The dungeon is a poorly designed stronghold

[tedric]

I mean, if whoever hid the Orb down there really wanted to keep that thing a secret, they could have put Orb Guardians near the entrance.

(Though when a gnoll spawns on the other side of the entrance vault door, it might as well be an Orb Guardian for all the difference it makes to your game.)

[Curio]

or, whoever hid the orb, should have just collapsed the whole dungeon on top of it.

[Sprucery]

But the dungeon is just amusement for Crawl deities. They have a real fun time watching characters get killed in various ways. The Orb is just a hard-to-get paperweight.

[Mankeli]

I mean, if whoever hid the Orb down there really wanted to keep that thing a secret, they could have put Orb Guardians near the entrance.

Ahem, we tend to disagree.

-Formicids

[Jeremiah]

If it's the orb that's creating all this stuff to defend itself, it makes sense that its power is greatest nearest to where it is.

[wheals]

You think we should take a "Zot Zealot"'s word on the matter??

[Jeremiah]

Zot Zealot should be the new name for Demigods - they can't worship gods because they worship the orb.

[Moose]

http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/MacGuffin

[oooop]

My interpretation of the game is that all the monsters are your friends and they are trying to 'kill' you so you stop wasting time on DCSS and go do something productive with your life instead.

[damiac]

Well then they should just let me win. Once I streak all races and all backgrounds, with all 15 rune victories, I'll probably stop playing DCSS, so if the monsters want me to stop playing, they should just stop killing me and breaking my streak.