Redemption Song (The Quests in Korthos Wilderness).

So we have done the first four quests on Korthos and the starter quest on my last piece, now I want to look at the quests in the wilderness in Korthos. You only need to do two of the quests to get off Korthos and into Stormreach Harbor but there are 3 other quests available in the Wilderness. Personally I tend to do just the two I need first to get off the Island so I can access my reincarnation cache and thus be more powerful for the additional 3 quests but for those new to the game I would suggest you run the 4 quests available before you run Misery's Peak to get off the Island. Three quest givers are in the village and one is outside in the Wilderness, which is good because in many wildernesses you will find quest givers around the wilderness. I will give some hints at the less obvious parts but it is important that players learn how to think and out think quests.

Behind door number 3

The first quest you will stumble across is the one with quest giver inside, Gunnar Bauerson, now this is a little strange as the easiest route to the dungeon entrance is to step off the edge of the cliff and drop into the water below. There are 3 Sahuagin around the quest entrance which sticks up a bit. It will also give you a wilderness explorer which is a little experience bonus. This is pretty linear apart from two very nagging issues. You will sweep a big hall and probably get blown half way across it a couple of times till you work out where the gusts of air are coming from and close the doors, but you then seem to be stuck in a big room with no way to go on. Unusual thing to do here is ring the gong, then when it has settled down ring it again. Normally in game if you ring a gong you will attract monsters so not sure why the game encourages to do this so early on but it is the only way to progress. There is an underwater tunnel but this is relatively straightforward and any character should be able to swim the length. However the second little niggle is the boss at the end. It is an ice spider so flame obviously works but Kraak tends to sit right in the middle of frost traps. A trapper can disable them or you can jump them to the puzzle at the end which is relatively simple but you need ranged attacks to hurt Kraak or you are going to get very very cold. The treasure chest before the spider often holds boots of cold resistance though so worth putting them on before the fight if they drop.

Turning valves is a good hobby

Next up is the mandatory quest Redemption which you get from Ursa right by the gate to the wilderness. You have to have completed this and spoken again to Ursa to be able to do Misery's Peak. There are traps that can be disabled and a couple of vents of poison gas that are controlled by valves hidden in alcoves with secret doors. Now if you have pets or hirelings be careful because they have a very bad habit of chasing straight into the iron blade guilliotine trap to get at the iron defender that is behind them. I let the defender come to me along with the ones that are outside the blades. Just saves on finding a dead hireling who has decided the perfect place to stand is in the middle of the blades, this happens with hirelings they love traps. Pretty straight forward end fight with protect the good guy from waves of Sahuagin, you already have the concept from the cannith crystal. The one stumblimg block is how to get to Heyton because there is a barrier controlled by crystals which you need to destroy. To be honest this is not the most difficult quest you will ever face, if you have a healer with you make sure they are looking after Heyton. He dies and you have to start again.

Big Mouth, always good to avoid

Next up is Necromancer's Doom and I would be surprised if anyone had difficulty grasping the concept. Two control lights over a locked door, route to the left and a route to the right.... not rocket science just make sure you pull both levers. I can't rememver ever using the shrine in the quest so just going to leave it there.

The most pointless rest shrine in the game?

Final level 1 quest is Sacrifices which is not that difficult either. The quest itself is fairly linear, the route is easy to follow with one major trap to either jump or disable, warning though on hard or elite the trap can be a killer to low levels. Only other tip is Arissa can be in one of four places so if you have done it once and go back and wonder where she is she could be in a different location. Basically the options are with the second set of prisoners or the optional boss but to the left or right of both.

Sacrifices quest and this can be very painful

Finally the big quest to finish Korthos is Misery's Peak. The main route is linear but there are multiple levels on the sides where levers are located. This quest is one of those when you truly need to be awake as when you are looking for the levers they are located quite high up and come in pairs. The pairs though are not side by side though. Also you will see forcefields over runes which you will need to stand on to release other forcefields, the forcefields over the runes will only collapse if you destroy all the zombies (undead you can't kill them lol). The chances of falling are high and it highlights the need to get feather falling items as early as possible, I have stepped left, right, backward and forward off of edges so if I am doing it with a level 1 or 2 a cleric hireling or a healer member of the party is strongly suggested. But this is not a complicated quest apart from the fact your map is in 2D which is a bugger at times. Because of the Ice Flenser and Ice Spiders flaming stuff is good (actually at lower level fire is good at clearing rooms).

Apparently adventurer frosticles are all the rage.

Now this is not a how to do everything the way I do it but for new players starting the game it gives a few clues and with the possibility of a Dungeons and Dragons movie (hopefully a bit better than book of vile darkness) it should hopefully help players who are about to enter the realms of DDO.

Shame I can't get to the gold!

Yes I have used hirelings to speed my way through Korthos because I tend to play when there are less players online so rather than sitting waiting for a party to fill out doing it this way to let me write.

Grousemerlin.