(N)EverQuest Scrolls

From this thread on eqlive(comments are mine).

“Natimbi: Farm Restless Souls for named who drops HP Augments (non Lore, you can have as many as you can carry), within range of Named Reef Crstacean who drops the Mana version of same augment. While farming this camp, you get enough shards to obtain an excellent Proc weapon that can be used by a wide range of classes and will be an upgrade for many of them. If you’re lucky, this camp will provide you with either the Flowing Thought or the Vengeance Necklace as well (the Vengeance Necklace is easily Elemental in quality, it regularily sells for 80-100K).

While camping this area, you can also drop a few other named for some minor goodies that may or may not be upgrades.”

shell inlaid collar +regen 1, +atk 10, melee
talisman of the spiritseer ft1, priest/caster

swift scavenger (hynid) – broken hynid claw, woven nihil mantle, painted primal mask
Duara Yuenki (potameid), n3000 2000 – abysmal seaweed wraps (18/25), barnacle studded bracer, cockleshell girdle
Tumia Lehio (restless soul) – faceted gem of might, decrepit taelosian band, torn flesh turban
fierce cragwalker – stitched ceremonial wrap, iridescent turepta shell, thick netted veil
Vimidon (reef crustacean) – calloused shell helm, whittled bone ring, glimmering mind sphere

4 intact stonemite parts – strand of sea pearls
4 succulent turepta meat – Kiki’s Recipe book (mp3, priest/caster)
4 spectral essence – mace of focused flame (14/23 1hb)
3 siren parts (potameid) – sheild of coastal purity (regen 3)
3 broken shore shells (foraged) and reef crustacean gland broken shore shell necklace
3 flawless hynid hides, boot pattern hynid boots

“By the time you’ve done a bit of this and gotten bored, any 60-65 group of any equipment level can go to and handle Qinimi. My guild members regularily hit Qinimi, and they are pre Elemental, sub 65 folks.

Qinimi named can be taken down by any decent 60-65 group, regardless of equipment (well, unless we’re talking Bronze Armor), and no Elemental Quality is necessary. I have NO Elemental Gear (3 1492 Armor pieces from LDON and the aforementioned Vengeance Necklace from Natimbi are my best pieces of gear, everything else is regular equipment…except Fabled Short Sword of Ykesha), and I and a guild Shaman have duoed many of the named in Qinimi. So no talking about how you NEED to be a raid to take these named. Some excellent upgrades in equipment in Qinimi for all levels, Augments on many of them.

Move to Riwwi. Again, I REGULARLY lead my guild members here. Levels 54-65, none of them Elemental or Raid equipped. We clean house and can take almost any of the named inside the Arena or outside. The drops are easily some of the best you can get with a non raid equipped force. The Chef drops a pair of Vengeance Pants that will be an upgrade for the classes that can use it, some sweet arms drop in the Arena (almost as good as the 1492 LDON armor), and there is a quest ring that is EASY to get as well.

If you do this for a few days, you’re more than equipped enough for Sewer 1. And Sewer 1 IS the hardest of the Sewer Trials as well. You do need a hardcore tank and a healer who is on the ball, but I’ve regularily tanked the Sewer Trials, and I am far from Elemental equipped.”

The original author of this also wrote a guide to GoD recently.

These are the quick and easy skill ups for different trade skills. Note that skill ups are fastest when within 20 points of the trivial, bourne out by several tradeskillers, but this can be overridden by price or convenience of a higher trivial item.

First: you can take all tradeskills to 54 for free by the Abysmal Sea vendor quests. Do this.

