Asheron's Call - help, hints and spoilers

What is a pyreal mote, and what is its purpose?

Pyreal motes are obtained only from golems, and can be used to
construct an Atlan weapon.  It requires 16 motes to construct an
ingot, which is then infused by the final weapon user.  At this
point, the infused ingot cannot be dropped or transferred
(no-drop, no-pass), and neither can the weapon once made.  Key
places for this quest are Crater Lake.  Motes used to have decent
trade value although they are very inexpensive today.

How do I get an Atlan weapon?

If you want the best known weapon grade (peerless), you must have
an alchemist of high skill (250+) do the final stage of making the
ingot: combining the bars.  Steps are:  Gather 16 motes, have
alchemist successfully combine the final stage (two bars to a
quality ingot), purchase the appropriate glyph at Crater Lake, get
any necessary skill and stat buffs (e.g.  strength/coord/sword),
then apply the glyph to the ingot.  At this point, the weapon
quality has been determined and the infused ingot is
no-drop/no-pass.  A "superb infused ingot" will yield a peerless
weapon.  Hand the now-infused ingot to Silencia's Magma Golem at
Crater Lake to receive your prize.  The skill check to infuse the
ingot is 190 (compared to your weapon skill), so the final user
should have a weapon skill of around 250 or more for an acceptably
low failure rate when infusing the ingot, giving an 85-90% chance
of peerless.  Failure yields a superior weapon, which is still a
decent weapon, but disappointing considering the work required.
250 skill is not a magic number; you can get a peerless with 200
skill (the difficulty is only 190, giving a 50% chance), but the
chances are much lower the lower you go.  There seems to always be
a chance of failure, even with over 300 skill.

What are the stats for an Atlan weapons?

    sword: Peerless 9-18 (35), Superior 8-16 (40)
    axe: Peerless 10-20 (55), Superior 8-16 (60)
    staff: Peerless 9-12 (20)
    spear: Peerless 4-16 (20)
    mace: Peerless 7-16 (35)
    dagger: Peerless 5-9 (15)
    claw: Peerless 2-8 (15), Superior 2-6 (?)

What are dark specks, and what are they worth?

Similar to the Atlan weapon quest, dark specks are obtained only
from shadow corpses.  The more powerful shadows yield larger
pieces, and these pieces are used to construct Shadow Armor.  The
advantage of shadow armor is high Armor Level, and it does not
drop off you on death.  The armor can be handed to others.  If you
are not saving for the shadow armor, dark specks are decent trade
fodder but, like motes, the value is dropping rapidly.
The larger pieces are worth much more.
Four dark specks == two dark shards == one shadow fragment.
A dark speck is worth about 1/2 to 1 mote, but this changes as
demand changes.


What are cracked shards, and what are they worth?

Two parts are needed for the shadow armor quest, dark specks and
cracked shards.  Cracked shards are the obtained from broken
fragments, and larger fragment creatures yield larger pieces.
Trade value on these is currently good, due to the difficulty of
finding fragment spawn sites.
Four cracked shards == two tiny shards == one small shard.
A cracked shard is worth around 4 motes, but this changes as
demand changes.

How do I obtain shadow armor or GSA?

Collect equal amounts of shadow parts and fragment parts.  If you
examine the parts, it will tell you how to combine them to get the
next stage.  A shadow fragment (4 specks) can be made into a
glimmering gem with 4 cracked shards, which will yield the lowest
level of shadow armor.  Combining more will instead yield a
shimmering gem which will make the medium level of armor, and
combining two shimmering gems to create a scintillating gem will
yield the greater shadow armor.  You must hand the gem to a master
armorer located in one of three towns.  You'll first get the lower
section (leggings) then the upper with the next gem of the same
size.  The type of armor (celdon, koujia, amuli) depends on which
armorer you use.  The master armorers are located in Kara
(koujia), Al-Jalima (amuli), and Eastham (celdon).  Each character
can only get one full set of each type of armor.

