Two hundred years ago, in the shadow of the mountain at the center of the world, your ancestors fought a great war against the dragons.
Your ancestors lost.

Welcome to my big, comprehensive guide to King of Dragon Pass, born out of love and dedication to this game since my childhood! This guide will contain major spoilers about several things in the game! Remember, because of the random nature of the game, even though many of the options presented are "right" choices, things such as your invidual stats, how you allocate your magic and your ring member's stats all are taken into account with a little bit of a luck as well; just selecting the things will not ensure success.


Esentially, due to the random nature especially the start of the game can be very different each time.



In this overwiew, I always have general guideline and things that are very specific when playing on hard mode.



I have beat this game probably 10 times by now, though because I used to own the old boxed version of the game, my playtime is not very accurate in here. Rest assured though, I am quite well versed in the game and following my tips will help you succed, if not win. It also tells you how to get certain specific, hidden achievements. In short, I am trying to make this the most definite, up to date guide to King of Dragon Pass especially with the updated Steam version in mind, as opossed to the old school boxed copy.


I apologize for any grammar errors as English is my third language.


To obtain all achievements, you must play through the game at least four times; once long hard, ten year ring and ten year ring on hard. You also need to get someone elected to be Queen at least once, which requires the long game. I really reccomend against trying to get the Queen on hard for reasons that I list bellow and instead just playing through the game on long mode twice.

In the clan creation, you are given the choice on many aspects and you should read all of this information before making your selections as you can't change these later.





This determines who's your main deity. Orlanth, Elmal or Ernalda. Orlanth is possibly the best choice, with Ernalda being the second best especially if you want to try and aim a tribal Queen instead, as most of the Ernalda worshippers are women.


Elmal is easily the worst choice and should only be chosen if you want to make your game a lot harder.

Hard mode: Pick Orlanth.


Eeach of the early history events give you some sort of a bonus to help you get started with your game, such as boosting the stats of your clan or obtaining extra blessings. The things you obtain from the choices are

Healing of Orlanth Start with an extra Chalana Arroy blessing.
Battle of Extinguish Field Leaders are above average in combat.
Hundred-Day Hunt Leaders are above average in Animals, Combat and Plants
Jesterd's Settlement Leaders are above average in Bargaining
Procession of the Animals Leaders are above average in Animals
Barntar Harnessing the Oxen Leaders are above average in Plants
Lhankor Mhy Learns to use the marking bone Leaders are above average in Custom
The first Pot Support more crafters
Clan making dance Leaders are above average in leadership


Hard mode: Take Healing of Orlanth or Clan Making dance. Hundred day Hunt is also good.



One of the biggest choices in the game is if you support slavery or not. With slavery, you get extra work at the fields to help farmers but thralls can revolt and it may lead to many bad things as well, especially in the hard game. Honestly, thralls are more trouble than they're worth since the shrines to Bantar and such will help you work the crops just as good and the benefit you get from having Thralls is only useful at the start of the game.

Hard mode: Don't take thralls, they just cause more problems.


You have a list of several foes to choose from.

Troll lord From my experience, the absolute worst choice is the troll lord. Trolls are strong and in great number and already raid you often, having them as your ancestral foe means they pretty much attack you every single dark season and sometimes on Storm Season as well. You also risk the wrath of Cragspider who can literally destroy your clan singlehandedly.
Beastmen While I have never had beastmen actively attack my tula by raids, being on their bad side means you'll have to wage war againsts Ducks (This is a bad thing) and even worse, Ironhoof. Ironhoof, like Cragspider can destroy your clan singlehandedly. Very bad choice for foe.
Elf Warlord Elves can be a pain to fight especially in the woods and can seriously hinder your trade economy. That being said, they can NOT destroy your clan.
Tada the Green Praxians attack you riding weird mounted creatures but actually do their raids very rarely. In my long plays at hard, Praxians didn't attack me even 5 times in the entire game. They are also relatively easy to fight off and can NOT destroy your clan.
Sea lord Impossible to fight or counter. Your tulas will be flooded and it can cause massive losses. However, can NOT destroy your clan. The flooding while devastating is very rare occurance and I only have had it happen once in a long play through.
Ice Tribe Ice tribe is very annoying enemy and picking them will ensure harsh winters, blizzards and attacks by ice demons and even attacks by winter spirits. The ice demons may even become an anual event; in one playthrough, I was assaultetd by ice demons every dark season. However, they can NOT destroy your clan.

Hard mode: Praxians are possibly the easiest to fight away. Picking the Sea Lord is risky but the occurance is somewhat rare.Never pick an enemy that can destroy you as your ancestral enemy!


You can win the game on any aligment. For the peace clan achievement, you have to choose being peace clan here and not later. Remember, justs because you're war clan, you don't have to fight all the time and just because you're peace, you can sometimes wage wars too.

Hard mode: Picking balance is recommended as it gives you more flexibility. However, if going after the Peace achievement too, that can be achieved by picking the Peace disposition.


You get a shrine of one of the deitys you can ressurect. As a general rule of thumb; none choices all are very poor and have you miss on good rewards. Aside hard mode, you could always pick your main deity, the cow godess or maybe even lhankor mhy to help you resolve early disputes.

Hard mode: Pick Uralda. Simple as that. You need a lot of cows in the hard game and are always low on them, any boost to cow ammount is esential so you won't lose. Cows give you food, plow your fields and having too few cows causes game over. Again, pick Uralda.


You can choose whatever you wish from here, upon your own decision aside one thing. Even if you don't like dragons, you really shouldn't go with the hostile option since this will limit you a lot and risk possible war with an opponent that you can't possibly beat.

Hard mode: NEVER choose the hostile options!! Dragons are insanely tough opponents and they CAN destroy your entire clan and this will limit your options with dealing with them!


Growth is a good thing and you want to be able to support it. However, huge tracts is way more than you need at the start of the game as it'll take ages to get to that levele and your lands are harder to defend from bandits and raids. You'll also not be able to use the full potential of the area for a long time. Lots more is still viable on low difficulty settings.

Hard mode: Pick the more than needed to grow into option, no more, no less.

Allocating magic in the sacred time is pretty self explatoinary but asking tips from your clan ring may give ideas on what to do. Generally, especially at start you want to use all your magic to crops and herds and mysteries. Save questing to at least third or so year and put all magic you can to questing to ensure its success.

Later in the game, you get two more things to spend magic at Heroism and Destiny. Destiny helps with storyline related major events while Heroism boosts the skill levels of people inside your clan ring. If you have extra points to spare, putting these at maximum will help you tremendously.

Before you start to wage wars and conquer the land there are few things you should do at the start of the game.



Before anything highlight the farming tab and click your advisors, they'll give information about if you need more cattle, more farmers or such. If they say something like "we could support 35 more hides" that means you can increase cropland by that ammount. If you increase your cropland, go away from the menu to any other menu (such as clan) and back and see what your advisors say. If they complain about the size of pasture, increase it and then go back out of the menu and back in, until they stop complaining about size of the pasture. This refreshing the counters is needed as long as you don't want to pass the time.

After this , I generally go to the hunters tab on Clan screen and check what they say about the hunters size. Hunters are good to have as many as your guys tell you should be able to support. Hunters not only yield food by hunting, they help against vermin (which spoil food) and even more important; they protect from undead.

After deciding your number of hunters, you should double check back to the food menu to make sure you still have enough everything since you changed the number of farmers. If it complains about lack of farmers or such, you can cut the size of your cropland a bit. Being able to maximize your food production is esential at the start of the game, especially on a hard game.





Example of a good food production


After this, another thing that you should do is reorganize your clan ring. At the far left you have the leader of your clan and they should always be worshippers of the deity you selected as your main deity, such as Orlanth, Ernalda or Elmal. You should organize your best clan leaders by selecting the leadership tab. The farther to the left, the better leaders they are. Remember though, plain stats are not the only thing that matter but also their age; people die of old age. It depends on very many factors but generally, anything past 60 should be considered close to dying of old age.

