Part I: Senju, Kawahara, and the Emperor
As our intrepid heroes begin their adventure, they’ll meet the Emperor of Lorn at his palace on Kodan and learn about some of the threats against him. The evil wizard Kawahara and the good wizard Senju appear to be locked in some sort of death match, though someone is clearly pulling the strings behind Kawahara and Senju is no where to be found, at first…
Kodan
The continent of Kodan is where you start the game. It’s also the largest continent on the map, taking up three sectors. You’ll spend the entire first chunk of the game here, trying to earn enough money and/or prestige to acquire a boat. You’ll also need to earn enough experience to not die immediately after leaving your home continent, but we’ll cross that bridge when we get to it.
(Just kidding: there are no bridges in Deathlord.)
Kawa
Services: food, tools, melee weapons (Masakari), armor (Haramakido)
As you start the game, you’re dumped naked and shivering right next to Kawa. It might seem like a good idea to buy some equipment, but hold off for now. We’ll collect some more cash first, and there’s better stuff to be bought elsewhere. Of course, if you run around outside too long, you could well be attacked by wandering monsters and lose your entire party before you even get off the ground. So maybe back up that save disk first, eh?
Kawa has a mid-range melee weapons shop and a mid-range armor shop. Although you won’t be able to afford top-end stuff yet, in Tokugawa you’ll also be able to buy missile weapons, which are generally better than melee although they do usually come with a to-hit penalty.
What you will eventually want to buy here is a Holy Symbol. This makes fighting off parties of Skeletons much, much easier. Given that Skeletons can be farmed for gold (see the ruin of Yokahama, below), this is pretty much a no-brainer.
Spend some time walking around Kawa, practicing (O)ration and getting to know the locals. You’ll find out that someone named Kawahara is waiting for you in the caverns underneath the Emperor’s Palace, which sounds like an obvious plot arrow if ever I’ve heard one. You’ll find some Yakzua hanging out near the inn. The NPCs here also know about the lay of the land: Yokohama, which I just mentioned a minute ago, is ESE of here and now lies in disrepair. There’s another set of ruins, formerly known as Wakiza, to the SW. On the E coast is a town called Tokushima, with an old shrine out on Bone Island. You can also see most of these features on the world map that’s printed on the game box.
You can also learn that the Daimyo has a Kaibu locked up in the west tower. A Daimyo is a feudal lord, like a baron. In Deathlord they are sometimes present as rulers of a town, and about half of them are hostile and will attack you on sight. (I believe that ‘DIAMYO’ is a misspelling, but that’s what you’ll see in combat and the Appendix.) Killing a Daimyo doesn’t have any sort of effect plot-wise, it just means they won’t talk to you and you have to kill them. The one in Kawa is hostile.
I mentioned this in the intro, but there’s an oration trick that you should know: whenever you go into a town, ask someone about a dungeon. (There are some other useful common keywords in the linked section.) If there’s one about, someone will know about it. Often enough someone will have a (T)alk message that mentions a dungeon, and then you know to ask about it, but eventually you just learn a couple of common keywords, and that’s one of them. Here in Kawa, they’ll point you towards the “starter dungeon”, along the trail to the E.
Let’s talk about stealing. If you play a lot of CRPGs from this era, you’re probably used to walking into people’s houses, or the mayor’s office or whatever, and just helping yourself to anything you can find. The guards don’t seem to care if you bash down doors, break into prisons and free (or kill) the prisoners, or steal things; just don’t throw the first punch. Regardless of whether you’re playing a good-aligned party or not, this is the only way you’re going to get any cash in the early game here, and the guards won’t argue or try to stop you, so I say go for it. This game is hard enough without giving yourself an artificial handicap.
On the other hand, if you want to turn an entire town against you, just (A)ttack someone in the town. It doesn’t matter if it’s a guard, a random citizen, a prisoner, or a skeleton that you are 100% positive is hostile and about to attack you; if you take first strike, the entire town will become hostile. Shopkeepers will refuse to sell to you and guards will attack you on sight. This is a particularly bad idea at the Emperor’s Palace; it’s hard to win the game if you can’t talk to the Emperor, so be careful. You may also notice that the emulator will save to disk immediately, because Deathlord likes to remind you that actions have consequences. If that happens and you want to undo it, you might be able to use the Disk Swapping trick to reload the towns.
There are two varieties of object that you can steal from: pots and chests (or boxes, really, is what they look like on-screen). Use (G)et to take their contents. Pots generally have more gold, but boxes are much more likely to have items and also more likely to be trapped. Coffins can also be raided for gold and items, but some percentage of the time they also contain Vampires, which you really don’t want to fight, because level drain is the worst.
So, that being said, let’s break into the Daimyo’s quarters. You can buy a lockpick if you want, or just (S)mash down the door. Neither is 100% effective, and failing to smash down a door costs you 2 hp, so consider your gold/health situations.
From the foyer head W down the hallway to find a few pots of gold. Back by the entrance, there’s a secret door to the south that leads into a crypt – don’t open the coffin – and a false wall to the E that leads to more cash. It’s a nice boost to your starting gold and should make your shopping trip in Tokugawa more fun.
For now, you’re not powerful enough to take on either the guards in the E (there’s more money there), the Daimyo in the SE (pointless, but hostile), or the Yakuza Guild. You can come back and handle these guys later; just remember, always let other people attack you first while you’re in town. You can kill the Kaibu in the SW tower, if you really want to.
Emperor’s Palace
Services: food, healing (Resurrect)
Your next destination probably ought to be the Emperor’s Palace, since it’s right there, just WNW of Kawa. On the off chance you ever need to do this walk in the dark, take the N exit from Kawa, walk 7W, and then (E)nter N to get to the palace. Or reverse. It’s handy if you’re grinding the Yakuza Guild for experience and need to get detoxified at the healer’s.
