Legendary Death PvP

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Getting to Warlord

InfernaGaming here with a deadly new PvP strategy for Death Wizards. The main goal for Legendary Death in the arena is hit hard and hit fast. For this strategy you will use Myth mastery. Part of the reason I chose Myth as a secondary school was to get rid of the enemies blades and shields whenever I could.

Gear

My Wizards stats ended up at 110 Damage, 22 Pierce and 29 Resist.

– Waterworks Hat
– Waterworks Robe
– Dworgyn’s Dire Boots
– Immortal’s Lore Wand
– Duelist Ring
– Duelist Athame
– Myth Mastery
– House of Scales Deck
– Triple damage pet
– Vulpine Avenger Mount

Main Deck

3 Stun Blocks, 3 Thermic Shields, 7 Gargantuan, 3 Monstrous, 3 Earthquake, 3 Ether Shield, 2 Animate, 2 Banshee, 3 Death Blades, 4 Doom and Glooms, 2 Feints, 2 Ghouls, 5 Headless Horseman, 3 Poison, 3 Sacrifice, 3 Skeletal Dragon, 2 Death Dispel, 2 Vampires, 2 Wraiths, 3 Reshuffles, and 3 Spiritual Blades.

Treasure Cards

4 Tower Shields, 4 Gargantuan TC, 3 Triage, 3 Earthquakes (enchanted preferably), 4 Medusa, 3 Shift TC, 4 Infallible, 3 Death Blade TC, 2 Deadly Minotaur TC, 1 Wraith, and 3 Spiritual Blades.

Strategy

The strategy is simple. Start by blade stacking using Spirit Blades because they have both Myth and Death blades. Over-time hits like Poison and Skeletal Dragon will remove shields and chip away at your enemies health. This will also prevent any future shield the opponent might cast, leaving them open.
 
If you catch your opponent with no stun blocks, Medusa would play next very well. This attack with a two-round stun can prove quite deadly.
 
After Medusa, you can catch them open. Feint into a Headless Horseman, ending in a huge hit. If my opponent casts a lot of shields, I would Earthquake or Deadly Minotaur into a Headless. An Earthquake also works very well against minions, and will usually kill them with this setup.
 

This is all possible because of blade stacking, and high damage stats. Triage and Shift will come in handy as a defense against Wizards who hit with over-time attacks. With these treasure cards, you can survive a game-ending over-time attack like Burning Rampage.

I hope this guide will get your Death started in the arena! Let us know how this strategy works out for you in the comments below.

FANSITE FESTIVAL FARMING 2019

Ravenwood Academy Fansite Festival farming event? Do you know what this is? No???? Well, it’s where all the Wizard101 and Pirate101 Fansites gather together to create something truly amazing for the community. 

This yearly event is organized by several members of the community who work hard together to coordinate with every fansite out there.

Ravenwood Academy is taking part in this year’s fansite Festival event.

Ravenwood Academy will be farming Lord Nightshade for Easter drops. Meet us in Realm Troll at 11 am Pacific Standard Time, Saturday, April 13th. 

Prizes!

Please tune in on our Twitch Channel https://www.twitch.tv/ravenwoodacademy at 11 am Pacific standard time for more information for prizes

If you have any questions regarding this event, please email us at [email protected]

We’re looking forward to having some fun with you, the community!

We had so much fun at the event with you all! Thanks to every Wizard we saw there. Congrats to everyone that won codes and prizes during the Twitch stream. The winners of the screenshot contest were:

1st: Steven Starbreaker prize Great Detective Bundle
2nd: Kane Moon prize Aeroplane Bundle
3rd: Erin Dragonheart prize Nimbari Hoard packs

Codes will be sent to your email!

 

Wizard City Housing Vendors

Tired of never finding the housing item you want at the Bazaar?  Well search no longer! There are many things available throughout all the worlds from a variety of vendors. Even items that are no auction and can never be found at the Bazaar! We will be visiting each world in this series and will show you who to go to for that perfect housing item. 

Wizard City Housing Vendors

There are four housing vendors in Wizard City, They have many housing items available. There are also six recipe vendors for craftable items. From Castles to Pet Bread Crumbs, we have them all listed here.

