10-31-2004, 07:14 AM
(This post was last modified: 03-11-2005, 03:51 AM by MongoJerry.)
ADVENTURES OF NERIAD: Schooling Scholomance, part XVI, Caer Darrow
![[Image: caerdarrow.jpg]](http://www.lurkerlounge.com/mongo/caerdarrow.jpg)
A few hours later, I logged on and headed back to Caer Darrow, the ruined island town surrounding Scholomance. Caer Darrow appears deserted, except for the spirits of Eva and Lucien Sarkhoff, whom we've met several times before. But every once in a while, if you stand in certain places, you'll overhear the disembodied conversations of unseen inhabitants.
![[Image: caerdarrow2.jpg]](http://www.lurkerlounge.com/mongo/caerdarrow2.jpg)
Whoever these inhabitants are, they can't be seen while your character is a ghost and detect invisibility items won't reveal them.
![[Image: caerdarrow3.jpg]](http://www.lurkerlounge.com/mongo/caerdarrow3.jpg)
But when a player equips the Spectral Essence given by Eva Sarkhoff, an entire town population is revealed. (Can you find all nine spirits in this image? Compare your answers with this image).
![[Image: caerdarrow5.jpg]](http://www.lurkerlounge.com/mongo/caerdarrow5.jpg)
It turns out that Sammy and Melia, whose conversation snippet we saw above, are two young girls perpetually racing each other around the town's central fountain. In addition, the man in the shack to the left is a bread vendor, something that could be very handy, considering the shortage of vendors of any sort in the Plaguelands.
![[Image: caerdarrow6.jpg]](http://www.lurkerlounge.com/mongo/caerdarrow6.jpg)
But the real find in this town is the blacksmith vendor who sells four rare blacksmithing recipes and one rare alchemy recipe.
![[Image: caerdarrow7.jpg]](http://www.lurkerlounge.com/mongo/caerdarrow7.jpg)
When I first saw these recipe scrolls, dollar signs floated in front of my eyes. Remember that this was on the third day of the patch, and few people had completed the quest series up to this point. In fact, as far as I knew Kronos and I were the first people on the PvP server to have gotten this far. Imagine being able to buy a bunch of these recipes, especially the Major Mana Potion recipe, and sell them at the auction house. We could've made a fortune.
Unfortunately, as you no doubt picked up quickly, four of the five recipes available for sale are bind-on-pickup, so it would be impossible to sell them at the auction house. In addition, the one recipe that isn't bind-on-pickup, the Storm Gauntlets, are really shaman gauntlets that are essentially worthless to alliance players. I considered buying a few of those recipes to sell anyway, since some people like to collect recipes no matter how useless they are, but at 4g a pop, I doubted I could make much of a profit.
However, I did have to give the Blizzard developers props for the idea of this hidden vendor who sells bind-on-pickup recipes. The Major Mana Potion recipe, in particular, is the real prize. The problem with alchemy as it is currently implemented is that it's really easy for someone to create a level 35 alchemist alt who can manufacture any potions a player desires. (If you know your way around the game, getting a character to level 35 doesn't take long). In fact, I expect that nearly all miner players will create alchemist alts so that they can transmute all the archanite they want. But placing this bind-on-pickup Major Mana Potion recipe on a hidden vendor that can only be accessed after completing a high level quest makes it much harder for someone to create a simple alchemist alt capable of manufacturing these potions. I wish Blizzard would move the archanite transmutation recipe to this hidden vendor or another like him. It should be a much more difficult skill to obtain.
![[Image: caerdarrow8.jpg]](http://www.lurkerlounge.com/mongo/caerdarrow8.jpg)
Another character one finds in Caer Darrow is an NPC named Joseph Dirte, who proudly tells all comers, "My title is Waste Management Specialist." I guess that this is a reference to the movie Joe Dirt, but since I haven't seen the movie, the precise reference is lost on me.
