Tracking your progress in Eye of the North with books

A neat new feature in Eye of the North is the concept of tracking your progress in special books. Once completed these books can be handed in to NPCs in exchange for reputation points.

There are three books you can collect and complete:

• The Hero's Handbook
  
• The Master Dungeon Guide
  
• Zho's Journal
  

You can obtain the Hero's Handbook and the Master Dungeon Guide from the following NPCs:

• Gedrel of Ascalon, in the Eye of the North
  
• Kodan, in Gunnar's Hold
  
• Tyr the Skaald, in Gunnar's Hold
  
• Lexx, in Rata Sum
  

Ask them about "written evidence" and they will give you the books. Once accepted, these two books will be customised to your character. If you place them in storage you can request another book, although at the moment completed quests and dungeons will only be updated in the first book you have.

I suspect at some point you will be able to place the books somewhere in the Hall of Monuments, which would explain why you can have more than one copy.

The Master Dungeon Guide will document your progress in the following dungeons:

• Catacombs of Kathandrax - Page 1
  
• Rragar's Menagerie - Page 2
  
• Cathedral of Flames - Page 3
  
• Ooze Pit - Page 4
  
• Darkrime Delves - Page 5
  
• Frostmaw's Burrows - Page 6
  
• Sepulchre of Dragrimmar - Page 7
  
• Raven's Point - Page 8
  
• Vloxen Excavations - Page 9
  
• Bogroot Growths - Page 10
  
• Bloodstone Caves - Page 11
  
• Shards of Orr - Page 12
  
• Oola's Lab - Page 13
  
• Arachni's Haunt - Page 14
  
• Slaver's Exile - Page 15
  
• Fronis Irontoe's Lair - Page 16
  
• Secret Lair of the Snowmen - Page 17
  
• Heart of the Shiverpeaks - Page 18
  

Annoyingly, any dungeons that were completed during the Sneak Peek weekend won't appear in the Master Dungeon Guide. Can't say I'm too happy about that, personally.

Any dungeons and quests that you have completed since starting Eye of the North (after the official launch) will automatically show up in the books when you acquire them.

Zho's Journal is a special book that can only be gained once you have defeated Zho in the Norn Fighting Tournament.

Zho's Journal can only be acquired once per character. When you receive any of the books, they are customised to your character.

The Hero's Handbook contains details for each of the Primary Quests you complete. As you finish them, a summary of the quest is entered in the Handbook.

The Master Dungeon Guide is used to keep track of each of the dungeons you complete. Again, as each one is finished, a summary of the dungeon is written into the Guide.

When the Hero's Handbook or the Master Dungeon Guide is completely full, you can hand it in to one of the NPCs to receive 2500 reputation points for that NPC's race. So, if you wanted to boost your Asuran Title Track, you'd hand the completed Hero's Handbook in to Lexx in Rata Sum.

Zho's Journal is a special item, primarily of interest to Rangers or those characters who have Ranger as a secondary profession. The Journal documents Zho's journey in hatching a Black Moa egg and can be used to acquire and hatch your own Black Moa egg.

To complete this you must have all 3 chapters of Guild Wars, as Zho has journeyed to them all to accomplish this task. If you do try and hatch your own Black Moa chick, bear in mind that there are no quests, and NPCs will have no icons above them, showing who to talk to. You will need to read through the Journal and use it to work out where to go and who to talk to.

As an aside, you may notice that The Hero's Handbook and the Master Dungeon Guide are references to the Player's Handbook and Dungeon Master's Guide from Dungeons & Dragons. Even the colours match up to the current editions.

This is a pretty long blog posting, but the idea of books to track and record progress in Eye of the North is a new one, and questions about the books seem to frequently come up.

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