Baldur's Gate II: Shadows of Amn/Suldanessellar

Your primary goal is to face off with Irenicus, who is attacking the elf city of Suldanessellar. The only known way to enter the city is with the Lanthorn, which is held by Bohdi in the Graveyard District.

Getting the Lanthorn

Bohdi holds the lanthorn in her coffin on the second floor of he lair in the Graveyard District. A stake is required to retrieve it.

Making Friends

Drizzt Do'Urden and his company will waylay you as you head back to Amn. Careful dialog choices can recruit him to help in the battle against Bohdi. Drizzt is more than capable of single-handedly wiping out Bohdi and her guards. A powerful ally indeed.

Stocking Up

Ribald at the adventure mart will now have an option to view a separate cache of items and scrolls. This includes several level 8 and level 9 that could be invaluable to completing the game. He is all the way in Waukeen's Promenade, so any new equipment would need to make up for the time lost by the detour. The trigger for Ribald's extended inventory seems to be if the chapter is 6. Should a way to skip chapters be found, Ribalds better items can be accessed even earlier.

The Graveyard

Upon entering the Graveyard, Bohdi will initiate dialog and summon four vampires. Bohdi can be talk locked to delay this. Also, if the player rests before Bohdi has a chance to initiate dialog, it will become daytime and the vampires will instantly die from the sunlight.

The Crypt

If you don't have a stake at this point, be sure to grab one from the locked chest right near the entrance. This chest also hold a scroll of Finger of Death, which may be very useful. There are lots of vampires here (go figure), and there are several ways to get around them:

• Killing them
• Hide in shadows or invisibility
• Protection from Undead scroll

Killing them would take a long time no matter how you do it, but it will unlock the door to Bohdi.

Hide in shadows or invisibility works fine, but to wall jump the locked door you'll usually have to survive a few seconds against the vampires.

Protection from Undead is the safest way. No vampire, not even bohdi, can do anything to a player protected from undead.

There is a door that will only unlock if all the vampires on the floor are killed. Wall jumping is a viable alternative to killing the vampires.

On the second floor Drizzt will be waiting if you recruited him. Unless the vampires on the above floor are killed, he won't move. He can be charmed with a Ring of Air Control. Bohdi will be waiting in the big room, and will try to initiate dialog. At the end of this dialog, several vampires and grim warders will appear to protect her. This can be avoided by talk locking her or by being protected from undead. When Bohdi reaches less than 10 hit points, she will force dialog (meaning her guards will come). After this, if she is still at one hit point (she's got a pretty decent health regeneration, so she won't always stay at less than 10 health), she will start another dialog and become vulnerable. After she dies, she becomes a bat and flies to her coffin. A stake in the coffin will give you the lanthorn.

Suldenessalar

With the lanthorn in hand, the party can talk to Elhan and be teleported to Suldenessalar. The beginning cutscene can be skipped with variant 2 of the cutscene skip. After this, you need five items to get to the tree of life.

The sword

The sword is in the party-required building in the middle of the map. The cutscene inside cane be skipped and the sword can be pick-pocketed.

The Goblet

The goblet is in the dragon area. The transition to this area is in the top left of Suldenassallar. You can either kill the dragon (he's susceptible to death magic, and not much else) or agree to give up all your items and gold in exchange for the goblet (charisma 16+ for this choice). He will not take quest items, and you can drop any item you'll need before talking to the dragon to avoid losing them. The gold you lose is unneeded for the rest of the game.

The Amulet

The amulet is in the building to the bottom middle part of the map. On the top floor is a rune that you'll need to get dialog choices for the amulet. The amulet is held on an altar on the lower floor, and you must correctly sequence some dialog to get the amulet.

The Horn

The harp is in the building just above where you enter, labeled "House of the Horn" on the map. There are three hostile clay golems inside that cast haste on themselves and slow on enemies. They will chase a player outside of the building, but cannot see through invisibility or hide in shadows.

The Harp

The harp is in the building in the top left part of the map. There's nothing notable about the room it's held in.

You only need the Sword, Amulet, and Goblet to summon the Avatar which unlocks the door. You need the Harp and the Horn before entering the temple(?) in the top right part of the map to get to the tree of life. These items can be picked up in any order, and party members can be split up to collect these items simultaneously.

Avatar Cutscene

The door to the temple(?) is unlocked as soon as the Avatar cutscene starts, so you can skip almost all of the cutscene.