Might and Magic VII: For Blood and Honor, or MM7, is the 7th RPG in the original Might and Magic series by 3DO and New World Computing. Published in 1999, it takes place in the Ancient Universe. Like Might and Magic VI before it, Might and Magic VII takes place in the world of Enroth, only this time it takes place on the continent of Antagarich, the land to the south of the continent of Enroth.
The opening video in all its nineties-era digital animation glory opens on a troop of goblins and a troupe of elves and knights fighting with each other on a beach. Then strange and terrible fish-like monstrosities rise out of the ocean. They appear to communicate with each other then go their separate ways. When the knights come over to investigate, they find that the creatures have shed their skins and left them behind.
The goblins explain the story to their leader: Archibald Ironfist, leader of the necromancers, brother to the missing King Roland Ironfist, failed conqueror of Enroth, and reoccurring villain of several of the past games. The goblins' story clearly has some. . . embellishments that Archibald sees through, but finds amusing, and their conversation is interspersed with jump cuts to the knights relaying their version of events to their leader, Gavin Magnus, king of the light mages.
Both Gavin Magnus and Archibald Ironfist are very interested in what the strange sea creatures could possibly mean.
Main Story Synopsis
Forget all that, though! You control a party of adventurers who have joined a scavenger hunt on Tutorial Island-- I mean Emerald Isle. The hunt is being held by Lord Markham of Tatalia, and the prize is the deed to Harmondale Castle and the lands surrounding it. All that stands in the way of you and that sweet sweet title of nobility is a seashell, a hat, a lute, a red health potion, a bajillion fire-spitting dragonflies, and a literal dragon that you will only beat if you have about an hour to spare. Luckily, you don't actually need to defeat the dragon to progress the story, just run into its cave to grab a shield and finish a quest. Finally, after finishing Lord Markham's grocery shopping, you are given the deed to Castle Harmondale. Success!
Unfortunately, there was a reason Markham wanted to foist the place onto the first group of idiot peasants who came along. Harmondale has had a turbulent and violent history due in part to the fact that it's smack dab between the human kingdom of Erathia and the nation of elves in the Avlee and the Tularean Forest. The two kingdoms have been periodically warring with each other for the past 480 years or so, and Harmondale is one of the things they've been fighting over.
The few times Harmondale hasn't been run by Erathia or Avlee, it's been run by tax-happy tyrants or deranged necromancers. You and your characters arrive during one of the brief bouts of peace between the two nations, and by the time you do, the locals are so jaded that even your court historian (appointed by Lord Markham. He basically serves as your "journal" feature to keep track of quests) doubts you'll last the next couple months.
In fact, you and your characters are so inconsequential to everyone involved that not only have Erathia and Avlee completely neglected Harmondale in their tense peace, not only is your castle falling apart, but a pack of goblins has moved in and nobody has stopped them because-- why would they? Nobody gives a crap about Harmondale.
From here, the game can more or less be divided into four major story quests:
1. Clean up the castle
2. Deal with the royals
3. Deal with the wizards
4. Deal with the devils
Oh yeah, there are rumors of literal devils that have ransacked the countryside. They just sprung up out of nowhere a few years ago, and King Roland Ironfist himself went to go fight them, but he never came back. Since his absence, his wife, Queen Catherine Gryphonheart nee Ironfist has been running both Enroth and Erathia.
Anyhoo, cleaning up the castle isn't just a matter of killing a bunch of goblins and rats. The castle is so trashed that you literally have to journey south to the wasteland of the Barrow Downs to visit the dwarf king Hothfarr IX and beg for help fixing the place up. He, like everyone else in the game, won't even give you the time of day unless you go down into the mines and save his citizens who are trapped there. See, the dwarves pulled a Moria and dug too far down, only instead of releasing a balrog, they released a horde of medusas who turned several people to stone before the miners managed to clear out and lock the place up.
