Ultimate Balrum Guide

This game is huge and has a lot to explore, made this guide to help everyone out.
It has tips and tricks for farming, crafting, combat, making money, achievements, loot, maps, lore, everything I could think of!

Introduction

This game is huge and exploring every niche and crevasse was a big challenge.
Planning my build to tackle 100% achievements was also something I wanted to do.

This guide is a recollection of notes, tips, observations and strategies I came up with during my 1 month play of Balrum. I had to do a lot of research on the forums and other guides.

I want to recommend two other guides that helped me out.
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1419382800
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2517074814

If this guide helped you out, I would appreciate if you also dropped a like on their guides.

I first begun playing back in mid-2019 but after exploring the whole of Darkwood, I realize I messed up my build by buying L2 Craft Armours AND L2 Craft Weapons... there is no re-spec so I had to start again and I didnt want to, so I dropped it.

Forward 2 years later and the only way to convince myself to start again and finish it off was to make a guide on it, so I started.

I was still exploring half of Darkwood in mid June 2021 when goldeNspiriT published his guide, I did think about stopping work on this guide and deleting what I had so far.. but I didnt. Making this guide some sort of journal of my time kept me going and exploring the whole of the game.

I also wanted to list items and equipment by area found instead of category (rings, trinkets, helmets, etc..) check out the encyclopedia to search by category.

So here it is, its a long guide and I went as deep as I could on all areas.
The area sections is also a sort of walkthrough, I did make indications of when to go to different areas and wrote down locations of main quest items.

The in-game journal is very good at telling you where to go or what to do next, so, when in doubt, check it out.

I hope my notes and my mistakes help you get through the game, if you are an achievement hunter, do plan ahead if you want to do everything in a single run.

That's it for now, feel free to leave a comment with any observation or criticism you might have.

Good luck!

Edit: Thank you very much for the awards! 🙂✔✨🍖🎁🎂👍✔🎉

Before you start: Options

Go into the options and browse through them, you can change "tabs" by clicking on the <> Arrows to the side of the title (First screen is Controls).

I highly suggest you go to Video and change the World Zoom and GUI Zoom sliders to adjust them just right for you, I personally found the GUI too tiny and just zoomed it to my liking, once you start playing, you can adjust it even more until you are satisfied.

Dont forget about Gamma, maybe if you play with it high enough you wont have to use torches at night that much.

I also set the Style to Eye Care, its a nice little feature I wish more games had.

On the gameplay tab, you can set if you want to see the Tactic grid outside combat and double speed animations for your convenience and since some NPCs might be hard to find, enable Always show friendly npc names

Starting Choices

You have three main classes: Archer, Warrior and Wizard

However, you can mix and match all sort of skills from any class if you have enough Learning Points(LP) and Thaler($).

For this guide, I recommend we go Archer to get the 2000 Magic Points achievement and the 3000 HP achievement, since DEX both boosts my accuracy and damage, I can completely ignore strength and wisdom, although some equipment have STR restrictions, we can ignore them and use mage/archer gear instead.

There is an achievement to finish the game on the hardest difficulty and it might be a be a pain as a non-archer but with enough pots with you, it should be fine, so feel free to pick your favorite archetype.

On the other hand, you can go Archer and do the Grandmaster Difficulty achievement and the HP one, then do a second playthrough as a mage on easy and get the 2K MP achievement but you can get that MP achievo as an Archer too, with careful planning.

Anyway, you will get some backstory and then you will need to choose.
You can mouse over the options to read what each give you.
Vitality increases your HP, but lots of things do, dont put points here.
Strength helps for melee combat and to have more Armour without reducing Dodge.
Dexterity helps with ranged damage and melee/ranged hit AND crit chance.
Wisdom increases Spell Damage and MP Regeneration, you will eat lots of mana berries, this is not that important.
Intelligence increases Spell Damage and Spell Hit Chance.

One thing they dont tell you is that your Armour Rating will decrease your Spell Hit Chance.

Lots of Armour have Str, Dex and Int requirements. There is an achievement "Untouchable" that requires 200 Armour, you will need STR to equip shields to get to that number, so yeah, ignore WIS and INT and go with a little STR.

Remember this: There are two stat boosting contraptions in the game but they only work if you have Exactly 5 Base Value on that stat, its STR and INT, we Archers get nothing :(
So if/when you get 5 Base STR or INT, go look for them.

You will get to level 12 at most, so after level 8, I will save my points so I can save, dump them all in Intelligence, get the achievement, reload, dump all in Vitality, get the HP achievo, reload and then put some in Dex and Vit. I also suggest you save all equipment that boost VIT/INT/HP/MP for these achievements. Check the equipment encyclopedia for gear Str/Dex/Int requirements and plan ahead.

My thoughts on...

Free Time choices
Farming is nice and you might need it to get the Breed achievement, but you can stock up on LPs, save, get the Farming skill and then go breed for a couple of hours until the achievement pops, then reload, its a great way to make money and ingredients but I think its not a good starting skill.
Note that increasing Farming will let you plant/harvest more plots and plant healing herbs.

Survival sounds nice, a chance to evade mortal blows, better use of your tent to recover HP/Energy, slower hunger/thirst, etc.. I think this one is the way to go for starter players.

Now cooking will give you the option to craft food early on, its a little worse than Survival but not for much, you will need it for an achievement and lots of foods are as good as potions...

Ill go with farming to grind some thaler in the early game.

Practice Choices
You basically pick your starting class here, I'll go with archery.
Later in the game, you can pick a skill from another class by training with a teacher to get the dual class achievement.

Helping Out
All choices are great but you can learn them later.
Smelting is a great choice for Warriors to make weapons and armor but the items you find by exploring will be generally better than the ones you can craft. Its a good skill to sell ores you mine as bar but the profit is small, although, Smelt 2 skill book exists, so.. buy level 1 and get level 2 for free, sounds cool.

Alchemy is useful for all classes as a faster way to get stats and thaler rather than food, you will need to pick this one eventually BUT you can find an Alchemy 1 and 2 skillbooks and you can save on those precious Learning Points by choosing something else.

Hunting is good to get better cannon fodder, although be aware that if you tame an animal, you will lose your initial pet since you can only have one pet active, it also helps to get items from them.
People dont like taming that much, read this discussion to see if Hunting is right for you: https://steamcommunity.com/app/424250/discussions/0/371918937259659248/
You can get over the slow pet walk by dismissing and recalling your pet.

Even though I got hunting and spent LPs to get it to L3, I regret it.
The mantis pet was ok but I would have gotten Craft Armor 4 much earlier to get bonuses to my Fire Arrow and Bleeding skills damages. I would have gone with Smelting instead.

Starting Abilities
Depending on the class you picked, you get different ones.

Supplies
Go for the 100 Thaler or 3 Healing Potions (Then sell them)
The magical seeds will grow into treasure chests which, if you are lucky, can get you great starting items or crap. The contents of the chest are determined when you plant the seed, not when you harvest it.

Item
The Phoenix Ring is a great choice , your pet is helpful and being able to resurrect it for free is super helpful.

So think about what you want to play and choose wisely, you CANNOT re-specialize your skills/attributes so your choices are final.

Thoughts on Skills and Learning Points
You get 6 LPs each level, thats around 60 to 72LPs in total as you play the game until the end.
Some books and boss kills also give you +1 LP.

As you play the game, you will find teachers that require you to pay Thaler and Learning Points to get new skills or upgrade them. The cost increases as you go along.

You also can find Skill Books that will teach you a skill level, for example, Farming 2.
This helps you save learning points and thaler, so plan accordingly, check my section on skill books.

To increase stats like STR or DEX, you also need teachers, LPs and Thaler, the cost increases as you get more and more of that stat, so for example, if you have 5 DEX, learning +1 DEX would cost 5LP instead of 3LP.

Each level up, you get to pick one stat to increase by 1.
You do get a small HP/MP boost each level, while being an Archer, I got +50HP and +100MP each level. Shrines/Altars also give you stat boosts, check out its section to find out more.

After level 7, I suggest you save your LPs to learn stats to get you those HP/MP/Armour/1k damage achievements, then reload once you grab them.

Difficulty and Slower Hunger/Thirst

You need to finish the game in Grandmaster difficulty for an achievement.. so yeah.
You can play on Novice, play however you want and then tackle Grandmaster and any other achievements you are still missing for the 2nd run.

But since Im a gaming Masochist, Im going to try and get ALL the achievements on a single run, so Grandmaster it is.

Slowing Thirst and Hunger will make you use less food but that also means less buffs from potions/foods. Still, I think its a good idea to go with it since the Early game is very unforgiving with this, especially in Grandmaster Difficulty.

Alright, lets begin and do enjoy the story and roleplay! Its a great game!

Early Game and Tips

So the game started, now what?

Well, questing is where the XP is at, so start questing!
Monsters will be very tough at the beginning so try your luck but remember running is a good option early on, you can lure enemies to NPCs and sometimes they will fight them but you wont get any XP.. although, you can get their materials.

In this game, there is almost no respawning.

When you pick an herb, kill an animal/monster, pick a fruit from a tree, that's it.
Whatever you plant in your safe place can respawn. Some trees respawn if they are close to a wisp (you can capture them later) but outside of that, nope.

Dont worry though, the game world is huge and you wont be running out of resources or monsters before finishing the game.

Talking about the safe place, you can go there after talking to your grandpa, so go ahead and check it out, this is like your personal home/farm.

Or.. you know.. just press the (H) key (or the S icon to the lower left)

You can start building right away, there is no time limit in this game.
To build, you need the resource in your inventory, press B to open the building interface and go at it.

For now, if you want extra thaler and dont care about building a house, loot everything and open the boxes, if you like to get into the story/fighting quicker just leave after youre done and come back later when you want to slow down. You can use the safe house building materials to rebuild your grandpa house and advance the main story and to repair Ida's fence.

To remove stuff, open the build menu, go to Tiles and right click the the thing you want to remove.
You can remove bushes/rocks with this method.

Crafting stations might need coal or iron bars, you can buy these in town.
Chests are the best item storage containers for your house, get rid of the boxes.

One last thing, time passes while in the safe place, you do get hungry/thirsty/tried.
Be mindful of this while building.. and dont attack the orbs of light (wisp).

Weapons/Tools
Pretty self-explanatory but you have an inventory tab for these, they wear down and you will need to craft a new tool, repair it with a blacksmith or buy it.

Once you reach armor/weapon crafting level 2, you can build a repair statue in your safe house to help with this problem, it might be a waste of Learning Points, research if its worth it.

You dont need to have a tool in your quickbar, they are used automatically, for example, to chop down a tree, just left click it and if you have an axe in your tools, it will be used.

You can use crafting stations in people's houses, for example the anvil and the smelter in the blacksmith's house, until you get materials to build your own back in the safehouse.

Repairing is always cheaper than buying materials to craft it or buying it outright.

Inventory management
You can sort your stuff if you right click on the inventory tab icon.

You can move stuff from containers into your inventory instantly instead of dragging/drop by right clicking on the stack. Alt+left click to move item/stack from inventory into container.

You can click (E) key to take everything from an open container and into your inventory.

Most things you can harvest have tooltips when you mouse over them, like herbs or berries, others, do not, like tables, bookcases, animal bones or fruit trees, try clicking everything that might look like it can hold stuff.

Things are stored in stacks of 64. You might be carrying 4 stacks of 64 simple arrows.. but you can equip up to 999 arrows.. so equip your arrows instead of letting them take space in your inventory.

You start with a wisp bottle which can be used to trap wisps (orbs of light), you need these to plant bushes or trees. Just right click on the bottle while being near a wisp.

Your pet has a small inventory...I dont why, but its there.

You have an extra quickbar/hotbar, press (Q), it doubles as inventory space if you need it.

You can open multiple chests and when you alt-left click on an item in your inventory, the item will be sorted in the correct container, this is useful since you can just alt-click sweep on your inventory one by one and it will be stored in the right chest as long as there is a copy of the item in the chest.

Food and Water
You can eat what you farm or hunt deer, although its best to eat farmed vegetables since they are renewable. You can cook things in the fire (like raw meat and bread).

If you are wondering what that bar is, its the cooking meter, if it goes full, the item gets burnt.
Things dont rot in this game, thankfully.

You automatically refill your canteens/buckets when clicking on a well.
Farming level 1 will let you create up to 20 fields.
You can plant things in Ida's farm if you want but Ida will harvest your stuff sometimes.. but this way you wont have to put LP points into farming if you dont want to.

What now?
Explore the town, talk to the townsfolk, help them out, get some XP, loot everything you can :3

Farming and Selling wood/stone in town is a good way to get money early on.
Learn how to make bread, find training in cooking/alchemy.

In combat, you can use your pet as a wall, fences, trees and rocks can also help to keep monsters away from you. If your pet dies, click here and choose resurrect:


Save before digging stuff up, those larvas are nasty in the early game.

People can go aggro on you if they see you stealing, you might think everything's yours but its not.
Calm down, Link.

Tips on Farming and Combat

Farming
In your safe house, click (B) to open the building menu, go to the Specials tab.
The first one is a field, you can plant up to 20 with Farming 1.
The following 4 bushes are berry bushes that regrow, plant 3 of each if you want.
You will need Wisp energy, you start with an empty bottle. Put the bottle in your hotkey bar if you want, when near a wisp(glowing ball), right click the bottle and it will fill up.

You can also build a well which will help to get your hydration up and water plants once you get seeds and start farming.

If a field has 0% water, it will stop growing.
Using manure will speed up plant growth and possibly give higher yields (untested).

You can get seeds in Grandpa's garden to get you started, Ida sells more, if you eat a vegetable you might get seeds too.
You can harvest unripe crops, so always make sure they are ready to harvest before harvesting.
To plant Potatoes, just pretend the potato IS a seed.
You can double click on a crop to quickly harvest it.
You can get a Water Bucket from a barrel inside Ida's farm.
To quickly water your fields, left click on a bucket on your inventory then left click on the crops you want to water, you can use this method with manure too.
Do the same as above with seeds to plant them.
Use a taming trap on a wisp and fence it off near your farming area, this way, plants will never get diseased and grow quicker. When using a trap to get a wisp, it will go to your tool/weapon inventory, sadly, you cant use a wisp as a pet.

You can "build" lots of trees (even pine), recharge your wisp bottle, build more, then chop them all down, remove the stumps, repeat.

Combat
Left click to use melee skills, right click to use ranged skills.
You can have 1 melee selected and 1 ranged skill selected and 1 pet skill selected at the same time. You can select skills by right clicking on the icon (it will be highlighted).

You have an extra quickbar, you can use (Q) key to switch to it.
As an Archer, I have all my ranged skills on the main one and my melee ones on the 2nd, this way I can switch between fighting styles quickly.

This bar represents the threat in combat, it will determine if an enemy is trying to kill you or your pet.
You can see this bar if you mouse over an enemy.
You should let your pet start combat, click on your pet then click on the enemy to do it.

Damage does not determine how much Threat you take, its actually the individual skill, each skill generates different amount of threat no matter how much damage it does.

Left click on an enemy so you can read the tooltip of what effects it has, do this by mousing over the effect square below its HP.

You can buy some useful spells even if you dont have Arcane L1, check with masters.
On some fights, drinking a teleport potion also helped me a bunch.

The early game is the toughest, you dont have good enemy control skills or potions to work with, so dont be afraid of using all your current scrolls or potions to win a fight, you will get more.

You can use environmental traps (like shooting fire/light balls) against enemies, just time it right so it hits them without killing them.

You can shoot over impassable grass but not fences.

You can hit your pet with your area attacks.. friendly fire ON.

Some enemies clone themselves and when you kill the real one, the fake ones go away.
Clones always miss you, if you get hit twice it's because the enemy has double turns.
Your pet knows which one is the real one.

Note that the ranged hit chance is lowered the farther you are from the enemy, so if you keep missing, get closer. Levels also matter, if enemy has higher level than you, you hit chance is lowered. If you are higher level, its increased.

If you find a powerful enemy (like a L4 Skeletal Warlock while you are level 1), you can run towards an NPC (like Aron or Fox) and they will start fighting it. Once they hit the enemy enough times and get the enemy aggro, you will exit combat but they will still be fighting. You can save here and get close to the fight and wait.. If you get lucky and if you are quick enough, you can deal the final blow and get all the XP.

From what I've seen, your level does not matter when getting XP, a lvl 5 bear will give the same XP whether you are level 2 or 10.

You can destroy traps instead of trying to disarm them, use something ranged.
Reloading wont help with trap disarming.

During combat, you can run away faster if you hold down the walk button in a straight direction instead of diagonally.

You can only stun an enemy 3 times, they become immune to all stuns after that, so no stun locking for you.

Your Dodge drops to 0% when stunned, same applies to enemies.

If there are obstacles or rocks near a tough enemy, you can cleverly mine yourself into a position where you are surrounded by walls/carts/stone and there is only one square free, that will force the enemy to fight your pet even if you are getting the most threat. Try it out if you are having troubles.


If an enemy is shooting at you and you need to get close (or heal), sometimes its best just to hide behind a tree/rock, so it cant shoot at you and let it come to you, use obstacles wisely.

You can sneak on enemies from behind, for visibility purposes, their facing position matters.

Dont be stingy and use potions and scrolls, especially on tough bosses.
You can make a rule of saving 8 potions/scrolls of each kind for the final boss if you want.
There are hundreds of King Mushrooms in the game, you can use Brain Purge potions to reset all your skill cooldowns making you super deadly.

You can only drink 3 potions in a row before getting a sickness which disables you from drinking more potions for 28 turns, if you drink every 3-4 turns, you can drink 4 quickly, check your potion overdose meter in your character sheet to get more of a feel of potion use in battle.
Potion overdose is the main reason you carry nightmare berries around, they restore mana without increasing your potion use.

If you have a fast pet and are fighting a slow enemy without range (like a skeleton or bear), you can shoot it until it starts chasing you, then just run away, don't run away space by space, hold down the movement button and walk/run in wide circles around it, with your pet speed, it will attack it every 2 turns or so until your pet gets the attention from it. Repeat until it dies.

Story Achievements

There is one achievement that involves difficulty, so choose grandmaster if youd like to get it out of the way on your first playthrough.


Chapter Two
Reach chapter two.


Chapter Three
Reach chapter three.


Chapter Four
Reach chapter four.


Darkwood
Complete the game.


Grandmaster
Complete the game on Grandmaster difficulty.


These last two will pop just before the credits, not after killing the final boss.

Achievement Counter: [5/42]

Stats Achievements

You cannot respec in this game, meaning you will either need to be careful in allocating your stats/skills to get these achievements or do multiple playthroughs. Archer is the easiest build but if you want to get most or all achievements in a single run, go warrior/mage so you can build up to 2K MP and 3K HP.


Experienced
Reach level 10.

Getting XP gets slower and slower as you get levels, around the endgame, you should reach around level 10 or 11.


Profit
Have at least 50000 thaler on yourself.



Vitality
Have at least 3000 hit points.

1 VIT = 50HP
You get 50 HP on level up.
Old Shrines can give you extra HP, they only work a few times across all shrines, so you might find extra shrines greyed out, this is normal.
In Kyler's Village, you can pay the priest with Thaler only to get small HP boosts.
Rotting Voodoo Doll (+10 VIT for 20 turns)
Amulet of Life (+3 VIT)
Gold Ring (+1 VIT)
There should be a Belt for your class that gives at least (+1 VIT)
Eating a +8 VIT food using Cooking L4
Special Effects like Slept Well from resting in a bed (+2 VIT) and Good Deed from Raven@Erdal (+2 VIT)

10 levels = 500HP
Father Hein Blessings = 90HP
Male Old Shrine = 20x2+30x2 = 100HP
Rings/Amulet/Belt = 250HP
Food = 400HP
Slept Well Effect = 100HP
Good Deed Effect = 100HP (2 bread and 4 apples @ Raven)
Trinkets = 500HP
Total = +1090HP

You can add more by wearing VIT boosting equipment, so spending points in VIT at the start or during level up is a bad choice, I got this at Level 8.


Arcane
Have at least 2000 mana points.

1 INT = 50MP
Trinket: Tablet of Sacrifice (+5 INT for 20 turns)
Moon Amulet (+2 INT)
Ring of the River x 3 (+1 INT each)
Ring of Sacrifice (+1 INT)
Speed Potion Effect (+2 INT)

You can make a save then try go for this achievement by:
Save before leveling up, when you level, choose Intelligence.
Training INT up to 3 times then wear INT boosting gear.
When you reach Base INT 5, use the Intelligence Book in Darkwood to get +1 base INT.
Training MP up to 4 times.
Eating a +8 INT food using Cooking L4
You can learn create armor 4 to create INT equipment, but you'll be fine with the gear you have hoarded.

