You pray at the faded altar. The Trunk Updates accept your prayer!

Hello crawlers, trunk is currently as hot as Geh:7 on a hot day with lots of commits coming fast. Since we last wrote over 150 changes have landed in trunk, a mix of tweaks, shifts, new features, community contributions, and bugfixes. As with last time, I want to again highlight our non-code contributors:

• New vaults by beargit, nicolae, and ShaperMC, appearing in various places in the dungeon. If you’re interested in making vaults (prefabricated bits of the map), read an introduction to editing vaults here and consider setting up a development environment to test your vaults.
• New tiles by Sastreii. If you’re interested in making tiles, read our tiles guideline here.

Both kinds of contribution can be submitted on our GitHub repository, either as an issue or a pull request, if you don’t have a mantis account. If the documents seem a little old, they’ll be getting updates in the coming month.

Work on spicing up the early dungeon experience has continued with significant changes to the overflow altar system:

• Each floor from D:1-3 has a 50% chance of placing a faded altar. We need more faded altar vaults! If you’re interested in making vaults this is a good place to start (as are arrival vaults).
• There is a 20% chance of an identified `altar to a random Temple god on D:2.
• Except for the previous two chances, no other altars appear on D:1 or D:2.
• Every “Temple god” receives exactly one guaranteed altar, appearing either in the Ecumenical Temple or in an overflow temple between D:3 and D:10. We also need more overflow temple vaults!

In addition to the changes to altar placement, further adjustments continue:

• Oozes are renamed endoplasms
• Dungeon spawn tables are adjusted to produce more depth appropriate monsters
  and less chaff.
• Ogres and Two headed ogres again attack slowly and hit harder.
• Scorpions are now fast.
• Gnolls on D:1 no longer get halberds.
• Worker ants, soldier ants, and queen ants are removed.

The new Djinni species continues to be tweaked in response to play testing:

• Weapon aptitudes have been lowered by one.
• The scholarly gods now all reject Djinn worship (that’s Sif Muna, Vehumet, and Kikubaaqudgha)
• Spells are guaranteed on level-up: if a starting book spell is rolled the spell gets re-rolled until an available spell is found.

Some changes to the mutation pool:

• All scales except Iridescent scales are now Demonspawn only.
• Iridescent scales, bone plates, thin skeletal structure, and sturdy frame are no longer incompatible.
• Blurry vision is removed, replaced by allowing Ru’s -Scroll while threatened mutation in the random mutation pool.
• Shoutitis and No potion heal are reduced to 2 levels, with the maximum level effect at the top level, and half the effect at the first level.
• A new Jiyva mutation gives player melee an engulf effect, engulfing foes in ooze (gross).
• The blink mutation is removed.

And of course, a grab bag of other changes:

• Manifold Assault is raised to level 5.
• Depths vaults have their monster lists updated to match the spawn table.
• The Vestibule of Hell has its monster list updated to remove chaff monsters.
• Flying equipment, species, and forms cause you to fly at all times.
• Sif Muna’s book gifting rate has been reduced, to make it more feasible to reach 6* piety.
• Blade Hands is now level 6 and appears only in the book of Transfigurations
• Hydra Form is now level 5 and appears in the book of Changes and the Fen Folio
• Heavenly Storm grants bonus EV and is a bit quieter.
• Scrolls of random effects are removed.

That’s all for now. On the horizon: new demonspawn tier 3 facets have come into focus. The winds of freshening continue to blow through branches but just where they’ll go remains mysterious. Until next time, happy crawling!

You feel threatened and lose the ability to read!

Ashenzari offers you a vision and a curse of trunk updates…

Hello crawlers and welcome to the first trunk update of March! It’s been busy here in Coc:7 dreaming up new and varied ways of torturing players. The first thing of note in this round of trunk updates is an Ashenzari overhaul:

• Ashenzari periodically offers followers curses as they explore.
• Curses are applied to equipped items and have the following effects:
• Bind the item to you, so it cannot be removed,
• Increase your piety with Ashenzari,
• and grant a boost to two groups of skills (described when Ashenzari offers the curse).
• Curses can be removed at any time by shattering the chains. This destroys the item, freeing you from the curse.
• In exchange for binding yourself with curses, Ashenzari grants the following benefits:
• Skill boosts granted by your curses grow with piety.
• At 0* Ashenzari reveals a wealth of knowledge: all items (including consumables) are identified, exploration traps are prevented, and portals are revealed.
• Passive monster and item detection and passive mapping, with detection range scaling with piety.
• At 2* See Invisible
• At 3* Clarity
• Starting at 4* passive scrying with radius 2, scaling up to radius 4 at 6*.