Organize the rest of the clan the same way, for best magic, plants, customs, etc. Try and get 7 different deities if possible as it will make heroquesting easier. You should have more men than women in your clan ring, as this actually helps boost your clan's birth rate. Do not have only men, it lowers birth rate. If you see a trickster, put them into your clan ring regardless if someone would have better stats. Tricksters are very useful in many situations and help make your magic better too.


Even though Jotisan has higher custom, Kangharl may be a more viable option as he'll live longer and may surprass Jotisan's skill during his lifetime. Neither of the options are inherently bad and it's up to personal preference.

For a reference, the skills are rated from best to worst as such

• Heroic
  
• Renowned
  
• Excellent
  
• Very Good
  
• Good
  
• Fair

If someone hasn't got "fair" next to their skill at least, you can consider them not have proficiency in that area. (Such as, Humakti not having knowledge of Plants for example)

Generally, Renowned is the highest one can normally achieve and Heroic is something one can reach through heroquests, treasure and years of training. (More on that in the tips and tricks section!)

After choosing your clan ring, you'll most likely get your first random event to deal with and the season changes.


You can perform two actions per season, unless it has you play with the food sliders which do not take turn or press season wheel which instantly skips to next season. Let me tell you briefly about the seasons.

Sea season - Time to plant crops, send emissaries, explore and such. Never send raiding parties during this time as it may end up in a bad harvest or the people may outright decide not to and thus you waste a turn.
Fire season - The traditional season for wars. Raiding is very common around here, so expect people who don't like you to raid you this season. Attacking your enemies is also a viable option.
Earth Season - Harvest season, farmers are at the field again and may refuse to go to wars. Really great time to send emissarys, explorations and trade deals.
Dark Season - The time of bitter cold and snow. Leaving your tula is very risky, so best option is to allocate this season for sacrficies, fortifications, feasting, gifting, and heroquesting. Note: If you chose the ice tribe as your enemy, you'll be able to raid more reliably during dark season as well.
Storm Season - Storm season is like dark season expect it's more safe to do raids. I generally do cattle raids during storm season since they generally don't expect it.


Generally, you want to start doing fortifications every dark season until you are done with the fortifications and then begin building shrines and enlargening temples as fortifications do not cost maintenance and help defend your tula.


As soon as you've made your ring, you should go to relations page and look for all feuds. Try and end all feuds at the start of the game before second year. Feuds in King of Dragon Pass are no laughing matter and will cause immense problems. I have found the most reliable way of breaking feuds is to offer 75-100 cows or half my followers in magic ritual if my magic is very high. If they say no, keep increasing your offers until they finally agree.

You can make alliances and your clan ring generally suggests which ones like you the most. Honestly, I never have made that many alliances this way as the game gives you plenty of alliance opportunities along the game and supporting them all is impossible. I mostly just click them for help in a raid anyway and have never found any other deeper point to having alliance other than them sometimes warning me that someone is about to raid me.

In trade menu, you can make trade partners by establishing trade routes though you'll only be able to do very many of them once you build a large shrine of Issaries and start devoting some magic to trade. (A single point in trade magic yearly seems to be enough) Trade routes are automatic and give you their benefits without further attention. The number of goods you gain from the market is based on the level of your market.

There are three levels for the market from worst to best they are; Annual, Seasonal and Weekly. Weekly is the maximum benefit and flooding your market with more trade partners past this stage grants you nothing but extra costs.

You can buy treasures from the other people, a single clan seems to be able to sell every treasure avaivable at random. Thus, conquering the said clan or becoming good relations with one doesn't have any affect if you get the treasure or not. Some of the best treasures in the game are mentioned later in this guide but generally there's no such thing as a bad treasure. Some of them are manually used, some are passives that last for a certain time.

If you're doing really great and have lots of trade goods, you should send them as gifts to people who dislike you the most. Having good relations especially with your neighbors is really important to midgame. Having good relations with other clans means they will be less likely to send raids and curse you. Remember, generousness is also an Orlanthi virtue.


Esentially, maxing out your trade input and ending feuds should be first things you do in the game. Having a stable economy will help you make sacrifices, build fortifications and buy treasures.

Everytime you pass a turn, you may get an event. If you've followed this guide, you've most likely ran into your first event either after having set your hunters or after the season changed by latest.



Events are what makes King of Dragon Pass so unique, because there are so many in game that listing them all here would be impossible. This is where the random nature of the game shows because even in the above case where the ancestors sacrifice helped clear the situation for me, it may not work for you.

Realize that when you click on your clan ring members, they tell their own opinions and thoughts.


Always look for each clan ring member for their ideas, look at different factors such as how much magic you have, how many protections, are your clan rings very good at certain specific stats and so on.


Divination helps but it costs magic, so you should always keep at least some magic in reserve to be able to conduct them. Magical rituals such as the ancestral sacrifice also cost me 2 magic.


If you will fail the event or choose poorly, you may lose a lot of goods, cows, morale and such. Depending on how big the event is, it may even have a long, even more dramatic precautions such as causing feuds or worse. Always pay attention to the events and think about what you do in them, this is after all what the majority of the game will be so you need to be able learn to make the best choices in every way.


As a general rule of a thumb, always try and think of Orlanthi virtues

• Be humble
  
• Be generous
  
• Be kind
  
• Be brave
  
• Be loyal

If you make your choices in these events based on these virtues and try to often choose by what majority of the ring says, you should be fine in almost every given situation.

You should check the relations screen very often. If a clan has a big "N" letter next to their name, they are very close and are your neighbors. You should be on good terms with all your neighbors because you can only create a tribe with neighbors. If you have really bad terms with neighbors, you may even have to give treasures to form a tribe!! Don't fret loss of hundreds of goods as gifts, it really does pay for itself in the end.


When in relations screen, you can see the map with the names of several of the clans. The colors of these names is actually very important; the more blue the name is, the more they like you. The more red, the closer to feud they are. This is extremely helpful when sending emmisaries and to ensure you are surrounded by people who have at the minimum purple color near you or you'll have a hard time making a tribe later. To combat these red names, send gifts, I like to send 30 goods per a gift but you can always give a lot more if they are totally red. More never hurts but any less than 30 may be waste.


If you start to be doing extremely good, your clan may want you to divide. Whatever you want to have volunteers go, the trouble makers go or the best people go is up to you. However, you absolutely should always give these people your land! Failure to do so will make everyone unhappy, the new clan hate you and may even anger your ancestors!


When you give this splitting group land, it'll become your new neighbor and a potential person who you can ask to become part of your new tribe! As such, I always recommend only picking the volunteers or the best option as that way you'll gain a really powerful and useful ally, instead of getting a lousy neighbor who'll be a thorn on your side. Treat the clan split as an opportunity, not a negative thing!!

True peace game cannot be played any more in the new Steam version and thus you must prepare to have a war at one point or another. Don't worry, a single raid every 4 or so years ought to keep any non war clan happy. For a war clan, every two years a single raid should suffice. Fire Season is the best season for a fight.

When you are choosing who to raid, you can select "Ask for help." You can either ask from people who owe a favor to you or an ally. Realize that asking for a help is considered a favor and if you ask an ally, you'll owe a favor to them in future.

Despite what you may think, you don't want to go "too heavy" with your army attack. In fact, if you have a smaller party, you can evade their patrols and catch your enemies off guard as a large war party can easier be spotted. Raids are not full blown wars, that is a different thing. Raids are small party attacks and you should treat them as such; never send too many weaponanthees and footmen and auxilaries. Not only are you easier spotted, but another clan may use it as a chance to raid your own weakened tula!

When it comes to the actual fighting you have several options

• Sacrifice to Orlanth - Increases the chance of initial clash, thus you'll be stronge in the actual fight
  
• Sacrice to Humakt: increase the chance of the melee battle itself and reduces enemy healing.

