Kedge Keep

Description

Kedge Keep is the ancient fortress of the Kedge, an aquatic race of beings whose civilization perished centuries ago. A few of the kedge can be found within, but mostly the other inhabitants of the Keep stay inside. The Temple to the god Prexus is also hidden within the aquatic depths of the Keep.

Location Key

Note in the above map that the lettered areas are shafts of water that extend in and out of the page.

A "The Hole" a shaft that goes down from First Floor to Second Floor and keeps going down into the "Piranha Pit" where Ravenous Stiletto Fang Piranha spawns

B Shaft down from Second Floor

C Shaft up from Second Floor to #4

D "Bubble's Tube" a shaft down from Second Floor to opening to north and eventually to #3

E Shaft up to #14

1 "First Floor" with Fierce Impaler who drops Gloomwater Harpoon (Common) and Darksea Harpoon (Rare)

2 "Second Floor"

3 "Bubble's Den" with Cauldronbubble who drops Sharkbone Warhammer (Common) and Hammerhead Helm (Rare)

4 Room with Golden Haired Mermaid who drops Lock of Mermaid Hair

5 "Fallen Gate Room" with shaft to east which leads downwards

6 "Safe Den"

7 "The Balcony" which is a common pull spot for Estrella

8 "Estrella's Temple" with Estrella of Gloomwater who drops Rod of Drones (Common) and Lamentation Blade (Common) and Prayer Shawl (Rare) and Shellara Ebbhunter who drops Gloomwater Arrow (Common) and Pearlescent Mask (Rare)

9 "Temple of Prexus" with Undertow who drops Blazing Wand (Common) and Squallsurge Shawl (Rare)

10 Spawn spot of Coralyn Kelpmaiden who drops Sharkbone Warhammer (Common) and Sharkskin Drum (Rare)

11 "Seahorse Caves" with Seahorse Matriarch who drops Rod of Health (Common) and Shield of Prexus (Rare)

12 "The Crossroads"

13 "Boil's Lair" with Cauldronboil who drops Sharkjaw Cutlass (Common) and Kedgemail Gauntlets (Rare)

14 "Frenzied Room" with Frenzied Cauldron Shark who drops Shark Tooth (Common) and Abalone Gorget (Rare)

15 "Patriarch's Room" with Seahorse Patriarch who drops Wand of Ice (Common) and Seahorse Scale Cloak (Rare)

16 "Ferocious Room" with Ferocious Cauldron Shark who drops Wand of Shadow (Common) and Driftwood Treasure Chest (Rare)

17 Room with Phinigel Autropos who drops any of the following: Blue Crystal Staff, Robe of the Kedge, Rod of Malisement, Staff of Elemental Mastery, Trident of Seven Seas, Wand of Mana Tapping

Astuce's Guide to Kedge Keep

note: Kedge Keep is 99 percent fixed on p99, Haynar is a god. The only outstanding bug has to do with targetting and getting pets to attack the mobs right away and can be overcome by toggling target or getting in melee range and then switching targets.

Kedge Keep is awesome. The only reason it's empty most of the time is because people are scared of facing the unknown. This guide will attempt to shed some light on all the camps available there so that more people come visit my favorite dungeon. Happy swimming!

The first camp in KK is the first zone in room. There are lancer swordfish that spawn there, about 6-8, and 1 piercer swordfish. All those fish are placeholders for either the impaler swordfish, or the fierce impaler who can drop gloomwater harpoon or darksea harpoon. These are some of the best xp mobs in the game, even as light blue cons they will give more xp than any other camp in the game. Pacify or calm animal is the best way to pull those to the zone in, and make sure you pull them in all the way, or else you can get adds after the initial lull wears off.

The second camp, which can sometimes be done with the first camp depending on your group, is the second floor. There are 2-3 piercer swordfish, 1 stiletto fang pirhana, 1 cauldron shark on the main level. The best way to pull those is to invis up on the first floor, drop down the shaft, target the piranha, then target the shark. Swim back up into the shaft, and pacify both (don't need line of sight). Invis again and then target 1 or 2 piercers (1 if there's 2, 2 if there's 3) and then swim back up the shaft and pacify the one or two. Swim back down visible and get aggro from the one that wasn't pacified, and pull it up to the first floor. Rinse and repeat until the whole floor is cleared. After that is done, there are two piranha's at the bottom of the shaft, lower than the second floor, one is the placeholder for the ravenous pirhana, who doesn't drop anything.

