| 1 | [[quoteright:350:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/qud1.png]] |
| 2 | |
| 3 | ->"Who inhabits the colossal desert freehold of Nanru? The Gathered Men.\ |
| 4 | The fiefdoms of Odrum? The Kneeling Men.\ |
| 5 | The jungles of Yyp? The Breathless Men.\ |
| 6 | And the rust-caves of Qud? The Screaming Men." |
| 7 | -->--'''Dromad Travelogue''' |
| 8 | |
| 9 | ''Caves of Qud'' is a post-apocalyptic ScienceFantasy {{roguelike}} game developed by Freehold Games, heavily influenced by ''[[VideoGame/AncientDomainsOfMystery ADOM]]'' and the ''TabletopGame/GammaWorld'' RPG. Set on a future world many centuries after an [[UnspecifiedApocalypse undefined]] [[AfterTheEnd apocalypse]], the game places you in the titular region of Qud, a jungle-like area bordered by a desert of salt and large mountain ranges, and boasting a large number of ancient ruins. This realm is actually a [[DeathWorld terrible place to live]], but still attracts many adventurers due to the abundance of LostTechnology within its borders, particularly within its vast [[BeneathTheEarth cavern systems]]. However, things may be taking a turn for the (even) worse, as signs of an ancient evil begin to emerge from the dark and forgotten [[TitleDrop Caves of Qud]]... |
| 10 | |
| 11 | The game is still in active development, has been released available on Steam Early Access in 2015, which can be played [[http://store.steampowered.com/app/333640/ here.]] |
| 12 | ---- |
| 13 | !!The game provides examples of: |
| 14 | * AchievementMockery: In the Steam version of the game, there are many achievements that you can only earn by killing yourself with weird and unique methods, like getting annihilated from the explosion of [[HairTriggerExplosive Neutron Flux]]. |
| 15 | * AdvancedAncientAcropolis: If you're a True Kin, you get to pick one of these as your point of origin. |
| 16 | * AfterTheEnd: A thousand years after the end, to be precise. |
| 17 | * AIIsACrapshoot: You're an unknown quantity to most pre-existing robots, so most of them won't like you. Your best chance at changing that is getting in the good graces of the [[TheFairFolk Naphtaali tribe]], and then sharing oil with their [[MachineWorship chrome idols]]. |
| 18 | * AllianceMeter: The player has reputation values with every faction in the game, which will determine whether they attack you on sight or not. Particular factions like or dislike each other. For instance, Hermits and Albino Apes start neutral to the player but will fight to the death if nearby. |
| 19 | ** Named {{Non Player Character}}s have their own individual reputations, visible when using the Look command. Performing the Water Ritual with them will improve your relation with friendly factions and reduce it with enemies. The opposite is true if you kill them. |
| 20 | *** Since individual reputations are randomly generated, you can sometimes get into a situation where the Head Watervine Farmer in Joppa is immediately mobbed and slain by the other farmers, for anything from eating their young to [[ArsonMurderAndJaywalking winning at dice too much]]. |
| 21 | ** Be warned that if you kill an NPC after performing the Water Ritual with them, you will be labeled an Oathbreaker and lose reputation with every faction in the game. |
| 22 | * AlternateCalendar: A year is 365 days (implying that Qud might be on [[FictionalEarth Earth]]), but there are ''thirteen'' months on the calendar; the five days in the middle of the year are lobbed off into their own month, called "Ut yara Ux", so the other twelve months can have 30 days each. Months before Ut yara Ux end in "Ut", while months after Ut yara Ux end in "Ux". |
| 23 | ** The current year isn't shown anywhere, but all of your characters start in the year 1001 AR. The year 1 AR was when Resheph dissolved the Sultanate, and all years prior are labelled "BR" (before Resheph [did that]). |
| 24 | *** Books tend to use different era markers, such as PP ("prior [to] publication") or YK (possibly "year [of] Kasaphescence", as it's only used by Mechanimists). |
| 25 | * AlwaysChaoticEvil: Interestingly defied. Many monsters are naturally aggressive in attitude, and many factions start with such a low opinion of the player that even their docile members will attack you on sight... but it's possible (if in some cases requiring a ''lot'' of RNG love) to make these monsters non-hostile by interacting with enough legendary monsters and/or using enough Schrodinger pages. |
| 26 | * AmbiguouslyHuman: An in-universe book, "The Artless Beauty", suggests that "apple farmer's daughters" are not actually the daughters of apple farmers, but an InhumanlyBeautifulRace whose fondness for starapples leads them to hang around and help with apple orchards. |
| 27 | * AmmunitionBackpack: When equipped, flamethrowers occupy not only your ranged weapon slots, but also your back slot. |
| 28 | * AmmoUsingMeleeWeapon: Gaslight weapons, vibroblades, nanopneumatic jackhammers, and all weapons with freezing/flaming/electric mods require an energy cell to function as anything more than a dull club. |
| 29 | * AntiFrustrationFeatures: |
| 30 | ** In earlier versions of the game, the merchants at Grit Gate and the Six Day Stilt would regularly go to sleep, preventing you from trading with them until they wake up (many hundreds of turns later). Now? Well, they ''still'' go to sleep... but the devs have implemented a new command to (w)ake them so you don't have to wait. |
| 31 | ** Character creation is intricate, and it would be a pain to remember what combination of attributes, class, and mutations you selected for a favorite build. Luckily, every character build can not only be saved and reused, but also comes with a code that you can share with other players who want to try your build! |
| 32 | ** The Corrosive Gas mutation ''used'' to destroy items on the floor (denying you any spoils from a fight), until the developers realized players hated this and therefore almost no one picked the mutation. Now Corrosive Gas attacks enemies and walls, but doesn't touch your floor loot. |
| 33 | ** Like in most roguelikes, dying means you [[{{Permadeath}} lose your character]] and have to restart with a new character... unless you pick the option in character creation to disable permadeath. In that case you get unlimited retries using settlements as checkpoints. |
| 34 | * AntiGravityClothing: One of the player's equipment slots is "Floating Nearby". This can be anything from a floating glowsphere to a hoversled to a Spindle artifact. |
| 35 | * AntiMagic: Referred to as being "astrally burdened"; the most common source of it is normality gas, though others exist. This effect will block many of the most popular mental mutations. Notably, it also works against high-tier technologies that are [[ClarkesThirdLaw particularly spacetime-defying]]. |
| 36 | * AnyoneCanDie: Most of the named townspeople are much tougher than a starter character... but still mortal. Averted, however, with certain Barathrumites who are quest dispensers for the main questline, as letting ''them'' die would brick your progress. |
| 37 | * ArmorIsUseless: [[ZigZaggedTrope Zig-zagged]]. Armor increases survivability against mundane attacks by providing Armor Value (AV), while Strength goes against this by providing extra Penetration Value (PV). Due to how "penetration rolls" work if an attack connects, you need a ''lot'' more AV than your foe's PV bonus to reliably no-sell attacks, but being under-armored will result in you taking ''far'' more damage than your foe's damage dice would suggest. On the other hand, the PV benefit from Strength is capped depending on what kind of weapon you're using (making weapons of lower-grade materials less effective against armor made of better stuff), and the damage dice on weapons are generally [[ScratchDamage rather small]]. |
| 38 | * ArmorPiercingAttack: The Cleave ability, used with Axes, damages the target's AV if successful. |
| 39 | ** There are also weapons and weapon-mods that largely blow off defenses, such as [[StuffBlowingUp explosives]]. "Vibro" weapons, in particular, always set their PV to match the target's AV. |
| 40 | * ArtifactOfDoom: The Amaranthine Prism, which causes people who possess it to become obsessed with it. If you equip it at the end of the questline where you're sent to retrieve it, you'll never be able to remove it, and it will steadily amplify your Ego further and further while lowering your Willpower... until eventually [[spoiler:your willpower hits zero and you die.]] Going by the in-game texts about it, it's the key to a SealedEvilInACan named Ptoh, though there doesn't seem to be any way to interact with it beyond that. Highly Entropic Beings seem to actively ''want'' it used, too, because if you try to play it safe and equip it only in a cancelled Precognition you'll ''feel'' their disappointment. |
| 41 | * {{Autocannibalism}}: When you get dismembered by enemy attacks, you can choose to eat your own severed limb. If you have the Dismember ability, you can intentionally dismember yourself with your axe for eating your own limbs! It might even be worth it if you have the Regeneration mutation to bring the limb back in a few days. |
| 42 | * AwakeningTheSleepingGiant: Saad Amus, the Sky-Bear, is an Eater who was so awesome that his kin put him in cryostasis and tried cloning him. Some say he even brought down Ptoh, a [[TheGhost fortunately-unseen]] being who can fold space-time down to the subatomic level, imprisoning him somewhere in Qud. Thawing him out is not recommended, unless you want his [[JetPack jetpack]]. |