Sacrificing takes time, especially if you double sacrifice to both Orlanth and Humakt. It takes even longer if you also spend magic points as well. However if you spend magical points, it acts as if you would have spent more war points during the sacred time for that battle. If you have a battle treasure, you can use them as well. From my own experience, if you have to only sacrifice to one, Humakt is better option especially if it's an extended clash.

Sacrificing or not sacrificing is a bit of a gamble, do you have good positions and you know your enemy won't be able to charge and attack before you finish rituals? Then you can opt to do sacrifices. Do you think your enemy will do massive sacrifices? Charge them and hit before they are done with their rituals to kill them before they get battle luck! This is something you'll have to learn on your own as each clan gets randomized, along with their behavior in battle. If you can remember some guys being more pious than others can help your way of combatting them and gives more options during the fight. Think of it as a game of rock-paper-scissors where at the beginning, you don't know which of the clans is rock, which is paper and which is scissors.

• Plunder - Great chance of success and lots of loot, usually very few deaths
  
• Burn steads - You don't get much loot but it severly weakens the raided clan; makes future raids againsts them easier. Lower chance of success.
  
• Kill as many as possible - Massive drop in raided foes strength; makes future raids easier. Even less chance of success.
  
• Destroy fortifications - Massive drop in raided foes strength; makes future raids easier. Bigger chance of success than the kill as many as possible.
  
• Seize their land - Can only be done to neighbors. Need be done several times to the same clan before you actually get their land. Low chance of success, even when victory happens.
  
• Take captives - Weakens the raided clan; makes future raids easier. Very low chance of success, even when victory happens. (This is also why taking thralls is a bad idea, it almost never works out unless you have specific treasures to help you with)
  
• Survival - Cut your losses if you are completely outnumbered and leave the fight.

• Drive them off - If you are slightly outnumbered, simply driving off your attackers is your best option. Skirmish and charge work especially well with this.
  
• Kill as many as possible - If you are somewhat even you can aim to kill as many as possible. Maneuver and charge works the best.
  
• Take captives - If you outnumber your attackers, you may try and be bold and gain something from their attack. Maneuver and charge works the best. You rarely get captives, regardless.
  
• Survive - If you are facing massive army that vastly outnumbers you, such as massive horse spawn raid, you can opt to just survive. You'll lose cows and goods but you won't risk as big of losses in troops. Basically, it's the damage control option if you know you're going to lose.

In adition to these actions, you can opt for any of these specific tactics in both scenarios

• Skirmish - Increases the wounds in enemy.
  
• Maneuver - High change of victory, unless you get charged
  
• Charge - More damage from skirmish but you avoid maneuvers and can negate the sacrifice period
  
• Evade - Inflicts very little damage, but you take little to no damage too. Extremely great against charge as well, because it tires your pursuers out.

Enemy Orlanthi almost always Charge, although they may also Maneuver or Evade if they're heavily outnumbered. Trolls and Praxians always charge. (But Trolls are far better at it) Horse-Spawn tend to have 50-50 chance for either Skirmish or Charge.

The best way to counter enemy charge is either Skirmish or Evade. "Enemy had to charge through withering hail of missile fire" if you have Thunderstone, it makes your skirmishers more effective and fails less often.

Pick soon around year 2-3 some clan that you'll raid during the fire season, preferably someone weak. Once you have beat them enough times, they'll come to offer you a tribute.



I like to put 13 anual tribute to the people since it also ensures that they'll be leaving me alone as well and a nice 13 extra cows a year is a good bonus. You really shouldn't accept trade goods as tribute but rather cows since if you're following this guide, your economy should be good enough and you should have quite a lot of trade goods. You can also if you don't wish to make too much ill will to just accept the tribute they gave and offer the peace for the years they ask for.


Remember that if you take a tribute, you shouldn't raid them, not even cattle raid. (In the old boxed version, the CPU was able to cattle raid still without penalty but if you didd the same it called you an oath breaker, I'm not 100% certain if this has been fixed in the Steam release or not so just to be sure, don't cattle raid those who you ask tribute from) If you're reliant on raiding, you may even turn down the tribute and continue raiding these people as long as you wish but this is generally deemed a very evil thing.Instead you should take the tribute anually always and later end your getting tribute from them through relations. This is seen as honorable and generous act, after which you can then raid them again!


If the person you raid is neighbor, you can try and seize their land to expand your own clan's area and hopefully make these non happy people get away from your borders.


Hard mode: Pick an enemy who you have no interest in ever joining your tribe who's your neighbor and bully them to leave, so you can get more favorable neighbors and more area

One of the most important aspects of the game is exploring. I don't even think you can win the game without exploring at least somewhat. Exploring your own tula (by not moving the marker at all from where it is) will grant you magical treasures, unique trade goods and sometimes even details about heroquests and new warriors.

However, to get full benefit of exploring you do need to at one point wander off and see what other places have to offer. Great treasures and adventures await you but so does death, so be very careful when sending your explorers; never send a clan's ring member out to explore outside of the tula! Best explorers are Vinga and Odayla worshippers.

Hard mode: Never, EVER explore outside of your tula before you have "Pathfinder" blessing from Vinga as active or your exploring parties will meet unfortunate demise.


Being able to search every crook and cranny of King of Dragon Pass is a very time consuming task that'll take your search parties numerous years and rushing them will only make them waste potential goods.

Make use of your ancestors and sacrifice to them to do divination about the land; they'll tell if there's still goods to be found inside your borders. You may need to keep exploring your tula numerous times to find everything but eventually the ancestors say there's no more anything found and you can focus entirely on the outside of borders. Remember, if ancestors said there's still treasure to be found, you may need to send parties to your tula numerous times before they find anything.


Many of the game's great treasures can only be found by exploring.

Sooner or later you'll meet ducks during your travels. You may see their lands ripe for taking and easy to conquer but you'd be doing one of the biggest mistakes you can make.


Ducks are formidable fighters in forrest and they have many followers of Humakti among them. In fact, Ducks are probably your best allies against undead as they are in holy war against the necromancers. So, killing ducks and being mean to them may cause zombie horde to come and kill and destroy your places.


Even worse, Ducks are friends of the Beastmen. Beastmen can destoy your entire clan to the point that it's a game over.


On other hand, if you are friend of ducks, you get very few minor things like your warriors may be humilated by being "duck lovers" but that's basically the worst of it and no other clan will literally wage war on you because of it.



In short, there are a lot more negative things that may come from being an enemy of the ducks as opossed to being their friend or at least on somewhat mutual respects.


It's important to note that the ducks consider themselves Orlanthi and are not savage race. Therefore, they expect to be treated with same respect as any other Orlanthi and want the same rights as other Orlanthi. However, this also means they are tied to same principles and oaths are binding to them as well, the ducks are actually probably more honorable than some humans you'll meet!

Hard mode: ALWAYS BE NICE TO DUCKS. Seriously, you do NOT want to deal with undead army in hard mode EVER or the beastmen's wrath. Be a duck lover and do everything pro duck you want BUT BE NICE TO DUCKS. I mean it, your friendship with ducks may literally save your entire clan.

To be able to do a hero Quest, you need to sacrifce to learn to learn mysteries from the said god. These are the following gods who have heroquests attached to them

Orlhanth: The Making of the Storm Tribe, Orlanth and Aroka
Humakt: Humakt the Champion
Elmal: Elmal guards the stead
Chalana Arroy: Chalana Arroy heals the Scars
Ernalda: Ernalda Feeds the Tribe
Issaries: Issaries the Councilator
Lhankor Mhy: Lhankor Mhy finds the truth
Uralda: Uralda's Blessing

To learn the spells and the heroquests, you have to sacrifice to the gods for mysteries. If you have put points to the mysteries during sacred time, generally 10 goods worth sacrifice is enough to learn new things. Sacrices have the same value as cows and goods generally do, meaning cows are more valued though some gods prefer goods instead of cows, such as Chalana Arroy. If you have slaves, you can even sacrifice them; a single thrall is worth 10 cows. However, this is a very evil thing to do, your thralls and your people will be angry and all your neighbors will hate you for it. However, if you're in any of the desperate bad times that I mention in bellow (In the worst case scenarios section), you may have no choice but to do so, so it's good to know that it's an option. A really macabre and hated option, but an option neverthless.



