With the dwarven race firmly cemented in the middle of Tibia the map looked less empty but there were still many spots without content. The addition of Ab'Dendriel (Abby) with the Beta 6.2 update on June 21st, 2001, filled the mostly empty area that had been Cyclops Camp, offering Tibia's its newest city.
This new sprawling elven city offered a different approach compared to other cities with its tree top houses and nature-oriented design. The name Ab'Dendriel comes from the ancient Greek word dendron, which means tree. You might be interested to know that this city was not originally called Ab'Dendriel, but Alwasala. Knightmare renamed the city after the original mapmaker gave up on the project. According to an interview KM did, only the undead cave is all that remained of the original design.
In Abby's first draft, the black pyramid of Dracona was in the north part of the town, but KM ran out of space and had to move it to the island. Taghor assisted in the creation of Abby, but humbly suggests his involvement was little more than the placement of some trees. KM was told by CIP that "they wanted an elven town, not too clustred and in comparison to Kazordoon more hunting areas and less 'only to look at'."
To access the city you approached the old Cyclops Camp and would face a huge, tall stone wall that spanned from river to river. A single entrance flanked by two guard towers allowed entry inside. The entire inside was adjusted with the only original features kept being the swamp to the northwest and the unused guild hall which now became the dungeon known as Elvenbane. Elvenbane was also its own island now, separated from the old camp. To get into this dungeon there was a hidden loose stone pile south of it outside of the city, hidden under a fire field to look like a campfire. An elf and some Orcs guarded the entrance which was your only clue that the dungeon's entrance was close by.
The underground path to the castle led to a hole in the red brick wall. Upon access you would be attacked by Minos, Orcs, Orc Warriors, Orc Spearman, Trolls, and even a Dwarf. Heading down the north staircase led to a lesser amount of Minos, Orcs, and Orc Warriors spread out into a series of divided rooms with the largest one filled with cots. Those who continued to next, and final floor, found a jail like area with locked cells and would fight Minos, Orcs, Orc Warriors, and a Mino Guard.
Heading up from the entrance instead brought you inside the wall on the surface in the southeast corner of the castle. You would have to fight your way to an opening in the north of the wall to get to the central tower. Climbing up the towers on the ends of the castle would lead you to many different creatures and was a great way to experience more mid-level monsters of Tibia. Heading into the central tower would lead you to challenge an Orc Berserker and Mino Guard at once. If you thought to flee up to the next level, you would find a nasty surprise as the floor was filled with poison fields and the next floor was no better as a Dragon made its home here. Above this floor by ladder was an Orc Shaman and Mino Mage which roamed a mini lab of some kind. A staircase up led to an Elven Arcanist and a DS in a royal apartment type place which also had some treasure for you to take. The look likely contained the same items as today: Morning Star, Dwarven Shield, Strong Mana Potion, Blank Rune, Spellbook, 2 Small Diamonds and 100 gp. A set of stairs would take you up to the top floor which overlooked the compound but didn't offer any creatures to kill. This dungeon was a favorite of players, perhaps because of the variety of monsters inside.
Upon entering the city, you would see several houses built with trees as if the forest grew up to the shape of the house. West of the entrance was a huge maze and players had to work their way around it to get to the temple which had a small lake and a ring of stones around the blue portal.
Knightmare: "The AB'Dendriel maze for instance was far too easy using the automap. I was very disappointed in the tests and thought about a way to prevent that. So I came up with the jungle grass idea virtually in the last minute."
The resulting maze was frustrating for players who were used to clicking on the map to navigate paths. Most player's visiting Abby would want to become a citizen to make it easier to recover their items upon death. The obstructions and confusing paths meant that players could easily become trapped by PKs before they could even accept citizenship of the town. Death would spawn them far away in Thais, Carlin, or even Kaz. Players also found frustration with the grass mechanic because they needed to have a machete before they could even become a citizen. Many like myself just refused to become a citizen due to the headache and risks associated with becoming one. Very few players wanted citizenship in Kaz or Abby due to the difficulty of becoming a citizen.