Aubert Quickhammer

Aubert is the furniture shop keeper in Wizard City. You’ll find him in the Shopping District by Eliks Edge, at the Wizard City Furniture & Castle Shop. He has everything from plants to wallpapers and floors. Tell him Sarai sent you!

Here’s a sample of what you will find.

Party Banner
Plaques for all schools
Fancy Lamppost
Small Yellow Tent
Small Blue Trim Rug
Tic-Tac-Toe pieces and Gameboard
Balloons
Music Player
Party Cake

Buxley Turleton

Buckley shares a shop with Aubert Quickhammer. He’s the best real esate agent in Wizard City!

Castles available:
Wooded Cottage 8,000 gold
Royal Playhouse 15,000 gold

Farley

Farley is the head gardener for Wizard City. You can find him in Golem Court.

Here’s a sample of what you can find:

Wizard City styled pots
Seeds
Tropical Garden Gnome

Roland Silverheart

You can find Roland on Unicorn Way outside of the PVP Arena. All of his items are non-auction and are purchased with Arena tickets. If you don’t PVP you can get tickets from doing your daily quests.

 
Here’s a sample of what you can find:
 
Wood Housing Blocks 
Bobbleheads 
Statues 
Ninja Sword Rack 
Market Tent Pavilion

Derrick Blaze

You can find Derrick next to the Bazaar. He sells the recipe for the Team Up Kiosk. In order to purchase this recipe you have to earn your Team Player badge.

Team Up Kiosk Price: 100 gold

Wizard City Recipe Vendors

Eudora Tangletree

You can find Eudora by the pond near the Bazaar in Olde Town. A lovely lady with great recipes! She has recipes for many different aquariums and seventeen different tapestries.

Here’s a sample of her other recipes:
Garden Lot
Directional Arrows
Moon Banner
Red Foodcart
Stack of Paper
Water Bucket

Lloyd Fallingwater

 

You can find Lloyd in the Shopping District near Eliks Edge. He has all the Stone Housing Block recipes. Who needs the Bazaar, just make them yourself!

Dr. Purreau

You can find Dr. Purreau in the Hatchery. He has recipes for a Pet Hatching Kiosk and a tapestry to the Hatchery. These recipes need Hatch Peppers. You can get this reagent by placing pets in the kiosk or in the chest from daily quest rewards.
 
Hatching Kiosk Recipe Price: 2,500 gold Tapestry Recipe Price: 2,500 gold

Harker

You can find Harker in Darkmoor to the left, near the small building. He has the recipe for the Castle Darkmoor tapestry. 

Recipe Price: 5,000 gold

Jackie Whisperflame

You’ll find Jackie in the snack shop at the Pet Pavilion. She sells the recipe for Pet Bread Crumbs. Bread Crumbs are an awesome way of controlling the movements of pets and mounts when they are placed in your Castle!

Recipe Price: 5,000 gold

This concludes the list of Housing Vendors for Wizard City. Whew, that was an all day shopping spree! Hope it helps you find that perfect item for your castle. Let us know in the comments below about your most surprising find shopping in Wizard City. Stay tuned for Krokotopia and many more worlds to come!

Crafting101 – Fire Spells

The Basics

 
Have you ever wanted to get a spell, but did not want to spend hours farming for it? Well, then you came to the right place! Today I will be going through the basics on how to craft the Fire spells dropped by Loremaster.
 

Requirements

 
To craft your desired spell, you must have quested to Zafaria and finished the quest Drum a Little Drum. Once you have completed both you can buy the recipes for your desired fire spells!
 

Brimstone Revenant and Krampus Recipe Location

When you craft Brimstone Revenant or Krampus you will need to make your way over to Mooshu. Once you are in Mooshu you will have to beat the dungeon, Shirataki Temple. Once you complete the dungeon you gain access to Master Yan Kan Kook who sells the Brimstone Revenant and Krampus recipes.

