Difference between revisions of "Glumf's Spectacular Faction Guide"

Revision as of 19:52, 9 June 2022

Hello and welcome to Glumf's Spectacular Faction Guide for us Ogres.

I've spent many hours grinding (mostly useless) factions, and have decided to post a list of the faction's I've worked in the hopes that it benefits someone else out there. Note that I will continue to update this as I go along my journey, but figured I'd start out with a few of the tougher-to-get factions. My goal is to be loved throughout Norrath. This guide is not going to follow any particular order, and in fact I honestly think it makes sense to lay out the factions a bit more linearly (based on what other factions are impacted), instead of strictly separating them by continent or region. As such, this guide is going to jump around a whole lot.

I should note, however, that my faction grind was performed on a level 60 Ogre Shaman (Rallos Zek diety). As such, your mileage may vary if you are a lower level and unable to kill some of the mobs I discuss in my guide. Additionally, being a shaman grants me access to Bear Form and invis, which are both great tools for factioning, as some turnins may require a faction boost, or the invis trick to perform. This doesn't mean to say that if you are not a shaman that you can't follow the same path. Bear Form, for example, can usually be replicated by Shared Wolf Form, Tree Illusion (Illusionists Stone), or Earth Elemental illusion (Ball of Golem Clay). Let's cut to the chase.

Untangling the mess of Gnomes

Deep Muses

These are the "good aligned" clerics and rogues within Ak'Anon. This can be raised by killing Clockwork SmithXIII in the Bertoxxulous tunnels of Ak'Anon. He is a merchant, and therefore will not drop loot, but is a much easier alternative to some of the other mobs in the area (i.e. Guildmasters) that would raise the same faction. Note that there are other merchants in the tunnels that you may find to kill if you're looking to speedrun raising this faction, but I've found this guy is an easy AFK kill. He is also out of range of the cleric guildmasters that tend to heal some of the other merchants. My best guess for the specific faction numbers on this guy are:

DarkReflection (-30)

DeepMuses (10)

EldritchCollective (10)

GemChoppers (10)

Dark Reflection

These are the "evil aligned" (i.e. Bertox) gnomes within Ak'Anon. This is my next challenge after gaining DarkMuses, and will post the specifics of repairing this once I complete it. At this point, my game plan is to scour Ak'Anon for various Clockworks and murder as necessary in order to gain Dark Reflection, without losing DeepMuses. Clockworks will have the following faction gains/hits:

Eldritch Collective (-30)

Gem Choppers (-30)

King Ak'Anon (Faction) (-30)

Dark Reflection (10)

Meldrath (10) - this is one faction I don't really care about, so will likely not make much of an effort to raise it, but doing so would only require the murder of additional Clockworks

Eldritch Collective

This is the "good aligned" caster guild within Ak'Anon. For some reason these guys are tangled up with the Dark Elves (loremasters feel free to chime in as to why), but raising Eldritch Collective will usually cause a hit to The Dead faction (Dark Elf Necros/SKs). There are quite a few options for this, many of which include killing SKs throughout Neriak. I, however, decided to kill Kizdean Gix, as he's typically an easy kill that I can get every time I'm running through WC (those kills add up!). His (and other Neriak SKs) will be as follows:

Queen Cristanos Thex (-30) - As far as I can tell, there are no mobs on P99 specifically on this faction.

The Dead (-30)

Eldritch Collective (10)

Keepers of the Art (10)

King Naythox Thex (10) - As far as I can tell, there are no mobs on P99 specifically on this faction.

Primordial Malice (10) - This is not a useful faction, as there are no mobs in P99 that are impacted by it, so I'm happy to tank it.

Gem Choppers and King Ak'Anon

Gem Choppers are the Ak'Anon guards, and King Ak'Anon is pretty self explanatory. Both of these can be raised by slaughtering within the Minotaur Caves in Steamfont. Note, however, that you will reduce your Maldrath faction by killing these guys. For your run of the mill Minotaur Slaver (and others):

Meldrath (-30)

Gem Choppers (10)

King AkAnon (10)

With enough repetitions of the above, Ak'Anon should be sorted out, but you'll have taken significant hits to The Dead, so let's move on to the Dark Elves.

