Quests

Some of the people you meet have work for you. Quests are simple errands: kill something, bring something, go somewhere, or carry something to someone else. Do it, come back, and you are rewarded with gold, things, and experience.

Getting a quest

Chat with someone (C). A quest they have for you is a topic on the dialogue screen, named after the quest and listed before their other topics. Asking about it gives it to you. They say what they want, and the quest is yours at once, on your quest log.

There is no accepting and no declining. A quest you do not want simply waits in the log and costs you nothing.

Some quests are offered only once you have done another one for the same person, and some only to someone of the right alignment. Good folk who greet an Evil or Wicked character coldly still offer them their quests. Helping someone is a little good.

Talking about quests takes no time.

Kinds of quests

• Kill: kill a number of creatures of one kind, or of any kind of one sort, sometimes in a particular place (“Kill 5 giant rats in Cealdhlāw.”). Only creatures you kill yourself count: with a weapon, a shot, a throw, or a wound you gave them that bleeds them to death. One killed by someone else, or by a trap, does not count. Kills you made before you were given the quest count too, so the person is pleased to hear the job is done already. This is not so for a drawn quest, where only the kills after it was given count.
• Named monsters: a quest to kill a unique creature, one with a name of its own, is done by its death, however and whenever it died. It may die by your hand, by a trap, by another creature, or before you were even given the quest. Nothing can leave such a quest impossible to finish.
• Bring: bring some things in your pack (“Bring the silver chalice to Sister Hild.”). They are taken from your pack when you hand the quest in. Anything you carry beyond what was asked stays yours.
• Reach: get to a place, such as a level of a dungeon (“Reach level 4 of Cealdhlāw.”). Having been there before counts.
• Deliver: the person gives you something as they give you the quest, to carry to someone else and hand in there. You need room for it in your pack. Without it in your pack you cannot hand it in, so if you drop it, pick it up again.
• Escort: bring someone home (“Bring Eadgyth safely to the Hamlet.”). See below.
• Lure: lead a creature that hunts you back to someone who can tame it (“Lure the crystal guardian from Meyn Bew 4 to Gimmwīc.”). See Lures.

Escorts

Find the one you are to bring home and chat with them. They fall in behind you as one of your allies, in the coward stance, and follow you from level to level.

They are no fighter. They strike only at an enemy right beside them, and they will not be set on anything, though they come to heel and hold when told. Give them a weapon or armour and they put it on at once, dropping what they held or wore there. What they cannot wear or wield, they refuse.

When they stand with you in the place they belong, the quest is done there and then. They say their thanks, and they stay. The one who sent you thanks and pays you if they are there; if not, the one you brought home pays.

If they die, whether they had joined you or not, the quest fails. The log says so, and it is never offered again.

Lures

A lure quest asks you to bring back a creature that will not come willingly: it comes only chasing you. The one in the march is Ysella the Binder’s, in Gimmwīc: the crystal guardian at the bottom of Meyn Bew.

• It waits in its place, awake, once the quest is given.
• It follows you up or down the stairs only when it is right beside you, and knows you are there, as you take them, as any hostile creature does. Leave it behind and it stays on that floor until you come back for it.
• It is slow, so you can stay ahead of it. Its fists and the shards it throws hit hard all the same.
• When it comes into Gimmwīc with you, and Ysella is there, she binds it. It is at peace for good, a slow circle of light turns about it, and it walks to Kerensa’s Stones, the gem dealer, and stands in the corner by her counter. The quest is done: 1200 gold, 4000 experience, and an uncut sapphire.
• While it stands bound in the town, every Cut and Set and every ring or amulet you make with Jewelcraft in Gimmwīc gets +2 to its check.

If you kill it before it is bound, nothing fails: a new one grows in its hollow, and it is there the next time you come down to that floor. Killed after it is bound, it is gone for good, and so is the +2; the quest stays done.

Sorts of creatures

Some kill quests ask for a whole sort of creature: “Kill 100 goblins: goblins, goblin archers, and goblin chiefs.” Any creature of a kind that is of that sort counts, wherever you kill it. Every level, every dungeon, and the overworld all add up, unless the quest names a place.

The quest says which kinds count. The table below lists every sort, by the tag the game’s data gives it, and the kinds of it.

