Guide for Mainline Quests (SPOILERS) feature

Source: Forums.taleworlds.com

1 The hunt for River Pirates

You start out in Zendar, after waking up from a bad dream. You should go downstairs and ask the tavern keeper, Suker for a drink. Listen carefully to what he says and follow his directions.

You can now leave the tavern. In Zendar, talk to EVERYONE. This is very important in the whole quest.

Shoey will come to you herself. She is a little playful girl, but mysterious as well. Take her words seriously. If you ask Shoey about anything interesting she will tell you about 2 things.

The goddess of the Ewu River: If you can manage to find an iron shield (dropped by forest bandits and rarely by sea raider captains) and equip it, while crossing the bridge closest to Zendar, you get a powerful shield (not required for advancement).
Robin the Fat has indeed hidden something in the town and to find this you need to (more about them later) be further in the main quest.

The first guy on the right is Pain. He offers horses, horse armor (in this mod heavy horses are self made by combining horse and armor) and the opportunity to participate in horse races for a small profit. That’s about all though.

Then there are several shops: general store with Kelavis, Alix the armorer... You can buy and sell there but for now nothing interesting.

Next is Robin the Fat, the weaponsmith. He offers a quest right now. You need to find his Fire Spar. This will not be hard as you will encounter it during the main quest.

Then you can talk to Ramun about selling prisoners (he buys them for 50 denars).

Next is Guy, the trainer. First listen to his story and he will give you the fourth clue out of 5. I know it's weird that you don’t get the first one first, but that’s how it is. Then go trough the training. You need to complete training with him to be able to participate in the arena. This brings me to: Prince, the arena master. You can participate in tournaments here (minimum 1 participation necessary to bring Dranton, Xerina, and Kradus to the tavern and later for recruiting them).

Try it once and bet on yourself to make some money, then continue towards the castle. Constable Hareck will shout something about manhunters, etc. This will update your main quest.

Go speak with him, and accept the hunt for river pirates quest. Now the game will tell you to tab, but before you do this, go speak with Alix the armorer. He will give you a quest to collect 25 nomad armors (note: you can still get this later).

Now you will be tagging along in a party of Manhunters.
 
Perform well and you can do it on your own (5 fights). But before that, there are some things that need doing in Zendar.

• Speak to Ramun, he will tell you where to find a Guide.
• Speak to constable Hareck. He will pay you 100 per party of river pirates you eliminate (500 denars now).
• Talk to Kelavis (the merchant), he will give you a quest to destroy a bandit lair.
• And finally, go to the tavern to speak with Marnid, your first companion. If you want you can also hire the mercenaries, but I would advise against that.

(hint: give Marnid your extra shield and go talk to him in camp menu, he will ask you for a sumpter horse. If you give him one (keep it in your inventory and the option will appear, you will be able to store items in an extra inventory)

Now you should go to Rivacheg. Since your party is pretty weak, be careful for enemies. In Rivacheg you can do like always.

To find the guide (Borcha), go to the castle. Walk straight ahead and find him behind bars. Talk to him, then talk to the Castle supervisor and help Borcha get out.

When you leave Rivacheg to return to Zendar, Borcha will talk to you. Release him and you will have a second companion (Hint: Borcha starts unarmed!). The only thing you can do now is hunt for river pirates until something happens.

If you are feeling confident, try taking out the bandit lair as well (it's located on the mountain next to Zendar. This will give you some nice loot, allow you to equip yourself and your companions better.

Talking to your companions when they are wounded, asking if they are OK, and giving them books improves your relation with them.
The option in the tavern to drink some wine and rest in the tavern recovers about 25% of your companions' health.

You are at 25% now (5 percent per party) and the next “event" will happen at 50% percent: Suker will ask you to come and talk to him.
He will tell you about slave traders, who will be right outside of Zendar.

These guys will actually be dark pilgrims. Lowly armored, but pretty good stats and long sticks to hit you with. Tougher than river pirates, in any case. Defeat them and Ymira will join you with the rest of the refugees telling you about the lair near Dhirim, where Ymira’s parents are being held captive.

Note: you can also get a small side-quest from Suker now to collect a debt Dranton owes him. Reward: fighter gloves.

Kill all the dark pilgrims and supporters in the lair and a dialogue will pop up. Don’t tab!

Now Ymira will be able to equip and level up, etc. You will also have received the fire spar (be sure to loot). Return to Zendar and talk to Robin the Fat for a reward (choose between a few weapons) and go to the tavern to Suker.

Note: you can now use the lair as a place to store your troops, make sure you leave enough food there though. This can be quite convenient, since high level troops take your max party size -1.

Now you should have received “The Badge of Knight”. Go to the town center again and talk to Guy, he will tell you to go talk to Count Arrasies himself. You will inform him about the dark pilgrims.

