Dragonsand
Dragonsand is Enroth's southern desert — an uninhabited, endgame-tier region with no town, no Overlord and no trainers, just open sand patrolled by dragons, elemental lizards and wyrms. There is no walking it normally; you reach it by the invisible rooftop teleporter from New Sorpigal (the same warp you use for the Shrine of the Gods power-start). By foot it borders Blackshire (north), Hermit's Isle (west) and Mire of the Damned (east), each 5 days out.
You visit Dragonsand in three very different moments. At the very start (stage 1) you warp in at level 1 purely to touch the Shrine of the Gods for +20 to all stats and to raid the New World Computing dungeon behind it — you fight nothing outdoors. Mid-late (stage 11) you return to place a statuette, click the region's obelisk, and crack the heavily-trapped obelisk cache on the northern border. Near the end (stage 14) you come back at roughly level 36-44 for the Tomb of Varn, the hardest dungeon in the game, to claim the Control Cube. Outside the shrine, everything here is meant to be flown past, not fought.
Keys
- Eagle Statuette → a door
- Wolf Statuette → a door
Connections
- → Tomb of Varn
- → New Sorpigal
- → New World Computing (NWC) Dungeon
Visit in: Stage 1 · Stage 11 · Stage 14
Quests
Place the fifth statuette (Twillen's five-statuette quest)
[stage]Giver: Twillen (Blackshire) — chest of five statuettes
One of Twillen's five statuette pedestals sits in Dragonsand. Take the New Sorpigal rooftop warp in (set turn-based first) and fly southwest to the small village; the pedestal is by the water there. With all five statuettes placed (Bootleg Bay, Mire, Kreigspire, Sweet Water and here) the Blackshire reward chest unlocks and the quest pays a large experience bonus.
The Obelisk Quest (touch Dragonsand's obelisk)
[stage]Giver: Self-recognized (no giver) — one obelisk per region
Dragonsand holds obelisk #6, against the wall in the northeast surrounded by dragons (touch it last, since you are about to crack the cache here anyway). It is one of the fifteen obelisks you must physically click across Enroth; once all fifteen are touched the game assembles their riddle and the Dragonsand cache activates.
Retrieve the Control Cube (Oracle's final crystal quest)
[stage]Giver: The Oracle (Free Haven council)
The Oracle's fifth and final retrieval sends you into the Tomb of Varn in Dragonsand for the Control Cube. You gather six code scrolls and a Crystal Skull, survive the radiation rooms, enter the reversed passwords in the cleansing pools, and loot the Varn chest. Returning the Cube to the Oracle opens the Control Center and the Archibald / Ritual of the Void endgame.
Dungeons
When: now (stage 1, level 1) [cleared in stage]
Touch the shrine for a permanent +20 to EVERY statistic on every character; arrive in turn-based mode and tuck into the left-hand alcove so the dragons can't hit you. Not a real dungeon, but the single biggest power-start in the game.
When: now (stage 1, immediately after the shrine) [cleared in stage]
Reached by clicking the shrine's northwest wall. A two-level developer joke dungeon: repeatable gold chest (500/click, ~10k a run), endless food/bottle/cloak boxes, and starter gear. Don't attack the wandering NWC staff. Town Portal to Mist when stripped.
Rewards
- Longsword
- Dagger
- Club
- Phirna Root
- Inferno
- Cloth Hat
- Potion Bottle
- Cure Wounds
- Magic Potion
- Energy
- Poppysnaps
- Widoweeps Berries
- Chain Mail
- Steel Chain Mail
- Noble Chain Mail
- Royal Chain Mail
- Majestic Chain Mail
- Armored Boots
- Phantom Cloak
Traps
- Desk: Day of the Gods
Connections
- → Dragonsand
When: later (stage 14, ~level 36-44; after the four Memory Crystals, on the Oracle's Control Cube quest) [cleared in stage]
Enter the big northwest pyramid at the top. Set a Lloyd's Beacon in the central room first. Magic-immune Guardians of Varn (weapon-breakers) and elemental genies, six code-scroll puzzle, and radiation rooms (hold a Crystal Skull; cure in pools). Yields the Control Cube.
Rewards
- Communication Officer's Code
- Engineer's Code
- Meteor Shower
- Inferno
- Incinerate
- Implosion
- Fly
- Starburst
- Town Portal
- Ice Blast
- Lloyd's Beacon
- Turn to Stone
- Death Blossom
- Mass Distortion
Keys
- Captain's Code → door 1
- Back Door Key → door 3
- Water Temple Key → door 11
- Crystal Skull → a door
- First Mate's Code → a door
- Navigator's Code → a door
- Communication Officer's Code → a door
- Engineer's Code → a door
- Doctor's Code → a door
- Flame Door Key → doors 32, 31
- VARN Chest Key → a door
- Bibliotheca Chest Key → a door
Traps
- Switch: DamagePlayer
- event 12: DamagePlayer
Connections
- → Dragonsand
Puzzle solution
The Well of VARN is a password lock. Each of the five Cleansing Pools, then the central Well, demands a crew code spoken while carrying that crew's Code item (plaque: "Only the one bearing the key may speak the code"). Every code is a Star Trek name spelled backwards.
- First Mate's pool: answer kcopS (Spock).
- Navigator: uluS (Sulu).
- Comm Officer: aruhU (Uhura).
- Engineer: yttocS (Scotty).
- Doctor: yoccM (McCoy).
