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Steve's Guide to Arcanum: Of Steamworks & Magick Obscura
========================================================
(An Arcanum walkthrough)

Last updated: 29th March, 2002


Introduction
============
Arcanum is one of the most innovative RPGs to have been released since
Fallout, which is no surprise given that its creators were part of the
original Fallout team. The quirky blend of technology, magick, and the
'steampunk' setting remeniscent of our own 1800's make for interesting fare
indeed. If this is the first RPG you've ever attempted, then be warned: it
is quite a difficult game. Figuring out what you have to do to complete a
quest is one thing; being able to accomplish it is another thing altogether.
However, with this guide at your disposal, hopefully your objectives may be
made that little bit clearer, and you can kick back and enjoy this fantastic
game.

By the way, it's best to ignore what a lot of the mainstream gaming sites
said about Arcanum. They were largely over-critical. Sure, the graphics are
nothing to write home about, and the interface is a bit unwieldy until you
get used to it... but once you get past these niggly bits you'll find an RPG
of astonishing depth lurking behind there! It took me literally months to
finish my first game, and then I found myself itching to start a new one the
very next day.


Conventions
===========
Once again, I've chosen to eschew that handy yet game spoiling Table of
Contents. OK, so this Guide is loaded with outright spoilers anyway, but I
try not to ruin all the fun right up front by providing you with a listing
of all the important locations you will visit. If you're looking for
references to a particular location, person, weapon, etc., then just search
for it in your browser.

At the bottom of this guide are handy tables for locating important items
and people.

Directions are given assuming that the top of your screen is north, and the
longer direction names are abbreviated, like SW for southwest.


Tips
====
Before you even THINK about starting to play, download and apply the latest
patch (version 1.0.7.4 at the time of writing), which may be obtained here on
the official Arcanum site: http://arcanum.sierra.com/
This patch became available on the 30th October, 2001.

I would never pretend to tell you what type of character to create,
especially in a game where you have as much free reign as this one. Choosing
a male or female character doesn't make much difference, except female
characters have less choices in the race category. You might as well choose
a background to make your character a little more interesting, but be careful
not to choose one that loads up a single stat at the expense of many others
unless you really want your character to be unbalanced. Whether you choose to
specialise in technology or magick, or even play the middle road, it matters
not. You should be able to complete the game with all character types. Having
said that, let it be noted that Melee or Magick specialists have it a lot
easier than those who choose the way of Guns. Also, be sure to consider the
likes of Persuasion as a favoured skill. It's good to have the option of
being able to talk your way around combat every so often. One other thing to
consider at character creation time: dwarves make lousy magicians because it
costs them twice as much Fatigue as any other race to cast a spell!

Do yourself an enormously big favour and make sure to purchase a set of
Lockpicks from the virtual shopkeeper at character creation time. I couldn't
find any merchants who would sell them, and without them you can't pick a
lock on even the lowliest chest. Having said that, if you don't have a set of
Lockpicks, you can usually bash open locked containers (and doors!) instead.
To do this, first make sure you remove all valuable weapons from both your
own and your followers' weapons slots (using weapons to bash damages them
unnecessarily). Enter Combat Mode, then Alt+Click on the container or door.
Your followers will join in the fun! You will find Lockpicks here and there
eventually, but it's handy to have a set from the start.

Of all the stats, Dexterity (DX) is perhaps the most important. Firstly, it
boosts your Armour Class (AC), making you more difficult to hit in combat.
But even more importantly, it directly affects your Speed. The number of
attacks you get per combat turn (assuming a high speed weapon) is roughly
DX/2, so once you get your DX up to 20, you're getting in at least 10 attacks
per turn, maybe even more if you're not encumbered at all (each level of
encumberance deducts 2 from your Speed, so it's best to travel lightly
yourself. Load up your followers with the heavy stuff). And finally, DX is
the stat that governs how far you can advance in Bow, Dodge, Melee, and
Throwing. These are the most important combat related skills.

