DUNGEONS & DRAGONS:

Warriors of the Eternal Sun Walkthrough

The Goblin wars lasted 13 moons... Duke Hector Barrik waits in his fortress for the end... Then before the final goblin assault... the sky opens and human and goblin alike are sucked into the void...

Then somehow, your entire city is intact, but apparently has been transported to another world with a red sun... and whatever happened to those blasted goblins? There are no goblins in this game! Well.. I guess that's one problem solved...

Unfortunately, the city is now being attacked by beastmen (who seem pretty ineffectual as compared to those goblins), and worse, everyone in the city, except you and your stalwart companions, is slowly going mad. Why are you immune to this? Who knows! What is the name of this city or these people? Can't tell. Thus begins the typically lame story of this RPG.

Actually, this is a pretty nice little game with a really nifty, totally unique combat system that you've got to love (once you understand it). The game really seems centered around the combat system. It operates in two distinct modes depending on whether you're in a cave (i.e.,dungeon) or not, but the strategy for defeating your enemies is similar in both cases.

This is what distinguishes this game from games like Phantasy Star. You have to employ strategy to fight, if you just go up and slug it out with the monsters you'll lose.

Moreover, you have two unusual handicaps. You can't bring a dead character back to life without returning to the city (impractical most of the time) and there are no teleport spells. If you walk into a cave, you have to walk out. What's more, you cannot save the game in a cave.So if one of your characters is killed in a cave, you usually will have to start over from your last saved position. Fortunately, you can save anywhere outside of a cave.

You have two advantages as well. You can rest and regain all your hit points and magic in a cave (If there are no monsters near). Also, there is a limited and knowable number of monsters in a cave. The monsters regenerate if you exit the cave (or cave level), but if you don't, they stay dead, and the same monsters are always in the same places in the same caves. If you clear the monsters out as you go through, then you can (usually) retreat to a "clean" part of the cave and rest when necessary. In general, it is a good idea to rest after any encounter where you have taken damage or used magic.

In combat, you have one big advantage that you must exploit mercilessly... your characters can attack from a much greater range than most of your opponents. You have projectile weapons and magic, most of your opponents will have to stand next to you to hit.

Characters

Roll your own characters. Strength, constitution and dexterity are the most important attributes, and I think that strength may be the least of the three. A high strength will increase your power to fight with melee weapons (ax, spear, sword, etc.), and you will not be relying on these very much. Constitution basically is your number of hit points, and high dexterity decreases your chance of being hit, in essence giving you an armor bonus.

You absolutely need a magic-user. A cleric is a good idea. A Thief is optional.

Thieves can use a bow and can spot/disarm traps, but can only wear leather armor and cannot use magic. Traps are not much of a problem except in the Azcan temple.

Elves gain levels slowly, but they can use bows and use magic (except Level 6 spells) and spot hidden doors which are a problem throughout the game.

The other demi-humans cannot use bows or magic, which is going to make them weak fighters, unless you really WANT to go toe to toe with the monsters.

There are real advantages to making both of your other characters elves. A fighter will make things easier in the beginning, but toward the end, any character without magic will be weak.

The combat system.

For either surface or dungeon combat, you need to equip all your characters with projectile weapons.

Get slings for clerics, wizards, dwarves and halflings. Get bows for everyone else.

Always upgrade these weapons first, think of them as your primary weapons. If a monster is close enough for you to hit it with a sword, it's too close.

Put the projectile weapons all on the same button for all the characters. e.g put them all on the "B" button, and reserve the  "A" button for swords and magic.

On the surface.

When walking about on the surface, you can either engage the enemy (bypressing "A" or "B") when you see them, or you can wait for the enemy to engage you. It is much preferable to engage them at as great a range as possible.

You can engage enemies that you can't even see yet by simply tapping "B" button (the shooting button) as you walk around. Then you will engage monsters at extreme bow range (assuming that a bow-wielding character is selected. Look at the little green arrow on the right side of the screen.).

Once the monsters are engaged, fighting proceeds in turns, and pauses for your character to ready a new weapon or magic. If they are far away, the monsters will have to use their first two turns at least just walking towards you while you hit them with your shooters and magic. You can also retreat while you shoot and hide behind rocks and trees and shoot. Just lambaste them with projectiles and magic.