After you've impressed the king, he sends a crew to fix up Harmondale Castle, and once the place looks halfway presentable, Queen Catherine Ironfist of Erathia and King Eldrich Parson of the Tularean Forest both decide that they want it, and they want you to work for them to sabotage the other. Catherine wants you to rescue a captured spy, and Eldrich wants you to steal some battle plans. You can choose to screw both sides over by exposing their plans to each other, to help both sides, or to pick a side to support. These two quests don't make much of a difference in the long run, but later on things will come to a head when both armies fight over an artifact: the Trumpet of Gryphonheart. This is a horn that belonged to Catherine's grandfather and has symbolic power for the land, but is of absolutely no use to you. If you're fast enough (and get the message about the battle in time), you can snag it first and give it to whoever you want, or give it to your arbiter. Whoever you give the trumpet to will become your liege lord and own Harmondale, but if you give it to the arbiter, he'll use it as leverage to make both sides play nice and establish Harmondale as its own kingdom.
So now you're literally a lord/lady of your own kingdom. This seems like a conclusionary deal, right? What happier ending can you get than that? Well this is actually just the halfway point. The next leg of the game is dealing with the factions of Light and Darkness. The necromancers in Deyja and the Light Mages in the Bracada Desert hate each other's guts, and have been supporting a large hate-on for each other since before game 6.
Eventually, after an in-game year, your arbiter Judge Gray will die, and the light wizards of Celeste and the Bracada Desert and the necromancers of Deyja and The Pit want in on that. Unlike the feud between Catherine and Elrich, this choice actually matters and will change the path of the game from here on out, as well as cosmetically change the look of your control panel. The Path of Light makes it look like the sky, whereas the Path of Dark makes it black and red and vein-y. While both paths will have a similar final end-of-the-game quest, the quests leading up to it are mirror opposites of each other.
If you side with the Light, you can learn Light Magic and do quests to get the "good" counterparts for your skill sets (Warriors can become Heroes and Champions, Wizards can become Archmages, etc.), and if you go with the necromancers, you can learn Dark Magic and get the "bad" counterparts (Wizards can become Liches, Warriors can become Black Knights, etc.) The leader of the light mages, Gavin Magus, wants you to make it through the light magic Trial of Mists to see if you can solve the puzzles without killing any of the monsters inside. The leader of the necromancers, Archibald Ironfist, wants you to do the same for the necromancer's trial, the Breeding Zone, only he doesn't care if you kill the monsters there.
Archibald Ironfist and Gavin Magnus are interesting characters in their own right; as mentioned Archibald Ironfist is the now-missing King Roland's brother and usurper. He first appeared in the Heroes line of games where the player could choose to support his endeavor to overtake his brother or hinder him (with hindering being the canonical ending). In the build up to that story, Archibald actually does succeed in replacing his brother as king of Enroth, then loses the throne thanks to the strategic minds of some meddling heroes. After that, he was turned to stone and stuffed in the Ironfist Castle library. However, due to some other meddling heroes needing his help at the end of Might and Magic VI, he was unstoned, hung around long enough to help save the country, then vamoosed over to Antagarich to become leader of the necromancers in Deyja.
Gavin Magnus has a backstory that spans several games, including the nefarious ninth game. He was a king of the now-defunct Empire of Baracaduun. Most of his backstory is in the Heroes Chronicles games, and it comes down to the fact that he was an asshole to the barbarian peoples the Bracaduun wizards enslaved, there was a revolt/war, and he died. Then he got better. It's never explained why he got better, and he doesn't know either, but since then he's been studying magic and taking care of the new kingdom of Bracada.
After you've proven yourselves worthy to your new allies, your main quests involve talking Gavin Magus or Archibald Ironfist's advisers, all of whom would like you to strike blows against their opposition. The names of Gavin's advisers are Resurrectra, Crag Hack, Sir Caneghem, and Robert the Wise. The names of Archibald's advisers are Kastore, Maximus, Dark Shade, and Tolberti.
Hold that thought.