Brewing:
Fetid Essence (122): flask water, fishing grubs (no bottle/cask!)
The best place for this is PoK – brew barrel and water in the merchant centre by the bank; grubs from a nearby vendor south of the library
Skull Ale (151): cyclops skull, vinegar, short beer, spices
Faydwer Shaker (188): mead, elven wine, gnomish spirits, dwarven ale, cask
Minotaur Hero’s Brew (248): 3 malt, yeast, 2 flask water, 2 short beer, cask

Baking:
You can train to 21 first if you wish
Batwing crunchies (46) batwing, frosting
Beer braised meat (68) meat, short beer, spices
Filet of bear/wolf (143) meat, fileting knife (smithing triv 76, 3 metal bits, scaler mold, water)
Shadowhaven, meat sold from a couple of vendors
Patty Melt (191): (wolf/bear/lion) meat, loaf of bread, cheese, non-stick frying pan (mold sold only in Jaggedpine/Abysmal, recipe is mold, bits, water, ceramic lining)
Meat in Shadowhaven or Thurgadin, Mordin’s Meats – he also sells bread. Cheese from gnolls/rangers in Jaggedpine; or from adjacent vendors in Abysmal.

Pottery:
Train to 21 first; these skillups are slow
Medium jar (36): block of clay, medium jar sketch, water flask
Medium bowl (122): block of clay, medium bowl sketch, water flask
Poison vial (148): small block clay, vial sketch, water flask, skin (not ruined, zombie skins included – or Crow’s Special Brew, if that still works) or
Large bowl (148): large block clay, water flask, large bowl sketch, glass shards
Casserole dish (199): casserole dish sketch, ceramic lining, large block of clay, water flask

Tailoring:
Silk thread (15): 2 spiderling/shadeling silks (no fail)
Patchwork Armor (26): ruined pelt, pattern or
Leather Padding (31): silk thread, LQ pelt
Raw silk armor (36): silk swatch (2 spider silks), pattern
Cured silk mask (82): silk swatch, heady kiola, mask pattern (skip this and save your kiolas for Wu’s)
Greyhopper boots (95): greyhopper hide, boots pattern
Quiver (115): HQ cat pelt, pattern
Owlbear Tunic (135): 2 owlbear pelts, 2 shadeling threads (Vah Shir tailoring quest only); plain owlbear pelts are too rare, so skip this
Wu’s fighting armor (128 – 158): …
LoY ribbons: see Zeralenn’s Guide.

Smithing:
Look for Zeralenn’s Guide.

Metal bits (15): 2 small pieces ore, water flask – can never have too many metal bits
Train to 21 if you like
Skewers (38): metal bits, skewer mold, flask water or
Scaler (41): metal bits, scaler mold, flask water
Dairy spoon (74): 2 metal bits, scaler mold, flask water
Banded bracer (95): sheet of metal, flask water, bracer mold
Banded mail (115): 3 sheets of metal, flask water, mail mold
Can do all of these in Shadowhaven, the smithing location near the library entrance. The trader quest may be required to trade with these merchants.
cultural needles (132) this stage used to be profitable
Ornate Chain (116 – 142): …
Fine Plate (188) need leather padding for this

Jewelry:
See Gumkak’s Guide

Fletching:
See Aoenla’s Fletching Guide. Table for skilling up taken from there:

• Phase 3, Avatar of the Elements, Supernatural Guardian: Faceguard of Frenzy (spell haste)
• Bertoxxulous: Pulsing Onyx Ring (beneficial extended), Celestial Cloak (hp/mana regen clicky), Eye of Dreams (inc mana pool)
• Cazic Thule: Mask of Simplicity (mana pres), Earring of Unseen Horrors (spell haste)
• Innoruuk: Earring of Celestial Energy (resists clicky), Mantle of Pure Spirit (imp heal), Necklace of Eternal Visions (mana pres)
• Quarm: Timeless Breastplate Mold (inc heal), Shawl of Eternal Forces (hp/mana regen)
• Rallos Zek: Timeless Breastplate Mold (imp heal)
• Vallon Zek: Hammer of Holy Vengence

By slot:

• Back: * Celestial Cloak (regen)
• Chest: Timeless Breastplate Mold (imp heal)
• Ear: * Earring of Unseen Horrors (spell haste), Earring of Celestial Energy (resists)
• Face: Faceguard of Frenzy (spell haste), * Mask of Simplicity (mana pres)
• Finger: * Pulsing Onyx Ring (beneficial extended)
• Neck: Necklace of Eternal Visions (mana pres)
• Primary: * Hammer of Holy Vengance (group heal)
• Range: * Eye of Dreams (inc mana pool)
• Shoulder: * Mantle of Pure Spirit (imp heal), Shawl of Eternal Forces (regen)

