I'm well aware that this is going to be among the most useless pages on the site. I will detail my reasons for knowing this. Firstly, barely anybody owns a copy of Lands of Lore: The Throne of Chaos, and those that do will probably have completed it about six years ago. Secondly, no one visits this website anyway, so a walkthrough that no one reads is not going to be useful. Anyway, I'm going to do it because I want to. There's no better reason to do anything than that.
You see the Introduction and find out that the evil witch Scotia is planning to use the Nether Mask to destroy King Richard of Gladstone. The Nether Mask makes her able to change her shape at will. Richard decides to get a champion to help him defeat Scotia. You will play as the champion, who can be one of four characters. Ak'Shel is the best for magic, Michael for fighting, Conrad is an all-rounder, and Kieran is totally useless. I always pick Ak'Shel but that's really a matter of taste. The game isn't any different whichever you pick.
Part I: In Gladstone Keep:
Okaaay. You start off in Gladstone Keep. You meet a guard who tells you to go to the throne room. Unfortunately, of course, you don't know where the throne room is, so you just have to look for it. The best advice is to head north (although at this point in the game you don't have a compass either, so just keep going as far as you can in the direction you're facing when you start off). When you come to a room with golden doors and two guards outside, you know you've found it.
You go in and Richard gives you your first mission. You have to go to Roland's Manor in the Southlands, and get the Ruby of Truth for Richard. What jolly fun! The Chancellor, Geron, tells you to go to his office and get a writ so you can have free travel to the Southlands. Richard also offers you the use of his Magic Atlas, which will record where you have been and shows you where unexplored areas are. He gives you a key to his library so you can go and get it.
To get to the library, go straight ahead through the door at the first intersection you get to after leaving the throne room, and turn left immediately after going through. There should be a lock on the wall here. Click the key on the lock and the door to your right will open. Go through here. There are four books in the room. The one on your left as you come in is the Magic Atlas. The other books are pretty useless, although one of them gives some advice about fighting wraiths, which you'll need to know much later on.
Now you need to go to Geron's office. Come out of the library and turn right, then right again. You will come back to the fountain. Geron's office is the room to the west of the fountain. Go in and he'll give you the writ. Come out again. On the other side of the fountain is the royal herborium and the royal blacksmith's. You can buy a mace from the blacksmith if you like, you can always sell it back to him later. The herborium isn't really worth bothering with.
Part II: In Northland Forest:
Now you're ready to leave the Keep. Head south back to where you started. You emerge in the forest, although you can't go out if you don't have a writ. In the forest there are four places of interest: Draracle's Cave, Lake Dread, the Marina and the Thug's Cave. The first two you can't do anything with yet. The Marina is where you have to go to get the boat to the Southlands, but don't go there yet. The Thug's Cave, to the west, is the first place to visit. Head west and you'll meet a thug. He'll tell you he's going to take your money, but the best thing to do is fight him. If you have the monsters set to 'Wimpy', a level two magic spell should finish him off. There's also a wild boar in this forest somewhere which will attack you, and again, a level two spell does the trick.
Before going into the Thug's Cave, you might want to find everything there is in the forest. There should be three swarms, a rock, a dagger (sometimes two) and sometimes a money bag. Collecting all this stuff and then selling it to the blacksmith (apart from the rock) will give you enough money to buy the sword, if you sell the mace back as well (if you ever bought it). The sword is a good weapon and will serve you for the first quarter of the game. Sometimes you can also find a stick in the forest, but rest assured, this has no value whatsoever.
To get into the Thug's Cave, you can either attack the two remaining thugs (assuming you killed the one you met earlier) or sneak in. Sneaking isn't the best option, as the thugs themselves aren't that bad at sneaking and tend to come up behind you while you're in the cave. They aren't that hard to kill with the sword and the magic.
