Hey there. If you clicked this spoiler block, that means you want to know more about Menzoberranzan (the game)! This guide will take you through the surface, the Underdark, more Underdark, Menzoberranzan (the city), and the great houses of the Drow noble families. I'm going to be using the in-game version of the world map, going through it point by point and briefly discussing what your goal is for each area, and what type of monsters you might expect to encounter. The game definitely plumbs the depths (so to speak) of the monster manuals and fiend folios for its eccentric enemies, so be sure to follow the off-site links for pictures and statistics. (I will have to come back and add them to all to this wiki too, if they're not on here already.)

Area 1: The Village

No need to dawdle on the surface, since you saw most of what there was to see up there with the Intro blog on this game. The unnamed hamlet is the player's presumed home, and by the time the game begins most of its population has been spirited away by a Drow raiding party. Your first goal is to douse the flames of the storehouse so the population won't go hungry in the Winter (Winters get pretty serious in Icewind Dale), take the Innkeeper's magical helmet (not a euphemism) as a reward, and then take off in pursuit of the Drow.

• Drow Fighter: You'd think these guys would be a little tougher. They came all the way from the Underdark with special adamantine weapons and armor and the protection of their mages and priestesses just to get ganked by some low-level nobodies with sticks. Cover of night too, where they have infravision and I have to make out their shapes from the burning buildings behind them. Just saying, this isn't a good first impression for the indomitable Drow.

1. Baldassar (Level 4 Human Fighter): Yep, I'll list all the recruitable NPCs too. Baldassar's a standard fighter who is a little lower level than your party, and will eventually leave the party if they get too far away from the village. He's the captain of the guards, you see, and he needs to stay behind to prepare for future raids or wandering monsters. I also remarked on his Frank Zappa visage in the Intro blog, but he could pass for a Lemmy Kilminster or Weird Al Yankovic too. Ironically hairy, despite being a Baldass-er.

Area 2: Icewind Dale Plains

The plains are, true to their name, wide-open areas with a few points of interest dotted around the three map sections that comprise this region. If the village didn't teach you the wonders of Menzoberranzan's auto-mapping feature, which fills in any part of the map you can see in the distance and lets you know where there are items to be found, walking out into these open areas will catch you up. The goal here is to simply find the old man Vermulean to enquire about some enchanted gems to protect you from the radiation of the Underdark, as if they weren't already dangerous enough. You then have to find the gems from a nearby cave, return to Vermulean and then head to the entrance of the Underdark to begin your adventure.

• Gnolls: These crappy hyena-people tend to serve as slightly tougher mobs in D&D games, most notably in the Baldur's Gate games where they can prove to be a difficult group battle for low-level parties. In the Drizzt novels, the heroic dark elf cuts these guys down in their hundreds, and they're pretty much jokes here too. Very few of them are grassy.
• Bugbears: Large bestial hominids with two swords and a bad attitude. There's a reason they're named after personal hatreds. They also suck in battle as hard as the gnolls, frankly. The benefit of starting off as level 5-6 adventurers.
• Verbeeg: Presumably named because they're ver' big, this race of giants is more human-like than others of their genus and tend to hit hard and have a lot of HP. They're the second-most dangerous foe you're likely to face on the surface. At least around the small patch of Icewind Dale you get to explore.
• Stirges: Giant mosquitos. Fun to squash. Weakest enemies in the game, but by the time you realize they're there they've probably hit you once or twice already. Irritating, like the real thing. They probably consider that a victory too, the little jerks.
• Leucrotta: I'd never heard of these things before playing the game, but apparently they're some kind of Wuzzle made up of a badger, a stag and a lion. They're also complete jerks and stink to high heaven. It'll imitate a baby crying and then sucker punch and eat you after you investigate. Many of them are in the cave guarding the gemstones you need.