Brimstone Revenant Recipe

Brimstone Revenant is a must when it comes to fire attackers! This is a 4 Pip spell with a base damage of 470. It also adds a 25% fire trap for your next hit.
To craft Brimstone, buy the recipe for 60,000 Gold.
You will also need:
10 – Brimstone Revenant Treasure Cards
100 – Perfect Ruby
200 – Ghost Fire
100 – Diamonds
100 – Bronze Gear
50 – Scrap Iron
50 – Sunstone
12 – Amber

Krampus Recipe

The spell Krampus is definitely the collector’s item out of all three spells. Krampus is a 4 Pip fire spell that does 305-345 fire damage. Krampus also leaves behind a -45% Mantle to make your opponents next hit fizzle!

To craft Krampus, you will have to buy the recipe for 10,000 Gold.

You will also need:
6 – Krampus Treasure Cards
100 – Perfect Ruby
200 – Ghost Fire
50 – Black Pearl
100 – Black Coal
50 – Astral Shard
50 – Sunstone
12 – Amber

Hephaestus Recipe Location

When you are ready to craft Hephaestus, you will have to make your way to Avalon. Once you are there head to the Wyrd and look for the Indigo Giant on your map. Once you defeat him you will have access to Grady who sells the Hephaestus Recipe.

Hephaestus is the newest spell here, recently released in the Immortal’s Lore Pack. Hephaestus is a 5 Pip fire spell that does 425-475 damage and leaves an additional 25% fire trap for your next hit!

To craft Hephaestus, you will have to buy the recipe for 12,000 Gold.

You will also need:
10 – Hephaestus Treasure Cards
120 – Perfect Ruby
200 – Ghost Fire
60 – Black Pearl
120 – Black Coal
60 – Astral Shards
60 – Sunstone
18 – Amber

Where to get the Reagents!


Perfect Ruby: You can buy Perfect Ruby for 100 Gold a piece, In the Celestia base camp from the vendor Archytas. You can also buy Perfect Ruby from Noxolo Fasttrack in the Baobab Market in Zafaria.

Ghost Fire: You can buy Ghost Fire for 100 Gold a piece, in the Atheneum. From the vendor Zolton Nightstone.

Black Pearl: There are no vendors currently that sell Black Pearl for gold. If you are into PVP you can buy Black Pearls from Diego The DuelMaster in Unicorn Way for 175 Arena Tickets. You can also buy the Black Pearl transmute recipe from Avery Templeton in the Celestia Base Camp.

Black Coal: You can buy Black Coal right in Wizard City! from Elmer MeadowGrass in Olde Town for 5 Gold a piece!

Astral Shard: Astral Shard is one of the most difficult parts of the recipe as there is no vendor that sells them. You may be able to snag a couple from the Bazaar. You also can farm fishing chests in Castle Darkmoor for Astral Shards

Sunstone: You can buy Sunstone from Diego The DuelMaster in Unicorn Way for 200 Arena Tickets. You can also buy the transmute Sunstone recipe. You can get this from Avery Templeton in the Celestia Base Camp.

Diamond: You can buy Diamonds from Diego The DuelMaster in Unicorn Way for 100 Arena Tickets. You can buy the transmute Diamond recipe from Avery Templeton in the Celestia Base Camp.

Amber: Amber is by far the most difficult item to get on this list. One of the best places to get Amber is by farming Gladiator Dimachaerus in Mount Olympus in Aquila.

Hephaestus, Krampus, Brimstone Revenant: The best place to get these treasure cards would be from the Bazaar. They are not all common, but they do show up quite a bit if you refresh the treasure card tab a few times.

Thanks for reading my crafting fire spells, article! Please let me know what you think in the comment section. 

Crafting101 – The Wyrd House

Welcome back to Crafting101! Dark and eerie, the Wyrd house is perfect for Hallowe’en, Death Wizards, and anyone else who wants their own nook for the arts of witchcraft. You can buy this recipe from Padraig in High Road, Avalon for 60,000 gold.

Jars of Mushrooms

We will need two Jars of Mushrooms for this project. You will have to craft these. You may purchase the recipe from Tarold Wayfinder in Grizzleheim for 2,400 gold. The recipe is listed below.

