Dragon's Dogma/The Encampment

To the Encampment
After meeting with Rook, leave Cassardis and follow the road. A peddler will be ambushed by Goblins. Save him to get a Leather Cape and getting access to his questline. Turn right to the seaside and hunt some rabbits for your notice-board quest. Then turn back to Cassardis but turn right to the large tree, where you can find some more rabbits. Fighters should approach the rabbits with their Blink Strike, or they run away. Pick all Sunbrights growing under the tree.

Explore the rest of the side with some more goblins until you hit a second big tree, that grows more Sunbrights. You are now stocked with all Sunbrights you need for the Floral Delivery. Now head for the beach. You can loot some minor materials from the boats, but the most important stuff is at the north wall. Between two rocks you can find a Seeker's Token. Jump up to your right, loot the chest with a good chance of a usable equipment piece, then follow the small ledge. Try not to fall into the water. At the end you find a second Seeker's Token and another chest, that is likely containing a weapon.

Then head back to the main road and enter the Encampment.

Call of the Arisen
Enter the tent on the far side. Ecbar behind the counter acts as an Inn keeper, where you can rest and manage your inventory. He will also give you access to learn new skills. Your options aren't too vast. Some shelves at the other side can be looted for a Liquid Vim, a Hardspurd Sauce and some more items in the sack. Now head further inside and talk to the Riftstone.

Head outside and follow the soldiers. But before exiting, take a look at the Notice-board. Pick all the quests you can and head out

Kill the Cyclops
He is already severly weakened and you are accompanied by soldiers to help you. They face the goblins and give you room to kill the cyclops. Climb on its leg and attack to throw it off balance. Rook will try to set up this tactic. His obvious weak spot is his eye. Attack it with ranged weapons or climb up and strike it with melee weapons. Beware the cyclops' grappling move, if you are near its head. Get off by pressing the appropriate button or jump up and grapple it again, before you land on the ground.

Once the cyclops is dead, head back inside and begin the creation of your pawn.

Your new shadow
You next creation will always follow you, no matter where you go. If they die, you can call them back from the next Rift Stone. It follows the same rules of your own character creation. The only thing a pawn can't do is picking up a hybrid vocation. For everything else, they are the same. Pawns can be hired by other players (if you allow it in the options) and bring back valuable Rift Crystals. If you possess Dark Arisen this should be a minor concern.

After choosing the looks, choose the vocation and you are urged to answer four questions. They change the behavior based on the bars shown on the left side. Again, this is not a final desicion, but setting up good inclinations can improve the battle powress easily.

It can be useful to focus on two inclinations, as they will be displayed. Some solid combinations are ...


 * Challenger and Scather will make a pawn go for ranged enemies and then picking the strongest foe. Works well with Striders as they will use both melee and ranged weapons and scather will opt them to grapple large enemies.
 * Utilitarian and Guardian works well on Fighters. Be sure to equip Shield Drum and avoid aggressive inclinations, like Scather, Challenger, or Mitigator.
 * Utilitarian and Medicant, this pawn will focus on healing the group and buff it up appropriately so it works best on a Mage. Set Utilitarian as primary to allow a more supportive buffspreading. IF the pawn knows an enemies weakness it will use an appropriate enchantment.

Feel free to experiment with different combinations. If your pawn runs forth and back a lot, this might be due to conflicting inclinations. A ranged vocation may want to avoid the Scather, while a sorcerer works best with Utilitarian regardless of bestiary knowledge. Avoid Guardian and Nexus on pawns that are supposed to be aggressive, while Pioneer promotes aggressiveness heavily.

Bestiary
The Bestiary tells you how effective a pawn can fight a certain enemy. Zero stars means the enemy is unknown. One star means, that one tactic has been learned. Two stars implies the knowledge of multiple tactics, while three stars means, that all tactics of that pawn are known and a certain kill count for a best has been reached.

After finishing your character a cutscene will play. Turn around and talk to the rift stone once again and pick a fourth pawn. If you or your pawn are a mage, you can also replace Rook. Be sure to have a mage and a strider and a fighter in your group, as a round party makes it easier to react to different situations.

Lastly give your Pickaxe to your main pawn.

Strength In Numbers
This short quest introduces carrying smaller objects and offers a small target practice. The third round include targets that are resistant to either physical or magical damage.