1. Maeldithar (Level 4 Centaur Ranger): Mael Rights Activist is that centaur we met in the Intro blog, the one that says Drizzt's name is "like fire". He also spits hot fire, in arrow form. Unfortunately, ranged weaponry is a complete pain in this game since you have to individually collect all the arrows after battle and feed them one at a time back into your quiver. I just had him hold a halberd and stand at the back. Like Baldassar, he'll also leave once you approach the Underdark.
2. Vonar (Level 5/5/5 Kenku Fighter/Thief/Mage): I love this scrappy little birdperson. Vonar's a Kenku, a member of an intelligent and sneaky hawk-like race that communicates through telepathy because I imagine his beak can only make squawk noises. It kinda looks like he's making Vonar sonar when he talks. His class versatility comes in useful, though he doesn't prove particularly amazing at any one of them. He got injured by the Drow raiders and wants revenge, so he's with you for the whole game if you'll have him.
3. Drizzt Do'Urden (Level 15 Drow Ranger): Well, yeah. It's Drizzt. He comes with his enchanted chain mail, his two named +4 scimitars (he'll even let others use them!), and his enchanted statuette Guenhwyvar that becomes a celestial panthe... this all seems like overkill, huh? I mean he's already ten levels higher than everyone else in the party. You could get rid of him (he says he'll see you ahead) but... why would you?

Area 3: Underdark

The first few areas of the Underdark are standard caves, though it does loop back between its two regions fairly regularly, making it a little more complex than it looks. Only goal here is to proceed forward: this area is essentially built to acclimate you to what the rest of the game will be like. A few situations require that you use a "webwalk" spell to get past a cobweb in the way, since you're not allowed to cut them down. Characters will remark about how important it is to not rest while the webwalking effects are active, in case they wear off before you can walk through the barrier and get stuck forever. You'd think they would find a better way to warn you or implement a way around a potential dead-end scenario without an actual character piping up about how important it is to observe game mechanics. Reaching the end of this early Underdark section puts you near the lake and a particularly nasty boss.

• Osquips: Along with more Drow Fighters and Gnolls, the first few areas of the Underdark have a few subterranean-specific creatures, including these ugly little molerats. Osquips are tenacious, but they're also the perfect size to punt into a wall. Don't worry, the Underdark has more ferocious creatures in store.
• Cloaker Lords: Like these guys. Cloaker Lords resemble manta rays and are some of the most dangerous regular enemies in the game: you'll meet them again far later on, and they seem to get a big HP boost. Any parties below level 5 and/or include Steve Irwin had better watch out. In the tabletop game, they would eat people who tried to wear them as cloaks. Some adventurers are just too dumb to live, honestly.
• Troglodytes: Hopping green monstrosities that are common to caves in the Forgotten Realms setting. Not so much an Underdark-specific terror than a general nuisance. I cut these frogs into fractions and kept walking.
• Ochre Jellies: Dungeon slimes. Wonderful. Hard to damage but not that dangerous. Watch it doesn't get on your shoes. Good with peanut butter, since they're already the same color.
• Drow Priestesses: While far rarer than the fighters, just one Priestess is enough to ruin your day. They'll pelt you with fireballs from range, so it's important to get up close and chop them to pieces first.
• Aboleth: The aboleth are Cthulhu Jr. - big squids with big brains to match and a crappy attitude to those races it considers "lesser", which is all of them. This aboleth tries to ambush you by pretending to be a beautiful woman by the water's edge and transforms to attack you when you approach: the more intelligent of the Underdark's denizens are very fond of this trick.

1. Borenorak (Level 4 Dwarf Cleric): I had two chief issues with this dwarf. The first is that one of my created characters is a Dwarf Cleric, so I really didn't need a second one. The other is that he was turned irrevocably insane by the nearby aboleth and was tasked with leading suckers into its... suckers. He has a subplot of sorts where he comes to his senses after killing the aboleth but still needs to be cured with a healing fountain coming up a little later. I didn't bother. Bye crazy dude.

Areas 4 + 5: Dwarven Mines

While the mines are still mostly cave networks, there's some sign of civilization here as the tunnels have cleared been carved out by pickaxes and shovels rather than occurring naturally. There's a Moria-style rune door here that gives you some hints for the upcoming temple area, but the mines themselves tend to be a lot of rooms and corridors configured in a mostly rational manner. It makes a change from the chaotic level design of the earlier Underdark sections.

