A Little Light for the Darklands

This is a genuine classic -- one of the first open-world sandbox CRPGs and the very first CRPG to implement a real-time-with pause combat system; it routinely tops lists of games "most in need of a remake." I find myself replaying it every five to ten years -- and then usually getting frustrated after a week or three by the game's unforgiving complexity and many remaining bugs. So I wanted to sit down and write everything down this time, so I'd remember it all next time, and here we are.

There are about thirty year's worth of resources available for this game, but a lot of them are outdated or conflicting or scattered across everything from yahoo newsgroups to old geocities pages, so it seemed like trying to put together a comprehensive, updated, detailed modern guide would be worthwhile. I'll signpost "metagamey" strategies, exploits, and bugs so you're aware of them, but overall this guide will assume you just want to play the game, not necessarily making the optimal choices at every turn, but with enough understanding of the game's mechanics to understand the choices you are making.

First general over-arching recommendation: *Read the Manual* and the Hint Book, which are included in the Steam download directory and numerous places online. This game came out back when game manuals were something developers expected players to read, and players expected developers to publish. There's a lot of stuff in the game that isn't explained in the UI, because why haven't you read the manual?

Second general recommendation: *Read the Text*. This was published closer to the era of the text adventure than to today. When it throws a full screen of text at you, it expects you to read it -- and there may be important clues in the middle of all that text which the game *will not* remind you of. You may want to play with a notebook handy to write things down, or use your screenshot key liberally.

Character Creation

General Character Creation Guidelines

You *can* roll with the pre-generated party, but it's a bad idea; they aren't great, apart from starting gear.

If you're approaching the game strategically, there are lot of different criteria you'll want your party members to meet.

• You'll want each of your characters to have a minimum of 35 in Strength and Endurance (so they can wear chainmail and still carry light gear); you also need
  
• Someone in the party with high Perception (for spotting traps),
  
• Someone with decent Agility, for the few times that matters;
  
• Someone with high Artifice skill (for disarming traps and opening locked chests),
  
• Someone with high Alchemy (you need a minimum threshold of Alchemy skill in the party to even find new alchemists to train your alchemy skill),
  
• One character with a Healing skill of 30 (to reduce long rest times while you heal).
  
• One character with strong Charisma and Speak Common skill, for general interactions
  
• One character with strong Intelligence and Speak Latin skill, for academic interactions
  
• At least one of your characters should be female (I generally make the front half of the party male, the back half female) to take advantage of a few interactions and saint's bonuses.
  
• Due to the way the Divine Favor mechanic works, you also want *everyone* in the party to cross train in Religion and Virtue while learning as many saints as they can muster.

You also generally want to take all your characters up to Age 30 in character creation, for maximum skill benefits, but not go past that so as to avoid aging penalties.

Suggested Party Build

I'd therefore suggest the following four character builds for your party:

• Strongboy: Rural Commoner with maximum (40) Strength and Endurance; put his remaining points in Perception. He should spend ten years as a peasant or laborer, then spend five more as a "recruit" so he starts with 43/43 str/end, 33 Per, and cuirbolli and leather armor. His skill points won't matter much, but you can put them in woodwise, ride, and stealth; make sure he puts a couple points into edged weapons so he starts with a sword. This guy will be your threat spotter and primary front line and will carry heavy armor and a shield.
  
  
• Wideboy: Country Crafts background, 40 end/ 40 str / 30 Agility. Train as Journeyman Craftsman, then Master Craftsman, then Recruit (for gear, and to bring stats back to 40/40). Put all skill up points you can into Artifice. Goal here should be to end with 40 end/str and 35 Artifice skill. Spare points can go into streetwise, then religion and virtue, with a couple points into impact weapons so you start with a club. This character will be your "off tank" and will wear full plate while carrying either a military or great hammer to break open enemies in heavy armor.
  
  
• For your Face character, start Nobility, 34 end/str, 40 Chr. Pick Noble Heir > Noble Heir making sure you raise Virtue to 16, then pick Knight, taking Speak Common and Religion to 30 or higher and then whatever else you want (virtue, riding, and stealth are good choices). You'll have a character with 35 str, 35 end, 42 Chr, great skills, and some of the best starting gear possible -- consider swapping her armor with your primary tank's starting cuirbolli. This character will do about eighty percent of your talking and all your shopping, as store prices are based directly on Charisma. She'll be limited to chain armor but can still be quite effective with a shortsword and bow.
  
  
• Brain is your last party member, and she has a lot of roles to fill. Have her go Rural Commoner, 36 End / 32 Str / 39 Int / 24 Chr then go Student > Oblate > Physician, putting points into Alchemy, Healing, and Speak Latin (with spare points into Speak Common and R&W). You'll start with 42 int, 35 End, 31 Str, and one formula known. For skills, aim for 29 healing, 22 alchemy, 30 Speak Latin. This character won't replace your primary Face, but does your talking at Monasteries and Universities and when trading formulae with town alchemists. You will want to get her Healing, and then Alchemy, up to 30 as soon as possible.

Any extra skill points for all characters go into Religion, as you will eventually want to raise that along with Virtue on all characters, and then Stealth and Ride, as those are sometimes useful for the whole party.

This isn't the only way to build your party by any means, but it's a good all around compromise that will cover everything you absolutely need covered and will allow your characters to *comfortably* wear fairly heavy armor, with a little wiggle room in case of injury or over-exertion.

There are a few downsides to this setup, though.

• The first is that there's no dedicated clerical character. Nobody in this party starts with knowledge of any Saints to invoke, and at game start most of them don't have enough Religion or Virtue to invoke most saints even once they learn them (your Face might, depending on her starting skill point allocation and the Saint in question). This is fine. It takes a fair bit of gameplay to train up even a dedicated clerical character so they can usefully invoke saints on a regular basis, and for reasons explained in the "Ars Magica" section below, it's generally a better course to train up the whole party in religious practice, rather than just one guy. In the meanwhile, though, at first at least, Heaven won't help this party.
  
  
• The second is that you're splitting talking duties between two characters, instead of having one combined Alchemist + Face and then three heavy warriors. This does mean you lose some synergies -- there are benefits to having an Alchemist with a high Charisma and Intelligence both. But a character with both high Charisma and Intelligence inevitably has physical stats too low to function well in end-game combat and gear. Better by far to have two heavy warriors and two light warriors than three heavy warriors and a fragile noncombatant, especially in a game with no resurrection magic.
  
  
• The third is that your Brain / Alchemist is a little weaker than I would like and her skills are a little too distributed; she's almost good at several things but not actually there yet on any of them. You'll have to train healing up a point to 30 to gain any benefit from her large skill investment there; you'll start with only one formula known and an alchemy of only 22, which may make it initially quite difficult to interact with town alchemists; and she'll be limited to light gear -- chainmail, a shortsword, and darts at the most. These compromises are manageable, though -- you can train up the skills, and the low strength can be remedied with some meta-game knowledge (see further down in this guide). Plus, darts are a good ranged weapon choice for the alchemist anyway since Thrown Weapons skill also helps with potions.

Getting Started

Ok, you've made your party and started the game. Now what? You'll be in a random city, somewhere on the map. There will be a little narrative blurb of your characters talking in the Inn; read it and it'll suggest some things you can do. Mostly, it will suggest becoming . . .

Batmen!

First, equip whatever starting gear you have (if you followed the above guide, it should be armor for three characters, one club, and three short swords, plus a potion we'll ignore for now). Save your game, (right click on the game screen to bring up a little menu with options, including Save and Load) then wander around the city a bit and wait for nightfall (you can advance the clock by attending confession or Mass at the church, or by waiting in the grove). At nightfall, move around the back streets and docks ("the empty blackness of the docks at night" and "a dark grove of trees where you can wait, unnoticed") until you get jumped by the ubiquitous thugs. This is your chance to play Batman (via the first-ever Real Time With Pause RPG combat system!)