Part III: In the Thug's Cave:
It's very dark in here and you want to find a lantern as soon as possible so you can see better. The cave seems to consist of only a passage that goes nowhere, but think again! On one of the east walls is a lever which opens up the wall. Head up here and at the first intersection, a lantern is hidden to the north. Pick it up and everything goes bright. Now head east. You will come to some things labelled on the Magic Atlas as plates. Weight down the western plate with two rocks and take everything off the eastern plate. Another passage opens up. Don't bother going up there yet. On a west wall is another lever (the Magic Atlas will tell you where). Press this and a niche opens, revealing a key. Take the key and now go up the new passage. This passage ends in a dead end, or so it seems. On the south wall there is a button. Press it and a button appears on the north wall. Press this and a button appears on the west wall. Press that and the wall goes away, revealing a treasure chest. Use the key on the chest and get the stuff inside. I think there's some lockpicks (very useful for chests where no key is provided), a salve (used to restore health) and some money. I think there's something else in there too, but I can't remember what. After you get everything out, you can attack the chest. This is very good fun. Next go down the remaining passage and find a money bag at the end. You have now been through the entire Thug's Cave. Also in here somewhere is a shirt and a dagger. Get these and leave the Cave.
Part IV: In Northland Forest:
Go back to Gladstone.
Part V: In Gladstone Keep:
Return to Victor, the blacksmith at Gladstone, and sell them to him. Remember, don't throw daggers, rocks or shirts at the guards - they will tend to kill you. Now go out into the forest again.
Part VI: In Northland Forest:
The Marina is to the south of the forest. Head this way. You will meet Scotia disguised as a beautiful woman, but she doesn't do anything except turn into a bird. The obvious thing to do would be to alert the authorities in the castle to the clear threat she poses, but don't worry, Geron won't listen to you, so it's better not to bother really. Just go down to the Marina. The woman inside is obviously not well versed in customer relations, but it doesn't matter really. Instead of giving her the writ immediately, you can try clicking on the objects in the Marina, as some of the responses you get are quite amusing. Anyway, you eventually give her the writ, and automatically get on the boat.
Part VII: In Southland Forest:
The Southland Forest is a really dangerous place. Well, not really. It's swarming with Orcs and Giant Lizards, but, to be perfectly honest, they're not the toughest of foes. You start off in a clearing from which there are two exits. The one you should take is the south one. At the end of this passage is a choice of ways. Go left into the Grey Eagle Inn. The yellow haired guy sitting at the bar is Timothy. Click on him and have a conversation, at the end of which he agrees to join you in your adventure, and he will meet you outside. Don't go out just yet. If you click on the door at the far right of the screen, you'll meet a man who rubs his fingers against his chin in a strange way, then gives you a compass, which appears once you get outside. Now you can exit. Timothy has a number of useful things about his person. You can take his shield and equip it on yourself, if you want, and swap his boots for your sandals. Other than that, he's pretty useless. He can fight for you, but his magic skills aren't that good. Anyway, there's not much point to heading south, as all that's down there are two Giant Lizards. If you want to fight them, a Level 3 magic spell usually finishes them off. Sometimes down there is a horseshoe, but this is utterly useless. It can't be sold and it doesn't do you any good. Right. Next. Heading west will bring you to a choice of ways, left or right. If you go left, then take the next right, then left again, you will find Buck's Skins. Although Buck claims to want to trade, he doesn't really. You can't sell much to him, and he doesn't offer much to buy. However, you can get another shield and another pair of boots off him for reasonable prices. The salves, in the blue bottle on the top shelf, are probably not worth bothering with. He overcharges for them, at any rate. He offers some helpful advice as you leave: "Watch out for the Orcs!" You can meet the Orcs by turning left when you come out of his house, then taking the next left and waiting for a few seconds. They will come along in pairs, and if you just kill them and keep on waiting, eventually a Giant Lizard will pop along as well. Just kill them all, and when they stop coming, go round the corner where they came from. If you go straight on, you'll find about six Orcs but not much else - however, fighting them will give you valuable experience (and sometimes they drop weapons which you can sell to Victor). Heading west, however, will eventually lead you to Roland's Manor.
