Gothic/Get-rich-quick schemes

So you need some dough but without all the hard work? You'll be glad to hear that in the world of Gothic, your immoral desires will go entirely unpunished.

As long as you don't get caught, that is. And that's where this guide comes in.

Looking for weapons instead? Try Getting good gear.

Swords. Lots of swords

In the chest from the blacksmith in the old camp (RRLRLL) you'll find 20 raw steel and 2 crude swords. Now go to the swamp camp. (Baal Parvez in the old camp can take you) Ask Lester (near the entrance) the way to the smithy. Pick the lock on the chest (LRRLLL) and you will find an axe (32 DMG/12 STR), mandibles of a minecrawler (you can take these to Kor Calom), 27 raw steel and 16 blades. Using the furnace (use+keep tapping up) your raw steel turns into glowing steel, the anvil turns glowing steel into glowing blades, the water bucket turns glowing blades into blades and the grindstone turns blades into crude swords. You now have 65 crude swords that can be sold/bartered for 3250 ore nuggets of value. And you have the axe, which is an excellent starter weapon.

Robbing Gomez

Once you have access to the castle (and before the fourth chapter), enter the house of the Ore barons during daytime. If you joined the old camp or the swamp camp, this won't be a problem as you'll visit Gomez when you become a Shadow or are Taking Weeds to Gomez.

Extra instructions, only needed if you joined the new camp

If you joined the new camp, you can get into the castle as a message carrier for the water mages. But that doesn't get you into the house of the Ore barons. In this case you have two main options: ignore the guards, they'll give up soon enough and leaving won't be a problem. If that doesn't work for you:

1. Wait until the third chapter so you can buy the Control spell scroll/rune from Baal Cadar.
2. On right side of the house of the Ore barons, all the way at the back in the castle wall, there's a door. It leads into a fairly small kitchen/butchershop. Go there around midnight (use a bed if needed) and you'll find two butchers/chefs, Balam and Omid working here.
3. Drop a sufficient amount of Picklocks on the floor. You'll be picking the locks untrained.
4. Knock one of the chefs unconscious, preferably Balam as Omid is unarmed and both will attack you when you attack them. The one you knocked unconscious isn't going to bother you anymore, which is important for Control to work.
5. Now stand close to the door (the walking range with Control is limited) and use the Control spell on the chef you didn't knock unconcious. It'll take a little time and 12 mana to take control of the chef.
6. Now that you have become the chef, pick up the picklocks you dropped earlier. Note that you can't open your inventory. Don't worry about that.
7. Walk into the house of the Ore barons. The guards are now totally fine with this, because you're just the chef. Strip Gomez of all of his worldly belongings you can get your grubby chef-hands on as described below. You'll have to skip the room opposite Gomez' room (which wasn't worth all that much anyway) and the great view of the colony at the top of the storage tower is also out of range for the Control spell. You still can't see your inventory, even when looting chests, but don't worry.
8. When you're done, return to the kitchen/butchershop. Press enter and you'll be yourself again. But where's your stuff? Why, on the money mule, of course! Knock him unconscious and loot his body. If you don't kill him, do it quickly (take 100 items at a time) because when he gets up he'll run away into areas where you can't knock him down again unseen.

Gomez' worldly belongings

On the right from the entrance of the house there is a chest in the brewery that doesn't require Gomez' key. Guards may or may not attack you for stealing from it, YMMV. The code is R L L L R L and you'll find 1× Troll skin, 5× Skin of a shadowbeast and 3× Wolfskin.

Go upstairs. The room on the left belongs to Gomez, you can't open his chests yet. Opposite Gomez' room there is a bedroom with a chest (R L L L R L L R) with 2× Extract of Healing (+70), 1× Amulet of Spiritual Power  0  0  0  8 , 120× worthless coins, a Dreamcall, 2× Candlestick and 1× Cutlery.

Right next to Gomez' room you'll find Bartholo's room. Here you find a chest (L L L L R L R L) with an Amulet of Stone Skin  15  15 . Opposite Bartholo's room is a bedroom that's shared by Arto, Scar and Thorus. There are three chests in that room, all with the same combination (R L L L L L R R) and the same contents: 1× Armor Amulet  15 , 1× Potion of Swiftness (1m), 1× Extract of Life (+10) and 4× Extract of Healing (+70) in each chest.

