitely every time you pass them. 2) This place
is filled end to end with werewolves and a few token oozes. Other than
Gharik’s Forge, this dungeon rates highest on the sheer irritation scale
because werewolves can knock you unconscious with one hit, disease you and
break your items. And oozes are difficult to get rid of, even at this
level. Oh yeah, oozes break your items too. Do not take this dungeon
lightly. If you complete it, however, you could easily move up 5 or 6
levels (depending, of course, on your starting level). Quest: Arch Druid promotion Received from: Fleise (Silver Cove castle) Location: Temple of the Moon (Free Haven NW) Special Problems: Gorgons turn you into stone and great druids take all your spell points Difficulty: medium, but vewy tedious Description: This
dungeon is tedious mainly because the creatures are fairly weak but have
highly annoying status spells. The gorgons turn your party into stone and
the grand druids take away your spell points. As a final insult, there are
so many cobras in the rooms, any projectile spell will hit a level 1 cobra
before it takes out the more important gorgon. In short, there may be a
tendency to take this dungeon lightly by running through it in real time,
but a better strategy may be to proceed carefully. Quest: Deface druid altar Received from: Eleanor Vanderbilt (Silver Cove house) Location: the Monolith (SSW of Silver Cove) Special Problems: Earth elementals are fairly stalwart; getting there may be a problem Difficulty: medium Description: 1)
Basically, it is an underground arbor of evil. Other than that aesthetic
note, take a little care with the earth elementals, but otherwise kick
some butt. 2) You may have problems getting to the monolith because of the
gargoyles. This goes for the great druid quest as well. They are
everywhere and they paralyze party members with great abandon. Their
favorite target to paralyze is both the cleric and female party members.
But again, if your party makeup is different, you may breeze through them. Quest: High Council Temper Quest: Get Those Demon Plans! Received from: Temper (Free Haven SE castle) Location: Devil Outpost - Kriegspire (S face of central mountain chain, roughly NW of castle) Special Problems: Demons take all your magic points. Difficulty: medium to hard due to attack strength and vitality of enemies Description:
Gharik’s forge is a cunning contest between superior intellects. The
devil’s outpost is more like roadhouse sponsored heavyweight boxing.
When you walk in the single room, all the demons rush you. If they kill
you, they win. If you kill them, you win. No levers, no buttons, no word
scrambles…just good old fashioned ass whipping. If your party relies
solely on brute force, you should have no problems with this quest. If
your party relies more on stealth and wit, then you had better stealth and
wit yourself into the main room and run like crazy as the demons launch
fireballs at you and take away all your spell points. Or, you may choose
to do Gharik’s Forge first to earn more experience. It should be noted,
that a point blank barrage of master level poison balls or spark blasts
are incredibly effective against these demons…as long as the demons
haven’t usurped your spell points. The demons are also fairly slow in
attack speed. Quest: Find Snergle. Kill him. Received from: Avinril Smithers (Unmarked pub in Darkmoor village - Prima hintbook is wrong on location) Location: Snergle Mines (E of Darkmoor) and Snergle Caverns (NW corner of Ironfist area) Special Problems: Tons and tons and tons of dwarves Difficulty: Mines (easy); Caverns (medium to hard, due to incredible number of opponents) Description: At
this point, 90% of this two-part quest should be very easy. The final room
of the Snergle Cavern, however, is tricky because when you enter the it,
about 30 dwarf lords sneak up from behind and about 50 wait for you in the
cavern…a very good ambush. The problem: while you are taking out one
side of dwarves, the other side hacks at your back. If you fight both
sides simultaneously, the damage you incur will be even greater because
you won't be making a serious dent in either side. The dwarf lords also
break even the best armor with great frequency. The easiest way to beat
these guys is to set a beacon in the large cavern just before the final
one. As soon as the trap is sprung, teleport back to the beacon. Then you
can take out only one front of dwarves at a time. Even with this trick,
however, mass damage spells are highly recommended because there are just
so damn many of these things. Quest: Champion Quest Received from: Temper (Free Haven Temper Castle) Location: Warlord's Castle (NW of Silver Cove) Special Problems: Cuisinart. Difficulty: medium to hard Description: This
castle is a mixed bag. Most enemies you encounter are easily dispatched.