The quests they give you range from stealing lich jars and assassinating wizards for their magic cubes all the way to clearing out a basement in Tatalia that has a bunch of vampires hiding out in it. Notably, one of the dark side quests you have include clearing out an abandoned and monster-infested laboratory for the necromancers to establish as their own. Depending on the faction, the person you work for changes. Surprise surprise for Archibald, it turns out that Kastore has his own plans that don't involve listening to Archibald anymore; Archibald the usurper is usurped in a bit of irony, and he and his crew of loyal science-oriented necromancers essentially say, "screw this noise" and move into the aforementioned laboratory.
If you go and visit him-- even if you're on the good guys' side-- he'll just glower at you and say that he and his crack team of necromancers are busy doing science, okay? And he doesn't even want the stupid throne anymore. You all can have fun dealing with the kreegan on your own, because he is soooo done.
When you get the cube from the opposing faction's lead adviser, it is revealed to you that these strange magic cubes aren't just cubes, they are command cubes, which are integral to using the magics of the Ancients. Not only that, but the strange water monsters from the beginning of the game weren't actually monsters, but the advisers in wetsuits. The advisers are actually not from Enroth at all, but another world called Terra, and their "void-faring ship" had crashed into the water after being thrown off-course while they were aiding the Guardian Corak in apprehending the Guardian Sheltam. Not only that, but after you go ans slay the leader of the devils-- who the Terrans inform you are actually called Kreegan, who are also void-faring beings-- but you get to wear one of the wetsuits to go find the void-ship in the ocean and battle the metal, light-blasting machines there in order to steal a power source called an "Oscillation Overthruster."
Because the big huge twist of the game is that this is not, as it presents itself as, a fantasy game. This game, and the whole Might and Magic series, are actually science fiction games dressed up in fantasy clothing. Not only that, but the Terrans are actually the player characters from Might and Magic 3. At the end of Might and Magic 3, the player gets hold of a space ship, is told by the guardian Corak to meet him on the next world over so they can work together to take down the rogue guardian Sheltem, but they never made it and were nowhere to be seen in Might and Magic 4. Apparently, they got lost on the way and crashed into Enroth.
Your patron (either Resurrectra or Kastore) explains that the group had a falling out after crashing, and both groups have different ideas of what to do now that they're here. They don't tell you about these ideas yet, though, because your next job is to go kill the king of demons.
The Kreegan have setup shop in the Land of the Giants, also called Eofol. There their leader Xenofex rules from the fortress Colony Zod. Eofol is a biiiiitch to get to; you have to travel to the mountainous land of Nighon through a complex cave system, then go through even more caves filled with even harder monsters, which then lead to even more caves with even harder monsters, and then you land in Eofol which is home to -- you guessed it-- even harder monsters. My characters were in their mid fifties level-wise when I went through here, and it was hell. It doesn't help that the Eofol Tunnels, the specific tunnel system to get to Eofol, is narrow in places and full of the giant powerful monsters (rightfully called behemoths) who make it near impossible to squeeze by. If you had been relying on your handy sorcerer keeping you invisible and taking the stealthy route the whole game: that stops here.
When you finally get through the tunnels to Eofol and go to defeat Xenofax-- the Kreegan leader referenced in Might and Magic 6 as well-- and enter the country Eofol, Archibald Ironfist arrives and desperately tells you that he's had word that his brother Roland is being held captive by the Kreegan. Despite everything that they've been through, Archibald doesn't want his brother to be tortured by the literal space demons, and he gives you an Ancient Weapon so you can go and save him. The weapon in question is a "blaster" that shoots out some form of ancient light magic.
That's right. You get fucking lasers!
Not only do you get lasers, you can pick up laser rifles! BIGGER LASERS!
So you go to where the Kreegan horde is and demolish the place. Depending on your level and how many blasters you find along the way, this place is a piece of cake compared to the tunnels. At least here, you can sneak around with invisibility. When you're done saving Roland and killing Zenofex, you're treated to a little cutscene of Roland, Catherine, and Archibald having an awkward family reunion back in castle Ironfist. Catherine wants to execute Archibald despite his change of heart, but Roland spares him for his services and banishes him to that laboratory he's setup in. Archibald is okay with this, as he's gone off the whole "world domination" thing anyways and just wants to do magic-science with his necromancer buddies.