• Derro Dwarves: Derros are a palette-swapped dwarven people, blue skin instead of pink, and are invariably all evil. The derro, we find out, kicked out the dwarves that used to live in these parts with the help of the Drow, to whom they are partially subservient. Most of the regular derro are pushovers, which makes the occaisonal encounters with derro savants - magic-users - all that more jarring when they start flinging fireballs at you.
• Derro Savants: This would be a good time to talk about range: most enemies are harmless at range, giving your own ranged attackers and mages a few free hits before they can close the distance. Others, like savants and Drow priestesses, are extremely deadly at range and harmless up close - the game definitely likes to keep you on your toes.
• Hook Horrors: Hook horrors are my favorite Underdark monsters. They're enormous bipedal creatures with long beaks, tough shells and hooks for hands. They're both freaky and deadly, a nightmare combination, though perhaps old hat if you've played a lot of Metroid.

1. Azarell (Level 6 Elf Fighter): You can also bump into this young elf lass in the tunnels. She's quite self-assured of her ranged combat prowess despite her apparent young age. But you know how it is with elves. Some look young but are actually a century old. Or, in rarer cases like Azarell, are secretly Yochlol in disguise. A Yochlol, or a Handmaiden of Lolth (the Drow's patron Goddess of Spiders), is a hideous tentacled shapeshifting demon that serves Lolth directly and can only be hurt by +4 weapons. If you don't have Drizzt with you, she'll tear you to pieces, either there in the tunnel after turning her down or later when you're sleeping if you ask her to come with. Between this and the trap dwarf earlier, I'm starting to wonder if there's any friends to be made down here...

Areas 6, 7 + 8: Dwarven Temple

The multi-floored temple to Dumathoin, god of mountain dwarves, is the first place to start giving you puzzles you can really chew on. You're given hints to three points of interest: a symbol hidden "in the right hammer's head", a chalice held by a statue that will drop it after blowing a magical dwarven horn, and a healing fountain that can only be accessed with the prior two artifacts. Getting through this place means finding a bunch of keys also, and like the mines it feels like a place someone actually planned out carefully rather than passing through a random tunnel generator. You also learn more about the plans of the Drow and Derros and, crucially, on the way out your party is suddenly ambushed by an elite Drow squad who proceed to abduct Drizzt. You'll have to rely on your own selves and the lesser recruitable NPCs from here on out; it's a good time to take off the training wheels. (Unfortunately, the Drow also take Drizzt's swords, regardless of who happens to be using them. Spoilsports.)

• Night Hunters: These guys were the bane of my existence. Night Hunters are large bats that move extraordinarily quickly and tend to surround you, which is an uncommon practice for monsters in this game. Most monsters just kind of hobble slowly into range and then die violently after one round of attacks. Unlike most bats in video games, which are irritatingly hard to hit but don't do much, Night Hunters are big enough to be a significant threat.
• Spitting Crawlers: Lizards. Like, not even giant lizards either, they were smaller than Komodo Dragons. From the name I gather that they're supposed to spit stuff at you? None of the ones I met ever lived long enough to do so.
• Umber Hulks: Umbers are just classic D&D monsters, giant mantids who are built like Winnie the Pooh but nowhere near as polite. Umbers traditionally use psychic attacks, which is the last thing you'd expect from a giant muscular insectoid. Those I met in this game didn't give me any trouble in that regard, and I suspect the game had to lose a lot of the psionics stuff for the sake of streamlining. It's complicated enough in the table-top game.
• Ropers: These deeply strange creatures look like a gooey pole with tendrils coming out of it, which it whips around to hurt you. Lord help you if you're allergic to shellfish or are trying to cover for Chrissy and Janet by pretending to be gay.