Training 3 times @ Lia (9~11LP) + Book Apparatus = 200MP
Training MP 4 times @ Lia (4LP) = 100MP
Female Old Shrine = 20x2+30x2 = 100MP
Rings/Amulet = 300MP
Food = 400MP
Speed Potion = 100MP
Trinkets = 250MP
Total = 1450MP


Trained
Learn a new combat ability.


Tamer
Tame at least 8 animals.

You need to use the Animal Taming Trap to tame a animal, your base chance is 50% and it goes up 10% for each hunter level you learn. See Hunting[balrum.fandom.com]


Unstoppable
Learn the most powerful ability of a class.

You will need to join a guild to learn the L4 skill from your class.
See the Master sections at the end of the guide for more info.


Dualclass


Like the name implies, you just need to get skills from another class other than your starting one.
Its costly, 10 learning points, so you will need to save a few levels worth of LP to get this one.
Check the merchant section on the guide to look for trainers.


Executioner
Deal at least 1000 damage in one turn.

A crit gives 200% damage, with a potion buff, this becomes 300%.
So your goal is to do around 350 damage with an attack.

Mages have it easier since their ultimate spell does up to 600dmg and a spell crit should give you this achievement. You can also find/craft +Fire damage items to get this, but it shouldnt be necessary.

Preparation Scroll will guarantee a crit in your next activated ability.

Check this guide for info on weapons.
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2517074814
Black Knight Greataxe (410) / Haste Dagger (290) / Black Bow (240)
*You dont need those specific weapons, but something almost as good should work.

Extra Boosters
15% more crit damage from Ring of Thorns
Extra Crit Damage Potion (300% crit damage) *This is key
30 Phys Dmg from Brooch of Negligence
2x4 Phys from 2 Blood Rings
Eating +8 Stat Food

Bow Only:
230 avg dmg from Black Bow.
25 avg dmg from Steel Arrow.
Close Shot = +70 dmg Avg.
11 Base DEX + 24 DEX (my archer build) = 49 damage
If you already do more than 350dmg, you can use Perfect shot instead.

With a DEX Dagger
Haste Dagger Avg = 270
Precise Cut = 60 avg dmg *More because it ignores armour

With Swordplay 1 and using book to L2:
You can reload after getting the achievement to save your LPs.
No Mercy Skill = 210 dmg avg
Anger Strike = 125 dmg avg.
Shatter Armour = use this up to 3 times, to do even more dmg.

This is a video of how I got the achievement:
https://youtu.be/6lz2aZrFXbQ


Untouchable
Acquire at least 200 armour.

Again you will need STR to wear the best armours, if you are a STR build, this is in the bag.

Every 6 points in STR (doesnt have to be base), gives you 5 armour.
Key: Item Name(Arm)(STR)*

No requirements:
With a Bear Hide Potion you get (35)
Medal of the Guardian (7) (1)
Cold Ring (4)
Crimson Ring/Servant of Adacus, 1ea (3)(1)
Laws of Adacus Trinket (50!)
+8 STR Food Effect (0)(8)
Good Deed Effect (0)(1)
Totals = (99)(13)

DEX build:
Griffin Armor (22)(3)
Griffin Cap (10)(1)
Griffin Leggings (13)(1)
Griffin Gloves (6)(1)
Cow Leather Belt (5)(1)
Shoes of the Sands (8)(2)
Totals:(64)(9)+(99)(12)=(163)(21/6=15A)=178 [Need 12 more]

*Shields grant extra armour but you need base STR.
The weakest shield gives (8) Req. 3STR.
Check the equipment encyclopedia.

Strategy for non-warriors:
Hard Save before leveling up.
Choose STR when leveling.
Go to Torric at Balrum SE, train STR to 5 STR.
Use STR table at Darkwood SE when you have 5 STR to get 6.
If you cant get to STR 6, STR 4 is fine but you need to have saved some equipment like the one I list below then wear/do everything in the no requirements section.
Pray for the best.

DEX build with 4 STR

Are you kidding me?!
I finally got it with:
Griffin Cap
Veteran Armour
Warrior's Plate Gloves
Warrior’s Plate Leggings
Cow Leather Belt
Shoes of the Sands
Warrior's Shield
Light Sword

DEX build with 6 STR
Griffin Armor-> Plate of the Gladiator(31)(3) [+7A]
Heavy Shield(18)
That would do it.

If you are a mage, you should go with STR 6, wear Warrior Equipment and just spare yourself the suffering, save every high armour gear you find with STR 6 requirement or below.


Collector
Wear all items from an armour set.

Check the guide for [Rusty Armour Set], at the end of the game, there is an ultimate set for each class: Demon, Wanderer, Griffin / STR, INT, DEX, look for those words in the guide.

Achievement Counter: [16/42]

Exploration and Crafting Achievements

These unlock as you explore the map and other places.


Cartographer
Write at least 10 notes on your map.

Very easy to do, open your map and write down 10 notes.


Completionist
Fully discover one of the large maps.

You need to remove most of the fog of war from the map in Ch1 or Ch3.
Speed Potions will help you with this.

Kasiornis down in the comments can confirm you'll need to uncover around 90~95% of a large map, so its either a section of the overworld Balrum or Darkwood, not dungeons or caves.


Explorer
Visit at least 80 maps.

Going into caves or basements/stairs counts as a new map.


Gambler
Try your luck at one of the altars 20 times.

Altars can be found all over the map, there are 3 kind of altars and they share some of the bonuses they can give you, if you are EXTRA lucky, you can get all buffs before donating 20 times. Because of that, this achievement is Missable. When you find your first old shrine west of the central well in the starter town, save and go for this achievement, if you are lucky (or in this case, unlucky), you will unlock the achievement, oh yeah, make sure to bring lots of Thaler.


Duty
Complete 40 quests.


Keen Eye
Loot at least 10 special bushes.

You dont need any special skill, the special bushes look like this:
'
They will glow when you are 3 or 4 tiles close to them, they only glow once and only once.
During the game, you will encounter tons of these, dont sweat it.


Transform
Transform into a rat.

You will sometimes need to transform into a rat to get into places to grab some loot, you can buy the potions from Brown at the Southwest of starter town for 130 Thaler, you will need a couple.


Historian
Read at least 50 ancient lore bits.

I made a section where I put down where I found lore, there are way more than 50 out there, it shouldnt be a problem.


Tomb Raider
Solve at least 10 challenging puzzles.

Im not sure which puzzles are considered challenging, check out the later sections.

Achievement Counter: [25/42]

Resource/Crafting Achievements

Lumberjack
Chop down at least 40 trees.


Miner
Mine at least 40 rocks.


Well Roasted
Roast at least 10 raw meats.


Herbalist
Collect at least 100 plants.


Farmer
Create at least 10 fields.


Carpenter
Build at least 10 structures at your safe place.


Craftsman
Create at least 10 items at the anvil.


Alchemist
Brew at least 10 potions.


Experimenter
Create at least 10 custom recipes.


Cook
Cook at least 10 meals.


Breeder
Breed at least 10 animals.

Achievement Counter: [36/42]

Hidden Achievements

Scarab


This Level 11 Boss can be found in a basement in the Middle North section of the first Desert map.


Abomination


This Level 12 Boss can be found in a basement in the SW corner of the first Desert map, you need to kill it to progress the story.


Nasrus


Final Boss.


Architect


This Level 11 Boss can be found in the SW corner of the Forgotten Plains, he is kinda tough but slow.. however he has friends and he teleports to you, a lot, be ready for a fight.


Invisible



In NW Balrum, on your way from where the teleporter drops you to the Hunter Village, you will find this trapdoor, inside, something invisible is moving, check the footsteps and interact with it to get the achievement.


Determined


Get all other achievements.

Achievement Counter: [42/42]

Lore

A lot of letters and books can be found in the game, you need to dust off and read 50 for the achievement. Letters are found in white bags unless otherwise stated.

https://steamcommunity.com/app/424250/discussions/0/2592234299538275047/

Here is a list of them.
1)Item List
Grandpa's House.

2)My Research
Near a treasure chest, NE of Fred's Tavern.

3)Invisible Herbs
SE from Ida's farm, near a glowing green crystal.

4)My Family
Inside Old woman's dungeon, south from Brown's house.

5)Our Duty
Inside Dungeon NE of Fox's House, need a key made by Aron to enter.

6)She Left
Barnabas House.

7)Your First Task
8)The Bones
9)Final Resting Place
Ruins in NW Darkwood located east of NW Teleporter. (Looks like a square near the east border)
There is a lever that removes some walls so you can go down into the basement.

10) The Wrath of the Old God (Part 2)
From the NE Teleporter, go south until you reach the lake, off the east coast of the lake there is a small room and you can see the white bag in there, shoot the lever to gain access.

11)The Mad God
From the room mentioned above, walk east to a burned house.
A book of knowledge is here too, might as well get it.

12)Eternity
NE Darkwood, NE area, east of Spike's, Wolf Cave, fireball crypt, use a Speed Potion to quickly get through.

13)Rest in Peace
SE from the Wolf Cave, in the middle of the graveyard with the pillars.

14)The Portal
SE from the graveyard above, another graveyard, this white bag is on the Northeastern side near a barrel.

15)Summon
Necromancer's Tower, 1F, Final room @ NW Darkwood

16)Labyrinth
Necromancer's Tower, 2F, Just south of the entrance, by a body.

17)Choose a Side
Necromancer's Tower, 3F, Boss Room

18)The Wrath of the Old God (Part 3)
Harry's House @ Kyler's Village

19)They Glow
Glowing Obelisk Cave @ West from SW Darkwood Teleporter

20)Initiation
21)There are too many of them!
Abandoned Village @ SW Corner @ Darkwood SW

22)The Ashes of the City
Neil's House @ Kyler's Village, Guard needs you to let you pass.

23)The Wrath of the Old God (Part 4)
Arches Ruins @ Darkwood SW, Between Teleporter and Jorick's House

24)Exploration Day 1
25)Exploration Day 2
26)Exploration Day 3
Excavation @ Darkwood SW, NE Area Corner, near Jorick's House.

27)The secret of the crystal golems (Part 1)
28)The secret of the crystal golems (Part 2)
28)The secret of the crystal golems (Part 3)
Crystal Golem Cave @ Darkwood NW

29)Underground city
30)They can talk
31)The old creatures
32)There wont be enough space
33)The church treasury
34)We cannot dig deeper
35)What have we done
36)Fred's Beer is really strong
Underground city @ Entrance, go east then a bit, Ancient One Lair, House NE part of town, 2-chest house x 2, house west of 2-chest house, NW of town, past the cemetery.

37)After the Immortals
Path to Balrum

38)Mortals
39)Hain
Church @ NE Balrum

40)The King's Pet
41)You have to come
42)Barrel Boy
43)Very Important Persons
44)The Tale of the Fearless Farmer
45)The great Adventurer's Son (Fleming)
Erdal: Artie's House, Patty's House, Mick's House, Paton's Den, Lona's School, NW of Raven's House

46)How should I approach her?
Bardan's Farm @ NE Balrum

47)Dark Iron
Lew's House

48)Diaries of the Soldier (Part 1)
49)Diaries of the Soldier (Part 2)
??)Diaries of the Soldier (Part 3)
50)Diaries of the Soldier (Part 4)
Evil Obelisk Ruins (Witches Cave)@NE Darkwood, I dont know where Part 3 is.

I got the achievement by this point, I will list other letters I found but without numbering them.

Darkwood

The Wrath of the Old God (Part 1)
Darkwood NW, in the Stone Golem Quarry, SW of Barnabas House.

We Could Come Down Here Together
Frog Cave @ Darkwoods SW

Xain's Note
Let them see the Truth!
Ruined Castle @ Darkwoods SE

Filthy Fat Blisters
Golem Cave @ Darkwoods SE

Balrum

Rebel Party
Eric's Party, Leaving with Aida instead of the others, missable..I skipped this one.

Thief Camp
Shadow Blade
The Test
Rhys

Erdal Castle
Necromancers
Dark Iron
Benedict the Traitor
Wolves of the Castle

Erdal
Darkwood
Church SE: Abandoned House with a Snake and a Rat

Balrum SW
Mage's Diary
Rat Cave: Interestingly enough, this letter is found on a corpse not a white bag.

Arcane Arts
Mage's guild, need to join to get this.

Warrior's guild
Fury of the Colossus
The King's Right Hand

Black Creatures
Destroyed Fort, near a Moth

Dark Rituals
Edge of Undead lands, SW Area.

Balrum NW
Hunter's Village
The Bear Hunters
The Dragons
Abandoned house west of Hunter's Village

New Methods
Shed outside Graveyard

Asylum
The outbreak at the asylum
They are dead
Credit
Continue

Eliza's Farm
The Helpful Royal Alchemist

Moulton's Farm
One day we will have our revenge

Ullock's House
The Glowing Rock

Una's House
The islands

Mahoka Farm
Keep Up

Balrum SE
Monastery
Surface
The shame of the gods
The crazy healer

Centipede Mine
Warrior's Diary

Henry's
Moonstone

Desert
Dangerous Desert

Misty Pines
Nasrus

Forgotten Plains
The Old Gods
Im losing my mind

Getting Money and Starter Town NPC Data

The Merchant interface has several tabs.
F - Food
P - Potions and their ingredients (herbs/mushrooms)
W- Weapons and Tools
A - Armor
S - Special
M - Materials

Time passes while you shop.

You dont actually sell an item for the value that is shown, Im not sure how it exactly works but I think you sell at 70% and buy at 100% that value.

Merchants restock slowly each day in both inventory and thalers.
Oddly enough, I think you need to actually spend time in their area for them to restock while they are sleeping in the bed.. or maybe they stop?
While I was playing in Balrum, merchants in Darkwood stopped restocking, bug maybe? idk.

You can buy raw meat, cook it until its baked and sell it back with a profit.

You can buy empty glasses/mugs and fill them in wine/beer barrels to sell them with a profit.
Wine barrels are light brown and Beer ones are dark brown, you can buy recipes from Jones to build them in your safehouse.

Making simple arrows gives you a small profit.(Buying iron bar and wood to make them) but if you are an archer, you gotta save those for Fire Arrows.
You can also make a profit by buying empty oil bottles and making oil using corn.

People say Eggs (Chicken Coop) is the best way to make money, I like baking Bread myself.
But if you BUY seeds in town(they are super cheap) and use them to get Eggs (by having 3 or more coops, chickens win)

You can get free eggs and manure from Osric's farm, every day some spawn inside a barrel in their fenced area.

Buying silver ore and smelting it into bars actually loses you money, so save and experiment before thinking processing materials will give you a profit. The crystals you mine with Mining L3 are not the same as the ones they sell at the store. (See crafting section)

Using a fenced wisp in your safehouse, you can fill the wisp bottle, plant pine trees, chop them, remove the stumps with the build Menu, repeat. Don't worry, there are tons of forests to deforest in the game, chop chop chop and sell to those who don't buy food but buy materials, if you like playing lumberjack.

Dont sell web/freeze traps, you might need them for difficult bosses or situations later on and wasting LPs on trapmaking is well... not recommended. If you use Fire or Shadow damage, you should get Craft Armor 4 to get damage bonuses on all your armour and jewelry.

For trainers, check out the Trainers section of this guide, its really good:
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2517074814
Just note that you wont get access to L3 or above trainers until you get to Balrum (Chapter 2).

Winnie
Location: Southeast of Grandpa's House
Buys: F
Sells: Honey Jars
Extra: Can teach you recipes

Ida
Location: West of Grandpa's
Buys: F,P
Sells: Seeds, Food, Manure, Buckets, Linen
Extra: Can teach you recipes and increase your farming skills.

Wilson
Location: Near Arlo's house, sometimes wandering about between that and Fox's.
Buys: F,P,W,A,M
Sells: Armor
Extra: Can teach you Swordsmanship skills. You can sell Food to him, buy his Armor, sell his Armor to someone who doesnt buy Food.

Osric
Location: South of Town
Buys: F,M
Sells: Food, Animals, Manure
Extra: Teaches Cooking, Farming and Strength.

Aron
Location: South of Town
Buys: W,A,M
Sells: Materials, Tools, Crafting Gems
Extra: Teaches Armour Crafting, Weapon Crafting, Mine/Smelt, Strength, Swordsmanship, Anvil Recipes. Can Repair.

Arda
Location: South of Town
Buys: F
Sells: Food and Seeds
Extra: Teaches Cooking

Selina
Location: Southwest of Town
Buys: F,S
Sells: Clothes, Linen, Hides, Oil
Extra: Teaches Armor Recipes

Jones
Location: Southwest of Town
Buys: S,M
Sells: Arrows, Torches, Traps, Woods, Tools, Oil.
Extra: Teaches Carpentry, Strength, Furniture Recipes

Brown
Location: Southwest of Town
Buys: P,A,M
Sells: Potions, Herbs, Mushrooms, Mage Armor. (Rat Potion)
Extra: Teaches Alchemy (Better to get the skill books than this), Arcane, Spells, Intelligence, Wisdom, Base Mana, Alchemy Recipes.

Fred
Location: Southeast of Town
Buys: W,M
Sells: Drinks
Extra: Teaches Warrior Code (10LP), Strength, Warrior Skills

Rhys
Location: West of Town, near Well.
Buys: W,A,S
Sells: Traps, Lockpicks and Forget Crime scrolls.
Extra: You can only trade with him after doing his quest, getting Pine Wood is easy.
Teaches Archery, Lockpicking, Traps, Dexterity, Thief Spells/Skills, Trap & Dagger Recipes.

Fox
Location: East of Town, quite a ways.
Buys: W,A,M
Sells: Arrows, Bows, Weapons, Scrolls, Potions, Animal Parts, Tools, Traps, Food
Extra: Teaches Traps, Survival, Archery, Swordsmanship, Dexterity, Hunting, Archery Skills, Bow/Arrow Recipes.

Leonard
Location: Southwest of Town, like, really Southwest (open map, he is marked)
Buys: P,S
Sells: Potions, Scrolls, Bottles, Nightmare Berries
Extra: Trains Arcane, WIS, MPx3, INT, Spells (Polymorph is great)

Barnabas
Location: Southeast of Town, like, really SE (open map, he is marked)
Buys: F,P,M
Sells: Potions, Herbs, Bottles
Extra: Great place to sell your farmed food and/or eggs, grab those pots!
Teaches Alchemy (dont, just find the books instead), INT, Alchemy recipes.

Alchemy/Cooking and Combine

You can cook by using a Cauldron and use Alchemy on its station.

Both are basically the same, the result will be the ingredients used (see below).
Alchemy uses up bottles but Food dishes dont require plates or extra materials.

You can make your own recipes and mix ingredients to get different effects, although, the things you can make is limited by your cooking skill, I think those are better than the ones you learn by buying recipes, experiment.

How it works:

First you open the cauldron and choose New Recipe.
Then you choose a base.
The base will let you know which boosts/buffs you can have in your recipe.
In the picture, the base will be carrots and you can see the list of available valid buffs I can make.
You can add a whole stack to the recipe or divide the stack (using shift) to put a single food item.
In the picture, you can see Sloe Berries, this Berries grant 4 effects, for each Berry I add, it will stack.

But notice it says Modifies Intelligence 2/3.. that means there is a limit to how much buffs I can add to the food, so when I add the fourth berry, the Intelligence boost will stay at 3 but the other effects will stack up until their own limits.

You can only have 1 food effect active at a time.
Eating a new food, will overwrite the one that's active.'

The value of the dish you prepare is usually the sum of the value of the ingredients you used, so there is not much profit to be made by cooking, just selling the ingredients will be more convenient.

I really recommend you stash away ingredients for both cooking and alchemy until you can max out the skills (when you get to Balrum map in later Chapters), because the higher your skill, the more ingredients you can use and the max buff cap is also increased. So try and use the minimum required until you get there.

Some more advice on cooking.
No cooking skill required:
You can combine items by pressing (O).
For example, press (O), then put a bucket of water and flour in there to make Dough.
Combinable items will be highlighted in green.

Dough = Water+Flour using (O)
Bread = Put Dough in Fire (Cauldron, fireplace, camping fire), careful it can get burnt!
Cooked Meat = Like Dough.

Other useful combine recipes

Most glasses/mugs/bottles are re-usable.
When I write Water its actually a Bucket of Water, Honey is actually bottle of honey, glasses/cups/bottles should be empty.