The combat controls are somewhat unintuitive; select a character via the number keys (1-4), then hit the "a" key to attack, then click an enemy you want that character to attack. To move your people, same deal, but "w" to "walk", then click the spot you want them to walk to.

In these first few fights, you'll have to use tactics -- you don't have much of anything else yet!

• Your biggest asset right now is the brigandine and chainmail armor your Knight started with; have your Tank wear it and take a few steps out in front, so that he gets the attention of multiple enemies (if he can; there are no "Taunt" mechanics beyond proximity and the attack button). Make sure your unarmored alchemist stays in the rear and doesn't attract any more attention yet than they have to.
  
  
• The game gives benefits and penalties for attacking or being attacked by more than one target at a time, and those benefits are relatively huge this early in the game when you don't have anything else. Once enemies are engaged with your Tank, the rest of the party can move up and join in the fun, essentially getting free hits.
  
  
• If you can arrange it, try to use terrain such that your whole party is beating up on one enemy at a time -- you can sometimes achieve this by having everyone take positions on either side of a narrow alley.
  
  
• If you mess up and your people get stuck in melee in a bad position, you can use the "F" ("flee") key to withdraw to a better spot on the field.
  
  
• Endurance damage recovers quickly and only knocks you unconscious, but Strength damage takes a long time to heal and can be lethal -- getting stabbed is bad! If one of your characters takes heavy Strength damage, withdraw them from the fight as much as you can.

Once victorious, gather your loot. Rinse and repeat until morning comes or your characters have taken too much strength damage to keep going safely; at that point, retire to the town inn and rest and recover (you can also camp outside the town with the C or f8 key, which is cheaper, but a little more risky).

If the guards catch you while you're breaking curfew, it's generally best to pay the fine; running too often can hurt your reputation, and if your reputation goes too far negative you can end up jailed (or worse, if you try fighting the city guard).

Gearing Up

Once recovered, it's time to gear up a bit. Each town has slightly different shops; look for the pawnbroker's ("central market") or if there's no pawnbroker, look for the blacksmith or armorer ("Crafts guilds and other, darker side alleys > specializing in arms and armor"). The pawnbroker will be cheapest, but lowest quality (which is fine for now); blacksmith and armorer sell higher quality but more expensive gear. Go to your Face character's inventory sheet and make sure she's set as your Party Leader; high charisma gives you better buy/sell rates at merchants. Have her barter with the merchant to sell off whatever looted weapons and armor you have and your Alchemist's starting potion(s), then buy large shields and upgrade to studded leather armor for everyone naked or in basic leather. Shields give a large melee skill boost, so you'll get hit less, and having any armor on at all will significantly reduce the strength damage you take. Padded and leather armor aren't worth bothering with, while studded leather or cuirbolli will give adequate protection at this stage of the game. Studded leather is cheaper and heavier than cuirbolli, but your characters are all strong enough that the difference won't matter, and you won't be able to afford any higher-tier armor for a while yet anyway.

It'll probably take a night or three of fighting to afford each piece of armor; just repeat the fight > rest > purchase loop until everyone's geared up. If your starting town doesn't have a pawnbroker, or if the local blacksmith or armorer doesn't sell studded leather or large shields, you may want to try travelling a bit (see the next section).

Once everyone has armor on their limbs and vitals, you can spend a little on offense; your melee weapons are fine for now, but it's a good idea to have some ranged options. Look for some darts for your alchemist, a short bow and arrows for your Face, and either javelins or crossbows for your front liners (javelins are lighter weight, but crossbows will do more front-loaded damage). NPCs almost never use ranged weapons, so a volley or two right at the start can make a big difference. You don't need many of these as you'll generally be able to recover them after each fight -- three or four rounds of ammunition per character is plenty. Use them at the start of each fight and you can efficiently grind up both your ranged and melee weapon skills in parallel (which will come in handy later, especially for your backline folks).

If It All Goes Wrong . . . .

Whoops . . . .

Of course, it's possible that everything doesn't go according to plan. Medieval Germany was not an especially forgiving place, and especially right at the start, it's easy for a run of bad luck to really mess you up good. Depending on how badly things go, your best option is probably going to be reloading a saved game. But assuming you want to play the ball as it lies, then let's talk through some recovery strategies.

Ow

Maybe you aren't quite batman yet, and those thugs turn the tables on you, so badly that you can't afford to rest in the Inn any longer. If that's the case, you can head outside (main street > city gates > "right past the guards") and camp in the wilderness by hitting f8. It's a little risky --- try to have someone on guard -- but at least it's a path to recovery.

Oh My God! They Killed Kenny!

If one or more of your party members dies -- takes too much strength damage and their character icon gets a skull over it -- that's it. There's no coming back, they're gone, not even St. Lazarus can bring them back. Head over to the Inn and mock up a new recruit who happens to have the same basic starting build for whomever you're replacing -- since there's no random elements to character creation, you can make up a new student/oblate/physician just like your last..

Importantly, though, any new party members will join without any starting equipment or gear at all; you'll have to finance them from your party funds (no recruiting a string of new alchemists just for their potions). They'll also be at baseline, starting skills for their age and history, and you'll have to train them up from scratch.

AGAB

There are a few different ways you can find yourself on the wrong side of the law. The most common is to accidentally let your reputation get too far negative, which can easily happen if you get thrown out of City Hall a couple times, seek sanctuary in a church, wake up merchants in the middle of the night too often, or otherwise accrue error in the eyes of the locals. If your reputation drops down to below about negative 10, then the guards will try to arrest you on sight -- with no good resolution possible, since running from the guards, fighting the guards, or surrendering and getting arrested will all hurt your local reputation further, as well as potentially catching you a "wanted" flag (see below).

If this happens, your best remedy is probably just to keep grinding thugs at night while avoiding the city guard as much as possible; with luck, it may be possible to grind your reputation positive again, and hopefully the guards will stop harassing you at that point.

The more difficult situation is when you've managed to catch a "wanted" flag from the town guards by doing something that directly causes arrest, such as attacking guards, blowing up the Inn with a potion and not paying the Innkeeper for the damages, getting caught while completing a heist mission, trying to sneak out of town and getting caught, or repeatedly attempting to run rather than paying the fine when caught out past curfew. In such situations, they'll try to kill or arrest you regardless of your local reputation.

You can try to escape (run to the edge of the combat map, then right click -> exit battlefield) or surrender ("S" key) which will get you arrested. If arrested, you'll lose all your martial gear and all your carried cash (but not any letters of credit), suffer a massive hit to your local reputation, and become imprisoned. Again, at that point, your best choice is probably just to reload to a prior save.

Imprisonment is not an automatic dead end or game over though; you can try to escape in all the traditional ways (see right). Most of the escape options either won't work or take resources you won't have yet (knowledge of specific saints, lockpicks, etc.). If your Face character is female, she may be able to seduce the turnkey (at the cost of a few points of virtue); with high party Stealth you might be able to tunnel out before you are caught. Talking to the priest won't hurt anything and may give you a Virtue boost.

If you can't manage an escape, you may have to wait it out and go in front of the magistrate. At that point, there is a strategy that might save your skins. When asked to plead, refuse and say nothing; you'll get tortured for a few days and take a bunch of strength damage, but if you can tough it out, you will be released, as medieval law required the accused to plead either guilt or innocence to establish the jurisdiction of the Court.

