Final Fantasy V Walkthrough
Written by Djibriel
Contributor
1.16: Karnak County
Enemies: Aegir, Zu, Wild Nakk, Grass Tortoise
Blue Magic: 
????
Features: Piano
Aegir are not very interesting other than the fact they have a Special called !Tentacle which adds the Old status. Take care of them with fast and furious violence. The Old status gradually decreases all of your stats (Strength, Agility, Stamina and Magic Power), but not your level. Also note that while HP is normally tied to Stamina, in-battle modification of Stamina doesn't impact your current or maximum HP total.The massive Zu birds have over 849 HP. 850 HP, to be precise. They have a rare (1/16) Elixir drop and an even rarer (10/256) Elixir steal, but since they have nothing else you could potentially get one from every Zu you encounter. The odds are 1/66 for every !Steal attempt, though, now that you aren't yet boosted by the
Thief Glove relic.The Wild Nakk wolves which inhabit the woods have a 33% chance to use the Blue
???? spell every odd round. Make sure to learn it here as there's no reason not to. Wild Nakks are also weak to Fire-elemental attacks, so when you have a 
Flame Rod equipped multi-target 
Fire spells are their demise. multi-target Fira spells don't require Flame Rods to be fatal, obviously. Wild Nakks have some Magic Defense, so if the attack isn't barrier-piercing it'll have trouble killing them. The Wild Nakk x5 monster formation you'll always encounter in the forest gives you 625 Gil, which is quite a hefty sum for little trouble.???? is a non-elemental attack which deals (max HP - current HP) damage. In English, that means the more damage you've taken the more damage you'll do with ????. It's a fairly useless spell on the whole as you'd be better off trying to recover by means of Vampire or a Hi-Potion should you find yourself in a situation where ???? would be worth casting.Grass Tortoises are merely notable for their glaring weakness to Ice-elemental attacks (
Blizzard, Blizzara, Shiva) and the fact they drop a Turtle Shell every time. You'll find use for Turtle Shells in the future, but they are useless at the moment.It's a straight-forward route all the way down to Karnak. The town of Karnak and Karnak Castle are to the south-west, but you'll have to take a little detour to the north-east to get there. When you reach Karnak, it seems it's quite a little dictatorial community: passage to the ship is prohibited, there's a big wall to hinder progress and passage to Karnak Castle is also prohibited. Let's dive into town and hear what's buzzing.
This is what's buzzing: The wall is there to stop annoying scholars coming from the Library of the Ancients who claim exploiting the Fire Crystal is, in fact, bad. I'm sure the Queen will listen to us, though, no worries. We're a group of unlikely heroes, hardly scholars - why shouldn't she? Furthermore, an NPC on the streets is boasting about the ridiculously inexpensive weapons and armor Karnak has to offer. Let's hit the shops than, shall we? The Magic Shop seems closed for the day, but that doesn't mean we can't abuse the new weapons and armor Karnak has to offer us.
But, here's the deal. When you try to Sell something, nothing special happens. When you don't do anything or try to buy an item, you are halted by the fact that Karnak guards carry you away, into Karnak prison. If you buy something, the price that was listed will be paid and you'll obtain the weapon in question. That
Mythril Hammer is far and away the priciest item the shops have the sell, so that's where the biggest discount may be obtained.At any rate, you'll quickly find yourself in a jail-cell. Doin' your time (it's a second or fifteen) will cause the white-haired guy in the jail next to you to walk over to the wall and blow a hole in it. Talk to the guy to learn his identity.
You quickly learn several very important facts. Meet Cid Previa, an engineer working for the country of Karnak. He used his knowledge to amplify the crystals of Tycoon, Walse and Karnak for the good of us all, not knowing it was, in fact, for the bad of us all. Trying to prevent the Fire Crystal from shattering like the Wind Crystal and Water Crystal, he was put in jail by the queen of Karnak. And now he's here, being freed by the Karnak Chancellor as - gasp thrice - a crack has appeared in the Fire Crystal, it's probably too late, but they've finally started to listen to the voice of reason. Cid gets you out of jail too.
Now what was this talk about werewolves earlier? A werewolf came out of the meteor?