Go back to Bartholo's room, because there's one more thing here: a door. Pick the lock on the door (R L L L R L) to find yourself in a hallway with.. another door (L R L L L R) and now you're in the storage tower. On the first floor you'll find:

• Chest on the left (R L L R R L R R): 32× Ham, 32× Rice Schnapps, 47× Grilled Meat, 56× Beer and 31× Wine
• Chest in the middle (L L R R R L R R): 19× Cutlery, 10× Goblet, 2521 worthless coins and 500× Ore nugget
• Chest on the right (L R R L L L L R): 2× Rusty Sword (10/5), 3× Withered axe (13/7) (barely worth picking the lock on this one)

Take the ladder to the second floor of the tower.

• Chest on the right (R L L L R L R R): 30× Wolfskin, 30× Skin of a shadowbeast
• Chest left of that (R R R L L R L R): 2× Ring of Flame Protection  0  0  3 , 3× Ring of Wooden Skin  0  5 , 1× Protection of Fire  0  0  5 
• Chest between the shelves (L R R L R L L R): 13× Cutlery, 27× Claws, 13× Horn of a shadowbeast, 12× Teeth
• Chest in the dark (L L R L R L R R): 27× Rice Schnapps, 34× Beer, 24× Wine

Hold on to at least one horn of a Shadowbeast for your ULU-MULU. Take the ladder to the third floor of the tower.

• Chest in the corner (R R L L L L R L): 12× Elixir of Healing (+100), 13× Extract of Healing (+70), 13× Elixir of Magic Energy (+70), 5× Extract of Magic Energy (+50), 10× Potion of Swiftness (1m)
• Chest left of that (L L L R L L R R): 24× Cutlery, 8897 worthless coins (the cutlery can be sold for 180 Ore so this chest is small change)

Take the ladder all the way to the top for a great view of the colony! On your way out, take some swords. All of Gomez' loot combined can be sold to any merchant for over 14000 Ore!

Note: unless you're using the Control spell as described above, do not do this at night, unless you like being stabbed.

Smoking Viper

At the bottom of the old mine (where you'll be going for the Test of Faith), you may have noticed Viper who is busy melting ore. He's also a merchant, he has 750 Ore nuggets. Interestingly, he has 124 life and no armor whatsoever, so why pay for it? His attacks are quite powerful, but he won't kill you.

1. First, drop any ore you are holding yourself. Just in case a guard comes to help Viper out and steals your ore. You actually don't have to worry about Viper stealing your ore, because you're gonna steal it back anyway. The templers who are clearly in sight were just hired to deal with the minecrawlers. They don't meddle with fights between members of other camps.
2. Position yourself between the machine with the orc slave and Viper (to stay out of sight) and knock Viper unconscious. If he knocks you unconscious, just wait until you get back up and hit him again.
3. Once he's out, take a quick look to make sure no guards are running to the scene. Pick up your ore (which you dropped) and loot Viper's body (move 100 items at a time, see controls) and make a run for it.

Chests in the old mine

There's a number of chests in the stores of Alberto and Santino. There's a fair amount of ore in them, but when you try to take it the guard will attack you, he won't kill you but will steal your ore so if you can disarm the guard, that'll help.

The highest value chest in the stores* is the center chest (R R R R R R) in the store at the top of the mine with 330 Ore nuggets.

Housebreaking in the Old Camp

The first thing you'll discover in the old camp is that you can't go into most huts. The exceptions are the huts of named characters. Most named characters (such as Diego) don't care about you entering their houses, so you can rob them in broad daylight. The named characters who do mind about this can be robbed when they are in the house when you enter (even if you wake them up in the process). No-name characters can be robbed if nobody sees you enter, or if you knock them down first (more on that later). As a general rule, if you hear "hey you!" simply leave and try a different approach or come back later.

Since a hut's owner is often the first to accost you if you enter it, knocking him down first (see Fights) often means you can run in and loot it. If he gets up and challenges while you're picking the chest you can just hit him again and re-enter the house.

Each locked chest or door has a combination. The combination is static; it will always be the same every time you play, even if you start a new character. Combinations are made up of left/right tumbler movements: the combination for Diego's chest, for instance, is R L L R R R.

Once you know the combination to someone's chest their presence in the area no longer matters: you can rush in, break it open, and take some or all of the contents before they get to you and start shouting or attacking. If you don't have time to get all the loot simply leave and wait for them to calm down and go back to where they were and then go back to finish emptying the chest. If it's someone safe to attack (see below) you can just knock them to the floor and continue your work.