| 43 | * AwesomeButImpractical: The Syzygyrior is a [[DualWielding dual-wielding]] melee Caste, more likely than not to [[YouHaveResearchedBreathing remember to use their off-hand in battle]]. This sounds amazing, and it is on paper, but it runs into problems in ''most'' cases; one of your hands is going to need to hold a torch in the dark, after all, if you didn't take [[NightVisionGoggles Night Vision]] during character-creation. This also comes up for the Praetorian, whose off-hand would rather carry their [[ShieldBash shield]] than a torch. |
| 44 | * BadassBookworm: The game lets you be this in a roundabout way, as you can turn in any books you loot to the Six Day Stilt's librarian for bonus XP. This can not only help you level quickly (and skyrocket in badassness), but unlike killing enemies, the XP for books does ''not'' decrease as you level. This leads to many late-game characters valuing ''plain old books'' above almost any other form of treasure. |
| 45 | * BanditMook: The second floor of the Tomb of the Eaters has strip flies, robots who will steal items from you [[ForTheEvulz just to drop them down chutes to the first floor]]. The setting and their name suggest that they're meant to strip bodies slated for cremation; their behavior suggests that they're just [[AIIsACrapshoot jerks]]. |
| 46 | * BarrierWarrior: Two mutations involve force fields - one generates a protective bubble around you, while the other simply allows you to make a force field wall anywhere in view. Force field bracelets also exist. |
| 47 | * BazaarOfTheBizarre: The Six Day Stilt, being a holy site for Qud's most prominent religion, is surrounded by tents and merchants of all shapes and sizes. It's the largest collection of shops in the game, and the only place guaranteed to sell a Spray Bottle, an artifact essential for curing fungal infections. The inhabitants are varied as well, including things like [[RockMonster Bouldermensch]] and Mimics as pilgrims looking to pray and trade. |
| 48 | * BearsAreBadNews: |
| 49 | ** Bears can show up as early as Red Rock, and can be lethal for players who only have a level or two under their belt. |
| 50 | ** The trope keeps going when you meet the Urshiib (sentient mutant bears), who run the second town most players visit. Not only are they located ''at the bottom of yet another dungeon'', but they insist that you complete a FetchQuest in a very dangerous location before they'll allow you full access to their enclave. You do get partial access, however, which still allows you to trade with a trader there. |
| 51 | ** You think normal bears are bad? Meet the slumberling: It's a bear crossed with puma. It's extremely tough, can do massive damage, ''can spawn in the first dungeon''. The AI code also is quite...crazy in that it will exclusively target your character ''even if it's been awakened/attacked by other hostile enemies''. Fortunately they are asleep most of the time, and if you evade their pursuit long enough they'll go back to sleep. |
| 52 | * BeastFolk: |
| 53 | ** Many residents of Qud. Dromads and snapjaws are the ones players will encounter most frequently, but albino apes and (also albino) mutant quilled bears are also prominent. |
| 54 | ** Players who invest heavily in physical mutations can end with a character like this. |
| 55 | * BeneathTheEarth: The titular Caves of Qud are host to astounding treasures and terrors. Non-story dungeons allow you to descend until you hit lava floes, and you can cross the game world entirely underground if you wanted to. |
| 56 | * BerserkButton: Warden Indrix of Kyakukya village, a pariah of the goatfolk species, utterly despises being reminded of his separation from his people. If you so much as ''mention'' the word "pariah" to him, you will get exactly one warning before he attacks you. |
| 57 | * {{BFG}}: There are huge guns like the Missile Launcher or Blast Cannon, and they hit much harder than other guns. However, they are cumbersome to wield, so without the Tank skill you will suffer movement penalty. |
| 58 | * BlessedWithSuck: Most of the mutations have no drawbacks, but a few do, and they can cause you a lot of grief if you're not paying attention. Woe unto the player who too casually uses Disintegration (which paralyzes you for a few rounds as part of its "cooldown"), or uses the clone-creating Temporal Fugue [[TooDumbToLive while also having an area-effect attack]], or picks the Nomad class (whose biggest perk is a free recycling suit) after taking a mutation that disables body armor... |
| 59 | * BlingBlingBang: Weapons and other items can be spawned with modifiers like Painted, Engraved, or Jewel-encrusted. Those modifiers make the item more expensive. |
| 60 | * BodySurf: Espers can do this, but it's very tricky: [[spoiler: They must dominate someone first, then dominate themselves, and once the domination in their future body wears off, they end it on their old body, transferring their mind to their victim's body. Even the Psychic assassins aren't immune to this.]] |
| 61 | * BoringButPractical: All those copper/silver/gold nuggets you see in merchant inventories? Those aren't just junk, they're a much lighter way of carrying your wealth than what they're worth in [[PracticalCurrency water]]. Also qualifying is the basic tinkering recipe for making ''lead slugs'' for your guns. |
| 62 | * BraggingRightsReward: On defeating a Chrome Pyramid, the strongest enemy in the game, it will sometimes drop its Swarm Rack, a weapon that fires eight rockets per shot and requires no ammo... and also weighs 1500 pounds. But anyone who can both beat a Chrome Pyramid and carry a Swarm Rack doesn't really need it. |
| 63 | * BreakableWeapons: Most of your weapons are vulnerable to rusting and/or breakage. They can be fixed with Fix-it Spray Foam or by asking a Tinker to repair it. |
| 64 | * BreakThemByTalking: Using the Berate skill can shame the foe, and it makes them more vulnerable from your attacks for awhile. |
| 65 | * TheCaligula: |
| 66 | ** The procedurally generated Sultans tend to be... ''eccentric''. They all have themes, obsessions that run through their lives, and often conquer cities and commit massacres for reasons related to that obsession. |
| 67 | ** Even [[MessianicArchetype Resheph]] wasn't immune to this: he always kept some stardust on his person after finding some in the rust wells, and he was crowned sultan of Qud after invading Omonporch... rebelling against a ban on ''the worship of the stars''. Though, considering that it was evidently "star beings" who cursed Qud by reason of the acts of the elder Sultans, he may have had a point... |
| 68 | ** Though, considering the {{Future Imperfect}} nature of [[spoiler: the engravings made based upon ''your'' memories]], the actual extremity of the Sultans may not be as clear as it seems. |
| 69 | * ChainLightning: Electric melee weapons produce electric discharge when they hit enemies, and said electric discharge can harm nearby enemies too. The Electrical Generation mutation works similarly, with the chain growing longer the more charge you have on use. |
| 70 | * ChairmanOfTheBrawl: Metal folding chairs can have weapon mods, in case you want to try swinging one around without feeling ''too'' silly. Even an unmodified chair will do more damage on average than your [[EmergencyWeapon fists]], though it'll be outdone by most actual weapons. |
| 71 | * ChameleonCamouflage: Giant chameleons, naturally. They change their color scheme to match adjacent tiles. |
| 72 | * ClarkesThirdLaw: [[DeconstructedTrope Deconstructed.]] Particularly reality-warping technologies (such as {{Teleportation}}) are as liable to be shut down by [[AntiMagic normality effects]] as similar effects from PsychicPowers. |
| 73 | * ClassicCheatCode: The game has a "Wish" command (for debugging purposes), and you can earn basically anything by wishing. You can also wish things like [[PressXToDie decapitating yourself]]. |
| 74 | * CloudCuckooLander: Qud's white books have text that is randomly generated every game (via Markov chains, with most of the sentence fragments and proper nouns coming from other parts of the game). The resulting prose is... very reminiscent of this trope. [[spoiler: Two of these books have clues buried in their text that lead to the location of the Ruin Of House Isner artifact pistol.]] |
| 75 | * CommonplaceRare: A Taco Suprema is an ungodly valuable item, with prices far beyond most legendary high-tech artifacts from lost civilizations. |
| 76 | ** Even more valuable is the "mental aggregator", a TinfoilHat of greater rarity and value-density than a helmet made of leftover material from the creation of the universe. |
| 77 | ** Metal folding chairs are ''not'' valuable, but they're still complex enough to require identification, and can thus be turned into Argyve when he asks for a "knickknack". See PoweredArmor below for more details. |
| 78 | * ConvectionSchmonvection: Lava is a very dangerous liquid, and you will indeed suffer (by having your temperature raised to an absurd degree) if you step on a lava pool. But you can stay on a tile ''next'' to lava until you starve and your temperature will be just fine. |
| 79 | * CoolChair: The most exclusive cybernetics are four floating thrones that each massively increase your mobility, stamina, and Ego, with each one having its own unique power when activated. [[spoiler: The downside is that once you sit in one, you'll never stand again.]] |