Other changes since we last wrote:

• Plain Liches have a new spell set: Bolt of Cold, Orb of Destruction, Slow, Haste and Invisibility; and Ancient Liches trade Slow for Petrify.
• If he spawns on the orb run, Boris will do so with permanent haste and a permanent aura of brilliance, spurred on by his lust for the ORB.
• Airstrike no longer does bonus damage to flying things.
• The obsidian axe cannot be unwielded while mesmerised; watch out!
• Once you complete a Ziggurat, the Zot clock no longer applies.
• The spectral brand has been simplified: The weapon pops out when you attack, immediately follows up, and then sticks around until the end of your next turn. If you hit again, everything repeats. Otherwise, it vanishes.
• Unidentified equipment is now identified when you touch the cell that it is on, instead of on wear.
• The Depths monster list has been trimmed of so-called “trash mobs” for a deadlier experience.
• *Slow as an artefact property now stacks, multiple sources will increase the chances of getting slowed when hit.

That’s all for now! On the ever changing horizon, changes to Snake and the Vaults seem in focus, but it is always hard to see through the impenetrable haze at the border between Cocytus and Gehenna, so who can say, really? Until next time, happy crawling!

Quiver which trunk update?

Ho ho ho hello! Santaeus has rolled up from the North Pole with a box of beastly trunk changes for all you good crawlers out there on the net.

The major highlight is the new quiver system, written primarily by advil. A quick overview:

Any ranged attack, spell, ability, or evokable action can be quivered! This change change lets a wide range of things appear in the quiver slot for quick access via firing, autofiring (p and shift-tab) and cycling (( and )); use Q to select an action. At the same time it introduces a number of UI improvements and new options.

For the gory details, check out the updated documentation or read the pull request summary and discussion.

Here’s what else is new in trunk:

• Net traps are now permanent, but the nets always mulch (no more net farming!).
• Translocations miscasts now prevent movement altogether for a short time (like Tree form!).
• Player spell damage and spell accuracy are now displayed in the UI in various easy to find places.
• Hailstorm now hits automatically (instead of having a very small chance to miss).
• Several ghost vaults have been revamped to have better loot and better theme.
• Palentonga can now mutate longer rolls.
• Skills can now be trained at any time, without item or spell restrictions.
• The revamped Swamp has seen various balance tweaks and adjustments after play testing, including:
• Goliath frogs are now a bit slower,
• Will-o-the-wisps cast marshlight more often.
• The chance for the distortion brand to banish has been reduced.
• The ancient pharoahs have asserted their right to title, greater mummies are now royal mummies.
• Evocable invisibility now drains skills, whether or not you successfully vanish!
• Magic Resistance has been renamed to Willpower (with the abbreviation changing from MR to Will).

Hello, crawlers! It’s been a bit, but here’s the latest from Trunk:

• The Swamp branch has been drastically reworked:
  • New monster: will-o-the-wisp, an unearthly gas that spits out powerful Foxfires.
  • New monster: goliath frog, capable of licking players from afar with its acidic tongue.
  • New monster: eleionoma, a spirit of the swamp akin to water nymphs. It flows with the woods and shoots shrapnel at nearby enemies. It’s quite difficult to kill while it’s next to trees.
  • New monster: bloated husk, a shambling abomination that explodes with a powerful burst of putrescent gas.
  • New monster: bunyip, an Australian cryptid that hits with enormous force but a slow recovery. (Did you know DCSS is Australian?)
  • New monster: fenstrider witch, a rare top-tier threat casting Paralyse, melee-range Agony, and Throw Sludge, a new spell that splatters Eringya’s Noxious Bog all over the victim.
  • Bog bodies cast much more powerfully, and their freezing touch attack has been merged in with their normal attack so that it actually does something.
  • Many weak and irrelevant enemies no longer appear in Swamp.
  • Swamp levels are, on average, about 20-25% smaller.
  • For a limited testing period, Swamp will appear in every game of Dungeon Crawl, even sometimes alongside Shoals. Enjoy!
• Further monster changes:
  • Boulder beetles are back! This time, their trademark rolling attack uses standard monster movement rules, rather than Orb of Destruction projectile movement. That means they can follow you as you move and around corners. They can also blink. On the plus side, they’re worth more XP!
  • Crocodiles (but not alligators), porcupines, and hippogrives have departed this mortal plane. None of them did anything particularly interesting. A service will be held on Sunday from 4 to 6.
  • To follow up porcupines’ passage, hell sentinels and torturous demonspawn no longer have spines. They weren’t scaled high enough to do anything against late-game players, and it wouldn’t be particularly fun if they had.
  • Batty monsters, such as bats or harpies, used to re-focus on their target once per player turn. That meant that players taking fast actions (swinging with short blades) would make them attack more often, and taking slow actions (using the Dark Maul) would make them attack less. No longer! Batty monsters now act of their own free will, unconstrained by players.
  • Again in celebration of boulder beetles’ return, insect glyphs have been reorganized. Ants, beetles, and other non-flying insects now live on ‘B’, with ‘s’ reserved for arachnids.
  • Monsters’ spells’ damage is now shown when examining them with ‘xv’.
• Player species changes:
  • New Demonspawn mutation: sharp scales, giving 1/2/3 AC and slaying.
  • New Demonspawn mutation: big brain, giving 2/4/6 int, along with wizardry (spell failure reduction) at level 3.
  • Demonspawns’ thin skeletal structure mutation has its stealth bonus doubled.
  • At XL 7 and higher, Palentonga now curl defensively when hit, getting an AC bonus against subsequent hits before their next action. Useful when in big fights, against hydras, etc.
  • Wheals made a large number of improvements to the Palentonga charge targeter. Thanks, wheals!
  • Palentonga can now mutate poisonous tails.
• Item changes:
  • Potions of stabbing have been replaced with potions of attraction, which pull nearby monsters toward the player while active. See if you can come up with some fun ways to use this!
  • Potions of brilliance now halve spell MP costs while active.
  • When targeting the polymorph wand, you’ll now see a set of three random monsters that the wand can turn the target into. Less guessing!
  • Wand noise is now shown in the UI.
  • Many XP-charged evocable items have had their charges reduced, their recharge time increased, and their shop prices raised. They’re still extremely strong.
  • The condensation vane now has a lovely new set of tiles. Credit, as ever, to canofworms.
  • Broad axe delay has increased from 1.6 to 1.7.
  • The black knight’s barding is back! Now naga and palentonga can wear it.
• Miscellaneous changes:
  • There’s now a selection menu when x-ving to examine spaces with multiple interesting things. (Monsters, items, features…)
  • Gozag no longer gives a free potion petition on worship, to pull his power a bit back towards other gods.
  • Similarly, Nemelex Xobeh now starts gifting decks only at higher piety.
  • Now that you can see the amount of gold you get from a scroll of acquirement before you pick it, the huge variance that made for exciting gambles before just makes for really boring ‘take the massive pile of gold over the cool item’ decisions. As such, gold acquirement now produces much smaller and more consistent amounts, to encourage more fun decisions.
  • Some Lair and Snake level layouts have been tweaked for increased fun.
  • Many new vaults have been added, including several exciting boulder beetle vaults and several transporter vaults.
  • Zot clock changes: the maximum ‘bank’ is much larger (27k turns per branch, not 15k), all Hells share a single clock, and the clock is now deterministic and displayed numerically. If this means nothing to you, don’t worry about it. You can now enable always_show_zot if you really want to, though.
  • Vampiric Draining’s damage is no longer limited by the amount that it heals the player.
• Bugfixes:
  • Searing Ray no longer tracks invisible monsters.
  • Withered plants no longer wither. (Now they crumble.).
  • You can’t crash the game by trying to (P)ut a non-jewellery item on.
  • Dungeon Crawl will no longer claim that non-lifesaving gods will save lives.
  • Cunning players can no longer use Yredmenul’s Enslave Soul targeter to deduce which illusory clones are fake and which are real.
  • Donald now deigns to talk to followers of the Wu Jian Council.
  • While in the Slime Pits, you can no longer be shafted next to slimy walls and die instantly.