Now that you have literally wiped out an aggressive alien race, your patron will finally tell you the last leg of their plan. Both Resurrectra and Kastore need an artifact called an Oscillation Overthruster. What is an Oscillation Overthruster? It is some kind of ancient Ancient device used for overthrusting oscillation, obviously. Whatever it is, it is also a necessary component for working the Ancient technology Resurrectra/Kastore possesses.
Resurrectra and her party want to use the Overthruster to power a portal created by the Ancients. They hope that this portal will enable them to get to Sheltem and Corak, or even find the Ancients themselves. Kastore and his crew want to use the Overthruster to power up an Ancient forge and create more of the powerful Ancient weaponry and take over the world. Resurrectra or Kastore gives you some wetsuits and your party gets to go down to the sunken Lincoln space ship.
Upon entering the Lincoln, you will immediately be set upon by the sentinel robots inside who fire red lasers at you, and you will die.
Okay, maybe you won't die. But you'll probably die. The trick is to quickly pause the game upon entering, take off the dang wet suits and don your equipment. This will help you not-die. The sentinel robots are a pain, and your goal is to kill them, activate the ship's emergency power supply so that the freaking doors will open, and take the Overthruster.
Finally, after being the errand boys/girls for every Enrothian and his mother, you've got the Overthruster and your Patron is finally letting you in on the big plan. In the dark ending, you now rule the world with an iron fist, slaying your enemies out of hand with your amazing weapory and your armies of goblins who are armed to the teeth with destructive lasers. You might wonder occasionally what it was Resurrectra and her crew were going to do with the Overthruster, but ultimately find you don't care. If you get the light ending, you and Resurrectra's team successfully activate the portal and find yourselves in an Ancient outpost that is guarded by Corak. When Resurrectra rightfully expresses doubt, the Corak clarifies: he is a Corak model guardian, not the Corak that the Terrans met all those years ago. He's basically been kicking it in the outpost since the Silence, and now that the portal is activated again, he can show you how to travel worlds. Where can you go? Anywhere you want. Maybe you'll even run into the Ancients.
The End.
The Magic System
In the might and magic games, there are there are nine schools of magic available for your characters to learn. There are four schools of elemental magic (Earth, fire, air, water), three schools of cleric magic (body, spirit, mind), and then Light and Dark magic (which can be learned by both clerics and sorcerers). Like MM6 before it, known spells are represented by your character's spell book page, and the spells must be learned through finding or purchasing spell books from shops.
Unlike MM6, where every spell can be learned at any skill level, MM7 introduces the hierarchy of spells.
Like MM6, there is the Expert skill level, Master skill level, and now there is the added Grand Master skill level. Unlike MM6 where anyone with the basic magic skill could learn any spell, MM7 puts restrictions on what characters of different skill levels can learn. For example: in MM6, if your wizard knows air magic, he can also learn fly out of the gate. In MM7, your wizard must know air magic, and must also be an expert in air magic in order to learn fly. This demonstrates a seemingly small, but actually effective change from MM6; there, the only limit to learning all the spells was money. The spellbooks were expensive, and the better the spell, the more expensive the book. In MM7, this means that not only do you still have the money barrier, but you also have to level up enough to give the magic skills the appropriate number of skill points, and you have to also find the expert/master/grand master trainers (who get harder to find) and then also pay their exorbitant fees.
Lands Of Antagarich
Harmondale
Your new home! The lands of Harmondale have the main town of Harmondale, plus a small "village" of like four houses down the road. There's also a battlefield of goblins outside of town, and a cave of monsters to the south.
When you're clearing out Harmondale Castle, you'll find a letter from a goblin general to one of the guards about how the guard is supposed to light the signal fire and a goblin horde will attack the town. You can confront the gatekeeper and kill him, and then if you're feeling cocky enough, you can go light the signal fire yourself. A huge number of goblins will appear in the field, and if you've got a wizard who knows fly and fireball, it's kind of fun flying over them and blasting them all into pieces.