| 80 | * CoolKey: One category of artifact are the colored key cards that can unlock doors of the same color or lower ranked colors, with purple being the highest rank (military), red being the lowest rank (laborer). The cards are rainbow ordered, just like {{TabletopGame/Paranoia}}. Unfortunately for looters, keycards of ''any'' color tend to be rare and expensive as artifacts go. The {{psychometry}} mutation bypasses the need for these Keycards, as you simply use your biological item scan to help the door "Remember" its passcode. |
| 81 | * CoolOldGuy: By the time [[MessianicArchetype Resheph]] died, he was 216 years old; and not even a decade earlier, he was healing the sick and fighting off the Girsh. |
| 82 | * CrapsackWorld: Even centuries after the apocalypse, most of Qud is still a ruined, barbarism-ridden, monster-infested, and sometimes radioactive DeathWorld with only the most isolated pockets of "civilization". Better yet, you have but to finish the first quest before you receive a big warning that it's about to [[FromBadToWorse get even worse]]... |
| 83 | * CursedWithAwesome: Amphibiousness is considered a physical defect in that you have to keep your skin moist instead of drinking, resulting in you using two-thirds more of your [[PracticalCurrency water]] for [[CurrencyCuisine immediate survival purposes]]. On the other hand, it gives you additional Mutation Points during character creation, and it makes Glotrot (a disease that destroys your tongue) less of a death sentence by letting you circumvent your throat. |
| 84 | * CyberSpace: Referred to as the "Thin World", to contrast with the "Thick World", a.k.a. reality. |
| 85 | * TheDarkArts: One in-game book discusses the Dark ''Calculus,'' a branch of mathematics with some disquieting implications about ''[[ExistentialHorror the nature of consciousness itself.]]'' Even ''[[EldritchAbomination Ptoh]]'' agreed to leave them alone, though he indicated his agreement by ''destroying an entire research station.'' |
| 86 | * DashAttack: The Charge ability allows the player to dash forward and hit the enemy. Certain skills add various additional effect to this attack. |
| 87 | * DeathGlare: Using abilities like Menacing Stare or Intimidate can scare hostile creatures and make them run away. It's more effective when you have high Ego. |
| 88 | * DevelopersForesight: Perhaps not yet to the level of ''VideoGame/NetHack'', but the game already features such things as being able to douse yourself with your own canteen if you're on fire, or use an enemy's acid spamming to breach a wall. |
| 89 | ** The Spinnerets mutation allows you to spin webs. If you take the Phasing mutation as well (which allows you to phase out of reality), then activating your spinnerets will produce phase webs instead of normal ones, trapping anyone who is caught in them outside of reality until they escape. |
| 90 | ** You can use the Kindle mutation to light webs on fire. If you do it with the aforementioned Phase Webs, the fire will be phased out and will only burn other phased-out things. |
| 91 | ** The Bloated Pearlfrog has an attack that uses its tongue to draw in anything unlucky enough to be near it. If it uses that attack on anything coated in black ooze, a substance that causes one of two diseases if consumed, it will start to contract one of those sicknesses. |
| 92 | * DialogueTree: One feature that helps COQ stand out among roguelikes. |
| 93 | * DisadvantageousDisintegration: |
| 94 | ** While the actual Disintegrate power leaves the enemy's gear behind, it will destroy anything that was already the floor, which makes it hard to use it without obliterating some of your potential loot. |
| 95 | ** Pyrokinesis and Cryokinesis create damage fields which will destroy the stuff your enemy drops; Pyrokinesis (and other fire-related powers) have the added problem that they'll increase the temperature in the area, which can make stuff spontaneously combust and can start fires that spread over the entire level. |
| 96 | ** And all of this gets worse if you use Temporal Fugue to create duplicates of yourself while you have them or recruit an enemy with these powers, since your allies are completely careless about destroying potential loot. |
| 97 | * DisasterDemocracy: The Fellowship of Wardens is one of these, viewing itself as a nation and deciding major policy with an annual vote. Once, twelve Wardens influenced by the Barathrumite [[BornInTheWrongCentury Q Girl]] proposed that the Fellowship should only send Wardens to "democratic" (or democratically non-democratic) communities, and that the rest should be abandoned. This proposal was democratically rejected, but another proposal to banish the group as Q Girl's "treasonous chattel" was also rejected democratically.[[note]]It should be noted that the Barathrumites are isolationist to the point of even shooing off the Wardens, and that the Wardens only abandon those who are good-as-dead.[[/note]] |
| 98 | * DisasterScavengers: The player character, by default. The elder of Joppa ''used'' to be like this, but now sees himself as too old to risk his life plundering Qud's chrome caverns. (He encourages you to go right ahead, though!) |
| 99 | * DiscOneNuke: Several are possible, as it is a roguelike. |
| 100 | ** Finding a Carbine or [=ElectroBow=] will allow trivial resolution to encounters in the salt marshes, provided you have ammunition. You might even be able to tinker one early. |
| 101 | ** Finding a Giant Weep of any beneficial, reasonably-transportable liquid (honey, oil, and wine are the obvious ones) near Joppa, giving you effectively infinite amounts of liquid to trade for equipment and medicine. Just watch out for the infectious Goldpuffs that are often nearby. |
| 102 | ** Certain castes of True Kin start with randomized weapons and artifacts, which (if the RNG smiles) can include things like gaslight flyssas and overloaded energy weapons. |
| 103 | * DoNotGoGentle: The philosophy that motivates the Putus Templar. Mutated Humans are seen as humanity's "Murmurs", beings who have quietly surrendered to better-handle the world; which might have been true at one point, [[spoiler:given how the Eaters started using mutation-inducing drugs such as brain brine after they lost space travel]], but it doesn't make the Templar any less evil. |
| 104 | * DoNotRunWithAGun: Good advice if you've invested in the Bow And Rifle skill branch, as passing a turn lets you "aim" and gain a to-hit bonus. More advanced skills along the branch allow you to execute special attacks with your rifle if you're aiming. On the other hand, the Pistols tree contains a skill that specifically removes the accuracy penalty for firing while sprinting. |
| 105 | * DownloadableContent: If you support the development of the game in Patreon, you can receive special codes that give you exclusive pets. |
| 106 | * DualWielding: Getting various skills in Dual Wield skill tree makes you good at using two weapons at once. The Flurry active skill in that tree also allows you to make attacks with all your limbs at once, which is useful with two arms and terrifying with four or more. |
| 107 | * DugTooDeep: While the deeper layers of the underground often have rarer treasures, if you go into the deepest caverns, there is a chance that you will encounter extremely deadly enemies like the Chrome Pyramid. |
| 108 | * DumpStat: Character creation uses a point system, and -- like many such systems -- there'll probably end up being at least one attribute that doesn't play a massive role in your particular character build. Ego in particular is used in the places most games use Charisma (shop prices, recruiting allies), which is less essential for many builds; Intelligence is needed for skills like tinkering and contributes to your skill points, but even without it you will have enough for basic competence. Additionally, there are weapons whose accuracy doesn't depend on Strength (especially ranged ones), which turns Strength into a complete dump stat for certain builds. |
| 109 | * DungeonBypass: |
| 110 | ** There's a waterlogged tunnel connecting the bottom of Red Rock to Joppa, allowing you to skip all of Red Rock to reach its boss. [[RidiculouslyDifficultRoute This route is significantly tougher than Red Rock]], but it does have some high-end loot, including an item that increases your carrying capacity by having ''[[InsaneTrollLogic negative]]'' weight. |
| 111 | ** Golgotha is normally a maze full of deathtraps, slime, and absurd quantities of [[TheSwarm vent crabs]]. However, breaching the bunker on the surface lets you access an elevator shaft that leads directly to the bottom floor. Surviving the fall is another story, but possible with a Rubbergum Injector and over 100 hit points. Having some form of flight also allows you to just flap your way down the shaft, level by level. Just, uh, make sure your flight is good enough to avoid fumbling mid-descent... |
| 112 | ** More generally, spiral borers are one-use artifacts that will create stairways for several levels down on your current tile. They're nice for skipping to the final floors of Historical Sites (where the guaranteed relic is) or just taking an express route to the deep underground where the ''good'' loot starts spawning. |
| 113 | * EasyExp: Looting the homes in Joppa. Did you find any artifacts? You can turn them into Argyve for his first couple of [[FetchQuest quests]] and make level 2 before you've even left the village. |
