Stygian: Reign of the Old Ones – Full Walkthrough

This will provide an outline of the major quests in the game, and how to solve them.

Stygian Guides:

• Tips and Tricks (How to Survive Arkham Guide).
• A Compendium of Known Artifacts and Their Effects.
• Character Building Guide (for Beginners).

Introductory Quests

All credit goes to Sisyphus!

The Key

Before you leave the bar, speak to the darts player. To win the game, you can either:

• Agility Win the game with superior dextrousness.
• Subterfuge Bend the tips of his darts.
• Psychology Ruin his day by suggesting he is seeking escape from his failures in darts.

When speaking to the bartender, you can use Speechcraft or Psychology to convince him to tell you more about the Mob.

At the start of the game, you need to head to the left and find the key outside of the ruined entrance to the university. On the way, make sure to loot all of the bins to find a few cigs and random items. In French Hill and the Bank, you can perform a Science check allowing you to siphon fuel from the wrecked cars, and Subterfuge to get the items inside.

If you have a subterfuge point, make sure to pick up a few lockpicks from the junk seller, you’ll need them soon.

On your way back, you will be stopped by a suave Spanish gentleman. Accept his offer, he is well worth the cigs, and you’ll be needing a bodyguard very soon.

Head 2 maps to the right and enter the antiques store. Isidore can provide you with the information you need, and there are a few ways to get what you need.

Any character can make a deal to give him the key later and 50 cigs for the info.

• Occult convince him because of your mystical knowledge.
• Subterfuge swap the notebook on the table with a blank one.
• Athletics steal the notebook.
• Speechcraft You can convince him to trade his items for cigs as well, otherwise he will only trade for artifacts, spells, keys, other mystical items.

You need to head left to the bank in order to continue your quest. On the way, you will encounter a certain ragged looking companion (The Outsider) under attack by angry hobos. Help him out!

Occult Encourage the Outsider to scare away the ‘bos with mystical power, or Speechcraft check.

Once inside the bank, you will come across a truck. Pick it open to get the best .22 cal pistol in the game. There are 2 other locked safes in the bank that have minor loot.

When you get to the bank teller, you can show him your archetype item. For the most part, you’ll get a random trolly item back, but the academic gets some insane writings that can be sold to the cultists later for 500 cigs.

After fighting your way to the safe, you have a number of options.

• Science Melt the wall with your chemistry set.
• Investigation Find the loose brick in the wall.
• High phys + melee Smash down the wall.

If you don’t have an option to break the wall down, speak to the mobster outside to smash the wall for you. Speechcraft Convince him to do it for less.

Once inside the safe, you will get 2 major quest items. Read the poem, and ask Isidore about the statuette. While you are in French Hill, look to the far right side for the woman in blue. She will ask about her missing husband, Randolph Carter, which starts a new quest.

Also, sometime on your wanderings a man should’ve appeared to ask you about his watch up in the attic of the Old Eel. Speechcraft Convince him to take a smaller cut. PsychologyGet him to calm down.

Head back to the Old Eel and rest. Pick up the watch from the floorboard. You will see a man in a dream.

Note: be sure to talk to anyone who looks distinctive in the bar. It is important to talk to the weird-looking old man, and the blondeish man standing in the middle when they appear.

After the dream, head downstairs and tell the lady in blue about it. The man you saw was Randolph Carter. This is an opportunity to recruit your second companion of the game, Sonia. I almost never do because I much prefer the Outsider and the Nameless Soldier who appears later. She is more of a firearms/investigation character, which can be fine if you have a melee build.

Head to the right to meet Cornelius and give him his watch. You can just sell it, but unless you are Materialistic or Nihilistic there are other things you can do with the watch than just sell it. Anyway, Cornelius get ganked, and his dying wish is that you do something meaningful with his watch. Humanists can give the watch to some orphans, Divines recruit the orphans to clean up the vandalism on the nearby church, Rationalists can get a science book from Isidore, Esoterics get a free artifact from Isidore.

You are now ready to pick up your next round of quests. Check the pub for anyone new to talk to.

Upon entering French Hill, you should get a note inviting you to meet the man at his house in Riverside to speak about a way out of Arkham.

On Main Street, a light appears in a build. This is where you meet Krogh, a demon-possessed former cultist.

