v 1.0 ++++ DISCLAIMER ++++ You are free to use this document as you please as long as you do not claim my work as your own. If you want to modify this, please make a changelog. I wrote this walkthrough for fun and do not place any copyright on it. This FAQ is based on the english version 1.07 of ambermoon. This version was never released or properly betatested, and thus contains numerous bugs. If you know german it is reccomended to play the german version instead. In my oppinion Ambermoon/Amberstar are amongst the best RPGs ever made, however they are at times very hard. My hope is that this faq will help people who are stuck in the game to complete it. If you are however new to the game I suggest you try playing without this document, as it will take away a lot of the fun of discovering quest/places/puzzles on your own. If you havent played Amberstar, it is suggested that you play it first as Ambermoon has lots of references to it, and will make your gaming experience of Ambermoon much better. Big thanks go out to the Thalion webshrine ++++ Strategy guide/hints ++++ --== The party ==-- First of all it is worth mentioning that the game uses a shared XP system. This means that a party with two members will get more XP pr char than a party with three. Choose your partymembers carefully. --== Recruitable characters ==-- Egil - Fighter Nelvin - Mage Selena - Thief Sabine - Healer Valdyn - Ranger Gryban - Paladin Tar - Mage Leonoria - Alchemist Tagor - Mystic --== Stats ==-- Some stats are more useful than others: - Strength Determines how much loot/gold you can carry. You can never get enough STR as one of the most common problems in the game is not being able to carry anymore. Fortunately you can store gold/items in chests. Make sure you store all unneccesary items/gold before entering a new dungeon/cave. Buy one or more rings of STR as soon as possible. - Speed Determines who will attack first. A high SPD is vital to your fighting strategy. Buy one or more rings of SPD as soon as possible. Wells Gives the entire party statboost when you throw a wishing coin in them. Save your coins until you have a complete party so everyone will benefit. The well in Spannenberb will increase your STR. --== MAGIC ==-- SLP First off a little introduction to Spell Learning Points (SLP). Every magic user gets a certain amount of these when leveling. SLP are used to learn new spell. SLP are used even if you are unsuccessful so save before attempting to learn new magic. In both Amberstar and Ambermoon you have mixed classes and pure classes. An example of a mixed class is a paladin. A paladin is a fighter and a healer. These mixed classes gets less SLP and MP when leveling. Therefore, if using a mixed class, you will have to be more careful what spells you learn. In the case of Ambermoon you can not decide what class your main character is. He/She always starts out as an Adventurer. This is a mixed fighter and alchemist class. You will also probably pick up Valdyn later in the game who is a Ranger (mixed fighter and mystic). If you decide to keep these two as your only access to mystic and alchemist spells, there are a few ones that are very important to learn. Ranger: Mystical map III - This is one of the most useful spells in the game. It shows secrets, monsters and other points of interest. Identification - Identiifies objects. You should also carry a bunch of scrolls of these. Map view - Shows a full minimap of the dungeon. This includes unexplored areas and secrets. Adventurer: Magical Attack - Gives you more attack power. Magical Barrier - Gives you more defense power. Anti-magic sphere - Gives you protection against spells. Magic lantern/sun - Gives you light Create food - Found this very useful, but not really needed. Levitation - Very handy later in the game. Jump - Will help you out of a few tight spots. Not used often. A few scrolls will do the trick too Haste/mass-haste - Very helpful when taking down bosses. Spells you should have as scrolls because they use too much MP, aren't used often, or aren't worth the SLP. Duplicate item - Does just that. Does not work on the best stuff. Repair item - Repairs a broken item. Word of marking - Sets a beacon you can return to later. Word of returning - Teleports to a set beacon. Healer: Even though this is a pure magic class, she will run out of SLP amazingly fast. Therefore make sure to use your SLP wizely. I suggest learning status-changing spells as soon as possible (cure madness, raise dead etc). Also know that there are often two different spells that do the same thing. An example of this is Heal ageing and stop ageing. The first one works on one person, while the second works for the entire party. You only need one of them, and I suggest the first since it uses less SLP. Using a paladin instead of a healer is in my optinion, not an option. ++++ Quick and dirty ambermoon FAQ/Walkthrough ++++ 1.1 Spannenberg You start the game in your grandfathers house. First thing to do is to go down in the cellar and find a shortsword. Make sure to take everything of value before leaving the house. Now head for Spannenberg. There are two things you should do here first. 