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Whether you’re new to the game or a veteran of the exiled lands, sooner or later, you’ll hear of the fabled Isle of Siptah expansion. Like most people, however, you’ll likely be unsure where to start.
Siptah is not just the usual gameplay loop on a fresh new map. It’s an entirely different experience that changes how you approach the game in every meaningful way.
This won’t and can’t be an in-depth guide on any of these individual mechanics, as you’ll soon see a lot to cover. Instead, this guide will seek to give you as much information as possible in the broadest sense to give you an idea of what to expect.
So whether you’re looking for a little direction to get you started, or perhaps you’re a prospective buyer wondering what Siptah has to offer, this is the Conan Exiles Siptah guide for you!Â
TL;DR – Why Siptah?
Siptah is a massive expansion, so summarizing the experience in a few words is difficult, and each of the things we’ll discuss would likely benefit from separate guides. The important thing to keep in mind is that every way that you approach the game will be different and exciting.
The maelstrom will offer you early and endgame challenges with waves of new exciting monsters, while the vaults are all tailor-made to give you a fun dungeon delving experience with unique rewards and highly valuable loot chests to make it worth your while.
With the resources you get from these features, you can summon thralls and even manipulate purges to attack your base whenever you like or keep it at bay if you need time to prepare.
The map itself has a fair distribution of resources, so nearly anywhere you settle will offer you access to important materials like brimstone and black ice.
Beyond this, the newly added isles of dusk and dawn contain unique attractions such as valuable grey one weapons, the extremely valuable summoning pools, and the always dangerous shattered citadel that will give you a constant supply of maelstrom rewards.
For anyone looking to spice up their game and have a fresh experience, Siptah is worth every penny.
The Maelstrom
You won’t be able to spend long on the isle before you start to see the winds pick up. The skies will turn gray, and shortly afterward, the center of the map will become engulfed in swirling clouds. This is the maelstrom, one of the central features of the Isle of Siptah.
When the maelstrom is active, enemies will periodically spawn throughout the storm, with more of them spawning near any players located within it. The longer the storm rages, the more enemies it will spawn, and the more dangerous these enemies will be.
The danger is worth the trouble, though, as every enemy spawned will drop useful resources like demon blood and brimstone while also being harvested via any tool for a mysterious new resource known as “???”.
For simplicity’s sake, we’ll refer to it as maelstrom essence for the rest of this article, and we’ll talk about what it’s used for later. The important thing to note is that typically the more dangerous an enemy is, the more valuable its essence will be.
It might seem like an endgame activity, and large portions of it are, but the outer rim of the maelstrom will only spawn weaker enemies to start, and these enemies can be killed relatively easily for their important resources in the early game.
Anyone looking to spend too long in the storm should be careful and bring their best gear and thralls, as dangerous new three skull bosses will spawn that can pack a serious punch.
Once the maelstrom has reached its limit, the central tower will swallow it up entirely, removing all of the enemies it spawned with it, only to return once again once the timer has finished its cycle.
Building a base inside the storm or bringing your friends can be a great way to give yourself an exciting challenge, but putting the storm to use involves using those essences we talked about in a different mechanic entirely.
Summoned Surges
Around the center of the map are six leyshrines in a hexagonal arrangement equidistant from the middle. Three of these are inactive and are inhabited by either the undead or the crazed denizens of the isle, while all of them have various resources such as crystal and brimstone scattered around them.
The leyshrines of the demon, drowned, and serpent are all active, however, and when you step inside, you’ll find there is a strange altar on the upper floor you can interact with. You’ll need to interact with the book just beside the altar to unlock the recipe, but once you do, you can construct a focus on the altar using ten hardened steel.
What you’re interacting with is the summoned surge mechanic. Essentially once you’ve placed a focus onto the altar and pulled the lever beside it, eldritch magic will activate and open a portal in the sky to faraway lands, abducting and transporting thralls and enemies straight to your leyshrine.
Aside from being generally cinematic and fun to experience, they’re an extremely valuable source of loot and thralls.
The focus that you construct will determine the kind of thrall you obtain based loosely on the original map. A focus altar of the north, for example, will summon Aesir warriors, similar to the thralls in the north of the exiled lands in theme and variety, but these are not simple copies of the exiled lands factions, and you can determine the power of the thralls you summon beforehand.
This is where you will be using that maelstrom essence.
By placing the maelstrom essence into the focus altar, you’ll increase the strength of the coming surge. As the power increases, watch the center of the device. A glowing bar will fill in 4 separate loops, each loop indicating a jump in power.
