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Stonekeep - Playing Hints and Walkthrough This document is for the Interplay RPG game Stonekeep. It covers game bugs and patches, how-to's, hints, strategies, special locations, some item locations, level hints, spoilers, edibles, rings, and comments. Table of Contents 1. Introduction, notes, other resources 2. Notes, updates, game problems, bugs 2.1 Updates 2.2 Problems encountered personally 2.3 Other hardware problems I heard about 2.4 Game bugs 3. Using the magic, runes list 4. General gameplay hints and strategies 5. Advanced strategies, levels list 6. Hints for each level / area 7. Spoilers, items, special locations for each level / area 8. List of Gods (orbs) 9. List of comestibles (edibles) & rings 10. Comments & gripes 11. Credits for help/hints from the newsgroup v1.1 February 29, 1996 James Meloy jmmeloy@islandnet.com ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Section 1. Introduction, notes, other resources INTRODUCTION As stated above, this is all about the Interplay RPG Stonekeep. It is completely 'unofficial', is most likely incomplete, and undoubtedly contains errors (and typos!). Send all comments and corrections about it to me, as the people at Interplay should be spending their time creating their next *great* game. If you find this document helpful, please drop me a line and let me know about it. This is my second attempt at writing a comprehensive help file for a game. I received only a few (4 or 5) responses from the first one, so if I get the same level of response from this one, I won't bother with any others. Kudos to those responding to queries in COMP.SYS.IBM.PC.GAMES.RPG Without their help, I would have been stuck in the faerie realm looking for that @#^$!@# daisy chain forever! Someone was also kind enough to post the solution for getting into that secret room in the starting tower, and someone else posted the (very) helpful <F8>. Special thanks also to Chris Taylor (GRUPS Chris, formerly Stonekeep Chris) for his many and varied responses in the newsgroup, and to Lonewolf for filling in many of the missing details. This is v1.1 of the hints file. It is the final(?) version, unless someone comes up with some major error(s) in it, or finds some solutions to the bugs encountered in the game. You may post this document UNALTERED to any BBS, FTP site, or WWW site you think appropriate. Distribution for profit is definitely uncool. The only exception to this is if the file is included as part of a general file resource. I will be uploading to COMP.SYS.IBM.PC.GAMES.RPG. If you want it posted elsewhere, be my guest (I'm limited to 1 hour access time per day, so my online usage is REALLY tight). If anyone wishes to make this document available on their website (UNALTERED), no problem. NOTES AND OTHER RESOURCES Interplay's CD release version is v1.05 (I think). They have put out two updates - v1.1 and v1.2. These are to correct some serious bugs. Get the v1.2 update patch and install it *before* you play, if possible. I enjoyed the game (despite the bugs) and hope the sequel (there is going to be one, isn't there?) comes out in less than 5 years. Personally, my favorite (and most hated) level was the faerie realm. Karzak's comments, interspersed with performances by the faerie players, made for some good belly laughs. It also helped that each faerie had a distinct personality. I have seen a number of other help documents for Stonekeep available on the WWW. These all have various plusses and minuses, but all are serious attempts to provide help with a complex game. - Stonekeep demo and screen shots Available from http://www.interplay.com/ - Dave's semi-official walkthrough, by David Melanson This is a complete walk-through for the game, from start to end. Available from http://www.interplay.com/ - Barry Brook's Stonekeep combat FAQ v2.0 He covers weapon and armor stats, skills, general fighting strategies, the monsters and how to kill them, and the NPC's and their fighting skills. Available from http://www.interplay.com/ - Doug Swarin's Stonekeep Faq v0.35 This is a work in progress. Available from http://www.spice.co.uk/~richard/stonekeep/index.html - Magic Costs & Endgame Spoilers by David Melanson Available from http://www.spice.co.uk/~richard/stonekeep/index.html - Jochen Walder's Lists He has created a set of lists for everything significant in the game. There is a separate list for keys, orbs, runecasters, spell scrolls, NPC's, etc etc. Each list gives the level and x,y coordinates of the object, and for a few objects he gives some info on how to get or use the object. (I had this E-Mailed to me, so I don't know where it would be available on the net) - Spoiler's Center This site contains a massive collection of spoilers, FAQ files, cheats and hints for lots of different games. At http://www.et.ee/spoiler/ Interplay also has an FTP site, ftp.interplay.com, where several of the documents mentioned above may be found. If others exist (and they probably do) I have not yet seen them. These documents were available as of the creation date of this document. Since Barry has done up such a nice FAQ covering all the weapons, armor, and NPC's (Thanks Barry!) I'll leave them out of this one. Saves my time & energy for more gameplaying! ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Section 2. Updates, game problems, bugs There are a number of known bugs in the game, some of which are *very* serious, serious enough to keep you from being able to complete the game. Others can be annoying, bothersome, or downright silly. Note: If you have a lot of trouble with crashing in the game, then you most likely have either memory problems or driver conflicts. I have spoken with people who have run this game on everything from a 386-sx/25 to a P133, with all kinds of hardware, operating systems, and drivers. Anyone I helped that had multiple crashes had 1 of 5 problems (including me). 1-Running on a version before v1.2 2-Insufficient conventional memory 3-Running in Win95 (various reasons) 4-Incompatable drivers/memory managers 5-Badly fragmented hard drive Most people can run the game from DOS with no modifications. If you are using Win95, the 'best' solution is to try and run the game using the 'reboot into dos then run' option. See below for further help. Note: I have heard of some "unique" problems people have run into after modifying their save-games with the Universal Game Editor (UGE). I will not be covering any of these problems here, since if you use this on your game, you should know what you are doing, and should know to expect some possible side effects. 2.1 *** UPDATES There is a v1.2 update that has been released by Interplay. It is supposed to clean up most of the known bugs and problems with the game. The update is available on Interplay's website and several other websites and FTP sites, and quite probably at most of the major BBS's and services. 2.2 *** PROBLEMS ENCOUNTERED PERSONALLY I played the game as much as possible from the HD, using a 486/66, dos 6.20, SB Pro II, running HIMEM, EMM386, Ontrack's Disk Manager, and the SB Pro's FM music drivers. I did run into the (in)famous Wahooka bug and some crashes in the early levels. I didn't find out about the update patch until I was 4 or 5 levels in. The game crashed on me when I was in the lower keep level, usually after a good length of playing, when I tried to go through one of the illusionary walls. After installing the patch, I only had two problems late in the game. - One time, when saving the game, I got a 'sector not found' error and ended up crashing out of the game - turned out my HD was quite fragmented. After defragging, I never had the problem again. - The second problem was in the evil dwarf's lair. When the dwarf was speaking to me, the speech halted and I got an error 'unable to read file'. I had to abort the game at that point. Going in there with the speech turned off bypassed the problem. I haven't contacted Interplay about the problem yet, so I don't know if it is a common problem or if I got a 'bum' CD (I suspect the CD). After leaving the game, sometimes stuff in memory would be scrambled. If I needed to run windows afterwards, I would have to reboot, or windows would crash/hang/give errors. NOTE: Afri is not mentioned in the book THERA'S AWAKENING (at least not in the one I have). I'm not certain if this was a book-bug, or if this god was left out to confuse us poor mortals. 2.3 *** Other hardware problems I heard about Win95 memory problems. Since I don't use Win95, I can't verify the following solution. Stonekeep comes with a PIF file of its own, created by Interplay. To use it with Win95, you need to modify it slightly. On the command line, change the executable from 'SK.BAT' to 'SK.BAT WIN95'. This is supposed to prevent the 'insufficient memory' problem. Addendum: This does solve the memory problem in *some* circumstances. You may still need to modify your config/autoexec to make more base memory/upper memory available. (You thought those problems went away with Win95? Tee Hee Hee). Also, I heard that stonekeep simply will not work with *some* computers using Win95. With these, you can only run Stonekeep with a boot disk or by using the 'reboot into dos and run' option. One further problem that you may have is a lack of disk space. Win95 (and Windows) use a large swapfile on the hard drive to move stuff out of and into memory as needed, and you need to take this into account when checking your available disk space (from Dos). Memory problems running in Dos. Stonekeep is a complex set of programs that need lots of clean memory. Try running with as few TSR's and drivers as you can get away with. Load as much stuff into upper/ extended memory as you can to give it lots of conventional memory. I ran the game with very few problems with 613k conv & 6504k extended memory (according to mem), with lots of drivers in upper and extended memory, including smartdrv with a 512k read-only buffer. Using a GUS sound card. One note I read on the newsgroup said that the GUS soundcard was not supported for MIDI music (something to do with Interplay's driver for this card being buggy?). Apparently the game can be run with full sound effects and speech, but without music. I'm not sure if Interplay has a solution for this yet, so if you are using one of these, try contacting their tech support for assistance. 