![[Image: caerdarrow9.jpg]](http://www.lurkerlounge.com/mongo/caerdarrow9.jpg)
Finally, if one goes to the top of the main building in Caer Darrow, the same building that contains Scholomance itself, one finds Magistrate Marduke who explains to players what the Cult of the Damned is in grizzly detail. In short, the Cult of the Damned is made up of non-undead who nonetheless sympathize and worship the Lich King and is loyal the Scourge. One cult member was a mage of Stromgarde whose abilities caught the attention of the Lich King. The Lich King granted immortality to this mage by turning him into a lich as well. The mage's name? Ras Frostwhisper, the overseer of Scholomance. It turns out that even though our party had defeated Ras Frostwhisper several times already, that didn't do any lasting good. Ras Frostwhisper is already dead, so killing him again serves no purpose. To truly defeat him, the Magistrate tells us, we must return Frostwhisper "to his mortal form and then slay him, once and for all." Apparently, this Magistrate has an idea of how to do this, although it involves a bit of traveling.
UP NEXT: To Stromgarde and Beyond
A few hours later, I logged on and headed back to Caer Darrow, the ruined island town surrounding Scholomance. Caer Darrow appears deserted, except for the spirits of Eva and Lucien Sarkhoff, whom we've met several times before. But every once in a while, if you stand in certain places, you'll overhear the disembodied conversations of unseen inhabitants.
Whoever these inhabitants are, they can't be seen while your character is a ghost and detect invisibility items won't reveal them.
But when a player equips the Spectral Essence given by Eva Sarkhoff, an entire town population is revealed. (Can you find all nine spirits in this image? Compare your answers with this image).
It turns out that Sammy and Melia, whose conversation snippet we saw above, are two young girls perpetually racing each other around the town's central fountain. In addition, the man in the shack to the left is a bread vendor, something that could be very handy, considering the shortage of vendors of any sort in the Plaguelands.
But the real find in this town is the blacksmith vendor who sells four rare blacksmithing recipes and one rare alchemy recipe.
When I first saw these recipe scrolls, dollar signs floated in front of my eyes. Remember that this was on the third day of the patch, and few people had completed the quest series up to this point. In fact, as far as I knew Kronos and I were the first people on the PvP server to have gotten this far. Imagine being able to buy a bunch of these recipes, especially the Major Mana Potion recipe, and sell them at the auction house. We could've made a fortune.
Unfortunately, as you no doubt picked up quickly, four of the five recipes available for sale are bind-on-pickup, so it would be impossible to sell them at the auction house. In addition, the one recipe that isn't bind-on-pickup, the Storm Gauntlets, are really shaman gauntlets that are essentially worthless to alliance players. I considered buying a few of those recipes to sell anyway, since some people like to collect recipes no matter how useless they are, but at 4g a pop, I doubted I could make much of a profit.
However, I did have to give the Blizzard developers props for the idea of this hidden vendor who sells bind-on-pickup recipes. The Major Mana Potion recipe, in particular, is the real prize. The problem with alchemy as it is currently implemented is that it's really easy for someone to create a level 35 alchemist alt who can manufacture any potions a player desires. (If you know your way around the game, getting a character to level 35 doesn't take long). In fact, I expect that nearly all miner players will create alchemist alts so that they can transmute all the archanite they want. But placing this bind-on-pickup Major Mana Potion recipe on a hidden vendor that can only be accessed after completing a high level quest makes it much harder for someone to create a simple alchemist alt capable of manufacturing these potions. I wish Blizzard would move the archanite transmutation recipe to this hidden vendor or another like him. It should be a much more difficult skill to obtain.
Another character one finds in Caer Darrow is an NPC named Joseph Dirte, who proudly tells all comers, "My title is Waste Management Specialist." I guess that this is a reference to the movie Joe Dirt, but since I haven't seen the movie, the precise reference is lost on me.
Finally, if one goes to the top of the main building in Caer Darrow, the same building that contains Scholomance itself, one finds Magistrate Marduke who explains to players what the Cult of the Damned is in grizzly detail. In short, the Cult of the Damned is made up of non-undead who nonetheless sympathize and worship the Lich King and is loyal the Scourge. One cult member was a mage of Stromgarde whose abilities caught the attention of the Lich King. The Lich King granted immortality to this mage by turning him into a lich as well. The mage's name? Ras Frostwhisper, the overseer of Scholomance. It turns out that even though our party had defeated Ras Frostwhisper several times already, that didn't do any lasting good. Ras Frostwhisper is already dead, so killing him again serves no purpose. To truly defeat him, the Magistrate tells us, we must return Frostwhisper "to his mortal form and then slay him, once and for all." Apparently, this Magistrate has an idea of how to do this, although it involves a bit of traveling.
UP NEXT: To Stromgarde and Beyond