New Sorpigal
New Sorpigal is the game's starting town, sitting on its own island in the southwest of Enroth. It holds the most generous bench of Expert teachers anywhere (every magic school plus Bodybuilding, Meditation, Perception, Identify, Learning, Staff and Ancient Weapons), the deep set of opening quests, and three dungeons of wildly different difficulty. The region is rated easy and resets every six months.
When you visit: you start here at level 1 in Stage 1, where you exploit the rooftop teleporter for the +20 stat shrine and loot the NWC dungeon. You sweep back through to buy skills during the early town circuit (Stage 2), then return around level 5-7 in Stage 3 to clear Goblinwatch and the Abandoned Temple of Baa and cash in the starter quests. You return much later to finish Gharik's Forge for the Hourglass of Time and obelisk #15 (Stage 11), and a final time to train Blaster to Expert before the endgame (Stage 15).
Rewards
- Fly
- Two-Handed Sword
Keys
- Key to Goblinwatch → a door
- Dragon Tower Keys → a door
Ambushes
- event 221: monsters
- event 222: monsters
Traps
- event 230: Fireball
Connections
- → Goblinwatch
- → Abandoned Temple of Baa
- → Gharik's Forge
- → Dragonsand
Visit in: Stage 1 · Stage 2 · Stage 3 · Stage 4 · Stage 11 · Stage 15
Quests
Retrieve the Candelabra
[stage]Giver: Andover Potbello (Lonely Knight's Inn)
Recover the Candelabra from the Abandoned Temple of Baa west of town and bring it back to Potbello. Reward: 1,000gp, 2,000 XP — but -200 karma for handling the Baa relic, so plan a temple donation afterward.
Find the Goblinwatch combination
[stage]Giver: Janice (Town Hall)
Bring back the Combination Scroll from the Goblinwatch keep south of town. Reward: 2,000gp, 2,000 XP, +50 karma. Solving it also unlocks the Chime of Harmony quest.
Heart of the Spider Queen
[stage]Giver: Buford T. Allman (Elements Guild)
Kill the Queen Spider in the Abandoned Temple of Baa and bring her heart back. Reward: 1,000gp, 3,000 XP.
Rescue Angela
[stage]Giver: Violet Dawson (Self Guild)
Find Angela Dawson inside the Abandoned Temple of Baa and return. Reward: 500gp, 10 food, 1,000 XP.
Seeking Cobra Eggs
[stage]Giver: Hejaz Mawsil (Buccaneer's Lair)
Mawsil buys cobra eggs taken from the cobra nest in the Abandoned Temple of Baa — a tidy early payday (he pays for them after you clear the temple).
Get the Chime of Harmony
[stage]Giver: Janice (Town Hall)
Offered only after you solve the Goblinwatch combination. The Chime itself is in the larger Temple of Baa at Castle Ironfist — not the abandoned temple here — so it is completed much later. Reward: 5,000gp, 10,000 XP, +50 karma.
Rescue Sharry
[stage]Giver: Frank Fairchild (Town Hall)
Sharry is held in the Shadow Guild Hideout at Castle Ironfist, so this New Sorpigal quest is finished in the Ironfist area later. Reward: 2,000gp, 10,000 XP.
Dungeons
When: now (Stage 1; reached via the rooftop teleporter to Dragonsand) [cleared in stage]
Developers' joke office dungeon behind the Shrine of the Gods: a chest gives 500gp per click plus endless food/item boxes. Don't attack the wandering staff.
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: now (Stage 3, ~level 5) [cleared in stage]
Keep south of town. Holds the Goblinwatch Code scroll for Janice; lettered keypad door (see secrets). Goblins, rats and disease-carrying suckers.
Rewards
- treasure-tier-4 Armor
Ambushes
- Chest: monsters
Traps
- A: Fireball
- event 64: Wizard Eye
Connections
- → New Sorpigal
When: now (Stage 3, ~level 5) [cleared in stage]
Cave-temple WEST of town (not the Ironfist Temple of Baa). Candelabra, Angela, cobra eggs, and the Queen Spider boss for the Heart. Poison-immune spiders and cobras.
Rewards
- treasure-tier-1 Ring
- treasure-tier-1 Amulet
- treasure-tier-1 Weapon
- treasure-tier-2 Ring
- treasure-tier-2 Amulet
- treasure-tier-2 Weapon
- treasure-tier-2 Scroll
- treasure-tier-4 Ring
Traps
- Cage: Fireball
- event 30: Sparks
Connections
- → New Sorpigal
When: later (Stage 11; needs the Gharik's Lab key from the Silver Helm Outpost on the Misty Islands) [cleared in stage]
On a blackened island off New Sorpigal. Fire-immune Fire Elementals and Warlocks that cast Insanity nearly every turn. Holds the Hourglass of Time (Newton's council quest).