2.4 *** BUGS Most of the bugs listed here are ones that I have heard of, since I personally ran into only a few problems. 2.4.a - Bypassing the Faerie Realm 2.4.b - The Wahooka bugs 2.4.c - Giving Dombur the last weapon piece 2.4.d - Enigma and getting into the Faerie Realm 2.4.e - The 3-door trap in the pits 2.4.f - The disappearing Coldfire 2.4.g - The one-way door to the Castle of Shadows 2.4.h - 99 charge / quantity maximum (or the silver runestaff) 2.4.i - Queen Iaenni's conversations are not captioned 2.4.j - Runecasters not functioning properly 2.4.k - Game crashing in Ice Realm trying to walk by the sharga 2.4.a - One complaint that I hear of on the newsgroup over and over again from people 'bashing' the game is that there is nothing in the game to tell you that you missed the faerie realm and a very important item in there. This is FALSE! The first hint (Hint? More like an order!) is in the Upper Feeding Grounds. "Tell Gorda Karn that those strange glowing things are back. They stay in the area to the east of the Dragon, and flee whenever our guards approach. I think they're faeries. Something faerielike might open the Gate to their Realm, they would make good slaves..." The second 'hint' is in the Ice Caverns, in a note to the Ice Queen. "Khull Khuum wants you to invade the faerie realm. The Terrible Troll has informed him that an orb has been collected and is waiting for him there." In standard RPG terms, these are like someone hitting you in the head with a baseball bat to get your attention. It doesn't get any plainer. The valid complaing in this case is that Interplay had a problem testing the game properly, since the second hint is given AFTER you defeat the Ice Queen, and in v1.0 and v1.1 of the game, if you collected Enigma into the party (from the ice realm), you couldn't get into the Faerie Realm (see Enigma & the Faerie Realm bug below). 2.4.b - Wahooka bugs. 1. Where Wahooka first appears, and asks for something of value, you (sometimes) can't get him to re-appear. I'm not sure if this was properly fixed in v1.2, but I have heard that if he talks to you but doesn't appear, pressing 'Y' will help. 2. Going down to the lower level, then back up to where you are supposed to meet him for the second time, the game sometimes "hangs, crashes, aborts, or other weird things". This is also supposed to be fixed in v1.2. 3. Wahooka doesn't appear in the sewers. If you never walk on the square necessary to make him appear (??? can it be done???) he will never show. Sometimes if you have been 'bugged' in an upper level, he won't appear either. This is a minor annoyance, since all he does is give you a key to a chest with some good stuff in it. The chest contains nothing needed to finish the game. 2.4.c - Giving the 3rd piece of the secret weapon to Dombur. Dombur moves fairly quickly, is impatient, and is very absent-minded. When he finishes talking to you, take the 3rd piece and move it around his hand until you get the 'hand' icon, then click the mouse button. You may not get this 'hand' icon until the second or 3rd conversation. It worked straight-off for me (with v1.2 patch). 2.4.d - Enigma and the Faerie Realm. If you (like many others) bypassed the Faerie Realm and continued on through the ice caverns, getting Enigma to join the party, you could not return and enter the Faerie Realm later. Either you could not get the wall to open, or an invisible wall would prevent you from getting to the end of the passage (and through the teleporter). The v1.1 patch was *supposed* to fix this problem, but didn't. The v1.2 patch definitely did. 2.4.e - The three-door trap in The Pits. I call this the Monty Hall problem. (Anybody else remember Lets Make A Deal?) In the pits, there are three doors opening off of one intersection (N, E, S). Behind one of the doors is a key. If you pick up three objects (picking up one object three times is the same thing) behind the doors, all three doors lock. Putting the objects down doesn't help. Once the doors are locked, there is no way to open them again. If you don't have the key from behind door #2, there is no way to ever get the key needed to finish this level. You have to go back to a previous save game. If there is a way of 'resetting' these doors, Interplay has made it very difficult to figure out. 2.4.f - The disappearing Coldfire problem. The Coldfire cannot exist on any level other than the ice level (it melts). If you need to return to a prevous level (for recharging/healing), put the coldfire back in the fire pit before leaving the ice level. It'll be there when you return. If you drop it anywhere else, it disappears. PS-I heard the Ice Queen CAN be killed without the coldfire, but it is very difficult. See spoilers for one method. 2.4.g - The one-way door to the Castle of Shadows. Several people have complained of a non-existent problem here. If you head into the Castle of Shadows without all the orbs from the prior levels, you're hooped because you can't get back. The truth is, there are three (3) different ways of getting back to the prior levels. The first two involve the magic mirrors in the castle, and the third way is to set a teleport circle somewhere before you enter the castle. 