Escaping (even with a saint's aid) or refusing to plead won't clear that Wanted flag, though, and the guards in that town (and any other nearby towns which share the same ruler) will still try to re-arrest you on sight, so you'll probably need to move along down the road to friendlier environs.

Some say the "wanted" flag is permanent, and you might as well write off that town once arrested there. Others report that so long as your reputation is positive[groups.io], avoiding capture for a week[groups.io] was enough to clear the flag, perhaps because the flag is coded as an event[groups.io].

At least one person, back in 2004, reported that they were able to clear their "Wanted" flag and regain a positive reputation [groups.io]by invoking a saint at the executioner's block and then being assigned a quest to go slay a Raubritter for a pardon.

Stepping Out

Travelling the World

Hopefully, by this point you've gotten everyone clad in studly leather or better, and your martial skills have risen to the 40+ range or better from thug-bashing. At that point, with a minimum of gear and skill, you're ready to step out into the wider world. (When you do so, you'll have to answer a brief copy protection question -- you can find the answer in the game manual files included with the steam release, or see "Resources," below).




Ready or not, the next game loop to master is traveling from town to town. Most towns will have a local alchemist and a local monastery where your party has a chance of learning new alchemical formulae and new saints, so there's a game mechanic incentive to travel about.

Initially, the safest way to travel is by taking boats at the docks; you can also travel overland, but the encounters you'll run into doing that are more dangerous. So once you feel like leaving town, head down to the docks and take a boat going anywhere (if no boats are available, wait a day).

You can find a map of the boat routes to the right; arrows mean one-way travel.

In each town you visit,

• When you first come to town, whether at the main gate or the docks, your Face should try to talk your way in free; there's no downside, and you might skill up Speak Common.
  
  
• Once in town, first check out the alchemist ("craft guilds and other darker side alleys > less violent pursuits > astrologist's lane"), set your alchemist to "Party Leader" from their inventory sheet, and then click "trading alchemical knowledge and formulas." The alchemist will either throw you out or teach you a new formula. If your party can't even find the alchemist at all, that probably means your party alchemist still needs some training (which you may find in the next town over!)
  
  
• After that, check out the local monastery ("tall spires of the great churches > "Where monks study church law and administration") and ask to study saints in their library. Pick a party member to learn about one of the listed saints (it doesn't matter much which at this stage, the goal here is just to collect them all). You do this last as it will usually take until nightfall (Vespers).

At that point it's time to wander the docks and alleys again for a bit of thug-bashing to improve your funds and local reputation, head to the local Inn to "take up residence" and rest and heal, then move on to the next town. If you get confused as to where you are, hit the F6 key to pull up the party information screen, which will tell you your wealth, local reputation, etc., and show you where the heck you actually are on a little map.

As you master this cycle, you can start adding sub-loops and other things to check in each town. A few good steps to add to the cycle:

• Once you have enough spare groschen to afford the occasional fine, you may want to start visiting the town marketplace once per night so you can attempt to "sneak past the sweepers." This gives your whole party a chance to raise Stealth skill, which is generally useful. You can poke around in the offices for a chance to train Artifice skill, but there's a risk of a trap which may permanently damage your artificer's Perception and Charisma. If the guards catch you, you can flee once, but after that pay the fine, otherwise things can get messy.
  
  
• During the day, check the bankers in the markets and see if they give you any quests (you can worry about completing them later).
  
  
• If you have spare cash, and some of your characters need to rest but others don't, it can be a good chance for those characters to train. Monasteries can train Religion, which everyone in the party will need to raise to at least 30+ The merchants in the side streets > "less violent pursuits" can train artifice, healing, and alchemy. If you can't find helpful trainers, look for a town with a University[darklands.fandom.com]. Aim for one character with a at least Healing 30 and one with at least Artifice 50.
  
  
• A lot of things are on recurring timers. Boats at the docks change daily. If you find an alchemist who will trade you new formulae, you can check him again after every three nights; new saints can be learned at each monastery about every thirty days; you'll have to find new trainers after a week.
  
  
• If you're feeling very detail-oriented, check the "Foreign Traders" and "Pharmacists" in each town you visit, and write down which alchemical ingredients they sell; it changes every game, so you can't look it up online, and you'll thank yourself later. Writing down or screenshotting the saints taught at each town monastery won't hurt either.

Travelling Overland

At some point, you'll want to go somewhere that isn't on the boat networks. Walk out the city gate and you'll be in the countryside. Travel is fastest along the roads; you can go anywhere your feet (or your horses, if you've bought any) can take you.

Random Encounters
From time to time you'll run into random encounters, some of which can be a little challenging.

You can save your game a the splash screen announcing the encounter, before combat starts.
A few to be on the lookout for:

• If you see a merchant caravan being attacked by bandits, charge in and save the merchants; the merchants will give you a handsome, randomized reward after the fight (which can potentially be some of the highest-quality weapons in the game).
  
  
• If an alchemist demands your alchemical supplies, be wary; he may throw potions at you which can sometimes permanently damage your equipment. Hide your people behind trees or buildings to block the enemy alchemist's line of sight to you, then once they've approached, engage the alchemist himself in melee directly so that he can't throw anything else into the fray. Succeed and you'll capture *his* stock of potions, which can be quite valuable. Make sure to check after the fight to make sure none of your gear took quality damage!
  
  
• Travelling merchants may be disguised bandits or may be a good opportunity to sell off excess loot (they'll give you relatively good prices).
  
  
• Clergy and Nobility -- you will occasionally run into clergy or nobility that ask for a tithe of some kind. Try to talk your way out of these encounters; if you can't, it's generally best to just pay, as combat can result in a loss of virtue or reputation that can be difficult to recover.
  
  
• If you come across a suspicious looking hut, it may be inhabited by an innocent old woman, or by an evil witch; you can tell them apart with a saint's aid, or you may be tipped off when the witch attacks you. If you capture the witch, do not pick the "unnaturally strong for the rest of your lives" option without saving your game first.

Wilderness Locations
There are also set locations scattered around the map. A few to look out for:

• Small villages can be a good place to sell loot and rest. They will sometimes be secret satanic havens (more on that later!)
  
  
• Castles on the world map come in three varieties -- good, bad, and raubritter. Most castles won't let you in at all until you get your skills and fame up a bit; it's worthwhile to try, though, because castles run by mean lords are often the only place you can buy "superb" quality horses, which will help in encounters and overland travel speed. Raubritter castles will tell you so up front with a separate graphic; don't tangle with these yet (not until someone has offered to pay you for doing so, anyway).
  
  
• Wilderness monasteries can be a good place to rest, sometimes have alchemical components for sale at decent prices, and frequently have saints you can't find listed anywhere else.

Starting the Midgame

Getting to Nürnberg

After a few weeks of that you may want to start wandering with some purpose. Your biggest priority at this stage is probably upgrading your gear - unless you've gotten very lucky with an overland encounter, you're all still in studded leather, and while fine for the first few weeks, that's hardly heroic attire.

Each town on the map has slightly different shops and features available, and different merchants in different towns will sell goods of differing quality. Nürnberg is the town which sells the highest quality armor and the second highest quality weapons. Since high end gear is a big investment, it's worthwhile to save your money up, travel there, and invest in success.

So follow the maps above and make your way to Nürnberg (it's in Square D6, a little below the middle of the map), bashing in whatever heads present themselves along the way. Once there, you want to purchase, in roughly this order of priority:

• Full plate armor for your characters who have at least 40 Strength and 40 Endurance.
  