Easily the most important thing to do here, at least for now, is to find the healer, just W of the central square. You can rob him blind, both from the donations pot (shame!) and from the hidden cache behind him to the W. There’s also a food vendor just E of the square. To the N you’ll find his royal majesty, Emperor Nakamoto, atop his throne. He would like you to determine who is responsible for “these outrages”. No word on what outrages he’s talking about, but the “bring me any news” line is important later. This is common for Deathlord: very subtle hints hidden in speech.
E of the Emperor’s audience chamber is his private garden. The prison cell in the center houses a party of Shades, which can drain levels. Don’t even bother. There’s also a large treasure room E of there, but you shouldn’t tangle with the guards at low levels.
This is as good a time as any to talk about prisons. Many major towns have prisons. Prisoners often, but not always, have the most interesting things to say to you. However, you will often get into at least one fight, either with an angry prisoner, or with guards that don’t appreciate you bashing down the prison door. You can often tell if someone on the other side of a portcullis wants to talk to you or not; if you wait a few turns and they don’t move but just hang out by the door, they’re probably hostile. If they move around at all, they’re definitely not. Remember, never take first strike against anyone inside a town.
In the case of the Palace, the jail doesn’t have many useful hints, and it has a couple of hostile prisoners, but no guards at least.
On to the clues: asking around, you’ll hear about the hidden Yakuza Guild in Kawa and the spy in the NW tower. Break into that tower and the spy mutters something cryptic:
Step East on the second drop
There’s also two dungeons to be found: the caverns under the SE tower of the palace (where Kawahara awaits you – don’t go there yet), and the “starter dungeon” to the E, which you already know about.
Elsewhere on Kodan you’ll learn about the party of mages that are visiting the Emperor. They’re housed in the Guest Chambers just W of the Emperor’s audience room, and they’re awfully nice folks who don’t mind at all if you rob them blind. Highly recommended. Between this, the temple vault, and the coin from the Kawa Daimyo, you should be ready to buy some serious gear.
You have two choices. The best gear on this continent is found in Tokugawa, to the NW. That city is labeled on the world map that comes in the box, so I don’t think it’s cheating exactly to head there next, and that’s what I’m going to write as the next section.
On the other hand, the plot arrows point you towards the starter dungeon (too challenging until you gain a couple of levels), the ruins of Yokahama (ditto), and Tokushima on the E coast. You’ll learn about Tokugawa in Tokushima (try not to confuse them, but everyone else does) but that’s an awfully long way to walk without equipment, so if you want to go there next, you’re best off buying some gear in Kawa first.
Along with your front three, I recommend arming whoever’s in slot 4 as well, because you’ll probably get into a situation in the first couple fights where you need to drop someone out of the front rank to avoid having them get killed. This is also a really good time to save your game and back up the saves.
Me? I’m going shopping.
Tokugawa
Services: training, food, melee weapons (Naginata), missile weapons (Great Bow), armor (Yoroi), shipyard
Head NW from the Emperor’s palace, and along the coastline you’ll find the bustling port town of Tokugawa, also known as the shopping capital of Kodan. It has the only training academy around, which makes it a frequent stopping place for your party. There’s also a shipyard, which will come in handy later. For now you can learn that ships cost 10,000 gp (i.e. as much as one character can carry). Sounds like something to work towards.
Without a boat (or G6:UKU), you only have access to the E and S sides of the city. The absolute must-do is to find the training academy; enter the city from the E and walk just a little bit W to the first shop room N.
Buying Equipment: In the SW there’s a food vendor and a missile weapons vendor. Bows are really excellent early-game weapons; the Light Bow (-1 to hit, two attacks for 1-4 damage, +1 AC) usually does better damage than the Masakari (1-8 damage) if you have any damage bonus at all from high STR, and the AC bonus is nice even if the to-hit penalty is a little bit sad.
If you’re considering a Naginata (+1 to hit, 1-10 damage, +1 AC), consider that the Crossbow has the exact same stats, costs 100 gp less, and thieves can also use it. The Great Bow (+1 to hit, two attacks for 1-8 damage, +1 AC) is clearly the best weapon available to your fighters right now. And for a Ninja, the Shuriken (three attacks for 1-3 damage, +1 AC) is a no-brainer.
Your Shisai and Shizen will have to settle for either the Bo-Staff (1-7 damage, -1 AC), Jo-Stick (-1 to hit, 1-7 damage), or Sling (-2 to hit, 1-6 damage, +1 AC), none of which are good options. Sadly, they won’t find upgrades for some time.
You’ll find the armor and melee weapon vendors in the NE; the Guro brothers outfit adventurers all across the world, and you’ll run into them again and again. There’s not a lot of hard choices to be made here; buy the most expensive stuff you can wear. Yoroi does come with a -2 to-hit penalty (and Do-Maru a -1) but you generally want your AC as low as you can get it; an AC of 1 (i.e. 9 points of armor) is all you need while you’re on Kodan. Shisai and Shizen have to settle for Haramakido for now.
The townsfolk will be happy to tell you about the famous Yakuza of Kawa, the group of mages that are staying at the Palace, and the wizard Kiyoshi who resides here. You will also get a very common message to “search the towers”, which means to go check out the corners of the map. This happens a lot, and when it does, you should do it. In this case, head to the S part of the town and look for the tower in the NW corner. There you’ll find a signpost overlooking the ocean with a cryptic clue:
Due South of the Second Stone
For now, let’s head W towards Tokushima and maybe beat up some wandering monsters.
Yang the Necromancer: Yang is roughly equivalent to Kawahara in difficulty; they can both slay everyone in your party, and you’re almost certainly not ready to take him on at this point. Come back later; he makes a reasonable test to see if you’re ready to attack Kawahara’s dungeon.
