The Dracoid Ruins are all that remains of the great sunken Dracoid capital Tsar'Ille deep beneath the River Bane, after the late Emperor Ak'Salar decreed it's destruction out of guilt for his races involvement in the War of the Heretics and their immoral alliance with the Ancient god Belial.
Bane estuary - inaccessible. The Great Worm God swims here and kills Luther when he enters the main basin. The northwest niche is a red herring.
Ka'Dan's remains and Cremation Altar - when Luther moves the remains on the rising plateau and sparks the two pillars, the remains will turn to ashes. He will then need the Urn to collect them.
Main complex: royal quarters (north of the river) and the city (south)
Map Key (main complex)[]
Entrance from Savage Jungle pit
Greater Bezoar Ring - accessible in lizard form. Breaking the three chains behind the pillars will raise them
Chasm - when the pillar is sparked it will activate a bridge
Mage Tower teleportation chamber - must be opened from the outside by sparking a pillar
Mage Tower - when the pillars are lit, the green barriers will deactivate and the cellar niche containing the Gauntlets of Might will open. The Mists of Doom pedestal is on the second floor, the Bracers of the Dead are on the fourth, guarded by a Ssar Priest. On the sixth floor, there's a window to the spiral path on the outside of the tower
Arena Antechamber - when and if Luther first falls to a Ssar, he will be teleported here to fight in the arena, but the door doesn't open if he doesn't approach it, giving him time to heal up. Waiting too long makes the floor pool with lava from the four grilles in the floor, forcing him to enter the arena.
Arena - after being forced here (see 6), Luther will fight an Executioner with Ssar spectators behind a barrier. Once victorious, the arena will flood. There's a door in a slot near the floor of the southern wall to help him escape. A Ssar Priest will fight him leaving
Speaking Stone altar - clicking the coloured projector, the animation of whichever Speaking Stone is in the altar slot will be played. The room might be meant as a cinema. There's one already in the slot for the taking (Execution of Belial)
Prison - Luther can move the door lying around in the southern section to the river, where it will float towards 10 and form a bridge. It will need some manipulation while in the river. Additionally, he can break the chains holding up the cell doors and break them down to form a half-bridge of doors on either side of the stream
Crossing point from the city to the royal area - the door thrown in the river will float here with some manipulation
Palace
the right door leads to the Throne room (map level 2). A button on the left throne makes a secret chamber appear behind the right one, containing a Ring of Regeneration.
the left door leads to a dining room. The armchair at the head of the table has another button, which apparently does nothing.
behind the dining room are the Palace quarters, of which the last door on the right can be opened with the Skull Key, leading to a Lightning Crystal and a Coco's Cap.
Palace teleportation chamber - warp to the Mage Tower, Dracoid Cemetery or Savage Jungle (one-way only)
Royal suite - the gargoyle statuette on top of the headboard, when touched, opens a secret room opposite, containing the War Axe Traitor
Empty mansion - this area is not easily reachable and has no loot or use. It might have been used as a guest house
Royal bath - when the pillars are lit, a bridge provides access to a luxury bath, but it has no further use
Falling bridge
Passage to cremation altar
Spring - there are two doors lying nearby, which can be manipulated to form a bridge the lizard can cross. In human or beast form, Luther can cross without them.
House with the lizard tunnel back to the Savage Jungle
Water pipes - they can be destoryed to fill the space south of the hotel with water, as well as some rivulets
Hotel - In the bar area, there's a Stroke Dagger and 2 Rocks; in the room on the first landing, there's 2 Prism Scrolls, on the second floor, there's 2 Nets of Exile and a Healing Scroll. Behind the bar is a jug that can be filled with (presumably) beer; drinking it has no effect, regardless of how many times it is repeated, making it a nice gimmick but nothing more.
Lizard tunnel to the hotel (one-way only)
Empty buildings - in the easternmost one, walking to the left of the torn rug between two beds makes the wall break and two Ssar appear
Balcony mansion - there's a chest containing a Lightning Crystal on the second floor. The iron grilles on the balcony can be pushed over, giving access to the tunnel at 27, mainly used to reach 16 and 17 in lizard form if the door bridges at 18 are not in place
Tunnel to the Royal bath and the Cremation Altar
Library - move a bookcase to reveal a dark spiral staircase, which leads to 3 Stroke Daggers at the top and a passage (map level 3) to the Grand Mansion going down, containing a Vel's Fruit and a Healing Scroll
Luther must make multiple journeys through these dark and twisted caverns under the Savage Jungle, to find the Bracers of the Dead and charge a glass globe, collect the priest Ka'Dan's ashes, and finally activating Belial's Statue to confront the Great Worm worshiped by the Ssar.
The northwest niche on the first map, across the estuary, has been accessed by either a glitch or a cheat. It turns out to contain a torch and nothing else.
There are some ways to raise your skill levels in the Ruins:
When entering from the pit in the Savage Jungle, simply lure the first Ssar you see to follow you and return to the gate just before the entrance. The Ssar cannot pass and is a sitting duck for magic and ranged weapons. If your Mage level is low, two Sunrays will take care of that. Having the lizard use Poison Shield, attacking and healing, Fighter levels increase quite fast, too. When the Ssar falls, simply lure another one and repeat until you are confident to survive the path to the Speaking Stone altar.
The Ssar behind this altar, like the Skeleton Guard in the Time travel exhibit (Draracle's Halls), is glitched: as long as you don't approach it, it can't move or die. Using Bows, the Plasma Staff and Sunray, it's easy to raise both skills to level 18.
The Ssar priest in the Mage Tower. Sometimes it is susceptible to the same glitch, but when its health runs out, it becomes immobilized and the Bracers of the Dead will be inaccessible - safer is to approach first, then use Sunray to further raise your Mage level to 19/20.
The Executioner in the arena can be grinded on further with Sunray, raising your Mage level to 21/22. There's a spot in the far end of the arena, north wall, where you can wait and recover mana without the monster approaching you.
If you did all of the above, opening Ak'Salar's tomb will get you to level 22/23.
Finally, the counterattack of Belial's Statue doesn't trigger while invisible, making for easy grinding. Fighter levels skyrocket with the lizard's attack or the Dagger of the Empty Hand; Mage Levels rise fast with Sunray, though because of mana recovery it takes much longer, forcing you to use the Plasma Staff and be patient to get to any substantial gain. With the mandatory level-ups escaping the ruins, raising the City of the Ancients and so on, it is quite easy to get to Mage level 30 endgame by getting to about 25 grinding on the statue. Be sure to save often, as when invisibility runs out or the curse triggers, you'll die from a single blast.
Credit to 'Onkel Dave' for his mention of the switch in the Palace dining room (11, second bullet)