At any rate, Karnak Castle is open to your wanderings. Two points of interest: the Fire Crystal is the driving power behind the Steamship and is located in the basement of Karnak Castle. However, by the power of the same inconveniently placed flames that stop you from reaching any of the chests you see, nobody can access the Fire Crystal. The only way to reach it is through the Steamship, but it's been overrun by monsters much like the Wind Shrine. Also, Queen Karnak is nowhere to be seen, a fact overshadowed by the significance of the cracking Fire Crystal but odd nonetheless.
When you try to leave the castle, the werewolf you've heard about a few times tries to enter the castle but is quickly chased off. Why is it that odd and mysterious characters appear always when one of those blasted meteors land?
Now, the shops in Karnak are open again for you to exploit, but the prices have raised significantly due to the possible financial instability that looms for Karnak. To compensate, the Magic Shop has opened its doors.
Weapon Shop: If all is well you should have all the
Mythril Knife copies and 
Mythril Swords you need, but if this is not the case here's where you buy them. If you are planning on using a Berserker in the next dungeon you should definitely buy a 
Mythril Hammer, too. You don't have to buy anything else, as you shouldn't need more 
Flails and there's no specific reason to buy Rods. You could break Frost Rods versus the next boss creature for illegally huge amounts of damage though, so if that's your cup of tea then buy one or two for that very purpose.Armor Shop: What's there to say about all this? Every character, no matter what Job he or she is currently wielding, should get a near-full upgrade from the Armor Shop in Karnak.
Mythril Shields for everybody that can equip them, 
Mythril Helmet, 
Mythril Armor and Mythril Gloves for the Heavy Armor class characters, Plumed Hats, Silver Armor and Silver Armlets for the Clothes classes and Plumed Hats and Silk Robes for your mages. It's very simply and very nice.Magic Shop (Black): The four new spells here are
Fira, Blizzara, Thundara and Poison. If you have little money left and don't really want to sell anything, buy Fira and Blizzara and nothing else. Blizzara and 
Cura from the White Magic shop really are the priorities for the next dungeon, and Fira is just really really helpful versus Shiva. Fira, Blizzara and Thundara are simply stronger versions of the basic elemental spells of the Black Mage; Poison is an single-target attack that sets the Poison status. On Spellblade, Fira and its brethren are stronger as well, but only versus targets weak to the element. Poison spellblade turns the weapon into a Poison-elemental one; it will set the Poison status as well upon a successful hit.Magic Shop (White):
Cura and Raise are the priorities for now if you're low on money, else the Confuse spell is one you don't really want to skip. Raise revives a character, much like Phoenix Down; Confuse is an single-target spell that sets the Confuse status, which is useful to disable an opponent temporarily and/or learning certain Blue spells.Magic Shop (Time): Three new Time spells for you to buy:
Gravity, Stop and Haste. Gravity deals (current HP / 2) damage, but will miss when the target is Heavy. A wide variety of monsters, especially bosses, are Heavy type - this walkthrough will call out most of them as you encounter them. "Heavy" in this context essentially is the game's designation for monsters against which gravity spells won't work, but the check is used for other things as well. Stop sets the Stop status; it'll last quite a while, but will be very quickly worn out if the target is Heavy. Haste is a grand spell; it'll halve the time needed to charge the ATB bar, effectively giving a character twice as many turns. Note that Gravity is a grand spell for an upcoming boss, so don't pass it up!Item Shop: If you're done and fully healed (that's what the Inn is for!), buy some Eye Drops (especially if you don't have any
Silver Specs), save your game on the Overworld Map and head into the Fire-Powered Ship. It'll be fun and adventurey there!Oh, wait, no, there was still Shiva back in Walse Castle, and since she'll be immediately helpful in the Steamship we should definitely get her. Trace back to the meteor and eventually to Walse Castle. You could sleep at the Inn of Walse to regain your health before doing so, obviously.
Caves of Narshe: Final Fantasy V
Version 6
©1997–2025 Josh Alvies (Rangers51)
All fanfiction and fanart (including original artwork in forum avatars) is property of the original authors. Some graphics property of Square Enix.
Version 6
©1997–2025 Josh Alvies (Rangers51)
All fanfiction and fanart (including original artwork in forum avatars) is property of the original authors. Some graphics property of Square Enix.