You don’t need to put any essence in to summon a surge, but that will give you the weakest surge possible and the tier of thralls available scales with the surge level.
This means that you can perform a surge at really any time, just keep your gear level in mind and come as prepared as you possibly can. Even the weakest surges still summon quite a few dangerous foes.
Aside from the high-level crafting thralls if you needed a good reason to challenge yourself with difficult surges, the most difficult thralls summoned will often have uniquely good loot tables and will drop recipes and even dragon powder in large quantities.
So whether you’re farming steel, explosives, thralls, unique drops, or just looking for a good time, the surges are the place to do it.
As this is an overview of the expansion, covering the many intricacies of each mechanic would be nearly impossible in just one short article, so these are the main takeaways.
Stronger surges require more essence, which can be obtained from the maelstrom, loot chests, and certain areas of the isle of dusk. The stronger a surge is, the better the thralls will be, but the danger will increase as well.
Be careful when you summon your surge, as the leyshrines are all located within the middle of the map. The maelstrom will still trigger while you’re performing your surge, and if you thought it was difficult to combat the many dangerous thralls on their own, I promise you that doing so with a legion of demonic canines and dragons is much worse!
Finally, while not directly related to surges, you’ll unlock the convergence trap from the same pedestal that unlocks the focus altars.
This simple device will consume maelstrom essence to either fill or empty your purge meter, allowing you to summon or prevent surges at will. So if you’re in the endgame and want to test your base’s defenses, you can at the press of a button.
The Elder Vaults
There are fourteen in total scattered around, and you can see them as small black rectangles on your map, though they’re not hard to find at all and will tend to stick out from the surrounding landscape like a sore thumb for those of you that want to find them organically.
Each vault will have a separate theme determined by its name. The Harbor of the Drowned, for example, will be filled with Dagon-inspired fish people, while The Volary of Jhil will be filled with the harpies it gets its name from.
The interior of the vaults will likewise vary greatly depending on their theme. The Harbor of the Drowned will require you to hold your breath and swim through much of it, the harpy-themed dungeons will play with altitude and elevators, and the spider vaults will have cobwebs scattered around that slow your movement and so on.
Beyond their structure, the vaults will also often incorporate light platforming elements and simple puzzles. Generally, nothing will be too complicated, and you won’t have to worry about being stumped by any logic puzzles, but you will find yourself searching for switches and carefully negotiating certain drops and jumps.
These dungeons are not designed to be completed in any particular order, but they can vary in difficulty.
Every serpent-themed vault will be filled with serpent-man enemies that are relatively easy to handle and can be killed for valuable serpent-man weapons as an early boost, while some of the harpies wield a dangerous ranged feather attack that can bring your health from full to nothing in only a few moments if you’re not careful, so don’t be afraid to retreat if you find a vault is a bit too dangerous for you.
That said, the difficulty is well worth it. Vaults are filled to the brim with enemies you can farm for resources like raw eldarium and loot crates stuffed into every crack and crevice. These aren’t your usual lame loot chests from the exiled lands with fifteen rocks and a piece of twine in them (though they will sometimes contain this).
These chests instead contain just about everything you’d ever want; Steel, hardened steel, steelfire, miscellaneous building resources, stone consolidate, raw eldarium, supply crates, and more. When I say they contain just about everything you need, I truly mean that.
The loot doesn’t stop there either. At the end of every vault will be a vault boss. These bosses can be harvested for demon blood and a large amount of raw eldarium, while the serpent and spider bosses can be harvested for poison sacs that will yield you a large number of random poisons and poisonous glands.
Once slain, the final chamber will open behind them, containing a large loot chest along with two smaller loot chests, all of which will contain fantastic loot for anyone at any stage of the game.
Be sure not to exit this chamber too quickly! There will be an orb on a pedestal you can interact with for a short cutscene that can help to explain the lore of the isle, but more so than that, off to the sides of the loot chests either at the entrance or by the exit to this room will be two small pedestals with papers on them.
Interact with these to unlock special dungeon recipes for gear that gives you unrivaled bonuses to your stats as well as unique effects of their own.
These final vault chests are also some of the only places to obtain certain recipes from the original map. Recipes from the Exiled Lands dungeons, such as the master weapon kits and bulked plating, can be sourced from these chests at random.
