the adventures of reine du fromage de blight

this is my blog of the mostest awesome mmo currently available! go to www.istaria.com for more information!

Author: velveeta

well, the dragon trainers have taught you all they can.  make yourself at home, exploration-wise - check out the other types of baddies,  do some more crafting, whatever you desire.  when you are ready, you can head to the new trismus portal and the wider world.

you wil become very familiar with portals or travel gates.  some guild and plot islands and settlements can only be reached by portal.  you must be attuned to some ports to use them.  you do that by speaking to the gatekeeper for that particular gate.  some gatekeepers require you to do quests before they will grant access (trandalar ports, for example).

of course, all this is explained, at least briefly, when you first approach the port to new trismus.  there is only one real road on the island, so just head east on it and when you run out of land, you are there!

when you first approach the portal, the destination menu will pop up along with the first page of the explanation dialog. there are five pages in total, so as to provide some basic info about the game tool you will be using the most.

after you have read the dialogue, you can port to new trismus, the starting island.  once there, you can always return to skalkaar island from the nt port, only.

so, now you are on new trismus!!!  i will introduce you next time, and after that, i will bring out mourningwood to show around to the dragon trainers, craft and adventure!  hope you are looking forward to it like i am, it will be a great refresher for me - some places i may even explore for the first time in years!  se ya soon!

so, you have returned to karkath for further fun.  the instructor tells you he would like you to hunt some grass beetles (when you get to the main land and start your 'advanced' skills training, you will make the acquintance of chompa, the named grass beet boss - tell him i said hi!).  as usual, check your quest journal for more info.

so head into the forest north of spitfyre and the shrine to find some grass beets.  kill 3 of them (i apologise for not having screenies!) - check your quest journal - and return to karkath.

the instructor has one last quest for you before leaving skalkaar island - this one gets you some coin to start your new life with!  check your journal for particulars and head for the southern end of the forest to hunt down your spider hatchlings!  your journal will update when you are finished and karkath will give you your final instructions and bid you farewell!

all that remains is to head for the new trismus island outgoing port, which we will deal with soon!!

before you leave jemenoth and return to karkath, the dragon crafter has one last speech and gift to give.  checking your inventory and quest journal will give you the spell to scribe and instructions on how to do so.

once you have scribed and hotkeyed your new spell, training breeze, return to jemenoth for final words.

then, leap off the bridge near jemenoth, spread your wings, and head for karkath and continuing adventure!

karkath will greet you and hint at future trainers before giving you your next quest!

but more about that later!!!  see you then!

seemed fitting to include this here - hope you enjoy it as much as i did!

now that you have a weapon, it is time to think about armour, on this you and jemenoth agree.  so off you go on your next quest - creating a dragon scale, specifically a chest scale.  like biped armour, you get another scale slot every 10 advent levels.  like your claws, scales can be teched and/or socketted.

in order to craft a new scale, jemenoth tells you to gather some sandstone slabs.  checking your journal will give you the instructions you need.  head for the stone field, past the gem field, and collect slabs using your dragon quarrying ability, until you have the needed amount.  return to jemenoth as instructed in your journal update.  create bricks with your formula and the dragon stonecutting ability in combination with the stone cutter pedestal.  return to jemenoth for further instructions.

jemenoth will instruct you to create a scale, using the dragon forge and the formula provided. head back to the forge you used to create your claw, scribe the formula, and create the scale using your dragon scalecraft ability. return when you have created the scale.

before you embark on the next quest, it is wise to equip your new scale, as there will be battle afoot!

next time, you learn your first spell!  see ya soon!

you have crafted your metal ore into bars and your gems into cut garnets.  jemenoth now instructs you to create your first weapon - a dragon claw.  as usual, check your journal for specifics.

enable your dragon scalecraft ability, head over the bridge to the craft cave, and turn right.  you will see the scaleforge.  a scale forge is a workstation exclusive to dragons - bipeds cannot use it and have no real need to, altho it would be nice to make scales and claws for newbies.

by now, you are familiar with the creation process - suffice to say, it is identical to making any other item in istaria.  open knowledge tab, select item you wish to create, equip the needed tool/ability, choose amount, click create.  (someday, i will have to tell you about deconstructing items, handy for craft level grinding)

once you have created the item, check your inventory and journal, and return to jemenoth.

before you set off on your next quest for the dragon crafter, you might want to equip your claw.  not that you will need it, but hey, you just made it, why not?  it's pretty swank, after all!  so, if you have closed your inventory window, open it and highlight the claw.  right click and choose the equip option.  open your equipment tab and notice that your claw is now equipped, along with your dragon pack.  notice, at the bottom of the screen, you see your current hoard level (which i believe i have told you about already).   you will also notice other open slots, one of which you will fill soon enough.

but more about that later!!  ;-}p

your new quest is to mine some garnets.  pretty much the same process as doing ore, so no big surprises.

first step is to find the gem field, between the ore and the sandstone fields.  select a garnet node, equip your dragon quarrying ability, and hack away until you have the 35 pieces of uncut garnet you need for your current quest.

 if you haven't noticed already, sometimes you get bonus resources, usually the next highest resource of the same type.  or, especially at low levels, other resources you don't need at the moment will clog your pack, taking up valuable inventory space.  therefore, you will soon become familiar with deleting unwanted items (followed shortly by the pain of deleting the wrong thing).  it's another familiar process - select the item you want to delete, right click and choose 'delete [item]'.  the confirm screen comes up - just click the 'delete' button to get rid of the desired items.  remember - this is permanent delete - many a noob has cried rivers of tears after deleting a cargo disk and being told there is no way to get it back.......

