Caves Of Qud isn’t an easy game. In all likelihood, you’ll spend your first several hours (and restarts) just trying to survive the initial quests in the tutorial village of Joppa. Investigating Red Rock and helping Argyve build his device, both while living to tell the tale, are worth a pat on the back, but once you actually manage it, you may find yourself asking, “what now?”
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Since the world is different with each new game, there’s no perfectly right answer to that question. However, there are some options that are generally better than others.
Visit The Six Day Stilt
The best destination for a starting character is almost always the Six Day Stilt, a temple near the northwestern corner of the map. It can always be found in the northern salt desert. It’s a longer journey than any you’ll have taken to this point, so sell anything you don’t need to make sure that you have plenty of fresh water for the trip.
Before Departing
If you haven’t already done so, speak to the Mechanimist convert in Joppa (or whichever village you started your adventure in). They’ll ask you to bring a bauble to the Six Day Stilt and throw it down the ceremonial well there. If you agree, they’ll give you an odd trinket that can always be identified as either a box of crayons, a gyre iron, or a salt mill, assuming you don’t break it by accident.
Also be sure to look at the Statue of Resheph in the northeastern corner of Joppa. You can get rewarded in the Six Day Stilt for piecing together the tale of the Last Sultan’s life, and this statue always has one part of the story.
The statue still exists on the site of Joppa in games where you start elsewhere; stop by the ruins to visit it.
The salt desert is home to hostile Issachari raiders, scorpiocks, and dawngliders. Prepare for encounters by making sure that you have a ranged weapon, ideally a compound bow or a Mutant power. You can usually get an Issachar rifle off of a defeated raider, as well, so bring some lead slugs to give you some extra firepower.
Enemies In The Salt Desert
Scorpiocks have heavy armor and a paralyzing venom; axes and long blades are best for fighting them, though avoiding melee combat altogether is preferable.
Dawngliders fight from the sky, so you’ll need a ranged attack to take them down. Their fiery breath deals heavy damage and can set you on fire; if that happens, use the Wait action (either 5 on the numpad or Shift+Space) to put out the flames before they consume you.
Raiders shouldn’t be much of a problem individually, but in groups they can overwhelm you. Try to lure one or two away from the group to pick them off a few at a time.
What To Do At The Six Day Stilt
The eight screens around the temple have a randomized assortment of traders, making the Stiltgrounds one of the largest commercial hubs in the game. This is a great place to buy and sell, but you’ll need to wander around and take a look at the signs outside each stall to see who is actually selling what in each campaign.
The inside of the temple contains the sacred well where you can sacrifice trinkets and artifacts to gain reputation with the Mechanimists. If you accepted the bauble from the convert, this is where they wanted you to bring it.
You also get an impressive 1500 XP upon arrival at the Six Day Stilt for bringing the bauble to its desination.
The tent to the right at the entrance to the Stiltgrounds is home to an exile from Bey Lah, who will give you a quest to check on their homeland.. The tent on the right is a shrine to Resheph. The statue inside has another part of the Sultan’s biography, and you can speak to the priest outside to share your collected parts of the story for XP.
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Explore The West Side Of The Map
Caves Of Qud is all about exploration. If you’re really unsure of what to do, pick a direction and start walking – you’ll eventually find something interesting, at the very least. Until you reach at least Level 10, though, you should stay on the western quarter of the map. Avoid the jungles for now – wandering into them without better gear and skills can end your run very quickly.
Shrine statues and items that are painted, engraved, or embroidered usually have hints about historic sites or ruins. All you need to do is look at them to add the notes about these places to your journal. You always get some XP when you visit a new location for the first time, and many important sites have gear hidden in them that’s better than anything you could buy from traders.
Especially be on the lookout for the homes of legendary craftspeople. They don’t mind if you take the items strewn about their home, which is usually of great quality, and they sell unique goods if you’re willing to make the journey to meet them.
Travel To Grit Gate
Once you’re past Level 10, you can start thinking about continuing the main story by traveling to Grit Gate. You’ll want to bring the data disk that you got from either Argyve or one of the quest NPCs in your starting town, so that you can show it to the Barathrumites there. If you didn’t start in Joppa, you should also prepare by going to the ruins of Argyve’s shop and retrieving the droid scrambler that he would have given you if you’d met him.
Grit Gate is closer to the center of the map, so it makes a good home base for future travels.
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