Drinks
Coffee = Coffee Cup + Coffee Bean + Water
Wine = Glass + Wine Barrel (barrels in Fred's Inn, its free)
Cider = Apple + Honey + Water + Empty Glass
Fred Beer = Mug of Beer + Ghost Mushroom + Coffee Bean
Coffee = Coffee Bean + Water + Empty Coffee Mug (Never sleep again)
Wild Yellow Cress Tea = Wild Yellow Cress + Water + Honey + Tea Cup
Rosehip Tea = Rosehip Berry + Water + Honey + Tea Cup
Land Nettle Tea = Land Nettle + Water + Honey + Tea Cup

Practical combine recipe (just press "O")
Oil = Corn + Empty Oil Glass
Torch = Wood + Linen + Oil
Splint = Wood + Linen
Bottle of Honey = Empty Honey Jar + Beehive (Need Cooking Skill)
Simple Arrow x 16 = Wood + Iron Bar (Faster than using the Anvil)
Web Trap = Spider Web + Simple Trap (Needs Traps L2)

(For Side-Quest)
Strange Liquid = Apple + Oil + Nightmare Berries + Salt

You can combine an arrow or a trap with a poison material (like an Amrita mushroom) to add poison to it, it only works if you have the archery/trap skills.
Poison = Frog, Frog Poison Sack, Snake Fang, Amrita, Larva Fang, Spider Fang
Fire = Oil, Fire Root
Ice Material = Ectoplasm, Wind Root (Trap only, need anvil for arrows)
Source: http://balconyteam.com/forums/archive/index.php?thread-6611.html

Unknown Combines
Some combinations are still unknown, as far as I could research, maybe they were never implemented, let us know if you figure them out.

Combinable: Bug Fat, Simple/Lab/Eme/Crys Bottles, Coal
Can be crafted by combining: Lard

Crafting

The skill to use the anvil to create your own recipes to create armor or weapons.
There are 4 levels to this skill, you can only learn up to level 2 in Darkwood and only your guild master can teach you level 4.

Learning L4 Craft costs 19 Learning points (4+5+5+5).
Each level you learn, will allow you to add more different ingredients to the recipe, it will also increase the effect limit you can have on an item.

I'll try to explain how it works.
Open the anvil and select Create Recipe.
Here you can choose what type of item you want, each item have different limitations, some cant have DEX or INT, etc.

Your crafting skill level determines which type of material you can work with.
It also determines which effects you can apply to your crafted item.
For example:

And also upgrades the max limit of the effect:

Note that stat requirements dont go away, they are based of material and limits, basically, the power of your item, so you wont be able to craft a powerful warrior armour for your mage without STR.

Your level will also limit how many crafting squares you can use.
L1/2/3/4 = 3/4/5/7 squares, these are different when crafting jewelry.

Using an antique hammer, wearing the patient master ring and crafting during two moons will increase your chances of a critical craft, a critical craft slightly improves the armor you make, for example, upgrading the +2 DEX bonus to a +3, its random which attribute to improve, so far, Ive noticed it only improves one attribute.

Weapons work similar to this, so I wont go into detail.

Check the item encyclopedia and compare these with the limits shown here to loot you can find around.. without wasting 19 learning points.
Stacking outgoing damage and Jewelry might be a good idea but 19 LPs.. gah.
Still, past level 8, you will have extra LPs, its either a craft skill or a dual class but you seriously dont want to spend LPs in this until you get your main class maxed, alchemy and cooking.
Just for reference, I had 26 LPs when I hit Level 10, it was this or dual class, I did get Armour Craft 4 in the end.

Limits
Amulet: 4 slots for crafting (gold material)
Armour: 5
Stats: 1
Resistance: 2%
Hit/Crit Chances: 2%
Outgoing Damage: +6

Ring: 4 slots (Moonstone bar)
Armour: 4
Stats: 2
Resistance: 2%
Hit/Crit Chances: 2%
Outgoing Damage: +6

This is a comparison of my stats without crafted armor and with crafted armor.

I have to add that my crafted armor gives me (+36 Fire damage, +34 Shadow Damage).
Since the bonus damage only triggers when you do damage of that type, Fire Arrows will be my main weapon and my shadow skill (bleeding counts as shadow damage).

Did a little testing on a skeleton.
Original Gear (Steel Arrows): 414 Crit, 228, 201, 207, 466 Crit, 225, 226, 207, 185, 380 Crit.
Crafted Gear (Fire Arrows): 786 Crit, 319, 316, 332, 323, 309, 335, 327, 722 Crit, 323
Those bonuses really help.

I suppose that my suggestion would be for you to save 20 LPs and then try it for yourself.
Yeah.. :3

Best Materials for Armour
Some personal notes, you might find better if you spend more time than me on this.
7 materials -> 1 has to be the base which determines Armour.
STR based require wood or bars, INT based Linen and DEX based leather.

2)Skull = Shadow Damage
3)Fireroot = Fire Damage + Fire Resistance
4)Raptor's Tooth = STR + Wpn Hit + Wpn Crit
5)Lizard Tongue = STR/DEX and Poison Resistance
6)Bone = Shadow Resistance
7)Ash = Arcane Resistance

Centipede Leg = DEX + Wpn Crit + Armour
Bee = DEX + Wpn Hit Chance + Fire Resistance
Troll Leather = VIT/STR/INT
Frog Poison Sack = Shadow/Fire/Poison Resistances
Ectoplasm = Frost Resistance and INT

Spellslingers
Bug Fat / Moth's Eye = Spell Hit + Spell Crit Chances
Desert Mantis = WIS/INT + Fire Res

Jewelry only
Crystal = Wpn and Spell Crit Chance + Arcane Resistance

Weapon Crafting Notes
With L4, the highest damage I could get on a Bow was 168-215, compared to Black bow (205-240).. its pathethic.

Here is the best I could craft:

If you get smelting L3, you can mine crystals and you wont get regular crystals, these are special crystals that when crafted on weapons, give your attacks special properties.
You can only use one type of special crystal on your craft.
Sun = Chance to burn the enemy.
Emerald = Chance to heal the wielder
Sapphire = Chance to Freeze Target
Crimson = Chance to Weaken Target

I reloaded and got my LPs back.

My Build

Just for Reference:
Archer
Vit:2 Str:0 Dex:3 Int:3 Wis:0
Archery, Farming, Carpentry, Hunting

In hindsight, I should have put 3 points into Str instead of Vit for gear requirements and dodge chance. It was a huge mistake putting points in VIT.
Should have gone with Vit:0 Str:3 Dex:3 Int:2 Wis:0

I also should have ignored Hunting, it wasnt that great, the extra points should have gone to raising DEX early on. Should have started with Smelting instead.

Take notice that the more of a stat you have, the more LP you will need to pay to increase it, for example: You have 4 Base DEX, it costs 3LP to train it to 5, but if you have 8 base DEX, it costs 5 LP to train it to 9, maybe get create armour L4 instead, plan accordingly.

Supposing I'll get 60LPs getting to Level 10
Supposing I'll get all 5 Books of Knowledge (+5LP)
Supposing I'll get all Bosses LP (+11LP)
[76 LP Total]

Ok, lets break it down:
Archery L4 = 15 LP
Cooking L4 = 12 LP
Alchemy L4 = 2 skillbooks + 6 LP
Mining L3 = 2 LP + Skillbook + 3LP (*Mistake getting Mining 3)
Farming L2 = Starting Skill + Skillbook
Carpentry L2 = Free + Skillbook
Lockpicking L1 = 2LP
Hunting L3 = Starting Skill + 6 LP (Should have skipped Hunting)
Craft Armour L4 = 19 LPs (This one was great for my Fire Arrow Archer)
Arcane L2 = 10 LP + SkillBook (I got this last and it didnt help much)
Total = 75LP

---Game Start!----

Starting LP = 5
HP = 1020 / MP = 280
Bought Cooking L1 (-2 LP)
Bought Pick Locks L1 (-2 LP)
Donated to Male Statue (+100HP)
Got +1 DEX from Male Statue
Got Alchemy L1 from Skill Book

Level 2: (+50HP, 7 LP, +1 DEX)
Bought Archery L2 (-5 LP)
Bought Bunch of Archer Skills from Fox (for Thaler)
Bought Smelting L1 (-2 LP) *To make iron bars for arrows
Donated to Female Statue (+100MP)

Level 3: (+50HP, 6 LP, +1 DEX)
Got Hunting L2 (-3 LP)
Got extra HP from Priest @ Kyler's Ville = +90HP
Tamed a Bear friend :3 [He stuns and lowers enemy defense]
Cheesed SE Darkwood Book of Knowledge using Speed + Larva Pots (+1 LP)
Saving LPs for Balrum Trainers

Level 4: (+50HP, 10 LP, +1 DEX)
Grabbed Book of Learning from Darkwood NE (+1 LP)
Got Oak Bow and bought Fiery Boots from Spike's House(Oak Bow), Deer Skull & +2 DEX Amulet from Wolf Cave.
Used Alchemy 2 skillbook from Necro's Tower, rushing to get to Balrum
Since I have 10+ LP, I Dual Classed, got the achievement, then reloaded.

Level 5: (+50HP, 17 LP, +1 DEX)
Saving LPs to get Archery 3 in Balrum.
Saving LPs to get Alchemy 4 and Hunting 3 too. (Spider <3)
Went to SW Darkwood into Spider Cave, got cool Web Trinket and (+1 LP)
More Main story questing.
Got all 3 runes and activated Portal to Underground city then went to Balrum.

Level 6: (+50HP, 24 LP, +1 DEX)
Cheesed Book of Knowledge in Royal Crypts (+1 LP)
Got to Erdal
Bought Hunting 3 (-3 LP) from Artie
Tamed a Mantis, he can drain mana and stun, it's fast too.
Bought Alchemy 3 (-3 LP) from Lia
Bought Alchemy 4 (-3 LP) from Lia
Bought Archery 3 (-5 LP) from Lander
Got Book of Knowledge in Erdal's school (+1 LP)
Went to Erdal's Underground and joined the Thief's Guild
Bought Archery 4 from Knox (-5 LP)
Bought Skills from everyone in camp (For Thaler)
Cheesed Carpentry 2 in SE Balrum
Got Farming 2 Book @ SW Balrum
Cheesed Book of Knowledge near Raptor Cave (+1 LP)
Went to NW Balrum
Killed Bear for Jillian (+1 LP)
Bought skills from Jillian (For Thaler)
Bought Cooking 2 (-3 LP) from Joana
Bought Cooking 3 (-3 LP) from Joana
Bought Cooking 4 (-3 LP) from Joana
Returned to Darkwood to clear out mobs/locations.

Level 7: (+50HP, 6 LP, +1 DEX)
Saving LP to get HP/MP achievements.
Finished Exploring all of Darkwood.
Killed Transformed Beetle (+1 LP)

Level 8: (+50HP, 13 LP, +1 DEX)
I now have 1800+HP, I went ahead and did Vitality achievement.
Saving LP for another level to get more achievements.
Made a save before leveling to 9 for Armour/Mana Achievos.
Killed Sleeper (+1 LP)
Killed Sapphire Watcher (+1 LP)
Killed Big Beetle from Beetle Cave (+1 LP)

Level 9: (+50HP, 22 LP, +1 DEX)
Did MP/Armour/1k dmg achievos
Bought Smelting L3 (-3 LP) (To make steel arrows, it was a mistake)
Kill Desert Crab Boss (+1 LP)
*Should have bought Armour Crafting 4 but before I decided, I leveled up
Its really better than I expected.

Level 10: (+50HP, 26 LP, +1 DEX)
Got Armor Crafting 4, just to get the extra fire and shadow damage on all my armours. (-19 LP), I also built a repair statue, a repair statue does not let you repair for free.. so it sucks.. kinda.
I use Thief teleport stone to repair and sell things @ the guild.
Killed Abomination (+1 LP)
Killed Boss Scarab (+1 LP)

Level 11: (+50HP, 15 LP, +1 DEX)
Hit L11 while exploring Misty Pines.
Bought Arcane 1 (-10 LP) from Lia
Used Arcane 2 Skill Book.
Bought Teleport-Self, Freeze, Polymorph.
Killed the Boss Moth (+1 LP)
Bought +1DEX from Gail. (-5 LP)
Killed the Architect (+1 LP)
Killed the final boss.

Never got to L12... (XP = 18558/24000)
The extra fire damage from all my crafted armor really helped, coupled with godkiller potion it was a very easy win. Even on grandmaster, only the early game was tough, once you get fire arrows, its easy street.

Interesting Things and Equipment

The following sections are my records or Journal of how I found interesting and useful things as I went in the game, they are separated by map areas. You can follow me along, although I jump around areas a lot as I try to get to Balrum through mains story, sorry if it gets confusing.

If you are looking for some specific equipment, I strongly suggest you check out this guide:
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2517074814

It has maps marked with the spots of where the items are and item data (Encyclopedia)

The bonus I can add to those in this guide are pictures of the places and how to solve the puzzles.
At first I thought of making a quest walkthrough but I realized the quests arent that complicated, if there are tricks to them, I do mention them in their respective area, so try and search for a keyword (like necromancer tower or block puzzle).

Additional Notes on Items and Exploration

In this guide, you can Ctrl-F the word Set to go to set pieces. (i.e. Rusty Armour Set)
Also to find the skill Books.

Something useful to consider is to learn to recognize the cursor change when you mouse over a button or interactive object, the cursor changes even if you are far away.


Items to keep for future quests:
Darkwoods
Starter Village
10 bees for Winnie
4 minor healing potions for Brown
10 iron ore for Aron in Fleming's Quest.
Kyler's Village
1 Black Blindweed + 1 skull + 1 Warlock Cape for Walker
20 iron ore + 10 silver ore + 4 flawless deer hides for Hugh
Other locations
5 pig ear mushrooms for Leonard (Main Quest)
1 Silver Bark for Barnabas (Main Quest)

Balrum:
Mahoka or Moth Powder for Ivo = 550XP + 4 Good Spirit
4 Good Spirits for Artie = 560XP + Some Thaler
10 Goose Berries + 20 Life Herbs for Lia = 700XP
4 Apples + 2 Bread for Raven = 650xp + Good Deed Buff
4 Beetle Glands for Roberta IF you play with Sabrina at Eric's party = 200xp
5 Ancient Linen for Isaac = 460XP and how to create armour with Ancient Linen
5 Flameberries for Joana = 600XP + around 150 Thaler
3 Silver Bark for Benn = 1000 XP + Silverbark Bow
10 Snake Fangs for Moulton = 990XP
12 Linen for Una = 700XP and Moth Robes.

For the sake of organization, I suggest you keep a chest ready with the items listed above and 2 other chests with useful situational equipment, poison/fire/frost resistance equipment, for example or equipment that raises VIT and INT (that you can wear) for the HP/MP achievements, see the Stats Achievement section for more details on what to NOT sell.

If you are a mage or an archer, you also need to save some Armour for the Untouchable achievement (See the achievement for more info), don't sell items carelessly!

One of the major complaints about the game is walking speed.
Speed potions only cost 50 Thaler and they are super useful to get around the maps.
Try them out and see if you get addicted to them, Leonard sells them.
Once you get Farming 2, you can plant and Harvest Nettles to make your own pots, never be slow again!

I dreamt about using my tamed Bear Smokey as a mount and riding around the forests.. it was a nice dream.

If you are lost on how to progress a quest, click J to bring out your Journal, its really useful.

If you are looking for an area while wandering about, zoom out using the mouse wheel, it helps, zoom in when looting and fighting.

You can get frogs from water puddles, they are hard to see. (to poison arrows/traps)

There are observations in the community that the contents of Dirt Piles might be random, so if I write down some items and you cant find them.. and there's a dirt pile there, that's why.

Its a good idea to keep a couple of weapons and armors on you in case the ones you are wearing break in the middle of battle. I always carry 2 or 3 bows just in case.

Also be mindful of how many lockpicks you have, always try and have 10 to 12 lockpicks on you for those juicy but tricky locked chests.

If an area is too hard (cuz you know, golems) You can use a Larva potion and they wont attack you, leaving you to loot the place. Combine that with a speed potion to make the best time out of your larva transformation.

When you kill a boss and have to tell someone, I think the person you brag to is your class master (Aron, Brown or Fox), so the rewards might be different depending on which master you chose.

Sometimes, its random, when you dig up a Dirt Pile, a Larva will appear, it doesnt give you any XP but it leaves normal Larva loot.

Most enemies are at the edge of the forests, not within them.

Some plants glow in the dark, but did you know some mineral ores do as well?
Rocks that have Dalantium ore in them softly glow green in the dark.

Fake walls show as empty squares on the map, instead of brown/black squares.
Your light source also penetrates through fake walls.

NW Darkwoods

You can talk to Cardew then Rhys about a ring, then steal the ring from Cardew's House.
The ring will always teleport you south of the NW Darkwoods Pillar Teleporter.
Buy lockpicking from doing Rhys quest 1 ASAP, you'll need it.

You can lockpick a chest and get a Bloody Belt from Thurza's house.
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You can rent a room from Fred for 10 Thaler and loot a Leather Vest and a Pearl from that room (making a small profit).

Near Fred's Inn, south of it, you will find a lost pig, it will follow you around.
Take the pig to Osric (the pig will stay around the pigpen entrance) and talk to Osric about it.
Rewards: 300xp+, Flawless Deer Leather, Cape of a Warlock
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Open your map, south from Brown's house (his house is marked in the SW corner of town) you will see a faded blue dot, that's a dungeon (make a save before entering), after a few fights inside in a chest you will find:

Clicking on the well by the pink crystal will make you fight with Charlie, he drops a +3DEX armour.
You can use the traps here if she is being too difficult, make sure to deal the final blow.

Noone has figured out if there is more to this old woman than what the letter suggests...I reloaded then left her alive to her madness.
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Talk to Fox about golems to get this 2H sword, you might need to talk to Dudley first.
Open the map and a blue dot to the east will show you where Fox's house is.

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South of Fox's house, in some ruins with pillars and candlesticks. [Rusty Armour Set Piece]
If you turn on all candle sticks a L4 Skeletal warlock will appear, you can run to Fox and let him take care of it. You can kill steal if you get lucky.

The Ring of Lies.. lies.. get it?
-----------
South of the ruins described above, there is a cave that leads to underground ruins.
This place is marked in your map by default if you talk to Dudley about the ruins.
[Rusty Armour Set Piece]
If you click on the blocks with white arrows, you can move them around.
You need to redirect the white sparks to destroy the crystal, then use it to hit the runed pillar/monument.
With three blocks, you can create a small wall that you can use to get to the treasure chest, although you need to be quick, there are more blocks around the ruins if you really need more of them.

-----------
South from the location above, there is a small room with lots of barrels.
In one of the barrels there are some Rusty Greaves [Rusty Armour Set Piece]
If you blow up the barrels, you will destroy the items, so loot the normal barrels first, the blow them up to enter the room and loot [Skill Book: Alchemy 1]. Some other items in the debris, click everything.
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NW from where you got the alchemy book, there is a dirt pile with this:
It gives you +500 HP (+10 VIT) but makes you bleed, this item is great for the 3000HP achievement. There is another of these dolls in Elfreda's house at Kyler's Village, their effect do not stack.
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South from where you got the Alchemy Book, inside the forest, you can grab these from a chest and a body in some old ruins: [Rusty Armour Set] [DEX Amulet]

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East from Fox's house you will find spiders and Larvas, north of that place you will find some ruins but they are locked, you will need to go to Aron to get a key and come back. This is part of a side quest, you will get good XP, you will also find Quest Item: Documents of an Historian
Mineable Crystal here.
Loot:


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East from Fox's house, you will find Dayna's house and east even more, very close to the area's border, there is a forest with spiders and this: [Rusty Armour Set]

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Southeast from Fred's Inn, you will find a teleport pillar (it glows blue) west of it, there is hollow log, inside is a Vit+1 Necklace. A green crystal can be mined SW of there.
-----------
Now that I found the Teleporter Obelisks, I went to Darkwood SE to Kyler's Village.
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Returned from Kyler's village using Cardew's ring, built teleport obelisks at safehouse. you can buy crystals from NPCs like Aron.
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South and a little west of Fred's through a forest, there will be a clearing with some Bears and stones, here you find:

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South from Leonard's House, through the forest, you will see some candelabras.
Follow them to a shrine and a skeleton, from there, keep going south and fight some enemies through a winding path until you fight a L4 Bear (Bears are slow and easy to kill with a bow)
Your reward is [Skill Book: Arcane L2] and some other goodies.

