The Foundry¶
The Foundry is an Avsohmic facility along the border of the Anyr'Nogur and Ebony Veldt regions, which served as the empire's center for arms manufacturing and combat training. In-game, the Foundry is a special combat challenge, in which players become enhanced and must defeat 6 waves of highly challenging enemies.
Victory in the Foundry grants access to the lower room, which contains the Zenith mythical weapon.
Location
Approximate Coordinates: -3276, 157, 1500
The Foundry is located inside of a mountain, but players will likely first discover it through the Foundry bridge, which towers over the settlement of Elvett and connects the Foundry to Mt. Ebonfire.
Reaching the Foundry bridge for the first time will grant the advancement "The Foundry".
Unlocking the Foundry¶
The Foundry can be accessed at any time through open-world exploration, but the actual facility at the southern end of the bridge is blocked off by a basalt and bedrock door until its energy relay is back online. To do this, the player must find and flip three levers in the area, all located on side towers that were once connected to the main bridge. These can be activated in any order.
- Lever 1: (-3130, 148, 1490)
- Lever 2: (-3035, 121, 1186)
- Lever 3: (-3394, 145, 1082)
When all three switches are activated, the basalt Foundry door in the entrance room will open, allowing players to enter into the Foundry proper.
Players are placed into Adventure Mode in the Foundry, and can now progress down into the depths of the facility. Eventually, you will reach a room with four glowing glass chambers and a chest holding the The Wondrous Effects of Primal Khivesbrew book. Stepping into one of these pods will enhance the player with this Primal Khivesbrew, granting them indefinite Speed II and Jump Boost III status effects. The effects can be removed by exiting and walking back into a pod.
The Arena¶
Stepping into the arena for the first time grants the "Rip & Tear!" advancement, and begins the first wave of the combat exercise. Challenging enemies will spawn in six total waves, culminating in a miniboss wave in round 6. Clearing all 6 waves grants the "Supersoldier Certification" advancement, and opens the door on the eastern wall of the room.
At the bottom of this newly opened staircase is a room with The Debilitating Side Effects of Primal Khivesbrew, and more notably, the Zenith mythical weapon hovering over a pedestal.
After clearing the arena, players can return the way they came, removing their status effects and finding that a new control room has opened up just outside the infusion pods. This control room only has two buttons, each with a different feature: the lower button resets the arena, allowing players to try the challenge again, and the upper button on the wall toggles Infinite Mode, in which players can fight in the arena indefinitely.
A Stone of Luxury appears in an item frame over the upper button in the control room, if the arena is cleared in under 6 minutes.
Tips¶
The Foundry is possibly the single most challenging combat encounter in the entirety of Drehmal. Beating it requires a strong loadout, good fuel, and at least a decent strategy.
If you are struggling with the arena, consider some of the following tips:
- You'll probably want at least a full suit of unenchanted diamond armor in order to survive some of the heavier hitters, and the Protection enchantment (recommended level 3 or higher) will make your life a lot easier here. Also consider Unbreaking and Mending, as armor can take quite a beating from all the damage it'll be blocking.
- You'll likely want at least a Legendary-Tier Item as your main weapon in the Foundry, and some of the weaker legendaries probably won't even be enough. Consider bringing a strong Mythical Weapon.
- There is no one "best" set of armor or weapons. It is ultimately up to you and your playstyle, but there are some common recommendations. For instance, Frenzy's damage-stacking ability is ideal for the Foundry's large waves of enemies, and paired with Parenchyma, this weapon's health penalty can be overcome.
- Stay mobile. Standing still for too long is a surefire way to get surrounded by enemies or bombarded with projectiles, especially in later waves.
- Bring high-saturation food. Just a stack of bread won't cut it, since you'll need to eat again every time you get hit, and you'll need fuel if you don't want to be a stationary target. Consider cooked meats.
- Bring a strong ranged weapon. The Rage Unit and Executive Unit can both one-shot players from close range, and are ravager/iron golem mobs which will almost instantly deal melee damage if the player gets too close. You'll definitely want at least one ranged option for the later waves.