There's also a cave full of troglodytes. I . . . don't know. There just is.
The Barrow Downs
The barrow downs is the first of mountainous wastelands you'll encounter in the game. In this case, the mountains are so big, and the area is introduced so early in the game that you'll probably not have the fly spell and will have to use the series of bridges that connect the mountains together. The Barrow Downs is home to a series of tunnels and tombs called The Barrows, the surface entrance to the dwarven Stone City, and a host of ghosts, specters, skeletons, and vampires.
The Barrows are an underground rats nest. You go inside one, and it leads you to a room/rooms with monsters (mostly zombies and lightning rats). The door you've just come in has levers on the sides, and it turns out it's actually a portal/tunnel with the destinations of the portals connected by which levers are up or down. The destinations are also hidden unless you find a key that's somewhere in the current room or "barrow" you're in. There are several quests that involve finding places or items hidden in the assorted barrows, but nothing plot-critical.
Erathia
Erathia was home to the Gryphonheart family and currently houses the Ironfist line (as Queen Catherine was a Gryphonheart before she married Roland). Erathia is one of the bigger cities in the game, and probably the largest human settlement. The place is useful for finding Expert trainers and getting that ore you've been finding around the place smelted into items, armor, or weapons.
Like Free Haven from MM6, Erathia has the requisite Sewer Area teeming with thieves, rats, and assorted ne'er-do-wells. Go down there and kill anything that gets in your way, and at the end of the maze you'll find the prince of thieves who will gladly teach any thieves you have thieving, disarming, and dagger skills. You'd think he'd be bitter about you slicing through his allies like a hot sword through butter, but he's impressed with the five dudes covered in blood who've just kicked down his door.
There's no point in talking to Catherine. If you're not on the dealing-with-royals quests, she doesn't want anything to do with you. If you are on that line of quests, she'll only care about you finishing up those quests. Humorously enough, if you decide to backstab her, then go and tell her that you're backstabbing her, she compliments you on your honesty, then orders your immediate execution.
There's also a canyon-maze to the south where a flock of griffins are waiting around to fight you. There's not much point going down there anyway unless you're a wizard and want to get Master Fire Magic.
Tatalia
Tatalia is another kingdom to the west of Erathia. Despite being a different kingdom from Erathia, in this game Tatalia doesn't seem to have a king anywhere. No castles, either, and the main town, Tidewater, is a lot smaller than Erathia. The closest thing to a leader they have I supposed is Lord Markham, the guy who gave you Harmondale to begin with, though why he had the deed to the place instead of the Arbiter or one of the royals is beyond me.
The people there appear to be humans in this game, though in the Heroes games there's apparently more diversity with gnolls and lizardmen. Also in Tatalia are trolls, which live in the swamps to the southwest and at the top of the mountain near the mercenary guild, Wromthrax the Heartless who is a dragon you need to kill to have Charles Quixote promote Paladins to Crusaders, and Lord Markham's manor.
Markham, by the way, turns out to be a total dickweed; if you visit his home to ask what the deal is, he calls you a dirty peasant and says to have fun running the shitshow that is Harmondale, then basically laughs you out of his house. What an asshole! At least you can get some modicum of revenge later if you're level is high enough: there's a quest to steal some vase out of the dude's house in order to get to the next thief tier. The only downside is that Markham has good security with a dozen or so powerful knights in his house who can mow down anyone under level 30 unless you're a damn good strategist. You could use the invisibility spell (provided your wizard has master air magic, or a scroll of invisibility), but there are so many guards that it's hard to get in anyways because they're all so close together, and if you bump into someone, the spell instantly wears off and leaves you with your pants down in the middle of a group of angry knights.