Magic that keeps monsters from attacking is very useful. The Darkness spell is particularly effective since it has a long range and is successful virtually all of the time. Don't use spells that affect an area such as fireball, cloud kill, ice storm or lightning spells on monsters that are close to you on the surface, it will hit your guys too! When cast underground, they do not seem to have this problem (except lightning, see below). For some bizarre reason, the game will allow your to cast offensive spells on yourself even when you're not in combat. I can't imagine why. It is always safe to use the magic missile spell.

In the caves.

In the caves you have a painfully small, but nicely detailed first-person perspective complete with animated monsters coupled with a very nice auto-mapping system, with the singular fault that the map is erased when you exit the cave or cave level.

The fighting is semi real-time. The turns are there, but the system will not pause and wait for you as it does on the surface, but  it is not arcade fighting & takes getting used to. There are lots of critters, but manyof them are quite weak. You can pause the action by pressing start, and then ready new weapons or magic or even look at the map. No action proceeds while you are "in camp", even if you're in the middle of a fight.

The monsters do not roam the caves, they sit and wait for you at specific locations. You can almost always see them waiting before you get to them (anything that is bobbing up and down in the distance or just around the corner is a monster). There is nothing friendly in the caves (with one exception).

You cannot successfully engage large groups of monsters face-to-face. Just as on the surface, your best advantage is range. You can shoot two or more squares away, & most of the monsters can't shoot.

In order to get the best advantage, you can "bait" the monsters by stepping into view and then backing away. When they come after you, you can pick them off as you retreat backwards. When you tap your "shooter" button, the effect is like a machine gun, and the monsters are hit with a stream of arrows and rocks. Any monster you see in the distance (but not around corners) you can hit. Sometimes you can hit monsters in the distance that you can't see. Shooting down long passageways before you proceed is a good idea.

Using magic underground is tricky. Put all of your offensive spells on one button, e.g "A". These spells, like darkness, magic missile, fireball, etc. can be fired off rapidly at an approaching monster. It is a good idea NEVER to use the lightning spell underground, but if you must, then make sure you are far away from any wall.  When you've fired off your first volley of magic, you can pause and re-load with your second-line spells. Healing during combat underground is possible and sometimes necessary, but quite awkward since the monsters are still attacking while you indicate who is to heal who. Learn how to retreat, heal, and then re-engage.

A short walk-through.

As with many RPG's, your characters start out pathetically weak. It is not uncommon to step out of the city for the first time and have all of your characters killed by a snake or a boar. Frequently, your lead character will be killed by the first blow of the first critter you come across.

Before you set foot outside the city, though, you need to gather the wealth of hidden treasures within the city.

There are Gauntlets of Ogre Power in the prison tower hidden behind a secret door (completely invisible) in the middle of the western wall of the inmost room (not a cell). The prison tower is accessed from the northeastern corner of the castle interior.

There is a wand of lightning and a scroll of sleep hidden behind a secret door in the north wall of the magician's laboratory, accessed from the northwestern corner of the magic shop.

There is a +1 axe hidden behind a secret door in the eastern wall of the inn's cellar, accessed from the northwestern corner of the inn (looks more like a cafeteria with cots).

There are potions of healing and a staff of healing hidden in the shrine's cellar. The cellar is accessed from the northwest exterior front corner of the shrine. The potions are in plain view to the north, the staff is hidden behind a secret door in the southern corner of the east wall.

There is a suit of +1 chain mail hidden behind a secret door in the northwest corner of the crypts, which are located (oddly enough) in the cemetery guard tower.

There is a +1 sword hidden behind a secret door in the northern face of the central pillar of the northeastern guard tower (you face south to access it).

Note: Unlike most RPGs, the effectiveness of weapons and armor cannot be judged by their price. For instance, +1 leather armor is MUCH more expensive than plain plate mail armor, but it is not as good. Be sure to check your character's armor class after buying armor. Your armor does not have to be equipped, your character will automatically use the best armor he/she has. As for the effectiveness of the weapons, all I can tell you is that bows are better than slings. Other than that it's a mystery. Maybe you can figure it out. Also note that the same armor advantage may be had by increasing the plus of any armor item, regardless of price. So for instance, if a character is equipped with plate mail and a shield, then the same armor bonus is obtained by buying either +1 plate mail or a +1 shield, even though the shield is much cheaper.