as with the metal ore, once you have what you need for the current quest, your journal will update with instructions to return to jemenoth. speaking to the dragon crafter will get you a new form to scribe and a new task to complete.  scribe the gem form as required and check your quest journal for specifics.

head into the craft cave, turn left and go past the smelter into the green cave.  inside this cave, you will find the gem cutter workstation.  use it and your dragon gemworking ability to make your 6 cut garnets.       of

of course, your journal will update, advising you to return to jemenoth for further instructions.

and jemenoth will have you next create your first piece of equipment!!  no spoilers, you will just have to come back soon to find out!

it's been a while, so you  may not remember that after you brought back the copper and tin ore, jemenoth asked you to make some bronze bars.  after you scribe the form, you need to use a smelter and your dragon smelting ability to make them.  first thing to do, go to the craft cave and find the smelter - quite an easy task!

if you are speaking to jemenoth, you are standing next to the bridge to the floating craft island.  go over the bridge and into the cave entrance, and immediately to your left will be the smelter.  to your right will be the scale forge, which you will be using a bit later.

once in front of the smelter, open your knowledge book and choose resources, then metal.  you want to make bronze bars, so choose that option. the item create screen will come up.

if it is the first time you are creating something (and if you are on skalkaar island, it is assumed, often incorretly, that it is), the tutorial will pop up.  use it if you need to, of course.  otherwise, choose your production amount and equip your smelting ability (one hopes you have all your abilities hotkeyed, of course), then click the 'create' button.  once you have made the required material, your quest journal will update with instruction to return to the dragon crafter.

so go back thru the entrance and over the bridge.  speak again to jemenoth, so she can send you on the next quest.

which we will, of course, discuss next time!  see ya then!

istaria has a lot of stuff to scribe into your book of knowledge - spells, techniques and forms of all tiers and levels.  while you may suffer from an overabundance of choice in that regard, fortunately you only have one way to get them all into your book - you scribe them.

it's a very easy process.  as with most important things, you would first access your blue gem and choose the knowledge option, below the inventory option as shown in the screenie...

this brings up your knowledge book.  it contains three tabs - spells, formulas, and techniques.  you can sort (or filter) each of these specifically (for instance, by type and tier [class] for the shown technique tab).

for jemenoth's quest, we are to scribe our first crafting formula - to create metal bars.  so open the formula tab then go to inventory.  there you should see the icon for the metal bar form (may be hard to see, but it is the green icon under the description).

as you may have already guessed, if you have been reading this blog for a while, anyway - to scribe the form, you right click on the icon and choose 'scribe xxxxxx' (in this case, beginner metal bar).  you will be asked to confirm what you want scribed.  it is useful to keep in mind that you can multiscribe (as well as multidelete and a couple other tasks) by choosing more than one form to scribe - you will be asked to confirm them all in the process.

once you have confirmed, your scribed form (spells, technique) will appear on the appropriate tab in your knowledge book.  you can now access it to create the desired item/effect.  you can also hotkey forms and spells, handy if you are level grinding or have fave battle spells.

for the next post, we will quickly cover some old ground by creating the bronze bars needed for the craft dragon's quest.  see ya soon!!

so, karkath is done with you now, time to learn the patient art of grinding, aka crafting.  for that, you must off to see jemenoth.

the master dragon crafter is found up a steep incline up a mountain.  the road turns left and goes up thru a sort of rocky archway.  at the top, you see the bridge to the floating craft cave island and standing next to the bridge, you wil find jemenoth.

greet jemenoth, and listen to the speech.  the dragon will give you your first craft quest - gather 50 copper and tin ore.

in order to do so, you should hotkey your crafting abilities.  you do this the same way you hotkey your other skills and abilities.  open the relevant page (in this case, character menu - abilities tab - crafting radio button), select the icon of the thing you want to hotkey, and drag it to an empty key spot on your bar.

mining ore requires using your dragon mining ability, and you invoke it the same way bipeds equip tools.  click the hotkeyed ability and your game chat will alert you that you have it in operation.  once you have the 50 pieces of ore, head back to jemenoth to hear how well you did and get your next task.  this quest requires you scribe a formula into your book of knowledge - something we will discuss next time!!

see ya soon!

before we continue with the crafting quests, let's have a brief discussion about the other tabs on the character menu.

the general tab, as shown in the previous post, is the first tab.

the second tab is the schools tab.  here you will find your adventure and craft schools, and your progress thus far in them.  at this point, soknot hadn't take dragon crafting yet, so it is not shown, but you can see her adventure progress in this screenie.  bipeds, of course, have more schools and so, more listings.

after that comes the skills tab.  as you can see in the screenie, at the top of the page are 2 radio buttons: adventure and craft.  the screenie shows soknot's adventure related skills - as previously mentioned, she didn't have any craft at this point.  these skills are racial bonuses as well as class, as you will see soon.

the 4th tab is the abilities tab.  this, too, is split between adventure and craft.  active abilities can be hotkeyed, passive ablilities are always 'on'.

the final tab shows your defensive abilities.  armour rating, evasion, spells and buffs in play - this is the kind of info you will find on this tab.

the character menu, obviously, has much useful info.  as with all games, it is important to be familiar with it, not the least so that you can hotkey new abilities and skills.

next post, we meet jemenoth and learn a draggy's first craft skill.  see ya then!