These kinds of Knights are complete bastards, too. They're called "champions of the sword" and they're the toughest thing you'll see that early in the game. They're constantly casting the spell heroism on themselves to up their attack and speed, and the game's AI appears to make them more relentless than other monsters, who will just stop chasing you if you get far enough away. The dudes are like the fantasy-medieval equivalent to the terminator. And they're not just in Markham's house, though that's probably the first place you'll see them. They also guard Castle Ironfist, and are holed up inside the Tatalian Mercenary Guild. The mercenary guild is one of those places that lulls you into a false sense of security; in the first room there's just some archers on the sides that are pretty easily dispatched (provided you didn't wander in here straighter after the tutorial), but then you open a door and BAM! Sword in the face.
Tularean Forest
The Tularean forest is one of the bigger cities in the game, as well as one of the only two run by elves. Here is where Castle Navan, home of King Elrich Parson, is located, as well as several other locations of interest like Clanker's Laboratory and the Tularean Caves. The Tularean caves are a series of caves that spit you out in Elrich's castle's basement. This is necessary if you want to do Catherine's quest and rescue her captured spy.
If you go north, you'll find two islands connected by a long bridge. You'll need the Fly spell or the Water Walk spell to get to either of the islands (unless you like jumping across the water and getting a HP loss), and once you get to the island you'll find that the trees are pissed. The trees throw beams of hurtiness at you and grin with big, creepy teeth when you're hit. f you kill them, they drop gemstones, so I fully encourage you to kill every tree you see in-game and in real life. The reason these trees (and others on the outskirts of the Tularean Forest) are so angry is that some thieves have stolen the Heartwood of the Oldest tree in the forest, who is located on the far island.
Avlee
Avlee is another elf-run location. It looks like an encampment site with many of the houses and shops being tents instead of proper houses, and it is surprisingly one of the more difficult areas. There are two places of note on this map: the Faerie Hill and the Titan's Stronghold.
According to the Avlee folks, despite what humans might think, Elves are not Faeries. They might be distantly related to them, but that makes no difference because Faeries are an untrustworthy and mischievous lot to everyone regardless of bloodline. One of the side quests you can pick up is to go visit the Faerie King and make a delivery. The king seems nice enough, but then tells you to have fun trying to find your way out of the Faerie Mound and drops you off in an underground garden where a swarm of fire dragonflies are waiting to roast you.
The northern part of Avlee is pretty safe, but Gods help you if you go too far south. If you are a new player who just happened to wanted into the place, whatever you do, for the love of God, do not go south towards the wyverns. They will fuck you angry. And not only are there wyverns a hop, skip, and jump away from the main encampment of Avlee, but down below that is the Titan's Stronghold, a place full of dragons and the magic wielding giants called Titans. Titans are an end-game monster that only appear in two places: the Land of Giants where the last big quest of the game takes place, and here. Outside the stronghold are a bunch of water elementals, so that gives you the clue that the place is not to be fucked with unless you're either level fifty, or you've got a wizard who can keep up invisibility for a few hours.
There's not even really a reason for the place to exist. It only matters for the Archer quest to become a Warrior Mage wherein you must sneak (or fight if you're crazy) your way in to find a magic bow.
The Bracada Desert
The Bracada Desert is one of the most annoying places to traverse in the game unless you have fly. It's another mountainous wasteland, only it's yellow instead of gray, which is a nice change, and it is lined with mountains built like walls that play hell with anyone trying to get anywhere on foot. There's no specific town here; all of the houses and shops are scattered around the map on top of the assorted mountain ranges, and the only way the game gives you to access them is a cluster of teleporters in the middle of the map. The teleporters are unlabelled and look exactly the same, so inevitably you'll be constantly going back and forth between them trying to find out where the damn Inn is.
Bracada is also home to the School of Magic, which is essentially a library where you can pay 500$ to get some randomly generated spell books. The school is also where some wizard promotion quests are, and the main quest you'll be coming there for is probably the golem quest. Around the entirety of Antagarich, hidden in chests that range from being easy to get to to being bugnuts insanely hard to get to, are pieces of a golden golem, much like the ones that are running around the desert. Apparently for a wizard to get promoted, they must first create a golem, but the last shipment of golem bits got lost and scattered around. If/when you get your golem done, it will either try to kill you, or it will guard your home at Harmondale. Hint for the quest: the golem head is in Bracada, but it is hard to get without the fly spell. Do not us the easily found Abbey Normal head.