Making heady kiola is a necessary grind for skilling tailoring up to 158, which is required for the Coldasin Prayer Shawl, among others. It is the last tailoring skillup stage that can easily be made using store bought components, apart just from the (expensive) ribbons. The biggest problem with heady kiola is deciding where to make it; the sap isn’t sold in Abysmal Sea, the Plane of Knowledge, or Shadow Haven.

This table may help you to decide.

Starts with Ixpacan at location 50, n1070 in the skorpikis pit in the Overthere. Use the Find window to reach him, this is at the end of one of the east legs of the pit. You will need your 8th skullcap to hand in to him.

After following the conversation, you will be given a 4 slot container, Ixpacan’s Tome. He asks you to collect four items – a brittle bone (once used for reincarnations), a poisoned soul from an angry iksar ghost, something from ‘the burning heat’, and a gem of reflection. The gem the ‘fools in Cabilis probably wouldn’t know how to create’.

In EJ, an angered spirit drops a poisoned soul, in a ruins at 3475, 1290.

The brittle bone is a rare drop in Charasis, seems to be random off any mob or possibly skeletons. It can be obtained in the basement, which makes it reasonably easy to obtain.

If you ask Harbinger Glosk in the Cabilis necro guild about the gem of reflection, he asks for the head of a rogue marauder in a jungle near here. The rogue marauder is in Trakanon’s Teeth at n2040 1545.

For the gem of reflection, you will need mount Death mineral salts, a green goblin skin (both from FM or Nurga/Droga), Spiroc bone dust (Timorous Deep, from spirocs), Essence of Rathe, blue slumber fungus (ground spawn in Lesser Faydark, 1155, 3610), and a vial of pure essence. The vial drops in Firiona Vie from Marinda Flockwings, a drixie. This is for Harbinger Glosk in Cabilis necro guild.

In Skyfire, in the lava lake due north of the Burning Woods zone line is a single “a lava walker”, who drops the final item, a fiery orb.

Combine the four items in Izpacan’s book, and hand it in to him. He will spawn a low 50s mob; kill this, and hand in what you loot from him, to get the 9th skullcap.

I haven’t completed this myself yet, although most details were worked out with the Unsolved Quests board, whose members deserve credit for solving the quest.

Intended mainly as a guide to raise alchemy skill quickly so as to make Essence of Iksar – triv 172; this needs a level 59 (I think) shaman. Uses iksar meat (collect in Dulak) and wormwood. Hopefully you will only need one each. Skill up path is (mostly copied from Xanthe’s Alchemy Guide): Skill cap for alchemy is (level-24)*5.

• Abysmal Sea vendor quests; 54
• Serpent’s Conviction; 1 Fennel, 1 Eucalyptus Leaf; Serpent Sight; 63
• Vigor; 1 Lucern, 1 Birthwart, 1 Blue Vervain Bulb; Agi+10, Str+10, Sta-10, (30 mins); 76
• Null; 1 Fenugreek, 1 Mandrake Root, 1 Blue Vervain Bulb; Dex+15, Magic resist+15, Agi-8; 90
• Aura of Purity; 1 Lucern, 1 Night Shade, 1 Blue Vervain Bulb 8.4pp; Str+15, Poison Resist+15, Cha-8; 103
• Kilva’s Skin of Flame; jatamasi, clubmoss, clover 27.3pp; 136
• Titan Potion; 1 Maliak Leaf, 1 Tri-fern Leaf 10.5pp; 180
• Hawk’s Eye; trifern leaf, star reach clover 18.9pp; 191

There are other skill up routes, look in the Alchemy section of the boards at EQTraders. For some reason, their “learning a skill” section on alchemy does not include skill up paths. If you can, try to find a copy of Ugzug’s Guide to Alchemy (pdf), which beats the information on EQTraders, which has old alchemy, LDoN and GoD alchemy as well.