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East from the Darkwoods NW Teleporter, in the forest, you will see a square in your map.
You need to blow up a red barrel to get into these ruins and fight some ghosts.
Ghost do freeze damage just by being near you, so take note.
You can use the fireball traps to kill them if you want but you wont get XP.
[Rusty Armour Set] Loot:

In basement, after using the lever and removing the walls, in super locked chest there are 7 ancient Linen and:

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South from the ruins above, through the forest, you will find a chest in the middle of nowhere, it has Pine Armour and Shadow Hat, they are not remarkable, but hey! extra thaler.
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From there, you can go west until you exit the forest, then go south to here, some spiders are guarding the following loot:

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Before tackling the necromancer's tower, I went and looted some stuff from NE Darkwood, mainly the oak bow, deer skull and the learning book, all while stocking up on Fire Arrows and elemental traps from Fox and Gosfrid(Kyler's Village) I will need them to defeat golems after I finish with the Tower.

You wont be able to talk to Kyler (or reach him, really) until you finish the Necromancer Tower.

NW Darkwoods Cont.

Necromancer's Tower. (Quest Location)
After getting the key from Barnabas as a reward from the Silver Bark quest, we can now go in.
The amulet of minor cold protection will reduce cold damage by 3, the ghost freeze aura wont affect you if you have it on. Outside, by the south wall, there is a dirt pile with Muddy Boots.
There are tons of enemies here but you should be able to tackle them one by one, run outside if you need to.
All the rotten food you find can be fed to pigs, I guess its something.
Locked door? Eat the strange bread found in one of the kitchen's shelves for the strange key


So many candelabras.. yeah, you know the drill.Light them all up
In the final room of this floor, in a cupboard next to the alchemy station, the [Skill book, Alchemy 2] can be found.

We can now craft Crit Damage+ potions and Fire Nova potions, pretty sweet.

2nd floor: Labyrinth
Beware traps, traps everywhere and not the sexy kind.
Here's the map:

Source: https://www.reddit.com/r/balrum/comments/49u28p/necromancers_tower_level_2_maze_map_spoiler/

3 strange thaler and a Quarterstaff @ NE chest
In a body(marked as 4 in the map), there are 23 strange Thaler, 3 Ancient Linen and Boar Hide Armour. Sorry for the mess.


Once you go up, you wont be able to come back down or go to the safehouse, until the boss is dead, so prepare yourself.
Even if you missed this level boss and loot before going up, you can come back later for it.

Top of the Tower
You can use the shooting light balls to damage enemies, just make sure they move out of the way before they die so you can get the final blow and get the XP.
The floor's boss is immune to this, ofc.

There are 3 Ancient Linen in the library.
40 strange thaler, Armour Recipe(Vest), Documents of an Historian(Quest Item) in chests.

The Brooch has a long cooldown and only lasts 5 turns.
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Mouse Trap
North of the Tower, very close, there is a small sealed off room with barrels and a table, you can get in by turning into a rat with a potion, inside there is a Silver Ring (+1 Armor) and Rusty Gloves [Rusty Armour Set]

On to the show! To Leonard!
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Crystal Golem Cave
South from Barnaba's House, you will find this block puzzle, the lever resets it.
Move blocks diagonally by standing diagonally from them and pushing them.

The arrows show how to push them, go Red Arrows, Yellow, Orange, Blue, Purple.

There are crystal golems down there that are immune to physical damage.
Use critical extra damage potions to make your hits count.
Golems are immune to stuns, they can damage reflect (be careful of this) and throw stones at you to stun you, they tend to miss you if you are far away. The crystals regenerate their health, so lure them away from them.

There are 5 crystal golems on your way to the rune.
There is a crystal golem boss down here as well.

Warriors, use special melee weapons, Mages, spells, Archers Fire Arrows/Traps.

I used around 30 Fire arrows per golem, trying to use as many perfect shots while staying as far as I could. I started with 190 Fire Arrows and had around 90 after I killed the 5 golems, used a few traps too. I was able to kill the golem boss with what I had left.

You can come back later if you want, but there is an important quest item down here.
Oh right! You can use a Larva potion and they wont attack you, leaving you to loot the place.
Combine that with a speed potion to make the best time out of your larva transformation.

Chest room Loot: Treasure Map 1, 3 Ancient Linen, 8 Strange Thaler, Documents of an Historian [Quest Item], Piece of Rune [Main Story Quest Item]


If you deliver all 3 documents of a Historian to Neil, he will give you 800XP and the White Gloves of the Librarian (+1 STR, +1 INT, +4A)
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SW of the Crystal Golem Cave there are some small ruins.
Loot: Black Robe, Claymore, Rusty Helmet. [Rusty Armour Set]

From here, I went to get the last rune, a troll in Darkwood NE near Spike's House.
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Path to Balrum
After returning from the Underground city and talking to people, Leonard shows me a trapdoor in his house, this leads to Balrum, Moths can be dangerous, so save, try one, then decide.

In a campfire, you can find:
Mortal Bow (130-170 dmg, Req. 5DEX, Archery 1)
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Alright, Im back from my trip to Balrum, can craft Fire arrows, powerful potions and food.
Most important of all, I can now create Speed Potions by harvesting Land Nettles.
Im good to go. I will try and clear every monster in the area, Darkwood's 4 zones are a good choice to go for the Completionist achievement, so make sure to zip your way through forests and everything to fully "dust off" all 4 zones.
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Stone Golem Mountain
Ok, remember those pesky stone golems? Now we are powerful enough to get rid of them.
SE from Fox, it looks like a mountain in the map, there are 3 stone golems.
No major loot, [Rusty Set] Rusty Greaves, Worn Necklace, Durable Pickaxe inside a log.
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Stone Golem Quarry
SW from Barnabas House there is a mountain that borders Darkwoods NW and SW, here, there are 3 more stone golems. In this location you can find the Crimson Pants (8% Fire Res) and a Short Bow (80-100dmg), if you go south from here into Darkwoods SW, you will find the Stone Golem Cave.
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That's it! I didnt find anything more in Darkwoods NW, so I moved on to Darkwoods NE.
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Kasiornis in the comments adds:
Just to add a bit of info - NW Darkwoods, place with pillars, candlesticks and L4 Lich. The Rusty Waistguard wasn't there for me, checked all available containers around, nothing. Maybe I'm missing something somehow, I don't know. Still, got the second copy of it inside Ghost House to the south, in the barrel, not a big deal then I suppose. I've also found a second Rusty Waistguard, , I think it was from a semi-hidden chest in a SW corner of Darkwoods NW map (starting one)

NE Darkwoods

West from the Teleporter (or SE from the mountains shown in map)
Veteran Armour: Req. 4STR, +1 VIT, +3 STR, +25 Armour
You need to turn into a rat to get in there through the hole, Brown sells the potions.
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From the teleporter, go South, to the lonely tree that shows in the map, you are actually heading for a clearing guarded by 3 Giant Mantiseseses, there is a bag there and it contains: (hah! forgot to write this down)
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Go south until you reach the lake, look around, maybe a little west and you'll see an island, go west from there to see 4 candelabras,light all them up and stand in the middle to teleport.
You'll find a Mana Obelisk Recipe (Needs Carpentry L2) and this:

[Rusty Armour Set]
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Between Barnabas House and the north tip of the lake, there is an abandoned camp with a ghost, there you'll find an Ash Amulet (+1 DEX) and a Torn Leather Belt (+1 INT; 3INT req.), NW from there in a Log, Rusty Dagger (155-195dmg, 3DEX req.)
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Now go east and south along the lake and in a little while, off the east coast of the lake you should see a small room and you can see a chest in there, shoot the lever to gain access and get Nettle Ring (+1 DEX)
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Walking east from the room, you will reach a burned down house.
Inside the house, above the cupboard that has a +1VIT ring, you'll find The Book of Knowledge (+1 LP)

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Go back to the teleporter and go north.
Northwest of the Teleported there is a puzzle: U,D,D,U

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North of the place above, in a locked chest guarded by spiders:

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Continue north and west until you reach Fleta's House.
Fleta's quest might get bugged if you dont give Barnabas the Silver Bark first, then wait a day (Hour 1 of next day), so dont talk to Barnabas about Fleta until he studies the silver bark and tells you it can cure any disease, you can find silver bark south of Fleta's house, it looks like this:

Reward: 500XP and Fleta will sell nightmare berries, wisp bottle and some gems.

*After studying the bark, Barnabas will give you the Necromancer's Tower key and an Amulet that nullifies ghost's freeze aura. [Main Story Quest]
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SE of Fleta's house you will find Fleming. You can scam him out of Thalers OR (which is a better option) tell him you'll do it for free and get way, way more XP, go to Aron, fix the armor and you'll get 250XP, go back to Fleming and get an additional 600XP.
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South of where Fleming is, there's a cave with lots of pine trees and a silver tree to the NW which you can harvest for Silver Bark and close to that tree, this ring in a chest [+WIS]:

You can tell Dayna about this place and get 105 XP. She lives SE from Fox's house.
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Going NE from Fleta's you'll find Spike's House.
He sells nice armor and buy everything, including Food, so if you have extra food to sell, you could buy his armor with Food, then sell that armor at a loss to people who dont buy food.
He sells the boots for the mage's [Fiery Set].
In the password locked check, you can find an Oak Bow.
He is a simple man, with simple passwords, talk to him and you might figure it out if not; The password is: Posy

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South of Spike's, you can find the Ghost Deer.
This fight will test your patience, the deer will flee and you need to go after it.
Speed Potions will help you in the chase.

Putting the skull in your quickbar and right clicking on it, will act like a torch, pretty cool.
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Back to Spike's then going east, you will find the Wolf Cave, inside, prepare for a long series of fights against.. you guessed it, wolves, tons! I advise you to send out your pet to start the fight and manage your threat so you dont get attacked, if your pet falls below 50%, start taking on the threat so it targets you instead of your pet. (Use this tactic against tough enemies)

As you explore, you will find a room with fireballs, there is no easy way to avoid them but if you drink a speed potion, you might be fast enough to time it just right and get past them, in the room you can loot:


At the end of the cave., you will fight a wolf boss, he doesnt have double turns so you can shoot, run back, shoot, etc. After you kill it, you will be rewarded with:

Bragging to Fox about your kill will net you 50XP and some materials.
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Anyway, on the NE corner of the map there are a bunch of spiders, some strange bushes (if you want to check for snake fangs) and dirt piles.. oh and a heavy sword, nothing too special.
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Moving south along the east side of the map we find two graveyards, the first one doesnt have anything remarkable as far as I know but the one SE of it, with all the wooden crosses and skeletons has this:

North of there, you will see a white bag, the note says to get naked to go through the portal.. hm.. yeah! lets do it! You'll get teleported elsewhere, its actually a sealed off room southwest of the wood cross graveyard with two nice fellas guarding the place. There is a chest here:

You find a rune [Main Story Quest Item] and the letter of an historian [Quest Item], so.. good job you!

You can try and escape the room or just go back to your safehouse and teleport somewhere else using a pillar from there. I used the room's portal, took my time and killed the guards, they didnt move, so I just shot them from far away, nothing remarkable as loot but things sell and I got some XP.
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From there go east and a little south to find Lord Benedict's Tomb, going south from there into the forest you will find another chest in the middle of nowhere with some nice gloves.


You can continue looting this area, but I personally went back to tackle the rest of Darkwoods NW at this point.
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Sick Troll
Returning from Crystal Cave, while hunting the 3 runes, I head southwest of Spike's House to kill the troll.

I could have tried getting this earlier but I wanted to get a level up before trying for the troll, because he is Level 5. To get to him, you need to enter the woods from the southside.

The troll can stun you from afar, has a troll's roar ability giving him lots of crit, armor and dodge and its super tough, I just shoot and ran, always staying at least 6 spaces away from him in case he stuns me. Speed potions and poison arrows helped.

Chest loot: Piece of rune [Main Story Quest Item], NW Teleport Rune.

You can go back to Spike and tell him you killed his troll, he gives you 1000 XP and Thief's Gloves.


Oh yeah, by the way, you can cure the troll for an extra 100 XP.
You need to put a healing potion into his treasure chest, use a Larva potion, an invisibility potion or the distract skill to sneak past him and do it.
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Back to the Ruins we go, I want to upgrade my skills in Balrum ASAP.
Keep in mind that once you are in the underground city, you cant get out until you talk to the Necromancers but you can come back later.

NE Darkwood (Cont.)

Cleared Darkwood NW, NE is next.
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Evil Obelisks Ruins
From the teleporter, go east until you hit the forest and continue southeast along its border until you reach a Cave, the cave is actually marked in your map as a faint blue dot. This is also called the Witches cave, even though you dont fight witches here.
Save before going in.

Once you enter the cave, dont go near the obelisks, they will drain your health.
You will notice a faint red glow on the floor to check their range.
Carefully move around and down the unlit path until you reach the end, there is a fake wall there.
[Treasure Map 4]

There is a secret here:
At the entrance and near the end, there are illusion walls to the south that lead to a passage that goes across the room, its guarded by a single skeleton which is easy to kill.
In the passage, you can find an Amulet [+2 STR].
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Invisible Walls
Going south from the ruins above (or SE from the teleporter, past Burned farm), you will see a chest out in the open, as it turns out, its surrounded by an invisible wall. The entrance to that place is SE, SW to a Dirt Pile that contains Muddy Boots (+2 DEX), inside the coffins you can find Silver Bark, the recipe to build a Healing Obelisk (needs Carpentry 2), Rusty Ring [+1 STR].

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Going east from the Invisible walls and into the woods, you will find a destroyed barrel with 2 speed potions and further east a box with a Dirty Leather Cap (+1 DEX), there are 2 L4 Larvas around but they wont attack unless you attack them first.
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Levers Cave
Heading west from the Invisible Walls towards the lake, you will see a Cave, it has 2 main things: Lots of Levers, a Cave Crawler (Level 5) and a Ghost.
The crawlers drop Strange Thalers, Treasure Map (Part 7) is found in some shelves.

Save before moving the levers, seriously.
Hint # 1: They are lying to you, clones and fakers everywhere.
Hint # 2: You only need to pull one lever, all the rest are there to confuse you.
Answer: Pull the most southeastern lever, in the corner floor.

Chest Loot: 35 Strange Thaler, 9 Ancient Linen and

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SE Darkwoods

Kyler's Village: First Visit
Teleport to the area and go NE.
You might see a book in the middle of nowhere, it grants a permanent +1 INT to your Base but you need EXACTLY 5 INT as Base.

In the village, you can loot Gosfrid's chest (make sure he isnt looking) to get a Raptor Ring (Melee Crits heal you a bit), Gosfrid is great to repair your stuff and as a general store, he buys everything.

Do some quests around if you want, they are pretty easy.
You wont be able to get past the guard into Kyle's mansion until you clear the Necromancer's Tower and Abandoned Village.

• Hugh will give you a magic sword if you complete his quest, its pretty neat, dont destroy the crystal until he is done.
  
• Venna will ask you to destroy the crystal in her house, dont do it until you finish Hugh's quest.
  
• Walker will ask you for some items, including a Warlock's cape, save before giving this to him.
  
• Father Hein will give you up to +90HP if you buy all his blessings.
  
• Bingham wants some help, save and try the different choices, kinda fun.
  
• Elfreda has a chest in her house with a Rotten Voodoo Doll (+10 temporal VIT)
  
• Mary asks for an animal statue, its going to be tricky to get it, ignore it for now.
  
• A worker will ask you to talk to Gosfrid to loosen up the workload, save before talking to Gos.
  
• Buck is doing some shady business, make sure he isnt looking and loot the shelf right to his dining table and get a special potion. Drink it, you will remark you need to report to Kyler, you wont be able to do that until the guard lets you pass, you can talk to Buck and make a deal.. if you want.

Walker's Reward:


If you are a Warrior, go to Clay's House to get Swordplay L2.
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Sacrifice/Patience Cave
North of the SE Teleporter, you can find a cave, inside, a puzzle.
Save as you enter, you might mess it up and get the bad loot.
Solution: Do as he says, wait for 10 seconds without moving.
Good Chest Loot:
Bloody Iron Boots (+2 STR, +1 DEX, +1% Hit, +7A. Req. 5STR)
Spider Silk Leggings (+2 INT, +2 DEX, +7A. Req. 5INT)
Ring of Sacrifice (+1 WIS, +1 INT, +1% Spell Crit)

Extra Secret: There is a fake wall in the NE that lets you get to those coffins and a chest.​
Loot:
Iron Leggings (+5A, Req. 3STR)
Ritual Breastplate (+2 STR, +1 DEX, +18A. Req. 2STR)
Tablet of Sacrifice (+5 INT, +5 WIS) for 20 turns; 75 TCD
Pendant of the Witch (+2 WIS, +1 INT)
Bark Waistguard (+1 VIT, +1 DEX, +5A. Req. 4STR)
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The Troll and the Book
From the SE teleporter, use a Speed Potion and run aaaall the way down, following the red line in the picture below, enemies wont be able to get to you since you are super fast.

After you see a Cave with a skeleton outside, drink a Potion of Transform into Larva (Barnabas sells them). you can quickly loot the corpse outside the cave's entrance too.

As a Larva, enemies wont target you, you can open chests but don try opening Dirt Piles or mine/lumber or else you'll make noise.

[Book of Knowledge (+1 LP)]
I'll teleport to Safehouse and go back to NW Darkwood to continue exploring.
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Kyler's Village: Second Visit
Got the quest from the Guard to get his ring, went and got it and now Im back.
Let's check out Kyler's pad.

At Neil's house, I asked for work, he sent me to recover documents.. well.. what do you know! I've already have some of those! Sweet, sweet XP.

Talking to Kyler I got even more XP and advanced some quests.
Got Jorick's location noted in the map, now we can talk to him.

Kyler's treasury is a joke.. a bad joke that broke lots of my lockpicks but the loot was good.


Before you go to SW Darkwood to meet Jorick., check the rest of things you can find in Darkwood SE to see if any other items might be useful to you.
The Crying skull is nice and some rings.
----------------
Back from Balrum and fully explored all other Darkwood areas.
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The Spectral Arena
West of the Cave of Sacrifice you will see a pillar, going NW past the pillar will give you a surprise.
If your pet got stuck outside, Dismiss it then Recall it.
Inside, there is a light ball puzzle similar to the one in Dudley's Ruins.
Solution: Push the blocks to direct the ball to hit the spectral wall and escape.

I got the Tomb Raider achievement at this point, this must have been a "challenging" puzzle.

There is no loot here, just the puzzle trap.
----------------
Mother Dearest
West of the Cave of Sacrifice you will notice a Pillar, continue west until you see another one.
South of the 2nd Pillar, a lot of ticks can be found, around that area a Boss roams.

You can try circling the area trying to lure out Tick by Tick, slowly reducing their numbers.
If you have AoE attacks/spells, you might want to throw caution to the wind and attack all ticks at once. (Potions of Fire, Stun, Freeze, all are AoE).

All normal ticks are L1.
Diseased Ticks L2.
Boss L4 drops Wildwood Armour (+2 DEX, +1 INT, +22A. Req, 3STR)
----------------
Grassy Chest
In the NW-most area of the map, south of the lake you will find swamp golems, south of where they are there is a chest thats closed off with grass.
Use teleport-self next to it, if you dont have the spell, you can save, use teleport potions and if you miss 3 times, reload. I spent 10 minutes doing this until I finally got it.

Your reward:

2 Preparation Scrolls
2 Brain Purge Scrolls
1 Forget Crime Scrolls
Things you can buy easily... wow.. thanks game!

There is a rotten voodoo doll in the dirt pile.
Yeah, if you dont have teleport-self, skip this one.

If you look north from the swamp where golems are and look into the lake, you will see an island, we cant go there yet but we will.
-------------
Ruined Castle
Heading East and a little south from the SE teleporter will brings you to an old castle.
Outside the castle, to the north, in a Dirt Pile there is a Rusty Helmet. [Rusty Armour Set]
On the east side, in a broken bookshelf: 15 strange Thaler and a Ring of Lies.
On of the walking enemies drop some Rusty Greaves [Rusty Armour Set]

On the southside of the castle you will find a table surrounded by candles.
This table has the Robe of Lies.. which.. well lies and the [Darkwood Northeast Teleporter Rune].

There are secrets to these ruins and the letter you find in the white bag holds the clue to one of them.

The letter says to put a skull on the table, there is a skull on a broken shelf by the west wall you can use. An enemy will appear, he is L5 and attacks like an skeletal warlock but since he is human, he can bleed and poison.

