Kanred the Mage - Act 1 Broken World Story Quest

Kanred the Mage is the first quest of the Dungeon Siege 2: Broken World campaign. When you log into the game you'll find yourself in the Dryad Outpost, the main town of Part 1 (aka Act 1) of the Expansion Pack. Speak with Burk to get this quest rolling after which there will be no updates until you travel all the way down south through The Blasted Valley and The Blighted Hills.

Prior to rolling out and starting your adventure in the Expansion Pack I recommend you explore the town and pick up all the available quests. On your journey south through the hostile zones you may come across a few areas which are blocked off to you either by blue flame or vines/roots.

Blue flames can be dispelled after you complete this quest. To get rid of the vines you'll need to finish The Mage's Tutor and learn the password at the end of that quest (peace and order). I'd recommend you make a mental note of all the locations you pass since many of them are involved in Side Quests and you'll need to return to them.

Available Side Quests:

Hunt for the Lost Dwarves
Missing
Anya
Lumilla's Special Recipe
Naturalist Ithara's Research

As aforementioned, all you need to do for the first part of this quest is to travel directly south from the Dryad Outpost until you run into Kanred the Mage (pictured below).

Kanred will be your first boss fight of the Broken World Expansion Pack and he'll introduce you to a couple of mechanics that you'll see from most of the bosses in this expansion. There's only a single ability I feel the need to mention and that is the AoE which appears as a ring surrounding the boss on the ground (pictured below).

Almost every boss in this expansion has this ability and it is insanely annoying. Kanred will pick a random person in your group and teleport to them after which he'll create a ring on the ground with fire outlining it. You'll be given a few seconds to get out of the way before this ring starts pulsing and dealing an insane amount of damage to everyone hit by it. Any character stuck in this attack will typically be knocked unconscious within 1 hit and killed on the second.

To dodge this attack you'll want to use 'Mirror Mode' for the entire fight and click somewhere on the battlefield away from Kanred to move your group when he starts this attack. I'd also recommend not using any Summoned Pets for this fight because they'll get instantly killed by Kanred and your characters will waste mana resummoning them again and again.

Kanred's most deadly attack, a pulsing ground AoE.

Once you've defeated Kanred all that's left of this quest is to return to the Dryad Outpost and speak with Burk. After speaking to Burk this quest will be completed and you'll begin the next one, The Mage's Tutor.