• Medicine Treat his wounds and he will be more kindly disposed to you.
• Speechcraft You can try to convince him, but this backfires.
• Occult I believe this gives you more insight into his condition, not sure.

Otherwise, if you give him a cigarette, he will be pacified enough to not kill you. If you have processed opium, that might be even better, but I haven’t tested it.

As you travel through Main Street, you should hear a hubbub about the Arkham Stabber striking again. Head left and you will see a corpse. Speak to the man with the text above his head, asking about the dead man. If you have Occult, speak to the hobo who is momentarily possessed. It is very important to speak to the Mobsters who appear, otherwise you will not be able to progress with the quest.

If these quests are not appearing, you have need to make sure you have interacted with everyone in order to progress.

Arkham Stabber

This is possibly one of the trickiest quests to have work properly, so I will go through step by step what you need to do in order to successfully complete the quest.

After speaking to the guy near the body and the mobsters, head to the hotel. Ask the clerk about Julian and who he was staying with, and he will give you some information, but there is a guy in Julian’s room called Carrion Jack, who is a nasty piece of work. Save him for later.

Head to the Old Eel and speak to the Detective. He won’t talk to you until you’ve helped him with his arm.

Medicine or Psychology You see the treatment you need to treat his arm, and can treat him yourself if you have a mirror shard. If you have Science you can craft a mirror box yourself. Otherwise, just buy a mirror box from Richter, it’s not expensive. Speak to the detective, get his notes and read both documents. Also, read the hotel register you got earlier.

You now have 3 suspects you can interrogate, and they are all able to give you the directions to the location of the murderer.

Mute girl: If you have psychology, you can hypnotise her and get the location. Otherwise, if you try to speak to her you won’t get anything, so just say “obviously you won’t be any help”.

Horatio in room 203: Be sure to speak to him. Then check his window and speak to him again, accusing him of lying. This is a necessary step in the quest, regardless of whether you solve his quest or not.

He will ask for a way into the Blackened Club in French Hill. This opens up the trapdoor to the right of the Club with the mobsters outside of it. You need a lantern to see a crack in the wall, which can be smashed open with a blunt weapon of some sort. Once you step inside, DON’T ENTER COMBAT. Just enter and exit. Also, on a corpse to the left is a spell that lets you talk to the dead. However, if you solve his quest, he will meet a very disturbing end, so you might not want to do this if you have the choice.

Wjatal: In order to impress the Indian Chief, you need a high melee skill. Otherwise, in order to get the information, you will need to kill all of the Indians. As long as you have the Nameless Soldier, this isn’t a particularly hard fight, but this should probably be a last resort. However, if you’re a melee character, you might want to fight them, just so you get Wjatal’s unique machete (3-8 damage, 1 handling, causes bleeding), one of the best melee weapons in the game.

Occult – If you learn the spell that lets you talk to the dead from the trapdoor, you can speak to Julian’s corpse and get the location that way.

Now is the time to enter the Hotel and get the note from Carrion Jack. You have a number of options.

• Occult Summon the ghost in room 302 to scare Carrion Jack away.
• Speechcraft Convince Carrion Jack Betsy Ross is still alive and steams out of his room looking for a dead person.
• Combat Kill Carrion Jack and all of the henchmen that appear if you have a reasonably strong build. This might ♥ off the mob, so maybe wear a mask. OR have someone run to the drawers and take the note and then retreat.
• Survival I’m not sure of the numbers, but if you have 2 survival I believe you can win the drinking contest. If you aren’t able to win, try a drug that boosts Phys like amphetamines.

After reading Julian’s note, head to the Post Office to get his unsent letter. You will need to kill a few lunatics and a ghoul. After you’ve done that read the note.

Before heading to the House of Spectres, you need a copy of Kingsport Fairy Tales. The cheapest way to do this is buy one of the pieces of ‘toilet paper’ from the bar.

Leave town and travel to the House of Spectres. On the way you will meet Keelan, who finds himself promptly stabbed to death. Read the book and flip to the story of the Terrible Old Man.

You now have everything you need to complete this quest.

Head to the door and answer the questions as follows: Kingsport, Abel Julian Keelan Salvador, Killed by pirate cutlasses, Retribution for stolen gold, I don’t know, Terrible Old Man.

Quest complete! For your efforts you get a very cool flintlock pistol (good trade item for Isidore as well) and some essences.

