Hi Crawlers! Here are the latest and greatest goodies from trunk.

• The Orcish Mines are now two levels, and only spawn plain orcs as part of bands; gold generation is doubled to account for the shorter branch.
• The Elven Halls now contains elementals and dancing weapons (in addition to the ones normally found in the Hall of Blades).
• All enemies, including uniques, now have (at least slightly) randomised HP.
• You can no longer gain breath abilities as mutations; only draconians and nagas have access to them.
• Xom’s random spell set has been adjusted slightly.
• The penalties for amulets of dismissal and regeneration have been adjusted:
  • Wearing an amulet of dismissal subjects the player to vertigo for a few turns, reducing accuracy, EV, and spell success.
  • The amulet of regeneration no longer rots on removal; instead you need to be at full health at least once while wearing it for it to have an effect.
• The amulet of stasis has been replaced by the amulet of reflection, which grants a few points of SH that act as a shield of reflection. The Brooch of Shielding is now a +8 amulet of reflection.
• Chaos champions lose Chaotic Mirror and instead gain Call of Chaos, an ability which applies (usually) positive status effects to allies in its line of sight. Mnoleg also gains this spell.
• Deep elf mages are now HD 9 and absorb the spells from the deep elf conjurer and summoner into some of their own spell sets.
• New enemies:
  • Deep elf archers, who have attained a notable level of skill in both archery and hexes.
  • Deep elf elementalists, with mastery of all of the elemental schools and the noted ability to turn rock into earth elementals to dig out entrenched foes.
• Deep elf fighters, conjurers, priests (but not high priests), and summoners have all been removed.

Happy Crawling!

Hi crawlers! With the close of the tournament, let’s find out what has changed in trunk since 0.17.

• Gods
  • New god: Pakellas the Inventive. Pakellas is a temple god, with an altar either in Temple or on D:2-9.
    • Grants MP on kills (at about half the rate of Vehumet) and passive wand charge identification.
    • Blocks MP regeneration and hates channeling (staff of energy, crystal ball of energy, the Staff of Wucad Mu, and Sublimation of Blood).
    • Piety on kills.
    • 1*: Quick Charge: spend 2/3 your current MP pool to add some charges to a wand or rod proportional to your Evocations, your current MP pool, and the capacity of the device.
    • At 2*, Pakellas gifts you a wand once (of any type other than heal wounds, hasting, and teleportation).
    • 3*: Device Surge: on your next use of an evocable item, spends 1-9 MP to apply one to three enhancers to its power output, with maximum MP and number of enhancers dependent on piety.
    • Starting at 4*, Pakellas occasionally gifts rods, wands, and miscellaneous evokables (always starting with a rod unless you are a felid).
    • 6*capstone: Supercharge: sets a rod to +10 (18/18), or sets a wand’s capacity to 50% above normal for that wand type (in addition to recharging it – this has the effect of improving Quick Charge’s efficiency on the wand).
  • Xom now chaos brands more weapon gifts, and can chaos brand ranged weapons again.
  • Finesse is no longer blocked by stasis.
  • Jiyva altars in Dungeon no longer appear as early in Dungeon.
  • Cheibriados now blocks chaos effects from hasting the player.
  • Piety given for a Ru sacrifice is more explicitly stated.
  • Abandoning Yredelemnul now destroys your zombie minions.
  • Followers of Elyvilon can pacify insects (again).
  • Zin’s Recite is now only interrupted if the player is silenced or incapacitated (or goes berserk).
• Branches, Environment
  • The enemies in the Elven Halls ending vault are now less likely to be lured out of the vault.
  • Ziggurat portals no longer appear in Pan.
• Character
  • A new mutation: Sturdy Frame, reducing base ER by 2/4/6 and thus making heavy armour easier to wear. Can be a demonspawn mutation.
  • The player no longer takes an accuracy penalty for fighting while invisible but without SInv (also true of monsters).
  • Formicids now have 0 Throwing aptitude (was -2).
  • Taking a known shaft now has a 2/3 chance of shafting one floor and 1/3 of two floors.
• Items
  • New items:
    • The amulet of dismissal, which has a chance of teleporting away enemies that attack you in melee combat, and contaminates the player when it is removed.
    • The +8 frozen axe “Frostbite” {freezing cloud, *Noise +Fly rC+}, an executioner’s axe with a chance of placing freezing clouds on enemies it strikes.
    • The +12 armour of Talos {ponderous, rF+}, a troll/ogre-sized suit of plate mail.
    • A figurine of a ziggurat – evoke to create a ziggurat portal. Appears on Zig:27 of all ziggurats and in the Tomb:3 loot.
    • Pieces from Xom’s chessboard – evoke to randomly swap the positions of you and all enemies and LOS, or (on failure) to trigger a Xom effect.
  • The robe of vines is now +2, Regen+7.
  • The Majin-Bo now speaks occasionally.
  • The amulet of Cekugob is now an amulet of dismissal.
  • Removing an amulet of regeneration now causes 2-7 hp of rot.
  • A new property can now generate on random artefacts: Fragile, which destroys the item when it is removed.
  • Amulets of faith now grant a 25% bonus to piety, not a 33% bonus.
  • Removed items:
    • Amulets of resist mutation and warding.
• Monsters
  • New monsters:
    • Spark wasps, lethally electric swarming insects that appear singularly in Spider and in packs in Depths.
    • Iron giants, with all the resilience that iron implies and the ability to throw you into the pack of giants they lead.
    • Doom hounds, lurking in Tartarus who can howl to summon a pack of their brethren.
  • Mnoleg gains Random Bolt and Dig.
  • Gloorx Vloq gains Summon Executioners and Black Mark.
  • Juggernauts now have two less damaging attacks instead of one powerful attack.
  • Jellies and death oozes cannot be blinded.
  • Jumping spiders and mana vipers can be blinded.
  • Jumping spiders cannot see invisible.
  • Giant eyeballs and golden eyes can now see invisible.
  • Salamander stormcallers’ chant does not need to be continuous; they now only need to try to cast Fire Storm at their target three times for it to trigger.
  • Entropy weavers’ corrosion is now instant and smite-targeted, but only applies one level of corrosion.
  • Ice devils are now tier 4 demons, with lowered HD to match.
  • Hellwings now have the swoop attack formerly possessed by blue devils.
  • Orange demons have their attacks split – they now have a reaching poison sting and a melee-only weakness attack.
  • Salamander mystics lose Localised Ignite Poison.
  • Natasha, deep elf knights, and salamander stormcallers can no longer cast Conjure Flame.
  • Spectral mist can no longer summon completely random spectral enemies.
  • Banishment from powerful monsters can now send you deeper into the Abyss than Abyss:1.
  • Removed monsters:
    • Octopode crushers.
    • (Plain) spiders.
    • Salamander firebrands.
    • Blue devils.
    • Brain worms.
• Spells
  • New spell: Yara’s Violent Unravelling (L5 Hexes/Transumations). Dispels all cancellable effects on the target and, if any were dispelled, causes a damaging explosion of mutagenic energy around the victim.
  • Hydra Form now has a fixed number of heads.
• Interface
  • Earth elementalists now have their stones start on b.
  • Characters starting with a primary ranged weapon now have their melee weapon on b by default.
  • An option is added to the butchering prompt to allow butchering only (e)dible corpses.
  • Auto-eat now triggers for ghouls if they are rotted.
  • The religion screen now shows all god powers, with currently accessible powers (per level of piety) being highlighted.

Time to start the experiments… happy crawling!