Generally, in order to do a hero quest you want to have 7 different followers of god. Having a worshipper of the trickster god Eumal is benefical as well. A treasure "Scarf of Seven Runes" can also help with the Chalana Arroy, Issaries, Lhankor Mhy and Orlanth's heroquests. Scarf of Seven Runes can be purchased from another clan and it's a wise investment.


When you start a heroquest, be sure to ask helpers. Having a tribe helps but allies and favors due can help too. Remember, you'll need to at least do The Making of Storm Tribe before you form a tribe.


Before you embark on a dangerous heroquest however, you'd be wise to read up on the details of the hero quest in the lore page. Remember, the entire point of the hero quest is to re enact the heroic things the gods did so following as close to the story as possible, will give best benefits. You should not heroquest too often and should probably wait at least two, preferably three years between each one to ensure maximum success.


Do not stare too much in what deity the person worships. Having same worshipper as Humakt do a Humakt heroquest helps but it's not necessary. I was able to pass Elmal Heroquest with my Humakt champion on my long hard play.


Heroquesting is a dangerous affair and can lead to death or stat lowering for the heroquester or other horrible things. It can even cause them to abandon their religious beliefs. Never go to heroquest unprepared unless you're desperate. Generally, the game suggests the best possible candidate though you can change them if you're after a specifc reward for a specific person.


Despite all of this, some heroquests are easier than others. In here is my personal tiered list from easiest to hardest with some footnotes next to each heroquest.

Ernalda Feeds the tribte: Super easy, you may even be able to do this as soon as 2nd year if you are Ernalda worshipper.
Lhankor Mhy finds the truth: Very simple
Chalana Arroy heals the scars: Even though some of the choices have a higher chance of failing, it's actually very forgiving and lets you choose the options again.
Issaries the councilator: This technically not very hard but it has an event near the end where your heroquester can be severly hurt. You should go to this heroquest with an exposable treasure, such as spirit fetch or the cursed sorceous weapons you get from Pharaoh soldiers. If you give them in trade, you get a nice treasure. You can actually earn up to two treasures from this quest this way, both of which are very beneficial.
Humakt the champion: A bit more tricky and with a higher chance of a fail.
The Making of the storm tribe: Same as with Humakt, it has a higher chance of failure even when you do everything just right.
Orlanth and Aoka: This is somewhat dangerous, even if you do everything correct, the dragon in the end may kill your quester and I've had this happen several times. Serious preparation time is suggested for this.
Elmal Guards the Stead: Extremely dangerous and quite possibly the most gruesome quest in game. You will fail this many times in game and I can only reccomend that you shouldn't send anyone without at least some magic and exceptional combat to doing it. Give tears, never anything else unless you're really desperate, then you can give magic.
Uralda's Blessing: To me, this is the hardest quest in the game, even more dangerous and hard than the dreaded Elmal Guards the Stead. First of all, unlike the others, this is strictly gender based and only females can do this which means depending on the way your clan ring is, you may not even be able to use one of the ring members. Secondly, the heroquest forces your character to be repeatedly maimed by horrible wolves that crush muscle and that can KILL them. Your heroquester has to endure three of these horrible attacks and may die from the wounds or get so hurt they are lost. If you try and run or try and scare them off, you have a very high risk of getting lost and going to a limbo. You can get killed in the limbo or lose massive ammounts of people and magic. Even if you get everything going good and lead the bulls and cows back, in the end scene I have had the bulls murder my heroquester. The number of times my heroquester has died during this quest is ludicrously high. You need to have extremely high magic and animals to be able to do this and even then it's not certain. Personally for me, it's even harder than the Elmal quest.

Hard mode: Always do your primary god's hero quest first unless desperate for a specific reward, such as Orlanth and Aoka when having Orlanth as main deity. Remember that the game is a lot harder so you should be prepared to heroquest a lot more often, especially to counter disasters and bad times.


To obtain one of the blessings as ongoing spell, you should build a shrine. Building a shrine costs goods to build as well as to maintain, so having a stable economy is required in order to upkeep many temples.

A good rule of thumb is to listen to your clan ring when they tell you that you need to learn some specific mysteries from certain gods or some certain gods require a shrine or a temple.



Hard mode: Make sure you have obtained all food blessings from Gods, such as Orlanth's Rain, Elmal's Sun, Bartnar's Plowsong and vigor. Ernalda's food blessing and Uralda's calf and milk blessings to help you out. Remember, in order to explore you need to have Vinga's pathfinder active. These are the very bare minimum you need to have in a hard mode, everything else is helpful but not a 100% must like these. Switch between Bartnar's Plowsong/Vigor depending on if you are low on cows or workers. (Plowsong for low cows, Vigor for low workers)

At one part of the game you need to start forming a tribe. You know this when the blind seer comes to you about it. This is when you need to be in good relations with your neighbors, as you can only form a tribe with neighbors. You can stall the tribal creation process for a bit and use this time to help make everyone near you happy with you. Try and make the tribe consisting of your friends and allies, looking at your advisors for the things you could agree to as well as demand from them.


Hard mode: Prepare to the fact you may have to give a lot of cows and goods to make everyone happy.

By this point you should have a nice reserve of magic so whenever opted, you should be able to do a divination to help you with your decisions.



Ducks may come and ask to join your tribe. I have never been able to get ducks to my tribe (even when trying to be as pro duck as possible) but you can ask them to give you a treasure to be a sponsor. In fact, you can make it a tradition to be given a treasure to the sponsor and thus gain many good treasures like this.



If you don't get the blind seer come to you, you should start sending gifts to people who hate you and perhaps do "Making Storm Tribe" heroquest again.


After you have become the King/Queen of the tribe, you'll have to perform every single HeroQuest at least once, even if you had performed them previously. You can tell which ones you've performed as they have a star symbol next to them. After doing every HeroQuest in the game after tribe making, you'll just have to wait for the End Game to begin.

If you don't become King/Queen on the first go, don't worry, you'll get opportunities later to become the ruler.

When you start to hear stuff about Feathered Queen, you know you're hitting the End Game. Now it's the time to try and get someone into your Tribe's king/queen, preferably someone who's not over 50 years old or so. Spend a lot to be able to press your case that you're good tribal leader if you aren't already as only the tribal leaders can engage in the end game King race. You will be put to various tests which shall test your Tribal King/Queen. The other tribes also partake in the contest and it's good idea to be on good terms with them to assure a good, clean contest. The contest is already going to be dangerous enough as is and any foul play on you would only make it worse. Use divination often and try and keep the chosen one as safe as possible, do not send them on exploration missions and if they are in raid window, play it as safe as possible.

If this person dies, you can't win the game.


Your clan ring will help you a lot with their tips at the end game which differs quite a bit each time but generally, you should listen to divinations and try and make friends among enemies.

Hard game: I spent about 300 cows to try and get people to accept my warleader as the king. When he became the king of dragon pass he was 72 years old. You generally don't want to risk the person being this old, it was a miracle he lived that long.



If you're not able to pass the trials or your candidate dies, you'll get the bad ending and are barely even able to see the historious happening. If this happens, you should wind the game at least 2 or so years back and make other decisions and try and better yourself prior to the final challenges.

Not all magic in the game is equal. Some are much more conditional than others. Also, especially in hard mode, you need to prioritize some magical spells as you can only have so many ongoing magic before you have stable enough goods to support it. Next to it, I have my reasoning.