| 114 | * EldritchAbomination: Many, but notable among them is Ptoh, the Spacefolder, who originates from a "darkling star," can fold space with his mind and did something so awful that the Coven decided to imprison him on Qud. Even now, still sealed away, Ptoh's influence guides the Seekers of the Sightless Way, a cult of psychopathic Espers. |
| 115 | * ElementalCrafting: Melee weapons and armor can be made of bronze, iron, steel, carbide, ''folded'' carbide, fullerite, crysteel, ''flawless'' crysteel, zetachrome... |
| 116 | * ElementalWeapon: [[FireIceLightning Flaming, Freezing and Electrified]] are weapon modifications that add extra damage on your melee weapon. |
| 117 | * {{EMP}}: Some of the weapons and mutations are based around EMP attacks. |
| 118 | * EnemyScan: You actually get some of this functionality for free, as you can see a monster's equipment and how relatively tough they are by simply (l)ooking at them. Having the right gear equipped will let you learn even more about them. |
| 119 | * EnergyBow: The Electrobow. Highly useful early on due to its high penetration, especially if you have solar or fidget cells, which will grant it effectively limitless ammo. Other energy weapons will supplant it later, however. |
| 120 | * EnergyWeapon: The Light Manipulation mutation allows you to use your passive light emitting to fire laser beams as an attack. |
| 121 | * EveryoneHasStandards: Killing someone who is water-bonded with you is universally considered a moral event horizon in Qud, and doing it will cost you a large amount of reputation with every single faction in the game. Animals, murderbots, intelligent plants, predatory goatfolk villages, Sultan cults, demonic girshlings, newly-sentient beings, flowers, pariahs who are already hated by everyone, malfunctioning hyper-sentient (and immobile) baetyls, the frigging [[ANaziByAnyOtherName Putus Templar]] - somehow ''all'' of them agree that water-bond breakers are the scum of Qud. |
| 122 | * EverythingBreaks: You can destroy the walls, furniture, trees, and most everything else in Qud if you have a weapon that can penetrate their toughness. In fact, one of the best uses of the burrowing claws mutation is ''not'' combat, but simply to dig yourself a DungeonBypass when needed. Mutants who overuse the Pyrokinesis mutation in combination with Temporal Fugue (cloning yourself) or high-level Mass Mind (rapidly resetting its cooldown) can take this a step further by discovering that the game's temperature system means that repeated applications of searing fire can eventually ''burn stone'', melting it with such heat that it can rapidly spread and destroy the entire level. |
| 123 | * EverythingTryingToKillYou: Some of Qud's plant life is just as obnoxious as any of its animals. The qudzu eats your equipment, the young ivory pop out of nowhere to slap you with massive bleeding, the jilted lover plants hold you in place (while eating you, of course), the seed-hurling plants have a better range than your line of sight... and all of those things can be found in the starter regions of Qud. |
| 124 | ** The Spray-A-Brain item turns any inanimate object into an intelligent creature that will try to kill you if you aren't liked by the Newly-Sentient Beings faction. |
| 125 | * TheExile: Pariahs are the people who were exiled from their own faction. [[OurCentaursAreDifferent Hindrens]] outside Bey Lah are always Pariahs, because their culture forbids them to leave the village (on pain of never being allowed to return). |
| 126 | * ExpospeakGag: |
| 127 | ** The Gaslight Flyssa. A flyssa is a type of saber, and gaslight is just a way of producing light. In other words, it's a [[LaserBlade lightsaber]]. |
| 128 | ** There's also the Linear Cannon. Things that are particularly straight, such as rails, are referred to as linear. In terms of naval weapons, "cannon" and "gun" are (somewhat) interchangeable. In other words, [[MagneticWeapons a railgun]]. |
| 129 | * {{Expy}}: The Putus Templar sound and behave like the Knights of Genetic Purity in ''TabletopGame/GammaWorld''. If you're a mutant, they will attack you on sight. If you ''aren't'' a mutant... they're still pretty skeptical of you for hanging around mutants so casually and having been exposed to Qud solo, and it doesn't take a whole heck of a lot to get on their shit list. [[spoiler:Proceeding through the main quest without doing anything to boost your Templar rep will absolutely get True Kin player characters to hostile with the Templars.]] |
| 130 | * FallingDamage: Most shafts in the game are safe to enter, but particularly deep shafts will hurt. Fortunately the game will warn you before you jump. Can be mitigated with Rubbergum Injectors which make your skin bouncy. |
| 131 | * FamousFamousFictional: The in-game book ''On the Origins and Nature of the Dark Calculus'' lists advancements made by mathematicians such as "Russel, Godel, Eisencruft, Atufu, Wheatgrass, and System Star", who gave us advancements like "undecidability, pointed regularism, and abyssalism". |
| 132 | * FantasticLightSource: The glowsphere and particularly the floating glowsphere. The latter is especially prized not only because it's expensive, but provides light without taking up one of your hands. |
| 133 | * FantasticRacism: |
| 134 | ** There are various intelligent plants and fungi in the game, and the two groups hate each other fiercely. The player can run afoul of this if they show up in Kyakukya with too many fungal infections, causing the Cucumber Vine merchant to try to kill them. |
| 135 | ** The Putus Templar in a nutshell. They're a radical faction of True Kins, and they want to exterminate everyone who is not a pure, unmutated human. And even "being exposed to Qud outside of sanctioned Templar missions" is enough to get fellow Kin (like, say, the player character) the side-eye from them. |
| 136 | * FantasyCounterpartCulture: |
| 137 | ** Qud has a number of elements from Middle Eastern culture. The Eaters who inhabited Qud ("Quds" in Arabic means "holy") before the cataclysm called their rulers Sultans, creatures that resemble humanoid camels are the most common merchants, the Six Day Stilt (itself already somewhat reminiscent of a Middle Eastern bazaar) has tents for people to smoke hookahs, and the term "Saad" (Arabic for "prosperity" or "success") is used as an honorific for certain prominent individuals. |
| 138 | ** A lot of the nomenclature is sourced from early Semitic culture, as well: [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Resheph Resheph]] was a god in the same Semitic pantheon that gave rise to Yahweh, and Qudshu (which is extremely similar to "qudzu", the rusting plant) is a variant name for the deity usually identified as [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qetesh Qetesh]] today. And of course, Resheph as depicted in ''[=CoQ=]'' has a massive number of similarities to Jesus Of Nazareth. |
| 139 | * FaunsAndSatyrs: Goatfolks are humanoid creatures that have huge horns, and they live in the jungle of Qud. |
| 140 | * FesteringFungus: Watch out if your character develops itchy skin. You will soon develop one of several varieties of fungal growth that takes over one of your body parts. |
| 141 | * FetchQuest: |
| 142 | ** The quest dispensers of the random villages (and Argyve of Joppa) often give you a "Travel to X and come back with the Y" style task. |
| 143 | ** Sparking Baetyls will demand a random item and quantity. These can be anything from a dozen extremely rare security cards to a pair of leather boots to a pile of pig corpses. The rewards for doing so are always extremely powerful, such as artifacts and extra mutation points. |
| 144 | * FissionMailed: In the Tomb of the Eaters, [[spoiler:you must enter Brightsheol, but the only way to do that is to lay in Resheph's sarcophagus and ''[[DeathIsTheOnlyOption die]]''. If you do this, the game will indeed tell you that you died and even present a standard death screen with your score... but a brief InterfaceScrew places you in Brightsheol, and your quest continues.]] |
| 145 | * FlashOfPain: A useful part of the interface is the way your (or a monster's) symbol will briefly change after an attack, letting you know whether the attack hit, hit but failed to penetrate armor, or just missed completely. |
| 146 | * FluffyTheTerrible: The Rainbow Woods. The name sounds like a pleasant Super Mario level, but it's actually a labyrinthine hell of poisonous mushrooms and primordial ooze that spawns endless quantities of hostile sludge monsters. |
| 147 | * ForbiddenFruit: Putus Templar leaders carry [[spoiler:Eaters' nectar, which provides permanent stat boosts but may instead mutate the "impure".]] None of them are brave enough to try it. |
| 148 | * TheForceIsStrongWithThisOne: [[spoiler:Powerful psychics emit a psychic glimmer that attracts bounty hunters. You can sense them as well and will be warned when one is near.]] |
| 149 | * FriendlyFire: Ranged weapons will damage anything the projectile or explosion hits. One way tinkers die is building turrets that shoot through them to the enemies. This is also a danger with allies and pets who have ranged weapons, including allies generated with the infamous Temporal Fugue power. On the other hand, enemy groups who have guns and grenades can just as easily hit ''their'' own, too. |