Celeste
Celeste is the heavenly city of the light mages. It is accessible via a special teleporter in the Bracada Desert, but only after you've completed the royals' series of quests. Celeste is the counterpart to the necromancer's Pit, only while that place is full of necromancers, vampires, and orcs, Celeste is full of light wizards and angels. Apparently angels exist in the Might and Magic universe-- who knew? And no, there's no explanation about what kind of theological implications of having angelic citizenry on a world we know for a fact was created by ancient aliens. You can't even talk to most of them, and all the guards have to say is the generic city guard dialogue of "stay out of trouble."
The city has paths and roads, but on the sides of the roads and paths are holes full of sky. The citizens there warn you against having a "falling out," because if you walk over the edges, you better hope you have feather fall on because you'll suddenly find yourself falling from the sky over Bracada.
Deyja
Deyja is another mountainous wasteland filled with the undead, though it's mountains aren't quite as steep as the Barrow Downs'.
The main citizenry of Deyja are orcs, and while the citizens themselves won't attack you, the orc guards will. This leads to a conundrum because if you kill a guard for attacking you, the regular friendly citizens will go hostile.
On one end of Deyja, there's a small town that's home to all sorts of undesirables like the Assassin trainer who offers you delicious tea. There's also a horde of roving zombies and harpies who want to scratch your eyes out. if you follow the main road, you'll be stopped by some NPCs who want you to pay their road protection fee. Refusing will lead to an ambush.
The Pit
The Pit is the necromancers' counterpart to Celeste. While Celeste is in the sky above Bracada, the Pit is underground below Deyja. The entrance to the Pit is surrounded by harpies, but if you're at the level high enough to even consider going into the pit, then the harpies don't pose as any sort of problem.
The citizens of the pit are orcs, vampires, necromancers of various flavors, and liches. If you've sided with Gavin Magnus, they will all try to kill you except the regular orc peasantry. If you side with Archibald, then everyone is relatively friendly and won't attack you. While Celeste has the clouds that will drop you over Bracada, the Pit has pits of lava that will burn you if you walk over them.There's also another tunnel system that teleports you around the different locations in the Pit, reminiscent of the Barrows but without the switch puzzle aspect.
Mount Nighon
Nighon is a weird location in that you can either get there pretty early through the Barrow Downs, or you can completely miss the place. There's no plot-critical quests here, and the only thing it's really useful for is being a pit stop on the way to Eofol. Like Eofol, Nighon is accessible through tunnels. The Nighon Tunnels are connected to the Eofol Tunnels, which are connected to the Thunderfist Tunnels in the dwarven city in the Barrow Downs.
Unlike Eofol, Nighon isn't a mountainous terrain full of evil space demons. Instead, it's a mountainous terrain full of assorted sorcerers and giant evil birds.
The unique thing about Nighon is that, like Deyja and the Pit, I is a place run by the traditionally evil warlocks. Unlike Deyja or the Pit, the warlocks of Nighon called it quits with the Kreegan and now fight against them. The story is that the Kreegan leader, Xenofex, reneged on a deal struck with the warlocks of Nighon and left them to die in some battle or other. The Nighon warlocks fled home and have since been working against the Kreegan. In fact, on the way to Nighon in the tunnels, you will see the good-aligned dwarves and the warlocks actually working together to kill monsters, The warlocks in the tunnels and the warlocks in the towns of Nighon won't attack you, though there are some rogue warlocks in the mountains who will.
Also, fun fact, if you lead the giant eagles towards the warlocks, the two factions will fight each other and ignore you. I found Nighon at a medium-low level and essentially got stuck there, and basically flew around sicking the eagles and warlocks on each other so I could loot the corpses and make money.