1. Find the fighters guild 2. Buy some decent weapons/armor. The fighters guild is to the west, while the merchant is to the east. I'd reccomend you go to the fighters guild first to get your second partymenber, Egil. Now you should have a fighting chance against the numerous bandits plaguing the city. Make sure to save before every fight as weapons/armor break easily. You won't be able to repair these before later in the game, so make sure nothing gets broken. Load if it happens. You now hopefully have a longsword or two, and can go hunting for some bandits to gain xp + cash. Now you need to get a pick-axe to be able to explore further down your grandfathers cellar. There are two ways of getting these. First one is to take the "test of thieves" down in the thieves gulid (inn). The second is to find the 4 missing golden horseshoes for the stablemaster. If you have a few lockpicks I suggest you go for the first option. Enter the inn and find the stairs down. If you've spoken to one of the ppl in the inn, you'll know that he wants a broach to tell you the secret password for the riddlemouth. Don't give him this broach. Your mage will really benefit from the +10 to U-M it provides. The password for the riddlemouth is as you might have guessed if you played amberster: silk. If you've kept the broach, you'll be facing a nice fireball for "cheating", so make sure you save first, and load until your characters survive the blast. If you've visited the various houses, you should have gotten several quests. 1. Get rid of the bandits 2. Get rid of the orcs 3. find the missing chalices 4. Rescue the sick girl (includes swamp-lily quest, water of life quest and getting an empty vial) 5. Find the horse shoes 6. Get some stuff for your grandfather 7. Find the name of the cat (Felix) The order of which you do the quest doesn't matter, and for all I know, doing them in a different order than this faq could be better. Do the "water of life" quest last as it's the most dangerous. You should go to the alchemists tower as early as possible to get the mage Nelvin. Remember you share XP between your characters, so one character more means less XP pr char. You should get Nelvin as high level as possible because his magic is vital in getting the water of life. The last character you should get is the sylph Selena. Shes more or less useless for anything else but picking locks, and will suck up valuable XP that would benefit your other characters. Do however make sure you get her on your team so you can rob her inventory. I won't go into more detail on the various quests since this was never intended to be a complete walkthrough. Things to remember: 1. Water of life quest: Make sure to check every wall as there are tons of secret rooms. 2. Save before doing anything that will raise your stats, make sure the right char gets the right boost. Ie it's a good idea to have a fast fighter and mage. 3. Use the chests in your grandfathers house to store money/items so they don't clog up your inventory. 4. The pyramid shaped key for the syplh-cave is in a tree outside the cave. Riddlemouths in the area: Grandfathers cellar: Wine Orc cave: Oknard Alchemists tower: Anthony Thieves guild: Silk After completing quest #4 you'll receive the ring of sobek that enables you to swim. Now equip this ring on your main char and swim to get the raft. Any other chars on your team will drown, so head to the healers and resurrect them. You can also dismiss the members before going on the little swimming trip, but I find it easier to spend some money on resurrection. 1.2 Burnville. BUGWARNING The english version of Ambermoon has a nice collection of bugs as it was never properly betatested. Worth mentioning before entering luminors tower are: 1. When getting Valdyn the game will crash. This is solved by copying the 2Map_texts.amb file from the german version, and replacing with the english one after you've gotten Valdyn. You can also use the Jump spell to get around this bug (untested). 2. This is a weird bug. I've mentioned earlier that dumping Selena might be a good idea. However, there seems to be a serious bug if there are additional chars in your team after the one you want to dismiss (ie Valdyn and Sabine). Therefore I suggest saving just before getting Sabine (in luminors tower basement), then dumping Selena and then get Sabine. I have not tested if this will fix the bug, so make sure you don't overwrite the save you made just before dumping Selena. To see if you are affected: Save after getting Valdyn, then load again. Do this once more. If you end up with two Valdyns and no Sabine, then you have to keep the damn fly-girl, or find another solution to the problem. 3. Possible trainingbug for Sabine. For some reason I cannot train past 75% even though she can have 95% in U-M. After riding the raft you should find the Burnville tunnel. Make sure to get the schimitar for Egil here. Now head for Burnville. You'll quicky discover that the city is empty. Go to the healers house to find a diary and a key. This is needed to complete the next tunnel. Also make sure you find the hidden magic school and spend some TP on U-M for your chars. Also get some new spells for Nelvin. Head for the next tunnel to get to the old black wizard tower. After the tunnel find the small house, use the sphere of opening and enter what is now called "Luminor's Tower". Luminor's tower is full of traps and secrets. Every trap has some sort of "off-switch" so check the walls. First head for the basement to pick up the healer Sabine. Make sure to check the "bugwarning" before having her join. Before facing Luminor you have to find a few icewater flasks to weaken him so hes not too impossible to beat. Again, look for fake walls. After going up a few stairs, you will find a dark floor. Here you will find Valdyn. Save here and check my bugwarning. This bug is supposedly also avoidable by using the "jump spell", but as I haven't tried this myself, I can not confirm this. There is also a fake wall here and an icewater flask. I found 4 flasks. Use the sphere of opening as the key for the door. You may want to consider going back to Burnville/Spannenberg to level your new characters. Valdyn can get the very useful "critical hits" up to 5% if you decided to let Magier live. Now go kill Luminor. If you've used all the icewater flasks he should be no problem at all. When he is dead, make sure to serch the walls for a nice chest containing lots of stat boosting potions and other items. Head for the basement and free the prisoners. Next stop is Burnville which is now back to swarming with life thanks to you. After exploring Burnville head for Spannenberg to get a ship. IMPORTANT! You do NOT have to do the below steps in the suggested order. 