He drops 200 Thaler, some skulls and Priest Robes (-1 STR, +1 WIS, +2 INT, +13A; Req. 5INT)

There is a chest in a very small room, a lever to the left of it requires an item.
You observe the lever is rusty an it's stuck.
Put 1 Oil into the lever container, then activate the lever.
The chest contains: 22 Strange Thaler, Ring of the River (+1 INT, +1 WIS) and Dirty Boots (+1 STR, +5A)

Going to the SE corner of the castle, there is a chest surrounded by traps.
It contains: Heavy Sword, Acolyte's Pants (+1 INT, +3A, Req. 3INT) and a Suspicious Book (+5A).
Some interesting effect if you right click the book, dont panic, just wait.
I have a suspicion (get it?) that someone can grab this book off you, but Im not sure, I will carry it around just in case.
-------------
Strength Booster Contraption
SW of the castle there is a table, you can only use it if you have EXACTLY 5 STR.
You get +1 Base STR as a reward.

SE Darkwoods (Cont.)

Cave of Larvae
East of the Castle you will find a Cave, this place is actually marked on your map as a Blue Dot.
Enemies around here are L3, so this is a kinda noob friendly area, I suppose.

Boss drops: Crying Skull (Fear effect on selected enemy for 2 turns when activated); 50 TCD
Cave Loot: One chest to the north, the other in boss room.

-------------
Stone Golem Cave
South of the old castle, you'll reach some mountains and around there, a cave.
Oooh.. another Golem Cave! You will need to mine some rocks to get there.

If you havent been to Balrum yet in order to get your class skills maxed, you might want to skip this place until then but if you are ready! Let's see what's inside.

Oh boy. Remember that Crystals heal these golems, so make sure to lure them away from them.
Cave Crawlers drop Strange Thaler, they can be tamed but they suck.

At the southeast end of the cave, there is a door with an animal statue infront of it.
When you get close to it, you will progress on Mary's quest @ Kyler's Village, if your character doesnt say the statue is perfect for Edgar, try exiting the cave and re-entering, this should trigger when you are 2 spaces away from the statue. Reward: 500XP and Thaler.

Inside the "house" you'll find:
Animal Statue recipe
Darkwood Southwest Teleport Rune
8 Ancient Linen
Mantis Chitin Boots (+2%Crit, +7A; Req. 5DEX)
Commander's Armour (+2VIT,+3STR,+2DEX,+28A; Req. 6STR)

If you continue west until the end, you'll find "The Mountain" he is L4 and ofc, he is a Boss Stone Golem. I already killed a Crystal Golem Boss, so this par for the course.

The boss drops Heart of the Mountain (Heals you) 75 TCD.
You can brag to your master for a small amount of XP and items.

In a bag in the boss room:
Iron Shield
Wild Bow Recipe (Create Weapon 3 req.)
Ironsoul Headpiece (+2VIT,+1DEX,+1%Dodge,+10A; Req. 6STR)
--------------
Clay's House
SW from the golem cave, mining through the rock, you will get to a locked house.
Unlock the door but make a hard save here, talking to him will bring consequences.
Make sure you have completed Doyle's quest in SW Balrum before talking to Clay.

If you dont have the option to talk to Clay about his parents, first talk to Spike, then to Kyler, then to Father Hein.

Talk to Clay and if you decide to tell him about his father, go to Doyle's.
If you like this heartwarming outcome, well.. good for you! If not, reload and do the other option.

Inside Clay's house is the [Skill Book: Swordplay 2].
Clay will attack you if you steal it, but you can use a Forget Crime scroll to calm him down.
Using Vanish skill or an Invisibility potion before taking the book will also work.
---------
Logging about
South and east from Clay's house, in a log, among some spiders:
The Butcher (2H sword: 177-245 dmg; Req. 5STR)

NE from that place, in another log: Longbow (110-150dmg;Req. 4DEX, Archery 1)

East from that log and going into the forest, in the middle of nowhere, in a chest:
Dark Iron Breastplate (+3STR,+8%Fire Res, +29A; Req. 5STR)
---------
To the West of the Strength Booster, there are two Swamp Golems, there is a rock there that, when activated, gives you Silver Bark.
---------
Bear Cave
Inside the Forest west of the mountains, there is a skeleton wandering outside a cave.
I found 1 piece of Troll leather at the Dirt Pile outside.
There is also a corpse right outside the cave's entrance and it has:


Inside the cave you will fight several L4 bears and at the end, a L4 Boss, ofc.
But before you get to the Boss, at the SE you'll see a coffin that has:
Cold Ring (+10% Frost Res, +4A)
Fine Leggings (+1VIT,+1STR,+15A;Req. 4STR)
Thief's Dagger Recipe

Boss drops:
Claw (2H, 145-215dmg; Req. 5STR)
Black Bear Gloves (+1VIT,+1STR,+1DEX, +4A; Req.7DEX)

After defeating the boss, you can brag to your master.
---------
Revenge of the Forest Troll
Time to slay a L7 Troll, north of the Bear Cave, I already got the chest's contents earlier, as a Larva.
Killing the troll gives you: Troll Leather and some Thaler.. yeah, I was expecting this.
Nice XP though.
---------
Sealed Grave
Going south then west from the Bear Cave you'll see a walled off room.
Use a rat transform potion to get in there.
Sharp Dagger
Warrior's Plate Gloves
---------
Fire Cave
West and a little south from the Sealed Grave you will see a ghost outside a cave, that's our next destination.

Its a puzzle cave.
Hint: The cave smells of Ash and Coal and there is a fireplace with ash in it.
Solution: Put at least 10 pieces of wood in the fireplace

Loot: Treasure Map 6, some Thaler.
Unknown Book (Quest Item for Harry @ Kyler's)
Blood Ring (+8% Fire Res,+4 Phys Dmg,+1A)
Thick Boar Skin Shoes (+1VIT,+3A)
Boar Skin Belt (+1VIT,+1STR,+1%Parry,+4A; Req. 5DEX)
---------
Reverse Psychology or how I got to the Lake's SE Island
Go back to Kyler's Village and talk to Harry about the Unknown Book you found.
He will tell you not to read it and give you 900XP.

Of course, you're gonna read it.

Loot:
Thaler, a Diamond.. some decoration recipe..an Iron Helmet.. here we go!
Knight's Armour (+1VIT,+3STR,+2DEX,+26A; Req. 5STR) Not bad.

Clicking the Arch will teleport you close to a Swamp with some swamp golems, although you probably killed them already, so it might now be empty, like my soul.
---------
That's it! Darkwood is cleared! @ Day 54. (Coffee is my lover)
Time to clean up Balrum! i'll start with Balrum NE.
---------

SW Darkwoods

Alright, I finally started this area after starting the Kyler's Village Quest for the Guard.
----------
From teleporter, go NE until you see fireballs, a ghost is guarding the place.
You can use the fireballs to weaken ghost and then finish him off.
Inside these ruins:

----------
Glowing Obelisks Cave
Back to the teleporter, go directly west and find a cave.
Inside: 33 Strange Thaler (Enemy Drop)

3 obelisks: Red, Green, Blue.
One statue and one letter with hints.
What is gold without its shine?
Puzzle Answer:
Yellow. That's Red and Green Folks.
Push the Red and Green Pillars close to the statue, so a yellow light shines on it, the room with the coffin will open.
Rewards in Coffin: 3 Ancient Linen, Treasure Map 5 and

----------
Go southwest from the cave and you'll find a chest surrounded by traps out in the open.
Approach the chest from the east.
Inside:

----------
Spider Cave
Go south to the faded blue dot on your map, this.. is the Spider Cave.
Lots of nightmare berries here, pick em up, you might need them in the endgame.
The Boss here is Level 5 and will give you 1 LP when it dies.

Big Spidey likes to stun you for six turns and eat you while youre at it.
You can buy stun immunity poisons if you are having troubles.
He is slow and the area is big, using a Speed Potion, you can shoot, run, shoot.

Spidey was guarding some stairs, go up and try your new trinket on an old skelly there.
Chest Room loot: 12 Strange Thaler

You can brag to Fox about your kill for 50XP, 30 Fire and 30 Poison Arrows.
----------
West of the Spider Cave there is a closed off space, you cant get in there from here, we will go there later, go south and a little bit west for now.
----------
You are looking for an abandoned tent, open its inventory to find a Sharp Dagger (185-214 dmg)
----------
Abandoned village
Southwest from the tent you will finally get to the place.
Searching the houses you can loot:

To get into the room with the coffin, use a transform to rat potion and go through the small hole.

The Spider Queen is actually easier than the spider cave boss, she is immune to stun though.
You can use a red barrel nearby to damage her.
She drops normal spider stuff, a Pine Armour and the Guard's Ring [Quest Item]
----------
Arches Ruins
Returning from Kyler's Village and on your way from the teleporter to Jorick's place, you might notice a faded blue dot on your map, head there but you will see a strange area with lots of skeletons and arches.

Here, in a table, there's a Long Bow which is better than the Oak Bow.. so I thought Oak Bow was best in Darkwoods, I was wrong. Noone knows what this place hides.. so move on to the faded blue dot, which is actually a cave.
----------
I see you Cave
Fun Puzzle
Like the statue says, he can se you, so hide!
Click everywhere, you will figure it out.
Solution: Push some of the pillars to surround the statue.
Rewards: [Fiery Set]

----------
Northeast of the cave there is a Smart book, you need INT 5 to use.
*Didnt know there were 2 INT books, is there a way to use both?
Go south of the cave instead to find some small ruins, you'll find some minor goodies.
Go east from there and you'll see some ruins with crystals and a ghost.. and a trapdoor.. hmm!
----------
Excavation
Outside:
Sharp Dagger(185-214 dmg) and Knightly Shovel in chest.
Lots of torches and materials to craft torches in destroyed barrel (NE)
The Arch/Portal here is part of the main story, dont worry about it now.

Inside:
36 Strange Thaler in a Table near a white bag, NE area of the map.
11 Strange Thaler in a cupboard near logs.
In General's room: Bandit's Blade Recipe and

Remember that most of the time, you can only have 1 trinket effect active.
The Fragment is still nice.
----------
Finally got to Jorick's and advanced the story, off to get the remaining runes since we already have one. Let's grab the one from the Crystal Golem Caves, its north of here, in Darkwood NW, so jump to that section if you are following this as a walkthrough.
----------
Underground City
When you get close to the Excavation's above ground Arch/portal, you will be teleported.
Welcome to Chapter 2!

You wont be able to use your Safehouse rune inside but you can go back out using the portal.
Your will be able to use the safehouse rune once you talk to the necromancers.
So its a good idea to check your stack of arrows or potions before going in.
Lots of things to explore and the area is huge, bring a speed potion or three.

Cerapids are immune to poison, they can throw fireballs, range stun, teleport and are really fast...oh yeah, they dont drop any loot. The XP is nice though. I counted 6 Cerapids down here.

Area Boss: Ancient One (Level 6)
Found to the NE of the area, this one is as tough as the troll, he is slow though.
You might want to loot the town before tackling him.
He can drain your mana, has a ranged attack and heal itself. He is not too tough.

Loot:
Letter (Fred's Beer is really strong) [Quest item] NW of town, past the cemetery.
Silver Bark@house closest to the NE Pallisades.
89 strange Thaler @ 2 chest house
Farmer's Broom.. its a joke right? (south of town)


Anyway, after talking to the dudes, they give you 1 year time limit.
Nobody knows if this 365 days thing will result in a bad ending, I couldnt find anyone mentioning the game ends after 1 year. I wont worry about it.. still.. Im never sleeping again. Coffee <3
Im at day 35, so this time limit is like 10 times what Ive played so far, its doable.. yeah..yeah.
Back to Starter town, talk to some people and to Balrum we go!
---------
Golem Cave
After clearing Dakwoods NW and NE, I came here and my first stop was the Golem cave because I hate golems so much. The Golem Cave is at the border of the area, in the middle but to the NE, its shown as a mountain in the map.
Loot:
Silver Bark from a rock in the first pile as you enter.
Treasure Map Part 3, Ancient Linen x 4 in the chest.

If you brag to Fox about your kill you get: 50XP and 5 poison traps. wow! thanks Fox!
---------
Abandoned House
Go west from the cave until the edge of the forest, then follow the edge south, then west, then north, or cut through the forest to the small rectangle like icon.

There are some spirits here but they dont give XP or loot if you kill them, so.. why bother.

Nothing much is here and you can skip this place if you want.
In chest: Rusty Dagger (155-105 dmg, Req. 3DEX)
---------
Sealed Off Grave
South from the Abandoned House or NW from Glowing Obelisks Cave, you will see some Pillars going to the forest, follow them NW (more pillars in the forest, hard to see) until you see an Arch and a Chest, before touching the Arch, open the chest to get the Victory Amulet (+2 STR, +1 DEX, +1 Hit)

SW from the Arch, not that far away, there is another chest with 800+ Thaler.
Return to the Arch and touch it.

Touch the Arch in the room to exit.

SW Darkwoods (Cont.)

Miller's Place
NW of the Sealed Off Grave, through the woods (You can see a square in the map), you will find Fort Miller. When you talk to him, he will ask you to steal a book from Rhys, well... since Im a looter/hoarder by nature, I already have the book! :3

Reward: Unblock Training/Shop, 700 XP, Raptor Leather Boots (+1 DEX, +8% Fire Res,+8A, Req. 4DEX)

House Loot:

I dont know what the lever does, if I find out, I'll update this section.
---------
Forest Troll
SE from the teleporter, you will see a path into the forest and a lovely L8 Troll at the end.
Chest loot: a Wood Shield and Troll Boots (+2 STR, -1 DEX, +7A; Req. 5STR)
In human corpse: Antler of the Berserker (+10 STR for 5 turns)
And guess what you find if you kill the troll?
A troll leather.. which can be bought easily
---------
Frog Cave
Opening the map, you can see a Blue Dot on a small mountain to the SE.
From the teleporter, head there and go in.

The Frog Amulet also makes you friendly towards all Frogs.

If you Brag to Fox, he will give you:
---------
Swamps
SE from the Frog Cave, you will arrive at a swamp.
3 Swamp Golems live here, they are spread out, so you can take them out 1 by 1.
In a log, on the SE side, Tablet of the Swamp (+5 STR, +5 DEX) for 20 turns; TCD 50.
---------
Doyle's House
SW from the swamp is Doyle's House.
He will give you a quest, if you already did it, dont panic.
Go back to the cave and you will automatically be rewarded 500XP and you can go back to Doyle and report.

If you decide to steal from Doyle he has a Shadow Hat and Wolf Skin Leggings in a chest.

Reporting to Doyle will award you with some Coffee.. thanks? You can also train with him Survival 3 and the skill Opportunity.. so nothing fancy and he also will start selling Fire Arrows.
---------
When you get all 8 Treasure Maps and combine them, a blue dot will appear in your darkwoods map, on the NW section of Darkwoods SW.
Its a surprise, a disappointing surprise.
---------
That's it! That's everything I could find, on to the last one: Darkwood SE

NE Balrum

Alright! Welcome to Balrum!
There are great weapons in an underground room in Erdal, we should go grab them.
--------
NE Guard Fort
There is a Guard Station nearby, to the NE, I found nothing interesting.
There is a lever here, out of four, that you need to pull within a day to remove the walls at Walled-Off Chest.
--------
Go west from the Guard station to look for a tree log and inside:

--------
Royal Crypts
SE from the log, there are the crypts, enter to explore but dont loot or attack anything.
They will let you pass, on the other side of the area, there is a trapdoor.

Once here, go straight south until you see the White Guardian, talk to him if you want.
In a bookcase, on the right side of the room, the Book of Knowledge resides.



Go down the new trapdoor and loot the Necromancer's Remains (Main Quest Item), 17 Ancient Linen and

Talk to the guardian for 200XP.

You can loot and kill the skeletons if you want.
I personally got the Chill bow from here, its great.
I will re-visit the Crypts later to loot the rest, you can search for Royal Crypts Redux in the next section.
--------
Head SW, a peaceful beetle is guarding another log that has:
It's a shame there is no Gladiator Set.. would have been cool.
--------
Malvin's Church
SW from there, you will reach a Church, you can steal the Church Ornament [Quest Item] when Malvin is somewhere else.

The Father will give you a quest, when done, you'll get 1000xp.

There are 5 levers here, to open the way to the basement just pull down the middle lever, the basement will lead to Sabrina's House.

Go to Sabrina, talk to her.
In chest: Helmet of Judgement (+1VIT,+3STR,+1INT,+1%Hit,+1%Crit,+13A;Req. 9STR)
Since you are here, go SW of her house and activate the zone's teleporter to learn how to build Balrum's Obelisk Teleporters in my safehouse.

Go back to the Church to get 500XP from Malvin.

Area Loot:


If Garett is here, you can do his quest for 500XP and the secret to the switches.
--------
Erdal's Outskirts
West from the Church you will find burnt down houses and people.
I ignored the houses with enemies, I'll come back later.
Some good gear from Xander's house and the house west of it.
Going southeast from there, Etta has lots of money and buys almost everything, she repairs too!

Erdal
WARNING: Spoilers ahead, if you want to explore and quest around the city by yourself, just skip this entire section.
In hindsight, you should do all these XP quests after exploring all of Darkwood, since killing lower level enemies will give you less XP and you might not want to level up so quick but do grab the good gear though.

• Moving southward circling the lake, you can find Perry, he sells weapons and armor, he has a nice sword you can steal from his chest.
  
• West of Perry's house, you can find some nice DEX boots in the burnt down building and an invisible ghost.. don't know what's up with him.
  
• West of that house is Ivo's, you can do a quest for him, keep 4 Good Spirit bottles he gives you.
  
• SE from Ivo's: Children's Book (Quest Item) for Lona (700 XP)
  
• Artie is SE from Ivo, give him 4 Good spirit bottles and get 560XP and Thaler.
  
• DEX boots in burnt house NW of Ivo's
  
• West of that house, there is a trapdoor among some bushes, we'll go there later. (Erdal underground)
  
• Mick's house is next, he wants 40 wood for 560 XP.
  
• Roberta wants a pet, once caught, be close to her house and right click on the crate in your Quest inventory to release it, you will get 800 xp and Fine Broadsword.
  
• Lia wants 10xGoose berries +20xLife Herbs = 700 XP
  
• Gloves of Healing in Lia's House (High INT req.)
  
• SE from Lia's House, a shelf has a Circle Shaped Rune (dont lose it)
  
• West of Lia's house, a destroyed home has a trapdoor, go down and meet Paton, he wants 1000 thaler and he will give you a key and 400xp.
  
• Using the key, open the door here and meet Lander, grab everything here, he wont mind (See Loot picture below).
  
• Outside, north of Emma's house, in a destroyed house you can find Moth Robes (High INT req.)
  
• Going North, there's the school, Lona is here with some quests, you have the book, fix the 2 walls (the walls will look translucent) and get 570XP and in a bookcase.. a Book of Knowledge! (+1 LP)
  
• Raven also gives you a quest, 2 bread and 4 apples for 650 XP, you can repeat this quest and will get the Good Deed buff each time.
  
• Going North to the Smithy (Hard and Cory), you can find and grab the Patient Master Ring (+15% Crit Craft)
  
• SW you will find Eric, he takes you away, we will talk to him last.
  
• Nearby, Adia has a quest for you, we will complete it later.
  
• Ancient Linen in the dirt pile, near the house west of Eric's. You can tame a Rat here for Roberta's Quest.
  
• South of there, another destroyed house with a Guitar for Zayin [Quest Item]
  
• East of there, in Ketty's House there is a Stone WaistGuard (High STR req.), grab her quest.
  
• Worrel is west, talk to him then destroy his outhouse, talk to Ketty and get 460 XP.
  
• South of Ketty's, in a destroyed box in a destroyed house you find Lona's Love Letter, return it to her to get 580XP.
  
• Bishop's at his farm east of town wants 10 pigs, he will give you 650 Thaler and 750 XP

Eric's Party
Talk to Eric at night(past midnight, I think), he will take you to a parteeeh! Talking to a lady might get you lucky and teleported somewhere else, so loot the place before you talk to anyone, you can get the Sound Eater Ring here and Belt of Sand (High DEX req.)
If you leave with Sabrina, you'll get a quest that needs 4 Beetle Glands that will give you 200 XP.
If you leave with Aida, you'll get the amulet Jewels of the Lady (+1 VIT,DEX,WIS) and a note.
If you leave with Eric.. nothing happens, well it does.. but, um.. you dont get XP or equipment.

Landen's Room Loot:


Wow.. and that's it! There was a lot to do here.
---------
Bardan's Farm
Might as well complete Adia's Quest.
Northwest of Town, there's his farm, do his quest.
There are lots of Dirt Piles around the farm.
Notable Loot:


Garett will now be in the Church, you can talk to him for another quest.
---------
Erdal Underground
There is a trapdoor between Mick's and Ivo's houses to the north.
Down here, you can find a person in the east passage, he looks like a rock to me, I tried to mine him but then my character noticed he was alive!
He tells me: Mix these: A..... S... N............... O...
Obviously, this is a puzzle.
Go back to your safehouse and if you have all the ingredients mentioned above, you can make Strange Liquid. If you cant figure it out, check the Combine Section of this guide.
Reward: 1000XP

Loot found underground:


Continue exploring south and you'll reach a very peculiar place.
Talk to them and you'll get Summon Morven stone.