Have a lovely weekend, all! Happy crawling.

You feel the power of the Orb delaying this trunk update!

Hello crawlers, and welcome to another update from the fires of Geh:7. This stretch has seen a mix of gameplay and infrastructure changes, both with contributions from the community, as well as bug fixes and tweaks from Goratrix, chequers, and Implojin. If you’d like to help out in the effort of developing crawl come by ##crawl-dev or check out our GitHub for how to contribute!

On the gameplay side:

• Palentonga’s HP aptitude has been increased to +1
• staves of earth now deal higher damage, but with the shrapnel effect of being affected 3 times by AC.
• staves of conjuration now deal irresistible damage that checks AC (taking Earth’s old effect).
• staves of summoning and wizardry are removed.
• The Controlled Blink spell has blinked right out of the game, and is removed.
• Blink scrolls no longer cause Contam.
• The Orb’s translocations interference is reduced: blink scrolls can be used in Zot and on the Orb run, as can Passage of Golubria. However, passages are shorter lived and less accurate under the Orb’s influence.
• The various plants and fungi of the dungeon are now much weaker, once hit they begin to wither and die in 3-5 turns. The exceptions are bushes and briars, made of stouter stuff.

On the infrastructure side:

• wjchen sent us a community contribution to improve WebTiles glyphs mode font handling. This introduces two new options for customization, glyph_mode_font and glyph_mode_font_size, for all you WebTiles glyphs players.
• The window drawing loop has seen some optimizations.

The trunk update comes into view, it is surrounded by clouds of flame!

Hello crawlers, and welcome to another round of trunk updates from the frigid winter wastes of Falls Creek Coc:7.

This week has seen a fair share of bug fixing, including from community members Goratrix and Naruni. If you’d like to help out in the effort of developing crawl come by ##crawl-dev or check out our GitHub for how to contribute!

Let’s take a look at what else has been woven into the next illusion version:

• Gauntlet monsters now generate awake
• A new round of unrand revisions has begun in earnest:
• Wucad Mu no longer provides evocable channeling. Instead, with a chance depending on evocations, it refunds the MP cost of the spell. There is a chance of confusion or intelligence drain (which scales on spell cost and evocations skill) when a spell is refunded.
• The cloak of the Thief is changed from +Fog to *Fog, creating fog when the player is hit.
• The Majin-Bo loses Archmagi, and instead gives a chance for any cast spell to be vampiric, healing the caster for damage done to living creatures.
• The shield of Resistance is now a +2 kite shield {rF++ rC++ MR++}.
• Rampaging can now appear as an artefact property on all armour types. Enjoy your rampaging octopodes, courtesy of Implojin!
• Staves of energy are removed.
• chequers has finished his project to add cloud rings to Pandemonium lords. There’s now a chance that pan lords will come with a ring of one of the following clouds: flame, ice, thunder, chaos, mutation, draining, acid, or miasma. The chance is much higher for melee pan lords, and the cloud will often flavorfully match the pan lord’s melee brand. Watch out for Faroclos, armed with a chaotic touch and surrounded by clouds of chaos!
• Not content to let chequers have all the fun, first-time contributor amcnicky sent in some new Pandemonium lord tiles.

There’s much more planned before we arrive at 0.26, so stay tuned for the latest and don’t hesitate to get involved yourself. Until next time, happy crawling!

The trunk update sneers, “Beg for mercy, thou defiled idle-headed gnoll-tail!”

Clouds of trunk updates condense around you!

Hello crawlers, and welcome to another round of trunk updates, fresh from the Citadel in the Iron City.