A Way Out

Go to Stanley’s home in Riverside. He gives you 3 parts you need to get.

First, talk to Richter, he tells you where to get a conductor and methyl alcohol, as well as more information.

Head to French Hill and talk to Dimitrescu. He tells you where the radio parts are. Buy a conductor from him. Note: some crafting recipes use the conductor, so don’t use it for that! If you do, there’s a second conductor from the junk seller but that’s it. Now it’s time to get some methyl alcohol.

On your way, you will meet a Grieving Widow, who asks you to fix the distillery because it’s poisoning people. To the north is a Science check allowing you to acquire some Veinroot.

• Distillery You have a number of different options to get inside.
• Medicine You can treat the Made Man’s syphilis and get permission that way.
• Speechcraft Fast talk your way inside.
• Combat Kill everyone.
• Stealth If you have a high skill, you can sneak past the guards but you need to watch the patrol routes carefully.

Once you get to Mr Wheat, if you haven’t killed everyone, he’ll ask you to poison them. If you have Science, you can craft a non-lethal version as well. This saves you some angst and the annoyance of the Mob. Now you have your methyl alcohol. Take it back to Richter to turn it into formaldehyde, or craft it yourself if you have the science skill.

Note: Do not use formaldehyde for crafting.

You can also talk to Wheat about needing to stop poisoning people. You’ll have to do it yourself. Right click on the machine and you can do one of the following:

• Science Install a chemical filter you find in one of the bins outside.
• Investigation Click a pipe in the top middle part to find the blocked pipe, and then talk to Wheat.
• Melee Just smash the *** out of it.

Poisoning/knocking them out is the best solution because you can loot a lot of very good gear. Combat is the suboptimal solution here.

Warehouse

Before entering the warehouse, be sure to have a lantern and a crowbar. If you are going to fight, not having a lantern leaves you blind. You need 4 Phys + 1 melee skill to open the crates inside, or possibly 3 Phys + 2 melee.

Again, there are multiple solutions to this quest.

• Occult Finish the ritual on a table, and the ghouls you find inside will attack each other. Makes this part hilariously easy.
• Stealth It is possible to sneak by the enemies, and you get the same XP for doing so.
• Combat Not too bad as long as you let Nameless and/or Eduardo tank. For the Devourer King fight, you just need to kill DK to progress. A rear crit from a flintlock can do about 45 damage, so that is one way to cheese him out. In the top room of the last area, head to the left, have a lantern equipped to find the parts. If you go to the right you have a fight against 7 ghouls, but you also get some good guns to make up for it. Have the tanks draw the ghoul’s attention, rush the three to the right, use the chokepoints. Pretty manageable fight despite how it looks.

Clean Up

Return to Stanley’s house and follow the instructions to reassemble the device. After some events occur, head to Stanley’s basement to complete the quest. Return to the Main St. and will get a cutscene. Speak to Isidore about the location of the Necronomicon. If you have Occult or Speechcraft he will tell you, otherwise go talk to Krogh about it. This gives you your next major location.

Pilgrim’s Parish

Once you have arrived at Pilgrim’s Parish, you will be forced into a fight. Head to the right and down, and you will find the entrance to Blasted Street. Grab the corpse’s stuff and head back out. Read the letter for your next quest idea. If you head up to the large open space with cultists being whipped, you’ll hear about a ‘miracle’ taking place on the roof of the Essex street hotel. On your way out of Blasted Street, you should also have got an invitation from the Dreaming Baroness to go back to sleep.

Subterfuge You can rob the cultists blind from their altar, getting some nice loot and a unique artifact.

Head back to the Essex Hotel.

Essex Hotel – Talk to Etienne and learn that Hines is being kept in the ‘Theatre of Bones’ back at Pilgrim’s Parish. If you head to the roof you will lose a bunch of SAN but also be able to pick up a rifle and some ammo, as well as minor XP. You can also check out Hines’ room on the first floor for some minor loot.

Go to sleep and the Dreaming Baroness will give you another quest solution to getting through the Blasted Street.