• Full chain armor for everyone else
  
• A Large Shield and Longsword for your Tank
  
• A Military Hammer and Large Shield or a Great Hammer (preferred) for your off-tank
  
• Shortswords and Medium Shields for your backline
  
• ranged weapon options as weight permits. That normally means javelins for the front line, then a Bow for the Face and Darts for the Brain.

This will cost a lot more money than you have right now, even if you took your time getting to Nürnberg -- probably over a hundred florins for the armor alone. You deserve nice things, though! It's time to stop just surviving and start thriving!

Questing

If you've been checking the banking offices in the towns you've passed through, you'll probably have picked up some quests. Most of these are ignorable -- 3 florins for wandering halfway across the map and back -- but once your local reputation is high enough, they will often give you a quest to slay a nearby Robber Baron, or "Raubritter."

When you get assigned a Raubritter quest, write down which merchant gave it to you, the name of the Raubritter, and the Raubritter's location ("West of Nurnburg, South of Wurzburg" etc.) [If you forget to write some of your quests down, don't fret -- there are 3rd party save file viewer apps that can list your active quests for you. See the "Resources" section below).

Once you get one such quest, you'll often also find that everyone else nearby also wants him dead, and is also willing to pay you for the job. Before trying to tackle the Raubritter himself directly, ask around at every nearby town; ask at all three merchants in each market, and if your local reputation is high enough (check this by hitting F6), or if you have knowledge of the saints Alcuin, Raymund Penafort, Wolfgang, or Wenceslaus (who help with encounters with nobles), you can try asking at the Town Hall also. If you are unlucky on the reputation/charisma check though you may get thrown out of the town hall, which lowers your local rep -- don't let it get too far negative or you could end up getting arrested!

Once you have at least two or three (and ideally four or five) separate parties all willing to pay you for the same Raubritter, travel overland to the castle (trying to avoid other encounters en route if you can). You'll have a bunch of options -- you can do everything from laying seige to the castle to talking your way in via dinner invitation. Strategically, at this stage, your best option is probably to try to talk your way in, eat dinner, go to your rooms at night, then try to sneak out and confront the Raubritter by himself. If you're lucky, and stealthy, you'll catch him solo, and your whole team can surround him, dramatically weakening his defenses. He can be a tough nut to crack -- plate armor is extremely tough! -- so hit "V" instead of "A" when attacking so that you seek the weak spots in his armor (that plate he's wearing is tough to pierce!). Once he's dead, return in sequence to all those merchants and town halls that offered you money for his head, and then take your winnings back to Nurnberg and gear up.

Hanse Merchants will sometimes offer you a mercenary companion to aid you in Raubritter quests; similar, Village Schulz leaders will sometimes offer to join your party to aid in a Raubritter quest. They come with low-quality plate and chain gear, a long sword, and decent skills and stats. The direct help they provide is limited -- the number of enemies scales up -- but more enemies means more loot. The Hanse will stay till you turn in the mission reward; since the villages won't give a reward, the Schulz will stay for a while and then eventually depart.

Understanding Game Mechanics

The above sections told you what to do, but they didn't really explain why. Here's a bit more detail on how it all fits together.

Why did we emphasize strength and endurance so strongly?

The builds recommended above emphasize strength and endurance much more strongly than most other guides do. Here's why.

Most weapons in game gain a damage bonus from high Strength, and a damage penalty if your Strength is low. Furthermore, each point of Strength and Endurance lets you carry an additional pound of gear without becoming over-encumbered; encumbered characters suffer an agility penalty (not a concern) and more importantly suffer an attack speed penalty. The wrinkle is, Strength and Endurance are, in effect, your character's hit points; as they take damage in combat, your characters will become overburdened, and if your characters take Strength damage, they will find their weapon strikes becoming weaker.

Plate armor on your legs and vitals has a combined weight of 59 pounds; full chain in both slots weighs 49 pounds. A large shield weighs ten pounds, a medium shield weighs six pounds. A military hammer weighs three pounds, a longsword 6, a shortsword 3. Ranged weapons weigh anything from one pound for a Dart to 14 for an Iron Handgun.

The net effect is that while a character *can* get away with a sub-35 strength and endurance, they usually shouldn't try, because it will force compromises (lighter armor; a smaller shield; no missile weapon). Conversely, having maxed-out strength and endurance not only lets you wear heavier gear, it lets you *function* longer in that gear, remaining effective and surviving longer.

You can turn these mechanics against enemies also. Once you get a few hits in, enemy attack speed will often drop dramatically; if you can deal Strength damage, enemy strikes will become weaker and do less damage to your characters.

Which armor and weapons should I buy?

The game has a lot of different kinds of gear; most of them you don't need to worry about. We focus on swords, hammers, plate, and chain.

Detailed information on the game's armor is here.[darklands.fandom.com] What matters for now is that each type of armor has two important values, "thickness" and weight. Weapons have four stats that matter -- damage, attack speed, "penetration" (which counters "thickness"), and weight.

If a weapon has a higher penetration than the "thickness" of the armor it's facing, it'll do full damage to endurance; a weapon that matches the armor it's facing does one-third damage to endurance; a weapon that cannot penetrate the armor it's facing does roughly one-sixth damage to endurance. Strength damage inflicted is a fraction of the endurance damage inflicted, with a further second fractional adjustment based on penetration. This is why we bought *studded* leather when starting out -- studded leather has enough thickness to effectively reduce the damage from bandit falchions.

Since most weapons[darklands.fandom.com] you'll encounter in enemy hands have a "penetration" between 2 and 4, chain armor guarantees that most enemies will do only fractional damage to your endurance, and you'll almost never face significant damage to Strength. Characters in plate push that math even further, becoming in effect nigh-invulnerable to almost all enemies.

Similarly, on offense, you want to have at least one character with a high-penetration melee weapon -- that means either the one-handed Military Hammer (penetration 5, matching plate) or the two-handed Great Hammer (penetration 6!). The rest of the party wants weapons with penetration values of at least 3 or 4. The one-handed longsword has a high damage value, along with good speed and a penetration value of 3, plenty for most enemies, while the short sword is a good combination of damage, speed, penetration (4, matching chain), and lighter weight. The two-handed sword has Penetration 4 and does more damage even than the longsword, but is slower -- to the point some argue the shortsword has better overall DPS at the same penetration -- and also prevents use of a shield..

There is one wrinkle; hitting "V" to attack instead of "A" puts your character in "vulnerable spot" attack mode, which increases their penetration by 1 while lowering their attack speed. This mode is also available to enemies, so you can't rely on plate and chain to make you *wholly* invulnerable; similarly, however, when your characters with short swords are facing enemies in plate, switching to Vulnerable Spot mode can help your hammerman crack open those tin cans.

What about Shields?

Shields give a bonus to your melee weapon skill, based on the size of the shield, the quality of the shield, and your base skill (more is better, bigger is better), along with a (negligible) bonus against enemy missile weapons. Higher melee skill means fewer attacks hit you, meaning you take less endurance and strength damage and stay in the fight longer.

Early on, the skill bonus is very significant and very much worthwhile. Later in the game, once your characters have maxed-out weapon skills well in excess of most enemies, it might be worth considering dropping some of the shields in exchange for two-handed weapons -- especially for your plate-wearers, who are in little danger anyway, a Great Hammer or Two-Handed Sword can be brutally effective. Even skilled characters sometimes need a defensive boost, though (especially if injured or surrounded) so you won't ever go *wrong* carrying a good solid shield -- as long as you can handle the weight.

What about Ranged Weapons?

As above, it's well worth having a ranged option your pocket, especially for your back line characters. Higher ranged skill gives better line-of-sight with missile weapons, allowing you to more easily shoot past your front line into melee. This becomes important later in the game, when your party will often have to fight down narrow corridors with your primary tank leading the way. A skilled ranged backline can turn a lot of 1v1 fights into 1v4's.

