You open the Incunabulum of Trunk Updates and begin reading…

Hello crawlers! Coming hot on the heels of our previous trunk update we’re back with more of the latest. Before we dive into changes, some exciting scheduling matters:

The 0.27 tournament is tentatively scheduled for July 30th-Aug 15th

As usual, watch this space for links to the tournament webpage, more information about scoring, etc.

While it has only been a week since our last little chat, almost 100 commits have landed in trunk. One significant area of change is to spellbooks, feedback on the feel of this change is most welcome and we look forward to reading your remarks on various crawl forums. With that said, on to the changes!

  • Thanks to community contributor Aliscans, wizmode monster creation now has in-game help, for all your monster experimentation needs.
  • Archmagi can now appear on randart robes.
  • Several unrands have been adjusted:
    • Damnation only consumes bolts and explodes on hit.
    • the staff of Wucad-Mu has been buffed, refunding MP more often and including the refund even when it backfires.
    • the Wrath of Trog is angrier: it now extends your berserk duration on kill (sometimes) and grants Rampage. Raarhrhrhghghghghgh!
  • The post-berserk penalty no longer includes paralysis.
  • Using Trog’s Berserk now has a piety-adjusted chance to fail.
  • Salamander Tyrants, Rockslimes, and Quicksilver oozes have been added to Ziggurat monster sets.
  • Several further enhancements to the quiver:
    • Potions and scrolls can now be quivered for use.
    • Autofight correctly supports “waiting spells” like searing ray.
    • New options are available to customize the quiver order
  • A new spell: Maxwell’s Capacitive Coupling (Level 8 Air). When cast, the player begins charging up. If the player waits (with ‘.’) and is not moved then after a bit of time (random and depending on spell power) the accumulated charge is discharged, vaporizing the nearest foe (nearest at the end of the spell, not when it is cast!). This might seem familiar, but I’ve got absolutely zero idea where you might have seen the mechanics before.
  • Wereblood now only grants its healing for kills of adjacent monsters.
  • Felids no longer get a stealth penalty from Blade Hands.
  • Everyone else can improve their stealth with a new good mutation that dampens sounds.
  • Spell book changes:
    • Spellbooks are always identified
    • Randart spellbooks have fewer spells
    • Fixed spellbooks are split into smaller books of 2-4 spells each, and 30 new books are added to pick up the contents.
    • Spellbooks generate more than twice as often to keep the number of spells generated about the same. Book rarity is now more closely tied to the spell level.
    • Book pricing in shops is reworked
    • Backgrounds that previously started with a spell book are unchanged, their starting spells are added directly to the spell library at game start.

That’s all for now. In the run up to the release and tournament, “feature freeze” is scheduled roughly around July 16 or 23. Before then expect to see many more exciting new vaults reach trunk, both from our new devteam members and from several community contributors; along with balance tweaks, bug fixes, and user interface improvements (including, hopefully, an item panel in the WebTiles UI). Until next time, happy crawling!

Weird images run through your mind. The Trunk Updates vapourize in an electric haze!