Head back to Pilgrim’s Parish and say you need to get inside. Unfortunately, they won’t let you in unless you look like a cultist. You have a couple of different solutions: craft some robes using random textiles, pick up some robes lying on the ground next to a guy getting whipped, or use Science to convince a wavering cultist to the right of the crafting tables that there is a rational explanation and the Cult is nonsense. Once you have your robes, go back to the cultist outside the theatre and say again that you need to enter the Theatre. He will say you need a Mark of Cleansing. Head back to Krogh and get one. The Mark you pick has some minor benefit and drawback. No point min-maxing, pick whatever fits your character.

Before you head back to Pilgrim’s Parish, stock up on whatever ammo, healing supplies, and so forth that you need. Make sure you have a shove. If you have Sonia or the Butler, take 2l. If you are a Scientist, pick up some electronic parts from Dimitrescu.

Head back to the Theatre of Bones and now you can get in. Follow the cool story sequences, pick up the suit blueprints as well as the spell component.

You now have three main solutions to proceeding through the Blasted Street.

• Science Craft your own suit. The reinforced version provides 1 damage resistance.
• Occult You or the Outsider memorise the Nightwalk spell.
• Anyone Get Dimitrescu to craft the suit for you.

I recommend going through both solutions. In case the spell bugs out, you won’t get devoured by the street. And even if you have the suit, the spell provides maximum stealth so you can avoid combat until the boss.

Blasted Street: There is a substantial amount of good loot everywhere, be sure to pick it up. Inside the house, you can get a quest to find a bizarre creature’s son. Head up the next street and to the left, kill some Denizens as well as right-clicking on your main character and shouting at Kabal until he leaves the fight. If you are a scientist, research one of the anomalous rocks you pick up. As long as you have electronic parts, I believe it is fairly easily craftable, and provides an alternative solution to the boss, besides digging it out.

Boss fight strategies: If you are a Scientist, you can use the ray gun. Crafted Canister Bombs make short work of the enemies blocking your way, as they tend to bunch up. Have your tankiest character, such as the Nameless Soldier or Eduardo, block the enemies off. Eduardo can die or go insane, he leaves after this fight anyway.

Occult characters can cast spit on the Boss with only one section dug up, as well as Outsider of course.

Buff your guys up with drugs, especially ferocity, which turns everyone into a combat monster. If you have reasonably high AP, ferocity will help you dig even faster. Cocaine or opium is needed to make sure your digger(s) are resistant to panic effects.

Congratulations, you are almost at the end of the game.

Witches’ House

I won’t provide step by step instructions for this section, but I will provide some screenshots once I get around to it.

Basically, you have to click on the symbols to match the ones on the bottom floor. Keep in mind that after the first that the symbols are either reversed or mirrored. If you aren’t quite sure, keep in mind the symbols and try one on each side, cycling through the options until it either works or doesn’t.

The only slightly tricky one is when you see 2 matched pairs as you walk through the mirrors. The symbols are not matched, one symbol from the pair is for the left side, one symbol from the pair is for the right side.

When you find yourself speaking to the ‘Black Lips’, say you can remember how to draw the symbol, that it is Crimson, Crimson is blood, and the most precious blood is your own. PAY THE TOLL. Step through the mirror and leave.

Endgame

When you find yourself in the Asylum, you have a few options for leaving. If you are strong at combat, beat the **** out of Carrion Jack and take his key. If you are sneaky, steal the key from Isidore as he sleeps. If you are charismatic, get Isidore to freak out and convince Jack to tranquilise him. Martino offers potions to help you out at these tasks. You can also buy a tranquiliser, quick slot it, and use it on Jack to knock him out and win a fight.

Drink the mixture and you find yourself back in a strange land. Flee from the fight that starts, you can’t win.

You have now arrived at Nithon. If you use an alien artifact you find from a corpse, you can get some directions. Head to the Northwest, talk to the Lost Man if you want. He’s a pretty crappy henchman, but you don’t need to enter into combat at this point. Leave for the next area.

There are two major areas that you can go into. To the North, there is a place you can sleep and a seemingly impossible science check. This is not where you need to go. In the second area, head to the left. You will see an Elder Thing being attacked by some Mi-gos. It’s a winnable if slightly challenging fight. If you win, the Elder Thing can also give you further directions. Head to the southwest. Watch the shadows. You can walk through one Mi-go flying around, but if you see a large group of them, avoid them.

Walk through the Southwest exit and head left. Face your last major decision. You have now come to the end of the game, GG.