Hello, Crawlers! This is meant to be the first of many posts updating you on recent changes to trunk, much as has been done with the blog in the past.

Without further ado, here are some things you may not have seen yet, relative to the last time an update was posted here (which was a while ago, so some things here may not exactly be news):

  • The lower half of the Dungeon from D:16 onwards is a new dungeon branch, the Depths – six levels long and containing the entrance to the Realm of Zot.
  • The Depths (and D:15-) do not require a rune to enter; instead, Vaults requires a rune to enter.
  • Two new races to play with: Formicids, an ant-like people with innate stasis and the ability to dig through walls and shafts in the floor, and Vine Stalkers, a plant-like parasite on a humanoid host who regenerates quickly, cannot heal through wands or potions, and possess an innate spirit shield effect and an anti-magic bite.
  • A new deity: Dithmengos the Shadowed, granting a number of shadow-themed abilities.
  • Ziggurats no longer charge gold for entry, but require three runes to enter.
  • New uniques: Asterion, a minotaur of Makhleb; Natasha, the ex-familiar of a powerful wizard with some magic of her own; and Vashnia, the leader of an elite squad of naga sharpshooters.
  • Many, many new regular enemies, especially in the Lair branches and Pandemonium.

The relatively infrequently-updated changelog contains more details on many of these, and can always be found by way of Gitorious at http://gitorious.org/crawl/crawl/blobs/master/crawl-ref/docs/changelog.txt.

Not everything that’s tested in trunk will end up in a stable release, so be sure to enjoy things while they last! You can play trunk online, or download a local build of trunk from here.

Happy Crawling!