¶ The Heroes' Journey New Player Guide
Welcome to The Heroes’ Journey (THJ). This guide is for anyone whether you are brand new to Everquest (EQ), an EQ Veteran or a casual EQ Emu player. This guide is intended to help folks get familiar with the server, answer early questions and get acquainted with the server. This guide is NOT a detailed explanation about the intricacies of each class nor is it a place to figure out the ultimate class trio. It is meant to get you prepared to have an awesome journey.
This guide is a culmination of information gleaned from Discord and the ever helpful THJ community. It is an ever evolving guide. If you have information you want to share please contact Azro in-game or in Discord.
For in-depth information on advanced systems, see our other guides or visit our Discord Community.
¶ Table of Contents
- Character Creation
- In-Game Arrival
- The Bazaar
- Guild Masters & Vendors
- Translocator/Teleportation
- Banking & Parcels
- Gameplay Tips
- Leveling 1-40
- Final Words
¶ Character Creation
Congrats! You have made it into the game viewing the Character Creation screen and left wondering what should I pick. The choices here are Character Race and class. Don’t stress about it, every class is viable, if you think it is fun then go with it because fun is the number one goal on this server. Once you enter the game you will be able to select two additional classes.
- There are no "wrong" class combinations; creativity is encouraged!
- You get one free class change. Additional changes can be purchased with Echoes of Memory (EoM).
- Experiment with different class synergies to find what suits your playstyle.
¶ Starting City
After you create your character and log in, you will find yourself in your racial starting city. If desired feel free to explore the city and take it all in. If you are not interested right now you can always return later on. In traditional Everquest you would spend a lot of time here as it is considered your home base.
Take a moment to familiarize yourself with the various UIs, especially important to read the Suspended Buffs tutorial. This is an amazing feature of THJ, any buffs that are cast from your spell book are essentially permanent. This comes in handy when you are working with pets and they die or you die and need to summon a new one. Any buffs you cast will automatically be re-added.
On your cursor you will find "A Faded Writ" - put this in your inventory (press I “i key” to open/close the Inventory) for now. You will notice there is a Quest Journal window open. This is an important window for THJ, you can open/close it by pressing ALT + Q.
¶ Disciplines/Tomes
As a Melee class instead of Spells, you get what is called Tomes (Commonly referred to as Disciplines). Tomes can be bought, quested for, or obtained as loot. A tome is essentially a spell for melee and hybrid classes, and is right-clicked to add to their list of combat skills. Pure melee classes (Berserker, Monk, Rogue and Warrior) only get tomes and no spell scrolls, while hybrids get a mix of both.
¶ Spells + Spell Book
If you did not start as a class with spells, skip this but feel free to come back to it if you choose classes with spells. If you started as a class with Spells (Wizard, Necro, Cleric, etc) you may have two spells in your Inventory, right click these to memorize them to your spell book. Your spell book is located at the bottom of your Spell Bar.
If you select this, you will sit down and your spell book will open, this is where all your spells will live. To view details about your spells, you can right-click and hold. This will open a window like so and you can view the spell + additional information in light blue.
To memorize a spell to your Spell Bar, left-click the spell and see it show on your cursor, then select any of the slots (commonly referred to as Gems) and it will memorize, you can see the purple progress bar on your book. If you stand during this the memorization will be cancelled.
As you add other classes that have spells you may find yourself overloaded with spells to manage. Thankfully you can create Spell Sets. Let’s say you are playing a Shaman and you have your line-up of buffs and a separate lineup of Resist Spells. Managing each of these by hand frankly sucks, but that’s where Spell Sets come into play. You can load up your spell bar with various spells, then right-click your spell book icon and select Save Spell Set, a dialog will pop up and you can give it a name.
Then you can right-click and select Load Spell Set and select your set. Then the game will auto memorize those spells.
As you level up and get more spells, you can switch them out in your set then save the spell set with the same name and it will replace the previous set with that name. Sometimes it may bug out and you will see two sets of the same name.
Another thing with spells is that once on your spell bar, you can left-click hold and then you can assign the spell to your hotbars.
Now let’s get to the Bazaar and get going on the game.
¶ Bazaar
To truly get started, you need to get to the Bazaar on Luclin. From here, you will need to teleport to The Bazaar to pick your additional classes and get started: hit the V key (default) to bring up the Alternate Advancement window.
Under the General tab you will see Back to Bazaar, select this and create a hotkey so you can add it to your hotbar. This is an ability that will teleport you directly to the Bazaar! This hotkey is your friend, you will use it to get back to the Bazaar which is considered home base.
If you do not interact with the Soulbinder in the Bazaar and you die, you will be taken back to your starting city.
¶ Bazaar Zone Shards
The Bazaar has 8 zone shards, you will periodically see people say “In Baz 1 I am doing a MGB (Mass Group Buff) of
This is also a nice way to get to a less populated bazaar if you want to just chill without a big tiger pet in your face.
¶ Getting Around the Bazaar
The Bazaar is home base, you will interact with players and NPCs (Non Player Characters) here. This is where you will Bank your loot, learn new spells/disciplines, select your additional classes, access the teleporter and so much more. It may seem overwhelming at first but don’t worry we will go over everything in this guide.
