The Tavern

Do troves pick their items with consideration of the value of said items to the player? For instance, can their entry fee be healing potions if you are a vine stalker or potions of curing if you are a mummy? Currently I collect valuable items like that even if I can't use them, just in case. I want to know if I'm wasting my time.

Troves pick its cost completely at the whim of Xom from what I can tell. I've had games where it wanted 11 scrolls of identify, the horn of Geryon, or 3 potions of curing.

Troves don't care what character you have, but there's no reason to bother collecting the items in advance. Ctrl+F will find you whatever the trove wants, wherever in the whole game it exists. It will take less than sixty seconds real-time to gather whatever it was that you needed, and it's less likely to burn or freeze the last item you need for the trove in the process.

I grab these items while it's convenient (i.e. I am standing on them) and dump them in my stash. It saves me food, piety, and time. I'll risk a little item destruction for that. Thanks for letting me know about its lack of correlation with my character, though.

Troves won't ask Mummies for potions or Felids for weapons/armour (the enchanted dragon armour/demon weapon fees specifically - expensive shop items are still fair game). They can currently ask Vine Stalkers for curing/heal wounds, though (and Formicids for hasting/blinking/teleportation, etc).

I was hoping someone would know so I didn't have to source dive for the answer. Thanks, Marvin.

Oh, thank you for the correction. I never actually source-dived it, so I suppose I should have just kept my mouth shut.