Still as part of the second camp, once the second floor is clear, if you go in the south wing but swim up instead of down it will lead you to a room with three spawns (4 on EQatlas map); one in the ceiling, and two in the little room. The one in the middle of the room is the placeholder for the golen haired mermaid, who drops the rain caller piece every time.

Third camp is from the second floor, swim east, then drop all the way down (3 on EQatlas map). It will be a single room with 2 cauldron or hammerhead sharks, one is the placeholder for cauldronbubble, who drops the hammerhead helm. If you choose to fight him in the shaft and not in his room it is important to consider that one mermaid will roam all the way into the shaft, so either you fight him in between her patrols, or you kill her first. Once bubble room is cleared there are 2 mermaid rooms that are easily accessible from the middle of the shaft, one has 3 spawns (one mermaid is halfway in ceiling), the other has 2 spawns. Shellara Ebbhunter routinely spawns in those rooms, any mermaid can be her placeholder but she seems to really like those rooms. She commonly drops gloomwater arrow and rarely the perlescent mask (monk only, awesome item). If you have enough firepower you can also take down the 2 mermaids above Estrella's temple (8 on Eqatlas map), easy to pull if you switch to 3rd person view right as you're coming out of the tunnel and pacify. Once they're both down, again it will be up to the quality of your group to decide if you can take out mermaids from the temple or not.

If you are interested in killing mermaids but someone is already camping cauldronbubble room, you can move to the safe den (6 on EQatlas map), nothing spawns there and you can pull from either the 2 mermaid rooms and/or the temple directly. Mermaids are druids, and on p99 they unfortunately have access to much more spells than they should (fixation of ro and ro's fiery sundering mainly), it is imperative to dispell them completely, makes the fight a lot easier, stuns are also a big big help, they have the same loot table as seafuries and routinely drop cash loots worth 100pp+.

Estrella herself is never up (thank you solo'ing chanters), but if for some reason she is, she will summon and is one of the 4 mobs in the zone that sees invis. She can be solo pulled if you pacify the 4 guards around her. She has mostly crap drops but her rare is the prayer shawl, the best droppable wis shoulders in game for priests.

Next camp is the undertow area (room where you see 9 and 10 on EQatlas map). This room is one of the reasons I love kedge. It's great dungeon design at work. The best spot as a group to camp that area is the southwest corner of the big room. It is safe to appear there except of course for the little cerulean sailfin types, the little fishies with like 50hp and an up to 400hp random AE nuke. In the middle part of the room, there are 5 missing tiles in the ceiling. In those spots there are 5 stilleto fang piranha's. They are weaker than their cousins from the 2nd floor. They can be easily single pulled without pacify as long as you swim really high and then move to their spots one by one instead of swimming close to the ground and getting in the line of sight of many of them at once. Either way, even with 2-3 of them at once it's a fairly easy fight. They are also recommended as semi-permanent pets for enchanters who want to practice charming in a group setting without too much risk.

Once the 5 piranha's are dispatched, you can pull the mermaid in the other corner of the room (10 on EQatlas map), she's the placeholder for Coralyn Kelpmaiden, who drops the sharkskin drums. You dont have to pacify the seahorses close to her she will come single. After that you can kill the 2 seahorses in the little alcove where undertow spawns (9 on EQatlas map). Seahorses can be either druids or clerics, they are also very important to dispell, and stun, and as clerics, they can complete heal. Once those two are done if undertow or his placeholder is up (8 hour respawn), he will be at the top of the dome of that little room, he's not that tough and is once again usually chanter solo'ed so you won't see him.