Additionally, the final chest will also typically contain a sigil that can be consumed to grant you specific powers. Each sigil consumed will give you a slight damage increase when attacking enemies in the maelstrom, so completing vaults will give you an edge on the other mechanics on the island.
More importantly, the individual effects can grant you powers such as a chance to not consume stamina on attacking, bonuses to your harvesting while farming, or even resistance to bleeds and poison.
A full spread of sigils will make a superman out of anyone, but we mentioned a new resource earlier that should be explained.
Eldarium and the Delving Bench
As you harvest enemies and loot chests in the wild, you’ll start to come across a resource you’ve likely not seen if you’re coming from the exiled lands. Decaying eldarium is eldarium in its raw form, and it comes into play in a variety of ways. You’ll need to smelt it in a furnace first. Every two decaying eldarium will become one eldarium bar once processed.
This new metal is a versatile one. At the leyshrines where you summon surges, you’ll find a broken barricade control on the ground floor and a broken shutter control on the upper floor that can only be repaired with eldarium bars.
Once fixed, you can interact with them to summon barriers around your summoning pads to protect the thralls from random wildlife, while the shutters will offer you some protection against archers inside the structure.
The pads themselves have surge harvesters that you can place raw eldarium into. Then once you pull the lever beside them, it will consume the eldarium to automatically knock out any eligible thralls in their vicinity, making it much easier to spare the thralls you want instead of killing them on accident in the carnage.
Beyond that, the same podium you interact with to unlock the focus altars will also grant you the recipe for the delving bench. This bench is where a lot of your excess eldarium will wind up.
Essentially, this bench will consume any full health piece of gear along with fifty eldarium bars for a chance at a random recipe determined by the item you put in. For example, if you place in a sword with the eldarium, it will break the sword and might give you a special recipe for any one of the Siptah-specific swords you can obtain via this method.
These new recipes will require even more eldarium to craft, and the vault-specific gear you unlock will also require eldarium, so you’ll likely find yourself needing a lot of it. It’s worth the trouble, however, as these new items will outpace anything else in the game with some of your best in slot gear requiring this precious green metal.
Weapons that give +2 to all of your stats, helmets that grant you water breathing, bows that shoot multiple arrows at a time, and even oddities like war axes that can be used to harvest resources can all be obtained from the vaults and from delving. The list of possible gear is extensive, so don’t be afraid to do some experimenting!
The Tower of Siptah
No guide to the isle would be complete without mentioning the tower and sorcerer it’s named after. Located in the very center of the main island is the source of all of its troubles, the fabled tower of Siptah.
Ignoring its lore for a moment, the location itself is important for more material reasons. The center of the map is where star metal will fall, and it’s also the densest collection of many other resources in the game, including huge forests of dead trees for bark, black ice, crystals, iron, and brimstone.
If you need any resources in the game, the tower is the place to farm them.
The largest accursed capital city will be found here as well, filled with various maelstrom creatures that will persist even without the maelstrom and a variety of important crafting thralls, as well as highly sought-after Accursed Berserkers, which make for powerful combat thralls.
This area is highly dangerous, however, and should be explored with caution. Not only will you be at the heart of the maelstrom if it triggers here, but the enemies hit hard and come in large quantities.
The grounds around the tower will be covered with skeletons, skeletal hyenas, spiders, and more, so it’s worth it to bring a thrall and be ready to fight even if you’re only planning to farm a little.
The tower itself is reason enough to visit, though, as the interior of the tower operates as the isle’s replacement for the unnamed city’s archives. Bringing your fragments of power here will allow you to exchange them for all of the recipes you could obtain from the old library, with new recipes specific to Siptah.
Strangely the tower itself is completely unguarded inside, so if you do manage to find yourself caught in the middle of a maelstrom or swarming with enemies, it’s not a bad place to hide in a pinch.
The Isles of Dusk and Dawn
I know it seems like we’ve covered so much already, but that was just the content in the original release, if you can believe it! Since then, there have been two additional landmasses, both with their own unique treasures to obtain.
For the sake of duration, we’ll have to focus on the most important features of both islands, but please keep in mind once again that this is not an exhaustive description of everything these areas have to offer.
The Isle of Dawn
The isle to the southeast is known as the isle of dawn and features a biome reminiscent of the deserts of the old map. Here you’ll find all the creatures you’re used to seeing on the old map, such as rhinos, elephants, lions and so on.
Think of it as one gigantic Savannah. You’ll find camps of Stygians on the coasts, cities of primitive men in the hills, and the ominous Ziggurats of the Grey Ones, their most central feature being the summoning pools.