Forest Lord Treasure Cards

Six Forest Lord treasure cards are required to craft our house. This will be a rare find in the Bazaar as Life wizards often use this treasure card until they can learn the spell itself. Gardening Sour Fickle Pickles or Queen Crape Myrtle, you can receive this. You can also farm the Locres Knight in Caer Lyon, right in Avalon.

Poison

Four Poison Treasure Cards are required to craft this recipe. The easiest way to attain these treasure cards is to either buy them from the Bazaar, or to garden Stinkweed, as mentioned in Ravenwood Academy’s own play free forever guide

Vine

Only one vine is needed for the house. Gardening is one of the most efficient ways of getting this reagent. As it is possible to get it by interacting with the Winter Wind Tower’s Horn of Plenty, you can garden all of the Huckleberries, as well as Deadly Helephant Ears, and variants of Trumpet Vines. Additionally, you can buy this reagent for 400 Arena Tickets from Brandon Mistborn in Unicorn Way.

Mist Wood

One of the most notorious reagents in the game, you will need forty Mist Wood in order to craft this house. You can simply run around Wizard City or other worlds like Grizzleheim until you have collected enough.

Grendleweed

The recipe calls for ten Grendleweed. You may obtain this through rare harvests of Frost Flowers as well as transmuting from Frost Flowers, found in worlds like Grizzleheim. The Transmute recipe is listed below.

Brick-Walled Pond

Two of this item will be needed. You can find it easily in the Bazaar. The Bazaar should be stocked with the item at 1,092 gold in the outdoor section.

Cephalopod Obelisk

We will need two of this item, easily found in the Bazaar. There should be roughly a hundred of them available at any given time in the decor section, sold for 1,056 gold.

Transmute Recipes

Jars of Mushrooms

Sold for 2,400 gold, you can purchase this recipe from Tarold Wayfinder in the fort crossroads of Northguard, Grizzleheim. In order to craft this, you need four Spirit Shield treasure cards, one Amethyst, four Shadow Oils, one Glass Vial, forty Stone Blocks, and ten Nightshade.

Grendleweed

Sold for 400 gold, you can purchase this recipe from Avery Templeton in Base Camp, Celestia. Simply fifteen Frost Flowers can be plucked from the world of Grizzleheim to create Grendleweed.

Congratulations, young Wizard, on crafting your Wyrd House! Please look through more of our Crafting101 series to assist you with your crafting needs.

Thank you, Starlights, for collecting reagents and crafting with me. Have a wonderful night.

How to Get Elixir Vitae

You may be wondering how to achieve the Elixir Vitae badge for healing One Million. It sounds difficult! While it’s not easy, it’s possible for any wizard. So, read through my tips and tricks for getting this badge.

The Heal

The spell you use is very important. You need to maximize your potential healing output. To do this you will use the strongest healing spell you can.
 
Flowering Dryad is the best possible option for this. Not even a doubled Scion of Life can live up to this bad girl, healing 3360 base with full power pips.
 
The average Dryad can substitute, but you will lose 15 healing per pip, a total of 210 base.

The Buffs

The buffs make all the difference. You’re going to want to use every healing buff available. Use the following spells:

• Brilliant Light
• Guiding Light
• Sanctuary Treasure Card
• Vengeful Elixir
• Shadow Seraph
• Mend Treasure Card

Let’s go through each of these cards. You can have a total of four different copies of Brilliant and Guiding Light. The trained, treasure card, item card and pet card versions. You could also use an extra 45% Guiding Light TC from the Eye of Bartelby pack, for extra insurance.
 
The Vengeful Elixir is critical to this strategy. You need to Critical Strike this heal to reach one million. Mend and Shadow Seraph spells will act as extra healing buffs to help you reach your goal.

The Stats

Stats are the key to success. You need to have at least 135% outgoing, and a friend with over 85% incoming to make this work.
 

 

Some items, such as the Stone of the Other Side or the Wolf’s Emerald Talon are drops. You can get these in Avalon and Wintertusk by farming bosses, or by checking the Bazaar. Combined, they give 58% outgoing! Throw in the Sword of Kings and any decent outgoing gear and you should be able to reach your target of 135%!

Remember!

You cannot use your heal without maximum power pips. Make sure you have those before you even try it!