Before you go back to the River Pirate hunting, talk to guy again. He will give you a book.
This gives a great bonus of +5 charisma if you read it.

Hint: you might want to store some stones in your extra baggage.

Back to River Pirate hunting until you reach 100%. During this time you might be able to get enough nomad armor to complete the quest for Alix and get a nice armor.

Go back to Zendar, talk to Constable Hareck and you will get your money and complete the river pirates quest.

Now you should go and speak to Count Arrasies again. He will tell you to go and hunt down the leader of the pirates: Nabar. Be careful though, he has a band of sea raiders, which are significantly stronger than river pirates. Nabar himself will probably take down 5-10 of your men. Circling around his army is a viable tactic if you have a fast enough horse. Otherwise you will be pin-cushioned by throwing weapons and archers.

Nabar will come after you when you are in Nord lands. If you have trouble finding him just stay near Wercheg for a while (camp or something). After defeating him you will receive the Medal of Heroes. This gives you +3 leadership and increases party morale.

Return to Count Arrasies in Zendar and tell him of the good news.
Now your quest will update a lot. We have different quest available now. This is the end of the hunting River Pirates.

2 The hunt for the Dark Pilgrims

While hunting for the dark pilgrims, there are a lot of other things to do.
• You can now hire Manhunters from Guy (upgraded manhunters increase the amount of prisoners you can take)
• Solve the riddle Shoey gives you, the answer is 9, 6, 2.
• Meet with all the kings of Calradia

o After you talked to king Yaroglek and you walk on snow ground, you will find some taiga bandits fighting a monster. You will meet the leader of the taiga bandits.
o After you talked to either Sanjar Khan or King Graveth and you will try to approach the other, you will be attacked by Baheshtur and his band of Black Khergits.
o After you talked to King Harlaus you should go to a village (Azgad) and will meet one of the dark lords Fenrir, who at this time will help you in a small battle.



• If your relationship with Borcha is high enough he will give you Clue 1
• When you go into khergit territory, Borcha will tell you about a horse market. Go here to get the “hunt down black khergits” quest. After destroying about 5 parties you will be able to win special horses by doing a race or a shootout (6 horse archery required for the shooting). If you perform well enough you will receive Clue 2
• Another clue can be found in the streets of Jelkala, in a chest.

• Go to a tavern during the night and buy everyone some wine. This will activate a new quest line.
o The tavern keeper will tell you about a cave in a village of his faction (Ehlerdah). Go to this cave, its hidden at a mountain side or behind a big rock. You need to ask the village elder about it first to enter it though. In the cave you will be fighting troll like beasts, so be careful. In the cave you will find the horn of stars and the first gem.

2.1 The quest for the first 2 gems

Note, it says 5 gems. In this chapter only 4 gems are available.

Having found the first gem, and the horn of stars, we can go find the second gem. When hovering over the horn you will see a hint of where to find the second gem.

So go camp near Emer at night. Walk around in the camp, when you hear a horn blow go look for a yellow flare. Then you will get a gem when you walk through it.

Try to complete these things before you hunt down the ten pilgrim parties.

My personal hint is not to hunt them down. Just travel from tournament to tournament and chase them when you see them. Your renown will increase, as will your party level (by training) and you might get some unique items while competing. Plus winning tournaments etc is also required for later in-game.

3 The hunt for Dark Hunters

As soon as you have killed the tenth party of dark pilgrims, a group of dark hunters will start chasing you. First they will attack you in a surprise in camp, this is when Rolf comes to your aid. He will tell you to go and meet him in Praven.

When he leaves you need to take down the party of dark hunters. They are a lot tougher than dark pilgrims, with a nice balanced combination of infantry, cavalry, and crossbowmen.

After beating them, go to the tavern of Praven to talk to Rolf. He will tell you to take the task of fighting the forest bandits. To do this, talk to the tavern keeper of Praven and ask for a job.

You need to defeat 10 forest bandit parties.

Hint: not destroying the forest bandit camp keeps their respawn rate high, these girls might drop an iron shield, equip it and walk over the bridge near Zendar to get the shield of faith. NOTE: answer honestly when she asks you what shield you dropped. It’s an iron shield not gold nor silver!

As soon as you defeat the 10th party you will be escorted to the bandit leader, Melva. Rolf will come and tell you to meet him again in Praven (at this scene, I sometimes crash, just reboot game and redo the scene, it won't crash again). Claim your reward from the tavern keeper and talk to Rolf again. He will tell you to duel with him. If you win, he will join you.

Back to hunting down those hunters, until you have destroyed 9 parties. Then suddenly a dark wizard will freeze your party and speak to you. He asks you why you are killing those parties.

After that dialogue, you will be chased by a strong inquisitor party. They are much tougher than the hunters, be careful! Defeat them and you will receive Clue 3 and the Commander Saber.


4 The hunt for Dark Knights

Note: the tournament and dark knights can be done in any order as you please.