Grey Ones
The Grey Ones are a grey-skinned race of humanoid creatures that inhabit the area. Scattered throughout their settlements are weapons that can be interacted with to unlock the recipes for grey-one weapons crafted in the Isle of Dusk.
These are some of the highest damage weapons in the game that inflict bleed but will require the heart of a grey one to craft for each one, so you’ll have to kill and harvest grey ones to craft them in bulk.
It should be noted that the grey ones themselves will drop their weapons occasionally, and grey ones marked with a skull will sometimes drop several along with fragments of power and other loot.
The Summoning Pools
This is the main attraction for the area and one of my personal favorite additions to the game on either map. Located within J4, you’ll find three large pools of water in the center of a large ritual site.
To interact with them, you’ll need to keep your eye out for figurines. These will be small stone statues scattered around both the Isle of Dawn and the Isle of Dusk.
Each figurine will correspond to a type of enemy, some of them are unique, and many of them you will recognize from the maelstrom. To use them, approach any of the three summoning pools and place your figurine on the podium in front.
It will consume your figurine and cause the pools to spew forth water in a great column before summoning whatever creature was depicted in the figurine.
While this can be done for fun, the rewards are excellent as even the weakest creatures will drop legendary weapons, demon blood, resources, and unique items.
Ghouls, for example, are extremely easy to kill but will drop legendary weapons, fragments of power, and ghoulish humors that can be used to give attribute bonuses to your gear, all while still dropping the usual demon blood and other resources you’d expect.
The figurines themselves are scattered amongst the camps and enemies of both southern islands, so keep your eyes peeled!
The Isle of Dusk
The appropriately named Isle of Dusk is our final topic, and it will share some similarities with the Exiled Land’s volcano. The entire area will be dark and gloomy at all times, with lava flows, obsidian, and primitive men scattered all throughout.
While the island has many resources and attractions, the two main features are the Shattered Citadel and the Forge of the First Men.
The Shattered Citadel
The Shattered Citadel is located within F5. It’s an eerie place swarming with monsters and loot. While there aren’t any mechanics to interact with, like the summoning pools in the adjacent isle, it offers up plenty of its own reasons to visit.
Throughout the citadel, you’ll find figurines, loot chests, maelstrom enemies, and most importantly, the very same bosses you’d encounter in the maelstrom and from the summoning pools. Only these will be available to fight at all times.
This means you can farm maelstrom essence and the figurines necessary for specific summons all at once, giving you alternate ways to progress.
But be warned, the citadel is covered with enemies. You’ll have no shortage of essence to harvest here, but you will need to be properly geared if you’re looking to last long.
The Forge of the First Men
This is the final landmark we’ll be able to cover. Located at F6, you’ll find a set of three strange structures you can interact with. This is where you will be able to craft obsidian gear, composite obsidian, and grey-one weapons, provided you’ve unlocked the recipes.
There is no requirement for interacting with the forges themselves, but without the recipes unlocked, you will not be able to craft anything inside them.
FAQ – Conan Exiles Siptah
Question: Where Would You Recommend I Start if I’m Looking to Progress Quickly?
Answer: The options are really endless, and there’s no wrong way to get started. The serpent-man vaults, summoning pools, and general loot chests will reliably give you high-quality weapons, so pick the content you enjoy the most.
Question: I don’t Enjoy the Maelstrom and Find it too Difficult. Is it Necessary to Progress?
Answer: No. Maelstrom essence can be obtained from loot chests and can also be harvested at your leisure from the Summoning Pools and the Shattered Citadel.
Question: Resources Seem to be Everywhere, but what are the Best Places to Farm?
Answer: Unlike in the Exiled Lands, you can really farm almost everything everywhere in Siptah. For efficiency, though, resources are most densely packed around the center of the map and around vaults, so those are great places to start and have everything you need.
The Isle of Siptah in Summary
If you only take away a single thing from this entire article, it’s that the Isle of Siptah has so much more to offer than most people realize. From radically different progression options, new sources of loot and gear to all kinds of new and terrifying enemies, there’s no shortage of new things to experience.
Even with everything we’ve covered so far, there’s so much more to discover.
If you were on the fence about trying out the expansion or heard from someone that it might not be right for your play style, take it from someone with thousands and thousands of hours in the game; The Isle of Siptah is an excellent addition to the base experience no matter your game mode, and for only twenty dollars it’s an absolute steal.
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