Anyway, his well-labeled residence is in the SE corner of town. He’s got a huge flaming skull in his foyer, which is nice and cozy. When you open the door to the N, two sets of Zombies will attack. Remember, even the undead count as city residents – let them attack you, or the city guard will have something to say about it.
Make sure to save your game before you take on Yang.
The hallway the Zombies live in is dark, but that’s okay. Work your way around to the N. The two doors you can see contain coffins, which in case I haven’t been clear enough, you should never, never open. Yang himself is hiding in his antechamber, behind a secret door that is 1W and N of the left-hand door. He has some nasty zap spells along with the slay-all and paralyze-all effects.
Once you dispatch him, find his treasure room, 1E and N of the right-hand door. There’s a pit right inside the door. Yang plus his zombies are worth around 30XP total, which is barely worth the trouble.
Tokushima
Services: food, healing (Cure Disease), armor (Harame-do), shields (Medium)
Tokushima is a forest village on the E coast of Kodan. It’s a little tricky to get to, in that it’s easy to accidentally wind up in the NE corner of the island instead. But we’ll use the starter dungeon caves as a landmark. From Kawa, head a little NE along the path, past the lake, then SE. When the trail forks NE/SE, head straight E through the trees to find the caves tucked into a small mountain. From the caves, head directly E; when you see the mountain range, jog N around it and then follow the coastline S until you see Tokushima. Enter from either the N or W.
There are two standard tropes here that are worth talking about. The first is that Tokushima, like many towns and cities, has a signpost roughly at its center. Sometimes that signpost tells you the name of the town, but just as often there’s no no indication whatsoever of the town’s name. Here, the sign just tells you that the Emperor is looking for brave adventurers, which you almost certainly knew already. If you don’t know what you’re doing in a town, finding the central signpost is sometimes a good start.
The other commonly-found feature of Tokushima is its graveyard. You can find a clue here that says “Tombstones can hide clues”; this is mostly false. Many towns have graveyards, and a few are really important, but most (like the one here) just have a collection of stones that all say “R.I.P.” Every now and then you’ll get something slightly more clever, but still not useful. Some of them feature Mausoleums, often behind portcullises, but I have not found a single useful thing to do with them, and if you do, I would love to hear it.
Okay, onto the town itself. The peasants will tell you about a loud noise they heard a while back that came from the SE; this points you at Bone Island, off the E coast, which you heard about in Kawa, but can’t get to without a boat. In case you missed it on the way here, they’ll point you at the starter dungeon to the W. Tokugawa is apparently a shopper’s paradise; you can buy “just about anything” there, including boats.
The more interesting plot arrow is about Senju, who you may have heard of because one of the random (C)hat clues is “Find Senju”. No one has been able to tell you anything about him until now, though: he’s a powerful mage. If you find a mage (a Mahotsukai wandering around) and ask him ($$), he’ll tell you that a mighty wizard used to live in Yokahama, and that wizard’s name was Senju. So that sounds like a place to check out, although we heard back in Kawa that Yokahama is a ruin now.
Exploring around, you can find a healer in the SE, a food vendor just NE of the signpost, and an armor and shield(!) vendor in the NW. This is one of the few shield vendors in the game, and you should definitely acquire shields for most of your party. In the far SW is a building that contains some Yakuza that will attack you. There aren’t any town guards here, but you don’t want to lose the shield vendor, so let the Yakuza attack you first.
Yokahama
To get to the ruin of Yokahama, head to the starter caves, then go straight S until you hit water. Head E and then SE. Yokahama is tucked into some swamp to the SE.
This is your first opportunity to do some serious grinding. (The Yakuza Guild is better in terms of XP, but you won’t survive down there long enough to grind right now, and curing poison is expensive.) Skeletons only grant 4XP each, so it’s slow grinding, but they hunt in large packs, you can use a Holy Symbol to destroy them, and they regenerate in fixed locations every time. They also tend to drop a lot of cash, so you can save up for gear and training. If you’re clever, you can fight exactly as many packs as you want, turn around and leave, rest up outside, and come back for more. Keep your Shisai stocked with Holy Symbols and you’ll do okay even at low levels.
The first pack jumps you just N of where you come in, so step 1E first so you can see them coming. It’s okay to take first strike here; no one cares. After that, head straight N until you can see a pond. There will be a bunch of groups of Skeletons trapped behind it, and if you’re careful you can release one pack at a time. Don’t be afraid to burn Holy Symbols and save your Shisai’s MP for healing spells, even if you can cast S2:TSUIHO.
When you’re low on resources, exit the city. You’re tucked far enough into a corner that it’s hard (but not impossible) for wandering monsters to find you, so resting is a little dodgy but possible. You’re sure to get attacked at least once between here and Tokugawa, so don’t try to make the run if you’re already low on HP. Whenever you feel flush with loot, head back to town, stock up on gear, train if you’re ready, then come on back for more skeleton-killing fun.
Eventually you’ll be strong enough to polish off the skeletons near the entrance and pick your way around the town map. Most of what you’ll find is a ton of swampland, so you’ll take some damage doing so. As you explore ruins like this, keep in mind that any door that needs to be opened probably has another way around it now that the buildings are falling apart. Make sure you explore as much as you can before you waste HP on doors.
Yokahama has been well and truly destroyed, and honestly there’s not a ton to see here, but there are a handful of small clues. You can find a scared Yakuza who spins you a tale of “evil ones” taking over the place. Kawahara apparently brought a legion of undead with him and laid waste to the town; he’s now waiting for you six levels beneath the palace, which you already knew.
Senju was a powerful wizard that used to live here; he and Kawahara got into a fight that resulted in the NW corner of the town getting wiped off the map. Senju fled afterwards. When you find him, you should give him a crystal; they’re supposed to let you pass through… something, but it’s not clear what.
I actually really like the design of this town / ruin. It’s challenging but manageable for early parties, and eventually you get to explore the whole town and piece together the history of what was here and what happened to it.