Getting in good with the Dark Elfses

The Dead

As mentioned previously, these are the SKs and Necros of Neriak. This is surprisingly a fairly easy faction to recover. Dragoon Szorn is your main man for this. His respawn timer is approximately an hour, but he has some pretty big faction gains for killing him:

Indigo Brotherhood (-75)

King Naythox Thex (-30) - As far as I can tell, there are no mobs on P99 specifically on this faction.

King Tearis Thex (100)

Queen Cristanos Thex (100) - As far as I can tell, there are no mobs on P99 specifically on this faction.

The Dead (75)

Indigo Brotherhood

This is the warrior guild of Neriak. This is fairly easily raised as well by slaughtering the halflings in Nektulos. I used my Iksar Monk alt (I don't care about his faction) to kill the halflings and loot their Leatherfoot Skullcaps (these are tradable). Turning in 4 of these caps to Narex T'Vem in the warrior guild will result in a hefty faction gain with the Indigo Brotherhood. Note that if you are KoS to these guys, you may need to stand around the wall from Narex, open trade, then cast invis on yourself before pressing trade.

IndigoBrotherhood (50)

EmeraldWarriors (-7)

SteelWarriors (-2)

PrimordialMalice (-100) - This is not a useful faction, as there are no mobs in P99 that are impacted by it, so I'm happy to tank it.

The Spurned

This is the Caster guild of Neriak. As far as I can tell, the only way to raise this is to turn in the Halfing Druid Master's Head to Draxiz N'Ryt in Neriak (can be done at dubiously). Don't forget using an OVP can boost your faction by 100, which may get you to dubious if you are not already there.

The Spurned (10)

The Dead (-1)

Priests of Innoruuk

The cleric guild of Neriak. Do the Innoruuk's Recommendation quest to raise these guys quickly - simply involves delivering a letter from East Freeport to Neriak. The letter comes from Saxarivza Zaxun who is in the tunnels of East Freeport. You can obtain the letter while KoS if you move over her on the Z-axis and say the quest phrase. Resulting faction from the turn-in in Neriak:

Priests of Innoruuk (200)

King Naythox Thex (30)

Priests of Marr (-70)

Clerics of Tunare (-50)

Priests of Life (-30)

Primordial Malice (-800)

Dark Bargainers, Dreadguard Inner, and Dreadguard Outer

Dark Bargainers relates to merchants around Neriak, and the two Dreadguards are various guards in Neriak. Very easy faction to raise. Load up on red wine and do the Bottle of Red Wine quest in Neriak C. Hand him 4 unstacked bottles of red wine for 4 faction gains. Repeat until maxed. There's a bar nearby to buy red wine.

Dreadguard Outer (1)

Dreadguard Inner (1)

Dark Bargainers (10)

The Human Cycle (but not all hoomans)

The are obviously a lot of pesky humans kicking around Norrath, and they're very needy with their factions. Let's work on repairing some of the factions we've wrecked so far - the Steel Warriors, and the Priests of life. Spoiler, this is going to have impacts on other pesky human factions, and we'll sort them out as well. But first things first, let's fix up the Freeport Paladins.

Knights of Truth, Commons Residents, Ashen Order, and Guardians of the Vale

Plain and simple - go slaughter orcs in EC. You need to kill loads of these little buggers. I bashed every orc pawn I saw while running through EC/WC, but when I got determined to grind, I parked my pet at one orc camp, and I stayed at the other. I made a macro to have my pet attack every type of orc (5 separate macro lines of /pet attack orc_c, /pet attack orc_o, /pet attack orc_a, /pet attack orc_p, /pet attack orc_l). Be sure to hang on to any Deathfist Slashed Belts you may come across, as we'll need them later. The important faction here is the Knights of Truth, as this is going to be part of the great balancing act of Steel Warriors, Freeport Militia, and Dismal Rage.

The wiki lists the following factions for killing these orcs, but I'm certain these gains/hits are not accurate. I believe the gains are likely 1 faction per kill.