Further in this camp, depending on firepower again, you can start killing the seahorse caves. In the first room there's 3 static spawns, and 1 roamer. Pacify your way but expect to fight them 2 at once, so a chanter to mez or charm or a bard to charm (most of the time they're too high for a bard to mez) is recommended here. Once you've taken care of the 4 horses you can pull the seahorse matriarch (11 on EQatlas map), who drops shield of prexus (permanent enduring breath).

Backing up to the 2nd floor, if you take the south wing, it will lead you to other camps in the zone. The first one you run into is cauldronboil room (nice hybrid gloves, 13 on EQatlas map). There are 3 sharks in that room and one mermaid in a jail cell. It's not recommended to do that camp in that room because of how little spawns there are, unless you are max xp and only looking for the gloves. You can pull to the crossroads (12 on EQatlas map) as there is only a bull shark (rarely frenzied bull shark) that roams there sometimes and he's relatively weak. Experts of the zone will also point out that from the crossroads is another way into Estrella's temple (8 on eqatlas map), but I'm trying to keep it somewhat coherent (sorry if I failed!).

Further in this area you will reach the bottom of a shaft (E on EQatlas map) which leads to frenzied room (14 on EQatlas map). Using the same technique as shown for the second floor, this is a good spot to invis and get 2 targets to pacify the sharks in the room. There are 3-6 sharks in that room, the number varies from spawn cycle to spawn cycle. The frenzied cauldron shark can spawn in that room, common drop is shark tooth and rare is the abalone gorget. Once that room is cleared, it is recommended to move into the room, on the east side. There's a nice open area to set up camp and continue pulls there from many camps at once. You can easily reach boil room (13 on map), and you can also pull the patriarch room (15 on EQatlas map), there's only 2 seahorses in that room usually, one of which is the placeholder for seahorse patriarch, who's a very high level wizard that rarely drops the seahorse scale cloak. The only other mob that rarely spawns in that room is the frenzied shark (very weak mob) who has the same loot as the other frenzied sharks in the zone. Once the seahorses are dispatched you have ferocious room (16 on EQatlas map) which is a single spawn shark that once in a blue moon will drop the driftwood treasure chest.

The last place left is phinny's temple (17 on map). It is safe to swim around the ledges visible, the only mobs in that room are the 4 swirlspine seahorses that guard phinny and phinny himself when he's up and they all see invis anyway. Most raids/groups set up on the NW corner of that room. To pull phinny most people will actually use either a cleric or a necro or someone with a shiny brass idol. The idea is to aggro all 4 seahorses and pull them away from the room, then have someone else go tag phinny and pull him up to the west ledge of the room. Once the seahorses come back they dont interfere with the battle. Phinny himself is not that tough, just make sure to have your resists up if you fight him with a tank, as he will nuke a lot. He will also pillage enchantment (4 slot dispell) so it's important to have either an EB item or a bard that sings EB song constantly on those fighting him up close. Most guilds tend to not even use any tanks and just have pets fight him.

Once phinny is dead you can still fight the swirlspines. They are extremely high MR mobs so you must have a FD puller to split them (until mez push is fixed for bards, no I won't explain here). They are cleric mobs with a very large mana pool, and they will c-heal (sometimes 4 times in a fight) so bring lots of dps and/or people who can bash. Any time a swirlspine seahorse dies, a swirlspine guardian MAY spawn. It spawns below, where phinny was, and it is not social with any other mob, meaning if you have 2-4 guardians up, you can just pull them one by one without worry. The guardian is very similar to the regular swirlspine, and it can drop the swirlspine belt (4 ac 16 percent haste). If the guardian isn't engaged within a few minutes (less than 10 mins I'd say, not exactly sure) it will despawn.

I hope this guide will help some people feel a bit more adventurous and try one of the best dungeons ever made!

Astuce

Dangers

This dungeon is a very unique place in which to adventure. Unlike all the other places in all the lands, the entire dungeon is underwater. This alone requires that any group adventuring within have a fair amount of planning before travelling within, and so it is also one of the least inhabited dungeon in the entire game. You will never hear someone yell "camp check!" in all your time here, that much I can guarantee.