The biggest change this week is the introduction of the malevolent chronology of Zot. One of food’s many (badly executed) purposes was a forward progress clock; in the absence of any such clock tedious optimal strategies crept in, of the kind that we on the devteam categorically prefer to prevent (check out the philosophy section of the manual for an elaboration). The Zot clock is a rather loose clock, but should you tarry too long Zot will find you, and rapidly end you. The hope is that this clock is sufficiently loose that only the most egregious behavior gets caught by it. Since this is trunk there will be further tuning.

Read on for the remainder of the tweaks, shifts, and ever seething chaos of trunk

• Contamination now decays three times faster.
• Scarves of shadows now only reduce LOS by 1, instead of a multiplicative factor.
• The rat skin cloak is changed from evocable +Rats to a passive *Rats, summoning rats when the wearer is hit.
• Ripostes no longer trigger hydra-head chopping, *Rage, or Minotaur headbutts.
• Phantom Mirrors and Boxes of Beasts now recharge on XP, mirrors have a single charge and boxes have three charges.
• A new misc evoker condenser vanes replace wands of clouds. Condenser Vanes have 4 charges and create clouds on and around monsters in view, with the clouds scaling in power similar to the old wand of clouds.
• Wanderers now have a chance to start with any of the XP charged misc evokers.

You rampage towards the trunk updates!

Hello crawlers, and welcome to the last trunk updates post of July 2020.

The past month saw some giant changes to crawl; in the past week things have slowed down a little bit, and some of the devteam’s focus has shifted to interface and polish while the dust settles. For our visually impaired players, this means some new accessibility improvements:

• A new boot ego: rampaging comes to us from Implojin. Boots of rampaging cause the wearer to take an extra step whenever they move in the direction of a foe (whether they want to or not!).
• Thanks to rjcrjc, Kobolds now have the Nightstalker 3 mutation from the start, while Demonspawn no longer have the Nightstalker facet as an available mutation.

• Artificers no longer start with a spectral club; farewell to the brief experiment.
• Item stacks are now fully visible from anywhere in LOS, and no longer require visiting.
• The Cloud Mage has learned to fly.
• Beastly Appendage now merges only helmets and boots, not the full set of aux armour.
• Formicids can no longer use Wu Jian martial moves while digging (sorry twelwe).

You start singing a song of trunk updates…

Hello Crawlers, and welcome to a charming round of trunk updates fresh from the ever churning chaos of the changelog abyss!

The big news this update is that the long awaited Charms overhaul has arrived. For many years the devteam has tossed around different ideas for what to do with charms, and the school had become quite thin and unfocussed because of a fundamental tension: pure buff spells don’t fit well with crawl’s MP and tactical systems. Some forks experimented with various “permabuff” systems that reserved max-MP, but to us these felt more like items. The result of all this is that the Charms school and skill are no more. The remaining spells in the school have either moved to other schools of magic or to item effects. Without any charms to cast, Skalds have sung their last and are removed. Here are the spell changes:

• Ozocubu’s Armour is now Ice only.
• Swiftness is now Air only.
• Death’s Door is now Necromancy only and Level 9.
• Excruciating Wounds is now Necromancy only, prevents unwielding your weapon for the duration, and applies a Wizardry penalty as well as noise.
• Battlesphere is now Conjurations only and its targeting has been adjusted to work with all Conjurations school spells other than Servitor.
• Song of Slaying is now Transmutations and renamed Wereblood; the noise is reduced somewhat.
• Infusion, Shroud of Golubria, Spectral Weapon, Darkness, and Ring of Flames are removed.

Then there are the new or revised items that take up some of the old charm effects:

• Gozag no longer offers flight potions in petition and occasionally offers lignification.
• Viewing a monster with xv now shows to-hit chance with your current weapon.
• The “view stack/pickup key” ; can be pressed twice to force autopickup even in unsafe situations.
• Beastly Appendage now melds auxilliary armour slots, weapons, and shields, and gives two levels of both Horns and Talons (octopodes keep their tentacle spike) instead of randomly choosing.
• Alistair’s Intoxication prompts when nothing in view can be affected, always applies Vertigo when successful, and has a higher power cap.
• Sticks to Snakes is removed.
• Palentonga charge now provides a to-hit bonus as well as the damage bonus.

