The central hub in Final Fantasy 16, The Hideaway, allows players to interact with the various NPCs who will help them through their journey, and the most critical NPC here is the blacksmith, Blackthorne. Blackthorne offers four side quests to the players, known as Blacksmith Blues in Final Fantasy 16. You can find complete details about all of them in this guide.
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How to complete Blacksmith’s Blues I in FF16
After you begin the Here Be Monsters main quests, you can get this quest from the Blackthorne. Clive returns to The Hideaway, and you can play Blacksmith’s Blues I before leaving. You must head to The Hideaway’s southeast corner and find August.
August tells you how Blackthorne seems slightly off and might need some cheering up. He asks you to find out what makes Blackthorne sad and help him. After accepting the quest, players can head to The Black Hammer, the blacksmith forge of The Hideaway in Final Fantasy 16.
Talk to Blackthorne, and August will join you. Here, Blackthorne expresses his lack of trust in his blacksmithing skills, and to help him regain his passions, players need to find Blackthorne Leather Cuirass. Unfortunately, Charon, who had those Cuirasses, has sold them, so you need to go and retrieve them.
Get Leather Cuirass
You can’t find the leatherworker, so you can either go and find a griffin yourself or talk to Nektar to let him mark griffin for you. If you decide to talk to Nektar, you can find him next to the Hunt Board in The Hideaway.
Select the “Ask about griffin sightings” options, and Nektar will direct you to Dozmare griffin in Final Fantasy 16. We recommend fighting Dozmare, as it also lets you tick off a side quest from the Hunt Board.
You can find Dozmare in a castle south of Caer Norvent River Gate. You can reach the castle by teleporting to Lostwing Obelisk and heading towards Cutter’s Gate. Cross it and head to the end of Norvent Valley to get to Dozmare. Summon your mount if you have one to make the journey faster.
Defeat Dozmare
Dozmare is a level 28, Rank B enemy, so you need to be sufficiently leveled up before trying to take him on. Dozmare’s attacks at the start of the fight are pretty easy to predict. Dozmare will attack you with its beak or front claws when standing next to the griffin.
Dozmare will use wind-based attacks to dash toward you when you try to keep some distance. All these attacks can be easily dodged and countered.
After Dozmare reaches half health in Blacksmith Blues quest in FF16, it becomes much more aggressive, and its attacks become erratic. Dozmare starts depending on his Ariel, and the wind attacks much more. Keep your distance and wait for Dozmare’s chains to end before attacking with everything you’ve got.
Find the Leatherworker
After you defeat Dozmare, you can head south to find the leatherworker. He offers you to take some Treated Leather that you can give to Blackthorne. You can return to Blackthorne with the Treated Leather and present the leather to Blackthorne.
Blackthorne will become happy again, marking the end of Blacksmith’s Blues I in Final Fantasy 16. You earn the Drakeslayer’s Belt Design recipe for the side quest.
How to complete Blacksmith’s Blues II in FF16
This side quest is unlocked after you complete all three letting Off Steam objectives in the Out of the Shadows main quest. Once you are done, you can head back to The Hideaway. Here, you need to make your way to the Reading Table. You will find a letter from August labeled “About Blackthorne.”
Once again, Blackthorne is showing signs of distress, and you must help. Talk to Blackthorne; he is again doubtful about his skills after seeing a blade. Talk to Charon; she has again sold the blade to Lord Ignac.
Lord Ignac is in Dalimil Inn. Travel to the tavern and talk to him and his companion. You learn that bandits have stolen Lord Ignac’s sword, and you need to retrieve the sword for Lord Ignac.
Defeat the Bandits
The bandits who have stolen the sword are northeast of The North Gate in Final Fantasy 16. Get to the top right corner of the map to find the bandits. Four enemies are here that you must defeat; all are level 30.
The basic bandits attack you from afar, whereas the brute uses slow yet powerful attacks. Defeating the bandits is relatively easy; you have been fighting many of these enemies.
As you defeat all the bandits, you get all their loot and are transported back to Dalimil Inn. Talk to Lord Ignac and return all his items to him. Ignac won’t let you have the sword you were after, but you get a Sundered Whetstone you can offer to Blackthorne.
Return to The Hideaway with the Whetstone and talk to Blackthorne. Blackthorne will be delighted, and you will unlock the Excalibur Design recipe and earn 1x Meteorite.
How to complete Blacksmith’s Blues III in FF16
Blacksmith’s Blues III side quest is unlocked during the A Song of Hope quest. Complete the “Like Father, Like Daughter” objective to unlock the side quest. Talk to August on the upper board of The Hideaway, and once again, Blackthorne is going through something, and it’s up to you to figure it out and help him.
Blackthorne now needs the secret of Cid’s. He will travel with you to Dravozd to meet Zoltan. Zoltan initially refuses to help, but he later comes around and asks you to bring a Salamander Skin in Final Fantasy 16.
The location of the Salamander is marked on your map in the Fields of Corava. Find a Salamander in the marked area and defeat it to collect its skin. Fighting with any Salamander is simple. Salamander’s attacks are pretty wide, and you need to dodge them.
After defeating any Salamander, you must harvest its skin and bring it back to Zoltan. Zoltan thanks you for your service and offers Pit-coal Cinder to deliver them to Blackthorne.
Players will get 900 XP, 00 Bloody hides, 35 Renowns, and the Ouroboros Design for their troubles.
How to complete Blacksmith’s Blues IV in FF16
The last quest in Blacksmith’s Blues questline is unlocked after you start the Across the Narrow main story quest. Start the quest by talking to August in The Hideaway.
Blackthorne again needs help. This time, his hometown of Dravozd suffers from Aether Flood, and Akashic Beasts are attacking the settlements.
Get to Dravozd and talk to August and Blackthorne. You are tasked with defeating the Akashic Beasts and freeing Dravozd. You must fight four waves of beasts to complete the side quest.
Fight off Akashic Beasts
The first wave of Akashic Beasts you fight has Akashic Bighorns and Akashic Wolves. You must defeat all these beasts to get the next wave to spawn. In this first wave, players must focus on defeating the Bighorns as they pose a more significant threat than the wolves.
The next waves spawn Akashic Leg Eaters. Leg Eaters are easier to defeat, and you can make quick work of all these. The third wave of the quest brings out an Akashic griffin in Final Fantasy 16. The griffin is stronger than the griffin fought in Blacksmith’s Blues I but follows the same attack patterns and strategy to defeat.
The griffin is a level 36 enemy, but seeing as how late you get the quest in the game, you might be over-leveled to fight it. In the last wave, you must face a level 38 Canyon Chimera. This Chimera uses electric attack and a sound blast if you are far away.
You should try to keep a distance between yourself and the Chimera. Chimera’s attacks are AoE attacks, so you should move in for attacks, then retreat.
Chimera has a huge stun meter, and the damned beast won’t stay stunned for too long, so it’s not worth trying to sun the beast. Just keep using your abilities and chipping away at Chimera’s health to kill it in Final Fantasy 16.
After defeating Chimera, you can head back to the Village and talk to Blackthorne and Zoltan. As your reward, you get 4,800 XP, 50 Renown, and a legendary weapon, Ragnarok.
Blacksmith’s Blues IV is the last quest in the Blacksmith’s Blues Quest series in Final Fantasy 16.