The hunt for the dark knights, also 10 parties, is the last hunt. Take them down!!!!! I know you want to be solving the mystery of the 5 clues now, but you still have to wait a bit longer.

Try to get your party back up to strength after the fight against the inquisitor before facing any knight parties. They will not be as strong as the inquisitor, but still very powerful.

After you defeated 10 dark knight parties, you should take a look at the horn of stars again, this will give us the hints for continuing the quest. What does it say? Something about highest glory, etc.

It wants you to compete in the national tournament.
How do we attain this? Go from tavern to tavern and talk with the tavern keeper about what’s going on lately.
They will tell you to go to the arena in the capital of a faction to find out about the tournament. In the arena, the master will tell you that King Ragnar will tell you what is required to join the tournament.

The total sum of the next conditions makes him decide if you can join:
• Win few fights on the arena in a row (after a while you will receive the message “you have shown superior quality". This is not yet enough, so keep going)
Also a minimum of +5 relation with Ragnar is required.
When you qualify you will get a message saying to go visit Ragnar again. (Note: You will receive some small gift)
Compete in the tournament and win of course.

You will be rewarded with 10k exp, 15k denars, 491 renown, honour, trainer and engineer skill +1, another gem, and a very good helmet (+60 to head and +1 to leadership skill).

Suddenly your screen will be dragged to Praven, where you will complete a small side quest as Rolf.

Hint: not getting spotted makes it a lot easier, because unlike normal prison breaks, here the guards keep spawning. Even if spotted, you can still complete this mission.

Now you should head for Zendar to recruit Xerina into your party. She is a very capable warrior. While going there...

Suddenly that wizard guy will appear again. He will try to kill you, but the horn of stars gets destroyed instead.
Now the secret man will talk to you again. He offers you two options to say.
All you need to do to be able to do evil is answer the secret man when he asks you the question, what type of power do you want: mighty power.
Now you have the Secret man as a companion as well.
Go to Zendar and recruit Xerina.

5 Sailing to unknown places.

As soon as you have Xerina, go to Wercheg or Tihr, as the main quest line says you should. Go speak to the guild master there.

As you go talk to the guild master in either Tihr or Wercheg, ask him about sea worthy boats. He will tell you they don’t have any. Now you must go find a sea raider party, fight them, and make sure a few of them succeed at rooting (Hint: tell your archers to hold fire, let them get away). They will lead you to a sea pirate hideout. Defeat them, steal their boat, and go sail towards the small island.

On the way there you will be stopped by Nabar, who wants revenge and is confident he can beat you on his own turf, the sea.
Note: from now on you can fight sea raiders in their boats on sea!

On the island find the mirror of truth in a chest on a small building to your left.

Sail back to the mainland (to land, go back to the sea raider hideout) and you will encounter refugees running from the dark forces. Telling you that the king is dead. As soon as you start walking again you are confronted by Fenrir.

(This is the moment where you can become evil IF you have chosen the evil options in the past)


6 The siege of Zendar (good)

Note: I have so far only played the good side of this game.

Don't go to Zendar yet. You want to go solve the mystery of the 5 clues now that you have the mirror. Go to Derchios Castle, and use the mirror to see the scarecrows on top of the wall. Hit them repeatedly with stones from the right to the left. You will receive a secret scroll which teaches you an awesome skill.

Go to Zendar (before going, you might want to bolster your army numbers) and you will immediately be talked to. Just follow what they say and you will be in the siege defense in no time.
Hint: before joining the siege you might want to use the mirror to look for that hidden thing.

After the battle go talk to count Arrasies. He will give you another 2 badges of knights and warrior. These can be used to convert hired blades and mercenary cavalry into VERY powerful chivalric freelancers and chivalric gladiators. To do this, talk to Guy. He will also give you a full set of Freedom armor.

You can also change your banner in Zendar.

Leave Zendar and watch what unfolds. Go head towards the fighting. Suddenly Rolf will talk to you and give you the 4th gem. This is the last gem in this chapter.

Also if you go to the tavern now you can now recruit Kradus and Dranton by talking to Kradus.

Fight in the siege, note that Jormugand uses AOE that can one-shot you.

After the siege, go and help King Ragnar defeat the dark hunters. This is the end of the first chapter. Continue as you see fit.

EXTRA:
lost knight is near: Tebandra, Veidar , Abdelen or Dugan. Talking to him and choosing the right option will send him to the lake. Keep following him and talk to him, always say you know the way. Talk to him at the lake to be able to receive a quest to go in the cave and find cool stuff.


EXTRA:
When you defeated your first group of Dark Avengers a new quest will commence, allowing you to earn money and even a new item: the Damascus steel set that powers up your hunter helm even more!
The guide is not complete, I do not have the dark ending.

EXTRA:
When your relationship is high enough, Rolf, Meliva and Secret Woman can teach you special skills.