Once you've got all this stuff and equip everyone the way you want it, then go out and hunt boar and snakes until your characters go up a level or two. The characters gain levels slowly, but each level is a pretty substantial improvement. Note that only the character that kills a monster gets the Xp. This makes it difficult to advance the cleric. Use darkness and entangle spells to make the monster an easy kill. (On the surface, a blinded monster will not move, but underground they will start running away from you.)

There is a cave in the far north of the inner valley, hidden behind a waterfall. Inside are lots of cheap critters that are just right for level 1 characters to build themselves up on. Watch out for the Owl Bears, they pack quite a punch. Shoot at the Tiger Beetles from a distance.

At level 2 you should be able to wipe out the beastman camp to the northwest of the city. Then you can head over to the swamp if you want to and fight some of the critters over there (There really isn't much point). When you're level 2/3 you can approach the bridge southwest of the castle.

When you cross the bridge you will probably get a message "so and so is worried about crossing the bridge"...  and then you will be attacked by a hill giant and companions. This is good. Retreat back across the bridge and whollop the enemies as instructed. Each time you kill the hill giant (650 Xp) and friends, you will gain substantial experience points.

When you are ready to start to play the game seriously... head for the beastman caves.

The beastman caves are in the northwest corner of the valley. Be sure to save the game before entering each cave. Explore each one thoroughly. Wipe out the inhabitants and take their stuff. Once you discover the vine-covered passage in the northeastern corner of one of the caves, then you can return to the city.

When you return to the city, Marmillian (in the northwest interior castle tower) will give you a withered vine that somehow lets you through this one passage. There is lots of new stuff available at the shops and you should upgrade as much as possible. Get new +1 slings and +1 bows for everybody first, then armor, then swords (if you have any money left). The magic shop is pretty useless (until later) and you have to find most spells in the caves. There is no place to buy or sell healing potions or spells.

Note: The shops get more things in as your characters increase in level.

Other than that, everyone in the city is getting pretty weird, and you see it's going to be a good idea not to hang around this cursed burg.

So you have to go back to the Beastman caves. If you want to make the game easier in the long run, there is a little maneuver you can pull at this point. If you go south from the beastman caves, following the cliff wall exactly, at the place where the wall face first becomes invisible to you, nose into the wall (facing south) and you will find a hidden cavern. Save the game and prepare yourself. There are some big-time monsters and treasure in there. You can beat the monsters if you can blind them with darkness. Blinding them and then binding them with the entangle spell is even better. 

Near the entrance is a Fire Giant (2125 Xp), kill him and head to the southwest corner to find a "secret" passage. Go through and bait 4 Hell Hounds (450 Xp/ea.) in their lair. Back off and shoot them dead. In their lair you will find a secret passage to a secret room that has money in it. Exit the hellhound lair and go northwest and around. You will see a passageway to the west. Ignore it. Go around and through the first door you see, you will find a saber-tooth tiger (650 Xp). Just stand in the doorway and it will come to you. Kill it. Go through that room and head southeast. Down in that southern room is a Red Dragon (2500 Xp!) and its treasure. Bait the dragon from the door. Blind it, bind it, kill it. Be sure to rest between these encounters. In the Dragon's Lair you will find much treasure. Then you can exit and save and then do it all again (except the treasure won't be there). But your guys will get a whopping 6975 Xp for each "visit", and each time they gain a level, it becomes easier. Work them up as high as you like, I went for level 6/7 for everyone.

Then go to the beastman caves and find the center cave on the top level and then go through that vine blocked passage into a really big cave that eventually let's you out in a swamp. Watch out for that carrion crawler near the entrance. Getting through the cave can be quite challenging. There are two hidden treasure room in the north towards the front of the cave. The "hidden" doors in the beastman cave are not really hidden. You will see many doors that are blocked by vines or rocks. Most of these are impassable, but a few of them will let you through. Try them all. Once you get the treasures, get out of the cave and save the game, then proceed though the main body of the cave that goes like a spiral hook starting out going South by Southwest and proceeding in a counter-clockwise semi-circle that passes the southeast, the northeast, and terminates in the northwest. Near the northeast there is a very large and nasty tribe of troglodytes. Bait them and pick them off a few at a time. Do not walk into their midst. There is a further treasure there. There are some very nasty lizards in the same general vicinity. The one guarding the exit is quite tough. Use the darkness spell on it. On the western wall, near the exit is a pattern of holes. Be SURE to look at it.