Starter Dungeon
When you get sick of fighting Skeletons (around Level 4 or so), go ahead and check out the caves in the center of the E portion of Kodan. You’ll want a good bank of HP before you go taking on this dungeon; Ghouls can PARalyze, Stonebrows have high AC but fall pretty quickly to G1:HIBANA, Gremlins summon allies, and Kobito can be a challenge at this level. In the lower levels, Niatama attack twice per round and Harpies can DISease.
You’re also going to learn a lot of Deathlord dungeon lessons down here that will serve you well in future dungeon dives.
Level 1: There aren’t any tricks or secrets here, but I mean, it is your first dungeon level. For your first couple visits, stay near the stairs, maybe explore a bit E. There’s not actually any point in exploring the rest of this floor unless you just want the experience of doing so, you’re mapping by hand, or you’re trying to generate more random monsters to fight. When you’re ready to continue, proceed vaguely SSW and wind your way through the swap, then turn E and look for the stairs.
Level 2: Don’t drink the water down here, it’s all poisoned. Turn E from the stairs and then head N.
If you head NE from here, you’ll come across Dungeon Lesson Number 1: a patch of swamp that you can’t see through or around, so you don’t know if there’s any point in taking the damage to trudge your way through it. Hint: there isn’t. At least, not this time.
Head WNW instead, then N. The stairs down is hidden behind your first “false wall”, which is Dungeon Lesson Number 2. The difference between a false wall and a secret door is that you find a secret door by (F)searching for it; you find a false wall by attempting to walk through it and seeing whether that works. There are no visual clues, you just have to try it.
Combine this with Lesson Number 1, and you see how nasty the trick is: you never know when a wall will be false or hold a secret door, and there’s no way to know without trudging through swamp and bashing into walls at -2HP per turn.
The false wall hiding the stairs is in the E part of this section.
Level 3: A sudden shift in architecture. Step to the W and you’ll find a hall of pillars with a burial chamber in the center.
Dungeon Lesson Number 3: Sometimes, water pools are magical, and when you drink from them you get a random effect. However, sometimes they are poison, and sometimes they don’t do anything. The two pools just inside the door to the burial chamber are both magic pools.
Dungeon Lesson Number 4: Never open coffins. Coffins sometimes house Vampires or Banshees, i.e. creatures that will level drain you and probably kill low-level characters before you even know what happened. That being said, some coffins are safe to open… probably.
The southern part of this chamber has some pots and crates you can loot. The northern part has one coffin that always has a vampire in it and two that don’t. Good luck.
Back out in the hall of pillars, there’s a secret door in the SE corner. Behind the secret door is a false wall – did I mention Deathlord hates you? – and beyond that is a room full of, you guessed it, coffins.
The stairs down are SE of where you came in, behind another false wall. As much as I insist that Deathlord hates you, it does spend much of this dungeon training you how to navigate dungeons; pay attention. Not that there’s any way to know when it’s teaching you a lesson…
Level 4: Nothing much to say here. This dungeon has no purpose other than to be a starter dungeon, so the bottom level is kind of boring. I suppose Dungeon Lesson Number 5 is that dungeon floors vary in size, don’t always fill out a nice 32x32 square, and you don’t get a prize for touching the bottom. Take a screenshot to prove that you got this far, then head back to the surface whenever you want.
Yakuza Guild (under Kawa)
At this point, you should be cruising along pretty easily. If you can get all the way to the bottom of the Starter Dungeon you’re doing pretty well. Outdoor fights shouldn’t be a big deal anymore, and you’re just looking to grind for some experience before taking on the tougher battles.
One other random note: you’ve spent the whole game walking E-W along the top half of Kodan so far. There is a chunk of the continent to the SW, but the only thing down there is Wakiza and the Pirate’s Den, which are completely optional. You could check out the Pirate’s Den right now; it’s got eight floors and the top half isn’t too terrible, but I still wouldn’t recommend going in there right now. If you’re feeling masochistic, scroll down. Otherwise, you could keep grinding the Starter Dungeon or Yokohama, but I bet you’re ready for something a little more challenging / rewarding, and for that, ironically, we’re going back to Kawa.
The Yakuza Guild is full of various thief types (Yakuza, Ansatsusha, Ninja). Unfortunately, some of them can poison you, and if you don’t have S4:DONASU yet, you’ll have to run all the way to the Emperor’s Palace to find a healer. So you probably want fighters with 90+ HP before you try taking this on.
In Kawa, head to the W-most hallway and find the secret door. There are a few thieves waiting for you inside plus a few crates, and then steps down to the real meeting place. You’ll immediately be swamped by 6-10 parties of thieves, and they respawn a lot. Fortunately, now that you’re in the “basement” it’s okay to take first strike against hostiles.
There are two treasure rooms; you reach them by stepping into the fire pit in either corner. The treasure rooms are not safe places to rest; they have false walls in the corners so that monsters can sneak in and out but you can’t. As I said, Deathlord hates you.
Beware the Master Ninja behind the Guildmaster’s door, who can critical-hit you (i.e. kill in one blow), but gives up around 1000 gp if you kill him.
Kawahara’s Dungeon (under the Palace)
You’re not technically required to do this before you leave Kodan, but the Emperor did ask you to try to figure out what the hell is going on, and all the plot arrows you’ve gotten have pointed towards Kawahara waiting in the dungeons under the Palace. The early levels aren’t so bad, but before you go take on Kawahara himself, it’s not a bad idea to kill Yang the Necromancer (in Tokugawa) first to see whether you’re ready. Backup your game disks first, tho.
The dungeon is in the SE corner of the Palace. There’s a couple of guards, but they won’t actually stop you. Remember the lessons we learned in the Caves? Good, here’s your quiz. We’ll pick up a few new lessons down here, too.