The Death Knights and Cuisinarts, however, are fairly tough and have the
strongest armor class of anything you have faced before. They are also
lightning quick with their swords. In the end, however, if you use point
blank poison and some strong pommels from your fighters, they are not too
bad. The goodies you find in this castle far surpass anything you have
seen before. Halfway through the castle I had already accumulated 50K of
gold and items and I wasn’t even done yet. So if you cannot kill
everything, you may at least get a bankful of gold to finance another
effort later. Quest: Save Emmanuel Received from: Joanne (Blackspire house) Location: Star Island Temple of the Snake (Island in small lake E of Blackshire) Special Problems: Gorgons turn you into stone; traps galore; gold dragon; the secret character (not in Prima hintbook!)… Difficulty: medium to hard Description: Like
most of the later quests, the ease of this temple is directly related to
the makeup of your party. If one of the gorgons turns your water-walker
and flier into stone, and if you have no way of turning him back to flesh,
it's reload time. Fortunately, the gorgons are very gullible and their
stone attack seems to only work up close, so use the old run in/run out/launch
arrows trick to maximum effect. The dungeon is also full of traps, but the
damage incurred on your party should be laughable at this point. Also,
beware of the Gold Dragon. He is not too tough, but he is tough. And then
there is the secret character…search for him. Quest: The pedestal quest. Received from: Twillen (Blackshire house) Location: Place statuettes on pedestals throughout the land Special Problems: Some pedestal locations are grisly. Difficulty: medium to hard due to location of some of the pedestals. Description: If
you are a skillful runner, you may choose to do this quest earlier in the
game. Essentially, this quest is the antithesis to the dragon tower quest
because none of the pedestal locations are reachable from the town portal
spell, so this requires you to travel in some pretty hostile territory
including Dragonsands, Kriegspire and the infamous Sweet Water badlands. Quest: High Council Newton Quest: Gharik’s Forge Received from: Newton (Mist) Location: New Sorpigal! (NE Island) Special Problems: Magicians, magicians, magicians; fire damage Difficulty: hard because the terrain is tricky and all enemies are lethal projectile users Description: I
don’t know how to begin explaining the difficulty of the forge: 1) If
you are not strong enough, the rooms of magicians will annihilate you in
short order. This is why the werewolf quest is a key quest….boost those
stats! 2) The entire dungeon is full of random fire balls and flowing lava
3) The big room: The last big room is filled with magicians and fire
elementals. If you do not have Lloyd’s Beacon, you will have a hard time
winning because the magicians and elementals all have powerful long range
attacks and, frankly, none of your magical or mundane projectiles will
deal out equal damage. I ran into the room and set Beacons in several
places. Then I left and cowered in the doorway. When the creatures started
congregating near one of my beacons, I teleported to the beacon and began
pummeling them at close range. Physical damage works best because the
magicians are immune to electricity and mostly immune to all other magic,
and the fire elementals are immune to fire and mostly immune to everything
except water and lightning. Also, use "protection from fire" and
"protection from electricity" if you have them. If you have a
high level fire protection and a high level electricity protection, you
may find the forge pretty simple. I didn’t have these, so I couldn’t
tell you. Quest: Expose the traitor! Received from: Humphrey (who gives you the Baa cloak) Location: Kreigspire (NE of Kriegspire village) Special Problems: Magicians, druids and clerics pack quite a wallop from afar; they are also resilient (though not immune) to most magic attacks. Difficulty: medium to hard; not harder than the forge, but containing the forge's pesky warlocks and magicians. Description: You
need at least an 8 in perception to open many of the doors here. Also, if
you touch the Baa God bas relief, you will gain experience but lose
reputation. If you have mastery in light already and feel no reason to
stay saintly, touch it to your heart's content. Finally, this dungeon is
not that difficult, just time consuming. The final battle arena is filled
with 100 odd magicians, druids and clerics, so any magical protection you
can muster will be helpful. You may also want to target the grand druids,
if given a choice, because they usurp all your spell points. Otherwise,
show them the error of their ways. Quest: The Obelisk Received from: No one in particular. Location: Everywhere Special Problems: There is one obelisk per map area. You cannot finish this quest until you complete all the high council quests and receive the Queen Catherine to visit Hermit Isle. Otherwise you could have probably completed this ages ago if you are quick on your feet. Difficulty: medium to hard; some of the creatures surrounding the obelisks can be tricky. Description: If
you want, you can run and touch the obelisks without facing a single foe.
