River District Demiplane Guide

Today we’ll be looking at a quick little guide on the River District demiplanes, aka weekly solo lairs. I’m pretty sure most of you don’t run into trouble completing those, but every now and then I see an advise seeking thread popping up nonetheless. So it can’t hurt to compile the most important things.

First of all, let’s talk some basics. Demiplanes can only be entered with so-called “Portal Stones”. Those can drop from Heroic Encounters or be acquired through the River District campaign tasks “Resist the Rituals” and “Secure the District”. Both of the quests hand out Ornately Carved Boxes that offer a choice of Portal Stones to the foes that you successfully investigated in the campaign. It’s not enough to just complete the corresponding campaign tasks, you also have to pick up the follow-up quest from Kavatos Stormeye and complete the demiplanes once.

Then the Ornately Box will drop their Portal Stone and you can re-play the lairs. In groups only one player has to own a Portal Stone, so you can team up to do more runs if you like to. It’s also worth noting that the Major Heroic Encounters in each area in the River District effectively block the entrances. So you either fight your way through them or switch instances.

Nostura’s Fey Castle

The difficult thing in Nostura’s Fey Castle is dodging the dark magic spheres. There are three sets to start the course and one challenging one to end it. If you can’t make it though the runes however, you’re simply not worthy 😉 Just don’t step on them, ok? You can also use the speedup power before the two jumps. It’s not mandatory, but makes the jumps a little bit easier.

As frustrating as the spheres are, there are multiple obvious paths through them. I marked one of them for each group of spheres and hope it helps. You can take the last set of four spheres that move against each other one by one. Additionally there are safe spots between them. Use them, because trying to rush through in one motion normally leads to death. If you do not get hit on the course, you’ll earn the two achievements “Highly Skilled”  and “Fey Marked”.

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Inside the castle you need to fight through some trash. Endgame geared characters can probably just run straight to the end and kill everything there. But watch out, the mobs can hit hard. The Nostura fight itself is also pretty basic. Whenever she “grows weary” of the fight, you need to enter the yellow portal and dps down the five tears. When she wants you to “be still”, turn away to not get stunned. Additionally her Wither “beam” attack can be blocked by bringing the stone and box pillars between the two of you.

Gyrion’s Tower

The Gyrion demiplane is probably the most straight forward one. You enter three rooms and fight through mobs and the wizard himself. Gyrion does have a few annoying control abilities, but you don’t need to pay attention to actual mechanics. I’m not sure whether he can repel you off the platform in the third and final fight though, so you might want to position yourself properly.

Between the fights you have to do some leaping. The first course is rather simple because the correct way is indicated by the sparkling path and the first platforms are permanent. Starting with the 5th or so, they vanish after being entered, so you gotta move on quickly. To master the leaps, players get a special skill that replaces the “Q” encounter and works like “Mighty Leap” of the GWF. With a first click you aim at the target area and the second one performs the leap. It needs a bit getting used to, but after a while you should be able to comfortably get through. Sometimes jumping right before aiming your leap helps to hit the platform, but it’s not actually required.

The second course is a bit more challenging because there are multiple platforms you can jump to. I have marked the correct path in the screenshots below. If you want the “Better by Leaps and Bounds” achievement you don’t take the last leap to the exit but continue to extra platforms on the left. At the end there’s a teleporter that takes you back up to the location of the final fight.

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Kabal’s Trial of Fire

Kabal’s trial is all about avoiding flame throwers that push you over the cliff. Every flame thrower has a pretty generous cooldown to pass it however, so it shouldn’t be a big deal. During this obstacle course there are two achievements to gain. If you listen to the conversation of the group standing on the platform at the very first flame thrower, you become “Part of the Party”. Their dialogue is worth it as well, it’s funny. The second achievement “Too Hot to Handle” can be earned by completing an additional hidden course before the big bridge with the mobs on it. I attached screenshots below that show the position of both achievements.

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The hard part of this trial is the boss fight. Kabal is immune to damage by default. In the first stage you need to fight off sword adds and dodge his attacks. Try to stay in the same section (inner / outer circle) as him, because he might set the other one on fire. After two swords a golem spawns, which when killed leaves a stationary fireball. If you get chained to the wall, you can use the fireball to burn the chain and free yourself.

The second golem that spawns is the crucial one. It’ll spawn a fireball that gets chained to your character and slowly moves towards you. Bring yourself between Kabal and the fireball so that the boss gets hit by it. This lifts the immunity.

Both the adds on the bridge as well as Kabal himself deal a sizeable amount of damage btw., so this demiplane might not be suited for squishy dps.

Morlanth’s Shard of Night

The Shroud of Souls addition to the River District is the only lair that works differently in how you enter it. It doesn’t require a Portal Stone but a key that drops from the wraths in the River District. I’m not aware of an extra achievement in this one and also generally it’s very unspectacular. Just follow the quest path to the top and defeat Morlanth. She has a pretty annoying and strong AoE that does not properly give advance warning. Just like in the Nostura fight her Life Drain “beam” can be cancelled by bringing a pillar between the two of you. At 40% she spawns a dragon that’s not much of a hassle and that’s it.


I hope you enjoyed our little guide to the River District solo lairs. Did I miss anything, have suggestions or remarks? Share them in the comments below or visit the corresponding thread on our message board!

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j0Shi

j0Shi plays the Neverwinter MMORPG since the open BETA in 2013 and is a regular contributor to the blog and the whole UN:Project. Originally a Guardian Fighter, he has built up ALTs of all classes and plays on BIS/near-BIS level.

5 thoughts on “River District Demiplane Guide

  • May 11, 2017 at 9:29 am
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    Not sure if anyone knows, but there is a small Easter egg in Nostura’s Fey Castle. I believe it is the third set of Death Spheres, there is a dragon to your left, sitting in the river. If you walk directly up to the invisible wall and stare at the dragon, it will walk up to you and fly away.

    This Easter egg prevented me from finding the second title for quite some time, since I assumed the second title had to relate to the dragon.

    A funny note is that depending on your angle, you can sometimes spot the NPC name of the dragon, which is “Stag” copy+paste for the win Cryptic.

  • May 11, 2017 at 10:34 am
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    Slight error in your post wrt Gyrion’s achievement: “You need to die after getting the achievement and start again though” – this isn’t true. The last jump, where you get the achievement, puts you on a platform with a lore book and a teleporter. The teleporter takes you back up to the location of the final fight. You don’t have to die.

    • May 12, 2017 at 2:33 am
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      Thanks for the hint!

  • August 22, 2017 at 7:15 am
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    Huh, just did the resist the rituals task after the quests and didn’t get a portal stone. Either that is pc only, no longer true, or maybe cause I started the task before doing the quests but collected it AFTER doing them. Neverwinter xbox is in maint now so will have to check when it comes back up

    • October 5, 2017 at 4:27 pm
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      I just did the same rituals task and did get a portal stone. And I’m on X Box, so it’s not just PC. I think sometimes you get it, sometimes you don’t.

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