Level 1: Mostly what you’ll find down here is a bunch of Kaibu (not bad for grinding) and a bunch of empty pots and crates. Skip the room W of the entrance and head E to find a natural cave instead. There’s a false wall SW that you’ll need to find in order to advance. Then break down the door S (the “gates of Kawahara”) and fight off a bunch more Kaibu.
In the southern half of the level, watch out for the pit trap – this may well be the first one you’ve fallen into, so don’t forget how to climb out (I mentioned it all the way back in the intro). Immediately afterwards, you’ll find your first eternal hallway: there’s a teleporter halfway down that teleports you back one square, and there aren’t any contextual hints that clue you into the fact that you’ve been teleported. I mentioned that Deathlord hates you, right? Often times there’s not even a way around a teleporter like this, but there is here; there’s a secret door E that will take you around the teleporter square.
There’s nothing else on this floor, though; the stairs are at the end of the hall SE.
Level 2: As you descend, there’s a room N with a V-shaped pool. This room has secret doors that will lead to hidden hallways that ring the room and eventually end in a treasure room.
Back in the first hallway, proceed W. If you turn N at the fire pit, you can find a bit more treasure in one of the side rooms, but that’s otherwise a dead-end. To proceed, you’ll need to find a false wall in the room with the fire in the center. When you work your way around to the long E-W hallway, break down the locked door N. Beyond you’ll find two stairs and a warning:
One stair leads to your doom, the other descends to the next level. Choose one.
If you aren’t ready to take on Kawahara yet, step E and proceed to level 3. If you’re feeling more gutsy, jump down to Second Pass below and be prepared to fight your way up from the bottom of the dungeon.
Level 3: Not too much interesting to find here except for some new monsters. In the NE of the level there’s a vampire that’s OUT TO LUNCH. They like the dark, dontchaknow. His apartment has a false wall with some cash.
S of the stairs, turn E into the first room. The NW corner of this room leads through two secret doors, down a long hallway (watch out for the pit), and into a significant treasure room.
Eventually, go S and W. Watch out for Behemoths in the pond; they look like whales, hit hard (~15 hp), and summon backup. Work your way around the pond to the stairs down.
Level 4: This room is ringed with water; in the corners you’ll be able to see some magic pools that you can’t get to from here without G6:UKU. You have to go out into the ring hallway and find secret doors into each corner.
There’s a good-sized treasure haul to the SE, but you have to navigate a room full of pits, a long hallway full of acid, and several parties of Mahotsukai. This will test your max HP unless your casters have up over 40MHP (which you’ll want anyway before you take on Kawahara). If you don’t have Z4:SANTATE yet, you can still skip most of the acid because the W wall is false, but two hits on the way in and two on the way out is still pretty painful. You can rest after the acid and before opening the doors if you’re patient and have food.
In the NW you’ll find STONEHOME, with dozens of Stonebrows to fight off. They have super high AC but not very many HP, which means G1:HIBANA should polish them off quite quickly. I got lucky and found a Katana in their treasure room (false wall NE).
The otherwise-unremarkable stairs down are in the SW corner.
Level 5: This is a dead-end, but there’s some fun to be had. In the NW corner of this room is a secret door that leads to four(!) magic pools. (Mind the pits.)
There’s a false wall to the E but the room beyond has nothing but empty pots.
To the NE, in the room with four pillars, there’s a secret door E that leads to a teleporter puzzle. You can find a significant treasure room on the far end. There’s also a room filled with acid and coffins, which is pretty much the worst combo ever, so don’t bother.
If you proceed N from the four-pillars room, you’ll find a room filled with water. This is a teleporter destination; for now there’s nothing else you can do, so reverse your steps and climb back up the stairs to daylight (or, at least, the palace).
Second Pass: Go back to the decision point on level 2 and take the W stair. Fall all the way to the bottom of the chute, which drops you on level 6. There’s a ring of fire here that you can pass with Z4:HITATE, but there’s also a false wall to the W that will allow you to scoot out unharmed. Follow the hallway around W S E to a room with a magic pool in the center. Save-scum for +1 to a stat, then work your way back around the way you came in and break through the N door. There’s a teleport roughly W-center that will drop you in the watery room on level 5 that I mentioned above, from which you can walk out.
Third Pass: It’s time to take on Kawahara. Go back to the decision point on level 2 and take the W stair again. Remember what the Ansatsusha spy in the Palace said? ‘Step east on the second drop.’ Press K to go E; the first time it’ll fail and drop you down the chute, and the second time you’ll step through a false wall.
That puts you in a forested area on level 4; you need to find a series of adjacent secret doors along the S wall to pass the lake, or there may be a boat on the shoreline. The stair in the NE corner brings you to level 5 and a darkened, minotaur-infested maze with a teleport trap. Beat that maze, and the staircase on the far end puts you on level 6 where several Wraiths (ack! level drain!) guard Kawahara’s lair.
Note that if you decide to bail out, you have to back up through the minotaur maze to level 4 and take the chute to the bottom (see Second Pass, above).
Kawahara himself is mostly brutal because he has two levels of zap spells, plus he can paralyze you, and occasionally kill you outright. He seems to have around 50-75 hp so five or six shots seems to take him out. Once you beat him, take the DOCUMENT from the box behind him (and some cash from the other two), then step on the box that the document came in and you’ll be teleported to level 5.
Here’s what the document says if you (V)iew it:
To his most noble countenance, the Emperor of Demons & Lord of Death! Greetings Master!
I have done your bidding and sent forth the initial wave of creatures that were readied for the invasion of the kingdom. I have also ordered a contingent of skeletons to loot and pillage the surrounding area. It is my duty to inform you that your legions have met with stiffer resistance than was anticipated & although they managed to raze the town of Gold-Rock the wizard somehow escaped destroying fully half of the army in an explosion the like of which I had not known was possible. I am currently in the process of restoring the bulk of the army sufficiently to allow me to crush the emperor and send his soul to your domain that he may suffer for the inconvenience that his treason has cost.
