Zones
Qeynos Hills
Rolling hills east of Qeynos. The canonical newbie yard for Qeynos starters and the road to Blackburrow.
- Qeynos
- Blackburrow
- Surefall Glade
- North Karana
Qeynos Hills is the eastern outskirt of Qeynos — a grassy plain of rolling hills, bear and wolf packs, gypsy wagons, and the gnoll outpost that sits atop the entrance to Blackburrow. For Qeynos starting characters, this is the canonical newbie yard. For everyone else, it is the connecting tissue between Qeynos, Surefall Glade, the Karanas, and the gnoll dungeon below. The zone is outdoor, open, and forgiving in most corners, but the gnoll patrols and a recurring named gnoll keep it from being purely safe. Anyone who started in Qeynos remembers Qeynos Hills.
Content
- Wolves, bears, snakes — standard newbie fare, scattered across the hills.
- Gypsy camps — peaceful merchants and a few quest threads.
- Gnoll patrols — concentrated near the Blackburrow entrance, low-level but aggressive in groups.
- Fippy Darkpaw — the iconic named gnoll spawn, a Qeynos rite of passage.
- Blackburrow entrance pit — the gnoll-fortified opening to the dungeon below.
- Travel paths — north stairs to North Karana, west gate to Qeynos, east trail to Surefall.
Why bother
Qeynos Hills is where a Qeynos-starting character spends levels 1 through about 8, then loops back through it on the way to and from Blackburrow. The zone gives every standard newbie target — wolves, bears, snakes, gnolls — without forcing the player into a dungeon. It is bindable, which means a fresh character can plant a recall here and treat it as a base for the early gnoll runs. Because The Last Camp runs the any-race-any-class doctrine, the Hills get characters who would never have started here in vanilla EverQuest: a Halas-style Barbarian raised in Qeynos, a Halfling Wizard, an Erudite Bard. The zone serves all of them the same. If you started in Qeynos, you start here.
Field notes
Pull gnoll patrols away from the Blackburrow pit — fighting on top of the entrance brings down the camp at the bottom of the cave. Fippy spawns on a known cycle and pulls a small retinue. He is a fair fight for a small group of his level range. He is a wipe for a solo level-three. Bind in the Hills if you plan to spend serious time in Blackburrow. The corpse run from the dungeon back to the city is short with a Hills bind, brutal without one. Do not med beside a road; the gypsy patrols are peaceful but the gnolls are not. The North Karana stairs to the east open into a much larger zone with much larger threats. Step through that exit knowing what you are walking into.