Exit the cave into the swamp and save. Fortunately, the swamp is pretty easy. Go north and take the second right, go all the way east then north and wipe out the lizard man village. Take their stuff. There are 12 lizard men, but they fall over like sacks of potatoes. Just shoot at them from the village entrance, they'll never land a blow. Be sure to get all the items from the village, then return to the city.

On the way, you'll get to fight all the critters in the beastman cave all over again. O Joy! If you explore the swamp you can find the well of souls and the tree of life. These don't seem to have any effect, but I could be wrong. Maybe they do something.

When you get back to the city, everyone will be mad at you... and going mad in general. Are we actually fighting to save these yahoos, or are we really just looking for a new place to live? Actually, this is a good question. What is the objective of this game? The Duke and everyone else says that you're supposed to be locating allies for the city... but all you ever do is kill people and take their stuff. Not the best way to find allies perhaps? Well, there are no allies! (with one rather useless exception). It doesn't matter because there aren't enough beastmen in those caves to make up a decent football squad, much less overrun a stone fortress. Like all Genesis RPG's, the goal of this game is really to locate and destroy the ultimate evil! Surprised? No? 

Well, time to leave again and head for the Azcan cavern. The Azcan cavern is in the northeast corner of the valley, and is clearly visible on the map. If you get here without having seen the pattern of holes near the swamp exit in the beastman caves, you can't enter the main portion of the cave, which is behind a secret door. The secret doors in the Azcan cavern, unfortunately, are quite invisible.  

The secret door is due east of the entrance. The passage will lead into a large chamber with exits more or less at the eight cardinal compass points. First, take the north passage, there is a treasure at the first right. Come back to the north passage and go further up and bear right all the way east and find another treasure. Then exit the cave and save.

Go back in and go to the large front chamber. Take the southwest passage and bear east when it forks. Go all the way south and find another treasure. Then exit and save the game.

Go back in and go to the large front chamber. Take the east passage and proceed due east. You will find a secret door in the east wall of the second chamber over. There are very nasty trolls waiting to ambush you behind this door. Use your strongest magic to fight them. Rest, then veer to the southeast and find another passage headed northeast. The troll chief is lurking here. Ice him and head up the passage to take the main treasure trove. Exit the cave and save.

Your packs may be very full by now and you have lots more stuff to take from the Azcans, so you might want to head back to the city and sell some of the stuff you don't need.

Now to go through the cave, and into the Jungle. Go back in and go to the large front chamber. Take the northeast passage and head due east as far as you can go. Head north by northeast to find the exit in the northeast corner. Exit and save.

The Azcan temple can be found in the northeast corner of the jungle. Take the road west and then head in going north by northwest until you  can move freely to the north. Then go northeast. If you find the lake, the temple is east by northeast from there.

The Azcan temple is perhaps the hardest dungeon in the game. It is replete with traps and an elaborate maze of secret doors. Even the non-secret doors are hard to see. Fortunately, they are marked in red on the auto-map. The game will frequently refuse to let you rest in here, and the damage from traps can mount up quickly.

It has five levels. The fourth level is the hardest and you will probably have to map it to get through. The main objective is four rings of fire resistance that you absolutely need. If you brought a thief, this is where he will earn his money.

On the fifth level, the main chamber is down the first left, north of where the stairway corridor ends. If you travel up the middle of this wide hall, then there is only one trap in your way. The treasure is all the way in the back of the main chamber. The main chamber is filled with many Azcans. Bait them and pick off as many as you can with your shooters. Then move in and Finish them off with magic.

There is no easy way out. You have to fight your way back up through all five levels to get out and save the game. Good luck.

After that it will be a simple business to fight your way back through the cavern and walk back to the city. Save your game at the city entrance before you talk to anyone, especially the Duke.

The Duke has gone mad and Marmillian is not far behind him. If you talk to the Duke he will throw you out of the city and post guards to keep you from returning. If this happens, reset the game. You should just forget these losers.

Upgrade as  much as you can at the shops. The magic shop may have a fireball spell you could find useful. Then it's time for a dragon hunt.