Note, these are for ongoing spells that can be held active. This doesn't take into account spells that are only achieved by sacrifce, such as Ancenstor's Omen.


Orlanth

• Rain - Esential for food production

Ernalda

• Bless Crops - Esential for food production

Elmal

• Sun - Esential for food production
  
• Steadfast - Higher chance of victory when defending? Take this now!!

Humakt

• Battle Luck - Improves chance of winning a battle!!! Enough said!
  
• Truesword - Each weaponanthee of yours has twice the strength!!!
  
• Oath - It's almost mandatory to have this on Hard mode but even on lower difficulty you should have this by the time you're building a tribe at latest.

Issaries

• Market - If you've followed this guide, you realize how important goods are and how they are esential for the game. Since there's a maximum cap of weekly in the market, you want to get this buff to boost the profit even further.
  
• Silvertongue - Amazing, helps with dealing with clans, making friends, ending feuds, etc. I don't think it's honestly even possible to win hard mode without this.

Lhankor Mhy

• Literacy - I honestly don't think it's possible to win the game without this one, aside maybe short and easy one because it's that important.

Uralda

• Calf Blessing- By now, you should know how important cows are. This helps you get more cows. It's that simple.
  
• Milk blessing - Cows give more food! Really, do I need to say more??

Urox

• Sense Chaos - Chaos is not laughing matter in this game. You need all warnings you can get before things go rough.
  
• Smite Chaos - Another spell that's basically mandatory to win the long game. You'll run into chaos sooner or later and you need everything to prepare for that.

Vinga

• Pathfinder - Absolutely required for hard mode!! Otherwise, everyone will die when they walk two feet away from your tula, sometimes even exploring your tula! Even on lesser difficulties it's still good.

Orlanth

• Woad - Reduced casualties is always great

Ernalda

• Bless Children - More kids, more people to work on fields
  
• Swine Blessing - Swine are great source for food in pinch

Elmal

• Horsefriend - Horses are needed for nobles and weaponanthees
  
• Shield - Reduced deaths is great

Barntar

• Plowsong - Allows cows to work better. This is good for hard mode, not so much on lower difficulties. On lower difficulties, this would be situational or even extremely situational.
  
• Vigor - Lets your farmers work better. This stops your clan complaining you need more people to work the fields, it's always good spell unlike Plowsong.

Chalana Arroy

• Curing - People get sick all the time, this is really useful especially during long dark seasons

Lhankor Mhy

• Lawspeaker - This is very good spell to have around mid-game when you are tribal leader and you have to solve many disputes.

Maran Gor

• Earthblood - Lots of people die when you get raided usually, this makes your fields fertile no matter who dies even if it's the people who raided you! Their loss will be your gain!

Orlanth

• Lightning - Can have its uses when you try to aim to hurt enemies, but I just prefer killing them
  
• Thunderstone - Has its uses if you have many hunters but even then, the boost is not very noticeable

Ancestors

• Protection - Hostile spirits are relatively rare but they are always really annoying to deal with. If you don't want to deal with that, you can get the blessing to prevent such hijinks.

Chalana Arroy

• Healing - Recovers wounded people. Chances are, you don't often have many wounded people and even then, you can just do a simple magical ritual, instead of having it as ongoing spell.

Issaries

• Trading - The boosted profits are nice but it's honestly not all that big to warrant ongoing permanent benefit.

Lhankor Mhy

• Clan Lore - Divinations are already very awesome and I barely ever have them fail me, even then it's mostly because my magic was really poor or something. Still, if you want to reduce that fail percentage to absolute 0, then you can have this spell around.

Vinga

• Fyrdwomen - Assuming you're not playing on hard mode and you get raided very often, you can opt to use this instead of pathfinder, especially if you don't explore that much. It's not that huge of a boost to be honest but can help when you're being raided by a giant swarm of horse spawn. It has its uses for sure, but since Vinga only allows one active spell, you'll most likely have Pathfinder active all game.

Ernalda

• Preserve - Honestly, this one is a bummer. Food spoilage is almost never an issue. One of the worst spells in game.

Chalana Arroy

• Hope - Useful, when people are low on morale. Most of the time, if you're playing good you can just distribute gifts or feast or do anything else, but if all else fails, you can always sacrifice to do the magical ritual. You really shouldn't be needing to have this blessing active at all times unless you're playing really poorly.

Humakt

• Morale - Improves the ability of warriors in battle. Look, this is nice spell and all but the problem is that Great Temples only allow 3 maximum magical spells. It may be useful at start but by the end of the game, Oath is just mandatory especially in hard mode, battle luck is amazing and truesword is just amazing. Morale's biggest problem is that those three spells exist.

Issaries

• Spare Grain - Entirely skippable, barely ever has any uses especially if you have good food production (and you should, if you've read this guide!)

Odayla

And thus our "Jumbo" award goes to...

• Friend of Yinkin - Spoilage is never a problem big enough to warrant this
  
• Sureshot - The improved hunting yield is really not a big deal, plus you can just use it as a magical one time sacrifice if you really want that
  
• Tracking - I think it helps, maybe? But I'm not sure to be honest, I mean it says helps find things but even having it active and playing on low I am not finding any more or less than I think I would otherwise. Either the boost is very insignificant or it's not even working at all. After tons of tries and playing this game for years, I still am not sure if this actually does anything, so uh... Worst God in game confirmed?

Urox

• Berserker - Really, this is a stupid spell for several reasons. For instance, the hefty cost of killing and maiming your own men for each victory is really not worth it as it may set you back a lot, second of all and this is the big thing; the victory chance boost is not even that high, especially if you already have the other boosts. Skip this one, Urox has far better blessings for you.

Are you unsure which clans to make tribe with or are you unsure which to go raid annually and which to keep on your good side? Well, here's a small quick and dirty focused tierlist in terms of a tribe making.

Keep in mind that the name of each clan gets randomized each game, as such you need to look for what is their gimmick, like do they have tons of cattle or if they are known for great raiding. When selecting the clan, it tells you what they're known for, which you can use to reference here.


Ancient Texts

Ancient text clan will hepl a lot, especially with the filling map with new locations periodically, making them one of the biggest change gameplay wise for you. Their only huge downside is the literature requirement, this shouldn't be given since it'll be very hard to make it possible. Try to get them without that and they're amazing with gradually uncovering the map for you.

Cattle Clan

I think by now you know how important cattle is and this clan always has tons of them, which makes them extremely important for agriculture and world economy. Their only downside is that they know how important they are and thus they're one of the hardest to get to your side, be prepared to agree to lots of demands and to give tons of gifts.

Clan that survived pursuit

Seemingly this clan doesn't have anything to give but they have a hidden bonus, if you choose this as soon as possible, it increases your reputation massively and makes all the rest of the negotations better. Even more so, they'll be your greatest ally and will nearly always support you in any king elections.

Hunting Clan

Small clan, but they can be extremely loyal, they don't ask for much and you can make them always vote in favor of your people, they will be very helpful so don't underestimate them just because they are seemingly small.

Raiding Clan

Some of the best warriors and great ally to have when raiding others or during wars. Literally any tribe would want them by their side, however much like the Cattle Clan, you will have to give up a lot of gifts and into their demands. But they're worth it, so save up for the meeting with them!!!!

Trading Clan

Honestly, this clan is pretty great. They have very few demands and they bring tons of wealth to any tribe. They help form a strong backbone and economy to any tribe. They have no downsides, aside the fact that you have to give them lots of gifts and give in to their demands.


Chaos Hating clan

They have some strong warriors and their demands are very small. It's a good clan to have around and easy to get too.

Cooking Clan

They're good with their food, but some of the demands that they have are really outrageous, especially the contributing less warriors and requiring special spices.