At this point, however, you may want to try your hand against some of the
stronger opponents such as the titans, the dragons and hydras. Soon, you
will not be able to run from tough creatures, so you might as well start
fighting them now. The obelisk quest has several quirks you may choose to
view in this website, but at least try to solve the puzzle yourself. <The Crystal Quests> Quest: Memory Crystal Alpha Received from: The Oracle (Free Haven) Location: Supreme Temple of Baa (Hermit's Isle) Special Problems: Hermit's Isle may cause some problems, but the actual temple is a joke at this point. Difficulty: medium, but I list it here to clump all of the crystal quests together: a ridiculously easy quest. Description: If
you don't sail through this temple with relative ease, you may need to
reconsider your strategy. You will run into a ton of clerics, fire
elementals and demons, and at this point it just seems silly to teleport
every few minutes for more SPs when a gifted sword user can wipe out the
entire temple in no time at all. Quest: Memory Crystal Epsilon Received from: The Oracle (Free Haven); (optional quest: Kriegpsire resident) Location: Castle Kriegspire (Kriegspire) Special Problems: The minotaur mages and minotaur kings can kill with one blow and they are super tough melee fighters with high ACs. Difficulty: medium to hard Description: The
minotaur species is harder than the power liches and floating eyes put
together, but unlike Darkmoor Castle, Castle Kriegspire is pretty small
and the minotaurs pretty much all attack at once. Once you clear a few big
rooms, you essentially have the run of the castle. For this reason, and
for its lack of traps and grandiosity, Kriegspire is easier than Darkmoor,
in spite of the obvious dominance of minotaurs over floating eyes and
liches. The Jeweled egg is in one of the chest you see, when you make a
right turn after the main entrance. It's easy to find. Quest: Memory Crystal Beta Received from: The Oracle (Free Haven) Location: Castle Alamos (Eel Infested Waters village) Special Problems: a large, convoluted, puzzle happy dungeon Difficulty: hard, not so much for the battles as for all the running around and getting lost. Description: If
you already know the password and have a map, you can solve this dungeon
and get the crystal in about five minutes. If you are a purist who scoffs
at the use of hintbooks and webpages, get ready for a long night. The
crystal is near the beginning of the dungeon, but an invisible force won't
allow you to pass until you have the password. In order to get the
password, you must find every blasted tree in the castle and read what the
tree has to offer. Then you must decipher the cryptic tree comments to
eventually find the equally cryptic password. Sigh. Along the way you will
meet small armies of magyars, magicians and air elementals. I cannot
honestly say that this is more difficult than Darkmoor, but this castle
really irritated the hell out of me, so when I rank quests according to
irritation level, this one will lead the pack. Quest: Memory Crystal Delta Received from: The Oracle (Free Haven); (secondary quest: Darkmoor citizen) Location: Darkmoor Castle (Darkmoor) Special Problems: Did power liches give you problems before? Try an army of power liches. The floating eyes wreak special status havoc. The castle itself is dark, confusing and full of traps. Difficulty: hard to very hard, for any number of reasons listed below. Description: This
castle is flat out difficult. If you check out the rpg newsgroups on the
internet, you will find that Darkmoor rates very high on the "profanity
in posts scale"…much higher than any Gharik's Forge comments.
Difficulties: 1) The castle has several separate areas with several
separate levels each, so your automapping function is basically worthless.
When you see it, you'll know what I mean. 2) While you are wandering
around trying to figure out what the hell you should be doing, the castle
itself removes all of your magical protection. Hour of Power and similar
spells, even Wizard's Eye, are worthless here. 3) Power liches roam the
place like rats did in some of the earlier dungeons. 4) The floating
eyeballs don't cause too much damage, but they are steady nuisances
casting all kinds of status nastiness on your party. They are also
surprisingly hard to kill. On the other hand, they do tend to clump
together and I found Dragon's Breath extremely effective against them. Is
there anything Dragon's Breath can't do? 5) Well, yes. It cannot hurt
liches and in the final big room of the dungeon, you will be faced with a
small army of them. The Destroy Undead spell is very helpful here. If you
explore every corner of this dungeon, you will find the bokk of liches
easily. Destroy it by walking up to it and click on it. Quest: Varn (find the cube) Received from: The Oracle (Free Haven) Location: Dragonsands Special Problems: Genies and Varn guardians cause some problems, but the sheer size and complexity of Varn creates the most difficulty. Difficulty: hard to very hard, for any number of reasons listed below. Description: While
some may quibble about the overall graphics of MM6, Varn is a beautiful
dungeon with wonderfully crafted creatures. The creatures aren't
impossibly difficult, but they are crafty and numerous, each having
special attacks and immunities. The genies: The genies have different
powers according to rank, but since you rarely meet just one, I will list
all the immunities and casting nastiness they have as a group: (1) They
feast on males, (2) they put you to sleep, (3) they cause the fear status,
(4) they are all immune to funky magic spells like mass curse, dark
containment, shrinking ray etc. and (5) efreets are immune to fire. Also,
sometimes the creatures cast fear on top of the asleep status. So, your
character portrait may show a wide-awake scared person, when in fact he is
a fast asleep afraid person, making him unable to fight. If your character
goes a long period without getting his turn, make sure he isn't afraid and
asleep, not just afraid. This is an unfortunate glitch in the game.
