Mendor's Library - Pool of Radiance

This guide will help you navigate New Phlan’s Mendor’s Library in Pool of Radiance.

Mendor’s Library Map

Area Note

The four main sections of the library (#2-5) contain books, but you might have to circle around them several times with “search” on before you’ll find them all. We found 9 books in total, but there are possibly more than that.

1 – Entry Doors

The doors to the library are difficult to open. Characters need a high strength to bash them (18/00 isn’t guaranteed to do the trick; you might have to try a few times), and thieves, if they can pick open the doors at all, have to be higher than level 4 to get the job done. Thus, the easiest way to open the doors is to use “knock,” provided you have a magic user who knows the spell.

If you take any books from the library (see #2-5), then when you leave through one of these doors, a spectre will attack you. “Thief! I defended these books in life and I will defend them in death!”

2 – Rhetoric Section

Right away in this section you’ll encounter a basilisk. The gaze of the basilisk can turn your characters to stone, so try to kill it as quickly as possible. Any character turned to stone can be cured at a temple (for 2000 gold). Once the basilisk is dead, you’ll find a potion of giant strength, a potion of healing, a cloak of displacement, and a clerical scroll with two “restoration” spells on it.

This section doesn’t seem to contain any books.

3 – History Section

In this section you can find the following books:

a) The Grand Historian’s Records of the Arts of War, which contains a “useful passage” (journal entry 21)

b) History of the North, which contains an “interesting passage” (journal entry 8)

c) Lex Geographica, which contains a map of Phlan (journal entry 37)

4 – Mathematics Section

This section doesn’t seem to contain any books.

5 – Philosophy Section

In this section you can find the following books:

a) Chronicles of Arram

b) Fyerdetha’s Discourses on Power, which contains an “interesting passage” (journal entry 7)

c) The Harmony of the Rock

d) Meditations

e) Strom’s Discussions of Poetics

f) Urgund’s Description of Darkness, which contains a “passage of interest” (journal entry 19)

6 – Gold Foil

You’ll find three sheets of gold if you “look” in each of these locations. However, as far as we can tell, there isn’t anything you can do with the sheets. (If you sell them, you’ll only get 0 gold for them.)

7 – Jar

If you “look” here you’ll find a jar with three potions of extra healing inside.

8 – Kobolds

If you allow them to surrender, the kobolds will describe the “surrounding area” to you (journal entry 10). The surrounding area is actually part of the Textile House.

9 – Mad Man

The mad man is a level 1 fighter, and if you “parlay” with him, you can add him to your party. However, since he’s level 1 he probably won’t be very useful to you, and if you take him to the Civilized District, he’ll start randomly attacking people. If there’s a way to cure the mad man, we didn’t find it, so your best bet is to “ignore” him and let him run away.

“The big one, the evil one in the castle of flowers — he is coming! It is coming!”

10 – Manual of Bodily Health

The manual is worth 25,000 gold. You can also read it, but while the manual sounds like it should add constitution to a character (and does so in other games), it doesn’t seem to do anything here.