Batmud: Tzarakk Guild

Tzarakk overview

Tzarakk is a 20 level evil_religious guild which can be taken after one has 10 levels of Disciple. They offer benefits for players of any level and focus on mounted combat with polearms. They are extremely effective at soloing experience and cash and are acceptable damage dealers in experience parties. On the downside, they are reputed to have trouble fighting larger equipment monsters. It can be joined in the northeast section of the temple of chaos in Furnachia and the main guild is located in Lucentium near and a bit southwest of Lorenchia.

Tzarakk benefits

Becoming a Tzarakk gives easy access to a useful combat mount which needs little maintenance and which grows in power. As such, Tzarakks can travel almost anywhere very quickly without using endurance points, haul lots of loot with saddlebags, take vastly less damage in combat, and get large bonuses to important skills like attack and dodge. Tzarakk use polearms, which are the least expensive way to do high damage in melee combat. Tzarakks, like all mounted guilds, can wield bigger weapons while mounted, so they can do acceptable damage even as a size 60 race.

Tzarakk drawbacks

Tzarakk don’t get much in the way of self healing, which is rare for an evil_religious guild. It is difficult to get a Tzarakk mount to have high resistances, which makes fighting equipments monsters challenging. They don’t get all that much riding skill either, such that bigger monsters will dismount them relatively easily. Tzarakk do not get any excellent damaging skills.

Tzarakk quickstart

Joining

Join in the northeast section of the Temple of Chaos in Furnachia.

Advancing

Sail to Lucentium and head to the Temple of Tzarakk. Go to the altar in the guild and ‘pray to tzarakk’. ‘Sacrifice’ animal corpses at the altar to qualify for advancement. You can sacrifice several small corpses instead of one big one if you have to. Train the required skills and spells and advance as you have the free levels to do so.

Important skills and spells

Tzarakk’s core skills are the similar to those of all mounted tanks. Riding, combat riding, dodge, your weapon skill, in this case polearms, attack, combat sense, etc. Rampage is the guild’s primary damage skill, and it benefits a bit from most of the other combat skills the guild can train. Rampage isn’t spectacular, so if you’re a reaver you might use your reaver off skills instead. Your mount will give you big bonuses to the attack skill, so make note of that before trying to train it to 100. If you know you’ll be in the kinds of parties that rarely break for regen, bestial frenzy can give very nice stat bonuses. Steed of tzarakk is important for bringing your mount to you, study it more if you’ll be entering areas which have special movement syntaxes. Create hunting trophy doesn’t need to be cranked, but higher skill is said to let you make a trophy from smaller monsters. Trophies are used to gain bonuses to how high you can train certain skills. Summon dire boar is not powerful, but the boar can soak some extra damage for you, handy for newbies or those soloing cash.

Gaining reputation

Tzaarak have a reputation system which determines the power of their mounts. Your mount’s aura and species will grow more powerful as you feed it, giving you higher bonus skills and size, and giving the mount more health, endurance, resistances, and even flight. After killing a monster ‘tzarakk chaosfeed corpse’ is the syntax to feed the soul to your mount. Do it a second time to feed the corpse itself to your mount, which keeps it from getting hungry and removes the need for a shovel.

Other things to do

Get saddlebags and don’t leave them on your mount when you log out. Nullium saddlebags are popular for those Tzarakk who chose to use the chaotic spawn skill. Get trophies for their bonuses. That’s about it.

Trophies and bonuses

These are a listing of the trophies I know about and their bonuses.

+---------------------------=( Trophies of Someone )=--------------------------+
| alligator skin            train/study negate offhand penalty: +5%            |
| bear skin                 train/study mangle: +10%                           |
| bear tooth                train/study bestial frenzy: +10%                   |
| bird feathers             train/study find weakness: +5%                     |
| buffalo hide              train/study impale: +5%                            |
| bull horns                train/study alertness: +7%                         |
| chimera's tail            train/study parry: +6%                             |
| claw of the sabretooth    train/study parry: +4%                             |
| enormous fishbone         train/study hunting: +10%                          |
| hardened mud              train/study stunned maneuvers: +10%                |
| head of feline            train/study stunned maneuvers: +10%                |
| head of the sloth         train/study camping: +5%                           |
| hide of a giraffe         train/study alertness: +5%                         |
| hide of a zebra           train/study alertness: +4%                         |
| hide of the feline        train/study discipline: +6%                        |
| hyena's head              train/study impale: +5%                            |
| leopard hide              train/study mangle: +10%                           |
| mane of the lion          train/study riposte: +10%                          |
| monkey skull              train/study stun: +6%                              |
| moose horns               train/study alertness: +6%                         |
| reindeer                  horns train/study hunting: +10%                    |
| rhinoceros horn           train/study tumbling attack: +5%                   |
| raccoon fur               train/study bestial frenzy: +10%                   |
| scales of a drake         train/study find weakness: +5%                     |
| scales of a seamonster    train/study discipline: +7%                        |
| shark tooth               train/study discipline: +4%                        |
| snake scales              train/study shield bash: +10%                      |
| stinger of scorpion       train/study alertness: +8%                         |
| tail of a seamonster      train/study riposte: +10%                          |
| tail of a skunk           train/study negate offhand penalty: +3%            |
| tentacle of squid         allows saddle on mount                             |
| tiger hide                train/study negate offhand penalty: +7%            |
| tooth of the sabretooth   train/study mastery of mounted combat: +5%         |
| tortoise shell            train/study bestial frenzy: +10%                   |
| tusk of the elephant      train/study combat riding: +5%                     |
| unicorn horn              train/study stun: +4%                              |
| whale oil                 train/study riposte: +10%                          |
| wings of a griffon        train/study rampage: +5%                           |
| wolf hide                 train/study discipline: +3%                        |
+------------------------------------------------------------------------------+