That’s all for now. Still on the horizon is a look at Kobolds; for a preview look out for the kobold-nightstalker experimental on CPO and possibly coming soon to CKO. Beyond that who knows what might emerge from the seething chaos! Until next time, happy crawling!

As the wereblood boils in your veins your song becomes a howl!!! 

The trunk updates roll forward with a clatter of scales!

Hello crawlers, and welcome to the first trunk update of the 0.26 cycle. There’s been a flurry of activity in trunk since the end of the tournament, and I’m excited to bring you the latest from Geh:7. Before diving into the details, I want to highlight two major changes that arrived just as this post was going to press, as well as something that’s unfolded over the past week.

The first is a new species: Palentonga. Palentongas are a two-armed, four-legged, scaled mammal species the size of a horse. Their special power is the ability to curl into a ball and launch a rolling charge at enemies, dealing extra damage proportionate to the distance traveled. Palentongas have flat melee apts, slightly weak spell apts and fairly weak ranged apts. They have +3 base AC and extra HP, along with an aux attack – an upgraded tail slap. They wear bardings (which have been merged into a single item type, shared with nagas). Stats skew towards strength and away from dex, to give the ‘large race’ feeling. Palentonga have deformed body and bad armour/dodging apts. In the Lore, Palentonga are an up-and-coming power, displacing the orcs, trolls, and ogres of the eastern wastes. Their generals ride elephants into battle, goading them forward with spiked ankuses.

The second is a new background: Delver. Shaft traps are fun. What if you had a background that started shafted all the way to D:5, and needed to find their way back up to survive? To make it fair, you start with a nice set of consumables: a wand of digging, scrolls of mapping, fear, and fog, and a potion of haste.

Finally, several aspects of the game have been touched with the long-hungered for removal of food and hunger mechanics. That’s right, no more eating, no more butchering, no more spell or ability hunger, and no more rations.

What happened to Ghouls with the removal of chunks? Well, read on gentle crawler, read on…

• Crimson Imps no longer spawn in D, and Shadow Imps less often (not at all after D:10); in their place White Imps and Ufetubi chase adventurers.
• Shadows and Wights no longer spawn in Crypt; replaced with flying skulls, necromancers, and wraiths.
• Spider is now ambiently quiet, apart from the unsettling clatter of chitin.
• Evocations skill no longer grants max MP.
• Banishment (from Lugonu or distortion) grants full XP.
• Wizards have been renamed Hedge Wizards; they now start with a dagger and 2/6/4 stat modifiers.
• Conjurers start with -1/10/3 stat modifiers that Wizards used to have.
• Assassins have been renamed Brigands.
• Ghouls, no longer able to eat chunks, now heal when they kill the living.
• Centaurs have galloped out of the game and are removed.
• Deep Elves‘ bow aptitude is increased to +3 for all you longbow enthusiasts.
• Nemelex has removed the shaft card from their decks, and the self-banishment chance from the exile card.
• Amulets are now slow to equip; guardian spirit, acrobat, and reflection no longer need to attune to the wearer.
• Pikel’s minions are now lemures, demons that depart this plane if you free them from Pikel.
• Spiny Frogs have been renamed Cane Toads for the authentic Australian experience™.
• Pandemonium lords’ spells and melee flavours have been adjusted; melee focused lords have now learned a few position-altering spells so watch out!
• Hungry ghosts hunger no more, because they’re removed.
• Conjure Ball Lightning now summons a fixed number of balls, with damage scaling with spellpower.
• Necromancy ally spells have been adjusted:
• Animate Skeleton and Animate Dead animated remains have a reduced duration. The durability of skeletons and zombies produced by these spells scales with spellpower. Animate Skeleton now animates the nearest skeleton, without requiring the caster to stand on it.
• Death Channel spectral things have a reduced duration, and all spectral things vanish when Death Channel expires.
• Infestation scarabs have a reduced duration.
• Aura of Abjuration, Recall, and Summon Butterflies are removed.