Crystal Caverns
From The EQMac Wiki
Lore
The Crystal Caverns are inhabitated both by Coldain dwarves and by Rygorr Orcs. The Coldain have formed a small but well protected village deep within the caverns. They originally fled here, and all believe that they are last survivors of the Coldain race.
Areas
Crystal Caverns can be divided into two major halves; velium and non velium. The velium half is a complicated combination of tunnels that Rygorr miners are found, which drop peices and bricks of velium. In addition to the miners are Rygorr Oracles, watchmen, and a small selection of named orcs (two foreman, herbalist, and inspector.) When zoning into Crystal Caverns from the Rygorr fort in EW, you enter in the velium half and must navigate through these tunnels in order to make it to the Coldain town and safe point within the zone. Once zoning in, you will notice a large pit. A popular method of navigating this zone is to levitate before zoning in, and then invis and drop down the pit. This is a significant time saver if you prefer to hunt the lower reaches of these tunnels that offer much easier access to NPC vendors, banker, and guards that the Coldain town offers.
The non velium half of the zone consist of 3 other sub divisions; Spiders, Geonids, and Stalags. The spiders are the lowest level of the 3, and typically the easiest. The main threat with the spider tunnel is add, as there is a large amount of spiders and roamers that will add as mob flees. At the end of the spider tunnel is the Queens lair, where a queen spider can be spawned. The spiders common drops include Cyrstalline silk for crafting, as well as a crystallized web root that has x2 clicks of root (non-stackable.) The Geonids are the next highest level, and turn light blue around 46-47. They hit harder than spiders, but the tunnel itself is unmistakingly easier to camp. They position themselves one at a time at corners of the tunnel, and it is nearly impossible to get an add in this camp. This camp also offers a decent PP reward as the two named geonids (Focus Gem, a Gem Collector) drop a chipped (not crushed for velious armor quests) gem that sells well to any NPC vendor and is otherwise useless. This camp was especially popular on the PC side, because these nameds had a chance of dropping a chipped blue diamond, or a chipped fire emerald which sold for approximately 1kpp and 600pp respectively. The chipped blue diamond does not drop at this camp, and the chipped fire emerald sells for around 60pp on Al Kabor. Discussions on Allakhazams message board reveal some players claiming to make 2kpp an hour at this camp. The next highest level of the 3 subdivisions is the stalag tunnel. They are generally the most unpopular as they are the most difficult, and offer the least amount of potential pp as reward. They do not drop any crafting items, nor any NPC sellable gems that are noteworthy. In addition, just about each stalag in the tunnel comes as a pair, so this is difficult to solo without a method of crowd control and/or snare for fleeing mobs. This tunnel does offer two nameds as well. The two most notable drops from the nameds are a Blackened Crystalline Robe (can also drop off of Rygorr inspector on velium half) and a Chipped Velium Amulet. Other drops are painfully less useful given the difficulty of the camp.