Once a lock has been picked it will stay unlocked for the rest of the game. If you make a wrong move you will have to start over, and sometimes this will result in your picklock breaking. Picklocks never wear out from correct tumbler movements, so if you always do the right movements you'll never lose your pick. Early in the game you'll have a very limited number of picklocks and they do come in handy, so make sure you always have a few left.

Chests

• Diego's chest (R L L R R R) on the path from the main gate to the castle. In addition the table is set with a plate and a tumbler. Contents: 3× Grilled Meat, 120× Ore nugget, 2× Cheese, 1× Water, 1× Jug, 1× Pan, 5× Essence of Healing (+50), 3× Picklocks
• Diego's neighbor's chest (L L L R) just beside Diego's hut. Contents: 1× Pan, 1× Plate, 1× Razor, 2× Bread, 3× Cheese, 5× Ore nugget
• Dusty's chest (R L L L) above the marketplace. Contents: 34× Ore nugget, 3× Coin, 1× Razor.
• Kyle's chest (L L L R) in his hut on the wall. Since it's on a pathway nobody but Kyle minds you entering. Contents: 1× Essence of Healing (+50), 3× Beer, 2× Water, 12× Ore nugget
• Left well hut L (L R L R), looking from the well towards the huts, it's on the left. Contents: 1× Coin, 1× Pan, 1× Plate, 5× Cheese, 5× Ore nugget, 1× Grilled Meat
• Right well hut (R L L R), looking from the well towards the huts, it's on the right. Contents: 1× Pickaxe (7/5), 2× Grilled Meat, 5× Ore nugget, 1 Razor, 2× Water, 1× Jug
• Fallen tower (R L L L), chest inside a huge fallen tower near the back entrance to the Old Camp. Contents: 1× Essence of Healing (+50), 1× Grilled Meat, 1× Pickaxe (7/5)
• Mud's chest (R L L L) near the chef's hut. Mud sits outside. Contents: (to do)
• Right chest in Fisk's hut at the marketplace. (R R R L R L L R) Contents: Short Bow (20/10), 40× Arrow
• (left of the previous chest?) (L L L L R R) Contents: Essence of Dexterity (+3), (to do)
• (left of the previous chest?) (L R R R L R) Contents: (to do)
• (left of the previous chest?) (R L R R) Contents: 80× Ore nugget
• Outside of the old camp, on your way to Cavalorn, you walk past/below a bridge that leads to a tower. Go back a bit and get on that hill and cross the bridge. In the tower is a chest (R L L) with 1× Fire Bolt scroll, 7× Arrow, 69× Ore nugget, 1× Picklock, 1× Withered axe (13/7), 1× Crude Sword (20/20)

The door of the marketplace storage shed is locked (LRRL), inside are several chests:

• Big chest in the storage shed. (L L L R L L) Contents: 4× Essence of Magic Energy (+30), 1× Extract of Magic Energy (+50), 5× Essence of Healing (+50), 2× Extract of Healing (+70), Flame Thorn, 2× Stoneroot, 7× Blueberries, 3× Seraphis, 1× Healing Herbs (3), 5× Healing Herbs (1)
• Left of the big chest in the storage shed. (R L L R) Contents: 1× Skin of a shadowbeast, 4× Armor plate, 2× Wolfskin
• Left of the previous chest in the storage shed. (L R L R) Contents: 2× Rice Schnapps, 4× Rice, 13× Cheese, 10× Bread, 6× Ham, 3× Wine, 5× Beer
• Left of the previous chest in the storage shed. (R R R L) Contents: 15× Essence of Magic Energy (+30), 10× Essence of Healing (+50), 10× Pan, 6× Jug, 7× Tumbler, 4× Plate

The Library of Water and chests of the water mages

In the cave of the water mages in the the New Camp, there's a library. We won't be returning our books, that's for sure. If the guards stop you, look to your left. There's a rock. Jump onto it. Now jump from the rock into the cave of the water mages. You didn't technically pass the guards, you just went round them, so they technically did their job.

There are 10 books in the library with a total value of 1000 Ore and they can be sold to any merchant for 500 Ore. Read them for some hints and lore background before you sell them.

Chest combinations (warning: the mages won't be happy with you walking into their huts, so be quick):

• Myxir: L L L R L R
• Riordian: R R L R R L
• Merdarion: L R L R L R
• ?: R L L R R L