Female chiefs

They have nice magic and decent warriors, it's a nice clan to have by your side, but the only thing that really is stopping them being even higher is their demands for the Vingan Queens will be very hard pill to swallow by some other clans. Still, it's a really good clan if you get on your side.

Pottery Clan

Okay clan with nice trade obligation but don't accept the no other containers unless absolutely necessary, as this may lead to problems later.

Vineyard clan

A peace clan that can help with food for the whole clan. Unlike some others, their demands are not outrageous so this may help with some food issues some other tribe mates have, since clearly you've read this guide and you don't need the food yourself, right?

War Rock clan

Great warriors and there's an added bonus that you'll find shamans more often, which can be helpful in some situations.


Bandit reforming clan

The literal epitome of a filler clan, they bring nothing, ask for nothing. You can use them as padding your tribe to make it bigger but realize that they bring almost nothing to the table.

Elmali Clan

Elmali is the third starter option and the worst one as I've established. They want to be respected as much as Orlanthi, which is a hard pill to swallow by many. Decent fighters, but may not be worth the trouble and don't bring that much to the table.

Ernalda Clan

This clan has tons of food and fertility and is excellent in preventing starvation. However, food is not really a big issue past the start of the game and also, their demands are really high.


Early Arrival

Horrible clan that's probably one of the worst clans in game, arguably even the worst. They offer some (VERY LITTLE) magic but that's it, their demands are crazy huge and the craziest one WAR ON BEASTFOLK. This means, they want you to declare war on DUCKS, your allies! No, no, NO! Seize their LAND!!!!

Mad chieftain

Fun Fact; The game even asks if you're sure if you want to make a tribe with the mad chieftain clan, if you choose to enter negotiations with them, they're THAT bad. Okay, they have some decent warriors, but you'll take a massive reputation hit and they'll be huge trouble to you and you'll have to convince many others, especially Peace clans, to let them in. Don't bother, just seize their land.

Planning Clan

Horrible clan that sounds good on paper but is just a pain in the behind.They hate the Raiding clan, arguably one of the best clan in the game and want you not to have the raiding clan in game. If you want to try to pursue them together, you'll have to have lots of meetings with just the two of them and the end result, rarely if ever is worth it. Even if you don't care about the raiding clan or they're not your neighbor, this clan just doesn't bring that much at all to the table but dares have huge demands such as making negotations with trolls that can alienate other clans. Absolute trash, seize their land whenever you see them as your neighbor.

Here are some of the best treasures in the game and how to obtain them.

Always get these


Helps our warriors, leaders, god-talkers, hunters, and farmers in a hundred ways.

The best treasure of the game, nothing comes even close. To obtain this incredible boon, you have to engage in a very lengthy epic quest line which begins when an old woman brings you a baby on top of a shield. Raise her well and help her flourish and play her quest line to the fullest to get rewarded with this unique treasure and an achievment as well. NOTE: Do not make her a Queen as the end of the quest has her die to give you the treasure.


Splendorbread is amazing treasure which gives you magic every single year forever as long as you have it. To obtain it, you must first perform the Heroquest of Orlanth and Aoka and then choose the bread as your reward.


One of the most important things about the game is to keep many cows. Clay Cow does exactly that; it increases fertility of cattle and ensures plentiful calves. To gain this incredible boon, you must select to get "magical cow" when you do Uralda's heroquest. Keep in mind that I consider Uralda's quest the hardest when going after this incredible artifact, as it is going to cause you quite the headache to reach it.


Strengthens our Humakti when our battle goal is death.

This is a great treasure that will help you be victorious in battles that can be obtained from Humakt The Champion. It is great when used in synergy with things like Earthblood as well, since you'll be doing "kill as many as possible" and thus there will be quite many dead people on your terrain. There's also a great synergy when combined with Klanth of Orlanth.


Srengthens warriors when they charge into battle.

A great treasure that will help make your warriors stronger when they charge into battle. For best results, have humakt's sword and kill as many possible while having truesword and morale blessings active to be nearly undefeatable. You get this from the Orlanth and Aoka heroquest.


Tough old sandals that increase clan magic when we take them exploring.

Exploring is always a good idea, the fact that you also get bonus magic from doing so is a nice feather to a hat. You may purchase it from this couple that comes to sell you treasure they have found. If you turn them away or take treasure from them the first time, they won't sell you more treasures in future.


If someone comes wanting to sell you a modly book, buy it! It actually helps you make poems and stories. Making poems and songs and such in this game is very useful and can invoke political non aggressive rebutals in many situations and generally save you much headache. It can literally save you from a feud or costly wars, so don't take the power of poems lightly!!


A nice treasure that increases your magic whenever you have a trickster in the ring. Considering how many great things having a trickster grants you, you'll almost always have one in your ring so these really come in handy. You need to buy it from another clan and it may cost you lots of cows and goods, this is VERY expensive treasure but will pay itself back. It's not as great as Splendorbread as it requires the trickster but more magic is never a bad thing.


This is one of my favorite treasures in the game. It increases the birthrate of your cattle, especially if you're low on them. If you've read the guide, you know that cattles are literally the most important thing in the game and there's never EVER too many of them. This helps prevent a lot of the problems that come from too few cattles and should help avoid even game overs. The downside? You have to explore Stinking Forest. Stinking Forest is a really, really dangerous area of the game and you almost always have your exlorers injured or killed, so take extra precautions. You find Stinking Forest just north of Snakepipe Hollow and Dwarf Valley.

Humakt's Raven Banner

This Banner is great, it ensures you win any raid ever, no matter what the odds. A two person army can take out 50000 army with Humakt's Raven Banner. However, this comes with a terrible price; one person has to carry the banner and at the end, they DIE. This will without a fail be a Weaponanthee.

Moreover, Humakt's Raven Banner will NOT save you from Clan Destruction or help in Tribal Wars, it's specifically raid exclusive thing and will not help you in anything other than raiding or counter-raiding when someone attacks you. That limits its potential a lot.

You can also trade it and that's actually very good use of this. In my hard playthrough, I gave this treasure to Horsespawn. They never once raided me again in the playthrough. I personally think this is a lot better tarde off, mostly because I win most my raids anyway and it sacrfices your soldier to use it. Especially in hardmode, it's probably far better idea to actually give it away to someone who raids you often and who you can't send regular gifts to, such as trolls, dwavers, horsespawn, dragons, etc.

You can find it randomly by exploring.

Hard mode treasures

These treasures help you win at hard mode, they are more situational and thus aren't required in normal plays.


This amazing stone can save your entire clan. It helps you finish heroquests when you're in desperate situations. Considering hard mode likes to throw a lot of really nasty things at you, plus you may need to heroequest more often; this stone is extremely handy. This treasure can be bought from another clan.


This is a really great treasure that helps heroquesting, especially the dreaded "Elmal Guards the Stead" heroquest, which many consider the hardest heroquest in the game. The downside? You have to send many explorers to the lands of Horse-spawn. Chances are that you will lose a lot of troops trying to fetch this boon. Because of this, I don't really think it's worth it unless you're playing hardmode.

Here's a quick and dirty list of treasures that can easily be disposed, as in giving them away during events that want treasures. There's many events in the game where giving treasure will yield you a treasure in exchange (For example, Issaries Heroquest) so having one of these disposable treasures at hand is really great because you can change it for an unique treasure that you can only obtain by giving a treasure you already own.

Disposable treasures don't have much merit or worth aside this and some such as Sorcerous Implements, are actually even harmful.