This battle should be done against a lost soul in a peaceful realm. They don’t have a chance of defeating you and you shouldn’t have Unicorn Way bound wizards questing in your area.

If you’re not a Life wizard, be sure to equip a Life Mastery Amulet and an extra friend or more for the trained spells!

With all that said and done, go out there and get yourself an awesome badge!

 

Fishing: Wizard City

A beautiful part of Wizard101 is fishing. It can be a great way to spend some time with friends without the pressure of battle and strategy. Fishing will take you to some corners of the Spiral you may not have taken the time to explore before. Like any great hobby in Wizard101, it can lead to some great rewards.
 
But how can one start? What quests do you do, what fish are in the game, and where can you find them? I will guide you through all the basic information you need to get started.
 
 

Lucky Hookline is the fishing trainer. He will give you your first fishing mission and fishing spells. Before you start, read the Tome for Fishing next to Lucky Hookline.

Lucky Hookline: the Fishing Trainer.

1st quest: “A River Runs Through It”

Level 7 is needed to start this quest

Catch one in Commons:

Frost Dekoi / Ice Rank 1

Icecuda / Ice Rank 1

Reward: Lesser Frost Lure

When you have caught these fish turn them in to Lucky Hookline. He will give you an energy refill so you can continue your fishing quest!

You can also buy the other school lures now. They cost 1000 gold each and are as follows:

Lesser Harmony Lure / Lesser Repose Lure / Lesser Flame Lure / Lesser Vitality Lure / Lesser Fable Lure / Lesser Spark Lure

These are all important bait spells for catching rank 1 fish.

You can also buy spells to help find and see the type of fish in a pool. These cost 1000 gold and unlock at level 2 fishing:

Reveal Fish = Reveal the location of all Fish

Reveal Fish School = Reveal the Magic School of all Fish

These are great spells to have because they make fishing easier.

Now that you have finished your first quest, Lucky will give you a second one:

2nd quest: “Fishful Thinking”

Sharkspeare / Ice Rank 1 in Olde Town

Mechanical Armorhead / Storm Rank 1 in Cyclops Lane

Catfish / Fire Rank 1 in The Commons

Garrrfish / Ice Rank 1 in Cyclops Lane

Fish Sandwich / Myth Rank 1 in Cyclops Lane

Mainstream Dekoi / Balance Rank 1 in The Commons

Bone Fish / Death Rank 1 in Unicorn Way

The quest might seem overwhelming, but it helps you learn the basics. It’s also a great way to explore Wizard City! Wizard City contains over 50 different fish. It also has seasonal fish that appear for a few days or months during special events. Every fish gives initial experience ranging from 900-2000. Less experience is earned after the first time you catch each kind of fish.  

The best way to get started is to go to all areas and use the Reveal Fish School. Use your spells to catch as many different fish as you can in the world.

You can find unique fish in other wizards’ houses. Visit Castle Tours in the Commons to find new fish!

Tips

Fishing takes patience, but it’s a great way to use your unused energy.

You can keep your best fish and display them in aquariums, or sell your fish to Lucky Hookline for gold!

Don’t forget that the fish you see in front of you are not the same fish other wizards see. Other players cannot catch or scare your fish away. However, if you catch a fish or scare it away, it will be replaced after 15 minutes.

If the pond does not have the right school of fish, scare them away by running in the water and come back later!

Also remember that the first time you go to an area, they load the names of the fish. Of course, this is hard to see but always keep it in mind about rare and epic fish. 

Our next destination is Grizzleheim!

Until then, see more information about fishing here:

Good luck!

Legendary Ice PVP

Today’s topic is going to be pretty chill as we get into Legendary Ice PvP. The best level for Legendary Ice is definitely 66. My character was level 66 for the purposes of this article. Now, why Legendary ice? As ice you have loads of health a lot of resist so tanking long enough to stay alive and hit isn’t usually a problem. I had a fun time getting to Warlord.

I went with a well balanced setup. I chose to play to this schools strengths with lots of resist, decent damage, and pierce. For ice, it’s easy to get these stats especially with a ward pet. My basic strategy for this school was to save pips and use a combo.