Dragon's Breath works extremely well against these guys, but then so do
most offensive spells. The guards of Varn: The sentinels and defenders are
a piece of cake. The guardians are not so simple: (1) They are immune to
every single school of magic with a few exceptions within three schools:
shrapmetal, rock blast, implosion. Even though these three work, the other
spells in the same schools do not. There may be a few more, but these were
the only major spells I could use against them. Melee is extremely
effective against them; (2) They break weapons, a lot; (3) Even though
they have slightly fewer HPs, Guardians are far better than the cuisinart
in almost every category including speed and armor class. They can also
cast long range spells equal in damage to the magician spells. So, combine
a souped-up cuisinart with a souped-up magician, and you have the guardian
of VARN. That being said, at this point in the game you should be more
than strong enough to take them out. Patrol units: These floating robots
roam in one place only and are easily dispatched. Thankfully, there are no
terminator units present at this point. Quest: Control Center (get those blasters!) Received from: The Oracle (Free Haven) Location: The Oracle Special Problems: the terminator robot eradicates you (no temple can help, but resurrect can) Difficulty: hard to very hard, mainly due to high irritation factor Description: Basically,
blasters can be fired nearly as fast as you can hit the "A" key,
so they are certainly something to be reckoned with. More on blasters
later. As for the creatures in the control center, two things: (1) Expect
to spend most of your time repairing items. Every shot the robots fire at
you takes away hit points and breaks an item in your inventory. If you
have a ton of money and are ready to finish the game soon, go ahead and
hire a Smith and an Armorer to repair your items or move everyone up to
Repair Master. Otherwise, the long and tedious administrative work
required in this dungeon will become even longer as you pass all weapons
and armor to your sole repair guy. (2) The terminators have the power to
eradicate your party members. If your guy is eradicated, only a resurrect
spell can bring him back from the dead. If your resurrect guy is
eradicated, it is reload time. Both #1 and #2 together makes this dungeon
very sticky and I am not surprised many people don't find the subsequent
blasters worth all the trouble. Quest: Free Archibald Received from: The Oracle (Free Haven) Location: Castle Ironfist Special Problems: none Difficulty: easy Description: (1)
Talk to Nicolai. (2) Get third eye from NW well. (3) Get Bell from
Nicolai. (4) Free Archibald (top of castle) and make sure you have the
scroll he gives you. Go to hive. Quest: The Hive Received from: the oracle, I guess. Just go to the hive after you free Archibald Location: Sweetwater Special Problems: Town Portal and Lloyd's Beacon do not work; you cannot rest inside the Hive. Difficulty: hard to very hard Description: Frankly,
the final quest in the game is pretty darn easy at this point. If you
choose to use blasters, I strongly recommend using real time combat, not
turn-based. I don't have any hard scientific data here, but when you enter
a room packed wall to wall with demons, the blasters seem to work better
in real-time than in turn-based combat. Also, don't forget your spells.
These are not special demons immune to everything but blasters (forget
what the oracle said, he lied), so kill them anyway you see fit. However,
remember that you cannot teleport out of the dungeon, so you won't be able
to do any of that "cast like crazy, then teleport to the temple, then
return" monkey business. Finally, the hive queen is a pushover (two
dragon's breaths killed her), but her minions come to her aid, making the
battle more difficult. If you are tired of slinging demon meat around the
room, enter the queen's chambers and back into the corner so that only she
is visible. The other demons will become confused and you can take her out
with ease. Quest: Enroth Received from: NWC Location: Everywhere Special Problems: none Difficulty: easy to hard Description: NWC used one of my favorite all time RPG design techniques with MM6: let the players continue playing after they beat the final boss. Now that you are supercharged and carrying blasters, you may enjoy going through some of the more frustrating early dungeons to lay waste to them. Or perhaps you may want to nuke all the towns because you are drunk with power. In any event, there is still a lot of stuff out there, so do what you want and thank NWC for allowing you to play on, even after the game is done.
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SCREENSHOTS
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