1.3 Illien Travel to Illien. Here you can recruit the elf Leonoria on your team. Ask Pelanis about "curse" Riddlemouths 1. Needle 2. Nose 3. Ripe 4. Glasses 1.4 Newlake Visit the library, search all the bookcases. Find 3 books, 1 key and lots of nice scrolls. Give the painting you got in BUrnville to the Baron, and watch as you gain a ton of levels. Now you should be able to deal with his golem guards. Look for secret walls. Items in the Baron's house: Lightning boots and anti-magic ring. Now head for the crypt. This is also where shandra is buried. Here you will get the key for the secret room in the library. 1.5 Mera's Island This island is now ruled by her son, Nera, who is not as .. uhm kind... as his mother. Talk to the cat and search the bookshelves. After kicking his butt you get a nice broom you can fly on. 1.6 Gemstone Or what's left of it. Not much to do here. Find a windpearl, get access to donners mine. 1.7 Sleepig potion Gather the ingredients for the demonbrew. Go to Mera's Island and make it. 1.8 Gnomes of Mera's Island This is a nice labyrinth. So find your way to the gnome city. Here you can get Tagor, a lvl 16 mystic on your team. 1.9 Windchain By now you should have obtained 13 wind pearls and the mother o pearl necklace. You need 12 pearls to make the windchain. If you don't have atleast 12, you should backtrack till you find them. Head to the windshrine and make your necklace. 1.10 The woods Head west from the windshrine. Here you'll find a huge forest. Search until you find a small house and talk with the person inside. He will tell you he's looking for his apprentice Kay. Travel north until you find a cave. Do the usual mass murdering of not-so-innocent monsters and head back to the small house. Show him Kay's necklace and get a stick of rare wood. Head back to the windshrine and make the staff needed to repair the windgates. I also made the game crash by looking at Kay's remains, so you might want to save before trying this. 1.11 Sansri's Island Make sure you have around 3000 gold in your inventory and little else. You're going to need the space. Then head towards the island with all the wingates. Locate the one going to Sansri's island (the only working one), and head through. 1.12 Illien Give Sansri's blood to Pelanis. 1.13 Castle Godsbane Your objective here is to get the amberstar. You can also get Gryban on your team. 1.14 Temple of the Brotherhood If you want to get another mage in your party then this is where you want to go next. Find the stairs leading down. Fight the nice deamon, get the second part of the amulet. 1.15 Tar Go to Spannenberg and get the first part of the amulet. The go to Burnville to get it fixed. Head back to Spannenberg again and show the amulet to the madman. Also check out the tunnel going to Sansri's Island. There is a bug preventing you from opening the door, but since you now have the eagle just access it from both ends. 1.16 Leba's tower This should be piece of cake by now. Actaully you should proably have been here much much earlier in the game. 1.17 Donner's mine Not much to say. Standard dungeon. 1.18 Head to the volcano west of Spannenberg and enter the dwarven mine. Use all the different gems you've found throughout the game to remove various walls. Find the green navstone. 1.18 Temple of the Brotherhood (part 2) If you have Tar on your team you've already visited this place. Kill the remaining guards and obtain two keys. Find the airship and cast off. 2.0 Kire's moon You soon figure out this is a shitty place. Lots of bugs that are hard to kill and doesn't give you much XP. You will learn to hate them soon enough. If you look closely on the ground, you can see the insect nests. So try your best to avoid them. Dor Grestin 104/166 Ruins 66/69 Dorina 64/235 2.1 Dor Kiredon You automatically enter the city. Head to the smithy and learn of the missing daughter. Head down into the cellar and look around. A hint is to use the "map view" spell. The monsters you find here pack quite a nasty punch. 2.2 Dor Grestin Not much to say. Speak with everyone. 2.3 Dorina The word to get in is "Schnism" 2.4 Ruins Find some pen and paper, blow the dust off you old calculator and head in. Once you think you've mastered the.. ahem .. complex math system, head out again. 2.5 Mine Make sure you picked up the amber from Kire. Buy a few pickaxes and head to the mine. Use your incredible mathskills to open various doors. A hint if you get stuck and can't find where to go is to keep going forward through the teleporters. When you reach the bottom you will be able to make new navstones. Make a few of each color, and insert the red sphere you found into the machine. Enter the teleporter. 2.6 Gadlon Fun gimmick for you who have played "Dragon Flight". 3.0 Morag Well, you got your navstones. Time to lift off once again. Green - Forest moon (you probably already knew that) Blue - Lyramion (home sweet home) Yellow - Morag Yellow it is. Here you learn of the evil plan to steal a tad of water. Off we go to find those strings. It's also worth mentioning that waterbased spells do not work here. This means the magical guards just got a lot tougher to deal with. Automapping does not work either. Cast "mystical mapping" or similar if you want a map. If you aren't that good at math, you may wanna try the numbers 242 and 301. 18,13 Give the water bottle you got in the city to this guy. 4.0 Lyramion again Once you've found all 7 strings, head for the music master. Buy a harp and give him the strings. Now it's time to head for the main badguy. 4.1 Temple of the brootherhood (again) Use the harp on the door and fight your way to the main boss. Kill him and watch the ending.