In order to use an item in your inventory, just drag it over the 'hand' icon
to the right of your inventory. If it's a usable item, the icon turns green
and you can drop it on the hand icon (if it's not usable, the icon turns
red). When you drop it on the hand icon, one of two things happens:
a. You'll wind up reading the item if it is a book, note, newspaper, etc.
b. Your cursor turns a different colour, and you are returned to the game
world. The next object or creature that you click on will have that item
applied to it. This is how you can use scrolls and potions on followers,
creatures, and even yourself.

Getting out of town onto the World Map can sometimes be an anxiety-inducing
affair. Usually, you just have to travel far enough out of town. You know
you've reached the right spot when the map icon on the top left of your
screen turns into a blue globe! Below, I've marked each important location
with it's World Map coordinates, as you can find most places simply by
wandering close to them. Sometimes people will tell you the location of an
important place, and this puts it on your map. In a few cases, you can
ONLY find a place if someone puts it on your map.

After dispatching all your foes in battle, just right-click to exit combat
mode. Any followers you have along with healing skills will automatically
begin the process of healing you. Speaking of which, if you get tired of
waiting for someone's Fatigue to recharge, a handy trick is to just advance
the time 1 hour using the Sleep menu.

Magical Chests and other such caches usually contain RANDOM magickal items.
I've only bothered to document the items that are always at a particular
location. Most often, these always-present items are 'hexed' (evil).

Combat is by far the easiest way to gain XP in this game. Just wandering
around on the World Map for a while and beating up on whatever attacks you
will often result in you going up a level before you even know it. Characters
attempting to take a diplomatic route through will find it to be very hard
going indeed, as the XP gained in solving quests pales in significance to
that obtained by just killing things. Anyway, you need to be quite adept at
either Melee or Magick to even complete most of the quests. You simply cannot
talk your way around monsters no matter how high your Intelligence (IN) is,
or how good your Persuasion skills are!

If you try to lug around all the interesting objects you find, even if you
share the load with your followers, you'll soon find yourself running out of
space and/or becoming encumbered. The best solution I found was to store
spare items in the dressers of the inn rooms you stay at. No one seems to
ever touch anything you store there! On a related note, you can store large
items in your hotkey slots, without limit to the size of the item (but its
weight still registers in your inventory).

A caution about schematics: just because you bought a schematic and you have
the 2 ingredients necessary to make a new item doesn't mean you'll succeed!
For instance, early on in the game I bought a Bullets schematic. But I soon
found out that you need a lot more than Saltpetre and Charcoal to make
Bullets. You also need to be quite a few rungs up the ladder in the
Explosives technological discipline. So it is with a lot of schematics you
find or buy. In a lot of cases you must have expertise in more than one
discipline to be able to combine the items, so beware.

When you pickpocket someone for their Gold, you only get 100 coins per
successful attempt no matter how much they have on them. I reckon this is
fair, otherwise the game would be too unbalanced in the favour of thieves.

Wherever you go in your travels, always make sure to pump any bartender you
find for info. They always know what's going on in the area, and their info
is free. Bartenders can usually train you as an Expert in Gambling and Haggle.

Nearly all shopkeepers will train you as an Apprentice in Haggle.

Disclaimer: in order to train as an Apprentice or Expert in whatever skill,
you need only fork out some cash. Usually, this is in the order of 100 Gold
for Apprentice, and 500 for Expert. However, in order to train as a Master,
you have to have spent 5 points on the skill, and be at Expert level. The
Master will then give you a quest, which should you successfully complete,
he/she will then grant you the rank of Master. Now... in bringing this guide
to you, I was prepared to play all the way through Arcanum only so many
times. Therefore, I couldn't spend enough points to attain Master level in
every skill (and to be honest, I'm not even remotely interested in skills
like Repair or Haggle), so I couldn't document the final quest to become
Master in most cases; however, I usually can tell you at least who the Master
trainer is for a particular skill.

OK, that's probably enough of the up front stuff, and you won't retain it
all at once anyway, so let's move on and start this incredible adventure.