Bellow are the treasures and some small comments about them

Belintar's Book - It does nothing. However, having this treasure can proc Pharao's servants to come and search for book, you can get Sorcerous Implements. It may be a good idea to hold on to the book so you can get the Sorcerous Implements before using it as a disposable treasure.
Dragon Cart. - It does nothing.
Dwarf Containes - It contains poor quality food. If you don't dispose or trade this quickly, one of the ring members will open them and you only get a minor boost to food.
Godbone - Despite the omnious name, it actually does nothing.
Ralian Jewelry - Does nothing, but can also be sold if desired.
Silver Dragon - This actually does something in very rare and specific situations with resurrection rituals, but it's so niche that you probably almost never have use for it.
Sorcerous Implements - This treasure is actually cursed and hanging on to it too long will spoil your crops and cause many other problems, dispose it asap.
Spirit Fetch - One of the best disposable treasures, you should buy all you can always as they stack. Spirit Fetches are used automatically and catch some of the magic you've used per year and each invidual Spirit Fetch counts as a treasure!
Urgain's Coin - It does nothing.
Voss Varainu Tapestry - It does nothing.
Winking Sapphire - It does nothing.

Here's list of some of the legendary characters you may meet during the game. Legendary characters should never be made rulers, especially not King/Queen even if the option would present themselves. That is because the legendary characters are often tied to "bigger picture" and often resent being tied down to becoming rulers to begin with.



Kallyr is one of the strongest characters of the game. At one point of the game, a woman brings a baby on top of a shield. She will grow to be amazing in all her skills and will be the youngest noble you can use in your clan ring.

However, you should never ever make her a queen.

In the old boxed copy it was possible to make Kallyr a great queen contender, however in the new Steam version it seems that this event occurs a lot sooner and at early game, way before the potential King Race. It will be extremely hard if not impossible to have her be able to reach this, because sooner or later Kallyr will start talking about her plans of doing a dangerous heroquest or to stealing band of one hundred.

You can keep turning her away from these but she will just ask you again, at one point she will do so without your consent. Kallyr will do so before she's past her 30's. If she is able to do the heroquest, you get a buff to your exploration (meh) and if stealing band of one hundred, she gets the best treasure of the game (yay!). If she does it without consent, she dies anyway and you don't get any reward.

My advice is to try and have Kallyr do band of one hundred and use that to get a great queen candidate instead.

You get two achievements from Kallyr; one from the heroquest and one from the band of one hundred.



Theya is a magical version of Kallyr and one of the added major characters in the Steam version. She also has probably the most depressing story of all characters in King of Dragon Pass. This amazing seer will be said as a kid to have great powers, you can have her sent to Ernalda temples and give her amazing powers. When in clan, she is able to see into future and tell you about upcoming events and maybe even help you prepare for them! She makes a great mage but a poor leader, you shouldn't make her a clan leader and NEVER make her a queen! She warns you about this herself as well saying it's not her destiny to become a ruler if you ask her.

Theya is a lovely woman and many men want to marry her. You may opt to keep her within the clan and don't marry her to outsiders, if you want to keep hold of her amazing visions and the magical poweress. You shouldn't marry her for the treasure, the treasure is very mediocre at best and certainly not worth losing Theya.

You get achievement for keeping Theya around. I haven't checked if you get it if you marry her out of the clan.



Derik is a boy who loses his parents. He's often encountered in long play throughs around mid game, never in short. He grows to become a fierce warrior, though never becomes an actual ring member. As such, you can never make him a King or even a member of your ring. Help him grow good and he'll turn out to be one of your strongest allies and who can give you amazing treasure at the end, as well as an achievement.



Thadart and his quest begins by exploration, especially the south regions. One of the warriors from exploration mission will return telling that Thadart was captured. Later, this man will return looking like Tusk Rider. Thadart, like Derik never becomes an actual ring member. Be kind to Thadart and play through his storyline for a nice achievment and having one less enemy to worry about.

Protip: If you hear THIS particular song, you are in for a HUGE trouble.

Even if you'd have perfect everything, victory is not assured. Defeat is just one extremely bad event away, especially on a hard mode. Here are some of the worst things that can happen to your clan and what to do.




Kinstrife is a horrible event that happens when you have lots of chaos around. It almost always also signals the start of a downhill for your clan and rest of the game. To make matters worse, any mourn will attract even more chaos and may cause undead attack or worse, the dreaded chaos monster. This is a matter that needs dealt with extreme precaution. If this happens, you must start paying much more attention to Urox and perhaps build/enlarge shrine for him. Doing heroquest "Orlantha and Aoka" may help. Whatever you do, do not make extreme mourning as this is like a beacon for chaos to attack!


Undead come crashing and destroying your fortifications and killing your people. Undead army is a terrifying army indeed and already a reason enough to be best friends with ducks. If things have escalated this far you must take drastic measures and send massive war parties, asking your neighbors to help and your tribe if you have one. You can attempt to sacrifice to Humakti but he may decline to help because your actions have caused this whole problem to begin with. After dealing with the onslaught, rebuild anything that has been destroyed, build Humakti temple/enlarge it, stop asking tribute from ducks if you are and start sending scout parties to the swamp for at least three following years to be safe.

By the way, have I said that it's extremely bad idea to be on bad side of ducks?


You do not want Broos born and have to stop this from ever even being possible to happen. Cattles are the most important thing in the game, nothing is easier way to lose the game with lack of Cattle than having Broos around.

When you see two headed calves, sacrifce to Urox immediattely. Build temple/enlarge one for Urox.

If an Uroxi warrior comes telling your cattle is infected and wants to kill them and you don't have someone extremely good in magic, KILL THEM ALL. (Otherwise, you can try and magically test them first) You can recover your losses by trade or raid but if you don't kill them, the cattle may die anyway and even worse, BIRTH BROOS THAT KILL EVEN MORE. If you wish to risk it and play a gamble if the Broos are infected or not and they end up birthing baby Broos, immediattly do Elmal Guards the Stead heroquest, if you have it avaivable.

If you actually see actual adult Broos, ask clans for help. Everyone, even if they have feuds with you will help because Broos are that big of a mennace. Treat it as massive menace like it is and take as big precautions as the game allows.


One of the worst things in the game is flood, you will lose cattle, goods, people and there's absolutely nothing you can do about it. However, to shorten the duration of the flood, you can try and sacrifice to Orlanth or even embark Orlanth and Aoka heroquest if you're in desperate times.

Another option is to help other clans who are hit even harder than you. This is going to ensure plenty of friends and can even end feuds, potentially turning the disaster into a positive outcome!

If you chose the waterlord as your ancestral enemy, you can attempt to summon flood and then help others to better your relationship with your neighbors, they'll never know you were actually the responsible one. You also can try a special action "Battle of Breaking Waves" which if succesful, will give a boost to your clan magic.


If one of these people come to your clan and start threatening that they'll destroy you STOP EVERYTHING YOU ARE DOING!!!!

You are about to lose the entire game!!!

First of all, plead and gift and do everything in your power to assure this party that you do not wish any more harm of them. Next, stop pestering them/sending explorers to the area they live in and never ever go there again in this playthrough. Third, consider taking a hero quest of Issaries and have condition of improving relations with the people who hate you. (Found under improve relations with outsiders) You are in desperate situation and it calls for desperate actions, you may have to even heroquest after having done heroquest earlier.

For beastmen, additionally stop asking tribute from ducks or start sending gifts to ducks.


If for some reason you ignore this, the worst event happens; Clan Destruction. Almost all your weaponanthee die, half of your non combatants are killed or taken as slaves, your fortifications are destroyed, most of your livestock and goods and treasures are also stolen, most of your food and temples are also destroyed. Many clan ring members are killed, including maybe even your clan leader.


You have two options which are to disband the clan (game over) and "Soldier on, despite impossible odds." Playing on easy and having been extremely great clan, you may be able to continue but you probably don't want to after losing so much, you'll be left weak for all your enemies to plunder and you are basically worse off than having started a new game. It's best to roll back few years and do all the ammends I listed.

With Telemori though, there's no real option as they will literally kill and eat all your cows so you will automatically game over in next turn.

