Darkforge is a mid to late game area in
Ancient Domains of Mystery. The entrance, "A long and
non-descript tunnel.", can be found in the mountains just to the south of the old
barbarian's forest. It contains various powerful
constructs, caches of
armor,
gold, and weapons, a room full of
pools, a guaranteed hammer and anvil (you'll have to fight for these), nine forges, a guaranteed artifact, two quests with artifact rewards, and a shortcut to the lower
Caverns of Chaos.
Darkforge is composed of two floors. The top floor is completely random, but will have a gauranteed steel golem standing on the down stairs. The second floor looks like this:
-------------------###########------------------------------------------#####
----------##########.#.......#------##################------------------#...#
-######---#.......##.#######.#------#^^^^^^^^^^Y+ar..#############-######.@.#
-#.+..###-#.#####.##.....#-#.#--#####+###########.mor##.+...=====#-#...##...#
-#.###..###.#---#.##+############Y.......Y###---#is..##.####=====#-###.###.##
-#$$$##..##.#---#............##Y...........Y#---#here##.#--#POOLS#####.##Y.Y#
-#$$$###..#.###-######+##.#####......&......###########.#--#=====##.##.###.##
#########.#...#######..##.####......&.&......##.........#--########.##.##Y.Y#
#.......1...#.#....##.##.....+.....&.h.&.....+1.############------#.##.###.##
#.###########...##.##.##.#####......&.&......##.# #........#------#....##Y.Y#
#.################..+....#---##......&......###.######.############.######.##
#.##Y#Y#Y#Y#Y#Y################Y...........Y#-#...#--#....##....1...#---#Y.Y#
#.................#---#(((((((###Y.......Y###-###.#--#1##.##.####.########.##
####Y#Y#Y#Y#Y#Y##.##--#(((((((# #####+#####-----#.####.##.##.## #.##.......#-
---#####1#######...#--#weapons#######^#---------#......##.....# #.##.#######-
------#^^^#----#.>.#--#(((((((+Y^^^^^^#---------#################.##.#-------
------#^Y^#----#...#--#################----------------------#.......#-------
------#####----#####-----------------------------------------#########-------
(1 == secret door)
Monsters
All of the
Y's above are the guaranteed
steel golems. The
h in the center is
Kherab, the dwarven artificier, who is initially nonhostile and will stay that way unless you attack him. Randomly generated around the bottom floor will be the following monsters:
With the exception of Kherab lightning is extremely useful against every single one of these monsters. With Lightning Bolt (Cleric: Divine Wrath) at 25 or better effectivity, or Lightning Ball (Cleric: Heavenly Fury) at any effectivity at all, Darkforge is ridiculously easy to clear out.
All of these monsters are also immune to fire and extremely resistant to cold. Kherab is not an exception.
Armory
The armor and weapons rooms, marked above, contain various completely random weapons and armor. It's worth picking up all of the items and reading a blessed
scroll of identify, since it's possible to find artifacts and
dragon scale mail. If you found
red and/or
blue DSM, you're in the money, because dragon scale mail gives you an immunity depending on the color; red is fire and blue is lightning. Fire immunity is great for the
Tower of Eternal Flames, likewise with lightning in the
air temple.
Even if you don't get any artifacts or dragon scales, a blessed ID will let you pick out good equipment (brutal adamantium longsword of devastation).
Pools
The pools are the easiest thing to reach from the entrance, since you only need to beat your way through the first hall of steel golems to reach them. The room will contain 6-17 pools of random colors, surrounded by water. Draining all of the pools could very well net you one or more
wishes, which is a reasonable way of getting an
amulet of life saving for
Khelavaster. The best way to do this is while wearing the (blessed)
ankh, with the
fate smiles and
lucky intrinsics, and with some backups for any intrinsics you'd hate to lose (
teleport control,
teleportitis,
foo resistance, etc).
Stop drinking from pools when if you are doomed. You cannot get a wish from a pool if you are doomed.
The messages for dooming from a pool are:
- "You become depressive."
- "You feel very very bad."
- "You continue the trip on the road to nowhere."
The
ADOM Guidebook, located at
http://www.andywlms.com/adom/adomgb-toc.html, contains a list of every pool message and what it means under 'Dungeon Features'. I highly suggest using it while draining the pools in Darkforge, or anywhere else.
Forges
There are nine
forges in Darkforge. The extra eight basically just look neat, you only ever need one.
Kherab carries an
anvil, which is a rare item that you are only guaranteed to find in the hands of
Kherab and
Glod, the smith in
Dwarftown. Kherab is a
chaotic, evil person and killing him has no negative consequences unless you want to do his quests, or don't want to become more
lawful. His quests are fairly useless, however, and killing Glod has far worse consequences: huge
alignment drop, making all of
Dwarftown hostile, possibly killing the
demented ratling if
Dwarftown becomes hostile. Kherab is fairly tough, however. He has a powerful melee attack, regenrates, is immune to fire, and uses
eternium quarrels.
So, if you just killed Kherab, you might want to start smithing on the spot. You really shouldn't, however. Assuming you can lug an anvil around for a while, a better place to look for a forge would be the Uninteresting Dungeon. There is almost always at least one forge there, and the entire dungeon in non-corrupting, while the bottom floor of Darkforge actually has accelerated corruption.
The Shortcut
The down stairs in the map above lead to the lower
Caverns of Chaos, one or two floors below the
casino. The shortcut is blocked off, either by a
wall of flames or a guardian, until you use the matching stairs in the
CoC. Also, if you passed the
Eternal Guardian through trickery (ie. luring him off of the stairway), and not by showing him the
Ring of the High Kings, then the
shortcut will only work going up.
Artifacts
Three artifacts are available in Darkforge, two of them from Kherab's quests. The Crown of Science is in the small, hidden, trap-filled room with one golem in the southwest. It's a popular item to feed to the demented ratling, because it's guaranteed in every single game, not terribly hard to find, autocursing, and curses/dooms you. It's also sometimes used to become doomed and cursed, because that means more wilderness encounters, and more wilderness encounters means more giant boars, and more giant boars means a higher chance of finding a giant boar skull.
The next two artifacts are lame, and a lot of trouble to get. They are the Shield and Amulet of Raw Steel. They are the rewards, respectively, for Kherab's first and second quests.
The shield gives you +18/+12 DV/PV, +8 To, poison resistance, and fire/cold immunity. The amulet gives you +12 Pe, +3/+3 DV/PV, sleep, stun, and death ray resistance, and see invisible. This all really fucking awesome. Unfortunately, they both contain the essence of Chaos and Corruption. What this means is, even just carrying them around will accelerate your corruption. God help you if you wear them. Unless you have corruption removal shooting out of your ass, these are not good long-term options. You can always sell, sacrifice, or feed the artifacts, but just getting them has a wide range of negative effects.
Kherab's Quests