1. Vlakverdling (Level 6 Gnome Thief): The last recruitable NPC in the game, Vlakky is a deep gnome, or svirfneblin, who was caught by the Drow and traded to the Derro to broker peace between the two normally antagonistic races. The Derro poisoned him and left him to die, and you can choose to rescue him and escort him to the friendly Myconids to cure his condition. He's another rogue, as if you needed another one, but he's also the most convenient replacement after Drizzt gets elf-napped.

Area 9: Cavern of the Myconids

The game takes it easy on you for a while as you adjust to a life without your walking, talking instant-win button Drizzt. The cavern's full of new but slightly less aggressive enemies, including a few stationary mushrooms, and is another multi-region circuitous path similar to the opening Underdark areas. Goal here, if you have Vlakverdling with you, is to entreat with the Myconid King for some panacea fungus to fix Vlakky's slow-acting but deadly poison. He'll ask you to kill an Umber Hulk, but they're not that much more dangerous without Drizzt.

• Violet Fungus: I want to say the name's a stealth pun, because the Violet Fungus is also the most violent creature in the Underdark. It'll start whupping you with tendrils the moment you come close with its very fast attacks, but you can stand a certain distance away to beat its reach with your own melee weapons. This is a pretty good strategy for any monster that can't (or won't) move.
• Shrieker: Shriekers have better range than the Violet Fungi, using sonic attacks to pummel you until you finally turn the game's volume down.
• Fungus Skeleton: Skeletons animated by mushroom spores. Surprisingly tough. How can a skeleton be a fun guy at parties if he's got no body to go with?

Area 10: Cavern of the Galeb Duhr

This small area, which separates two parts of the Myconid Cavern, is a fun little puzzle where a talking wall asks you to fetch him a necklace before he'll open the way forward. There's nothing significant in here, but Galeb's one of the stranger NPCs you'll meet.

Area 11 + 12: Drider Caves

This is when the game starts getting challenging again. The driders are complete assholes, and this multi-part cave is one of the largest regions in the game. It's also the last big dungeon in the traditional sense: though the final location takes some time to explore, it's not all caves and tunnels like the Drider Caves. There's more webs to move through here, and one particular webbed bridge that requires a special scroll to pass: this is given to you by a talkative drider who wants you to cure his condition by speaking to his contact in Menzoberranzan. It's the quest chain that begins your adventures in that city, and there's no way forward without it.

• Carrion Crawlers: Maybe it's just me, but there are a few monsters that - because they're fairly common in D&D-related material and haven't transferred to a thousand other RPGs the way chimeras or mimics have - represent the D&D brand in my mind quite vividly. Carrion Crawlers, enormous millipedes that feed on corpses and found in dark, wet environments like caves and sewers, are tricky enough if they don't paralyse you. If they do, though... well, that sucks for you. Sucks for me at least, because it managed to paralyse my Cleric: the only member of my party with anti-paralysis spells.
• Uropyguses: Europe-y guys always talk like this, while American-y guys talk like this. Actually, these things are giant whip-scorpions that use their scientific nomenclature. They're assholes too because they can poison you and can take quite a bit of damage, giving them more time to poison you. Beyond that, they're just giant bugs and squish as good as any other.
• Rust Monsters: See above with Carrion Crawlers. Rust Monsters are those classic archetypal D&D monsters who, true to their name, frequently destroy normal armor and weapons with its corruptive saliva. I only found a few, and none of them ruined my gear, but there's always that fear and that's why they're so effective. Like the scraping spear trolls in Demon's Souls.
• Driders: Driders were high-ranking Drow males that were cursed by priestesses once they got too big for their britches. Trapped in a form more pleasing to Lolth, driders usually turn insane over time and become even more dangerous to bystanders. It's rare to find a rational one. Because most of them were mages in their former lives, they'll hit you with powerful fireballs from a distance and scimitars up close, so you really can't win either way. Along with Drow Priestesses, they're the deadliest regular creatures you're likely to encounter.

Area 13: Underground River

The river is the way out of the caves and takes you right up to Menzoberranzan, but you have to pay the ferryman two blue gems first. Not quite how the classic myth goes, but inflation's a heck of a thing in the Underdark. The actual trip in the boat is entirely automated, but still puts you in poking range of a group of stirges and Night Hunters who take cheap shots at you as you whip past. You can swipe them back, but it's fairly pointless.