Use the stone, talk to Morven.
Use the stone again, talk to Morven.
If you do Morven's quest, you will enter the Thief's guild.
Use the stone again, give him the urn we "accidentally" stole when we first arrived in Balrum.
You will receive a teleport stone to the Thief's Guild and 1000XP.

Since Im an Archer, I accepted joining the Guild, so I teleported there afterwards. (Balrum SE)
If you are a warrior or a mage, check out Darkness and Poison Caves before leaving.

NE Balrum (Cont.)

NW Guard Fort
I found an Iron shield in the chest and a lever.
This is another lever, out of four, that you need to pull down to open some walls in Balrum SW.
---------
Ghost Chest Cave
Head North and a little east from Bardan's Farm until you see a Cave.
West of the cave, in a log, you will find [Skill Book: Mining/Smelting 2]
Near the cave, in a chest:

Save here and then go into the Cave, you will see a ghostly chest, it contains:


You can use a Larva potion before opening the ghost chest or a speed potion to gtfo after opening it. After killing the 4 swordsmen, the chest will disappear and a skeletal warlock will appear.

This Boss is a tougher version of the Skeleton Warlocks you have fought before, use your speed to run away, he will teleport to you wasting his Mana, when you get frozen and he is in your face, try to stun/blind/teleport him, once his mana is super low, start fighting him in earnest.

Warlock Boss (Level 7) drops 103 Strange Thaler, a Ghost ring and this:

The Ghost Ring, when worn, will make all Ghost friendly, they wont attack you unless you attack first. (Try removing your gear to see a cool ghosty effect on you)
--------
Go east until you see some Bears, NE from them there is an abandoned camp with the following loot:

Tricky, Sneaky, with that hefty blade, game, well done.
--------
Before returning to Darkwood to explore everything there, lets go to Balrum SW to get Farming 2 and a Book of Knowledge.
--------
The Castle
Well, Im finally back from completing Darkwood, the Castle with the moat is my first destination.

You can go off to the right of the bridge to explore the outer walls from, well, outside.
Eventually, you will find The Gardener, you can talk to him if you want, but the real prize is in one of his bookshelves. There is nothing else beyond this point, better get back to the bridge.

Most of the guards are very bad at their jobs.

--------
Ulger's Cave
North of the Castle you will find a "mountain" with some stone golems roaming outside.
In this area, there is a cave with a man named Ulger inside.

If you have visited Erdal and met Harad previously and talked to him, you will receive a quest.
Save before telling Cory where the new smithy is, you might not like it.
--------
Centipede Campfire
East of the Church, past some Centipedes is an abandoned campfire.
Inside you'll find Ironsoul Boots (+1VIT, +2STR, +1%Parry, +8A; Req. 6STR)
and in a pot nearby Fire Block Ring (Attacks enemy with fire on block)
in a bag Greatstaff (90-170dmg, 2H, +1INT; Req. 4INT)
--------
Royal Crypts Redux
Time for some Tomb Raiding!
Going back to the first floor of the Crypts you can kill the guarding skeletons and loot them coffins.

To get to the middle of the area, there is a fake wall in the North Crypt.

Down the 2F, you can also find a way to get to all the crypts, you can fight some skeletons too.

There is a fake wall on the south side of the SE room corridor.
There is another fake wall on the SW room, in the SW corner.
On the right side, I found 25 Ancient Linens.
On the left side, 11 Ancient Linen, Robes of the Unforgiving & Ironsoul Breastplate.

--------
Zayin's House
Going south from the crypts through the forests, you will eventually find a tiny house.
You can also get here by going east from Bishop's farm.

This is where the musician lives, he will give you a quest to find a guitar.
The guitar is in an abandoned house in Erdal (you probably already have it)
Reward: 480 XP and Tantaluz' Guitar (+1 DEX for 20 turns) 80 TCD.

There is an Unmarked dagger in his locked chest, nothing remarkable.
--------
SE Guard Fort
Another lever to open the walled-off chest in SW Balrum.
In SW weapon rack: Letter Opener (Dagger, 190-225dmg, +1DEX; Req. 4DEX)
In chest: Stone Buckler (+17%DmgReductiononBlock, -1%Dodge, -1%Parry, +13A; Req. 5STR)

The exit to Old Pastures is southeast of the fort.
--------
Darkness Cave
South of Bishop's Farm, there is a cave where no light works.
Are you afraid of the dark? Your torches do not work in here.
Save before going in and them fumble your way around, you'll bump into the walls.
After a little exploring, you'll get out and the place lights up.
From the entrance, go W until you bump and cant bump no more, then S, then W for a bit, then N. (W is up and left)

--------
Poisonous Cave
West of the Darkness Cave or S from Artie's house, another tricky cave can be found.
Save before going in.
No easy way to do it.

Speed Potion + Poison Resistance and go! South (down and left), loot and safehouse!
Quickly drink HP pots in case you're still poisoned.
Might have missed something, I took everything really quickly.

--------
Forest Camp
If you go south from Lia and Roberta's Houses, into the forest, you will find the missing two women, save, then talk to Zelma to get 350 XP. Go back to Tina and relay the news and get 500 XP.

This left me feeling all weird. Moving on.
--------
Abandoned Camp SW
West of the Forest Camp, you will reach a campfire and a nearby log, there's lots of rats here.
They wont attack you unless you attack first.

--------
SW Guard Fort
Another lever. Scalpel in a weapon rack and a Light Sword in the locked chest, nothing special.
--------
Ishwael's Farm
Nothing here.
NW of the farm, if you go north along the map's border you will find a log with a Battlestaff (2h, 80-150dmg, +1WIS, +1INT; Req. 3INT)

SW Balrum

Isaac's Linen Farm
Alright, from the place where the teleporter leaves you, go south to the farm.
Isaac teaches you how to work with Ancient Linen which is needed to make Bags of Holding.
You need the Skill Create Armour L4.. though. He does give you 460XP for your trouble.

Laborer's Shoes and Hexer's Shoes (High INT req.) in chest.
--------
Trapped Cave
Head SW from the farm and you will see some Matisseses guarding a Cave, you can sneak into the cave or kill the mantisii.

How it works: There are real traps and fake traps. You can deactivate them all or just shoot them to destroy them. Its not that complicated. Check the marks on the floor to see the most deadly traps.

--------
Because I didnt want to get anymore XP in Balrum, I transformed into a Larva and drank a Speed potion, Went SE from the cave, directly to get the Farm 2 book.
On the way, in a destroyed barrel, you can get Stone Waistguard.
Keep going south with the Forest (and some larvas) to your right until you get to the SW Balrum Teleporter, click on it to learn the Recipe.
Go east from there and you'll see a Dirt pile and a broken barrel, in the barrel there is [Skill Book: Farming 2].

Still in Larva form, go south and a little east until you see Lew's House, from there go directly south to see Raptors and a cave, the [Book of Knowledge] is inside a log near the cave entrance.

Take note that when I did this, I thought enemy kill XP was modified by your level, its not.
A L1 Larva will give the same XP whether you are Level 1 or 10.
Before going back, check out the loot at Raptor Cave, its tough but the gear is worth it.
-------
Lew's House
I ran to Lew's house with 3 raptors chasing me and I closed the door.
In Balrum, Raptors CANT open doors, you know :3
Talking to Lew, he lets you know he can refine Dalantium ore for you.
Nothing interesting here, so moving on.
Do I really need Carpentry 2? hmm.. nah.. back to Darkwood! NE first.

From here you can decide to stay in Balrum and read on or follow me back to Darkwood, in case you are wondering, for the [Main Story] you need to go to Balrum NE to the Royal Crypt then join a Guild.
-------
The Rat Cave
West of the Teleporter, there is a cave.
You guessed it, lots of rats, but they wont attack you unless you attack first.

To the NE, in a room, there is a boss -> Transformed Beetle L6 gives:
[+1 LPL] *Awesome
The First Twin Ring
(When both twin rings equipped, 33% chance of using 50% mana when missing with a spell)
The ring sounds like crap, you dont want to ever miss, haha!

In the boss room, in a bag, you can also find the Philosopher's Stone.
(Turns an 2 iron ores into a gold bar); 80 TCD
and in a destroyed box:
Belt of the Novice (+1VIT,+1WIS,+1INT,+3A; Req. 7INT)
-------
Mage's Guild
NW of the teleporter, going in you will face a few monsters and puzzles.
If you dont plan to join the mage guild, you can just get out after killing the cave crawler.
Use fire on the obelisk (fire arrows, fire ball)
Open your map to navigate the labyrinth.

Talk to Lee and follow the questline to join the guild.
If you want to contribute about the details on joining the mage's guild, please leave the info in the comments and I'll add it here.
-------
Walled-off Chest (Guard Chest)
Going NE from teleporter or SE from teleporting here from Balrum's obelisks, you will reach a walled-off chest.
If you pulled down all four levers in guard forts in Balrum NE, this wall should be open past midnight.

-------
Elest Terr Camp
North of the Linen Farm, you can find her camp.
In the campfire, there are Mantis Gloves (+2VIT, +1STR, +1DEX,+7A; Req. 8STR)
Warning: Do not talk to her until you have met Lander in the underground Casino.
-------
Baubles
West of the farm, before reaching some "mountains", in a pot, you will find:
Heartbeat ring (When HP<50%, Minor HP Regeneration)
NW of that position, you can find Thick Bark Shield in a log.
If you go NW and into the woods, you can find Street Fighter's Vega, nice easter egg.
Give him a mask found in Balrum NW and in return you'll get nothing?
The Misty Pines exit is on the NW edge.
South of the "mountains", near the invisible wall that the crystal golems are guarding, in a destroyed barrel: Crystal Gloves (+2VIT, +1STR, +1DEX, +1%Block, +8A; Req. 8STR)
-------
The Doppelganger Arena
In the NW area of the map, you'll find some ruins.
Go down the trapdoor and make a hard save, pull the lever for a surprise.
This is part of a quest for Torric @ SE Balrum.
-------
Dead Troll Camp
Going south and through the forest from the Arena, you will find an abandoned camp.
You can find Dead Troll [Quest item] and Splint Mail Leggings (+1VIT, +2STR, +2DEX, +1%Dodge, +17A; Req. 8STR)
Take the corpse to Rolf's @ NW Balrum.
-------
Trapped Chest
Going SW from the camp above, you will see a chest surrounded by traps and invisible walls.
High Blade (Dagger: 228-266dmg, +1VIT, +2DEX, +1%Hit;Req. 7DEX)
Knight's Shield (20% Phys Reduction;+1STR,-2%Dodge,-2%Parry,+3%Block,+19A;Req.6STR)
-------
Undead Farm West
West of the Rat Cave, there is another cave that leads to an area with fenced off monsters and, at the end, a chest. Man, look at all that XP just vanish.. its so sad...

Anyway, there is also a fake wall here, by the Cave Crawler.
A bag has a good shield and if you explore the outside, a locked chest has a fire block ring.

-------
Walled-in Chest
SW from the cave above, turn into a rat to get in there.
I can just imagine a rat using lockpicks, cute.
Ring of Thorns is incredible for Crit builds.

-------
Destroyed Fort
NW from the chest, you will find some ruins with Arches, lots of enemies and traps around.
Most of the stuff you find is old but a chest in the only room around has 50 strange thaler and the Hellforge Hammer (215-255dmg; +1STR, +5% Fire Res; Req. 6STR)
-------
The Witcher
South of the Fort, through a patch of forest, you can find Rubendt of Kavitah.
In the tent: Maple Bow, 57 Strange Thaler and
Wolf Slayer (244-290dmg, +2STR,+1DEX,+1%Crit;Req. 7STR)
In a box nearby: Stone Greaves (+1VIT,+2STR,+1DEX,+1%Block,+19A;Req.8STR)
-------
Path to Forgotten Plains
You can find the way to the SW of the Area
-------
Raptor Cave
Between Rubendt's camp and the Warrior's Camp, you can find this cave.
Lots of annoying raptors (duh), and a raptor boss at the end.
Sapphire Watcher L8
On kill, he gives you 1 Learning Point (+1LP) and great loot.

In the chest nearby:

-------
Warrior's Guild
South from the Teleporter, you will find a fort with lots of soldiers inside.
If you want to join the Warrior's Guild, this is the place to go.
You can actually remove all the tents if their inventories are empty.
I found a bunch of gear here, too many I was too lazy to list it.
The gear isnt that exceptional but its not bad.
-------
North of Lew's House, in a log in the middle of the cut down forest, some Moth Gloves.
-------
Undead Farm East
South of Lew's House, around the Forest, we find a Cave, its been guarded by Raptors.
Inside, there is a fenced off area with a lot of undead sabretooths and a through.
Two chests in a sealed room, this is a puzzle.
Hint: Do some farm chores
Solution: Put some fresh meat in the through.
Fake walls in the north side will lead to a chest.

NW Balrum

Head west from where the teleporter left you until you see a sealed off chest, notice the nearby red barrel? Blow it up and the chest will be free! 100 Strange Thaler and some so-so items.
--------
Joana's Fortress
From there, go west a bit, then north until you see some Pallisades.
She has a quest, gives XP for 5 flameberries.
Judgement Leggings in locked chest (High STR req.)

I learned Cooking 4 here, west of Joana's, by the border with Desert, you can find:
Shoes of the Sands (+2STR,+2DEX,+1%Dodge,+1%Parry,+1%Hit,+8A;Req.8DEX)
--------
Invisible Trader
Use a Balrum teleporter again to go to NW Balrum, from where the teleporter leaves you, head SouthEast, past a mountain (or pile of rocks) and you'll see a trapdoor guarded by a lizard.

In the rubble, outside, you can find: Heavy Bow, Legion Helmet, Hexer Shoes.

Going into the trapdoor will lead you to a basement, in here, find the invisible person walking around using the splashes they make in the water.

I didnt find anything else here, the dude has tons of thaler, so I sold almost everything extra I had to him. He gives you 1000 regular thalers for 100 strange ones. Im not sure if there is any other use for Strange Thalers but since I have more than 50k regular ones, I'll keep my strange ones for now.
--------
Hunters Village
I came here to get Jilian's Skills, if you are another class, I recommend you go and grab L4 of whatever your main class is. Use Larva+Speed Potions to move around if the battles are getting too tough.

Save, Talk to Jilian (dont piss her off), then Diego to learn about the bear.

Verne talks about a ghost lady to the east, keep this in mind for later.

Diego's Chests: Materials, 560 Thaler, Heavy Bow (130-166 dmg, -1 STR, +1 DEX, req. 5DEX&ArcheryL1)
Verne's House: Bandit Shoes (+1 STR, +2 DEX, +1%Dodge, +7 Armour, req. 7DEX)
Jilian's House: Ancient Linenx4, Maple Bow (140-180dmg, +1DEX, req. 6DEX, Archery 1)
Dirt pile east of Jillian's: Wolf Skin Leggings (+2 DEX; +1% Hit; +7A; req. 5DEX)
--------
Thilda's House
Directly west of the hunter's village by the lake there is an abandoned house, nothing important here, a magical seed, an ironwood bow... The graveyard is weird, because if Thilda wrote that, who buried Thilda? Maybe she had the gravestone ready to go and just asked someone to do the final rites. Al enemies here are friendly, so you can ignore them if you want.
--------
Northwest Teleporter
West of the Hunter's Village, on the South side of the lake, there is the teleporter, interact with it to learn the recipe to make the obelisk back in the safehouse.
--------
Giant Paw
Going west, you'll see "mountains" with stone golems, going around them south then west, you will see the Beetle Cave (We will come back later), past the cave to the west, in a clearing, there are 2 bears and our objective: Giant Paw.

You can lure out the 3 small bears, but you only need to kill the Level 8 Giant Paw to get Jilian's favor, +1 LP and Archery 4 along with new skills. If you have high enough hunting, you can cheese removing the 3 small bears with taming traps (and get no XP) but they shouldnt be too difficult to kill.

Big Paw is just a big bear, as slow as the rest, if you use range attacks and a speed potion, you should be able to just shoot and run away. He can stun you at a distance but its like a stone golem stun. Keep 5 or 6 spaces away and you'll be fine.

Once you defeat Big Paw, you'll automatically get +1LP, return to Jilian.
--------
Hunters Village (Second Visit)
Save before talking to Jilian, you must convince her to cheat and take the fur.
Reward: 500XP and access to her as a trainer.

If you talk to her once more and convince her NOT to go through it, you'll get an additional 1200XP and can still learn from her, talking to Diego after that, will let you learn and buy from Diego.
--------
With all the cool new skills in my repertoire, Im ready to return to the Darkwoods to clean up everything else. Starting with Darkwood NW.
--------
Back for a 2nd visit, time to clean up the area.
--------
Lizard Cave
North of the Hunter's Village, through the forest, you will find Lizards outside a Cave, its gonna be a fight! The cave is pretty big and there are a lot of lizards and dead ends.
If you go south in the first fork, you will reach an abandoned camp, here, in a cupboard:

Eventually, you will face the lizard boss Sleeper. He gives you 1 Learning Point on kill (+1 LP)

In a chest nearby:
'
--------
Rolf's House
East of the Lizard Cave you can find Rolf.
He wonder if, by happenstance, you carry a Dead Troll Carcass with you, at all times.
Well, yes Sir! I certainly do!
Reward: 650 XP and Painting Recipe.
You can find the carcass in SW Balrum.
--------
If you travel to the NE sector of this area, you'll find 3 interesting places.
--------
Red Barrel Basement
Beyond a trapdoor in the ground, lies this puzzle.
A barrel explosion does 4000+ damage, fun, huh?
The trick here is to explode 1 barrel without making a chain reaction and killing you, so observe carefully.
Did I check each surviving barrel for stuff? no...maybe?
Anyway, if a barrel would have something on it, it would turn my cursor green! All barrels I moused over didnt so.. yeah? If you find something else, let me know.

--------
Graveyard
Outside, you can find some minor loot inside the shed, Lizard Leather Pants are decent.
Inside, most dirt piles are empty.. except one.
In there you'll find 2 Lester's Runes [Main Story Quest Item] and

--------
Mental Asylum
Interesting place, didnt find much.
Table in Rigg's room: Flawless Razor (Dagger, 220-254dmg, +1STR,+2DEX,+1%Hit;Req. 7DEX)
Burned down east wing: Prisoner's Pants (+1WIS,+2INT,+1%Dodge,+1%Spell Hit,+5A;Req. 8INT)
--------
Beetle Cave
West from the Teleporter, past a "mountain", you can find this cave.
In a bag to the NE: 58 Strange Thaler and
Amicus Rune (+1VIT for you and pet for 20 turns) 80TCD.

Boss Beetle on kill: Learning Point (+1LP)


In locked chest:

---------
South Clearing
South of the teleporter, past a small stretch of forest, you will enter a big clearing, in this zone: Gravesword, Moth Gloves, Predator Armor, Flawless Razor

NW Balrum (Cont.)

SE Sector
South of the Hunter's Village, NW of the hill icon, there is a burnt down house, in here:
Recurve Bow, [Balrum Northwest Teleport] and
Scimitar (Sword, 253-286dmg, +1STR,+2DEX+1%Dodge,+1%Parry,+1%Hit;Req. 7DEX)
You will also find the Triangle Shaped Rune in an urn, looks like dust, pick it up and dont lose it.
---------
Countdown Cave
SE from that house, there is a trapdoor in the middle of some rocks.
Dont panic. The lever resets the countdown. I trust you'll figure it out.
In chest: 48 Strange Thaler

---------
Eliza's Farm
Lots of crops to harvest if you want it, but at this point in the game, its just a waste of time in my opinion, although corn can be made into oil for fire arrows.. hmm... nah, I like Eliza. I didnt even rob her 3 chests.. nothing exceptional in there anyway.

She has a quest for you, a wisp. Use a taming trap on one of them and return to Eliza
The wisp will be in your Quest inventory, get near a field on her farm to release it and get 400XP.
Eliza's Reward: 650XP and Maple Bow
You can now access Moulton's Quest.
--------
Strange Statue
East of the farm, in the SE corner of this sector, there is a statue.
You can choose the option ... it gives to read a riddle.
Hint: We humans have other words we go by.
Answer: Baby
Reward: Heartbeat ring (When HP<50%, Minor HP Regeneration)
--------
Moulton's Farm
NE from Eliza's there is another farm.
I couldnt find any interesting items here.
He has a quest but you can only do his quest if you helped Eliza.
He has a plan, you have a decision.
Give him 10 snake fangs and in return you'll get 990XP, it is unclear what else happens in the future if you complete the quest.
--------
If you go along the east border to the north, you will find Raptors guarding an abandoned camp.
In here you'll find a Birch Bow and Bandit's Belt.
--------
Lake Mountains
West of the teleporter, in the "mountains" there is a special Crimson Crystal (Crafting material) in a box.
--------
Ullok's House
Going to the SW shore of the lake, there is a man called Ullok, he has a quest for you.
Ullok also trains STR up to 3 times.
There is a note in his house, I think its talking about Dalantium Ore, you can find some in a dirt pile west of Una's House.
He gives you a quest to slay a beast, this monster will only spawn after you accept the quest.
You can find it at the other side of the lake, SW of the "hill" that shows on the map.
Beast drops Firm Sword and 100XP.
Ullrok will give you a special ring and 880XP.
--------
Island Lake
Using Ullok's ring, you will be teleported here.
You can get a Silver Bark from here and:

--------
Una's House
A little further up north, you will find Una and she has another quest for you.
12 linen for 700XP and Moth Robes.
There is a Hefty Blade in a barrel and a bunch of potions in the house, nothing special.
--------
The Mask
West of Una's House, through the woods, you will arrive at a clearing with bones, here, there is a mask. Give this mask to Vega in Balrum SW to get:
--------
Mahoka Farm
In the SW sector, you can find Dane's farm, his quest involves delivering some Mahoka to the Asylum, talk to Puby and get 400XP, go back and receive: 600XP and some Mahoka.
Lots of chests but nothing remarkable, an Unmarked Dagger.

SE Balrum

Thief's Camp (1st Visit)
Teleporting to SE Balrum, I talk to the people in the small village, buy all the cool skills for my Archer, talk to Gail about the test.

From Gail's chest I got Unmarked Dagger (211-243 dmg, +1 STR, +1 DEX, +1 Hit, Req. 6 DEX) and more goodies (I used my new skill Vanish to make myself invisible, then looted the chest infront of her), Muddy Shoes from a Dirt Pile south of Daralis' House.

Since I joined the Thief's Guild, Ill go ahead and do the test, if you are playing something else, just ignore this part, although Im pretty sure you can still go grab that dagger.
----------
Thief's Test Ruins
Opening the map and using a Speed Potion to ignore everything else, I get to the Ruins.

If you havent joined the Thief's Guild, this place will look like an area with invisible walls and Undead just standing around in there.

The entrance is on the SW corner and your goal is on the NW corner.
The Undead are level 8 here and Im level 6.. so.. sneaky sneaky, Larva/Invisibility I get freaky.
The only things I found without killing the Undead were the Dagger [Quest item] and a Maple Bow (140-180 dmg; +1 DEX; Req. 6DEX, Archery 1)
----------
The Crimson Tree
Before my Larva potion expires, I run North to find a Crimson Tree with lots of Wisps around it, from there, go west until you find a log where [Skill Book: Carpentry 2] can be found.

Back to the Tree, if you talk to it, all the red bushes that previously hurt you if you bump into them, will not hurt you anymore.

SW from the tree, very close by, its a very peculiar flower. Save before picking it up.

I wonder if some NPC out there has something to say to you while you are under the effect of the rose. I would be fine with it if it wasn't for all the grunting. :/
After the 5 minutes, the effect disappears and the flower was consumed so.. maybe save this effect for a very tough battle.
----------
Magic Fires Basement
Between Benn's House and the Crimson Tree, you can find a trapdoor, it might be a little to the west, its guarded by some mantis.
Its a puzzle!
Hint: You need to have both fires lit at the same time.
Solution: Make your pet Stay at one fire and you go stand near the other one.

There is another chest out there, not worth it.
---------
Benn and Jack
Going north and a little east you will find a house where Benn and Jack live, I stopped here because Benn can make you a Bow using 3 silver barks, which I have.
He tells me to come back tomorrow (Next Hour 1)
Reward: 1000 XP and Silverbark bow (138-180 dmg, +1 DEX, +1 WIS Req. 6DEX, Archery 1)
*On hit, small chance of healing the wielder.

In a Dirt Pile out front: 1xAncient Linen + Veteran Armour (+1 VIT, +3 STR, +25 A, Req. 4STR)
---------
Thief's Camp (2nd Visit)
From here, I teleport back to the Thief's Guild to continue the Main Story.
With everything done here, I'm ready to go to Balrum NW and talk to Joana and Jilian and grab the Lester Runes.
----------
Thief's Camp (3rd Visit)
Completing Darkwood, I deliver the runes, I wait a day and got the Mage's library Teleport Rune, I wont do this just yet, I want to clear everything else in the game first, starting with Balrum NE.
----------
The Monastery
Teleporting from another obelisk will put you north of the Monastery, which is in the SW sector.
I couldnt find anything special, a couple of battlestaves, I suppose.
Raptor Leather Gloves in a log by the south wall, outside.
----------
Thingies
West of the Monastery, guarded by some lizards:
Wildwood Leggings and Lizard Leather Gloves.
NW from there, in a chest: Rapier, Faithful Staff.
----------
Monastery Cave
NE from the Monastery, you'll find a cave.
Easy peasy.

----------
Ayla's House
SE from the Crimson Tree, inside the forest, you can find a house.
Ayla asks you to kill her brother Ron at the Mage's Guild or steal his research.
He can be found at the East border of Forgotten Plains.
Reward: 1000XP and Unmarked Dagger
----------
Centipede Mine
Go to the "mountain" to the northwest in your map, unlike other "hills" make of stone rocks, this one is made of dirt hills, one of them has an entrance. This mine actually connects to Erdal underground (hence the laughter of children), nothing much here except:
Immolator of Palverz (+1VIT,+10A;Req.5STR) It deals fire damage to close enemies.
----------
North of the Coal Mine, you will find the [Balrum Southwest Teleport] in a bag.
----------
Vernon's Inn
In the NW corner of this area, there is an Inn.
Torric is a trainer that can train your STR 4 times, bring him wine and get 200XP.
If you have fought and bested your doppelganger in Balrum SW, talk to him about it and get 800xp.
I couldnt find anything else except the rectangle shaped rune in a table near Torric.
----------
SW from the Inn, in a log: Panic Ring (+7% dodge while low health)
----------
Pillar Rune Puzzle
South from the mine, and a little east, you'll eventually come to the Teleporter, touch it to learn the recipe, nearby you'll notice a room and some pillars. This is a puzzle!
It should be pretty straightforward, let me know in the comments if its not.

----------
Weekend at Henry's
West of the teleporter, in the "mountains", we can reach Hentry's house.
If you talk to him and accept to help, you will receive:
Ancient Golem Slayer (200-262dmg, 2h;Req. 6STR) Can hurt Golems.
The quest is to slay the Golem boss at the cave to the west.
The note here says that if you mine while there are Two Moons, you get Moonstone Ore.
The reward of slaying the golem boss is 800XP.
----------
Golem Lair
Oh boy! Another Golem Cave, how wonderful!
There are a lot of red barrels down here, use them to your advantage but be careful, you wont get XP if you kill them with them.

Remember that your cursor turns green if there is an item in a box, it'll help you loot all boxes.

In a chest you can find a shield:
Skull Buckler (20%PhysDmgRed, -2%Dodge, -2%Parry,+20A;Req.7STR)

Boss: Old Rock L6 (We have killed tougher)
Drops:
Stone Essence [Quest Item]
Heart of the Mountain (Yeah, you can have 2 of them now, works like a heal potion but in trinket)
Fine BroadSword (225-260dmg, +1STR,+1DEX,+1%Crit;Req.6DEX)
----------
Statue Riddle
South of the Teleporter you will find a statue with a riddle.
Hint: It knows something's fishy
Answer: Nose
Reward: Everlasting Ring (Reduces item wear)
Im not sure if two everlasting rings stack.

Mage's Guild Library

[Main Story]
Alright, now that we explored all of Balrum, let's continue the main story.
Once you enter the library, you will get 5000XP! Nice!

To the north, there is a staff in a shelf and to the south, the info we are looking for.

Old Pastures

Level 8+ Enemies wander here, lots of bushes and dirt piles.
Oddly enough, I only found a single Strange Bush.
There is nothing exceptional here, probably just an area to level up in case you are struggling in Balrum.
-------------
Moving Pillars Cave
If you sweep the area from the NW corner then west to east and north to south, you eventually will find a foggy area with frogs and a cave nearby. NW of the cave entrance, in a pot:
Periapt of the Forgotten (+2STR,+2INT)
Inside the cave, there's a surprise and this puzzle is easy.
There are 3 levers, you cant just pull any lever, it must be in order.

-------------
Lizard Ranch
East of the cave, you will find this place.
In a through: Silence Ring (Silence cooldowns are reduced by 35%) so you can use Silence more often on enemies.
In a pot inside the ranch, on the west side:
Judgement Waistguard (+1VIT,+1STR,+1%WpnHit,+1%WpnCrit,+8A;Req. 8STR)
-------------
Barrels!
SW of the Pillar cave, there are some barrels and a bag.
In the bag: Headpiece of the Principate (+1DEX,+3INT,+1%SplHit,+1%SplCrit,+5A;Req. 9INT)
-------------
Ruined Lab
This place is very close to the SW corner of the map.
Didnt find much here, just a Stone Greataxe (2h, 250-350dmg,+1VIT,+2STR,-1%wpnHit;Req.10STR)

Misty Pines and Forgotten Plains

Misty Pines

SW from NW Balrum or NW from SW Balrum, you can access the area called Misty Pines.
Enemies here are L10+
This place is a nightmare for Archers, trees in the way everywhere.

I'll start at the SE corner then sweep east to west, south to north.
There are a bunch of dirt piles, really hard to see, I wont list their loot here since its likely, its random for each run.
-------------
Forest Barrel
On the SW side of the map, but a little north, a centipede is guarding a barrel with:
Belt of Discipline (+1VIT, +1WIS, +1INT, +1%SplHit, +3A; Req. 7INT)
-------------
The Moonlight Butterfly
NW of the SE entrance, in an abandoned House, you can find this L10 Boss.
In a bag: 88 Strange Thaler.
After defeat you'll get a learning point (+1LP).
Area loot:

-------------
Beetle Chest
By the west border, you'll find a lone chest in a clearing, it has:
Chicken Feather Hat (+1WIS,+2INT,+1%Splcrit,+5A;Req. 8INT)
-------------
Ancient Anvil
East of the chest above, in a clearing, there is a chest and an anvil.
Anything you forge in this anvil will get a +25% Crit craft bonus.

-------------
That's it, although there were so many trees, I might have missed something.
-------------

Forgotten Plains

As I entered this area, I got the Explorer achievement, so I suppose this is my 80th map.
I explored all of the desert and croc island before I came here.
By now I think I killed and explored 90% of the game.
Anyway, the entrance to this place is SW of Balrum SW.
Enemies here have levels all over the place, some are L6, others L12.
-------------
Obelisk Chest
Not sure if all entrances take you to the same place, but I went West instead of South from Balrum SW and just a little SW from where I got in, there was a chest, it had: Mage's Guild Coin [Quest Item], you can take this as a souvenir if you arent planning in joining that guild.
This place is actually close to the NW corner of the map.
-------------
Abandoned campfire
Travelling south by the west border, there's a campfire and inside:
Silent Dagger (240-288dmg, +1VIT,+1STR,+2DEX,+1%Dodge,+2%WpnHit,+2%WpnCrit;Req. 9DEX)
-------------
The Architect
In the SW Corner, you will find this L11 Boss.
He drops a ton of loot, an achievement and gives you a learning point (+1 LP)
[Wanderer Set][Griffin Set][Demon Set]
The following is from both the boss and a coffin nearby.

-------------
Necromancer's Remains
You can find this [Main Quest Item] NE from the SW corner, its inside a invisible wall room but super easy to get into. A chest nearby has:
Bone Buckler (+21%PhysDmgRed, +1STR,-2%Dodge/Parry, +5%Shadow Res, +22A;Req. 8STR)
Since this was my last skull to get, I got 5000XP and went into Chapter 5!
-------------
Silver Bark
An odd silver dead tree, SE from the place above.
A tree inside the Architect area and another one north of it, along the west border.
Another silver tree, NW of Ronius' and another north of there along the east border.
Another one west of the NE corner.
-------------
Lonely Pot in the dead lands
South of the rocky area with all the um.. rocks, you'll find a pot with an amulet:
Chain of Times (+2STR, +1A)
-------------
Open Graves
In the SE corner of the map, you can find 100 Strange Thaler and

-------------
Ronius
By the east border, close to the SE corner, you can find his house.
He is part of a quest from Ayla in SE Balrum.
You can steal his research from his cupboard.
He has a quest for you, you can find Murray close to the west border, north of the Architect, he doesnt spawn until you get this quest.
Reward: 670XP and Talisman of the Mad God (+2INT,+5A)
Not sure if you can kill him somehow by choosing to not return Murray.
-------------

The Desert and Crocodiles

The entrance to this area is NW of Balrum NW.
This area is huge, speed potions are highly recommended.
No maps here and the area is as huge as a Balrum whole area.
Its pretty empty but you can find good things here and there, check it out.
You can only exit the area if there is a signpost nearby, there are more desert areas ahead.
Its hard to tell you where to go without a map, so I trust you just explore around, if you havent found one of the locations I mentioned, well, now you know there is more to see.
-------------
Corpse in the Bushes
The Sword of Mists (217-250dmg;Req. 6STR)
Pretty sure it has a special power but since I cant use it.. someone try it out, put it in the comments, and Ill update this section.
-------------
Abandoned Campfire

-------------
Abandoned Campfire - Beetle Version
Solaire Shield (21% Dmg Red, +1STR,+1INT,-2%Dodge,-2%Parry,+24A,+5%Fire Res;Req. 8STR)
Spider Oasis

-------------
Mantis House

-------------
Sleeping Beetle Ruins
West and a little south from Spider Oasis.
15 beetles make this basement their lair, if you got AOE, wake em up and use your powers.
They are slow but durable, easy fight.

Once you open the chest, a L11 boss appears!
He doesnt drop any loot but gives a Learning point! [+1 LP] and an achievement.
Chest Loot: [Best 2H in the game]

Secret: There is a fake wall, check your map!
[Demon Set]


King Kadelfek reports:
In the Sleeping Beetle Ruins, opening the chest sacrifices all small beetles and summons the boss. The more beetles sacrificed, the more health the boss have. His health goes down from around 6000 HP to around 4000 HP (if I remember well) if you kill small beetles before summoning him.
-------------
Orran's Place
This is in the NW corner of this area.
Orran can take you to Crocodile Islands.
Inside his chest: Melting Sand Ring (+20 Fire Damage)
The bonus damage is added to any Fire damage you do.
So if you attack with Steel arrows, it wont work, but use Fire arrows, yeah.
-------------
Shear L10
Shear is a Boss that is located west of Orran's house.
It's slow and easy to beat if you can avoid its stuns, dont run that much, it has a strong ranged attack. When defeated, it gives you 1 Learning Point (+1LP) and the following loot: 29 strange thaler and

[Wanderer Set]
-------------
Raptor's Bushes
Travelling south of Orran's, you'll find a lone bag around some dead bushes, it has:
Ripper (Dagger; 250-277dmg, +2STR,+2DEX,+1%Dodge,+2%Hit,+1%Crit; Req. 8DEX)
-------------
Ancient Catacombs
South of the place above, you'll find a ruined house, it has a chest and a trapdoor.
When you find rotten human meat, you know its bad juju place.
In the chest: Necklace of the Oasis (+1INT,+1WIS)
Downstairs, its a pretty big map with lots of skeletons.
Jeez, mobs here are L11+, what did I stumble on?

Wish I had like.. explosive arrows... or maybe explosive.. potions? hehe ^^
I admit this place is very tough, maybe you should come back later?

But look at this loot, most of it is in coffins or chests, you can cheese-larva all these stuff out of here! [Griffin Set], [Wanderer Set]


Abomination is the boss of this place, he is level 12 and guards 2 chests.
He can curse you and in 100 turns it's insta death unless you cure yourself with a potion.
He throws fireballs, hits like a mothertrucker, he can range stun you for 5+ turns.. this guy is good practice for the final boss fight.

Killing the dude will give you the Abomination Achievement, a Learning Point (+1LP) and the following loot: [Demon Set] [Wanderer Set] [Griffin Set], I think this is it. The best gear in the game.

Oh yeah, you will also get a Necro Skull you need. [Main Story Quest Item]
-------------

Desert North

You access this part of the desert from the NE corner of the first desert map.
This area is smaller than desert south.
-------------
Pillar Site
Directly north and a little west from the entrance, there are Pillars forming a square.
Ancient Linen in some pots and pants in coffin.
Again, if you lit everything up, a L12 boss will appear. [Demon Set]

-------------
Lone barrel
If you continue north, you will arrive at the NE corner of the region, in a barrel lays:

-------------
Barrel Oasis
NW from the pillar site, you will find palm trees and a barrel.
If you go west through the trees, you will fight a bunch of enemies and eventually find a pot with a ring.

-------------
Lone Bag
In the NW corner of the area: Gargoyle Boots (+2VIT,+1STR,+1DEX,+1%Block,+1%Wpn Crit,+11A;Req. 9STR)
-------------
Lug Lug
West and a little north of the Pillar site, guarded by a lizard:
Servant's Belt (+1WIS,+2INT,+1%SplHit,+1%SplCrit,+4A;Req.8INT)
You will also find LugLug near there, idk whats up with him.
He drops: [Griffin Set]

South from there, in a destroyed box:
Master Swordsman Ring (Counterattack on Parry)
-------------
Crocodile Island
Talking to Orran will give you the option of paying him 2000 Thaler to take you to Crocodile Island [Main Story], which you need to go to get a necro skull.
Enemies here are L10+ and this place has a map, so, not bad.
-------------
Native Village
I couldnt find anything special but the Chief will give you a quest [Main Story]

I explored along the beach first, then headed into the middle of the island.
Along the beach, on the west side of the island: Amulet of Like (+3VIT)
In a barrel, to the NW: Daichi’s Femur (Summons a L1 Frog to fight for you for 40 turns) 2000 TCD.
-------------
Man Eater
Along the beach, at the north side, you will find this L11 Croc Boss.

Go back to the Chief for your reward: 3000 XP, Crypt Key
-------------
Crypt
Its west of the Chief's house, you'll need his key and once inside, in a coffin:
Strange Brick (Doubles walking Speed for 20 turns) 80 TCD

Down below, you can talk to the Keeper but dont do it just yet! Explore the place first.
In the chests (looks like the keeper doesnt mind you taking his stuff).


Once ready, talk to the keeper, he will give you a Necromancer's Skull [Main Story Quest Item] and he will teleport you to...
-------------
The Void
Near the keeper you can find here, there is a ghostly chest that contains:

Talk to the Keeper, you will lose 50HP (permanent loss) but its for the [Main Story], so there.

Endgame

Once you have all four skulls, return to the royal crypts, make an endgame save and start the ritual, you'll get 3000XP.

Hope you are ready! The safehouse stone wont work, but other teleport stones will work.. not sure what happens if you escape like that, I just wanted to end the game, its been four weeks since I've started!

The end game boss should be super easy with all the stuff you have, heck, using only a god killer potion would make defeating him a piece of cake.

Here's a video of how I did it in case you are having difficulties.
https://youtu.be/c2PX3VgAeZM


The Uber potion made me invisible, the boss couldnt even target me, so he went to my pet instead while I shot him with fire arrow crits, all my armor and jewelry had at least +4 to fire damage.


My final stats.
In hindsight, learning Arcane 2 didnt help me much, would have trained DEX instead.
Craft Armour 4 really helped, lots of people say its bad but if you use Fire, its awesome.

I reloaded and took the 4 skulls to the Underground city where the necromancers were but nothing showed up, nothing happened.

I finished the game by day 77, exploring/killed/looted almost 100% of the content.
I didnt sleep much after the necromancer's threat, used lots and lots of coffee, I overreacted.