| 150 | * FromCataclysmToMyth: The civilization of the Eaters and the reign of the Sultans are long passed, but fragmentary lore from that age remains in various books and the occasional (''very'') long-lived NPC. |
| 151 | * FullBoarAction: Qud has many aggressive swines that can easily murder unprepared adventurers. Fire Snouts can breath fire, [[MultipleHeadCase Two-headed]] boars can bite you twice in one turn, [[SuperSpit Slugsnouts]] spit deadly slugs from their long snout, and there are [[BreadEggsBreadedEggs Two-headed Slugsnouts]] too. |
| 152 | * FunWithAcronyms: The game's abbreviation of "COQ" (aka "cock"). |
| 153 | * FutureImperfect: When [[spoiler: Herododicus scans your memories in order to engrave "Resheph's" (a.k.a. your) tomb]], some of the events end up inaccurate: for example, finding a book is instead interpreted as you writing it. |
| 154 | * FuturePrimitive: The Naphtaali tribe is a faction of aggressive humanoids, and they use primitive weapons like blowguns or clubs. This tribe seems to worship the robots called Chrome Idols, and they wear a mask too like the people of this faction. |
| 155 | * GardenOfEvil: The Rainbow Woods. |
| 156 | * GatlingGood: There are multi-barreled weapons like the Chaingun or Chain Laser, and they have hefty firepower. |
| 157 | * GiantSpider: One category of monster, complete with webs for you to get stuck in. Interestingly, they behave somewhat realistically. They'll generally keep their distance from you and only attack if you get too close or get stuck in a nearby web. |
| 158 | * GodGuise: The baetyls (giant spherical robots that [[AntiMagic stabilize reality around them]]) are a point of schism in the Mechanimist faith, since some of them talk and act like gods. Those around the Six Day Stilt insist that they were made by the Argent Fathers and [[JustIgnoreIt shouldn't be trusted or given things]], but those in [[spoiler:Bethesda Susa]] seem to think they possess the Argent Fathers' spirits. |
| 159 | * GoingNative: Yd Freehold's Warden is the only indisputable True Kin in the settlement of frog-people, and one of only two humans in the entire place. [[note]]There's also Rokhas, the local slug herder, who moved in from the Salt Dunes.[[/note]] He happens to be so thoroughly-modified with cybernetics that [[HeWhoFightsMonsters he spooks even the locals]], needing to hide his BodyHorror under an animal costume. |
| 160 | * TheGoomba: The Snapjaw Scavengers and Snapjaw Hunters are the most common enemies in the areas near Joppa, and they are the weakest enemies in this game. They are armed with the weakest weapons like bronze weapons or shortbows, and any player with decent equipment or attack abilities should be able to kill them quickly. |
| 161 | * GradualRegeneration: The most common healing tonics work by this principle. |
| 162 | * GreenHillZone: The watervine marsh around Joppa, the starting town, is one of the safest areas to explore. The most dangerous thing you're likely to encounter is an occasional crocodile or salthopper (and even a salthopper shouldn't be wholly under-estimated); the Red Rock cave you are pointed to as a starting quest is also usually forced into being pretty tame. (''Usually.'') Everything becomes sharply more dangerous the moment you wander out of the marsh or into a cave that isn't the Red Rock NoobCave. |
| 163 | * GreenThumb: The Burgeoning mutation, which lets you use the horrific plantlife of Qud against your enemies. |
| 164 | * GrimyWater: Purified water may be your currency, but most of the water you'll find in Qud isn't so nice... |
| 165 | ** Liquids can gain (often unpleasant) adjectives when mixed with other liquids. Slimy, Bloody, Lush, Honeyed, Tarred, Putrid, etc. |
| 166 | ** This being said, salt is still tasty and useful for cooking, once you purify it a bit by pouring it out and re-bottling the dilute salt. |
| 167 | * GunsAkimbo: If you have the Akimbo skill, you fire each handgun on your hands at once. |
| 168 | * HackYourEnemy: Every True Kin player can use an exclusive ability, Rebuke Robot. It can pacify robotic enemies. If you have high enough Ego, you can even make them your ally. |
| 169 | * HairTriggerExplosive: Neutron Flux. You can carry it around in whatever container you found it with no problems... but trying to use it as a cooking ingredient with no recipe or even ''pouring it into another container'' will be the last thing your character (and everyone around them) ever does. |
| 170 | * HaveANiceDeath: Your first in-game death earns the achievement "Welcome to Qud". |
| 171 | * HealingFactor: The regeneration mutation, which even allows you to [[OnlyAFleshWound regrow lost limbs]]. |
| 172 | * HeroicDog: Dogs are one of the very few factions that are friendly to you from the start of the game. In the wild, dogs will often assist you in a fight even if they've never met you before. |
| 173 | * HiddenSupplies: The caves, lairs, and ruins of Qud can be surprisingly rich in chests and even whole rooms filled with useful loot. |
| 174 | * HollywoodAcid: Played straight with acid grenades, corrosive gas, and other acid-based hazards. The corrosive gas is available as a player mutation and the grenades are craftable, if you get tired of being on the ''receiving'' end. |
| 175 | * HornedHumanoid: Mutated Human player can have horns as a physical mutation. While having the horns prevents you from wearing headgears, you can use your horns in melee combat and they can protect you from damage after you leveled up this mutation. |
| 176 | * TheHorseshoeEffect: The only factions who deploy [[SlaveryIsASpecialKindOfEvil essentially-enslaved]] beings stolen from other factions are the [[KnightTemplar Putus Templar]], the [[HollywoodSatanism Children of Mamon]], and the [[ReligionOfEvil Seekers of the Sightless Way]]. The Templar is an order of zealous True Kin bent on rebuilding the old world ([[YeGoodeOldeDays or what they remember of it]]) on the backs of everything new, the Children are a fanatical bunch of [[GruesomeGoat goatfolk]] who brainwash their kin to grow their ranks, and the Seekers are [[PsychicPowers Esper]] Mutants who worship an [[TheOldGods ancient enemy of the old world]] and enslave people [[ForTheEvulz because they can]]. The Templar ''despises'' the other two factions, but more for [[FantasticRacism surface-level reasons]] than the slavery bit or conflicting beliefs, while the Children and the Seekers only get along because they [[PiecesOfGod coincidentally idolize the same thing]]. |
| 177 | * HumanPopsicle: Bethesda Susa has several cryonics chambers. Most are broken, but some contain horribly powerful creatures in stasis. You can also find cryonics chambers as rare encounters underground. |
| 178 | * HumansByAnyOtherName: The humans that used to thrive before the apocalypse are called the Eaters. Their still-extant descendants are referred to as True Kin. |
| 179 | * HydraProblem: Twinning Lampreys always come in pairs, and one will instantly copy itself if its partner dies. Both must be killed in the same turn for them to stay dead. |
| 180 | * AnIcePerson: Mutations like the Cryokinesis or Freezing Hands allow characters to attack with ice. |
| 181 | * IDontLikeTheSoundOfThatPlace: The aptly-named "Deathlands", ruins which are infested with very dangerous late-game enemies like Leering Stalkers and Chrome Pyramids. It was even more overt in earlier versions of the game, when the Deathlands were described as "ancient radioactive ruins". |
| 182 | * ImAHumanitarian: |
| 183 | ** If you have the Carnivorous mutation, you can eat raw corpses without much problem, and this includes humanoid corpses. Even when you don't have the mutation, you can still cook meals with severed body parts from human characters. |
| 184 | ** Cannibals are one class of low-level humanoid enemy. |
| 185 | * ImprovisedWeapon: The game will let you attack with any object that you can put in either hand. |
| 186 | * InfinityPlusOneSword: Chiral Rings dismember (or, if you have Axe training, [[OffWithHisHead decapitate]]) anyone close to you without any real effort on your part. They require ''three'' "Floating Nearby" slots, however; you start with one, you get a second for completing the main questline (or what currently exists in it), and a third is bestowed by a Magnetic Core implant. The requirement for the third slot restricts this item to True Kin; Mutants [[LinearWarriorsQuadraticWizards have less of a need for such trinkets]], however. |
| 187 | * InspirationallyDisadvantaged: Downplayed. In Grit Gate, you can meet Sparafucile, a master gunsmith who happens to be mute. One of your dialogue options is to remark how inspiring it is that someone like him managed to become such a legendary tinker. [[ComplimentBackfire Sparafucile is not flattered.]] |
| 188 | * {{Intangibility}}: The Phasing ability allows you to go through solid objects like creatures or walls. |
| 189 | * InterfaceScrew: Eating [[HealingPotion witchwood bark]] may confuse you, shuffling the tiles on the screen every turn, and replacing the names and symbols of everything in your inventory with gobbledygook. |
| 190 | ** Monochrome is an in-game condition caused by a color-draining vampire [[spoiler:bug]], that can resurface and become chronic on its own if you're bitten by one twice in quick succession. It makes everything gray. |
| 191 | ** The [[NightVisionGoggles Night Vision]] Cybernetic replaces all the colors on the screen with green and black, [[GuideDangIt while it's turned on]]. |