The uniqueness of this zone makes it dangerous for a few reasons that someone adventuring within needs to take into account when hunting there, regardless of what you hunt. First of all the zone is entirely underwater. That means that anyone going inside has to have some way of breathing underwater, either through an item, a spell, or a bard song. Make sure to keep ahead of this if you are using a spell to breathe with, since it can run out like any other and death by drowning is fast. This can also make corpse recovery difficult, since all of the above require an item to take advantage of.

The second problem is that the dungeon is one of the few that extends up and down as much as it extends in the traditional directions. This can be dangerous if you use any area-of-effect type of spell or song, because all of the creatures above and below you in the dungeon will feel this as well. Be aware if and what rooms and monsters are above and below you when you cast a spell. For instance, say you are pulling the Second Floor into the east room, and someone (I won't say who) casts an AoE rain spell, for instance. This will affect the monsters you are fighting, but will also affect the monsters below you, in this case, area #3 on the map. They will then actively engage in the next problem...

Pathing and popping are the next two largest problems. Pathing in the Keep is a constant pain, since creatures move along very non-intuitive lines when they come to you after a pull. It seems intuitive that a fish across a room from you, when shot with an arrow, would turn towards you and move in, following you as you go. Unfortunately, this isn't always the case. If you pull with the creature right on you, it will follow you pretty well. If you don't, however, the fish will, if you're lucky, follow a circuitous route around the perimeter of the room to meet you. If you are unlucky, it will turn and swim out of the room or just get stuck somewhere. At this point it will do the next fun trick, and will pop to where you are. The puller swims back, no fish in sight, and POP! the fish is directly in the middle of the group, hopefully without too many additional friends it found along the way. In the above example for the vertical dungeon, the popping fish would be Cauldronbubble, not a fish you want dropping in unannounced. Also, along these lines, using spells that cause fear or slow a creature on the pull, or losing track of a pet, will likely cause the creature to get lost, only to pop back with many enemies. If this happens, it's better to evac and figure things out later...

Now for specific dangers. There is one fish that everyone should be aware of, and that is the Shimmering Sailfin. This fish, when killed, can occasionally explode causing 400 points of AoE damage. Also, killing off the sailfins that can be frequently seen floating around will cause the more dangerous and aggressive piranhas to start spawning, which can cause problems if you're in for a long camp.

Two of the rarer spawns bear mention. The first that most groups will encounter is Estrella of Gloomwater. She is quite possibly harder to take down that Phinigel himself, and even if this isn't true, the possibility makes the point that she is no pushover. She is highly aggressive with a large aggro radius, can see through invisibility, has several guardians (all of whom can see through invis as well), and is a formidable caster. She can dispel your buffs ("Enduring Breath, anyone? Please!?!"), blind you, and if that's not enough, summon you to her to finish the job.

The other rare spawn is Phinigel Autropos himself. His room is designed in a unique way, with the entry hall at the top of a large barrel-shaped room. Just below the entrance is a narrowing with a star-shaped opening that leads downward to where Phinigel is. Pulling this area is extremely difficult, because he has many powerful guardians, which will aggro you easily and can take down even a very powerful party if you get more than one or two that you can't control. Pulling Phinigel in any way other than by himself is a death wish. He has all the abilities of Estrella, and is even more powerful...

Benefits

As I mentioned above, this zone has the distinction of having the least occupants at any given time of any zone in the game. That, to me, means that the hunting here is fine. There will be no trains that you don't create. There will be no idiots begging for some change. There are no lines for any of the creatures, and you can hunt whenever you want. You can actually feel like explorers, and that you're seeing things that very few people in the game have ever seen. That's probably the single biggest benefit of the zone.

There is also great treasure to be gained by hunting here, including many powerful items that you've likely never even heard of, much less heard auctioned off at the bazaar. Many of the monsters drop incredible loot in the form of gems. Rare spawns are clustered so that taking on an area easily leads to the ability to gather several unique items per trip.

Travelling To and From

There is one way to get to Kedge Keep, and that is by swimming down through the waters at the southern tip of the lake in Dagnor's Cauldron to the broken entrance hidden in the depths. If you are an apt swimmer, you might be able to do it while holding your breath, although what you plan on doing inside Kedge Keep when you are unable to hold it any longer is anyone's guess.