Pets

TCD = Turns Cooldown
RC/RL = Range Close/Range Long

Hunting L1

Wolf
HP: 1200@L6 - WS: Fast
Wolf Enrage (Dmg increased by 22 for 8 turns; RC); 33TCD
Wolf Howl (Phys;Enemy Fire/Frost/Shadow/Poison dmg -6, Phys dmg -12 for 5 turns); 33TCD
Focus Dodge (Dodge chance +50% for 6 turns; RC); 40TCD

Giant Rat
HP: 840@L6 - WS: Fast
Fear (Shadow; Frighten target for 3 turns; RC); 20 TCD
Take Over (Phys; Makes enemy target the pet; RC); 32 TCD
Shadow Spit (Shadow; RL); 10 TCD

Hunting L2

Deer
HP/MP: 480/350@L6 - WS: Fast
Song of the Forest (Heals you for 188-250HP); 27 TCD ; Cost 100 MP

Bear
HP: 1320@L6 - WS: Slow
Stun (for 2 turns); 20 TCD
Bear Thick Hide (+50 Armour; RC); 40 TCD
Bear Roar (Phys;-30 Armour + -5% Dodge, RC ); 20 TCD

Hunting L3

Spider
HP: 960@L6 - WS: Fast
Stun (for 2 turns); 20 TCD
Spider Web (Poison; Webs for 4 turns; RC); 26 TCD
*Everything immune to poison will be immune to its web.
Shadow Spit (Shadow; RL); 10 TCD

Giant Mantis
HP: 1320@L6 - WS: Fast
Stun (for 2 turns); 20 TCD
Take Over (Phys; Makes enemy target the pet; RC); 32 TCD
Drain Mana (Shadow; Drains around 100 mana from target; RL); 20 TCD

Cave Crawler
HP: 1140@L6 - WS: Slow
Stun (for 2 turns); 20 TCD
Deep Wound (Phys; Bleeding for 5 turns; RC); 22 TCD
Fire Resistance (+40% Fire Res for 10 turns); 20 TCD

Hunting L4

Giant Frog
HP: 900@L6 - WS: Fast
Stun (for 2 turns); 20 TCD
Drain Mana (Shadow; Drains around 100 mana from target; RL); 20 TCD
Poison Spit (Poison; RL); 10 TCD

Giant Beetle
HP: 1320@L6 - WS: Slow
Stun (for 2 turns); 20 TCD
Take Over (Phys; Makes enemy target the pet; RC); 32 TCD
Resist Magic (Arcane/Shadow/Frost/Fire Res +40% for 6 turns); 20TCD

Giant Moth
HP: 960@L6 - WS: Fast
Take Over (Phys; Makes enemy target the pet; RC); 32 TCD
Drain Mana (Shadow; Drains around 100 mana from target; RL); 20 TCD
Arcane Ball (Arcane; RL); 10 TCD

Master Skills: General

This guide has a good section on stat/skills training.

This section is on active skills training, the ones you put in the hotbar/hotkey.
RC/RL/RP = Range Close/Long/Personal
TCD = Turn cooldown
+WD = + 100% Weapon Damage

If a skill has no description, it means you could buy it earlier at another trainer, scroll up or Ctrl-F.

If it says quest required, save before attempting, some quests lock you out of their services.
You can ctrl-f their name and check out their quests in the zone walkthroughs.

If there is no cost in the description, there in no mana cost to it.

The following skills have no Class requirements:
Meditation
RP; Every spell/ability has a 50% chance to reset its cooldown, lasts 4 turns; 100 TCD

Gift of the Forest
RP; Summons a Tree to aid you; 100 TCD
Cost: 200 mana

Teleport Target Away
Arcane; RL; 16 TCD
Teleports target to a nearby location, away from you.
Cost: 75 mana

Lower Threat
Arcane; RL; 50 TCD
Lowers your threat.
Cost: 90 mana

The following skills need the Hunting Skill:
Req. Hunting 1
Pet Cleanse
RP; Removes harmful effects from your pet; 14 TCD
Cost: 45 mana

Discover
RL; Look into the distance to reveal unexplored areas; 50 TCD
Right click on the skill, then right click on the area you want to reveal.

Stealth
RP; Decreases your visibility to enemies; 60 TCD

Req. Hunting 2
Pet Heal 2
RP; Heals Pet for 250-350HP; 11 TCD
Cost: 200 mana

Masters Skills: Archery

*Read intro to Master's Skills: General for instructions.

Darkwood

Starter Village
Fox
Clean Shot
Phys; RL; 12 TCD
20-36 Shadow damage to target enemy for 6 turns + WD
Req. Archery 1, Bow

Multi Shot
Phys; RL; 7 TCD
WD to up to 3 enemies at once, uses three arrows.
Req. Archery 2, Bow

Perfect Shot
Phys; RL; 21 TCD
WD but the shot never misses and is a guaranteed crit.
Req. Archery 2, Bow

Piercing Arrow
Phys; RL; 10 TCD
20-40dmg+WD to up to 3 enemies in a line.
Req. Archery 2, Bow

Silencing Shot
Phys; RL; 21 TCD
Silences target for 7 turns.

Water Arrow
Water?; RL;
Never found a real use for this.

Precise Cut
Phys; RC; Ignores Armour, 40-80+WD; 7 TCD
Req. Archery 2, Dagger

Rhys
Precise Cut
Blinding Shot
Phys;RL;28 TCD
Blinds target for 3 turn.
Req. Bow

Balrum

Erdal
Landen
Quest Required
Pet Cleanse
Meditation
Discover
Pet Heal 2
Stealth

Erdal Underground
Morven
Quest Required and joining the Thief's Guild
Close Shot
Phys; RC (1 or 2 squares away); 50-80+WD; 8 TCD
Req: Archery 1, Bow

Improvised Trap
Phys; RC; 20 TCD
Lays down a Trap using 1 wood from your inventory.
Can be used against golems
It does around 150-200 dmg.
Req: Archery 2

Dirty Stab
Phys; RC; 78+105+WD; 11 TCD
Can only be done if target is stunned.
Req: Archery 3, Dagger

Thief's Camp
Knox
Thief's Guild membership required
Precise Cut
Weakened Healing (Ranged)
Phys; RL; Enemies get a 50% penalty on healing received for 10 turns. 12 TCD;
Req. Archery 2, Bow

Sleep (Ranged)
RL; Puts the the target to sleep for 40 turns, damage awakens it; 40 TCD
Req. Archery 3, Bow

Shadow Blade
Shadow; RC; 250-350 dmg after 10 turns (Reduces dagger durability); 30 TCD
Req. Archery 4, Dagger

Daralis
Thief's Guild membership required
Stealth
Arrow of Misery
Phys?; RL; 20 TCD.
Causes Bleed for 10 turns +WD, the damage caused by bleeding will heal you;
The effect stacks with any of the Clean Shots.
Undead and even golems are affected by this DoT effect.
Req. Archer 3, Bow

Gail
Thief's Guild membership required
Precise Cut
Sleep (Ranged)
Shadow Blade
Vanish
Phys; RP; Vanish from sight for 3 turns; 100 TCD.
Req. Archery 3

Hunter's Village
Jillian
Quest Required

Improved Improvised Trap
Phys; RC; 22 TCD
Lays down a Trap using 1 wood from your inventory.
It does around 250-400 dmg.
Can be used against golems
*You can use the normal version too, lying 2 traps in 2 turns.
Req: Archery 3

Predator Vision
Shadow; RP; 100 TCD
Gives you a buff that highlights enemies in the dark for 50 turns.
Req: Archery 3

Improved Clean Shot
Phys; RL; 12 TCD
Wpn Dmg 110%
Target bleeds for 39-62 phys dmg for 8 turns.
*It does not block normal Clean Shot however, the bleed effect overwrite each other.
Req: Archery 3, Bow

Master Skills: Arcane

Darkwoods

Starter Town
Brown
Heal 1
RP; Heal for 250-312HP; 12 TCD
Cost: 250 Mana
Req. Arcane 1

Pure
RP; Next spell has no mana cost; 99 TCD
Cost: 110 mana
Req. Arcane 2

Fireball 1
Fire; RL; 128-150dmg;
50% of Burning Effect on enemy.
Burning enemies take fire damage over time.
Cost: 90 mana
Req. Arcane 1

Fireball 2
Fire; RL; 190-220dmg;
50% of Burning Effect on enemy.
Burning enemies take fire damage over time.
Cost: 134 mana
Req. Arcane 2

Teleport Self
RP; 4 TCD
You can specify where to teleport.
Cost: 70 mana
Req. Arcane 2 and a Nightmare Berry

Crystal Walls
RP; 100 TCD
Creates crystal barriers around you, impeding enemy line of sight and movement.
The crystals last 6 turns.
Cost: 120 mana
Req. Arcane 1

Freeze
Frost; RL; 12 TCD
Freezes the target in place for 3 turns, they can still shoot you if you are in range.
Cost: 100 mana
Req. Arcane 1

Silence
Shadow; RL; 21 TCD
Enemy cannot use spells for 8 turns.
Cost: 100 mana
Req. Arcane 1

Nightfall 1
Shadow; RL; 3 TCD
23-30 dmg each turn for 10 turns;
Cost: 155 mana
Req. Arcane 1

Teleport Target Away
Arcane; RL; 16 TCD
Teleports target to a nearby location, away from you.
Cost: 75 mana

Leonard
Pure
Heal 1
Teleport Self
Fireball 1
Fireball 2
Crystal Walls
Freeze
Silence
Nightfall 1
Polymorph
Arcane; RL; 41 TCD
Turns enemy into a pig for 20 turns.
Damaging the enemy ends the spell.
Cost: 100 mana
Req. Arcane 1

Weakened Healing (Spell)
Shadow; RL; Enemies get a 50% penalty on healing received for 10 turns.; 12 TCD
Cost: 60 mana
Req. Arcane 1

Pyroblast 1
Fire; RL; 250-295 dmg; 20 TCD
Needs to be charged for 2 turns.
75% chance to apply Burn effect.
Cost: 190 mana
Req. Arcane 2

Rain of Fire
Fire; RL; 320-360 dmg; 20 TCD
50% chance to apply Burn effect.
Cost: 378 mana
Req. Arcane 3, Staff

Kyler's Village
Walker
*Once you complete his quest, he wont be able to teach you anything.
Nightfall 1
Silence
Rain of Fire
Weakened Healing (Spell)

Lower Threat
Arcane; RL; 50 TCD
Lowers your threat.
Cost: 90 mana

Voidball
Shadow;RL; 5 TCD
220-300 Shadow damage with 30% chance to curse the target.
Cost: 213 mana
Req. Arcane 3

Fear
Shadow; RL; 10 TCD
Applies Fear for 3 turns.
Cost: 150 mana
Req. Arcane 2

Balrum

Erdal's Church
Malvin
Quest Required
Heal 1
Heal 2
RP; Heal for 390-500; 20 TCD
Cost: 3455 Mana
Req. Arcane 1

Erdal
Lia
Heal 1
Pure
Meditation
Gift of the Forest
Pet Cleanse
Druid's Song
RP; Recover 25% of your max HP over 5 turns (5% per turn); 40 TCD
*Threat: High
Cost: 210 mana
Req. Arcane 3, a staff on hand

Touch of the Wisps
RP; All incoming healing increased by 25% for X turns; 50 TCD
Cost: 180 mana
Req. staff on hand

Sleep (Spell)
RL; Puts the the target to sleep for 40 turns, damage awakens it; 40 TCD
Cost: 100 mana
Req. Arcane 3

Mage's Guild
Must join the guild to get these.
Rod
Sleep (Spell)
Rain of Fire
Weakened Healing (Spell)
Polymorph
Pure
Heal 1
Fireball 1
Fireball 2
Teleport Self
Crystal Walls
Silence
Nightfall 1
Fear

Dex
Fireball 3
Fire; RL;
240-270 dmg, 50% to burn target.
Cost: 178 mana
Req. Arcane 3

Iceball
Frost; RL; 2 TCD
180-232dmg, 30% chance of Freezing target.
Cost: 155 mana
Req. Arcane 3, Staff

Van
Fireball 3
Nightfall 2
Shadow; RL; 11 TCD
40-52 dmg each turn for 10 turns.
Cost: 275 mana
Req. Arcane 3, Staff

Chaos Fire
Fire; RL; 100 TCD
AOE deals 500-600 damage with 100% chance to burn targets.
Cost: 634 mana
Req. Arcane 4, Staff

Gar
Touch of the Wisps
Siphon Life
Shadow; RL; 50 TCD
Steal 200-230 HP from enemy.
Cost: 220 mana
Req. Arcane 3

Siphon Mana
Arcane; RL; 30 TCD
Steal 250-310 MP from enemy.
Cost: 200 mana
Req. Arcane 4

Master Skills: Swordplay

*Read intro to Master's Skills: General for instructions.
* +WD = + 100% Weapon Damage

Starter Village
Fred
Anger Strike
Phys; RC; 100-150+WD; 10 TCD
Req. Swordplay 1, any melee

Strong Strike
Phys; RC; 60-100+WD; 8 TCD
Req. Swordplay 1, any melee

Weakened Healing (Melee)
Phys; RC; Enemies get a 50% penalty on healing received for 10 turns.; 12 TCD
Req. Swordplay 2, any melee

No Mercy
Phys; RC; 160-260+WD (Ony works if target HP is below 25%); 25 TCD
Req. Swordplay 2, any melee and a Rose Hip

Shatter Armour
Phys; RC; ?? TCD
It can stack up to 3 times, decreasing target's armour by 50.
Not sure how long the buff lasts.
Req. Swordplay 2, any melee

Slash
Phys; RC; 40-70+WD; 10 TCD
Slashes up to 3 targets infront of you.
Req. Swordplay 2, any melee

Brutal Strike
Phys; RC; 80-135+WD; 12 TCD
Req. Swordplay 3, 2H Weapon

Aron
Shatter Armour
Slash
Anger Strike
Strong Strike
Weakened Healing (Melee)
No Mercy
Opportunity
Phys; RC; 80-160+WD;
This triggers when target dodges or parries, when enemy is under its effect.
Not sure how long the effect lasts.
Req. Swordplay 1, any melee

Rhys
*Quest Required
Opportunity
Blind
Phys; RC; 22 TCD
Blinds enemy for 3 turns.
Req. Swordplay 1, any melee

Wilson
Strong Strike
Shatter Armour
Slash
Weakened Healing (Melee)
No Mercy
Come Here
Phys; RL; 20 TCD
Pulls Target Towards you.

Deep Wounds
Phys; RC; 2 TCD
Causes target to bleed for 30-46 dmg for 5 turns.
Deals 30% Wpn Dmg.
Req. Swordplay 1, any melee

Darkwoods SW
Miller
Quest Required
Opportunity
Blind
Come Here

Balrum SE
Torric
Brutal Strike
No Mercy
Slash
Improved Deep Wounds
Phys; RC; ?? TCD
Causes bleed for 51-82 to target for 10 turns.
Deals 40% WD.
Req. any melee and Swordplay 3

Improved Shatter Armour
Phys; RC;
Stacks up to 3 times.
Enemy armour modified by -75.
Req. Swordplay 3, any melee

Warrior's Guild
Members Only
Bolt
Blind
Weakened Healing (Melee)
Deep Wounds
Opportunity
Strong Strike
Anger Strike
Come Here
Shatter Armour
Slash

Ward
Shield Absorb
RP; 30 TCD
Buff that absorbs 320 magic damage.
Req. Swordplay 3, Shield

Shield Slam
RC; 21 TCD
Silences target for 7 turns.
Req. Swordplay 3, Shield

Lyre
Weakened Healing (Melee)
Opportunity
Brutal Strike
Improved Deep Wounds
Improved Shatter Armour
Sleep (Melee)
Arcane; RC; 75 TCD
Puts target to sleep for 40 turns.
Any damage to target ends the effect.
Req. Swordplay 3, any melee

Rider
No Mercy
Slash
Brutal Strike
Colossus Smash
Phys; RC; 20 TCD
89-170 dmg+WD; 35% to stun target.
Req. 2H Axe, Swordplay 4

Ongoing Mysteries

• Barnabas' Wife
  
• The Ghost in a destroyed house in Erdal.
  
• The ghost lady that Verne saw in Hunter's Village.
  
• The poisoned wheat fed to the rebels, can you get to the castle's 2nd floor?
  
• The lever in Miller's house.
  
• Was Vega just an Easter egg?
  
• LugLug?
  Gamehorder reports:
  Did you meet a Luglug and a RonStock character? Those are my creations from the kickstarter.
  I say: Hehe, neat! :) Mystery solved! Lug is in the desert but cant remember where ronstock is.
  
• The Crimson Rose near the Crimson Tree, does anyone react to you if you are cursed and talk to them?
  
• Can you do more with Rubendt?
  
• How can you kill Ronius?
  King Kadelfek reports:
  Ok, so I managed to kill Ronius. I guided a bug next to him, who killed his skeleton. Then I guided the closest non-bug enemies (2 sabertooths and 2 zombies) using speed potions, until Ronius was dead. It would have been easier with another bug, but I did not find one close enough.
  
  Here are some pics:
  https://i.imgur.com/hitEYFU.png
  https://i.imgur.com/vUqdFtO.png
  
  So Ronius drops a Staff of Necromancy, a 6 Base INT minimum staff, 116 to 200 damage, +1 WIS, +1 INT, 509 Thalers worth.
  I was hoping for better!
  
  MystLight also suggests:
  Quick way to make Ronius fight you:
  1. Create a new recipe in the Alchemy table: 10 Amanita, 1 bottle (I used a Crystal bottle).
  2. Make a bottle of poison using this new recipe.
  3. Stand next to Ronius, drink this potion. Ronius will be poisoned and he will attack you.
  4. Fight and finish him off.
  You can also use this method to kill Creed and all guard in the Rebel Cattle (NE Balrum).
  
  
• Would everyone have died after 1 year passed after the necromancer's threat?

Outro

I really hope this guide helped, especially if you were thinking of quitting the game because of its massiveness. Its really a good game worth your time, I had fun exploring every inch of the place.

At the start, I thought it was going to be impossible doing all the achievements in a single run but it was actually pretty easy once you figure out the game.

Anyway, thanks a lot for reading the guide, would super appreciate a thumbs up to let me know all the work is appreciated.

Until next game! Peace out!

[Shindragan]

@Kasiornis Thanks! I added your completionist confirmation to the guide and added to your previous comment about the 2nd waistguard, stay safe!

[Kasiornis]

Regarding achievement: "Completionist - Fully discover one of the large maps.". There are small maps (dungeons and caves) and large maps like Darkwood, it obviously needs the large one. I got it after scouting the starting Darkwoods NW, I was very careful to not miss a spot, but the achievement popped up when I still had a large "darkened" spot on a map, so you need to uncover like 95% of this map for achievement, and there is room for error.

Also I've found second Rusty Waistguard, I don't remember, I think it was from a semi-hidden chest in a SW corner of Darkwoods NW map (starting one)

[Shindragan]

Cool, any new info is super welcomed, added your comment to the NW Darkwood section, thx Kasi!

[Kasiornis]

Just to add a bit of info - NW Darkwoods, place with pillars, candlesticks and L4 Lich. The Rusty Waistguard wasn't there for me, checked all available containers around, nothing. Maybe I'm missing something somehow, I don't know. Still, got the second copy of it inside Ghost House to the south, in the barrel, not a big deal then I suppose.

[Shindragan]

Neat! Ill add it to the guide, thank you Myst!

[MystLight]

Quick way to make Ronius fight you:
1. Create a new recipe in the Alchemy table: 10 Amanita, 1 bottle (I used a Crystal bottle).
2. Make a bottle of poison using this new recipe.
3. Stand next to Ronius, drink this potion. Ronius will be poisoned and he will attack you.
4. Fight and finish him off.
You can also use this method to kill Creed and all guard in the Rebel Cattle (NE Balrum).

[Shindragan]

Awesome discoveries, thanks!
I updated the guide with your info, stay awesome! :)

[King Kadelfek]

In the Sleeping Beetle Ruins, opening the chest sacrifices all small beetles and summons the boss. The more beetles sacrificed, the more health the boss have. His health goes down from around 6000 HP to around 4000 HP (if I remember well) if you kill small beetles before summoning him.

[King Kadelfek]

Ok, so I managed to kill Ronius. I guided a bug next to him, who killed his skeleton. Then I guided the closest non-bug enemies (2 sabertooths and 2 zombies) using speed potions, until Ronius was dead. It would have been easier with another bug, but I did not find one close enough.

Here are some pics:
https://i.imgur.com/hitEYFU.png
https://i.imgur.com/vUqdFtO.png

So Ronius drops a Staff of Necromancy, a 6 Base INT minimum staff, 116 to 200 damage, +1 WIS, +1 INT, 509 Thalers worth.
I was hoping for better!

[King Kadelfek]

Sorry, but I did not even checked out what Ronius dropped, as he was my useful "kill bugs" guy, so I reloaded immediately. ^__^'
But I can still try to replicate what happened. I will give it a try.