Snake Cult Stronghold

The Snake Cult Stronghold is a secret location in Pendor. After the Grandmaster quest for a knighthood order is completed, it becomes the Order Stronghold.

Unlocking

Snake Cult Stronghold2 — One of the stronghold's possible locations

The stronghold does not spawn until the quest The Order Grandmaster is started by the player. Once you find a brave traveler willing enough to disclose the location during the quest, the stronghold will spawn. There are five possible spawn locations; the stronghold will appear in the closest one to where you received the quest. The quest will tell you the general location. The posible locations are:

South of Highcliffe Castle
North of Ansen Lodge
Northeast of Reveran
North of Ruldi
Between Erminade and Talon Castle

Garrison

Before you capture the Stronghold for your Order, the garrison contains 1000 Snake Cultists and 10 Knight of the Radiant Cross prisoners:

Beware when assaulting the fortress, for retreating will count as a defeat, causing you to lose your entire party!

The best units to attack the stronghold with are ones that are excellent in close quarters melee, especially axe infantry. Ranged troops can be useful here, but if you attack with a number of, say, Kraken Riddari, Empire Immortals, Phoenix Knights, Valkyries, or Shadow Legion Centurions, your infantry and dismounted knights can simply bullrush through everything in your path, and do it rather easily. Backing up your core units from your Knighthood Order with additional melee units such as Fierdsvain Huscarls, Dragon Drakes, Empire Mortals, or Lady Einjerhars (all of which can be rescued from prisoner stacks in reasonable numbers) is also recommended. Once you get through the wave of Anaconda Knights and Serpent Priestesses, the rest of the defenders are much weaker. Keeping the Armsmen from firing into your men is a good idea, and forcing them to fight in melee solves the issue nicely.

After you capture the keep, the Garrison changes to 330 friendly troops and 20 Snake Cult Follower prisoners:

50 Order Knights
80 Order Sergeants
100 Mercenary Armored Crossbowman
100 Mercenary Swordsman

You can't take troops nor the prisoners from the garrison, nor the fortress can be attacked, meaning these troops and prisoners will do nothing.

Snake Cult Stronghold3 — After the Snake Cult is defeated

When you capture the stronghold from the Snake Cult, you are informed from the order representative that masons will fortify the stronghold more to the order's liking. After a two in game months, the masons will complete their work, and the stronghold will be refurbished into a castle; no longer resembling a wooden fort. The wooden palisade walls will be converted to stonework, as well as all the entrances and towers. The keep will receive the most fortification, as the walls surrounding it are all heavily fortified and is surmounted by towers. This is just an aesthetic change.

NPCs

If you do manage to capture the fortress, the order will take the stronghold as their own. Inside will be Constable Valorian, Alexios of Meltine, and Quartermaster Kailin.

Quartermaster Kailin

Will sell a huge range and quantity of food to you at a good price. Good for preparing feasts and sieges. Also will sell limited numbers of the Arquebus and Bullets.

Constable Valorian

Valorian will grant you the ability to create and send order patrols to patrol around a desired fief. He will also allow you to change the name of the fortress.

Only three of these patrols can be on the field at a time. Patrols will not fight against big kingdoms, but will chase down Hateful factions, protecting villagers and caravans.

Alexios of Meltine

Alexios will take a piece of equipment and upgrade its quality. He will do this for free, however, time is the limiting factor. Player can only have him working on a single piece and until he is done, he will not take a next one. Alexios adds only allowed modifier to the item (e.g. max for "leather" armors is hardened, not lordly). He will take almost any item (only Rune Weapons and Unique Items are excluded); days to reach each stage are as follows:

Item	From -ve Modifier	1st Modifier	2nd Modifier
Shield	Plain - 10	Thick - 15	Reinforced - 20
Arrows/Bolts/(Bullets)	Plain - 10 (30)	Large Bag - 20 (40)
Crossbow/(Musket)	Plain - 20 (50)	Fine - 30 (60)	Masterwork - 50 (80)
Bow	Plain/Fine - 20	Strong - 30	Masterwork - 50
Thrown weapon	Plain - 10	Balanced/Heavy - 15	Large Bag - 20
Polearm - long axes	Plain - 20	Heavy - 30	Masterwork - 50
Polearm - lances	Plain - 20	Fine - 30	Balanced - 50
1h and 2h axes & maces	Plain - 20	Balanced/Heavy - 30	Masterwork - 50
1h and 2h medium & strong swords	Plain/Fine/Exquisite - 20	Balanced/Tempered - 30	Masterwork - 50
1h and 2h weak swords	Plain/Fine - 20	Balanced - 30	Tempered - 20
1h and 2h "lesser"**	Plain - 5	Fine - 5	Heavy - 5
Metal Armor*/Helmet/Gloves/Boots	Plain/Thick/ Superb - 20	Reinforced - 30	Lordly - 50
Leather Armor*/Helmet/Gloves/Boots	Plain/Sturdy/ Superb - 20	Thick - 30	Hardened - 50

*: armors will take 30 extra days to upgrade no matter which armor is nor the stage you are going to.

**: these are Torch, Wooden Stick, Cudgel and Club

Alexios will always upgrade items with negative modifiers to plain ones. However, other modifiers qualify as well for further upgrades (i.e. a fine bow is as good as a bow with no modifiers in terms of upgrading it to "strong").

Player can ask once (per upgrade session) to accelerate upgrade process (-33% time, cost per day = 50% item price reduced by party trading skill, then divided by total upgrade days needed).

To see how these modifiers alter the item stats, check the modifier table of the type of item (at the bottom of the 'type of item' page)

The only items that can't be upgraded are: