This Guide is an overview of an area in the Demigoth Lands for Dungeon Lords. It’s made up of a map, map legend, and overview of the varying points of interest.
Main Room
When you enter this room in the Shadow Ruins, you’ll find Lord Kingston (#1) being attacked by three shadow wraiths. Don’t bother trying to help him yet; your weapons won’t do any damage to the wraiths. Instead, head through the southern shadow gate (Exit B). You’ll find yourself in the Statue Room. Go to the southern statue (#3b) and take the shadow stone that it is holding in its hands. Then return to the Main Room (via Exit B) and go through the northern shadow gate (Exit C) this time.
Note: On the western side of the Main Room, you’ll see a closed door with four runes next to it (#2). The runes here indicate your progress in the Shadow Ruins. Once you’ve activated all four rune glyphs, the door will open, revealing a shadow gate that will allow you to enter the final area (Exit D).
Water Jumping Puzzle Room
When you enter this room, you’ll automatically step onto a pressure plate (#5). The pressure plate briefly causes the shadow gate on the opposite side of the room (Exit F) to activate. Your goal is to step on the pressure plate and then jump across the platforms to get to the gate before time runs out. The problem, of course, is that the platforms go up and down, and if you land in the water at any point, you won’t have enough time to get across.
Here’s how to do it. Leave the Puzzle Room (via Exit C) and hang out with Lord Kingston in the Main Room for several seconds. (If you’ve been working on this puzzle for a while, then Kingston’s lament of being “plagued by endless torment” might take on new meaning.) If enough time has gone by, then when you return to the Puzzle Room and step on the pressure plate again, the platforms will reset and move to the “up” position.
Don’t jump yet. Instead, move to the southeastern corner of the ledge, and wait for the fourth (last) platform to start going down. When that happens, blindly jump to the location of the first platform. The platform should be coming up when you make the jump, and so you should land on it. Then make blind jumps to the other platforms, which should all be coming up as you make the jumps. If you manage to do the jumps correctly, then you should make it across in time to go through the shadow gate. If not, you’ll have to try again.
Note: The water is poisonous. If you land in the water, quickly swim to the southern platform, wait for it to raise you up, and then jump back onto the ledge to try again. Or load your game.
Another note: We’ve heard conflicting reports about whether a crystal of time can be used to make the jumps easier. We made the jumps without using the crystal.
Chess Puzzle Room
You’ll find yourself in a room containing a 4×4 grid. Each square in the grid will have a rune in it, and each column of the grid will have an Athena chessman (#7) on the opposite side. Beyond the chessman, you should notice the 
shadowslayer sword (#8), as well as a couple of chests, behind four grates. Your goal here it to make the correct moves on the grid to reach the other side without the grates dropping down.
To start the puzzle, put a shadow stone in the altar of shadows (#6). If you don’t have a shadow stone, you can get one at #3b. That will cause the grates to open. Then each time you step onto one of the grid squares, one of the Athena chessmen will take a step forward. If you make a bad move, then the grates will drop, and one of the chessmen will attack you. The chessman should drop a shadow stone when it dies, allowing you to play again.
Note: The chessmen are quick to kill, and they’re worth 11,550 experience each. So even if you figure out how the puzzle works, you might want to make a few mistakes to gain some easy experience.
The chess puzzle is a little confusing. We figured out what makes the chessmen move forward — each rune in the grid is mapped to one of the chessmen; the rune that looks like a “7” makes the chessman in the second column move forward, for example — but we couldn’t figure out what causes the puzzle to abort. Certainly, getting “too close” to a chessman can do it, but we couldn’t figure out a consistent rule for what “too close” means.
There are many solutions to the puzzle. If you number the grid squares from left to right as 1, 2, 3, and 4, and label the grid squares from north to south as A, B, C, and D, then the quickest solution we’ve seen is D2, D3, D2, C2, B2, A2. Once you’ve solved the puzzle, grab the shadowslayer sword, equip it, and return to the Main Room (via Exit G).
Statue Room
If you’re wielding the shadowslayer sword, then when you return to Lord Kingston, the shadow wraiths will start attacking you rather than him. But whereas you couldn’t damage them before, now with the shadowslayer sword, you should be able to make quick work of them.
Feel free to take this opportunity to quiz Lord Kingston. If you’re playing the Collector’s Edition, then initiating the conversation will net you 10,000 experience and a point of honor. Kingston will tell you about the sword and about how he came to be in his current predicament. He’ll also tell you to put the sword into the hands of his statue (#3a) in the Statue Room. When you do that, Kingston will appear next to you, and he’ll show you how to navigate the shadow gates in the room. Just go through each gate that he leads you to.
Once you’ve navigated the shadow gates, you’ll end up in yet another set of those island mazes in the shadow realm. To exit, take the eastern gate, then the southern gate, then the southern gate, then the southern gate, and then the northern gate. That last gate will put you on top of the pedestal in the Statue Room, and activating the rune glyph there (#4) will lower the pedestal.
Note: After activating the rune glyph, if you immediately drop off the pedestal and enter the cul-de-sac on its northern side, then the pedestal will act like an elevator, and it will take you to a secret room with two level 8 chests in it. Our best method for doing this was to stand north of the rune glyph but face south. Then if you back away as much as possible from the glyph while still leaving it in activation range, you can activate the glyph, step backwards off the pedestal, and then immediately walk to the cul-de-sac. You won’t make it inside, but the pedestal will usually “bounce” off of you, making it go up and then back down, and giving you enough time to get inside. Inside the secret room, besides the chests, you’ll also find a shadow gate that will take you back to the Statue Room.
Another note: If you manage to fall off the pedestal without activating the rune glyph, then you can navigate the shadow gates in the room to get back to the shadow realm, and then navigate the islands there to get back to the top of the pedestal. Just go through the gates in the same order that Lord Kingston led you through them before: E1, E2, E3, and then E4. This route won’t work if Kingston hasn’t shown you the way yet.
If the rune glyph in this room is your fourth and final one, then the door on the western side of the Central Room (#2) should open, revealing a shadow gate that will allow you into the final area of the ruins (Exit D).
Overview
1 – Lord Kingston
2 – Door
3 – Statues
Statue #3a is a likeness of Lord Kingston, and statue #3b holds a shadow stone. The other statues in the room aren’t important.
4 – Rune Glyph
5 – Pressure Plate
6 – Altar of Shadows
7 – Athena Chessmen
8 – Shadowslayer Sword
Exits:
- Shadow gate to the Shadow Ruins hub.
- Shadow gates between the Main Room and the Statue Room.
- Shadow gates between the Main Room and the Water Jumping Puzzle Room.
- Shadow gate to the final area of the Shadow Ruins. A door will block the gate until you’ve activated the four rune glyphs in the ruins.
- Shadow gates. These gates lead back into the Statue Room. However, after Lord Kingston (#1) has shown you the route through them, following his route — E1, E2, E3, and then E4 — will lead you back to the shadow realm so that you can reach the top of the pedestal where the rune glyph is (#4).
- One-way shadow gate to the Chess Puzzle Room.
- One-way shadow gate to the Main Room.