With the rings of fire resistance from the Azcan temple you can now safely climb up on the burning rocks in the western wall of the valley. The fire elemental, fire giant and salamanders will all give you good Xp, but your best target is the red dragon who shows up sometimes on the rocks. Killing it will net you 1600 to 2200 gold as well as 2500 Xp. But the real deal for Xp is the dragon in the cave. When you enter the cave to the north, you will immediately be attacked by a red dragon that you can easily kill over and over by just exiting the cave and re-entering. You won't get the gold for this, but you will pile up Xp fast, especially magic users. If you just keep firing after the dragon goes down, you will knock off four hellhounds that are in a room straight down the passage you are facing.

You do not want to complete this three-level cave quite yet, but you want to get the best treasures from it ASAP. These are all on the first level. You'll find the first one right off, it's in the main chamber where the Red Dragon was lurking. Then go straight down (west) and take your first right, then the next two right turns and you will be facing a door. There is a fire giant inside (no problem, right?). Kill it and in the southwest corner of the room find a secret passage that leads too some major offensive spell scrolls.

Go back to the main passage that leads to the entrance, and turn west towards those hellhounds, which should be dead by now. Enter their chamber and take the side door into a passage. Then Left, Left, Right, Left and you will run into a troll. In the room behind him you will find the "displacer cloak" which is armor your wizard can wear. Get out and save the game. Do not finish the cave. You'll see why.

Now you want to knock off all the remaining caves and treasures. They are hidden in the cave walls and you can find them by methodically nosing into the wall wherever the rock face is hidden from view. Aside from the hidden cavern near the beastman caves, I could not find any more until I had passed the Azcan cavern. That doesn't mean that nothing is there, but I don't think there is. A few of them have treasures, most just have critters, but you want to get as much treasure as possible before completing the cavern across the fire bridge.

As you work your characters up in levels, more stuff will become available in the stores. At level 9, the ice storm spell and the stone-to-flesh spell will become available. If you do not have stone-to-flesh, then there will be no way to restore a character who is "Stoned" by a basilisk or other monster. Buy whatever you can. Hold out, because when you finish the cave beyond the flames, the city will be abandoned by its crazed inhabitants. The shops will be closed, the cleric will be gone. Kind of a dirty trick, huh? So be sure to get whatever you're going to get, and then say goodbye, and head for the cavern. Actually, there is about 3000 in gold on the third level of the cavern that you won't be able to spend once the cave is completed, so you might want to go and get it, come back, and spend it before finishing. An easy way to build up Xp for any character fast is to get Stone-to-flesh for your magic user (who must be level 11 or better to scribe it) and then "Stone" the red dragon at the cave mouth. The dragon will be permanently paralyzed and any character can kill it at their leisure. I recommend that you build all characters up to "MAX LEVEL" at this point, so you can take advantage of everything that is for sale in the stores. Get everyone a +3 shield and a +1 ring of protection. Armor better than +1 is ridiculously expensive, and it would be quite tedious to build up that much money, so I went with +1 armor.

The cavern is not that hard, but there is another dirty trick hiding in there. Go straight back to the hellhound room, take the door to the right. Go to the end and enter the room. Eliminate the fire beetles. Turn north and go through the secret door straight up to the stairway. When you emerge on the second level go north and bear right at the "T". Continue into the room infested by giant scorpions, eliminate them, and exit through the secret door in the northeast corner. Advance straight ahead to the staircase. There are only a few healing potions on the second level.

When you reach the third level of the cavern, there are two treasure troves. These hold gold, magic armor (just +1) and spells (nothing great). The southern most treasure trove is guarded by a specter that will go down with one fireball. But be sure you hit it right away, because if it attacks, it will strip away 1 or 2 LEVELS from one or more of your characters, and it won't even give you a message that it has done so. Since it is relatively quick to get through the cave, my recommendation is that you re-load from your last saved position if this happens.

Turn south and go through the room with the gouls, head south again and west to the door. The specter is here, usually waiting just to the left. Ace it and then check everyone's level. The treasure is behind a secret door in the northeast.

Then backtrack to the staircase and head north. Go through the room with the gouls and exit to the north. Head west and come to the door. Behind this are some wraiths, a turn undead will take care of them. The treasure is in the southwest corner. Check your levels again. The wraiths are not as dangerous as the specter, but they can also remove experience levels.