A couple of notes included on why these spells are considered rare. Probably missing a lot. Most of these combines need a piece of parchment and a quill. Priest spells can be combined by any int caster; int caster spells only by members of the same class as can use the spell.

General

Levitation: dew clover, Yaeth’s 70 left (enchanter only: Yaeth 65 left and right)
Everlasting Breath: sliver of moonstone, Yaeth’s 50 left (enchanter only: Yaeth’s 63 left and right)
Lots of classes, each drop only from one rare mob (in the Deep, I think).

Remove Greater Curse: Yaeth’s 73 right, words of apparition
Arch Lich and one of the Rhags in Ssra. Can also be bought in N Ro LDoN, 800 points.

Enchanter

Several general enchanter spells drop, but are uncommon – Forlorn Deeds, Augment. Go to Skyfire, or the kobolds in Velks (depending on which expansion the spells were released in).

Illusion Vah Shir: Keris 7 left and right
Drops only from the Shissar Assassin in Ssra, needs a rogue to access the room.

Necromancer

Dead Men Floating: words of agony and asylum
No, not Dead Man Floating, the group version.

Augmentation of Death: words of anguish and expedition
Demi Lich: words of awareness, revenant, tenancy
Despite being a level 56 spell, this used to be level 60, and still only drops from level 60 mobs in Kunark.

Gangrenous Touch of Zum’uul: words of abrogation, constancy, distress
Drops from 2 mobs in Chardok; only marginal use.

Cleric

Word of Redemption: Yaeth’s 114 right, Yaeth’s 108, rune of conglomeration
Divine Intervention: Toharon 21 left, Toharon 22, words of recourse
Both level 60 Kunark drop spells.

Tips from an experienced player on what anyone, even a person just picking up the game, should do on their first day. I still do this on all my new characters.

Map the keyboard

First, set up your keyboard controls. This only needs to be done the first time on any new computer, and carries over to all new characters (mostly). Bring up the Options panel, and choose the Keyboard tab. Different people will have different preferences, but I like to remap auto attack from A or Q to the Ins key on the numeric keypad. I also change the actions for F7 and F8 from target nearest player/NPC to cycle through nearest.

Make sure that autoduck is disabled; check to see if you want autostand or not.

Hot buttons

Next, hot keys. I create socials for /corpse and /assist. If my characters has the ability to forage or track, I create a social for these, too; if both, then both commands go in the same social. Use /doability n for these skills, then you can put them in your social. This goes on hot button 9, for me, and I associate it with presses of Numpad 8 (the forward key); other people prefer a turn key.

Pet users get another social: /pet hold, /pet back off, /pet attack. The hold part is for when you get pet discipline as an AA skill. I use this to both call my pet back (by first targeting myself), and to ask it to switch targets, by targeting the new target I want it to switch to.

Any special class abilities, like lay on hands or harm touch also go on hot buttons; for melee characters, so does taunt and slam/bash (use slam, if you have it, as the key will activate both abilities, not just the should slam).

My assist macro goes in slot 1, taunt in 2, pet attack or bash in 3. I will put a fast cast spell in slot 4 – healers get their heal there, paladins get yaulp, beastlords fleeting fury, etc. My ‘get out of jail free’ ability goes in slot 0 – DA, FD, HT, LoH, evac, etc. Slot 8 gets bind wound; slot 6 is reserved for a clicky – jboots, CoS, etc. That leaves slots 5 and 7! I hope you won’t put some convoluted macros in there; spam announcing your intentions gets old fast.

Prepare offline

You may think this is enough set up, but there’s more. Before even entering the game for the first time, look up spell lists for the first few levels – I prefer Allakhazam for this, as the lists contain sufficient information and you can reach full spell details and vendor information quickly. Also, find out full shopping lists for any newbie armor quest, and one other quest. Most newbie zones have a ‘bone chip’ quest; one that returns lots of experience for handing in easily obtainable, droppable items; in Field of Bone, Felwithe and Kaladim it is bone chips; Kaladim also supports crushbone belts and shoulder pads.

The Tutorial

When you are ready to start the game, enter the Tutorial. Stay there to level 4 at least. You want to collect the charm as soon as possible, and make use of Rytan for buffs, as well as the Vigor potions from the mushroom hand ins. Aim to collect a full suit of stitched burlap armor from handing in silks, an iron weapon from killing the slavemaster, and your starter spell/ability. If you choose to start groups, you can also have several leadership points accumulated. You can level to six easily in the Tutorial zone. In a way, it doesn’t matter if this is relatively slow (which it won’t be), as one of your objectives should be to keep the main skills (defense, offense, one weapon skill, and a casting skill – in that order) up for your level.

Newbie armor quests

When it is time to leave, you will appear in front of your guild master in your home city. Follow the standard conversation, hand in your note (for faction), and hail the guild master to be told where the newbie armor quest starts. Why do the newbie armor quests? Because they are cheap, and good value, provided you know when to move on. The weapons are never worth the effort, but the rest of the items vary from ok to excellent, all items being at least decent gear with stats.

By this time, you should make sure that you have all your spells for your next or current level; 4 for int casters, 5 for priests. Now get some money. Plague rat tails are worth 1.6pp from the better merchants, and some zones have special rich mobs – kobolds in Steamfont, green goblins in Butcherblock, skunks in Butcherblock and Toxxulia, aviaks in Steamfont and Butcherblock. Once you are rich (20pp is easy, 100pp is feasible), save some away for your next spells, and buy any drops you need, that you haven’t already accumulated from kills, for your newbie armor.

A few pieces of newbie armor will need no drop items. Sometimes these are easy kills, and sometimes absurdly rare. If the mobs that drop them are no longer dark blue to you, skip them, forget the armor, and move on.

Twinks

What if you have existing characters, and want to make life ‘easier’ for your new character? Whatever you do, still do the tutorial; the reasons to do it apply to any type of character. Put into the shared bank slot: spell money (100-200pp is fine), 1 or 2 x platinum (or velium, but platinum are better value) fire wedding rings or shadel bandit rings; a good, no level restriction, fast weapon (centi short sword, shaded blade, shaded dagger, centi spear, centi warhammer); if a caster, kits to get the PoK ring and mask (sarnak blood, HQ cougar skin, undead froglok tongue, cockatrice beak, tiny rockhopper eye). Priority for all characters is HP first; for melees, then weapons and AC; for casters, focus items (which sort depends on the caster, but spell haste and mana preservation are good basics), then mana. Note that int/wis for casters isn’t on my list: it makes almost no difference to mana pool compared to +mana, and you will be using level restricted items later that will take them over cap on these stats anyway. Something similar applies to strength and stamina for melees, and their ability to deal damage while being powerlevelled isn’t exactly significant.

Lowest        -3000
scowls        -3000 to -750     (2750 point range)
threatening   -749 to -500       (250 point range)
dubious       -499 to -100       (400 point range)
apprehsive    -99 to -1          (100 point range)
indifferent    0 to 99           (100 point range)
amiably        100 to 499        (400 point range)
kindly         500 to 749        (250 point range)
warmly         750 to 1099       (250 point range)
ally           1100 and up       (assuming max = 1200,
                                  4200 point range)

Or possibly:

Below -801, scowls at you, ready to attack
-800 to -501, views you threateningly (300 range)
-500 to -101, scowls at you dubiously (400 range)
-100 to -1, is apprehensive (100 range)
0 to 99, is indifferent  (100 range)
100 to 499, is amiable  (400 range)
500 to 699, kindly considers you (200 range)
700 to 1099, views you warmly (400 range)
1100 and up, you are an ally

Enchanter spells modify factions for the enchanter:

• Alliance +100
• Benevolence +200
• Collaboration + 300

Positive faction hits are usually +1, negative ones -10. Faction quests (like those from Fenden Helter) may give 25 points.