2.4.h - The 99 charge silver runestaff. This staff actually DOES contain the 120 charges as advertised. The game inventory system seems to be limited to displaying a maximum of 99 of anything. I picked up more than 99 rocks, skulls, arrows, and sharga swords, and all showed a total of 99. 2.4.i - Queen Iaenni's conversations are not captioned. This can be very annoying if you don't (or can't) have speech enabled, or can't hear her speech (for whatever reason). None of her speech is *critical* to finishing the game, but it does help. 2.4.j - Runecasters don't always function properly. On some levels, when you use a runecaster, you can use it only once, and from then on it doesn't function properly. If you leave that level and return, things reset and the runecasters function properly again. I'm not sure what the cause/cure for this is, as I've seen very few posts about this problem. 2.4.k - Ice realms - Game crashes when trying to get past the first sharga. I'm not sure what's the cause of this problem. I never encountered it, but by that time I was running on v1.2. It also seems to be a rare problem. The two people I heard of having the problem killed that sharga, removing the cause of the bug, and didn't seem to run into any repercussions. This may only be a problem with v1.0 or v1.1, since I had no trouble with this running v1.2. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Section 3. Using the magic, runes list Casting spells from the runestaffs requires several steps. 1. Placing a rune on the staff. - Put the staff in your right hand (remember, it's a mirror!). - Bring up the journal, and flip to the runes section, going to the page containing the rune you want. - Right-click on the rune. This should bring the staff up on the right side of the book. - Right-click onto the slot on the staff where you want the rune to be. This will overwrite any existing runes/meta-runes. - If you want to add a meta-rune to a regular rune, flip to the meta-runes page, right-click on the meta rune, then right-click on top of the rune you wish to 'meta'. Meta runes can be combined onto regular runes (except for 2x and 3x runes). - Repeat as often as desired. - Left-click somewhere off the book and staff to return to regular playing mode. 2. Getting ready to cast a spell. - Place the staff in your right or left hand. - Click the mouse button corresponding to the hand holding the staff. This should bring up the staff on the right (or left?) side of the screen. 3. Casting a spell into the playing screen (on monsters, etc) - Get ready to cast a spell. - Click on the rune you wish to cast. - Place the cursor on the target of the spell (or the direction it is to go). - Press the mouse button corresponding to the hand holding the staff. 4. Casting a spell on yourself or on an NPC in your party. - Make sure the character status bar is visible in the top-right corner of the screen. If it's not, click on the mirror in the top- right corner to make it visible. - Get ready to cast a spell. - Click on the rune you wish to use. - Click on the compass heading in the center of the status bar to reveal characters. Staff will move to the center of the screen. - Click on the character you wish to cast a spell on. - Repeat as desired. - Click somewhere off the character display and runestaff to return to regular play. NOTE: Recharging of staffs is done automatically when you step onto a manna circle (green circle on floor). All staffs are recharged, whether in hand or in inventory. Standing on the circle doesn't do it, you have to step onto it. RUNES LIST This is a list of the runes I found, where they were, and what they do. Many runes were found more than once. RUNE NAME TYPE LEVEL FOUND DESCRIPTION ---------- ------ ------------ ------------------------------------- Shrink Reg. Lower keep Shrinks target Firebolt Reg. Lower keep Shoots fireball at target Power-2 Meta Lower keep Doubles the power (& cost) of another rune Heal Reg. Lower keep Minor healing spell Shrink Reg. Sewers Shrinks target Read Reg. Mines1 Gives target ability to read *some* unreadable text Heal Reg. Mines1 Minor healing spell Silence Reg. Mines1 Silences target L. Aerial Reg. Mines1 Lesser Aerial Magic (aka feather fall) Take no damage from falling in pits Firebolt Reg. Mines1 Shoots fireball at target Potency Meta Mines2 Lowers magic resistance of target L. Aerial Reg. Temple1 Lesser Aerial Magic (aka feather fall) Strength Reg. Temple2 Strengthens character Spoilspell Reg. Temple2 Cancels magical effects or provides protection vs magic Flame Reg. Temple2 Casts a magical flame on the square in front of the caster Shield Reg. Temple2 Target protected against ranged attacks Energybolt Reg. Temple2 Shoots magical energy bolts that weaken or stun opponents Translocate Reg. Lower FG Sets a teleport target circle Scare Reg. Lower FG Scares target. Target may flee Armor Reg. Upper FG Creates an (imperfect) magical armor barrier around the target Winds Reg. Upper FG Casts a magical whirlwind Shrink Reg. Upper FG Shrinks target Strong Heal Reg. Upper