Deathfist Orcs (-30)

Ashen Order (10)

Commons Residents (10)

Guardians of the Vale (10)

Knights of Truth (10)

Steel Warriors and Priests of Marr

The Steel Warriors are the Warriors of Qeynos and Freeport and the Priests of Marr are the Freeport Clerics. There are no good mobs to kill without wrecking everything else, so we're going to fix it with bottles of milk, naturally. Before starting this, make sure to have sufficient faction with the Knights of Truth. Load up on milk and head to West Commonlands. Load up Mojax Hikspin with as much milk as you have - the guy loves the stuff. He'll give you the following faction per turn in:

Knights of Truth (1)

Dismal Rage (-1)

The Freeport Militia (-1)

Priests of Marr (1)

Steel Warriors (1)

BE CAUTIOUS - do not tank your Dismal Rage faction too far, as it could be difficult to do the next step. This is a balancing act that results in net gains for each of Steel Warriors, Dismal Rage, and Freeport Militia, but you must be able to complete the quests in order to do them. DO NOT TANK DISMAL RAGE.

Dismal Rage and Opal Dark Briar

Ok cool - we just lowered our faction with these dudes thanks to giving some random paladin some milk, so obviously we need to show some loving to the necros of Freeport by giving them bone chips. Load up on bone chips and head to the East Freeport Tunnels. Xelha Nevagonnagiveyouup is located in the necromancer guild. Give her 4 bone chips (unstacked). Again, try not to wreck your Knights of Truth Faction here, but if you do, go kill some Orcs. Additionally, this raises Opal Dark Briar, who is a random dark elf necro hanging out in the tunnels.

Dismal Rage (5)

Knights of Truth (-1)

Opal Dark Briar (1)

The Freeport Militia

Remember when we milked Mojax? Well that helped to ruin our Freeport Militia faction, the East Freeport and West Freeport guards. Remember when I told you to hang on to those Deathfist Slashed Belts? Ok great - now take those belts and go turn them in to Captain Hazran in West Freeport. If you're KOS, you can try some of the faction tricks (i.e. wolf form or invis). I personally was KoS even in Wolf Form, so I needed to go stand under Captain Hazran, open up the trade screen with 4 belts, and then invis myself and press trade. The following faction gains/hits result from the turn in:

The Freeport Militia (5)

Coalition of Tradefolk Underground (1)

Knights of Truth (-1)

Priests of Marr (-1)

Note that our cycle of Milking Mojax, Bonechipping Xelha Neva, and Belting Mr. Hazran have each given us a positive ratio of the factions we're looking for. Cycle these three quests as needed to repair these factions.

I find it interesting that killing a Gnome Cleric can ultimately result in you needing to go back to this cycle. That is, Killing a gnome cleric results in lowering Deep Muses. To fix that you need to lower Dark Reflection. To fix that you need to lower Eldritch Collective. To fix that you need to lower The Dead. To fix that to need to lower Indigo Brotherhood. To fix that you need to lower Steel Warriors. To fix that you need to lower Dismal Rage. To fix that you need to give Xelha bone chips. It feels like all roads lead to the need for bone chips. Just a little tidbit I thought I'd throw in here to give you a sense of how much of a spiderweb the factions in this game are. Kinda neat.

Leezards and Chips

I'm going to explain how to fix lizards. Not because it has any relevance to the previous factions we've discussed, but because it's kind of a one-off faction as a whole that also relies on bone chips. Unless you are an Iksar, you're probably KoS in Cabilis. Don't worry, we can fix that right up. Notably, Iksars have a ridiculously bad faction modifier to any non-lizards. From my testing as a Rallos Zek Ogre, it seems like I had a -500 faction modifier for being Rallos Zek, and a -500 modifier from being an ogre. I think most people will be in the same boat for the racial modifier, but I'm somewhat sure that if you follow Cazic Thule you will not be hit with the -500 modifier, making this (a bit of) an easier faction to obtain. Lizards can be broken into two types: Necros and Everything Else.

Brood of Kotiz

These are the Necro Lizards (sick band name). You've got two options for this, but they are both essentially the same. Option 1) Go to Swamp of No Hope and enter the tunnel to Trakanon's Teeth. In there you will find a camp of 9 Iksar Exiles. Kill them. Option 2) This my preferred method - go to Warsliks Woods and enter the tunnel to Lake of Ill Omen. There are roughly 15 forsaken Iksars in here that need killing. I prefer this method because while you're waiting for the tunnels to respawn there are other forsaken lizards around that can be killed. My cycle was to clear the tunnels, run up to the lake and kill the 6 that spawn there, follow the river to the ruins and kill the 6 that spawn there, then run up to the path that kill the 3 that spawn in the ruins at the T intersection. Rinse and repeat killing any others you may see on your way. Either method will work. The follow faction gains are received from killing a single forsaken lizard:

The Forsaken (-30 or -10) - I didn't care about fixing this faction, as it's just roamer enemy NPCs that are on this.