Crash Site (1452 W, 1292 S)
==========
You start your journey here, with a dying old gnome giving you a ring and
imploring you to deliver it to a boy... somewhere. Virgil, a Panarii monk,
immediately walks up to you and starts nattering away. He thinks you're some
kind of deity, referring to you as the "Living One". Make sure you get him
to join you as a follower (just being as polite as you can under the
circumstances will do the trick). His healing skills are indispensable. Also
be sure to loot all the corpses in the area. You should at least get the
Passport from the gnome's body (he's one Preston Radcliffe), the Camera off
Isaac Zapruder, and the Wilhemina's Note to Jared off Wilhemina.

You'll have to fend off a few Ailing Wolves, Lesser Boars, and possibly get
your first encounter with a Kite Scout - a bit tougher than the others.
Virgil can cast a Minor Healing spell for your injuries. If you're up to it,
there's a Kite Shaman through a cleft in the rocks to the SW. Killing him's
worth more than 500 XP, plus he's got a Magick Chest with 150+ Gold and a
Fatigue Potion in it. There might also be a gem or two, and an unidentified
weapon or piece of armour. As a quick test to determine if an unidentified
item is hexed (evil), try equipping it. If you hear a hum and the ground
underneath your character turns briefly into a pentagram... it's hexed!

All the way to the north, one of the ogre bandits that attacked the zeppelin
has crashed in his flying machine. You can take a Strange Amulet off his body.

To the NE in this area, past a pond, is the entrance to a cave. Some Sewer
Rats to dispose of, then there's a pile of junk to the NW of the entrance
containing Saltpeter and Arrows. A barrel just to the NE of there contains
some more items: Fatigue Restorer, a Healing Potion, and a broken Flintlock
Pistol. Proceeding further north, there's another barrel containing: Healing
Potion, Migraine Cure, Iron Ore, and Coal. At the end of the passage, there's
a dead bandit. His spirit(!) gives you Quest 2 below. There's a bed here that
you can sleep in if you need to recover some HP, and yet another barrel
containing: Charcoal, a usable Old Flintlock Pistol, some Bullets, 2 Stun
Grenades, Dynamite, and an Explosive Grenade.

Virgil keeps suggesting to seek out the Elder Joachim in a place called
Shrouded Hills, somewhere to the SE of here. Might as well head in that
direction when you're done exploring the area around the crashed zeppelin.
As you're exiting the area to the SE, you come across a shrine that
portends you fighting an "evil one". Hmm. As you pass the shrine, you're
accosted by an elf. You can let Virgil do the talking, in which case the elf
ultimately runs away, or you can talk to him yourself. If you talk to the elf
yourself, you'll probably wind up killing him, because you find out that he
knew of Preston Radcliffe (the gnome who gave you the ring), and for some
unknown reason he's bent on killing any survivors of the crash, which means
you! After your encounter with the elf, you get your first chance to use the
World Map. You may travel to either Arbalah's House if you took Quest 2
below, or to Shrouded Hills.
If, instead of travelling via the World Map, you continue on past where you
met the hostile elf, you'll run into what could be described as Wolf Alley.
It's a winding passage through the rocks that contained no less than 7
Wolves. These are the really tough Level 3 ones, as opposed to the Level 1
Ailing Wolves you can so easily bump off. If you can get them all, you should
be nearly at Level 4 by this stage.

Quests
------
1. Discover the origins of the strange ring.
You automatically get this quest when the dying gnome hands you the ring.
You have the feeling it might take some time to resolve this quest...

2. Kill the priest Arbalah to free the spirit of Charles Brehgo - 1500 XP.
The spirit of the dead bandit in the cave gives you this quest. Travel to
Arbalah's house, which is now on your map. Arbalah tells a different story
entirely. Now, you can kill Arbalah, which is bad for your alignment but nets
you 1500 XP (there was no treasure. It was a ploy used by the spirit to
motivate you to kill the priest), or take Arbalah's House Quest 1 instead.


Arbalah's House (1451 W, 1304 S)
===============
You can travel here via the World Map from the Crash Site.

While we were at Arbalah's house, we were accosted by a member of the
Molochean Hand. Another bloke intent on killing any survivors of the zeppelin
crash. What is it with these people? Anyway, after killing this ruffian, the