My stats for this wizard ending up being 64 ice damage, 68 resist to ice, 63 to storm, 73 to balance, 60 fire resist and 48 universal.

Gear

For this setup use House of Scales or Waterworks hat for the excellent well-rounded stats. The Shivering Breath Robes is best for damage, critical and resist. You can craft this robe in Zafaria. My set up also uses the Professor’s Hoard pack boots. An Immortal’s Lore pack wand for it’s damage and pierce. The Duelist ring and athame for damage and pierce. A Life Mastery amulet and a resistance pet. As for the deck, I use House of Scales for the accuracy boost.
 
You will also need to get Winter Moon and Reindeer Knight. These spells will help with stuns, get rid of minions, and keep pressure on your opponent.
 
I actually made Leaderboards on this character, as I kept pushing. It was fun, and I enjoyed it.

ScHool Specialty

Your goal as an Ice is to keep applying pressure. Chip away at their health with attacks. Using over time attacks will deal damage, and suppress their attacks as well. Blades are your best friend.

Deck Setup

3 Freeze, 3 Frostbite, 5 ice blades, 3 ice dispels, 3 Reindeer Knight, 3 Snow Angel, 4 Steal ward, 3 Stun Block, 5 Towers, 3 Volcanic shield, 2 Balefrosts, 4 Winter Moon, maxed out Colossal enchants, 3 Gargantuan enchants, 3 Snow Serpent, 3 Fairy, 3 Satyr, 3 Reshuffle, and 2 balance dispels.
 

Treasure Card Deck

3 Ice blades, 4 Tower Shields, 5 Gargantuan, 3 Sanctuary, 1 Shatter, 3 Cleanse charms, 2 Reshuffle, 3 Elemental blades, 2 Weakness, 2-3 triage, and 1-2 lord of winter.
 

General Strategy

The main strategy is to outlive your opponent and continue attacking. This is slow gameplay and it will add up with combos. I always blade into an overtime attack when I can. I have 3 different types of over time attack. One is a single target and Two are all one enemy attacks. I fought a lot of Wizards with minions, with all one enemy attacks it was convenient for me to kill them.
 
What if you get hit by a Myth with shift? That’s why we have resist to our own school. That way you can survive your own hit, and be able to heal back. I don’t go too crazy with blades when I DoT (Damage Over Time). Usually, I save that for when I get an open shot to hit with Wintermoon, lord of Winter, or any other direct damage hit. The DoTs are also meant to get rid of shields, and DoTs work well against spammers.
 
Heal when your health gets low, you’re going to be tanking a lot. You’ll have the pip advantage to do so when you’re setting up to do those constant attacks. Use Sanctuary or Balefrost when they Doom, they will always try to stop you from healing.
 
That wraps up this article on Legendary ice PvP. I hope you enjoyed it. If you have any questions, reply in the comments section below. Thanks for reading!

NEW Nimbari Hoard Pack

The new Nimbari hoard pack is super awesome and our first pack to release in 2019! With that comes some high expectations and I don’t think it is letting us down! So let’s dive right in!


Pets

You’re going to get a lot of different pets throughout these packs. You will get millions variations, like a Fairyfly, Goat Monk, Storm Bird and a Storm Golem.

Of course the pet you’d really want is the Ultra-Rare Hurricanine pet. This adorable guy sadly only seems to give Storm Dealer as a talent you’d be wanting. But I’m personally willing to hatch as many times as it takes to get this adorable little dude a great set of stats! He also comes with a Galvanic Field item card. Not as good as a blade, but still nice to have.


Gear

Ah what you’ve really come for! Everyone always needs to know how important these packs are and how they will affect the meta of gear choice. The answer: A lot.

The wands at max level are honestly fantastic, in particular for storm. It’s best to think of them as superior versions of the revered crafting wands, but only in critical and damage. This wand allows my storm to reach 99.8% critical (give or take) with 162 damage! They also come with fairly beefy Shift Maycasts that can allow you to get a nice bit of cheeky extra damage!

The boots and hat are also phenomenal at lower levels, trumping Waterworks and House of Scales gear!


