Sanctum of Burning Souls

The Sanctum of Burning Souls, located in the Wild Lands of Zelata, is a popular group dungeon with mobs in the level 37-39 range, and is also interesting from a storyline point of view as several big quest chains culminate there. But the dungeon is also interesting as a potential source of vanity armor, and this will be the main focus of this post.

Eight armor sets (or rather “half-sets”) drop in the Sanctum, each of which consists of four parts: head, chest, legs and feet. Some of them are level 38, others are level 40. All of them are bind-on-pickup, except Vashian Schenti, which is bind-on-equip, but that’s probably an unintended mistake.

• Mortiferous [heavy, defensive]
• Bloodsire [heavy, DPS]
• Griefscale [ranger]
• Scarclaw [BS]
• Coronal [PoM/ToS]
• Blackmarrow [barbarian]
• Vashian [assassin]
• Kel’Avashk [HoX]

As you can see, there’s no set specifically aimed at demos or necros. They could use the HoX set, I suppose, but that one contains a fair bit of strength that would be of no use to a demo or necro.

The boss fights here are pretty straightfoward and don’t require any complicated strategies even if you’re doing with an entirely level-appropriate group. There’s a lot of trash mobs in the dungeon but many of them can be avoided, and there are a few spots where some of them can be reset.

Of course, if you go there with a level 80 character, you can trivially kill anything without any real risk to yourself. In fact you could already do this well below level 80.

Screenshots

Blackmarrow

Bloodsire

Coronal

Griefscale

Kel’Avashk

Mortiferous

Scarclaw

Vashian

Loot tables

Generally, each boss drops one weapon and one piece of armor. (The Ancient Blood Defiler is an exception; see below.) I vaguely seem to remember that in the early days, the allocation of armor pieces to the bosses was somewhat methodical; either it was so that one boss dropped chests, one dropped legs, etc., or it was so that one boss dropped heavy armor, one dropped light armor, etc. In any case, the loot tables were thoroughly reshuffled at some point and there doesn’t seem to be any rhyme or reason to them nowadays, except insofar as each boss drops one item from each set.

The first boss (Vengeful Drowned One) also drops a quest item, Ritual Chalice, which someone has to pick up in order to spawn the second boss (Ancient Dark Beast) — there’s also a quest involving this, but you don’t need the quest itself to use the chalice.

The last boss (Acheronian Warlord) also drops a Totem of Origins. This item can be used to teleport you to your racial homeland (e.g. if your character is a Cimmerian, you get teleported to Conarch Village, etc.), but it was more useful in the early days of the game than it is now. In fact initially it was only available as part of certain pre-order offers. A few months after the launch, they added it to the end bosses of several dungeons, of which the one in Sanctum is perhaps the most easily reached, so that any high-level character could easily farm himself a Totem of Origins if he wanted it. Later it became included in various subscription-related offers, so that many people can nowadays easily /claim a Totem at any time on any of their characters. Its cooldown is and has always been 24 hours, making it somewhat of an option of last resort. Nowadays, with so many other teleportation options available, the Totem of Origins is more of a historical relic than a practically useful item.

Vengeful Drowned One

Drops one of the following weapons:

• Black Vash [1he]
• Crowfire [bow]
• Terminus [shield, str, con]

And one of the following armor pieces:

• Blackmarrow Boots
• Bloodsire Helm
• Coronal Boots
• Griefscale Harness
• Kel’Avashk Cap
• Mortiferous Tasset
• Scarclaw Hauberk
• Vashian Treads

Ancient Dark Beast

Drops one of the following weapons:

• Blackfist [1hb, con, combat rtg]
• Cruciatus [1hb, holy]
• Nimbus [1hb, wis, electrical]

And one of the following armor pieces:

• Blackmarrow Chest
• Bloodsire Harness
• Coronal Leggings
• Griefscale Leggings
• Kel’Avashk Schenti
• Mortiferous Helm
• Scarclaw Boots
• Vashian Keffiyeh

Ancient Blood Defiler

As far as I can tell, he always drops the following two items, one of each:

• Bloodtained Band [ring, str/con/dex]
• Duskfang [dex dagger]

Princess Akivasha

Drops one of the following weapons:

• Akivneteh [staff, magic dmg]
• Y’toth [dagger, dex]

And one of the following armor pieces:

• Blackmarrow Helm
• Bloodsire Boots
• Coronal Helm
• Griefscale Helm
• Kel’Avashk Robes
• Mortiferous Boots
• Scarclaw Leggings
• Vashian Schenti

Occasionally I’ve also seen her drop a bind-on-equip weapon (probably from the world-drop tables) on top of the above-mentioned drops. I guess the other bosses have a chance of dropping those as well (and BoE armor etc. too).

Acheronian Warlord

Drops one of the following weapons:

• Death’s Door [polearm, str]
• Soulstorm [1he, str, con]
• Spinegrist [2hb]
• Vyre [2he, str]

And one of the following armor pieces:

• Blackmarrow Leggings
• Bloodsire Tasset
• Coronal Jerkin
• Griefscale Boots
• Kel’Avashk Sandals
• Mortiferous Chestguard
• Vashian Tunic
• Scarclaw Helm

He also drops the following things:

• Totem of Origins (always)
• Architect: Patient Watcher (recipe, drops rarely)