| 192 | * IntrepidMerchant: It's possible to encounter random traders while wandering the world map. This is also one of the starting backgrounds available to mutant characters. |
| 193 | * InUniverseGameClock: The game keeps track of (in-game) time. Luckily for players who don't want to be inconvenienced because they stumbled back into town at 2 AM, none of the merchants or quest dispensers ever seem to sleep or close their business, except for... |
| 194 | ** The merchants of the Six Day Stilt will go sleep next to campfires at night, as will the main merchants of Grit Gate, requiring you to wake them up (or just wait) before you can shop with them. The former will even occasionally pack up and be replaced by other merchants. |
| 195 | * InventoryManagementPuzzle: For the Grit Gate (the second dungeon in the main quest), your quest-giver grants you an item that pacifies its [[KillerRobot waydroids]]. When held in the hand, the waydroids will attack the Gate's other intruders ''instead'' of you. The Gate isn't lit, however, so your other hand will have to hold a torch ([[CrazyPrepared unless you accounted for darkness during character-creation, or found a wearable light source later]]). Of course, then there are the creatures in the Grit Gate who will ''still'' try to kill you; [[ItMakesSenseInContext if you don't have an extra pair of arms]], you'll have to either juggle between your droid-pacifier and your weapon, or get liberal with your ammo and your throwables. |
| 196 | * ItemCrafting: An entire branch of the skill tree is dedicated to disassembling the junk and artifacts you find, and reassembling the bits into useful gear. |
| 197 | * JustifiedSavePoint: How the Precognition power works. Players without Precognition can still save their game at any time, but if they die, their save is deleted and they must start over with a new character (as is typical of roguelikes). The Precognition power, when activated, creates a save point that you can revert to while the power is still active (you automatically revert if you die during this time, or you can manually revert if you simply decide you don't like what's happening). |
| 198 | ** For obvious gameplay and programmability reasons, the few NPC's who have and use Precognition [[MyRulesAreNotYourRules don't make saves instead merely receive a full healing effect when they invoke it]]. Not equal but relatively fair compensation. |
| 199 | * KilledOffScreen: If you didn't choose Joppa as the starting point at the start of the game, you will eventually find the ruin of Joppa. [[spoiler: There are the corpse of Argyve and his disk in the destroyed workshop]]. |
| 200 | * KillerGorilla: Orge Apes are aggressive and deadly gorillas. Downplayed for Oboroqoru, Ape God, who won't attack you unless provoked. |
| 201 | * KillerRobot: Another class of enemy, whose threat levels range from weak waydroids all the way to nigh-invulnerable and missile-spamming Chrome Pyramids. |
| 202 | * KingMook: The monster races can spawn uniques and "legendary" variants of their type, both with names and a nice pink color to give you fair warning. |
| 203 | * KleptomaniacHero: You can get away with looting the houses in towns if no one can see you. This is particularly useful in Joppa at the beginning of the game, since the chests can contain guns, tonics, and other useful artifacts for getting your run started. |
| 204 | * KnockoutGas: Gas like Sleep Gas or Stun Gas can incapacitate enemies. Sleeping Gas is especially deadly, because you can deal bonus damage against the sleeping enemies. |
| 205 | * KrakenAndLeviathan: "Salt Krakens" can be found in the desert. They are extremely durable and have very high HP, but their ridiculously heavy corpse is extremely valuable. |
| 206 | * LevelDrain: The Saps are fragile bat-like creatures, but their bite attack drains a small fraction of stats or [[MaximumHPReduction maximum HP]] from you, permanently. |
| 207 | * LevelGrinding: The game makes an effort to avert this (by progressively lowering the XP gain for killing monsters below your level), but grinding in level-appropriate areas is still possible and useful. |
| 208 | * LightEmUp: The Light Manipulation mutation allows you to attack with laser beams of light. This ability [[MundaneUtility also can be used as your light source]]. |
| 209 | * LinearWarriorsQuadraticWizards: The game does this ''twice''; mutants are quadratic compared to True Kin, and psychic-oriented Esper mutants are quadratic even compared to other mutants. |
| 210 | ** For mutants vs. True Kin, mutants get a mutation point every level, which can upgrade their mutations; or they can spend four to gain a totally new mutation. True Kin do have access to cybernetics from the beginning, which are nice (and have gotten steadily better over the game's development cycle), but physical mutations are still more powerful and versatile. |
| 211 | ** For Espers, it's even more extreme. Ego raises the level of all your mental mutations at once, but provides no benefit until you're high enough level yourself to use them at that power; additionally, you can spend your chargen points to start with nothing but randomly get a more powerful random mutation later on as you advance in level. This means that a level 1 Esper might have two or three mutations and nearly all their stat points locked up in a stat that does little at level 1; by level 20 they'll have 12 or so mental mutations at level 10+ (as opposed to, say, two level 10 mutations for a physical mutant), resulting in a character who can teleport anywhere, clone themselves 7 times, boost their Strength or Toughness to godlike levels, set the entire map on fire with their mind, and reset the cooldown on their mutations to do it all again a hundred turns later. Recent versions of the game have introduced Psychic Glimmer that causes increasingly powerful Espers to hunt you as your mental mutations grow, which is a headache that physical mutants don't have to deal with... but there's no denying that Esper builds can achieve levels of destruction and sheer absurdity that physical mutants could never touch. |
| 212 | * LiteralGenie: After completing "Decoding the Signal", you get to speak with Ereshkigal, the Barathrumites' mainframe computer. You can ask her to deliver you a secret from the Thin World, and she will oblige. Ask again, and she'll say that she's already done as you asked, and finds "your repetition is ungainly". |
| 213 | * LockedDoor: A common feature of Qud's ruins. Luckily, the ''walls'' around these doors aren't always as [[RagnarokProofing Ragnarock-proofed]] -- sometimes the map generation leaves gaps leading to the other side, or you can breach them with powerful weapons, acid attacks, and burrowing claws. |
| 214 | * LordBritishPostulate: A few of the Barathrumites are invulnerable due to their status as irreplaceable quest figures (coupled with the fact that [[spoiler:a major boss fight takes place in their headquarters, meaning they could easily die by accident otherwise]]). Naturally, players have found ways to kill them anyway. |
| 215 | * LostTechnology: Layers upon archaeological layers of the stuff, complete with a tier system. The higher-end stuff is almost always ''older'' than the lower-tech stuff (unless you've made it yourself through MacGyvering), owing to a thousand years without any civilization [[spoiler:and a couple millennia cut off from aliens before that]]. |
| 216 | * LuckilyMyShieldWillProtectMe: Shields can be held in the hand or (in the case of the smaller ones) worn on the arm, providing extra points of "Armor Value" that go against the attacker's "Penetration Value" when deciding how grievous a connecting blow is; when you successfully block the attack, anyway. Proper shield use is helped by the appropriate skills; [[DidntThinkThisThrough without them,]] shields won't block very often, and most will restrict your dodging. |
| 217 | * MachineBlood: Robotic creatures bleed oil instead of blood. |
| 218 | * MagicAIsMagicA: The only ability you can have that works differently in enemies' hands is Precognition. When you use it, it acts as a time-balanced form of SaveScumming, letting you undo a mistake you make shortly afterwards. When enemies use it, it's functionally a temporary OneUp, though only because the game fast-forwards through the re-done turns from the player's perspective (since you have RippleEffectProofMemory and the game doesn't want to waste your time). |
| 219 | * MagikarpPower: Ego-focused Esper builds, all the way. As mentioned above, at level 1 you have two or three powers (which are also locked at power level 1) and much of your stat points in what is a DumpStat in the eyes of most other builds. By level 20, you are Qud's answer to the Kwisatz Haderach. |
| 220 | * MagicKnight: You can choose to become a mutant human who utilizes melee attacks and psychic abilities at the same time. While your raw power will become somewhat weaker than a pure melee fighter or esper because you need to spend attribute points on both physical stats and Ego, there are many psychic abilities with great synergies for melee-oriented characters. |
| 221 | ** The first few Wardens (settlement sheriffs) you meet are Magic Knights, and all goatfolk shamans have one physical mutation to compliment their psychic abilities. |