+5 stamina +5 agility +5 dexterity +30 hit points weight 7.2 stackable

For anyone aspiring to be a baker, the Halas 10lb Meat Pie is the first real sign you get that mastery proper is in sight, and is also the first really profitable item you get a chance to make. But, like the Misty Thicket Picnic, the recipe is complex with many combines, and requires several tools that would need a decent level in other skills if you have to make them yourself. Hence this guide.

To make it, you will need to either buy mammoth meat from other players, or be able to hunt for it yourself (mid twenties); and the skill up process will require you be to able to safely access Jaggedpine, which would take a mid-teens player from either the Surefall Glades entrance (past the Bloodsaber defiler), or from the bottom of Blackburrow. A set of 20 combines will cost close to 100pp to make, giving up to 6 stacks of Halas 10lb Meat Pies.

Using stat foods and drinks

To have an effect, the item must be the first food (or drink) item encountered when scanning your inventory, which will make it the next item to be consumed. The engine scans your inventory in columns from top left to bottom right, going into each bag as it is encountered in the same sequence. If in doubt, you can see the effect on your stats when it is in the right slot.

However, you don’t really want that hard to quest/loot, expensive item to be chomped when a cheap ration or foraged root would do just as well. So force feed the cheap stuff to reset your hunger timer; just make sure the food you want to eat is in a top slot (one of the main inventory slots), and right click on it until you are full. This will get through items at roughly twice the rate they would be consumed naturally in your inventory, but better that than losing the good stuff.

Baking Skill

I have been making HMP successfully at 180 baking skill, with a high rate of success – not bad when HMP trivials at 226. Even someone who doesn’t want (or isn’t able) to get baking over 200 can successfully make this. My preferred approach to skill ups on any trade skill is to pay attention to the masters of the art, which means www.eqtraders.com, and Xanthe at http://www.geocities.com/shadowknight57/; her baking guide is the best one to refer to for quick and cheap trade skill mastery. The baking guide is at http://www.geocities.com/shadowknight57/baking.html. This guide hasn’t been updated recently, and optimal skill up paths resulting from GoD, and access to Abysmal Sea, are now rather different.

You can take the incremental approach she suggests, with several stages; or you can just make one cheap, high skill level item until you reach the appropriate level. The disadvantage of this is that it is very monotonous, but the advantage is that, with fewer successes as you start, there is less junk to sell back to vendors. You can also find one location that works, and stick to it.

I took batwing crunchies, followed by fish rolls then patty melts. To start with, Freeport is a good base for this, buying bat wings at the casters guild (second floor, first female vendor) in West Freeport, with frosting either from East Commons (one run, buy in bulk), or fish from the docks in East Freeport. Fish rolls will get you to 135, but, in common with Xanthe, it seems to me that the last five skill points become harder to get as you approach the trivial level of the item you are making, so I usually move on to the next level if the items are cheap enough to make.

An alternative skill-up path is to make meat fillets – buy the meat from the same vendors as you will use for the pie later, in Shadowhaven or Thurgadin, and combine with your filleting knife in a spit. Trivial is 143, which lets you skip fish rolls entirely, and is fewer mouse strokes in total, although possibly slightly more expensive to use than the first route.

The next level is harder; patty melts require meat and bread, which are commonly available in many places – I chose to use Shadowhaven and Thurgadin for this, Thurgadin being convenient because I was working on the Coldain prayer shawls at the time; but they also require cheese, which can only be bought in Jaggedpine, and a non-stick frying pan, which takes a decent smithing skill if you have to make one. Depending on your faction, the cheese, as well as the frying pan molds, can be bought from both the residents and the Brell gnolls in Jaggedpine.

Using GoD

However, this stage (patty melts) can be done in Abysmal Sea very rapidly – use the Find tool to reach the Baking vendors, and the General vendor nearby (between two brewing vendors) sells cheese. Frying pan molds are also available in Abysmal. Note also that hailing the vendors for any skill type in Abysmal will result in a free quest that will allow you to level to 31 in that skill for no cost. This will allow you to skip batwing crunchies, for example – although I would still make metal bits to start smithing, for obvious reasons.

Refer to Xanthe and eqtraders for the recipes.

