Claiming the Heart of Siberys – Dungeons & Dragons: Dragonshard

This is a guide for Claiming the Heart of Siberys, Chapter 7 of the Order of the Flame campaign in Dungeons & Dragons: Dragonshard. It includes a detailed walkthrough, a handy map, and a table listing all the points you can earn throughout the mission.

Claiming the Heart of Siberys Map

Legend

1. Nexus
2. Seals of Light
3. Heart of Siberys
4. Shrines of Siberys
5. Lizardfolk Altar
6. Umbragen Nexus
7. Lizardfolk Nexus
8. Umbragen Artifact
9. Minotaurs
10. Pyrohydra
11. Mausoleum
12. Beholders
13. Marilith
14. Scorpion Folk

Exits:

• A: Tunnel.
• B: Tunnel.
• C: Tunnel.

Description

With all three Seals of Light in hand, the Order of the Flame ascends a towering peak to engage in the final battle to claim the Heart of Siberys once and for all.

Walkthrough

This last chapter is sort of a game involving the Heart of Siberys. Your goal is to power up the Heart. The Umbragen’s and Lizardfolk’s goal is to try and stop you. To power up the Heart, you’ll need to place your Seals of Light (#2) into the three special shrines on the surface (#4). Then if you can defend the shrines for long enough, you’ll win.

The Lizardfolk will attempt to steal Seals of Light from you and destroy them at a special altar (#5). They can steal Seals of Light if they’re on the ground, or after you’ve placed them into a shrine. If they succeed in destroying even one Seal of Light, then the mission will end and you will lose.

The Umbragen, meanwhile, will attempt to drain the Heart of Siberys at special places of power in the underworld (#8). They’ll need to gather five tainted priestess together to start the ceremony, and it will take a while for the draining to complete, and so you’ll have time to send a strike force at them and kill the priestesses. But if the Umbragen can drain the Heart, then once again you’ll lose.

In all, there are three Seals of Light, three shrines to place them in, an altar where they can be destroyed, and three places of power where the Umbragen might try to drain the Heart of Siberys. How can you possibly watch and protect that many places at once?

You can’t, but then you don’t really need to. It’s very easy to foil the Lizardfolk. Just select three units (we used two paladins and a cleric), have them pick up the Seals of Light (#2), and then park them inside your nexus (#1) and leave them there. If you press H so that they hold their position, then the Lizardfolk will pretty much have to destroy your entire nexus to get to them. In particular, it’ll take a long time between when the Lizardfolk army shows up and when it will be able to reach the Seals, and well before that time arrives, you should be able to bring your main army back to your nexus to help out.

The Umbragen can be a little more difficult to thwart, but they’ll rarely try to drain the Heart, and when they do, they’ll almost always use the western place of power since that’s the one closest to their nexus (#6). Since that place of power is also the one closest to your nexus, it should be the easiest one for you to get your troops to. The other two places of power require you to do some exploring, and you should do that relatively early in the chapter just so you’ll know the route in case the Umbragen try to use one of them.

And so mostly what you’ll need to do in this mission is what you’ve been doing in just about every mission: build up your nexus, build up your army, and then destroy your enemies. The underworld makes it very easy to build up your army in this chapter. You’ll find lots of gold down there, and a lot of the enemies (such as the minotaurs at #9) will re-spawn, making it easy enough to gain experience as well.

Once you’ve gotten your army built up, you should head straight for the Umbragen nexus (#6). The Umbragen and Lizardfolk don’t seem to cheat in this chapter, and as long as you fight them efficiently, they won’t gain a lot of experience, and they won’t create hundreds of troops. So once you make an attack on an enemy nexus, chances are that you’ll be able to destroy it. It’s important to attack the Umbragen first, since they’re the only ones who can really cause you to lose the chapter.

Once the Umbragen are gone, you should take over their nexus and continue to build up your army, and then take the fight to the Lizardfolk (#7). Once you’ve removed both enemy factions from the surface, the chapter becomes trivial. You’ll just need to take the Seals of Light to the three shrines (#4) around the Heart of Siberys (#3), and then once the Heart has charged up, you’ll have beaten the chapter and the campaign.

1 – Nexus

2 – Seals of Light

3 – Heart of Siberys

If you bring units close to the Heart of Siberys, it might randomly turn them into monkeys for a short period of time. As of version 1.1.4, this can detach soldiers from their captains, and so it’s best to keep away from the Heart.

4 – Shrines of Siberys

5 – Lizardfolk Altar

6 – Umbragen Nexus

7 – Lizardfolk Nexus

8 – Umbragen Artifact

The Umbragen can use these artifacts to drain power from the Heart of Siberys (#3).

9 – Minotaurs

Here you’ll find two minotaurs plus a minotaur lord. The trio will re-spawn from time to time, and each time you kill it the minotaur lord will drop a scroll of experience II. That is, this is a good spot for gaining experience.

10 – Pyrohydra

The pyrohydra will drop a sword of cinders when it dies.

11 – Mausoleum

You’ll find the mausoleum guarded by a necromancer and a few skeleton units. The necromancer will drop three rings of necromancy when it dies.

The mausoleum itself will (temporarily) grant you a skeleton fighter each time one of your non-soldier units dies.

12 – Beholders

You’ll find a trio of beholders here. They won’t drop anything exciting when they die.

13 – Marilith

The marilith probably won’t drop anything useful when it dies, but behind it you can find a talisman of vitality on the ground.

14 – Scorpion Folk

The scorpion folk will drop a scorpion stinger when it dies.

Points Chart