¶ Guild Masters + Spell/Discipline Vendors
To open your map press M and head on over to A Fading Memory to complete the next portion of your quest. This NPC is located down near the bank on the Left. Once you find him, select the Faded Writ from your inventory and give it to the Memory. This NPC will give you some starting items and a bag. Next up is selecting additional classes. If you want to learn more information about the Theory Crafting of Classes, visit the section in Discord.
You may be overwhelmed by the sheer amount of text on the map. Don’t fret, you have control and can use the Layers (1,2,3) to control what you see. You can also scroll up on your mouse wheel to zoom in and scroll down to zoom out. Another helpful piece is the Height Filter which will only show you information about the map for the level you are on. This is very helpful in zones that have floors.
By default all Layers are visible but if you do not want to see the players and NPCs, you can deselect Layers 2 (NPCs/Mobs) and 3 (Players). Which leaves only Layer 1 active, this includes helpful markers to help you navigate around. When you are out in the world adventuring you may want to turn on Layers 2 and 3.
Go find the Guildmasters and hail each one, they will provide information about each class. Once you select you can change once by hailing a Guild master and learn about the Reforge Path.
If you are unsure what to choose and want fate to decide, find Vision of Ayonae and she will decide your fate. This decision cannot be reversed.
Now that you have either selected your classes or let fate decide it is time to start adventuring. The below information will help you along your journey. Most important is using the Translocator.
¶ Translocator/Teleportation
Located within the central hall is Tearel, who you will become very familiar with! Hail Tearel (by pressing H) and you will be presented with the ability to “Attune the map” to a variety of rune circles across Norrath (and beyond) – some are unlocked by default, while others must first be discovered before becoming available to teleport to. You can specify the location by continent (or Plane) in the chat dialogue and then left-click on the map to the right of Tearel, a confirmation box will pop up which you will click to teleport. See below Leveling 1-20 for tips on where to go.
¶ Component + Bags Vendors
If you select a class that requires components for certain spells, like a Mage Pet requires Malachite or Necro/ShadowKnight (SK) pets require Bone Chips. You can visit Katha Firespinner (Components) for those components. She is in the central hall near A Fading Memory which also houses Merchant Aina (Bags) and Tearel (Translocator).
You will need money so the first thing you will need to do is venture out and kill some mobs, loot their wares and sell them.
Once you have obtained some money you will want to buy some backpacks from Merchant Aina (Bags).
¶ Banking
Over time you will collect many wares that you want to keep. Your inventory can only hold so much stuff and you do not want to keep everything in there as you want space to collect loot while out on your adventures. There are two bank stalls, one on the right and one on the left. Here you store items, bags of items and money. Since nothing stays on your corpse when you die, you do not need to worry about losing things.
¶ Parcels
A unique feature of THJ is Parcels, The Mysterious Mailman (Parcels) allows you to send items to players with ease. Right-click the NPC and select the Parcels tab. Then simply select the item you want to send, enter the Player’s name and hit Send. The player will receive the item and a little icon will show next to their name to show they have an awaiting Parcel. A parcel NPC is also available in East Commonlands (commonly referred to as EC). His name is A Shady Swashbuckler.
¶ Tips
This section includes a handful of helpful tips that will improve your gameplay.
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Chat window font size too small, use /chatfontsize 5 to enlarge it. This is per chat window.
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Swear words showing up as gibberish, open Options ALT+O -> Filters -> Bad Word -> Set to Show
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Tired of seeing the Confirm Dialog for item destroy, turn on Fast Item Destroy in General Options. ALT+O -> General -> Confirmations.
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Selecting the Bazaar Campfire will teleport you to the East Commonlands (EC) tunnel, which is a micro hub.
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Using a Soulbinder or Bind Affinity (certain classes receive this spell) is a helpful aspect that ensures you arrive at a location when you die. The Bazaar and EC Tunnel both have Soulbinders.
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When you buy gear in the bazaar, mostly just buy greens and level them. Save the plat
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You can link an item to chat by holding right-click on the item then selecting the item’s picture, this will put a link to the item into the active chat window.
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Picking up a bag and CTRL + Left-Click will empty the picked up bag into another.
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You can put pet bags in the bank and the pets will still have all the items.
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Shift + Right-Click on a corpse automatically loots all items.
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We have additional tips on our THJ Tips Page
¶ Leveling 1-40
Now that you have some handy information about how to get those levels. There is a variety of information depending on who you ask or where you look online. A good place to start is the zones listed below, visit the Classic Leveling Grind or checkout the THJ Leveling Paths in the FAQ.
1-5: The easiest spot to start at is random mobs in Greater Faydark.
5-10: Crushbone (Off Greater Faydark)
10-20: Unrest
Greater Faydark -> Butcher Block Mountains -> Dagnor’s Cauldron -> Unrest.
There is a Fast Travel waypoint outside the entrance to Unrest in Dagnor’s Cauldron, this will unlock a travel point with Tearel. There is a whole guide dedicated to teleport unlocks.
19-30: Castle Mistmoore (commonly referred to as MM).
There is a Fast Travel waypoint right after you zone into MM.
This is Greater Faydark -> Lesser Faydark -> Castle Mistmoore.
30-40: Lower Guk
Again this is just a suggestion, the world of Norrath is filled with places to level and experience. Go Forth and adventure.
¶ Final Words
And so your first adventure begins... Explore, experiment, and most importantly—have fun!
Thank you for joining The Heroes' Journey. We look forward to seeing you in Norrath!
For questions or community support, join our Discord Community.