Rewards
- Guardian Angel
- Cure Paralysis
- Feeblemind
- Speed
- Shared Life
- Heroism
Keys
- Key to Gharik's Laboratory → doors 29, 30
Traps
- event 54: DamagePlayer
Connections
- → New Sorpigal
Trainers
New Sorpigal
Starting town. Skill (Normal) training at the New Sorpigal Training Grounds (levels up to 15). Expert teachers: Air Magic above the bank (fly required), Earth & Fire Magic across from Buccaneer's Lair, Body/Mind/Spirit Magic behind Buccaneer's Lair, Water Magic on the island off the east coast, Learning above the Guild of Self, Bodybuilding on the east side of town, Meditation at the Mercenaries Guild, Perception & Identify above the tavern (Lonely Knight's Inn), Staff on the peninsula SE of town, Ancient Weapons on the mainland NE of town. No Master teachers.
Trains: air (expert), earth (expert), fire (expert), water (expert), body (expert), mind (expert), spirit (expert), learning (expert), bodybuilding (expert), meditation (expert), perception (expert), identify (expert), staff (expert), ancient-weapons (expert)
NPCs & Shops
Guilds & memberships: the Self Guild (Violet Dawson, 100gp) teaches Mind, Body and Spirit Magic; the Elements Guild (Buford T. Allman, 100gp) teaches Earth, Air, Water and Fire Magic — both sell spellbooks 1-4. The Buccaneer's Lair (Hejaz Mawsil, 25gp) and Blade's End armory (Harold Hess, 25gp) round out the town's membership shops.
Shops: Armor (Blade's End), Weapon store, General store, Alchemist, Bank, Temple, and the Training Hall (max level 15). Coach travel runs to Castle Ironfist; a boat sails to the Misty Islands.
Fountains & well: three fountains by the Temple give +5 Hit Points, +5 Magic Points and +10 Might (temporary); the well by the docks grants a permanent +2 Luck. (See secrets for the death-well gold trick.)
Obelisk & landmarks: Obelisk #15 sits in the crater of Mount Sorpigal north of town (part of the 15-obelisk treasure-hunt subquest). The Dragon Tower is tied to a later quest. The hidden rooftop teleporter on the Buccaneer's Lair links to Dragonsand (see secrets).
Secrets
Show spoiler — Buccaneer's Lair rooftop teleporter to Dragonsand (+20 stats / NWC)
Fly onto the northern wing of the Buccaneer's Lair rooftop, face south, drop into turn-based mode, and click the steeple. You are teleported to a tiny island outside the Shrine of the Gods in Dragonsand — the island is ringed by dragons, so arrive in turn mode. Touching the shrine gives every character a permanent +20 to all statistics. From inside the shrine, click the northwest wall to reach the NWC dungeon.
Show spoiler — Goblinwatch keypad solution (NILBOG)
The lettered keypad deep in Goblinwatch (wall labelled ENILBOG) is solved by spelling 'Goblin' backwards. Press the panels N, I, L, B, O, G in that order and all the doors open. (Note: this opens the doors; you still need the Combination Scroll found elsewhere in the keep to complete Janice's quest.)
Show spoiler — Free Fly scroll behind the bank
Click the blank south wall of the bank to receive a free Fly scroll — left there to enable the rooftop-teleporter power-start.
Show spoiler — Death-well gold (emergency cash)
If your party dies in New Sorpigal, click the well next to the tavern for 100 gold. Bank it, die again, and re-click for another 100 — a slow but reliable trickle for a brand-new party.
Show spoiler — Area reset for re-loot (v1.0 only)
After fully clearing the New Sorpigal map (kill and pick up every body, the islands included), pushing the buoy north of the Abandoned Temple blows the volcano; leave and return and all monsters and chests respawn. Verified in version 1.0, fixed in 1.1.
Combat
✅ Clear
- Apprentice / Journeyman / Mage (NS area) - glass cannons with tiny HP (the Apprentice Mage's 6 HP is tied lowest in the game); snipe them before they cast Flame Arrow / Cold Beam / Lightning Bolt
- Goblins & Goblin Shamans - weak (13-21 HP); easy XP and the crate loot they guard
- Goblin King (40 HP) - good XP but its attack can BREAK a piece of equipment, so kill it fast rather than trading blows
- Queen Spider (Abandoned Temple boss) - required for the Heart; low HP, snipe it
⏭ Skip
- Poison-immune Cobra/Spider swarms (Abandoned Temple) - don't melee them; pull and arrow so their Poison doesn't stack on the party
- Disease-carrying Rats & Suckers (Goblinwatch) - trivial singly, but keep a Cure Disease handy so they don't pile up
- Gharik's Forge contents - Fire-immune Fire Elementals and Insanity-casting Warlocks; very hard, leave for Stage 11
- The eastern islands' parties early on - return ~level 5 with leveled bows (only the Expert Water Magic teacher is out there)