Other Skills

You need to make or locate a dairy spoon (67), ceramic lining (36 pottery), pie tin (35 smithing or 115 pottery), filleting knife (76) – and will want to have a non-stick frying pan for baking skill ups, although this isn’t necessary to make the Halas 10lb Meat Pie itself. You will need a smithing skill at least approaching the trivial of the filleting knife to make the attempt, which means that you might as well make the pie tin through smithing rather than pottery. The pie tin and frying pan smithing recipes require a ceramic lining, which has a pottery trivial of 36. I would suggest skilling up smithing as far as you can before boredom strikes, then risking the filleting knife combine, at which point you will have dairy spoons coming out of your ears.

You might also need a non-stick frying pan for your baking skill ups; this will mean a trip to Jaggedpine to acquire the molds, from either the gnolls or the Jaggedpine residents, and a trip back out to a forge to make it, all of which is very time consuming if your skill isn’t high enough (trivial is 91).

In Shadowhaven, the Fordel area has smithing vendors suitable for basic skill ups near the food vendors: Smithy Edcar (128, 136), Robert Blackhand (179, 115) and Rusty Blackhand (194, 118). You can buy water flasks in the Cleric/Paladin guild from Adept Delf (28, -250).

Do not put any training points into smithing; you will have to make more than enough metal bits to make these trivial, and so any skill points applied earlier would be wasted. Make metal bits until you have at least a backpack full; this probably won’t be enough, and you’ll have to make more. The standard skill up path will then have you make skewers to 38 (I’d move on at 33), dairy spoons to 67 (again, move on at 62), and banded bracers to 91.

• Metal bits are 2 small pieces of ore and one flask of water.
• A skewer is a skewer mold, a flask of water, and one metal bit.
• A dairy spoon is a scaler mold (that’s right), two metal bits, and a flask of water.
• A filleting knife is a scaler mold (yes), three metal bits, and a flask of water.
• A banded bracer is a bracer mold (small, medium or large), one sheet of metal, and a flask of water. Buy the sheets from the vendors, even though you can make them – it isn’t really any more expensive allowing for failures, and making metal bits is bad enough.
• A non-stick frying pan is a non-stick frying pan mold, ceramic lining, metal bits, and a flask of water.
• The pie tin is a pie tin mold, metal bits, ceramic lining, and a flask of water.

Before you get to the point of making the pie tin, you should skill up on pottery and make a couple of ceramic linings (allowing for smithing failures). The Stout area has a pottery vendor, wheel and kiln right next to a water vendor – Hintol Balkortak (-436, 1385). Make medium jars with a block of clay, a medium jar sketch and a flask of water. Destroy what you make, do not attempt to sell them back or fire them; you will lose more money if you do. The ceramic lining needs one ceramic lining sketch, a flask of water, and a small block of clay. Take the unfired ceramic lining and fire it in a kiln with a quality firing sheet (that’s correct, no flask of water).

Getting it Together

HMP is a complex recipe with many stages. You will need a lot of free slots to make the attempts and store the intermediate products; for this reasons, I suggest making the common items first (creamy fennel sauce), then producing each fillet in cream separately. Two completely empty backpacks would seem to be a sensible minimum for this, as well as one free top slot for your mixing bowl. Inventory space required will be: one container slot (mixing bowl); 3 tools; 12 ingredients; 6 giant slots for final results (and possibly one or two extra slots for working storage). Fewer slots will be required if you buy things as you go.

You will also want to be based in a zone with access to as many ingredients as possible; this guide assumes that you are in Shadowhaven, although I believe that Thurgadin will also work; but Abysmal Sea is the perfect location. You can find everything you need from vendor stocks in Shadowhaven, including what you need to skill up (apart from fresh fish for baking, which I suggest skilling up for in Freeport, see above), apart from wolf and mammoth meat, and eggs. A trip to Halas should give you plenty of wolf meat by buying back what players have sold to vendors; mammoth meat is rarer, but I find that if I offer not to hunt mammoths, players will give me what they have already looted for free. It also drops more commonly from mammoth calves than from full size mammoths, I think.

