I'm hoping someone can tell me if I've screwed myself.

I went into the Gorkha swamp and killed things. ALOT of things. I thought that was what I was supposed to do in order to make progress. But, now both the Witch Doctor and the Chieftain will not talk to me because of this. Will they calm down after a while if I just wait, is there anything I can do to make them talk to me, or am I completely screwed and have to reload a save from before I killed anyone? I'm really hoping it's not the latter, because I killed my first swamp-guy a LONG time ago, and have made a HUGE amount of progress since.

Any help would be very much appreciated.

It's not hopeless, since you can get the Ruby of Truth (that's what you came for) by killing the Chieftain. The peaceful solution would have been to do a short quest for him, but that route is obviously closed off now. You only lose a vendor who sells fireball wands and gives you a hint about one of the ingredients for the main quest. Otherwise, no big deal.

Thank you for the response, Charon121, but unless all walkthroughs I've read so far are wrong, and by my continuous playing, uncovering all available maps and trying every possible action everywhere has somehow missed something, there is no way to recover from my stupidity. I'm going to load a save previous to killing the swampy-dudes, as much as I hate to admit defeat, and even more hate wasting all the time I spent after said killing, I'm now convinced there is no other option except giving up on the game. I was SO loving it up to this point, so I'm not going to give up on it. Replaying all the parts I have already played will be hard, but I'm hoping the ending parts I haven't seen will make it worth it.

[insert big, fat, emotional and drama-filled sigh here]

Just to be on the safe side, don't use any ranged weapons on the swamp map. Stray arrows that miss the enemy may hit a peaceful Gorkha sentry standing at the far end of the corridor. Maybe that's what happened the first time.

You can bet most reviews of that game have wrong pieces in it. For example they insist that you can't open the second gate using the valean's cube otherwise you'll get stuck which is not true! you just have to keep the cube in your weapon hand instead of using it like a potion.

You can beat the game after annihilating all the gorkhas.. IIRC I did it at the time of my first play (it was almost 20 years ago so I might be wrong but I remind it that way...).

If it's the ruby of truth you're missing, I've been tampering with the save game files in a hex editor and I've figured out how to give yourself any item in the game, and in such a way that they do not bug out and show up as an illegal item if you lose the original.

Toss me a PM if you figure out which items it is you are missing, and I'll let you know how to edit your save in order to get the approprioate quest/story item back in.

(it's somewhat complicated, so you could also simply send me your save file and tell me which items you're missing and I'll add them for you and send it back)

Thanks for the additional responses, and for the offer to modify the save file tsteine, but I've progressed quite a bit past where I was before being "stuck" (this time without killing any swamp dudes).

I'm now in the Urbish Mines, and unfortunately am again getting a bit frustrated as I believe I've explored all levels, but don't seem to be making progress. It seems like there's some "perfect combination" of things that need to be done that I just haven't found yet. If anyone has any hints, they would be most appreciated, as I'd rather not resort to a walkthrough just yet.

I'm guessing you're missing the gear from the pile of skeletons and bones on level 4. you click it, then get a note, then click it a few more times to find the gear for the pump machine at the urbish mining co level, that unlocks the flooded passage on level 3.