If you are ready to finish, exit back to the north and head back the way you came, but do not turn when the corridor turns, instead head straight through a hidden door to gain a Medallion (You must have this, make sure you get it.) and talk to an Oltec merchant who gives you a letter to take to the Duke. The game proclaims: You have Fulfilled the Duke's Quest! Is that what he wanted? It doesn't matter, he's gone by now anyway. Head back out and save the game. The city is now abandoned.

So head to the city. It looks all torn apart. Only Marmillian remains, in his usual place, and he explains that you are all in a giant zoo and that an evil creature called a burrower is driving everyone mad. He gives you a scroll that you absolutely need, but nevertheless does not show up in anyone's inventory. Once you talk to him, you've got it.

Giant zoo? Really? I guess you've got to take it on faith, the situation never becomes any clearer than this.

Marmillian tells you to go around the valley to the outer swamp, but there is a better way. Go to the grave yard. There is an open grave that used to have a monk standing next to it. Stand where he was and you will enter a hidden dungeon. There isn't much in there except some interesting critters. It's full of secret doors, and its much more interesting and basically much faster than walking around the valley.

The exit is far to the southeast, guarded by a flapsail (it looks like a dragon). When you exit, you'll be in the outer swamp next to a dead tree. Go just northeast to find an inner wall, stay to the inside of it and follow it around to find a visible cave entrance (it is visible on the map, just barely). This is the final dungeon, it has three sections:The Cave of the Dark Elves, the City of the Dark Elves, and the"Immortal Cavern". To enter, you must have both the medallion and the invisible scroll Marmillian gave you.

The Cave of the Dark Elves

There are a few treasures in here, only one of them is very good. The secret doors are visible, they have a circle of blue light behind them. All of them are actually doors. Go south by southwest and take the first branch leading west. You will pass a southern passage leading to a chamber. There is a flapsail or two in there and a scroll of disintegrate. Continue west and you will pass a secret door to the south. If you run into two or three flapsails, then you missed it. Go south through the secret door and head west, then northwest. Take the passage south. It branches southwest and southeast. The exit is in the southeast branch, along with the main elven force. The other branch has more elves that must be eliminated before you will be able to rest near the exit. There is a treasure near the exit as well.

The City of the Dark Elves.

The city looks like the Azcan temple, but is much easier. You will run into magic users in here, however. You enter in the southwest part of the city. Create a perimeter by eliminating the elves in the southeastern block, it is only 5 rooms, and some guards in the halls. Shoot down the halls to eliminate the guards before passing. Once you have created your perimeter, then you can always retreat to the southeastern corner of the city to rest.

Exploring the city is optional. I found some nifty +2 and +3 armor in there, but it was left after encounters, and it may have been just random luck. There are also some stone-to-flesh scrolls in there, if you need them. The Elven city is really elaborate, and it would have been nice if there was really some compelling reason to explore it - but there really isn't.

From the entrance, take the first passage east and go all the way down to the 5th Left, then north. You will go up several flights of stairs. At the top there is a door in a single cube, that is the exit. Be sure you are rested and ready-to-go before entering the final cavern.

The Immortal Cavern

The Immortal Cavern is full of really nasty monsters like efritti, chimera and Medusa. Worse, the game will not let you rest in there, no matter what. If you exit, of course, they will all regenerate. And you can't even save the game. What to do?

Well, just load up all your magic using characters with as much "continual darkness" spells as they can carry. Use just one of these spells on each of the major monsters, and they will give you no trouble. You don't have to kill them.

From the entrance, head east. Look north and see there are two passageways, both guarded by efritti. Blind them. Throw rocks at them. Watch them run. Take the second (eastern-most) north passage. Just keep heading north as far as you can go. When you run into fire giants or stone giants, then kill them in the usual way. Save your "continual dark" spells for the major baddies. Use turn undead on the vampire. Your cleric will save your butt in this place.

Once you have gotten as far north as you can go, then head west. You will now be in a winding passage full of nasties. At the end of it, you will find the burrower (just past the pyro-hydra). When you find it...the game is complete, your party automatically uses the invisible scroll, the Immortal KA appears (looking like a T-Rex!) and you can watch the somewhat nifty end sequence.

All in all, the game has flaws, but it is unique and enjoyable if a little tedious at times.