Is there a quest bow?

Lilitha's bow (450 bu, 25% mod, yumi range) is a quest item.  Its
only advantages are the light weight, and it's... blue.  It is
obtained from Hunter's Leap (level 8+ restriction) which is
located off the road between Holtburg and Glendonwood.

There is a quest bow for those that have DM called the Elari bow,
which is very nice.  You must be specialized in bow to activate
it, however, and assembling the parts has a 350 skill check for
bow.  You can find the parts on the corpse of Hea Temenua on the
ML plateau.

There is also a quest bow/crossbow introduced in the June- 2000
update.  You must construct your own, much like the Silifi of
Crimson Stars by gathering parts from various creatures.  Horns
from the Great Mattekar and sinews from Lugians are some of the
ingredients.  Ayan Baqur may be the starting town for this quest,
and you'll end up with an undroppable Composite Bow.  This quest
requires a very high bow skill to get the "best" bow, which is an
extremely good, no-drop/no-pass bow.

The components you need to make a bow are: 2 horns of the same
type from either Great Mattekars or Fire Auroch Bulls, 2 lugian
sinews of same size (small or large), and either 3 drudge ravener
guts or 3 sclavus tongues.

1) You must get the horns carved by the Master Bowyer in Ayan
Baqur.  The mattekar horns will give a +6 defense bonus, and the
fire auroch horns will yield +2.


2) a cook must cure the Lugian Sinews using his cooking pot.
There are three qualities: small cured, cured, and large cured,
the last is reached only by expertly curing a large sinew.  I
believe this will affect the speed or range.  Failure when curing
a large sinew or expertly curing a small sinew will yield the
mid-size cured sinew.  The large sinews are easy to obtain, and a
cook of 220 or so should be successful more than half the time.
Do not use anything but two large cured sinews.

3) apply a cured sinew to each carved horn, then apply the two
horns together, yielding a composite stave.  No skill check
required.

4) twist the rav guts or sclavi tongues together by applying one
to another, then to the third, yielding a braid.  No skill check.

5) an alchemist must apply a bloodseeker oil to the braid,
yielding a string.  Like the sinews, there are two types of each
braid and either success or failure, giving three types of string.
A sclavus tongue braid failure will yield a 40% mod bow.  A
success on sclavus tongue or a failure on a rav gut braid will
yield a 90% mod, and a success on a rav gut braid will yield a
110% mod.  This is somewhat difficult, and an alchemist of 250
will have a 50-60% success rate.  Alchemy of 275 will get it most
of the time, 300 is about 90% success.

6) Now the archer must string the bow, which is easier said than
done when using the highest quality string.  I would recommend a
min 250 bow skill (after getting buffs), which will give about 1
in 3 success.  The difficulty for the skill roll is 280, which
gives a 50% chance.  Failure means the string breaks and you have
to get another string.  The lower level strings are much easier to
apply.  Feel free to believe the old housewives tales floating
around, such as you need to buff strength, or hold a weapon with
good plusses to hit.  Although it doesn't hurt to believe such
tales, I STRONGLY doubt that anything other than current bow skill
has any effect.  Don't forget to get rid of any vitae penalty!

7) You have the option of applying a bone handle to the bow once
it's strung.  If a fletcher successfully carves a lich bone into a
handle, applying that handle will give a +4 to hit along with BD4
and Bow Mastery 4 spells.  Failure of fletching will result in +3,
BD3, and Bow3.  Successful carving of the thighbone from a dark
revenent will give +6, BD5, and Bow5.  Note that the medium
quality handle reads "intricately carved bone of undead" and the
high quality handle is "intricately carved bone of high undead."

How do I make the quest crossbow (composite)?

It is similar to the quest bow, but you also need a wood golem
heart for part of it.  You can get this heart carved into a xbow
stock in Stonehold.  Use the stock on the stave before stringing
the bow.






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