Hello crawlers, and welcome to the ultimate trunk update of the year! The 0.31 development cycle is (finally!) nearing a close, and we are pleased to announce a tentative tournament start date of Friday, Jan 19, 2024, at 20:00 UTC for the sixteen day 0.31 Release tournament. We’ll shift towards bug fixes and balance as we get closer to 0.31′s release, sometime before the start of the tournament. More details about the tournament, including a tournament website and rules changes, will be available here!

A heads-up also that crawl.kelbi.org will be shutting down after the tournament. Many thanks to Floraline for their years of hard work maintaining the server! We’ll have news on a replacement server sometime in the coming few months.

Looks like we somehow have not even posted one trunk update since 0.30 released (!), so to fit all the major changes in, this post will be a little more condensed than usual. I’ll still try to sneak in one or two fun things, and the changelog has more details on some things.

  • Shapeshifting and Transmuting:
    • Form spells have turned into a new type of item, ‘talismans’.
    • Talismans are very rare items that, when used, transform the user into a corresponding form until they choose to leave it.
    • A new skill, Shapeshifting, governs use of talismans. Like Spellcasting, the ‘default’ (human) aptitude for this is -1.
    • Form changes:
      • Beastly Appendage has been replaced by Beast Form, provides innate Slaying but melds all auxiliary armour.
      • Spider Form has been replaced by Flux Form, which causes melee attacks to magically contaminate and explode victims. It melds weapons, shields, and body armour.
      • Ice Form has been replaced by Serpent Form, which transforms the user into a massive, foe-crushing python.
      • New form: Maw, which opens a horrible, foe-devouring second mouth in the user’s chest. It grants an auxiliary bite attack and sometimes heals the user when they kill foes in melee, in exchange for melding body armour.
      • Lich Form has been replaced by Death Form, which severely debilitates foes struck in melee and grants an active ‘Siphon Essence’ ability that torments nearby foes to heal the player. It’s otherwise similar.
      • All forms have had their stats adjusted and scaling rebalanced.
    • A new background, Shapeshifter, replaces the Transmuter start. Shapeshifters start out with two talismans, Beast and Flux.
    • The Transmutations skill continues to support use of the ~ten remaining Transmutations spells. There are no current plans to remove it.
    • You can read more about the motivation for these changes here and here. Note that many of the implementation details have changed since those were written.
  • Hexslingers:
    • Hexslingers have had their starting spell set vigorously reworked.
    • New L2 Hex spell: Jinxbite. Deals additional Will-checking damage to foes attacked while its duration lasts, but also halves the caster’s will. Lots of faerie laughter is involved.
    • New L3 Hex spell: Sigil of Binding. Creates two magical traps nearby, which temporarily bind hapless victims in place. Don’t step in these yourself!
    • New L4 Hex spell: Dimensional Bullseye (replacing Portal Projectile). Targets a foe and teleports all shots fired at other foes to also hit the chosen unfortunate.
    • Inner Flame and Cause Fear are still included. Slow is no longer in the starting spell set.
  • Uniques:
    • New: Jeremiah, a peaceful barachi trapped between sleep and waking. Their dreams leak into reality in a stream of beautiful butterflies.
    • Returned and revamped: Norris, a death cultist who surfs into battle with a gang of skysharks.
    • Maurice is now a vine stalker, with high regen and antimagic bites.
    • Erica is now an octopode, with constriction and a more focused spell set.
    • Frederick has a new spell set.
  • Other monsters:
    • New and returning:
      • Kobold blastminers, who blast enemies with alchemical cannons and get sent flying backwards by the recoil.
      • Brain worms, which eat magic and minds alike
      • Glass eyes (replacing floating eyes), which vitrify victims to make them fragile as glass.
      • Formless jellyfish, which constrict and sting for single-turn paralysis.
      • Arcanists, a kind of fairly dangerous vitrifying wizard.
      • Crocodiles, which drag victims backward.
    • Alligators and reapers are now somewhat weaker, but drag victims backward.
    • Ufetubi and tengu warriors now slip behind their foe before meleeing.
    • Tengu reavers now have rMsl.
    • ‘Wizard’ has been renamed to ‘occulist’ and is now somewhat stronger.
    • Great orbs of eyes have a new spell set, and are slightly stronger.
    • Deep Elf Elementalists now cast LRD instead of Awaken Earth.
    • Red very ugly things now do direct fire damage instead of sticky flame.
    • Abominations’ speed is no longer randomized. (Did you know it was..?)
    • Behavioral changes:
      • Attacks of opportunity have been reworked. Previously, whenever players moved away from a same-speed-or-faster monster, the monster had a 1/3 chance of launching a free melee attack. Now, they launch such attacks only if they move to follow the player, and there’s a chance for the attack to cost a small amount of their time (so they can fall behind). The old ‘random energy’ effect, causing monsters to have a chance of gaining or losing a small amount of time when moving, has returned specifically when monsters are pursuing the player. Some discussion of the reasoning for these changes: A, B, and C. The last of those describes an experimental ‘hot pursuit’ section which has since been removed, but ‘history’ section remains applicable.
      • Giant monsters can now be ensnared by webs and nets.
      • Jellies can no longer be netted or constricted.
      • Allied undead no longer become angry when damaged.
      • Monsters no longer use up charges when zapping wands.
      • Monsters can no longer use scrolls or potions.
      • Some monsters now have special dialogue after killing the player.
  • Other species changes:
    • At XL 7, Armataurs now gain temporary regeneration when they roll (rampage) toward foes. Their base health has been decreased to compensate.
    • Felids now get an extra life at XL 1, don’t lose XLs on dying, and have somewhat more base health. They no longer have fast movement – see here.
    • Tengu now have inherent Acrobat (+15 EV after moving/waiting) at XL 1, and gain +4 EV at XL7 instead of a 20% EV bonus.
    • Mummies now get their first necromancy enhancer at XL 1, not 3.
    • Vine Stalkers now get regeneration at XL 1, not 4.
    • Djinn now use all magic skills, instead of only Spellcasting. Djinn can only choose to train all magic skills or none. This is pretty similar to how they worked before, but means that e.g. they can now use skill manuals, do elemental staff or pain brand damage, and care about other types of Ashenzari skill curses.
    • Ghouls start with an additional +4 Int, to encourage more variety in playstyles.
    • Formicids can no longer be involuntarily shafted.
  • Items:
    • An old favorite returns: sack of spiders, an XP-charged evoker which webs foes and summons creepy-crawlies. Alternates with boxes of beasts.
    • Changes to ranged weapons:
      • New weapon: orcbow, between a shortbow and an arbalest in strength.
      • Hand crossbows are now hand cannons, alchemically belching smoke and death. (See here for why.)
      • New unrand: Mule, a +7 flaming hand cannon which sometimes knocks the user backwards when fired.
    • Potions of flight replaced with potions of enlightenment, which also give Will+.
    • Scrolls of magic mapping replaced with scrolls of revelation, which also give X-ray vision and sInv for one turn.
    • Quick blades now hit twice for every swing, with a higher attack delay. Gyre & Gimble hits four times.
    • Artefact staves can now enhance other schools of magic, even those which don’t have corresponding base enhancer staff types.
    • The dreamshard necklace now has Acrobat, but only restores the player to 1 HP when they’d otherwise die, rather than healing 50-100% of their max HP.
    • To simplify, shields no longer degrade in effectiveness with each hit taken per-turn. Instead, they now have a limit on per-turn blocks, based on shield type – bucklers give 2, kites give 3, towers give 4.
  • Spells:
    • New: Brom’s Barrelling Boulder (L4 Earth/Conj). Creates a boulder, which crushed and knocks back foes until it’s broken or it hits a wall. (In the latter case, it explodes!)
    • Arcjolt now initially arcs to foes within two tiles of the caster.
    • Static Discharge now does more damage, but checks half AC instead of none.
    • Borgnjor’s Vile Clutch (and Fastroot) now work on invisible enemies, but the former now does less damage.
    • Hailstorm does more damage at low power and less at high power.
    • Swiftness now works in water. (Did you know it didn’t?)
  • Other Notes:
    • The Slime Pits now have many possible endings, instead of one fixed pre-designed one. Many thanks to long-time contributor nicolae for his work on this one!
    • Monsters with unusual items (e.g. distortion) are now highlit in purple by default.
    • Okawaru now gives exactly one weapon gift and one armour gift as a capstone (chosen by the player), rather than giving many random gifts.
    • Nemelex’s Cloud, Elements and Swarm cards have been changed to scale more appropriately with power.
    • The Ecumenical Temple is now fully mapped on entry. This saves time for some of the really big temples, and also lets us add really silly stuff like a labyrinth-themed temple. Not that we’d ever actually add one of those, of course…

Many thanks also to Sastreii and CanOfWorms for contributing many new tiles over this period, including spell icons, artefact art, cat dragons, and more. In particular, thanks to CanOfWorms for commissioning this lovely new splash screen.

Thanks also to all the community members who’ve contributed over the last year, who I am too tired to credit in full. Crawl wouldn’t be Stone Soup without you.

Happy crawling, and happy holidays!