Rude Awakening
Once you are done talk to Mercedes. At this point you can also head back to Cassardis for some dialogue with an important NPC. Following the cutscene you have to deal with the hydra ambush. You only need to cut of one head. Weapons with slashing damage work well, as well as fire. This means that a fire enchanted dagger will end this fight quickly.

If you fail to kill it, it will push further into the encampment until Mercedes will offer a unique solution. If the cutscene plays and your character throws a barrel at it simply attack the bulge to blow off the head. This is also a possibility with Hydras you will encounter later. Once the head is chopped off Mercedes offers an escort to the capital to offer the head as a trophy.

Sidequests
Head back to Cassardis, as suggested by the pawns. Once there, talk to Adaro and learn about Quinas absence. Next to him you can find Poll to start the Deep Trouble quest. Enter Pablos' Inn and Talk to Madeleine and accept her quest Guard Duty. Then talk to Pablos and pick up his quest An Uninvited Guest.

Mark the quest in your log to learn the location of the two NPCs. Heraldo will leave the village during day so visit him first, then talk to Aestella. Now return to Benita and give her the five Sunbrights. The last component you have to pick up is one Moonglow. You can find it during the night at the farside of Cassardis' beach.

An Uninvited Guest
Before you start the quest make sure, that your inventory is empty and your encumbrance is very light. You will be dropped off in an empty Cassardis at night. The thief is running circles in the north part. Walk past Aestella's shop and wait at the crosssection. The thief may come from the church from two sides. If he sees you he might turn around and make another round. Catching him in this section is hard.

Without attacking him you can try to close the distance to him while he momentarily stops at a door. A successful grapple is all you need to finish the quest. If your affinity to the thief doesn't matter you can also attack him and knock him off his feet. A successful Burst Strike or Fivefold Flurry can stagger him long enough.

A good chance to capture is while he's heading for the beach. He will run along the narrow grass patch next to the building and turn around after a while. Waiting along the path gives a good opportunity to knock him down for a capture.

If he leaves the village before capture you lost and have to try again.

Gransys at Night
Sleep at the Inn until nightfall. Now head for the beach and pick up the Moonglow at the Starfall Bay. You can hand it over to Benita immediately to finish the quest. Distribute all the lanterns in your possession across the pawns and head out towards the encampment. Don't stray away from the road and watch out for Madeleine. Enter the Encampment and finish her quest. She will ask for a loan of 1,000 Gold. Accepting will give you some amount of affinity with her, which may give access to some items much later.

Lost and Found
Doing this quest at night makes it much easier, since most enemies are replaced by wolves. They will be plentiful but easy to deal with. After some barriers you can turn left. Advance slowly as there are many wolves in the bushes. Walk up the path but watch the falling rock. It will fall apart near the small tree.

Follow the road all the way on the left side and defend yourself against all enemies. At the end you can enter the Witchwoods. At the entrance you will meet Quina.

She will be your escort. Follow the path through the shallow water. You will see a talisman surrounded by a mysterious fog. Destroy it and the Map shows your surroundings. Follow the road to the right, but mind the Wolves and Goblins around. At the end you find another Talisman and a chest. Always look out for Quina. She can heal herself but if left unattended she will be killed by the wolves.

Turn back and head right. Following the path you will encounter more wolves and some spiders. You need to kill eight for your notice-board quest. If you walk into the cave you will run a full circle. You need to get up, either on the south side or on a rock that acts as an archway. Once you see a third foggy talisman you are on the right path. Destroy it and prepare for a wolf ambush. Head further east to find the Witch's House.

Aproach it and two cutscenes will play. Feel free to loot the house dry and don't forget the Bronze Idol sitting in the window. Now head back outside and follow Quina on the hidden path. You will exit the woods to an overlook. If you have a staff wielding profession and know to levitate you can access the witchwood by running towards the ledge jump and then hover all the way up. Otherwise you are stuck with the detour you just took.

Head back to Cassardis and get your reward from Adaro.

Deep Trouble
The enemies in this quest are quite tough. If you feel confident, enter the well and follow the left path. You can find a few rats to kill and six Giant Bats. At the end of the path you can drop down into an are with much water. All the saurians must be killed.

Chopping off their tail makes it easier to fight all of them. You can also choose to ingore this quest for now and do it later. It becomes much easier once you reach Gran Soren and can equip better weapons.