| 222 | * MalevolentArchitecture: Fricking Golgotha. [[spoiler:Doing your quest there involves jumping down a one-way pit from the surface level, where you land on a conveyor belt that will be quickly overrun by [[DeathTrap acid clouds, fire jets, electric beams, or some other heavily-damaging hazard]]. The conveyor proceeds for several levels like this, eventually dumping you into a big scrap level (the Cloaca) that holds the object of your quest -- and a horde of monsters eager to finish the job that the Conveyor Belt Of Death started. Finally, fighting the Cloaca's boss, if you fail to avoid the monster, has a good possibility of leaving you infected with Glotrot, one of the game's most hated disease.]] |
| 223 | * TheMaze: The "underground" levels may not officially be a maze, but they apparently reach all over Qud and you can wind up in them if you go ''too deep'' in many dungeons. |
| 224 | * MeaningfulName: "Qud" means "Holy" in Arabic. "Al-Quds" ("The Holy") is the muslim name for Jersualem. |
| 225 | * MegaCity: Consider that each of Qud's settlements covers (at most) nine screens of terrain, or one full world map tile. Now look at the Deathlands, which cover ''most of the eastern side of the world map''. "Mega-city" is the only word for what the Deathlands must have been before the cataclysm. |
| 226 | * MessianicArchetype: Resheph, the last Sultan of Qud. When the Gyre unleashed its plagues upon Qud, he healed the sick, and when the Girsh Nephilim attacked, Resheph fought them off. Learning that the plagues were caused by "the misdeeds of the elder saads and sultans", he dissolved the sultanate, and closed the gates to the Tomb of the Eaters, thus finally freeing Qud from its curse. When Rebekah, the woman who betrayed him by stealing the Mark of Death, died of glotrot, Resheph forgave her, and though the Tomb of the Eaters was closed, he allowed her to be buried in the Spindle's shadow at Omonporch. |
| 227 | * TheMinionMaster: [[spoiler:If your Psychic Glimmer climbs too high because you've leveled too many mental mutations, Agents of Ptoh will appear with a variety of psychic thralls to harass you.]] |
| 228 | * MonstersEverywhere: Qud has only few settlements and the world is populated with tons of hostile creatures. However, [[DownplayedTrope it's possible to improve the reputation with various monster factions and make them less hostile to you.]] |
| 229 | * MookMaker: |
| 230 | ** Clonelings will create copies of any creature they bump into. |
| 231 | ** Feral Lahblooms can't attack directly, but do produce seed pods that [[ActionBomb follow the player and explode]]. |
| 232 | ** Scratched Vents, which are near indestructible and produce endless quantities of the infamous Vent Crabs. |
| 233 | ** Primordial Ooze is a liquid that will spawn sludge monsters if it's tainted by any other liquid. The Rainbow Woods has rivers of the stuff, placed dangerously close to sprinkler-like Weep Mushrooms. |
| 234 | ** Snailmothers produce eggs that hatch into hostile slugs if not destroyed. The mother itself is weak but has extremely high armor. |
| 235 | * MooksAteMyEquipment: The qudzu plants, which can rust your equipment with a hit. Luckily, they can't move. ''Less'' luckily, they can spawn on walls -- including the walls surrounding one-tile corridors. |
| 236 | ** Sludges in the Rainbow Woods can disarm the players. |
| 237 | * MoreDakka: Available to those who are lucky enough to scavenge a chaingun or chain pistol. |
| 238 | * MultiArmedAndDangerous: |
| 239 | ** The multiple arms mutation, just the thing for players who want to be [[MultiWielding human (or rather mutant) cuisinarts]]. |
| 240 | ** The helping hands is a wearable item that works as extra arms. Combining this item with the multiple arms mutation makes you a six-armed mutant! |
| 241 | * MultipleHeadCase: The Two-headed mutation gives you an extra head. |
| 242 | * MultiMeleeMaster: In theory, you could gain enough skill points and attributes to max out all the melee weapons. In practice, though, most players stick to one type of weapon. |
| 243 | * MushroomSamba: Happens to those that partake of the Eaters' Flesh mushrooms, revealing the Coral Road through the Rainbow Woods. The Steam version of the game even applies some distortion effects to the screen during the sequence. |
| 244 | * {{Mutants}}: A major theme of the game. They're not only one of the two character types you can pick, but many organic [=NPCs=] and enemy types have mutant powers of one sort or another. |
| 245 | * MyRulesAreNotYourRules: So you can't affect robot enemies with your mind powers, but at least the robots can't have mental mutations themselves, right? Nope, transdimensional esper-hunters can be of a robot type, and they can have just as many high-level mutations as your mega-Ego esper! |
| 246 | * MySpeciesDothProtestTooMuch: The leader of Kyakukya, the mushroom village, is an [[AlwaysChaoticEvil albino ape]] who proved too thoughtful to settle for his race's traditionally berserk lifestyle. |
| 247 | * ANaziByAnyOtherName: The Putus Templar, a faction of militaristic True Kin whose goal is to genocide all of Qud's mutants. |
| 248 | * NiceJobFixingItVillain: Those mutant skunks, worker ants, and other monsters that belch clouds of acid at you? You can lure them to that wall or door you can't get past, and let them melt it for you... |
| 249 | * NighInvulnerability: [[PurposelyOverpowered Chrome Pyramid]] which can be found in [[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin The Deathlands]]. [[MacrossMissileMassacre It will kill you]]. |
| 250 | * NintendoHard: Like many other roguelikes, this game isn't shy about burying you just when you think your character is getting overpowered, and from Golgotha onward, each of the main quest dungeons throws a new set of deadly curveballs at you. |
| 251 | * NoSell: Robotic and Plant-based creatures won't be affected by mind manipulation abilities. |
| 252 | * OffWithHisHead: |
| 253 | ** Contrary to the easy way this trope usually goes, you need one of the more advanced axe skills to pull off a decapitation. But when it works, it's an instant kill (assuming the creature doesn't have extra heads). |
| 254 | ** There are Relic weapons that can decapitate creatures in certain faction in a small chance. |
| 255 | * TheOmniscientCouncilOfVagueness: The Consortium of Phyta is a [[CantArgueWithElves haughty]] bunch of sapient plants, which postures to speak for all plants and [[ElvesVersusDwarves absolutely detests fungi]]. Members have written history books [[HumansAreFlawed emphasizing the failures of humanoid rulers]], claimed the Omonporch (the entrance to the Tomb of the Eaters), gained a significant stake in Qud's economy, and assembled a network of communication that you'd normally only see among [[{{Irony}} grounded mushrooms]]. |
| 256 | * OptionalBoss: The lairs of legendary beasts can pop up randomly on the world map, and taking them on is optional. |
| 257 | * OrganDrops: What you can get if you invest in the butchery skill tree. In addition, if you have attacks that can cause dismemberment, you can collect severed body parts. |
| 258 | * OurAngelsAreDifferent: [[spoiler: Cherubs are [[RidiculouslyHumanRobot Ridiculously Human Robots]] that are designed in the image of various factions: ironically, this does not include humans, but ''does'' include robots themselves. Evidently, as time progressed, the means to make such advanced robots was lost, and were forced to make {{ClockPunk}} mechanical cherubs in their place, which, while still excellent, were clearly identifiable as being, well, mechanical.]] |
| 259 | ** [[spoiler: According to Rainwater Shomer, [[ArtificialAfterlife Brightsheol]] is in fact a dream that is had by a "seraph" that lives in a city atop the Spindle: it can be presumed that such a being is an even more advanced and powerful version of the earlier cherubs.]] |
| 260 | * OurCentaursAreDifferent: Practically anyone can gain extra pairs of legs through a physical Mutation, with the notable exception of Espers. Chimeras can theoretically end up with an odd number of legs, too. |
| 261 | ** Most possessors of the Mutation are Hindren, [[spoiler:originating from the [[HiddenElfVillage unmapped village of Bey Lah]]]], and know everyone else as "Kendren". |
| 262 | * OurDragonsAreDifferent: Dawngliders are snake-like creatures with feathery wings, and they can breath fire too. |
| 263 | * QuestGiver: The civilized towns have at least one (and sometimes multiple) inhabitants who serve this function. |
| 264 | * PaintTheTownRed: Fighting causes characters bleed, and the blood from creatures remains on the floor and paints nearby objects and creatures. If you kill many enemies with lengthy melee combat, you will see the environment becomes red with blood from you and the slain enemies. |
| 265 | * {{Permadeath}}: Luckily optional for those who don't like it. |
| 266 | * PhlebotinumOverdose: The artifact tonics are a good source of temporary powers and resistances... unless you try to use too many of them at once. |
| 267 | * PinataEnemy: Spark ticks, which have an unusually high level for when they first appear (and for how easy it is to defeat them). This means that unlike most monsters, they'll continue to grant a nice XP award for many levels after they're no longer any threat to your character. |
| 268 | * PlanetaryRomance: Complete with SchizoTech, a LowFantasy feel (at least at early levels), and a largely-unexplored far-future Earth (if not an outright alien planet) described in lush detail. |
| 269 | * PlayingWithFire: The pyrokinesis and (to a lesser extent) kindle mutations. |