Area 14: Menzoberranzan Approach

This last cave area is the calm before the storm, giving you one last taste of the Underdark caves before you spend the remainder of the game poking around Drow establishments. Nothing notable in here, but I guess they wanted some build-up before showing you the city.

Area 15: Menzoberranzan

Here it is, the titular city of the game. The city has to be explored in pieces: these include the Marketplace Bazaar, the Tower Sorcere, Gollvelius' Tavern, Carpathians Tavern, House Baenre, House Fey Blanche, and the Mantle caves. I won't detail the whole route the final stretch of the game takes you on, but you help the drider for information, figure out how to disguise yourselves as Drow and then figure out how to get insignia to help you sneak into House Do'Urden where Drizzt and the villagers are being imprisoned. You're also stripped of the helmet you got from the Innkeeper early on at some point, which turns out to be an artifact of immense value to the Drow but only when complete. You get to see the same Innkeeper from the intro get his brain ate by a mindflayer, so that's neat. During one stretch you're back in the caves to find a necklace for a certain leader of rogues, but besides that it's mostly just poking around Drow homes stealing their shit. Serves them right, frankly.

• Myrlochar: The last common enemy of the game. Myrloncholy will set in quick if you have a fear of spiders, because that's what these little guys are. Albeit, demon spiders who convene with Lolth and can be summoned by Drow Priestesses to protect their homes and valuables. They're essentially the spider version of guard dogs, with the one core difference being that I'd feel pretty bad about killing guard dogs.

1. NPCs: You can't recruit any Drow to your party, but you will meet a whole bunch. Ssar Tarell (Drow Grace Jones, all the way at the top of this blog) is the first friendly face you meet, as she is willing to help you save the drider (he was her property, it seems) and gives you information on the great houses because she's keen to see them fall. Her day job is one of the magic item sellers in the bazaar. Galentha is another merchant, one who will trade your helmet for a magic music box you need for a quest. Next time you see him, he's getting murdered for the very important helm you just handed him. Matron Baenre is the most powerful Drow in the city, and forces you to work for her temporarily. Jarlaxle is a character from the novels; a flamboyant cross between Robin Hood and Dolemite who tricks you into helping him before revealing where to find the insignia you need to infiltrate House Do'Urden: still on the bodies of some very alive and angry Drow. Finally, there's Rizzen Do'Urden: the captain of the Do'Urden guards who also happens to be a traitor working for another house and is willing to help you out with a map of House Do'Urden and the entry password.

House Do'Urden

This noble house is the largest of the Menzoberranzan dungeons and also the final location of the game, so I might as well give its own section to see us out. There's only one goal here: rescue Drizzt and everyone else. You'll also need to recover the Helm of Spiders, the magic helmet from the start of the game, and then complete it with the missing parts you've been coming across entirely too conveniently. This is key to getting out of the Underdark safely. The only problem is the entire Do'Urden household, who don't much care for visitors and have filled their palatial estate with lots of key puzzles and secret areas. Good thing you have that map...

Matron Malice: Essentially the final boss, Malice is both the head of the Do'Urden household and Drizzt's mother. They have a very close bond, as evinced by the fact you walk in on them just before Malice can plunge a dagger into Drizzt's heart. The final battle of the game is a chaotic one, as there are two Priestesses in the room (Malice and her eldest daughter) and both will pummel you with lightning bolts until you can close the distance. There's also a whole bunch of Myrlochars wandering around and another Yochlol: fortunately, the Yochlol doesn't need to be killed to finish the game, just the two Drow. It's... not quite how the House Do'Urden fell in the novels, but I guess you have to make some compromises for a video game.

And that's Menzoberranzan. It doesn't have a whole lot of material online, beyond some very terse walkthroughs, so I figured I'd help fill in some details for this semi-obscure CRPG and have a good laugh at some dumb D&D beasties in the process. Take that, intro movie Remorhaz. Make me look like a fool, will you?