However those that did would be deposited on the small island to the east which was connected to Abby by a wooden foot bridge. NPC Maealil milled around the island and I think he would also sell spells to Paladins. I believe there was a special glowing tree with the NPC which was unique to Abby.
North of the temple area was I think a small house. The Ab'Dendriel Clanhall didn't exist yet nor did the boat so you could head straight south until you came across a mountainous hill. As you passed you might see a rocky hill with stone pillars and a sacrificial alter on the second floor. This was the exit to Hellgate which would deposit you below the alter. A semi hidden dropdown hole allowed you to escape the area, but you could return via the ladder to the stone, but not the dungeon.
As you approached the mountainous hill to the south you might not think much of the tower you saw until your eye caught something you hadn't seen before on one of the upper levels, the Warlord Sword. This sword was utterly gorgeous and amazing powerful as it was 62 attack and 40 defense, which was less attack then the Cyc sword but still lightyears ahead of any obtainable weapon. As you tried to gain access to the tower you would realize that there was no obvious way to scale it. The trick was a hidden path below which could be accessed by a loose stonepile in the wheat field to the south. Traveling north in the tunnel you would encounter a few Rots and a rope spot which would take you inside the tower.
The weapon of your desire was locked away a few floors up behind a towering stone wall. Other weapons propped up on stones could be seen, which if you looked clockwise from the top, you would see Giant Sword, Two-handed Sword, Serpent Sword, War Hammer, Warlord Sword, Double Axe, Halberd, Golden Sycle, Fire Sword, and Spike Sword. Above this floor was NPC Sweety Cyclops who would discuss with you the different types of metals and their properties, detailing some backstory for Tibia's equipment and why some are perhaps better than others. Sometime not long after, players misinterpreted the purpose of this NPC to be some form of hidden quest around the Warlord Sword. This would not be the first-time players took a mundane addition to the game and turned it into a great mystery.
The rumor spread that if you had enough iron ore, which was a debris item found in dungeons, that you could trade them in for the sword. Many players bought these iron ore from others or scavenged them but no matter how many they accumulated they could not get enough to produce any more results from the Cyclops. People refused the thought that there was no quest, believing that the only solution was to level more and gain a higher cap so they could try again. This rumor perpetuated for so long that the only reason it was finally debunked was due to the game server hack which leaked NPC text file that showed no such quest existed. If this didn't occur, I am 100% positive players would still be trying to collect these iron ore pieces.
Across from this tower to the east was a small piece of land which led to a huge tree which was called an observation tower, or it was supposed to be a tree, but it was instead made up of several smaller trees. This massive tower could be climbed by a series of ladders inside which took you almost to the tower layer of the map, one floor higher than even the cyclops tower. Nothing could be found at the top, but it was still an interesting place as you could see a very small part of the city from the height.
Once you had tired of the towers you could head a little bit more southwest and come to the Depot which was also a giant tree that sprawled to the same height as the Cyclops Tower and a floor down. Four depots in sets of two spanned the floors for a total of 24 depot spots. No NPC existed in the basement at this time, so you had to head to another building just southwest to buy your parcels.
This building was the only out of place house in town which was a post office run by NPC Olrik. The building looked like a house out of Thais, not matching the natural buildings in the rest of the town. Sprawling two floors, including a small unremarkable basement down a flight of steps, the post office was on the first floor. The clerk walked back and forth behind the counter and a blackboard on the wall announced what services he was offering. A staircase in the back led up let to the Thaian ambassador NPC Roderick on the second floor. Out in front of the building was a sewer grate which led to a very small single room rat dungeon below that had a mini lake. A short walk west would lead you along the high rock wall towards the city exit.
Just northeast of the entrance was a staircase leading down and a large platform above which could be accessed by ladder slightly north. This was the central area of Abby and the Head of the "Cenath Cast" NPC Eroth could be found here who would sell you spells if you were a Druid.
Much of the elven town was located on the second level which could be traversed by a series of wooden walkways and ladders around Abby which all connected to this spot. Traveling north to the first intersection led you to the rune shop run by NPC Shiriel who would sell you blank runes and fluids. Other houses could be found in other directions though I don't know the exact layout of what was above. The depot second floor could be found directly southeast of the rune shop.