FG Improved heal - also cures poison, etc Ball Meta Upper FG Gives a regular rune an area effect Duration Meta Upper FG Makes the effect of some runes last longer Murphy Reg. Faerie realm Very murphy rune - casts slow Invisibility Reg Faerie realm Casts invisibility on party Duck Reg. Faerie realm Duck rune. It goes Quack. Read Reg. Dwarf halls Gives target ability to read some unreadable text Power-2 Meta Dwarf halls Doubles the power of a regular rune Power-3 Meta Dwarf halls Triples the power of a regular rune Ball Meta Dwarf halls Gives a regular rune an area effect Duration Meta Dwarf halls Makes the effects of some runes last longer Potency Meta Dwarf halls Lowers magic resistance of target Teleport Reg. Dwarf halls Teleports party to the target circle, set by the translocate rune Armor Reg. Ice caves Creates magical armor Ball Meta Ice caves Gives a regular rune an area effect Ice bolts Reg. Ice caves Shoots ice bolts at target Warming Reg. Ice caves Thaws target, protection vs cold Fire ward Reg. Ice caves Places a fire trap on floor in front of the caster Scare Reg. The Gate Scares target. Target may flee Deep Freeze Reg. The Gate Severely chills opponents (try it on fire elementals) Stoptrack Reg. The Gate Stops opponent in its tracks Spheres Reg. The Pit Shoots spheres at opponents, crushing lightly defended creatures Read Reg. The Pit Gives target ability to read *some* unreadable text Quickness Reg. Castle Increases targets rate of attack ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Section 4. General gameplay hints and strategies The game is a first-person 3D real-time dungeon exploration game. Fighting is real-time, using the mouse, but not too fast. There are a number of different types of strategies that will work, and experienced gamers can somewhat mold the character to suit their playing preferences. To bypass the opening sequences, press the ESC key after each one starts. NPC's play a real and fairly important role, setting minor tasks, sharing information, giving items, and sometimes accompanying the player. Up to 3 companions at one time can join the quest, but the player has little control over who joins or leaves the party. There are many dirt piles/snowbanks found on most levels. Attacking them may reveal useful items, and improves combat skills. There is nothing found in any of them that is *critical* to finishing the game, but one or two very important items can be found. When attacking things, the white 'cross-hair' cursor will shrink and dim after each blow. When it brightens back to normal, the weapon has been 'reset' and you can strike again. This gets faster as you improve that specific combat/weapon skill. To read a scroll, touch it to your character's image in the mirror. Bring up inventory (which automatically displays your character and the NPCs), then touch the chest of your character with the scroll. Shargas aren't really the 'bad' guys in this game. You will need to kill many of them, but definitely not all. A sharga that is cowering in fear (or drunk!) is a harmless one. There are three 'modes' used in gameplay. Regular mode - time passes, monsters move, you can move & fight. Journal mode - journal is open, time is suspended. Inventory mode - inventory is open, time is suspended, you can take/drop items and shuffle inventory. If you want to get through an NPC's conversation quickly, press the space bar to bypass that bit of the speech. You may have to press it several times to complete a conversation. Pressing the ENTER key pauses the conversation (lets you read what's on the screen). Press SHIFT-F8 to turn on/off the exact location display. The display shows (compass heading, X-coordinate, Y-coordinate, level number). I use this a lot when creating the items list and the hints. (I don't remember who posted this to the newsgroup, but thanks!) The map page numbers in the journal are not fixed - they will change themselves to match the levels you have been on. Use the level descriptions or the <F8> level number for absolute reference. Afri's orb can be used by placing it on the next map square, in front of you, and getting into regular mode (get out of inventory mode). Your inventory scroll can hold almost anything (except NPC's?) with no encumbrance or weight problems (slick solution). You might as well grab and hang onto everything you find. Sorting the items into categories (like weapons, potions, armor, etc) makes things much easier to find when the scroll gets crowded. Keep the most-used items, like throwing axes and runestaffs, at the top. Paying for weapons in the shop. I don't think it's possible to get the coins out of the bag, and it's not necessary. You pay for the items (one at a time) by placing an item on the table beside the dwarf, then handing him the sack of gold. He will give you back your change. Sometimes chairs/tables get in the way (blocking access to secret panels, buttons, or objects). Smash them with your weapons to get through to what you want. Green slimes sometimes pick up items lying on the floor. These can range from weapons & armor to gems & keys. Kill them all, because one *may* be carrying something you really need.