Furniture

This is something I personally don’t like. There are 7 different furniture items tagged as Ultra-Rare, meaning they’re equally as rare as the wands, robes and the pet.

They’re cool, don’t get me wrong, and using them I made this awesome little scene in my Arcanum Apartment, but still not the best. Perhaps this was to balance the dropping of these great gear pieces? We’ll never know.

Other than that the other pieces of furniture are nice and the variety of fans to add to the regular ones we saw with Whirlyburly is awesome!


Mount

The Nimbari Chariot looks pretty cool. It’s nice and unobtrusive and looks different enough, but it’s nothing spectacular.

Still you will not be complaining if you get this Epic drop. It seats two wizards with a standard speed boost of 40%. Overall, rather cool.


So with all that said, I think we can all agree that the Nimbari hoard pack was actually pretty successful and great to have. I love what it’s allowed me to do in my house as well as my gear. It gets my seal of approval!

The Darkmoor Philharmonic

In the first Wizard101 arc we learn the story of Malistaire and Sylvia. Even in death their love holds them together. A dark and mysterious man in a supernatural castle who goes too far. In Gothic literature this is a common theme. This is only fitting for our Phantom of The Opera esq love story. Let’s us take a look at the magic behind the music in the haunted sequel of this epic love story.

Main Theme

The orchestration begins with an eerie celesta solo accompanied by a shrill violin. The bass instruments soon follow, supporting the established sound. This theme calls and responds throughout the ensemble. It travels to the oboe and harp then follows to the flute and pizzicato strings soon after.

The choir and chimes enter at 00:39 seconds in. They trade off beats as the brass and strings emphasize the modulation of a minor chord to a major chord. This repetition develops into a different minor chord. This sets the mood of the dark essence of a Gothic castle.

We continue with a waltz which uses the same texture as before until timestamp 1:13. This is where we enter a Marleybone style orchestration with more organic sections. A change from the block-style Darkmoor tends to use. Then we jump back into the familiar melody introduced at the beginning. The orchestration lightens with several solos before its return to the start.

Tense Theme

The timpani, contrabass, and bassoon begin this section in a low rumble. They solo before the harp’s tone cluster 00:10 seconds in that introduces the high strings.

The alto flute introduces a maniacal theme, doubled by the grandiose pipe organ. This instrument is a familiar feature in pop culture when exploring the Gothic era and its music.

Timestamp 00:27 surprises us by clustering the tones within its chord progression. In the midst of this dissonance, a waltz occurs. The melody is a whisper, stressing tension on the non-chord tones. The bass line becomes overpowering. This reflects the feelings of our Wizard in the quest to conquer Castle Darkmoor.

The next section sneaks in, with arpeggiation in the woodwinds, celesta, and pizzicato strings. The music sneaks around the castle in espionage and exploration. The beginning theme returns in solo instruments, like a hollow echo of what came before.

Reunited Theme

A short piece plays in the Darkmoor reunion scene when Malistaire and Sylvia reunite. This is where they may finally be at rest together.

At timestamp 00:15, the upper strings enter the scene with the first violin sustaining a high note. This reminds us of the start of the main theme. The second violins and violas harmonize on the offbeats, swelling into them. We progress into a major modulation before the music halts into silence.

We continue as before, except now moving onward to a darker minor chord. The timpani interrupts, crescendoing into a tutti section of the ensemble. The great pipe organ swells in a twelve-tone row. In this form atonality all twelve keys are equally presented.

The romantic music begins at 00:58. The romance derives from tension tones added to chord. This makes us feel that we are wanting resolve. It is this tension that makes us expect something brilliant to happen at the climax of the music. Often, it’s a kiss. Here, it’s the finality of death as Malistaire and Sylvia cross to the other side of the veil. Together forever.

Large brass fanfares and orchestral jubilation continue as we say goodbye to Malistaire. Third times the charm, am I right?

Thank you, Starlights, for venturing with me through the Gothic music of Castle Darkmoor.

Disclaimer

Please note: I transcribed the music from the original/classic mode music scrolls. Not all of my transcriptions are 100% accurate, but they are close and the rhythm is properly notated