Your servant, Kawahara
Too bad there’s no town named Gold-Rock, although Yokohama is clearly overrun by skeletons… Head back to the Emperor, who told you to “bring me any news”. (O)ffer him the (I)tem you found, at which point he tells you:
Go to Oceanspray where a vessel awaits you. Hunt down the wizard’s master and don’t return until he is no more!
Too bad there’s no town named Oceanspray, either. However, if you go to Tokugawa (you know, where all the boats are) you’ll be able to (B)oard one for free. Note that this is a one-time offer; if you find yourself back on Kodan without a boat (say, because you dispersed and reassembled your party), you will need to spend 10,000 gp to buy a new one.
Leaving Kodan
So now you have this boat, but you don’t really know what to do with it. Get used to that feeling; you’ll have it a lot. Actually, once you leave Kodan, you’ll wind up with more plot arrows than you know what to do with, but for the time being you don’t really know what’s going on. So let’s tie up what few threads we do have, namely, places that we know exist but we haven’t been able to get to without a boat.
Tokugawa by sea: Enter Tokugawa from the N (or maybe you’re here at the docks because you just picked up the Emperor’s boon). Sail S and W, then N to dock. You can loot the rooms along the S wall, and there’s another food vendor that you can steal from with impunity if you want. Elsewhere in that tavern there’s a Yakuza who will tell you ($$) that there’s an island to the S of here. This is a plot arrow that stretches way into the future: it’s pointing towards Sirion, but while there are several very good reasons to go there, you don’t know what any of them are yet.
This is another thing that Deathlord makes you do: take really good notes, and tick the boxes of clues that you’ve already figured out so you know what’s left. It also gives you clues that you shouldn’t follow up on right away because your party isn’t ready yet, like sailing halfway around the world to Sirion before you find Senju.
Anyway, back in Tokugawa, Kioyshi the sorcerer lives in the NE corner. He’s visitable if you sneak N but don’t exit the town, then go E until you find a place to dock. He tells you THE DEATHLORD IS MOVING SOUTH, which flat out isn’t true and wouldn’t be a useful clue even if it was. He also has a treasure room, but it’s blocked by a Rakhammon’s Curtain, and you need a Blue Crystal to pass those.
If you haven’t beaten up Yang the Necromancer yet, go for it.
Visit lovely Bone Island: Our last [necessary] stop in Kodan is the other side of the continent, where we’ll visit the other place we know about that we haven’t been able to get to. Enter Tokushima from the E and find the islet in the SE corner with a ruined temple. The Shukenja hanging out in the temple tells you ($$) that Senju has fled north, and you should seek him between “the two rivers”. Hey, the game map shows a town named “Two Rivers” on Nyuku! Since everyone else has been telling you to find Senju, and the game map shows a town named “Two Rivers” on the island of Nyuku, this seems like it might be a good idea. Let’s head NW towards Nyuku and see if we can’t find this Senju chap.
Wakiza and Pirate’s Den
As I said above, this town and dungeon are completely optional. Most of the hints you learn here point you at other optional places. Also, you really want S4:DONASU before you tackle the Den, which means it isn’t such a great place to grind for experience after getting your boat. But you can check out Wakiza, at least.
Head S from the palace and generally follow the trail. You may come across a circular mountain range (kinda looks like a volcano). In the center is a lone signpost which reads:
Search the Wakiza ruins for pirates gold
Sounds like a good plan, but I’d be wary if I were you. Checking out Wakiza on foot doesn’t do you much good. Some Shukenja will tell you ($$) the thing you already knew about pirates hiding gold in a cave under the town. If you beat them up you can steal the gold they’re hiding behind some false walls.
The Den is technically accessible on foot in the N, but you have to walk through a bunch of swamp to get there. Far better to come back with a boat and explore the western half of the map. There you’ll find a merman sitting on the beach who tells you of a great land named Osozaki that lies E of here. (Hint: it’s not all that great.) On the island in the center of the map is a Mahotsukai who provides you with your first “what is this game about” clue:
Seven gates and seven clues, miss but one and you will lose
Hell, it turns out, has seven gates, which align with the “seven evils”. If you’ve been paying attention to the (C)hat clues, you know you’ve been told to find seven words. Later on you’ll find out that you need the seven words to “pass” the seven gates. As a reward for reading a completely optional part of this walkthrough I’m going to let you in on a secret: the seven words are, ostensibly, translations of the seven deadly sins into Japanese… although you have to squint and turn your head a bit to make them line up.
If you sail to the NE corner, you can navigate around some swamp and dock at the one spot where there isn’t any. From there, look for a false wall E and it will take you to the entrance to the Pirate’s Den.
Level 1: Unremarkable. Lots of swamp, no false walls or secret doors. Follow the path around roughly clockwise to the stairs down. No new or interesting monsters here.
Level 2: (B)oard a boat and sail SE until you find another boat. He’s parked on the only free space that doesn’t involve walking through swamp, jerk. Follow the path and (B)oard another boat, then do that a third time to find the stairs down.
Level 3: (B)oard yet another boat (get used to it). The room to the N has a wall of darkness, and beyond it is a series of energy fields. In the center of the room is a signpost that says “Arr, you’ll never get our treasure, mateys!” In other words, it’s a stupid trap, because Deathlord hates you.
Dock to the W. The rest of this level is a “maze” of small rooms with false walls and secret doors. There are two sets of stairs down; the easier-to-find set is in the NE of this maze, and leads down to a part of level 4 with a small treasure room and a bunch of Dark Toshi (TOX). Clear that out, then come back. The harder-to-find set is beyond a secret door N that leads to a treasure room, and another secret door W that leads down.