Enemies¶
The Foundry Arena's main mode has six waves of enemies, containing 11 different enemy types depicted in the following table.
| Mob Name | Base Mob | First Appearance | Description |
|---|---|---|---|
| Base Unit | Zombie | Wave 1 | An unarmed suit of iron armor, which walks towards the player and deals 8 attack damage on a successful melee hit. |
| Sentry Unit | Skeleton | Wave 1 | A skeleton in iron armor, wielding a bow named "AvGun" which is enchanted with Power VI and Punch I. |
| Unstable Energy Unit | Creeper | Wave 1 | A fast creeper with a large explosion radius and significant base health. |
| Agility Unit | Vindicator | Wave 2 | Very fast but low-damage output melee units. Functionally immune to fall damage due to Level 99 Feather Falling boots. |
| Heavy Unit | Zombie | Wave 2 | A stronger variant of the Base Unit, wearing diamond armor. |
| Contaminated Unit | Zombie | Wave 2 | A variant of the Base Unit wearing green dyed leather armor. Drops a Poison II splash potion on death. |
| Superheavy Unit | Wither Skeleton | Wave 3 | An even stronger variant of the Heavy Unit, wearing celestial/netherite armor. Inflicts Entropic Decay (wither) on hit, due to being a Wither Skeleton. |
| Primal Entity | Blaze | Wave 4 | A blaze with slightly increased health. |
| Chemistry Unit | Skeleton | Wave 5 | A stronger variant of the Sentry Unit, wearing diamond armor and shooting tipped arrows which inflict Weakness but deal slightly less damage. |
| Rage Unit | Ravager | Wave 5 | A ravager with 70 base health (slightly lower than vanilla). |
| Executive Unit | Iron Golem | Wave 6 | A custom iron golem miniboss, capable of teleportation and shooting ranged energy beams at the player. Spawns with 200 base health and deals 20 base attack damage. |
Waves¶
The following is an approximation of the number of each enemy type which will spawn in each wave. These numbers should generally represent the maximum number of each mob which can spawn in each wave, although the actual number may be lower if spawn checks do not succeed.
| Wave 1 | Wave 2 | Wave 3 | Wave 4 | Wave 5 | Wave 6 | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Base Unit | 10 | 8 | 3 | 4 | 3 | 4 |
| Sentry Unit | 3 | 4 | 4 | 2 | 4 | 2 |
| Unstable Energy Unit | 2 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 |
| Agility Unit | 1 | 2 | 2 | 4 | 3 | |
| Heavy Unit | 3 | 2 | 2 | 3 | 3 | |
| Contaminated Unit | 1 | 1 | 2 | 2 | 2 | |
| Superheavy Unit | 2 | 1 | 1 | 2 | ||
| Primal Entity | 4 | 2 | 3 | |||
| Chemistry Unit | 4 | 2 | ||||
| Rage Unit | 1 | 1 | ||||
| Executive Unit | 1 |
Infinite Mode¶
Infinite Mode is an extra, endless mode of the Foundry which can be toggled in the control room after clearing it once normally. True to its word, this mode does seem to allow the player to fight against mobs for as long as they want.
An Infinite Mode Foundry run has the same first 6 waves as the normal Foundry, but begins to scale up in mob spawns and difficulty significantly beginning in Wave 7. From here on out, every single unit will spawn at least once in every level.
There are also three mobs exclusive to Infinite Mode:
Infinite Mode Units
Elite Technomancer: A custom evoker with 32 base health and the full set of attacks, including vex summons. Has a chance to drop its custom player head on death. Begins spawning on every wave beginning in Wave 7.
Commander Unit: A wither skeleton taking the appearance of the celestial armor-clad Lost Avsohmic Commander enemies found in the late-game Primary Energy Collection Facility dungeon. Very tanky, with 90 base health and 10 base attack damage. Exact spawn conditions unclear.1
Electric Unit: A skeleton mob with relatively modest stats. However, it is capable of a massively powerful, drawn-out "deathray" attack. Exact spawn condition unclear.2
Extras¶
Soundtrack¶
The Foundry's theme song (which plays during combat in the arena) is "Earn Your Glory", by Drehmal composer Chris Nesja.
Trivia¶
A massive amount of the Foundry, from the arena's design to the soundtrack and the name of the "Rip & Tear!" advancement, draw heavy inspiration from the Doom franchise.
Infinite Mode is referred to as "Valhalla Mode" in the datapack.
Infinite Mode does appear to be functionally infinite, with a system in place to play the "Now preparing [Nth] wave" message for every individual number up to 10,000. At the ten-thousandth wave, the message "ᴘʀᴇᴘᴀʀɪɴɢ (ɪɴѕᴇʀᴛ ʟᴀʀɢᴇ ɴᴜᴍʙᴇʀ ʜᴇʀᴇ) ᴡᴀᴠᴇ..." fills in instead.