Advancement thresholds

You can get some idea of how close your steed is to advancing in power by looking at it. The mane and glow will both indicate how close they are to advancing. As the mount grows in power, the mane and glow will advance to 100%, then go back to 0% repeatedly before you see any change.

 unnoticeable 0-10
 dim          11-25
 ambient      26-49
 bright       51-75
 radiant      76-85
 eye-blinding 86-95
 pulsating    96-100

Mount Races and Auras

The race and aura of the mount will advance at different rates, and depends a bit on if you’re killing lots of little things or lots of big things. In the end everyone gets where they’re going though.

Race        Aura
----------------------------------------------------
Donkey      Anorexic (This stage doesn't last long at all)
Pony        Feeble
Camel       Shaky
Zebra       Solid
Horse       Muscular (Definitely get saddlebags by now)
Unicorn     Pulsating 
Wyvern      Fluctuating (Wyvern and higher can fly, even over lava)
Wyrm        Shimmering
Chimera     Flaming 
Nightmare   Radiating 
Abomination Chaos emitting/Wildly Flaming

At level 20, this guild grants:

 ,-------------------------------+-----.
 | Skills available at level 20  | Max |
 |===============================|=====|
 | Consider                      | 100 | 
 | Essence eye                   |  80 |  
 | Create hunting trophy         | 100 | 
 | Alertness                     |  50 | 
 | Chaotic defilement            | 100 |  
 | Hunting                       |  50 |
 | Camping                       |  90 |
 | Hiking                        |  60 | 
 | Riding                        |  30 | 
 | Kick                          | 100 |
 | Switch weapon                 |  50 | 
 | Cast chaos                    | 100 |
 | Cast control                  |  50 | 
 | Cast generic                  | 100 |  
 | Attack                        | 100 |
 | Ceremony                      |  50 | 
 | Trample                       | 100 |  
 | Raise mount                   | 100 | 
 | Polearms                      |  90 |
 | Negate offhand penalty        |  50 |
 | Shield bash                   |  50 |
 | Impale                        |  80 | 
 | Combat riding                 |  60 | 
 | Find weakness                 |  50 | 
 | Bestial frenzy                |  60 | 
 | Stun                          |  60 | 
 | Charge                        | 100 |
 | Riposte                       |  20 | 
 | Choreography of mutilation    |  50 | 
 | Clawed strike                 | 100 | 
 | Kiss of death                 | 100 | 
 | Combat damage analysis        |  85 |
 | Defence sense                 |  50 |
 | Throw weight                  |  75 | 
 | Discipline                    |  50 | 
 | Mangle                        |  50 | 
 | Enhance criticals             |  80 |
 | Parry                         |  50 | 
 | Rampage                       |  60 |  
 | Tumbling attack               |  60 | 
 | Mastery of mounted combat     |  50 |
 | Stunned maneuvers             |  50 |  
 | Combat sense                  |  75 |  
 | Dismount                      |  60 | 
 | Harvest soul                  |  70 | 
 | Dodge                         |  70 |   
 `--------------------------------------'

 ,-------------------------------+-----.
 | Spells available at level 20  | Max |
 |===============================|=====|
 | Infravision                   | 100 | 
 | Preserve corpse               | 100 |    
 | Glance of predator            | 100 |
 | Eyes of nature                | 100 | 
 | Banish mount                  | 100 | 
 | Steed of tzarakk              | 100 |  
 | Defile animal                 | 100 |    
 | Summon dire boar              | 100 | 
 | Fury of nature                | 100 | 
 | Summon beasts                 | 100 |
 `-------------------------------------'