Level 4: A bunch of cash to find here. If you walk around the perimeter, be aware of the large number of pits. But before you take one of the boats that are conveniently near the entrance and sail around, a few words of caution about using boats. If you’re on a boat, you can’t disem(B)ark onto another boat. If you disembark onto a teleporter from a boat, or otherwise can’t get onto dry land adjacent to a boat you want to (B)oard, you may not be able to get to that boat again. This happens a lot on this level.
In the NE corner of the map is a treasure room. Clear it out but don’t walk through the false walls to the S, or you’ll lose the use of this boat. Instead (B)oard your boat again and sail a little bit more S. Disem(B)ark through the false wall in the center of the E jetty; this drops you on a teleporter into the otherwise-inaccessible space W of here. Clean out the treasure – you only get one chance to do it – and then walk E to exit. You’re now boatless, so work your way around the room clockwise, searching for pits as you go.
Don’t take the stairs yet. Find the false wall SW. Go 2W 3S 1E; if you go too far S, you’ll hit a teleporter that takes you to the N side of the room. Useful for getting out of here; not helpful for getting to the treasure. Once you’re past the teleport trap you will find five treasure rooms (one requires hooking 1N into a false wall). Clean them out, then go back.
I wouldn’t go much further than this with an inexperienced party. The bottom four levels get really nasty, and you’ll want a much more powerful (level 15+) party before you tackle them. Sea Dragons have a nasty breath weapon, Ghosts drain levels, and Will O Wisps are annoying. On the other hand, the crates down here have all manner of good loot. It’s possible to get Yoroi +1 without ever leaving Kodan.
Pressing on? Okay, don’t say I didn’t warn you…
The bottom half of the dungeon is navigated by a ring of teleporters. There is a series of stairs along the E wall, but they aren’t accessible without G6:UKU. I suppose that’s a hint about how powerful your party should be before you start exploring the lower half of the dungeon, but then why are the teleporters there…?
Level 5 (A): Sail E and follow the narrow river until you can’t, then go N and pick up another boat. Sail E until you find the zig-zag inlet, and (B)oard a boat inside it. Midway through the inlet is a teleporter that takes you to the S part of this map.
Level 5 (B): This is also a zig-zag, and there’s not really anywhere to go. The same square you came in on is also the exit teleporter, so sail off it and back on to move forward.
Level 8 (C): You’re in the NE corner of the level. N of here you can see a fake portcullis (that can not be bashed down) with a fake staircase next to it, but you can’t get there from here (without G6:UKU). The darkness around you is actually solid ground, so you can disembark onto it, but don’t yet.
Sail W until you hit granite, then S until you hit the wall. The last inlet E will take you to the teleporter out of here, which takes you to point D, just NW of where you just came from. If you want to collect some treasure, find a bunch of magic pools, and fight off some Ghosts (yikes!), disembark just N of there and find the ground path to the E. Save your game first, tho, unless you like level drain.
Level 5 (D): Step S as soon as you get teleported here. You’re just NW of point B, but if you sail down to the SW, you can walk over a land bridge to find a treasure room and two magic pools. Come back to point D to proceed.
Level 6 (E): You’re in the NW corner near a bunch of treasure and two Sea Dragons (ow). Clean up the boxes, then get out of here; heading S doesn’t get you anywhere interesting.
Level 7 (F): You’re in the NW corner again, also near a bunch of treasure (that’s a little harder to get to). This teleporter takes you back to point A. You can sail around for a long time here and clean up a bunch of pots, if you don’t mind fighting off endless waves of Sea Dragons. The canals are organized as two concentric rings; if you follow them around long enough you’ll find a second set of boxes, and then you’ll wind up back where you started. Again, you can’t get to the SE corner where the stairs are without G6:UKU.
If, instead of following the teleporters, you use G6:UKU to get to the E half of level 5 and take the stairs, you’ll find another boat/canal navigation puzzle all the way down to Level 8. Then there’s a simple boat ride to the NE corner, where you find a sign saying “Dark Elves only”, which is funny because (a) they’re called Dark Toshi, (b) you can’t play that race, (c) this gate is fake and literally cannot be opened. There is no Level 9. I hope you had fun getting here, though.
Nyuku
Two sectors W and four N of Oceansp— sorry, “Tokugawa” — you’ll find the continent of Nyuku. Keep in mind that Tokugawa is at the NW corner of a sector anyway, so you’ll cross the first sector boundary very quickly.
Retrogaming note: When you exit from the sectors containing Kodan for the first time, the game will ask you to insert the Boot disk so that it can show you a message that is both hopeful and ominous:
And so the brave adventurers sailed forth from the land of Kodan on the Emperor’s quest.
If you didn’t start the game from a nibbilized Boot disk (as opposed to a cracked “.dsk” image), this load might not work. So save your game before you try leaving Kodan.
Anyway, if you approach Nyuku from the south, you’ll find a mountain range along the S edge of the continent. Buried in that mountain range, but only accessible from the N, through some trees, is a signpost marking the point:
THE SECOND STONE
Remember the sign in Tokugawa that said “Due south of the second stone” without any further explanation? If you sail straight S from here – although it’s actually faster to sail N and wrap around – you’ll find Narawn. We’re not going there any time soon, but it’s a note to take.
Follow the western coastline N until you find the twin towns of Spindrift. Two Rivers (where you’ll find Senju) is slightly further N of them, also on the western coast.
South Spindrift
Services: food, healing (Depetrify), tools, melee weapons (Naginata)
The twin Spindrifts, just across a strait from each other, are a “good cop / bad cop” pair. South Spindrift is the ‘good’ one. You can find the Daimyo along the E arm of the town. He’s an agreeable chap who doesn’t have a lot to say and doesn’t mind if you rob him blind. Which is good, because his people are pretty stingy with information unless you pay up.