- Only after all five, key the Well last with kriK (Kirk) — the waters part. Keying it early gives "Access Denied" and damage.
NPCs & Shops
Dragonsand has no town, no shops and no trainers — no Overlord, no Expert or Master teachers (it resets every 6 months). The only inhabitants are four wandering treasure NPCs near the small southwest village who trade for desert finds: Najat Ramadi (Golden Pyramids / Kegs of Wine → armor), Kerman Murian (Golden Pyramids / Kegs of Wine → weapons), Irbil Baktarian (Golden Pyramids / Kegs of Wine → miscellaneous equipment) and Bandar Jahrom (Magic Lamps → gems).
Landmarks: the Shrine of the Gods (+20 to all stats, permanent — claimed in the prelude), three open-air fountains (see Secrets — only the +50 HP one is safe), obelisk #6 in the northeast, the statuette pedestal by the southwest village, the obelisk-cache rock on the northern border, the Tomb of Varn pyramid in the northwest, and two invisible teleporters — one back to New Sorpigal (at the tilt of the sword) and one into the New World Computing dungeon (at the inner side of the shrine).
Secrets
Show spoiler — The three Dragonsand fountains — two of them KILL the drinker
Only ONE of the open-air fountains is safe: the +50 hit points fountain. The other two are traps that grant a permanent buff but eradicate (kill) the character who drinks: one gives +10 Elemental Resistances permanently, the other gives +10 to all statistics permanently. Do not let a thirsty character drink the "+10 all stats" fountain expecting another Shrine-of-the-Gods style power-up — it eradicates them outright. The safe +20-all-stats reward is the Shrine of the Gods, claimed in the prelude.
Show spoiler — The obelisk riddle (full solution)
Read the fifteen obelisk messages vertically down the columns and they spell:
"In the land of the dragon to north by far northeast, lies the cache of the captain 'neath the weight of the least. Hid for the Ship of the Sun before her functions ceased, lift the stone and you have won; this riddle's puzzle pieced."
"Land of the dragon" is Dragonsand; the cache is the big rock near the northern border. You must physically touch all fifteen obelisks for the cache to activate — knowing the answer alone does nothing.
Show spoiler — Cracking the Dragonsand cache (the safe way + the haul)
With all fifteen obelisks clicked, fly west along the top edge of the map to a patch of sand with small rocks around one big rock in the middle — that big rock is the cache, and it is heavily trapped. Stand well back and use Telekinesis to spring the trap and pull the loot from range, so the fewest dragons and wyrms can reach you. The chest hands over 250,000 gold, the spell books Divine Intervention (ultimate Light) and Dark Containment (ultimate Dark), and the artifacts Igraine, Morgan and Guinevere. On the original v1.0 it re-paid 250k on every reopen; the GrayFace patch closes that loop — treat it as a one-time windfall.
Show spoiler — Tomb of Varn: the two hidden library code scrolls
The library (Bibliotheca) chest gives only the Doctor's Code Scroll and the Varn Chest Key, but the exit puzzle needs all six scrolls and won't prompt you for a password until you have them. The missing two are hidden right by that chest: click the two pictures on the far north and far south sides of the chest. The north and south paintings hand over the Communications Officer's Code Scroll and the Engineer's Code Scroll.
Show spoiler — Tomb of Varn: the six radiation-pool codes (Captain LAST)
Each code is the role's password spelled backwards. Stand in the matching cleansing pool and type its code; do the Captain's code LAST, which parts the waters to the Control Cube vault:
- Engineer's Code —
YTTOCS - Communications Officer's Code —
ARUHU - Doctor's Code —
YOCCM - Navigator's Code —
ULUS - First Mate's Code —
KCOPS - Captain's Code (LAST) —
KRIK
Radiation tip: hold a Crystal Skull on screen to neutralize the radiation rooms, and bathe in any cleansing pool to cure accumulated radiation.
Combat
✅ Clear
- Tomb of Varn — Defenders/Sentinels of Varn (227/467 HP, magic-immune but vulnerable to elements and physical): solid XP, and a Sentinel carries the Back Door Key
- Tomb of Varn — Genie/Djinn/Efreet packs (207-467 HP, magic-immune + own-element-immune): kill with arrows and melee; they block each scroll chest
- Tomb of Varn — Guardians of Varn (617 HP, immune to ALL elements AND magic, Phys 30%, break weapons): only physical hurts them; clear the ones holding the code-scroll chests
- Tomb of Varn — Patrol/Enforcer units (400/700 HP, Pois- and Mag-immune) in the final Control Cube vault: clear before opening the Varn chest
⏭ Skip
- Red/Blue/Gold Dragons (880-1,300 HP, each immune to its own element; Gold Dragon is Magic-immune, resists everything 90%, and can one-hit-KO a character) — fly over them to the shrine, cache or pyramid
- Fire/Lightning/Thunder Lizards (280-540 HP; Fire Lizard fire-immune, Lightning Lizard lightning-immune, Thunder Lizard cold-immune; Lightning/Thunder break items) — dodge; not worth grinding for a touch-and-go obelisk
- Wyrm/Giant Wyrm/Great Wyrm (400-700 HP, poison-immune, poison breath) — avoid in the open desert; fly past
- In the Tomb of Varn, the long genie/Guardian corridor before the library — the guide says to RUN past, not fight, on the way to the scrolls; any Guardian you can slip past on a narrow ledge is poor value (weapon-breaking, magic-immune)