Hi crawlers! Here’s your roughly weekly dose of trunk update news:

• The special diets of centaurs (fast metabolism 1, herbivorous 1) and halflings (slow metabolism 1) have been removed.
• Vampires always get the full effect of all potions, can always mutate, and always get the full effect of all mutations.
• Corrosion affects all of your equipment, but only temporarily.
• Purple (very) ugly things deal extra damage in lieu of a sickness attack.
• Sustain abilities effects no longer stack.
• Scrolls of brand weapon can roll any brand on an unbranded weapon.
• Ambrosia and royal jellies have been removed; honeycombs have been renamed to royal jellies.
• The Mercenary card generates base demonspawn instead of spriggan riders.
• Sif Muna wrath can no longer cause amnesia.
• Gods that give missile gifts can do so sooner, i.e. there is no skill-related breakpoint associated with it.

Happy crawling!

Hi crawlers! Here’s what’s new in trunk:

• The Lava Orc species has been removed.
• Player clinging (seen only in Spider Form and with the boots of the Spider) is no more.
• Kobolds, hill orcs, and ogres are no longer saprovorous.
• Ogres no longer have a fast metabolism.
• Silver statues and orange crystal statues are immune to disintegration, but have less health and AC and have their abilities converted to spells such that they spam less; this implies OCS confusion can be resisted.
• Bog bodies no longer randomly rot.
• Removed monsters: shedu, plague shamblers.
• New unrand: the +8 orange crystal plate armour {Archmagi, Int+3 Clar SustAb}
• Potions of blood cure a point of ghoul rotting.
• Removed unrands: the boots of the Spider.
• Decks of wonders now contain Dowsing, Battlelust, Helm, and Shadow instead of Experience, Helix, Sage, and Trowel.
• Decks of dungeon are no more.
• The Potion card has a new list of effects: power 0 is decay/curing/agility/ might/brilliance; 1 has a chance of resistance/haste; 2 has a chance of magic/heal wounds.
• Removed cards: Experience, Sage, Water, Vitrification, Trowel, Minefield, and Shuffle.
• Zin’s Recite no longer prompts for a book, instead affecting all monsters in sight with the strongest effects that would impact them.

Happy crawling!

Hi crawlers! Here’s the latest and greatest from trunk:

• The gods branch has landed, bringing two new gods: Gozag Ym Sagoz the Greedy and Qazlal Stormbringer. Both are temple gods with an altar either in Temple or on D:2-9.
  • Gozag
    • Charges a service fee for joining, dependent on the amount of gold that has been generated in the game.
    • Does not have piety.
    • Defeated enemies turn to gold; these gold piles distract nearby creatures, causing them to sometimes not act.
    • Potion Petition: purchase one set of potion effects.
    • Call Merchant: fund a merchant to set up shop somewhere near to areas of the dungeon you have explored.
    • Bribe Branch: send money to the inhabitants of a branch to turn them + temporarily neutral or incite them to join you.
    • Duplication: one non-artefact item can be duplicated at an altar.
  • Qazlal
    • Piety on kills.
    • All followers are immune from their own clouds.
    • 1*: Storm Shield: you passively generate elemental clouds around you and gain bonus SH, and gain RMsl at 3*; you also generate a lot of noise.
    • 2*: Upheaval: blast a small nearby area with elemental forces.
    • 3*: Elemental Force: turn nearby clouds into elementals.
    • 4*: Elemental Adaptation: taking elemental or physical damage sometimes temporarily grants you resistance against that element.
    • 5*: Disaster Area: blast the entire area around you with elemental forces.
    • 6*: at an altar, gain a permanent elemental resistance of your choice for as long as you worship Qazlal.
• The Abyss no longer sometimes blocks blinking.
• Wanderers have tweaked starting kits with generally better items.
• Teleportitis cannot be controlled.
• Manticores have an unlimited number of spike volleys.
• Base draconians can become nonbase draconians with experience.
• Undead and nonliving enemies regenerate as fast as other enemies.
• Ghouls and necrophages can no longer equip weapons or armour.
• Monster melee attacks can no longer destroy items.
• Death Channel lasts twice as long.
• The blowgun of the Assassin returns; it has a chance to affect the target more than normal blowguns.
• Gloves of archery no longer penalise melee.
• (Plain) bows have been renamed to shortbows.
• Identify scrolls now always identify a single item.
• Monsters with special attack flavours have this noted in their descriptions.
• Summon Elemental has been removed.
• Spriggan enchanters (the monster) and phoenixes have been removed.

Happy crawling!