If you find the temple in the NE and proceed through to the garden, a Shizen tells you to “look up above”. Straight N from him is a secret door, behind which is another Shizen who tells you ($$) that Senju is in Twin-Rivers (note the hyphen). Great, thanks. You can find out for free that Twin Rivers is north of here.
Other useless tidbits you can learn for money include the fact that you should beware of traps on level four (of the nearby dungeon). In order to learn this, you need to bust down a door, fight two groups of Yabanjin, steal a boat, sail across a lake, bust down another door, and pay money to a Mahotsukai. You’re not even going into this dungeon at all (it’s in the mountains along the north coast of Nyuku) unless you like pain.
Rounding out the clues-for-cash in South Spindrift, the Deathlord can not be hit by “mortal” weapons. Might need to ask Senju about that one.
That’s about it. There’s a good healer here but not much else useful.
North Spindrift
Services: training, food, missile weapons (Great Bow), specialty weapons, misc armor, shipyard
The ‘evil’ town of the pair, but also the far more interesting and useful. Lots of Ronin, etc. running around. Several of them will ask you for gold, will demand more gold than you’ve paid people for information before, and will then sneer at you and say “Thanks!” and leave you with nothing.
If you need some cash, hit the center of town, find the apartment complex to the NW, and go in the N-most door on the W side of the building. There’s two treasure rooms behind secret doors.
Now that your pockets are feeling a little more full, this is a great place to top up your equipment. There’s a “specialty” weapon shop here that sells Katanas for your Samurai (+1 to hit, two attacks for 2-14 damage, +1 AC), and Nunchaku for your Ninja (+3 to hit, three attacks for 1-9). There’s also a store that sells miscellaneous armor. If you somehow still don’t have Gloves for your wizards, Gauntlets for your clerics, and Kabuto for your fighters, buy them here. Also a missile weapons shop with Great Bows.
The training academy is unlabeled and much easier to get to by boat; it’s hiding in the SE corner of town near the shipyards.
Clues, most of which you need to pay for: The dungeon you may have heard about is in the NE part of the continent. You should search around the entrance. No one likes Senju around here, but he will trade you a spear for a crystal, which is a useful piece of intel. Crystals apparently allow you to pass through energy fields, and though no one here knows this, they’re only talking about Rakhammon’s Curtain (the purple/green ones). You can walk through Arkhan’s Wall without a crystal, even though it hurts.
The graveyard doesn’t have anything interesting.
Near the centre [sic] of town you’ll find the Seventh Stone, surrounded by guards. If you peruse your notes you may remember seeing a clue about the second stone from Tokugawa. I already mentioned this above in the introduction to Nyuku, but I suppose you could see this as a hint that if the seventh stone is here in town, the second stone might be nearby? Turns out it is. But sailing due south of the seventh stone will get you to the same place as sailing due south of the second stone, so it’s not a super effective hint.
Sennin, an evil wizard, welcomes you (and other trespassers) to his home in the SW. He’s a necromancer similar to Kawahara, including the ability to cast KOROSU. You can find him if you take the first door E after you enter his home. Do not take the last door W, through the hallway lined with fire; a party of Beholders awaits you at the far end. Beholders are some of the most difficult critters in the game; they level drain and also cast KOROSU. There’s also a prison where you can free a prisoner, and a couple of secret treasure rooms in the hallway leading up to Sennin.
Twin Rivers
Services: food, healing (Raise), tools, melee weapons (Sai)
Yeah, so why “Twin Rivers” and not “Two Rivers”? Because the people who programmed the game and the people who designed the paper map apparently didn’t talk to each other, and this town’s guards call it “Twin Rivers”, so that’s what I’m calling it.
Twin Rivers doesn’t have a lot going on for it. You came here looking for Senju, and he’s in the SE corner of the village in a cabin hidden among the trees. There’s not much else of note; the vendors aren’t very useful and the clues are pretty sparse. The dungeon we’ve already heard about is “a great sunken temple” that’s 16 levels deep.
Here’s a hint: there are only three 16-level dungeons in the game. Two of them are optional, including the Sunken Temple here and Telegrond on Osozaki. The third is the Deathlord’s lair. So when you hear about 16-level dungeons, run the other way.
A Shizen tells you – for money no less! – to find his ‘brother’ (i.e. another Shizen) somewhere in Spindrift. This is a pointer to the clue that tells you that Senju is in Twin Rivers… where you already are. In other words – say it with me, now – Deathlord hates you.
This is a great town if you’re into weird little programming quirks and funny (C)hat messages. In the structure to the WNW there’s a pack of wolves wandering around. They talk. They told me to map dungeons.
The only two things to be found off the beaten path are the graveyard in the northwest (nothing interesting there) and Senju’s place in the SE. There’s a helpful sign out front labeling his home, which is kind of funny for someone that’s on the run from a powerful necromancer and the frickin’ Deathlord. The wizards in his foyer are not particularly helpful. My favorite was the one who told me “Senju awaits you” and “Leave me alone”. Nice guy. Even better, when I found Senju himself, his (C)hat response was “Find Senju”. Reader, I couldn’t make these jokes up if I tried.
Senju tells you to bring him “a token of your worth”, by which he means “a blue crystal”. He’ll trade you that for a weapon that can be used to defeat evil “for all time”. No word on where to find a Blue Crystal yet, although if you skip ahead it turns out that they’re on Narawn and that signpost kind of pointed us there without telling us why. This is another classic Deathlord move: tell you where to go, and tell you why to go there, but don’t do both at the same time.
Sunken Temple
Sixteen levels of pointless nightmare. From reading other people’s notes on this game, I’ve learned that there’s a second Ruby Ring to be found here, but you have to have M7:UNPAN and it’s still super annoying. Maybe someday I’ll come back and write notes on how to get it. That day hasn’t happened yet. Needless to say, I recommend you skip this dungeon altogether.
