The broodmother hits you!!! A trunk update bursts forth from the wound!

A ho ho ho from Santaeus here in the icy expanse of Cocytus the North Pole! Welcome to the last trunk update of 2021. The frenzied pace of trunk development continues, with 150 commits since we last wrote. One big chunk of commits was some behind the scenes web tiles modernization, with some help from CKO admin and community contributor floraline. There are three big headliner sets of changes: a new set of Spider monsters, a variety of new early-game appearing unrands, and a new type of item to carry in your offhand instead of a shield. Before we get to those three change sets, let’s check out the rest of the trunk changes:

  • The glaive of Prune now turns you into a prune when paralysed, petrified, or put to sleep, causing you to take half damage until the effect ends.
  • If Jiyva dies Dissolution‘s summon eyeballs is replaced with a cantrip.
  • Sewer maps have been updated and re-vamped, plus two new sewer maps.
  • Bailey maps have been updated and re-vamped, plus three new baileys.
  • New Spell: Enfeeble (L7 Hexes). Enfeeble irresistibly applies weakness and antimagic to a single foe. Additionally the target is also dazed and blinded if they fail a willpower check.
  • Formicids now dig at normal movement speed, and each cell dug causes draining.
  • Centaur warriors replace centaurs in Shoals.

New and updated Spider monsters

  • Pharaoh ants are an undead spider that drains and when killed binds the souls of all nearby monsters.
  • Steelbarb worms are fast, regenerative, fire-resistant worms that apply barbs in melee.
  • Jorogumo are tough ensnaring monsters with bolt of draining and hornet poison melee.
  • Broodmothers summon spiders and bite to summon spiders.
  • Culicivora are healing spiders, with heal other and a vampiric bite, appearing in spider packs.
  • Sun moths are holy moths with a single tile halo, sticky flame, and energy bolt.
  • Radroaches are armoured roaches that cast irradiate, which contaminates the player a lot (not a direct malmutation).
  • Demonic crawlers gain warning cry.
  • Emperor scorpions are less tough but faster.
  • Ghost moths no longer poison but their stat draining is much more intense.

Early Game Artefacts

Artefacts can now generate on D:2-3. Additionally, several new unrandarts specifically designed to be interesting early and then fall off are added:

  • Delatra’s gloves heal the wearer for drinking unknown potions and restore MP for reading unknown scrolls.
  • The woodcutter’s axe is a vorpal +8 war axe that always swings at 10 aut, regardless of skill, shield penalty, slow or haste, etc.
  • The staff of the Meek is a +7 quarterstaff of protection with an extra protective bonus AC when below 55 HP.
  • Throatcutter is a +7 long sword of draining with a 1/3 chance to instantly kill foes that are below 21 HP.
Along with the new early-game unrandarts, several existing unrandarts have been given “early-game” status and weighted to be very likely early and unlikely later: Morg, Devastator, the Ratskin Cloak, Kryia’s mail coat, the trident of the Octopus King, the robe of Augmentation, and Lear’s Hauberk (reduced to +18).

Orbs to ponder

This round of updates brings a new item type: orbs. A shield-slot analog of scarves that give no SH and no penalty. Several new armour egos are added that appear only on orbs:

  • light: a radius 3 halo.
  • wrath: gives *Rage (20% berserk chance).
  • mayhem: when the wearer kills something, it has a chance to send a monster that saw the kill into a frenzy.
  • guile: reduces the will of the wearer’s target by 3 pips, while reducing the wearer’s will by 2 pips.
  • energy: gives a source of passive channeling: a chance to power a spell instead of using the wearer’s MP, with a chance to backfire and drain int or cause confusion. The success chance goes up with each source of passive channeling, and the backfire effect triggers if each source backfires. The staff of Wucad Mu now counts as two sources of channeling (so it stacks with an orb of energy in addition to being buffed!).

That’s all for now. This development cycle is coming to a downslope, most of the big ideas for 0.28 have reached trunk, but of course there are always surprises in Santaeus’ sleigh. So I don’t have horizon prognostication for you about what might appear next beyond the polish, balance tweaks, and bug fixing that make up the later end of the release cycle. Until next time, happy crawling!

The energy of discovery flows out of the trunk update and into your fingertips!