Hi crawlers! Here’s what’s new in trunk:

• The ranged_combat branch has landed – it is a rewrite of the ranged combat system to be based on many of the same formulas as melee attacks, so the effect of AC/EV on ranged attacks is more predictable, weapon delay is more predictable, and even Throwing should be a viable option compared to the other ranged weapons.
• Jewellery automatically identifies on equipping it.
• Cleaving hits the full eight squares around a player.
• Rebranding a distortion weapon no longer causes a distortion effect.
• Scrolls of brand weapon can no longer affix brands; they keep their effect of rerolling a weapon brand.
• Blessed weapons can be rebranded.
• Amulets of inaccuracy are always cursed.
• New rings of stealth and loudness, which positively/negatively adjust a player’s stealth; these take the place of rings of sustenance and hunger.
• Followers of good gods no longer get a chance to turn holy enemies neutral.
• The Book of War Chants is no more.
• Removed spells: Fire Brand, Freezing Aura, Lethal Infusion, Poison Weapon.
• Removed enemies: silver stars, flaming corpses, grizzly bears.

A brief reminder that the gods experimental branch is still available for testing on cszo and cbro; if you want to help get our newest potential additions to the pantheon into the game, be sure to help us try them out!

Happy crawling!

Hi crawlers! With the end of the tournament, trunk development is gearing up again. Here are some of the changes that have already been made:

• A large number of enemy glyphs (for console players) have been changed; see Mantis #8242 for more details.
• Crypt has been reduced to three levels (was five); the entrance to Tomb is always on Crypt:3.
• Some areas of the Tomb layout can now vary.
• Formicids can no longer throw large rocks.
• Tengu gain their permanent flight ability at XL14 (was 15).
• Changes/improvements to forms: all non-undead forms can eat and drink normally; all forms can butcher; wisp form can read scrolls and cannot blink innately.
• Enemies are more intelligent about using some attack spells such as Symbol of Torment and Chain Lightning when the player is not in LOS.
• Manticores can now move as fast as the player.
• Komodo dragons bite harder but can no longer sicken the player.
• Deep dwarf death knights are now (human) death knights.
• Removed enemies: vapours, thorn lotuses, giant goldfish, silver stars.
• Dazzling Spray replaces Invisibility in the book of Maledictions (the Enchanter starting spellbook); Invisibility in turn replaces Apportation in the book of Burglary. (Note that each of these spells is still available in at least one other spellbook.)
• When the player casts Ozocubu’s Refrigeration, they are now prevented from using potions for several turns instead of having their potions destroyed.
• Damage from the electrocution brand has been reduced slightly.
• There are status lights for might, agility, and brilliance.
• Followers of good gods no longer get a chance to pacify holy enemies.
• The low-level weapon branding skills and the book of War Chants have been removed.
• Scrolls of brand weapon can no longer be used to affix brands, and do not trigger a distortion effect on rebranding a distortion weapon.

In addition, crawl.beRotato.org has some experimental branches available for testing: “ranged_combat”, containing a mostly-complete rewrite of the system of ranged combat (bows, crossbows, etc.), and “gods”, featuring two new deities – Gozag Ym Sagoz the Greedy and Qazlal Stormbringer. These branches should also be available on crawl.s-z.org shortly.

Happy crawling!

Hi crawlers – here are some more changes as we wind down 0.14 development:

• MR-granting items now grant fixed increments of magic resistance (see the % screen – there are numbers involved behind the scenes but those exact values aren’t important).
• Orbs of destruction don’t explode if they collide with another orb of destruction before travelling more than a short distance (so feel free to abuse those high powered decks of destruction).
• The colours of the species/background menu selector have been changed again.
• The amount of poisoning dealt by poisonous monster attacks has been adjusted slightly (less for early game enemies, more for late game enemies).
• Josephine has a new spell set (and rN+++).
• Formicid self-shafting is no longer noisy.
• All tiered demon enemies can now open doors.

Look forward to news about the release of 0.14 soon, and happy crawling!

Hi crawlers – here’s another round of last minute tune-ups to 0.14:

• Formicids can no longer wield giant (spiked) clubs and have slightly adjusted aptitudes.
• Throwing nets no longer degrade; instead they mulch similar to other projectiles.
• Fighters start with a potion of might.
• Swinging a chaos weapon no longer polymorphs or shafts the attacker.
• The shopping interface has been simplified.
• Spells can be memorised even at 100% failure rate.
• Picking up runes in Pandemonium increases the chances of exits being generated.

Here’s to a 0.14 release in the near future – and happy crawling!

Hi crawlers! Here’s what I’m hoping will be the last major round of changes before 0.14 gets prepared for release:

• All panlords now see invisible.
• Player merfolk can now be mesmerised by mermaids and sirens.
• Plain formicids no longer generate as enemies.
• Formicid venom mages lose Stone Arrow and gain Localized Ignite Poison.
• Artificers and Wanderers do not start with knowledge of scrolls/potions they don’t actually possess.
• Chaos champions lose Rearrange the Pieces and gain Random Bolt (per the rod of destruction).
• Spriggan enemies in general now merely have fast movement speed instead of fast speed in general, more damage and less EV.
• The movement behaviour of sirens has been adjusted to make them less likely to be completely out of reach of the player.
• Spriggan air mages have Haste (replacing Shock).
• Spriggan druids’ Druid’s Call now calls 2-3 creatures out of LOS nearby and does not invisibly might creatures; instead, nearby creatures are healed and frenzied on their death. Stone Arrow also replaces Sunray in their spell set.
• Shock serpents no longer have a lightning torrent attack.
• Boggarts are more durable.
• Rakshasas gain a monster spell “Phantom Mirror”, which summons a clone of a nearby allied monster with half the hit points with a 50% chance of swapping the clone for the original; this replaces their previous self-cloning abilities. Rakshasas can now also cast Iskenderun’s Mystic Blast and will summon two clones of themselves at 50% HP as a one-time effect.
• Giant orange brains now have Mass Confusion instead of Confuse.
• The main Dungeon is now 15 levels, and the Depths five; the entrance to Vaults is now on D:13-14.
• The duration of Sentinel’s Mark has been reduced by 25%.
• The Enchantress now appears as a normal unique in Depths.

Look forward to more news about the 0.14 release soon, and happy crawling!

Hey crawlers – since a pretty significant number of changes have just landed, here’s an update sooner than usual!

• The ring of Shadows now has a small umbra in lieu of EV+4 and AC-4.
• Racial armour has been removed (thus there is no racial equipment left).
• Nemelex’s deck gifts are now independent of sacrifice type.
• New summoning spells:
  • Summon Mana Viper (L5 Summoning/Hexes); it appears in the Book of Beasts.
  • Monstrous Menagerie (L6 Summoning), which summons a manticore, some harpies, a lindwurm, or a sphinx (at high spellpower); it appears in the book of Beasts and the book of Summonings (replacing Summon Ugly Thing).
  • Forceful Dismissal (L6 Summoning), which ends all player summons and damages enemies next to them; it appears in the Grand Grimoire.
  • Aura of Abjuration (L6 Summoning), a less powerful but per-turn mass abjuration effect; it replaces Mass Abjuration in the Grand Grimoire.
  • Spellforged Servitor (L7 Conjuration/Summoning), which summons a servitor with a subset of the player’s most destructive conjurations; it replaces Fireball in the book of Wizardry.
  • Dragon’s Call (L9 Summoning), which for its duration of effect summons dragons near targets at the end of LOS (at the full spell cost per summon); replaces Summon Dragon in the Book of the Dragon.
• Removed spells: Summon Ugly Thing, Demonic Horde, Mass Abjuration, Summon Dragon.
• Poison damage is now deterministic.
• Fighters and Gladiators now start with better weapons.

Most of these changes are now live on the servers, so happy crawling!

Hi crawlers! Here are the latest things to look forward to in your next trunk game:

• Djinn have poofed.
• Agate snails, giant centipedes, ancient bears, and rotting devils have been removed
• The timeout of conjured ball lightnings has been reduced considerably.
• Clouds once again can be cast to hit squares out of the player’s LOS; instead, player-created clouds now timeout considerably faster when out of LOS.
• Glaciate, a level 9 Conjuration/Ice spell replacing Ice Storm which blasts targets in a cone-shaped area of effect for large damage, creates freezing clouds, encases targets in ice (slowing them for three turns), and occasionally freezes targets killed by it into a block of ice.
• New unrands:
  • The +7,+7 lajatang of Order {silver, rMut}.
  • The +7,+7 great mace “Firestarter” {flame, rF++}; it fills its victims with an inner flame.
• Autosacrifice now works with Fedhas.
• Sparkling and blood fountains can no longer be quaffed from.
• Eyeballs cannot use their abilities through translucent walls.
• Substantial edits to wizard labs.
• Substantial revisions to rods:
  • The rod of frigid destruction has been transformed into the rod of clouds – evokable to produce a cone of clouds in front of the player, with duration and type varying with evocation power.
  • The rod of demonology has been transformed into the rod of shadows – evoke to get shadow creatures, the toughness of whom depends on our evocation power.
  • Rods of venom are no more.
• The arena_delay option, which controls animation speed of some effects (and the speed of action in arena itself), is now available outside of arena as view_delay.
• A substantial overhaul of item values (courtesy of minmay).
• Wand shops have been merged into gadget shops, which now also sell rods.
• Potions of blood and curse scrolls no longer randomly generate.
• Enchant weapon scrolls now ask for a target (like brand weapon).
• The Horn of Geryon now summons 1-4 hell beasts (hostility dependent on evocations skill), and recharges with experience as with the elemental evokers.
• Formicids no longer have innate rPois-, and now gain levels more slowly but gain more HP and MP per level.
• The monster lists for the Dungeon, Vaults, and Depths have been adjusted.
• All scrolls now identify immediately on reading them.
• Curse scrolls now always prompt for a target (as the player is unlikely to see them outside worshipping Ashenzari).
• Zin warns the player of shapeshifters.
• Monster (molten) gargoyles now generate with mace-type weapons and can cast conjurations.

Have fun with these, and happy crawling!