Part VIII: Inside Roland's Manor:
Uh oh. Something is a little bit awry in Roland's Manor. It appears that Orcs have attacked it. While there are maybe five rooms in the Manor, only two of them contain anything of use to you. These are the ones which are in the southwest and northeast corners (I think). However, entering every room and killing all the Orcs is probably the best thing to do. The room in the southwest has a button on one of the walls, which, when pressed, opens a niche which contains two flasks of oil and some herbs, I think it's ginseng (by the way, ginseng will cure poisoned wounds, aloe will give you a little bit of healing, and a salve will give you more healing than aloe does). The oil won't be useful until later, so keep it. The northeast room contains a big monster which is not identified in the manual, who greets you with "Huh huh! You small! What you?" At first, I thought it said, "Huh huh! You smell! What you?" but I chalked this down to immaturity. Anyway, you can try to bluff it by saying you are in charge of the Dark Army, if you want. Sometimes it works, sometimes not. I usually fight it anyway. It's quite difficult to beat, but if you use Level 2 magic spells initially (which finish off the two Orcs which are standing behind it) and then a Level 3 one for the big monster itself, as well as your swords, you should come out on top. You may need to sleep afterwards though. This is why it's a good idea to kill all the other Orcs in the Manor before you go into this room, because they are liable to sneak up on you when you're asleep. Anyway, once you're awake, pick up anything the monsters dropped (the big monster had an axe which Victor will buy for quite a lot) and on the west wall of this room is a button, which you can press. It opens a passage which leads to a room where there is a dying man, who turns out to be Roland. He dies after telling you that Orcs have stolen the Ruby of Truth. You can just guess what you'll have to do eventually, can't you? Yes, get the Ruby back. But cheer up, that's not for a while yet. Right now, all you have to do is pick up the key and use it on the chest in front of you. This contains 400 silver crowns and some sort of sword (or 200 silver crowns, a compass and the sword if you didn't meet the loony in the Grey Eagle Inn). Okay, you've done all you can here. Head back into the Forest again.
Part IX: In Southland Forest:
If you want to sweep the forest for anything useful that you can find, then go ahead. There's not a lot about, but it's worth clicking on some of the trees that look a bit funny; sometimes they have things hidden inside. As far as I remember, there's at least one swarm and a rock in the Forest. Once you're finished, return to the Marina. You will be charged 200 crowns to return to Gladstone.
Part X: In Northland Forest:
Nothing much to do here, so go back to Gladstone Keep.
Part XI: In Gladstone Keep:
Before doing anything, open Timothy's inventory and take all his stuff away. This is because he will be leaving you once you get to the throne room, but if you keep his stuff, you can sell it or keep it for other members of your party who will join you later. Next, go to the throne room. You will find King Richard being attacked by Scotia, but the enchantress Dawn saves him. It turns out he has been poisoned, but she and the other members of the Council (Geron, Nathaniel the Herbalist and Paulson, a big stupid man) put a magic shield around him. Dawn suggests that you go to the Draracle to find a cure for Richard. Those of you paying attention will recall that the Draracle has a cave in the Northland Forest. Bacatta, Dawn's apprentice, joins you at this point and Dawn also gives you a spellbook, containing Spark and Heal. Spark is the spell you already have, while Heal allows you to cure members of your party. Other spells can be added to this book as you progress. You now leave the throne room. You may wish to sort out your inventory at this point, removing anything from Bacatta (like his very good shield and helmet) that you want to put on your own character. Anything you don't want to keep that can be sold should be sold to Victor; your inventory will be full by the time you get out of the Caves. It is, however, not a bad idea to keep a couple of rocks, as these will come in handy on Level 4 of the Caves. Once you've done everything in the Keep you want to (bearing in mind you can't ever come in again), leave.
This is a good point to stop, and the next part of the walkthrough will appear when I can be bothered.