The problem is most of the high-penetration, high-damage ranged weapons (handguns, arbalest, crossbow) are very high weight, to the point that they're prohibitively difficult to use while wearing plate or chain armor (and plate and chain are essential). Because of the weight concern, most characters are probably best off keeping javelins or darts in their pocket (both have Penetration 3 and low weight)).

On the other hand, though, if you can afford the weight allowance, other ranged weapons are worthwhile. Guns and crossbows get no bonus damage from high strength, but due to their weight, only your beefcakes will be able to use them; while slow to reload, the benefit is they have very high penetration and damage per shot, so an opening salvo can demolish even an enemy raubritter in full plate. Bows do very good damage and penetration for their weight and have a high rate of fire, so are a good choice for a back-line ranged fighter -- I often use them on my "Face" characters. Your alchemist will want to stick with darts or javelins though as potions use the "thrown weapons" skill to determine their line-of-sight targeting.

Item Quality

This is oversimplified, but roughly speaking, every ten points of item quality counts as what you'd think of as a +"1" in a D20 system game. Most enemy gear is Quality 25 (it always loses ten points on their death), so quality 25 gear of your own matches it. Buying all your gear in Nurnburg gets you Quality 37 gear, functionally a +1 across the board vs. most enemies in the game.

Some enemies (primarily alchemists) can damage your gear, however, so it's useful to keep a few backup sets of lower quality gear in your inventory, to be swapped into when facing those particular enemies.

Ars Magica

Once you have quality gear and practiced combat skills, it's time to take things to the next level. Time for things to get magical.

Going Back to School

Town trainers will only get you so far -- for skill boosts above about 30 or so, you generally need professional training. As is tradition, the best way to learn magic is by going to magical school: in this case, Universitat[darklands.fandom.com], whose locations are marked in the image to the right.

The difficulty is that such training is expensive. If you want to get everyone's skills maxed out, you're going to have to stack a lot of raubritter bodies -- unless maybe there's a better way?

The Communion of Saints and the Forgiveness of Sins

-- Every saint you learn has a Virtue threshold they require before that character can invoke them, a base Divine Favor cost, and a basic percentage chance the invocation will be successful. Each point of Virtue the character has above that threshold increases that percentage chance of success, as does each extra point of Divine Favor spent. Net result, the higher a character's Virtue, the more Saints that character will be able to invoke, and the less Divine Favor they'll have to spend to do so successfully. Higher Religion skill lets you recover Divine Favor more quickly.

-- Because each character in your party has a pool of Divine Favor, it makes sense for all your characters to learn at least a few saints.

- If you have raised everyone's Religion skill to at least 30, and you have more than 25 florins in cash, you can tithe at a town Church to raise everyone's Virtue. Everyone with at least 30 Religion skill will gain one point of Virtue every time you make a sufficiently large donation; everyone with 60 religion skill or better will gain two points; ninety religion skill or better, three points. (There are lots of other ways to raise Virtue, but they mostly boil down to "do good deeds.")

-- For reasons related to The Plot, it's broadly useful to learn as many different saints as you can (ideally, all 136).

-- Most saints are duplicative of other saints -- one saint who heals Endurance damage is much like another, most of the time -- but there are a few specific saints who for one reason or another are unusually useful.

• Edward the Confessor is very useful if learned early on; he'll raise everyone's virtue up to 20, at the cost of your carried cash -- but if you're broke already, no worries, and he won't take your letters of credit either!
  
• Saint Cecilia, if invoked by a character with a musical instrument, can give a powerful, permanent boost to local reputation, which helps with pretty much all town interactions. She's also very useful in a number of scripted encounters.
  
• Raymond Lull gives a powerful bonus to Alchemy, which can help you make potions you couldn't otherwise craft, or make *more* potions more quickly; Raymond Penafort gives a more powerful bonus to Intelligence, which also helps with alchemy checks once your alchemy skill is maxed out at 99.
  
• Felix Nola gives a solid Stealth boost.
  
• Alcuin, Raymund Penafort, Wolfgang, or Wenceslaus can help get an audience with City Lords and avoid the risk of reputation loss.
  
• Patrick, Matthew, Finbar, and Gertrude can improve SpkL for University training.
  
• Dominic helps in encounters with priests and religious figures.
  
• Roch and Sebastian are useful for curing plague.
  
• Gregory Thaumaturgus boosts everything you need to talk to Alchemists (Chr, Alch, SpkC) and often gives powerful options in scripted encounters.
  
• Eligius, Barbara, Joseph, and Reinold give a strong boost to Artifice, useful for dealing with locked chests and traps.
  
• Denis gives the largest boost to Charisma, which improves shop prices.
  
• Gertrude of Nivelles and Vitus can teleport you to the nearest city, great for quick overland travel.
  
• Saint Ita has the most efficient healing, but at a high Virtue threshold.
  
• James boosts *virtue*. This means you can sometimes use James to "bootstrap" your way into invoking a more powerful saint you wouldn't otherwise meet the threshold for, or invoking a less powerful saint more cheaply.
  

Better Living Through Chemistry

You can find detailed information about the game's Alchemy system here[darklands.fandom.com]. Briefly,

-- There are 22 potion types in the game, each with three different formulae, for a total of 66 formulae. Of those, you can only buy about seven from alchemists; the rest must be traded for or learned in scripted encounters. Town alchemists will only trade you higher-quality versions once you have learned all the 25-quality formulae.

-- While many potions are useful, most aren't worth going to the trouble of large-scale manufacture. There are a few specific potions you'll want to make hundreds of, though, so look out for their components; if you find a town selling all the components for one of these, make a note, you'll want to come back there later.

-- Essence of Grace is a prerequisite for all endgame content; depending on formula, it requires Zincblende, Gum, and/or Camomile. You can't buy this formula anywhere, but must either trade or capture it.

-- Sunburst potions are extremely useful against enemy alchemists and witches. When thrown, it will disable all enemies on the battlefield for several seconds so long as they're looking at the burst location. You can usually find the high end 45q/8-second version, "Brother Elias's Sunburst", available for sale at town alchemists. That version can also be resold at a bit over a 400% profit over cost, depending on Charisma, local reputation, etc., so is a very good choice for grinding out alchemy skill training while also solving your party's financial problems forever. It requires Manganes, Aqua Regia, Zinken, and Brimstone.

-- Once you've won the toss with Sunburst, lock them down with Eyeburn. It has a longer hold but is single-target. Buy the formula for Nicolas Flamel's (45q) version.

-- Raymundus Lullus's (45q) Firewall and Hugh's (45q) Ironarm are also good profit centers, with the best ratio of difficulty & component cost to resale price, 600% and 700% respectively (though less useful in-game; the Firewall effect is bugged and Ironarm interacts poorly with Essence of Grace). RL's Firewall requires Orpiment, Naptha, and Antimoni, while H's Ironarm requires Eastern Black Bean, Nikel, and Alum.

-- In addition to high skill and intelligence, you'll also need to raise your "Philosopher's Stone" (you can view your party's PhiStone value on the F6 screen). You can raise it up to ~25ish by talking to town alchemists, and sometimes higher at Universities (the theoretical max seems to be 29) but that's somewhat RNG-seed-dependent and in some games 25 may be the available ceiling.

-- For power-grinding lots of high-end potions quickly, it can be worthwhile to invoke a Saint who gives bonuses to Intelligence and Alchemy. Good choices are Albert the Great, Cyprian, and Raymond Lull. Invoke them late in the day and the bonus will carry through to the next day, allowing two days of heightened, large-batch potion brewing.