Do you have tons of clan members worshipping gods you don't need? I had in one playthrough like 4 vinga worshippers and never used for them for anything. The sollution? Send these unwanted ones off to explore somewhere without any escort and they die! King of Dragon Pass has a certain ammount of people you can have as candidates for ring and killing off people you don't need will lower the number of people that count towards this limit, increasing possibility for Tricksters or followers of your favorite Deities once the candidates "pop up" like they had been around all the time! This way, you can also have more diversity and have at least one follower of every deity eventually! Alternatively, if their picture popus up during a battle screen take insane risks in battles they're called up in and just play like lunatic with their lives! If they don't die, the gods favor you for being able to take such risks and it increases morale of your troops, it's a win-win solution because even if they'd not die, you'd benefit greatly from it! The only problem with this method is that there doesn't seem to be much rhyme and reason for who appears in the battles, so it's not as reliable as sending off to explore without escort.


This may be considered cheating though and frowned upon by some hardcore King of Dragon Pass fans.


This is something not many seem to realize but you can elect anyone to be the king/queen of the tribe. Likewise, if the person does end up becoming the king/queen it doesn't mean that you have to put that Vinga worshipper as your clan leader and suffer penalty to magic. I don't think the person even has to be in the ring to be able to act as the king/queen, albeit I don't think then they'll be able to get their stats as high as they could get.


When choosing your clan, remember that their age is important. If you want to aim for any specific stats, these heroequests boost these stats when selecting "Make the quester stronger" or any of such similar in each heroquest's flavor text.

• Chalana Arroy Heals The Scars: Bargain, Leadership, Magic, Custom
  
• Elmal Guards the Stead: Animal, Combat, Magic
  
• Ernalda Feeds the Tribe: Animal, Leadership, Plants
  
• Humakt the Champion: Combat, Leadership, Magic
  
• Issaries the Concilliator: Bargaining, Leadership, Magic
  
• Lhankor Mhy Finds the Truth: Custom, Leadership, Magic
  
• The Making of the Storm Tribe: Combat, Leadership, Custom
  
• Orlanth and Aroka: Combat, Leadership, Magic
  
• Uralda's Blessing: Animal, Leadership, Magic

Once you are in a tribe, putting points into Heroism does increase skills of everyone in your clan ring. The rest of your clan gets skill increases too but not as much as active members within the clan ring; I had my Lhankor Mhy follower reach heroic level in customs while instead of him, I had another, younger Lhankor Mhy follower in my clan ring. If you get visited by your ancestral spirits who offer you a gift for doing so good, you can ask wisdom for a small boost in all stats. If you are tribal king/queen, you can ask them to to bless your king/queen which boosts their leadership, combat and magic permanently!!

I am not 100% certain but I think these treasures do help with increasing stats of some followers.

Greysage Mask (Lhankor Mhy, Custom?)
Vinga's Comb (Orlanthi and Vingans, Combat?)
The Ring Made From Vingkot's Crown (improves all stats slightly, helps in trying to get heroics. Can be obtained from Snakepipe Hollow)
Band of one-hundred (I think it helps, after all it helps with almost everything)

In theory it's possible to have a King/Queen at the end who has Heroic in pretty much every stat they have. (My King in hard game play had Heroic in Combat, Leadership and Magic, his worst stat that he had was animals which was excellent!)


This is a list of people you should never become huge enemies with as they can literally cause you a game over and destroy your entire clan without any hope of recovery as explained in the worst case scenarios

• Dwarfs
  
• Dragons
  
• Trolls
  
• Beastfolk
  
• Telemori
  
• Berserker

If any of these people get too fed up with you, they destroy your clan almost completely. You actually get achievement for having your clan be destroyed by each of these people, one for each destruction. This is very easy to achieve on hard difficulty, especially the troll and beastfolk ones where you justs have to send explorers to their areas and just keep asking tribute from ducks.


It's true. Even playing on long, if you don't try and progress the game at all and just sit by, never do the quests and don't partake in king race, someone else WILL. Becoming a king/queen should be your goal and any opportunity to help towards it should be your priority. The timer is very forgiving but rest assured, if you don't make any advances towards becoming the tribal leader and/or King, you WILL lose simply because someone else got the benefits while you ignored your destiny. Generally, I think Long Plays can last over 100 years at max but I haven't tested it out enough yet to be certain. (Can someone help me verify the time limit it takes before other tribal leaders become King?)


Do you want to make a clan ring that is entirely composed of a certain gender but the game is telling you that your magic is weakened?

There is a way to remove the -2 magic penalty but it takes time. IF you don't have any men/women in your ring for 7 years, you'll start a new tradition where it's a tradition that only certain gender is allowed to be in clan ring.

Aside the first years, the -2 magic from your annual magic that you receive isn't that big of a deal and if you want to have your sausage party of a clan, this is the way to do it.


The game requires you to beat it 10 times to gain all the achievements. Doing this as many times will take long time and make you really good at the game, so you probably want to add more challenge to later games to fight tiredness/samey feelings. Or maybe you just want to see every possible cutscene and event, even the really negative ones.

Bellow is a way to make the game as challenging as possible, with or without hard mode. (But be warned, it'll be insanely hard on HARD)

Make your clan however you want, but be sure to make these choices.

Take thralls
Worship Elmal
Hostile towards Dragons
Ancient enemy of Trolls
Huge tracts of Land

When making a tribe, try to take Mad Chieftain Clan, Early Arrival Clan, Raiding Clan and the Planning Clan into it.

You can also try to wage wars against Ducks but be warned, this may make the game impossible to win, especially on hard!

I'll post the frequently asked questions and my answers to them here.

Version 4.0 5/5/2025 - Added section which lists all the "disposable treasures" as well as in random tips how to make the game even harder
Version 3.0 21/12/2024 - Added tiered section about all the clans for the tribe making
Version 2.3 24/8/2021 - Corrected Heroism and Destiny, since they were flipped.
Version 2.2 6/20/2019 - Added tip how to make your clan entirely based on one gender if you so desire
Version 2.1 8/1/2019 - Added new treasure "Humakt's Raven Banner" and my thoughts on best use of it.
Version 2.0 21/5/2018 - Added new treasures and new section for several treasures specifically to help hard mode plays
Version 1.9 26/7/2017 - Added indepth information about enemy behavior during raids and how to counter charge.
Version 1.8 29/3/2017 - Added Eurmal's Balls to best treasures, explained where to get Klanth of Orlanth that I forgot to mention earlier. Added small information to duck section about hard mode. Added Magic by tiers list.
Version 1.7 28/1/2017 - Cleaned some grammar and wording issues, added Telemori to the worst cases warning, added some music to enjoy listening to while reading the guide.
Version 1.6 13/9/2016 - Added Kinstrife to worst case scenarios, added legendary characters list. Cleaned up the guide, fixed some formatting and made most of the images bigger.
Version 1.5 27/6/2016 - Added a section about relations, the way of reading relations screen map and how to deal with eventual clan divide. Redone raiding section, with indepth tips in combat, advanced strategies and the overall mindset and the idea behind the whole raiding to clear confusion. Added Splendorbread and Clay cow to the best treasures list. Added a tip about king/queen and difference between clan leader.
Version 1.4 26/6/2016 - Added the other two people who can cause clan destruction, added information about heroquests and my personal easiest to hardest list.
Version 1.3 23/6/2016 - Added events section to explain more indepth about the events in game, added information of all the "clan killers" in the tips and tricks section.
Version 1.2 5/6/2016 - Some grammar fixes, further explained reasoning why you need to have more men than women in your ring. Expanded on the magic section to tell more about mysteries and talked about sacrifices, even the human ones and more info in general and a new screenshot of my current clan "Smelly Finger." Further explained the midgame and the heroquesting involved to make it more clear what you have to do to reach end game.

Version 1.1 27/2/2016 - Added some general tips, added some worst case scenarios and how to deal with them and added Modly book to best treasures.

Version 1.0: 23/8/2015 - Wrote the Guide.