North of the central location on the ground floor was the Hunter's Home which I am not sure what it was supposed to be, but it looked like an empty shop of animal bodies. A ladder inside would take you to Shiriel's shop upstairs. To the east was the library which spanned two floors and was filled with lore on the elves.
If you instead headed straight north from the entrance, you would come across the huge swampy area which original to the area before the changes. Just south of it was a hidden hole with a sign in front of it which decayed the area a "Waste Dump" which if you dropped in the hole would take you to a rubbish heap. I think there was Rots and Rats in here. Sometimes these rubbish heaps had small gems spawn which you could sift the junk around to find. This was also a great source to load up on Iron Ore to try to get your Warlord Sword.
The top portion of Abby could only be accessed by a narrow path through the center of a hill. This would naturally funnel you to the bard shop which had musical instruments on display, but no NPC. There was a ladder leading up if you needed to access the pathways above or escape a PK.
Directly east of this was the archery shop which was run by NPC Irea who would sell ammo and distance supplies. To the east was the Holy Tree Grove which was a rocky cave with a staircase leading up to a green mossy area filled with special Sacred Trees. This was a unique site in Tibia and was worth seeing as a curiosity for players. Rumor has it that you could use parcels to climb onto the north hill and find a Yellow Rose spawn. If this was true it only lasted for a couple of updates before it was replaced with the more common Red Rose.
North of this was a food shop which had fruit on display, but no NPC staffed it yet. Players would abscond with the fruit as they were unusual and the wall of stones blocking access didn't exist yet. Castle of the Winds also didn't exist yet, but the entrance to the dungeon below was one of the features introduced by the original map maker which led to a dungeon of skeletons, Ghouls, Rots, and some Slimes. There was an underground lake, swamp, lava pool, and caved in rooms which was a strange group of things to have in a single dungeon. You could access this dungeon by shoveling open a loose stonepile to the north of the city.
To assess the west side of the swamp you had to crawl along the north shore. This was a very popular place to train as it was semiprivate, and I think Wolves or Snakes were here which could be lured to train with though Snakes were not advised. Tucked away in the swamp was a two-story house which had a small number of the new eleven creatures in the basement.
Despite the peaceful surface which even had a famous bug pen in the southeast corner of the city, much of the excitement lay beneath the surface. You could access the underground by the ladder at the depot, the central stairs in town, and from a ladder in the library.
There was three shops on the north side of the underground area which was called Shadow Caves Street. The farthest on the west side was a jewelry shop run by NPC Briasol. Beside this was a mill with ovens and equipment to make bread. To the east was the weapons and equipment shop run by NPC Shanar. Originally, he didn't have a counter and just milled about in a forge like area. From Wiki it seems that he also sold some spells though I don't know what spells he might have sold then. To the east of that was NPC Bashira who ran a tool equipment shop and sat behind the counter there, selling shovels and ropes. Beside the shop was a small library though I don't know if there was any books in here or not.
In the middle was four small rooms and a staircase leading further down. This led to another set of 8 small rooms identical to the first, and another staircase leading down. The hall continued north which took you to a small guard room with NPC Shirith who would sell you key 3033 for 50gp which led to the locked door further north. Beyond this door was a large Troll dungeon which was popular for low level players as Trolls dropped reasonable amounts of gold, were easy to kill, and was close to town. This dungeon spanned four floors in long spiral arms filled with Trolls. The locked room provided a bit of safety from random PKs but could be problematic if you died and needed to retrieve your stuff as you had to rebuy the key to open it.
The room below had more of the same 8 small rooms, and the hall led both north and south this time. North was an odd fountain room and well. South took you to a locked door which had a blackboard that read: "Hellgate! Restricted Area! Keep door shut unless throwing criminals in!" and a room to the east that looked like prison cells. A staircase led up to what might have been a second story overlook to the cells below and a room with NPC Elathriel who would inform you that the locked door led to Hellgate, which was where they tossed criminals. He would accept a bribe from you for key 3012 for the price of 5000gp, which was a lot and non-negotiable. Those brave enough to try the new dungeon could unlock the door and head up the path. A blue portal past a series of doors would take you into the dungeon, but it was a one way trip.