-- Breath of Death, Arabian Fire, and Transformation potions are the most profitable, but are very difficult to brew and thus you'll probably be limited to only crafting a few per day even with saint-boosted stats.

The Great Work

Once you have all those building blocks, you'll realize there's a virtuous cycle here. Making potions is profitable; the profits can be re-invested into Religion and Virtue; Virtue allows the invocation of saints who can help you make more potions faster, in a self-reinforcing and escalating cycle. Figure it out and you'll be surprised at how quickly you can transform your party.

Bigger Challenges

Think You're Ready for Anything?

Once you've knocked a few Raubritters on the head, the game may seem pretty much over. You've put together a strong party, everyone's covered in shiny metal, and you're travelling the map kicking ass; most of the game's standard encounters will no longer pose a significant threat to you.

If you've been paying attention to all those text blurbs, though, you might have noticed by now that there's something more going on in the Holy Roman Empire than mere bandits and robber barons. Maybe you heard rumors in the inn of problems in the mines near a particular town, or that a dragon was seen somewhere in the sky. Maybe you found a village or a hut in the woods that was more suspicious than it should've been.

Or maybe you just realized the game had two in-depth, powerful magic systems, clerical and alchemical, and you hadn't yet seen much of any combat challenging enough to make those systems worthwhile or necessary. Why study alchemy or the invocation of saints when there aren't any problems a warhammer can't solve?

Turns out, there's some stuff in this game that's gonna take more than just a shiny sword and well-polished armor.

Rumours Elsewhere in the Empire

What's Yours is Mine

You'll sometimes hear rumours that the mines near [town name] are having problems (if it's the mines "near Frieburg" they mean the Frieburg to the east of the map, not the one in the southwest). You can go there and help the miners with their problems. Expect a long dungeon crawl encounter with puzzles and traps. There's a wide variety of situations you can run into, so be as prepared as you can be; I'd advise, in addition to standard gear, a minimum of 40 Essence of Grace potions, twenty or so Sunburst or other combat potions, a couple of Truesight potions to help spot traps and secret doors, Artifice of 50 or more (reaching this with a saint boost is fine; a one day buff will last the whole dungeon), a rope and a lockpick, and Stone-Tar and Transformation potions for scripted encounters you may face. Knowledge of the specific saints Dismas, Gregory Thaumaturgus, Jude, Peter, Reinold, Cecilia, Charity, Devota, Margaret, Lawrence, Pantaleon, or Polycarp may be helpful too.

For more detailed breakdowns of the mine scenarios, including answers to the various puzzles, consult the hint book (included in the game files for the Steam install). The biggest thing to be aware of is that the mines usually aren't linear, but branch out; if you're at a dead end, backtrack and look for a different path.

Mines often contain traps which can damage your equipment; a friendly Hanse or Schulz in scavenged plate with a Truesight potion can go first, solo, and absorb a lot of these problems for the rest of the party. Think of it as hazing.

Save your game before answering the puzzles, as wrong answers often ding your character's stats permanently.

Dragon!

Unfortunately, the primary strategy for dealing with Dragon encounters involves the fire-protection effect of Firewall potions and St. Polycarp, which is badly bugged (it never wears off, making your characters invulnerable to damage generally, forever). I'm testing work-arounds.

Fetch Quests

By now you probably have a lot of random fetch quests built up in your quest log (you probably didn't write them down; view them using a save file editor. See "Resources" below).

These generally aren't worth pursuing for the cash rewards, but some of them have neat narratives and art. Some of the scripted elements can lead to permanent negative consequences, though, so if you run them, be prepared. If taking a mission to a Tomb, make sure you have a Transformation potion; if you take a mission to a Cave, make sure you have knowledge of, and can invoke, either Saint Gregory Thaumaturgus or Saint Cecilia.

The most dangerous of these fetch quests, oddly, is the mission to infiltrate a merchant in a city marketplace; make sure you have eater-water potions and high Artifice, and save your game first, because there is significant risk of permanent stat damage (from traps) and of ruining your Reputation and becoming a wanted criminal in the target town.

You can find detailed information about each of these side missions here.[darklands.fandom.com]

The Well-Placed Person

If you click around in the Inn, under the "rumours" menu, you'll see an entry, almost always greyed out, which reads "A certain well-placed person is hiring freelancers. . . ."

Very rarely, this will actually be clickable and will lead to a little mini-adventure, almost an easter egg. If available, pursue it.

Wait, There's a Plot?

SPOILER WARNING

The following section(s) contain limited spoilers for the game's storyline and endgame content. If you want a full-spoiler walkthrough, the best place for that is the official "hint book", available in your game's download folder or various places [www.mocagh.org] online.

Whi(t)ch Plot?

Wander around long enough and the party may encounter some minions of the Great Enemy -- maybe a hut in the woods that just doesn't seem right, or a pagan altar, or maybe something else. Depending on how you resolve those situations, two things are likely to happen; you may be told a location and a date, and you may find yourself set upon by the Wild Hunt.

(Specifically, to trigger the Hunt, you can either capture and free a witch, destroy a pagan altar (unclear if the ones in satanic villages count), or interfere with the High Sabbat (see below).

Of those, only interfering with the High Sabbat guarantees the Hunt will be called upon you..

The Wild Hunt

You'll first notice the Wild Hunt when travelling through the wilderness. The first time you see it, it isn't hunting you yet. The second time, it won't be hunting you either, but a Wild Man of the Woods (a "Schrat," or Bigfoot). You will be given an option to intervene; you want to take it (generally, the option to hide the Schrat using Stealth is most effective; that's part of why this guide advises grinding Stealth at town marketplaces for the whole party).

If you successfully save the Schrat, he'll give you a mysterious fruit which one party member can eat; it will permanently increase that character's Strength by four points (this is why we set our alchemist's Strength four points lower than their Endurance in character creation). If you were successful, the Schrat encounter will repeat one more time, with a chance at a second strength fruit. After that, though, the hunt will start chasing you.

When the Hunt is on your trail, you can try to outrun it, or invoke saints to help escape, or try to fight it. The Wild Huntsman himself isn't particularly difficult to fight -- he does some Fire damage, which will evade even plate armor, but he's just one dude and at this point you're four knights in shining armor. The problem is he will keep coming and the encounter will keep repeating and repeating and it can get quite annoying.

Each incarnation of the Hunt can be dispersed by the invocation of a specific Saint, picked randomly from the full game list of 136. If no one in your party has knowledge of that Saint, the Hunt will just keep coming after you; after a few encounters a Wild Woman of the Woods will show up and tell you which specific saint you need to learn. When you learn that saint -- or if it's a saint you already know, great, problem solved -- the next time the Hunt chases you, you'll see an option to defeat the hunt by invoking [saint name] at the bottom of the list. Invoke the saint in question and the Huntsman will appear and yell at you and tell you a date and location for the next step in the storyline.

You can repeat the Wild Hunt any number of times, as long as you keep finding ways to piss off Satan (specifically, defeating a Witch at her hut in the woods, destroying a pagan altar, or defeating the High Sabbat). For reasons relating to the plot, it's probably best to distribute your apples evenly across the whole party, rather than building one giant beefcake man. Since your party can gain up to eight strength points permanently with each cycle, it's worthwhile to "power cycle" the Wild Hunt as much as you can, for Big Gains.

To do that effectively, though, you're going to want to learn just about every saint you can. Gotta catch 'em all.

Because the specific saint you need to defeat the Hunt is randomly selected, and because the saints are randomly distributed across monasteries, there's no guarantee that the specific saint you need for your Hunt will be available to learn in your game; if you've checked and double-checked everywhere, you may be out of luck. There is a rare encounter with a Hermit which can let one party member learn a random saint they don't know, but barring those low odds, this problem can only be fixed by rolling back to a prior save or by adding knowledge of the needed saint with a save editor.