• A kind may be of several sorts: a goblin archer is both a goblin and an archer.
• Some who run together are not of one sort. An ogre is no goblin, a warg no orc, and a basilisk no vermin.
• A creature’s sort goes with its kind, whoever it sides with: a kobold is always a kobold.

Cēaptūn’s adventurers’ guild gives a chain of drawn quests, and ranks for doing them: see The Weyfarers’ Gilde.

Drawn quests

Some quests do not say what they want until they are given. The person picks the target at random as they give the quest, from a pool the quest names, and tells you (“There’s a price on a goblin chief.”). Once drawn, the target stands until the quest is done. Asking again never draws anew.

The pool is one of:

• a creature of the kinds that live in some dungeons, never a named monster. Only the dungeons you can get into when you are given the quest count: a dungeon whose way in is still hidden from you is left out;
• a sort of creature from a list, one with a kind living in such a dungeon;
• a thing of one class, such as the scrolls you can find lying about;
• one of a few named choices the quest lists, each with its own words. Each choice may mark its own hidden place on your map, but only the one drawn is marked. A choice may be kept back for when none of the others may be drawn.

A Beast-friend (every druid is one) is never sent to kill animals, the creatures of the factions the talent calms: such a kind, a sort of creature with an animal among its kinds, and a choice asking for either are left out of the pool. Whether you are a Beast-friend counts as the quest is given, not after.

A kill quest drawn from a pool of creatures counts only the kills made after you were given it.

Some quests lead to a place nobody has found on their own. The person marks a hidden location on your map, and the quest log says where it lies.

When something you do moves a quest along, the message line says so: “Quest updated: 2 / 5 giant rats.” When it is done: “Quest updated: 5 / 5 giant rats. Return to Reeve Leofric.”

Handing in

Go back to whoever the quest is handed in to and ask about the quest again. That is the person who gave it, or for a delivery, the one you carry it to. Before it is done they remind you of what they asked. Once it is done, they take what they asked for, thank you, and pay: “Quest complete: Rats in the barrows.”, “Reeve Leofric gives you 25 gold coins.”, “You gain 30 experience.” What does not fit in your pack is put at your feet.

Some quests also teach you a skill. If you are not trained in it, you are now, starting at 1d4. If you are, you get 100 training marks in it instead, which is enough for a roll of its own at once. Sister Hild’s Grave goods teaches Heal this way. The Reward column of the quest table names the skill.

A few quests can be done again once they are done.

The quest log

q opens the quest log: the quests you were given, then the ones you have done. Choose one with the arrows to see:

• what it asks, in the giver’s name (“Reeve Leofric wants you to kill 5 giant rats in Cealdhlāw.”);
• how far you have got (“2 / 5 killed.”, “Return to Reeve Leofric.”);
• who gave it, in their words.

The log is page 7 of the info screens. 1 to 9, Tab, and Shift+Tab switch between it and the character screen, the inventory, the equipment, your skills, your weapon skills, the Magic page, your talents, and your story.

A quest stays in the log until you have done it. Quests cannot be given up, and there is no limit on how many you may be on at once. Opening the log takes no time.

Who gives quests

Three people in Cēaptūn have work for you. Each has a chain of quests, offered one after the other.

• Reeve Leofric sends you into Cealdhlāw, the barrow east of town. He sends a Beast-friend after the barrow’s skeletal rats instead of the living ones.
• Sister Hild at the Mynster wants back what the barrow and the drowned minster keep, and marks Fennmynster on your map.
• Factor Wulfrun marks the old mine, Fyrdelf, once you have been deep in the barrow and reached level 5. Ask her sooner and she tells you that you are not ready, and gives you nothing. Once the fire drake is dead she has a letter for the deep gnomes of Gimmwīc, at the bottom of Dēopgang. Headman Peran pays you with a cut stone and gives you his town’s answer to carry back up to her. You can go down to Gimmwīc without the letter: its way in is never hidden.

In Holtwīc, at the end of the north road, Gammer Wynflæd the wise-woman asks you to bring home a girl the fair folk took. She marks Ælfhām, their hall in the holly wood, on your map. The girl waits at its very bottom.

The table lists every quest in its chain’s order: what it asks, what it pays, what must be done first, the level you must have reached for it to be given, and the hidden place it shows you.

See also: The Weyfarers’ Gilde, People and talk, and Experience and levelling up.