Eggs can be looted from low level snakes, or bought from newbie vendors in zones with snakes – such as Misty Thicket/Rivervale, Qeynos, or Freeport. They can also be foraged in Butcherblock, Skyfire, and Lavastorm (I think). I had a large stock from killing cave basilisks in Jaggedpine, so I used those.

Initial items to fetch are: 2 wolf meat, 2 mammoth meat, 8 basilisk eggs.

The ingredients needed for 20 combines are:

• 20 sage leaf – 47pp1.7.0
• 2 wolf meat
• 20 bear meat (vendor) 2pp1.1.3
• 20 lion meat (vendor) 2pp1.1.3
• 2 mammoth meat
• 15 fennel, 15 flour, 4 milk, 2 benzoin (4 fennel 9pp4.3.6 and 1 benzoin 2pp3.5.8)
• 8 eggs, 8 flour, 8 milk (prices in coppers) – assuming eggs give a yield of 5 dough per egg, this varies a lot

Total cost will be close to 100pp. And the tools required will be: a mixing bowl (vendor bought), filleting knife, pie tin, a dairy spoon and an oven. An oven is better than a spit, as the final combine has to happen in an oven – although if you have a spit, plenty of free inventory slots, and want to make the intermediate stages while medding or camping, this is up to you. A spit also has the advantage of having giant size slots for the final product.

The first stage is to make cream. You will need to make 80 creamy fennel sauces (enough for 4 stacks of 20 fillets). This means you need 15 combines of creamy fennel sauce (yield 6), each with one cream. Two combines of cream (yield 8) will give you more than enough, if successful. You shouldn’t often get failures of these items, but if you do, just make another set.

Cream will need 2 benzoin (from the vendors in the entrance to the druid/shaman/beastlord area, Callowolf MacFuller (122, 1236), Lemsen Frostherb (122, 1216) and Polson Medicinal, 23 on the eqatlas map), and 4 milk. I buy this from the food vendors near the Fordel Hold bank (Akeral (204, -23) or Nicoela (144, 101)). Combine one benzoin, 2 unstacked milk and a dairy spoon in your mixing bowl to make 8 creams. Do this twice.

To make the creamy fennel sauce, take one fennel (from the same vendors at the shaman guild entrance), one flour (from the baking vendors), and one cream in a mixing bowl, giving 6 sauces. Do this 15 times, until you have 80 sauces; repeat earlier steps if you get failures, but this seems to be very rare.

Next, make your dough; you will need 2 stacks of dough for the combines. The yield of dough varies by egg type, but as the ingredients are cheap and readily available, this doesn’t really matter. I used basilisk egg and eggs (one foraged, one looted), which have yields of 5 and 15 dough per combine; other eggs mostly have lower yields. Combine one egg, one flour and one milk in a mixing bowl until you have 2 stacks of clumps of dough. Then you can put away the mixing bowl (and dairy spoon), or even sell it back to a vendor.

You can convert the meat to 4 stacks of fillets by combining one meat with a filleting knife in a spit or oven. Mammoth and wolf meat yield 10 fillets per meat, hence why you only need two meats; lion and bear make one fillet per meat, so you need a stack of each of them.

You will now have 11 stacks of ingredients (4 fillets, 4 sauce, 2 dough, and one of sage leaf), and may have used several more inventory slots to store earlier products and tools. Combine the fillet with the sauce in your oven or spit until all fillets have been made into fillets in cream; failures don’t really matter at this stage.

The final combine requires an oven, and you will want to have 4 stacks of fillets in cream, one of each meat type, 2 stacks of dough, one stack of sage leaf (bought from the alchemy vendors again) and one pie tin. Put them into the oven, combine, and you should now have 6 Halas meat pies. These go into a giant slot, so you should have either 6 free top level slots (unlikely), or a container that can take giant items – large sewing kit, spit, or rallic pack would all work.

Congratulations! If your skills are high enough, and luck is with you, you now have six stacks of Halas 10lb Meat Pies, ready to sell in the Bazaar.