The High Sabbat

There are a few different ways you can find out about the date and time of the next High Sabbat[darklands.fandom.com] of the witch cult: from capturing a witch in her hut, from defeating a satanic village, from praying to either Aidan or Hildegard at a "Witch Sabbat Site" (which looks a lot like a pagan altar), or from an event in the Fortress Monastery (see below).

Once you have the date and time, be there on that date and look in the area for a site that looks like a pagan altar. Go up to it on the event date and the event will start.

Avoiding detailed spoilers (this is one of the best sequences in the game, and worth going into relatively blind), very high Speak Common, Religion, Stealth, and extensive knowledge of saints (specifically, Emydius, Gregory Thaumaturgus, Cyprian, and a few others) will prove very useful; also be prepared for an extended combat against multiple alchemists (sunburst and eyeburn potions will be very helpful).

Detailed information for the event can be found here[darklands.fandom.com] or in the hint book included in the game's download folder.

The Plot, Parts 2 & 3

The Fortress Monastery

You can find the Fortress Monastery's location out at the end of the High Sabbat, or you can find it just by wandering around the world map (it's near Flensburg). Be prepared for a long castle crawl against opponents in heavy armor and wielding magic, along with several scripted encounters.

In addition to general preparations for all long dungeon crawls (Essence of Grace, Truesight, etc.), a large supply of Fleadust potions will prove useful, as will Stone-Tar, Thunderbolt, Eater Water, Noxious Aroma, Eyeburn, Black Cloud, Sunburst, and Arabian Fire. Knowledge of Saints Agnes, Alexis, Cecilia, Lutgardis, Milburga, Christina the Astonishing, Gregory Thaumaturgus, Thomas Aquinas, Boniface, and Raphael may also be helpful. There are checks against SpkC, Religion, SpkL, and R&W.

Many of the enemies in this fortress have skills and gear (plate, alchemy) comparable to the party, and they frequently outnumber you, so you're going to have to use tactics again. Try to pin enemies in choke points so that you only face one or two of them at a time; this is where all that investment in ranged weapons can really start to pay off. As shown to the right, your frontline can pin enemies in doorways or other choke points while your backline provides fire support, allowing you to defeat large enemy forces piecemeal, without becoming surrounded or overwhelmed.

This is a long, complex dungeon, and I strongly recommend saving frequently throughout the dungeon and using a detailed walkthrough, such as the ones found in the wiki [darklands.fandom.com] or in the hint book included in the game's download folder.

A few specific encounters you want to make sure not to miss as you clear the dungeon:

• The Templar Preceptor wears a full suit of q45 plate; the cut scene will interrupt the loot screen, though, so you'll need to fight something else right afterwards in order to gather his gear.
  
  
• You'll find a writing desk where you can transcribe some arcane symbols. This is the only R&W check in the game; if successful, your highest R&W-skill character will learn three alchemical formulae they don't already know.
  
  
• In the bottom of the Templar Keep, there is an "oubliette" trash pile at the end of a corridor full of traps. The traps cannot be percieved or disarmed; the best strategy is just to have a character get naked, set them all off solo, then heal with potions. Purify the oubliette by invoking a saint for +15 SpkL for your intellectual.
  
  
• At the top of the keep, right before the final battle, is a series of three rooms, three battles, and three chests, each of which contains a random relic[darklands.fandom.com]. These are usually not too useful ("Saint Swithbert's Foot") but sometimes they are equippable weapons -- which are bugged to have incorrect, low quality values and which you'll need to fix with a save editor. You can find a list of the correct, intended quality values here[darklands.fandom.com].

If you leave the Keep early, the encounter will reset, and you can repeat it for multiple formulae, skill boosts, sets of q45 armor, and saint's relics; alternatively, once beaten, a new fortress will spawn somewhere else in the world (you'll have to run the Sabbat to find it again) and you can repeat the entire dungeon that way.

Once you've cleared this whole beast at least once, it's time to get ready for the endgame. Head back to town. You'll have a huge pile of looted armor and weapons to sell off; boost your Charisma by invoking a Saint before you sell it all and you could walk away with 500 florins or more total. Clean up your inventory, restock all your potions, replace any alchemy-torn gear, and say any final prayers you have; it's time for the End of Days.

The Citadel of the Apocalypse

Once you have defeated both the High Sabbat and the Fortress Monastery, the Citadel of the Apocalypse will unlock. You can find it at Hochkönig, south of Salzburg.

This is functionally the endgame sequence (though the game won't fully end -- you can keep playing in the sandbox as long as you want afterwards, there just won't be any further, bigger challenges).

To prepare, bring extra suits of disposable armor, as well as Firewall , New-wind, Sunburst, Eyeburn, Truesight, and Eater Water potions, along with any other general buff potions you want to use. Be aware that Firewall and other potions which buff equipment can cause a persistent character bug (their bonus doesn't always expire) but that doesn't matter at this stage since you're at endgame anyway.

Saints Boniface, Emydius, Raphael, Cecilia, Charity, Polycarp, and especially Apollinarius, Godfrey, or Genevieve will also prove useful.

As above, more detailed information can be found
here[darklands.fandom.com] or in the hint book included in the game's download folder or various places online.

Tips & Errata

-- Raising your physician's Healing skill to 30 will mean the party heals two points of strength damage per day instead of one. Raising Healing to 45 means the party heals 3 points, 60 is 4 points, etc. Training up to 30 is worthwhile, especially if you have a character who started with high Healing skill to begin with, but past that is usually a waste of time and money better spent training other things like Religion or Alchemy. This also means that invoking a saint to boost Healing skill, then taking a short rest, can be a quick way to top off the whole party's Strength damage.

-- If a merchant doesn't have an item you want for sale (e.g., no plate mail for sale at the Nurnberg Armorer) try raising your local reputation a bit and then returning at night; they'll have a different inventory. Some merchants, like the Clothmaker's Guild, *only* sell items at night!

-- Keep a zero-value item ("clothing" from thugs, or boar tusks) in your inventory; everything you don't want to ever sell goes above the zero-value item, everything else below it. When selling items, you can just hold the sell key down to sell everything quickly; the zero-value item won't sell, and neither will the items above it in your inventory list.

-- you can drag and drop items in your inventory, or hit 1/2/3/4 to send highlighted items to party members

-- you can unequip and equip items mid-combat with keystroke commands ("A" and "U")

-- Prices *do* vary between merchants, but it's a little complicated. Items all have a rarity [darklands.fandom.com]value; some things are easy to find, others are harder. To get the best prices, you want to buy common items (alchemy base ingredients, arrows, quarrels, etc) and sell rare items (handguns, composite bows) in large cities like Koln, but sell common items and (when available) buy rare ones from more rural merchants (travelling caravans, village smithies, etc.)

-- There are a few specific unique locations scattered around the map (The "Devil's Bridge" south of Nurnburg; the "Good Witch" in her tower southwest of Magdeburg).


--There are a few items you can buy at town merchants which are useful in scripted encounters. Your character with the highest Artifice should buy a lockpick at some point. Your character with the highest Agility should keep a grappling hook and a rope in his inventory. If a character in your party can invoke St. Cecilia, make sure that person is carrying a musical instrument.

-- You can find "Superb" horses for sale sometimes at villages, monasteries, or castles with evil rulers. They will dramatically increase your overland movement rate and unlock various options in wilderness encounters.