Brood of Kotiz (1)

Legion of Cabilis (1)

Do not be fooled by the Wiki. In fact, this is the reason you're here at Glumf's Spectacular Faction Guide - for the cold, hard answers. The wiki will tell you that some Forsaken Lizards (Pariah and above) give 10 faction to Brood of Kotiz per kill. Don't believe it. They give 1. You need to kill a whole lot of these guys to get to dubious to Necro Lizards.

Scaled Mystics, Crusaders of Greenmist, Cabilis Residents, Swift Tails and Legion of Cabilis

These are every other type of lizard. However, in order to do this, you will need to have raised your Legion of Cabilis faction to at least dubiously. This is where the bone chips come in. Go get yourself 10,000 or so bone chips and turn them all in (4 at a time only, unstacked) to Trooper Mozo in the Field of Bone. Prepare for carpal tunnel. Each turn in results in:

Legion of Cabilis (1)

Cabilis Residents (1)

Scaled Mystics (1)

Crusaders Of Greenmist (1)

Swift Tails (1)

Halflingers

Let's switch gears again and hop over to the halflings of Rivervale for no particular reason.

Merchants of Rivervale, Deep Pockets, and Mayor Gubbin

By now if you've taken up the Factionquest task, you're most likely already friendly with the Guardians of the Vale due to all of your Orc killing. If not, go check out the section on Human Paladins (or just go kill Orcs). This part of the guide discusses gaining faction with the Merchants, Rogues, and Mayor of the City. To start, go load up on Bandages. As many as you can hold. Next, head over to Misty Thicket and find Joogl Honeybugger's hut. Give him loads of bandages. Each turn in will result in:

Merchants of Rivervale (1)

DeepPockets (1)

Guardians of the Vale (1)

Mayor Gubbin (1)

Coalition of Tradefolk Underground (-1)

Storm Reapers

The druids of Rivervale. Head into the inn in the center of the town and find Blinza Topopal. She appears to have lost her stew delivery sidekick, Jillin, and needs you to deliver stew instead. Tell her you'll take the stew, and then head over to the bank building. In the first room behind the bank you'll find Deputy Lowmot. Give him the stew. Rinse and repeat. For you extra daring individuals, you can try agroing Blinza and dragging her to the hallway right in front of Deputy Lowmot. If root her there and cycle camp, or simply memblur her there, you can make a macro to target Blinza, hail her, and say you'll take the stew. Doing this allows you to spam your macro and give the stew to Lowmot in quick succession. Each turn in will result in:

Guardians of the Vale (1)

Mayor Gubbin (1)

Storm Reapers (1)

Merchants of Rivervale (1)

Dreadguard Outer (-1)

If you need to fix Dreadguard Outer, it's easily fixed with the bottle of red wine quest as described in the Dark Elfses section above.

Clerics of Mischief

This is the Clerics of Riverval. Oh boy does raising this faction suck. You are going to need to pull out every trick in the book to make this happen, but it's doable. Your main man here is Beek Guinders in the cleric guild. This quest requires that you obtain ruined wolf pelts, black wolf skins, and berries - all of which are a pain to get. My recommendation is to go search the merchants outside of Rivervale for the wolf pelts an skins, and hunt down a druid with a pile of foraged berries. I also randomly found quite a bit of success in the shops in Neriak for the Black Wolf Skins. If you're already KoS (and I'm assuming you are if you're here), you're going to need to do some combination of: Use an OVP, use bear form or wolf form, or pull him to an area that you can line-of-sight him, have someone hail lock him, and do your turn ins with the invis trick. This took me a very long time to complete, but it's doable - don't let anyone tell you otherwise! Here's the gains per turn in:

Priests of Mischief (3)

Mayor Gubbin (1)

Guardians of the Vale (1)

Good luck with this one.

EruDONE

Halflings always make me thing of Erudites, so we're setting sail over to Odus (shoutout DMO).