-- Once you have your Superbs, though, you can treat evil castles like virtue pinatas; either call the ruler out repeatedly for virtue for your leader, or overthrow the lord for virtue for the whole party.

-- When scripted encounters take your money, they generally yoink a percentage of your cash on hand; you can lower the tithes and fines you face by offloading that cash into a letter of credit at the banking houses.

-- Since different towns sell gear of different qualities, some towns sell the best quality gear. Nurnburg sells the best quality armor; Paderborn the best quality weapons; Teschen the best quality bows; Lubeck the best quality general goods.

-- The best-quality weapons in the game are available as randomized rewards from the "save the merchant caravan" overland event, specifically the encounter will sometimes reward either a Longsword, Great Hammer, Composite Bow, Brass Handgun, or Pike of quality ranging between 41 and 47. Since most enemies use Quality 25 gear, one of these weapons rolling 45q or better will give a +2 bonus, the best available.

-- The best-quality weapons in the game are supposed to be saint's relics, which can be recovered at the end of some of the Mine quests and a few other places. Unfortunately a bug prevents them from having a quality over 35, so you have to use a save file editor to give them the "correct" intended values. You can find more information about them in the wiki, inlcuding the intended "correct" quality values, here[darklands.fandom.com]

-- For the Steam version, to edit your launch settings, the file you want is C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\common\Darklands\dosbox_windows\daum\dosbox_darklands . Set it to the resolution you want and "scaler=xbrz"

Known Bugs & Exploits

This isn't just a thirty year old game; it's one that was proverbially so buggy at release that it crashed the studio. *Most* of those bugs were fixed in later patches, but a few survive and are worth being aware of.

-- You can functionally skip the early part of the game by engineering party creation a bit. Make a party with valuable starting gear (a Knight for starting plate armor; a 90 year old alchemist with 15 potions) and then trade that gear off to a different character. Kick the now-impoverished reject from your party and swap in a replacement character with better stats (a strong peasant; a younger alchemist with no accrued aging penalties). Sell off all those potions and buy fancy gear for everyone.

-- You can save and reload at almost any narrative menu screen; use this to "re-roll" randomized skill checks and event rewards (e.g., making sure you always save the schrat).

-- You can also save and reload on the "exit" screen to get 2nd, 3rd, etc repeat of the event; when you load the save, you'll have whatever you gained from the event, but it will have restarted at the beginning screen. Use this to gain additional saints from wilderness hermits, fight the alchemist a second time for more potions, etc.

-- If you can get your Charisma higher than around 85 (possible with the invocation of St. Denis) and have sufficient local reputation, some report you can sell items for greater than their purchase price (I haven't been able to confirm this).

-- If you have too many items in your character inventory (over 255 line entries in a single character's inventory, i'm told) you can get the "hair bug" which makes your character combat sprites look like leprechaun vomit. This can be fixed by reloading a prior save or with a character editor.

-- If you have over about 100 saves in your save file, the game will start having problems when you try to save again. You can avoid this by moving old saves into a side directory.

-- Potions or saints that give gear enhancements -- firewall, st. polycarp, deadly blade, greatpower, strongedge, etc. may never actually wear off, even after they say they've worn off. If you want the game to retain any challenge, don't use these potions or saints until you're at the endgame and would be popping such potions constantly anyway (this bug is why this guide generally doesn't recommend these potions).

--Using multiple stacking saints and/or potions to raise the same attributes can "injure" the stats when the boons wear off; the different buffs aren't cleared properly, so your stats can be left at lower values as if injured. Since injuries to intelligence, charisma, etc., never heal, this sometimes has to be fixed using a save editor.

-- Sometimes you'll find your alchemist unable to persuade any alchemist in any town to trade potions with him. It's unclear what causes this bug. It doesn't appear to have anything to do with your formulae known; sometimes you can trade with 0 formulae, sometimes you can know 40 formulae and the alchemist still just isn't interested. Many formulae can't be purchased, though, so if you've purchased all the formulae you can and alchemists are still telling you you have nothing they're interested in trading for, you may have run into this bug. There are four possible workarounds: 1) If you find an alchemist who *will* trade with you, you can sometimes keep trading with that alchemist over and over again and expand your list that way; 2) sometimes at the end of a scripted encounter with a hut in the forest ask the witch to share her formulae; 3) a specific scripted encounter in the Fortress Monastery; 4) use a save editor to give yourself the formulae you want.

-- Sometimes hiring one trainer in town (say, the alchemist) will "grey out" the training options at other trainers (healer, monastery, artificer). Universities won't grey out like this, but artifice can't be trained at the university, so if you want to train everything in parallel, hire a university teacher and recruit the artifice trainer.

-- If you're trying to buy Philosopher's Stone upgrades at the University, but your party stone already outranks the University's, the check will always fail no matter how many times you retry it; the game will never explain that what you're attempting is futile.

-- Sometimes the town rulers (Dukes, Archbishops, etc) who gave you a Raubritter quest won't pay up once the deed is done, but just kick you out again. This may be due to failing the reputation check for re-admittance, or it may be that a different Raubritter quest has already overwritten the quest giver's quest memory. "Town Hall" quests are fine and don't have this bug, only the leaders in Fortresses.

-- Sometimes your characters get hung up on battlefield geometry and won't move. A restart usually fixes this.

-- Taking a Hanse or Schulz into the end-game dungeons is possible, but may bug out some of the scripted sequences.

Useful Resources

There are a number of good resources for more information on gameplay.

There's a well-maintained extant wiki with a lot of detailed knowledge here:
https://darklands.fandom.com/wiki/Darklands_Wiki

http://www.darklands.net/ is still maintained and has a number of excellent resources, FAQs, etc.

https://groups.io/g/darklands/ has replaced the old Yahoo group.

https://www.pcgamingwiki.com/wiki/Darklands More links to various resources, apps, etc.

https://www.gog.com/forum/darklands#1671836677 Gog.games forum

You can find the Darklands Hint Book in .pdf format here (it's also in the "bonus content" section of the steam install): https://www.mocagh.org/miscgame/darklands-hintbook.pdf

https://groups.io/g/darklands/files/_Files_archived_from_Yahoo%21_group/Character%20Editor
Darklands Character Editor v. 2.2; a save file editor which allows you to edit edit your characters and party, track your pending quests, etc.

https://github.com/illusium77/darklandscompanion is an alternate save editor with some different capabilities (editing item quality, among other things) and a memory-reading tool which will automatically tell you, when selecting saints for training, what each saint's statistics are and which ones the party already knows.

https://wendigo.online-siesta.com/darklands/chargen/ is an online character builder app. It's about 98% accurate to the game data, but not 100% (it may follow the manual, not the actual in-game character building).

A detailed spreadsheet breakdown of every alchemical formula in the game by cost, difficulty, and profit can be found here: http://www.darklands.net/tools/winning.shtml

A save game editor is here: github.com/chaseleif/dksaveeditor

[MikeC]

Great guide, though I've found juicing to be a somewhat more efficient way to keep light load in the mid to late game.

[Hieronymous Alloy]

I never had the crash problem with alt-tabbing but I see a lot of people reporting it. I think I may have avoided it by playing in "dosbox daum" and using windowed mode.

There's also a "mod" that you can use to replace the alchemy copy protection images with altered, labelled pics in-game, so you don't have to alt-tab. It involves replacing game files though so it seemed above the technical level of this guide. You can find it here: https://groups.io/g/darklands/message/9827

[()))__BLaCK__))>]

Great guide, I would just add the alchemical symbol page higher and include that it randomly will ask you for them and if you alt-tab to find them it will usually crash. 30 year old DRM

[Oceanclub]

Very helpful!

[Snake187]

Awesome Job!!!