| 270 | * PoweredArmor: The powered exoskeleton, "slate tubes assembled to scaffold the human form", which looks like a [[https://wiki.cavesofqud.com/wiki/File:Powered_exoskeleton_unidentified.png folding chair]] to the uninitiated. Standard versions merely supplement the wearer's strength, and aren't actual "armor" beyond restricting movement somewhat, but they can be customized extensively. |
| 271 | * PowerfulButInaccurate: The ranged weapons like the Chaingun shoot many projectiles in a single turn and they have much higher damage output than most guns. But they tend to be extremely inaccurate, to the point where you miss the opponent in 5 tile range. |
| 272 | * PowerIncontinence: Some of the selectable bad mutations include teleportitis and randomly releasing EMP bursts. |
| 273 | * PowerNullifier: Normality Gas prevents anyone inside from using psychic or dimensional abilities. |
| 274 | * PowerUpFood: Cooked meals give various buffs to the player. Some of them even give temporal mutations like the [[BreathWeapon Breathe Fire]]. |
| 275 | * PracticalCurrency: Qud's common currency is fresh water, and you need to drink regularly or you die. Water is also very heavy so hoarding it is difficult. [[spoiler:It can also be used to clean things and douse fires.]] |
| 276 | * {{Precursors}}: The Eaters, previous lords of Qud ([[spoiler:Or "Salum" as they called it]]), who "ate earth and belched freight at the stars". [[spoiler:The Spindle (Or "Gjaus" as they called it) was their SpaceElevator until their world was cut off from interstellar trade and travel, upon which its base became repurposed as the Tomb of the Eaters.]] All True Kin descend from higher-class Eaters and can use Eater cybernetics, though the playable ones all come from outside of Qud. |
| 277 | * ProtectThisHouse: Around the midpoint of the main quest line, you are tasked with defending [[spoiler:Grit Gate]] from [[spoiler:a Putus Templar assault]]. You have a limited window to decide how to allocate power to the settlement's various defenses, and your victory reward will depend on how much destruction the bad guys manage to cause (both infrastructure and casualties) before you defeat them all. |
| 278 | * PsychicPowers: Mutations! Clairvoyance, {{telepathy}}, precognition, {{psychometry}}, [[MindControl domination]], [[YourHeadASplode sunder mind]]... |
| 279 | * PunchedAcrossTheRoom: The Slam is a powerful Cudgel ability, and it can send the enemy backwards. If they are pushed against walls, they get extra damage for each destroyed wall. |
| 280 | * PuppeteerParasite: Qudites with fungal infections have "and friend to fungi" added to their names, denoting that they're a part of the fungi faction, and become unusually amicable towards them. They also become quite defensive when their malady is brought up. [[MyRulesAreNotYourRules Fortunately, any implied mental takeover has no impact on your control of your character]]. |
| 281 | * RagnarokProofing: As with TabletopGame/GammaWorld itself, it's highly unlikely that all these guns, robots, artifacts, and (in some cases) ''Taco Supremas'' could have possibly survived ''this'' long after the apocalypse, but [[RuleOfFun that's not the point]]. |
| 282 | * RandomEncounter: The world map throws this trope at you on steroids. You won't encounter random monsters when traveling overland -- no, you'll ''get lost'', forcing you to explore one monster-infested zone after another until you finally regain your bearings and are allowed to return to the world map. To be fair, world map random encounters can also be ''good'' things, like [[IntrepidMerchant wandering merchants]], [[BonusDungeon ruins with loot]], or [[OptionalBoss legendary monster]] lairs. |
| 283 | * RandomlyGeneratedLevels: The game procedurally generates the world. While there are numerous hand-crafted places like Joppa or the Six Day Stilt, almost all places, ruins, or caverns in the game are randomly generated ones. |
| 284 | * RandomlyGeneratedLoot: |
| 285 | ** Generic items sometimes have modifiers, like Sharp(+1 to penetration) or Feathered(improves the reputation with birds). Some strong modifiers are more rare than others. |
| 286 | ** Relic Items are however, completely randomized and they tend to be very powerful, because always have powerful modifiers that generic items never have. |
| 287 | * RandomNumberGod: As usual for most roguelikes. If you have bad luck, your attacks might not hit or penetrate. |
| 288 | * RareCandy: Using an Eater's nectar injector gives you 1 attribute point or 1 mutation point. Naturally, this item is extremely rare and expensive. |
| 289 | * RegeneratingHealth: Again as usual for most roguelikes. Having the regeneration mutation makes it even better, of course. |
| 290 | * {{Roguelike}}: Somewhat [[DownplayedTrope downplayed]]; the Caves and almost all other random components of the game are not necessary for progression in the main questline, which takes place entirely in locations and dungeons with fixed layouts and positions on the world map. The {{Permadeath}} can be shut off entirely, turning settlements into [[SavePoint Save Points]], and there are ways to get "save states" and skirt death even with it kept on. With all that being said, you're not required to do the non-random stuff either. |
| 291 | * RequiredSecondaryPowers: The mutations that give you sleeping gas, acid gas, or the ability to spin webs also provide you with immunity to those things, thankfully. This applies even to ones created by enemies; in particular, the Sleeping Gas mutation makes you entirely immune to being slept. |
| 292 | * {{Retraux}}: The game's aesthetic is a conscious aping of space age planetary romance novels and the early homemade computer games inspired by them. The title screen even emulates a crinkled old sci-fi paperback cover. |
| 293 | * RockBeatsLaser: Axes and Swords are perfectly effective against the various killer robots you'll find in Qud. Of special mention are the Bouldermench of Bethesda Susa who can do horrendous damage with their enormous thrown boulders. |
| 294 | * RuinsForRuinsSake: Zig-zagged. Qud's many ruins ''do'' have a specific origin as the remnants of the Eaters' extinct civilization, and the ''named'' locations that are quest targets [[LandmarkOfLore do have obvious purposes]] (waste disposal, cryogenics facility, Sultan cult headquarters, etc). But the ''generic'' random ruins that populate the rest of the map? Good luck making any sense of them as actual facilities that were ever used or inhabited by human beings. |
| 295 | * RustRemovingOil: The Fix-It Spray Foam can remove "rusted" or "broken" statuses from your item. |
| 296 | * RockMonster: The Bouldermensch that live in the upper part of Bethesda Susa. |
| 297 | * SacredHospitality: One of the game's skills is a "Water Ritual" you can perform to befriend faction leaders and improve your reputation with their faction. If you kill them afterwards, ''everyone'' will hate you. |
| 298 | * SaltTheEarth: By far the worst thing the Gyre did, making it so most liquids on the ground will get salty in a handful of turns. Qud's subsistence farmers have to grow watervine, a hardy and barely-edible plant that Resheph bred for its water-storing properties, to survive. |
| 299 | * ScavengerWorld: Most technology still can be manufactured with the right knowledge, but most people are seemingly unable to make anything beyond melee weapons and makeshift firearms, with anything more advanced gained through scavenging alone. |
| 300 | * SchizoTech: Throughout your character's journey, you'll find (and use) every sort of tech from bronze weapons and armor to [[LostTechnology ultra-tech artifacts]]. |
| 301 | * ScienceHero: Any character that focuses heavily on tinkering is this. |
| 302 | * SecretLevel: The Historic Sites, dungeons which are procedurally generated for each run, are themed around specific Sultans, and are guaranteed to contain at least one relic. They start off hidden to you, and none of them are mandatory to complete the main quest, but as relics fetch a good price even when they're worthless to you, it's always in your interest to find (and clear) a Historic Site if you can. |
| 303 | * SealedEvilInACan: According to the in-game texts about it, the Amaranthine Prism is the key to the prison for a mysterious space-warping entity named Ptoh, which was sealed on Qud long, long ago. |
| 304 | * SelfDuplication: |
| 305 | ** Twinning Lampreys are always found in pairs and will copy themselves unless both are killed in the same turn. |
| 306 | ** Segmented Mirthworms will duplicate off-screen until they're engaged, leading to enormous swarms of them when the player arrives. Fortunately they're individually weak and provide good experience points. |
| 307 | ** Last but certainly not least, there is the infamous Temporal Fugue power. |
| 308 | * SentryGun: A common enemy type in ruins. They have low HP but extremely long range and firepower. The player can build their own out of any ranged weapon, including wooden bows. |
| 309 | * ShockAndAwe: The electrical discharge mutation, with a free ChainLightning effect. |
| 310 | * ShortCutsMakeLongDelays: A secret tunnel leads from Joppa to Red Rock, providing an alternative to braving the world map... but the monsters in this tunnel are ''at least'' as dangerous as the ones around Joppa, and you can get lost in the vast underground map if you take a wrong turn. |
| 311 | * ShoutOut: |
| 312 | ** The description for the hologram bracelet ("You think this is the real =name=? It is") is a shout-out to ''[[Film/TotalRecall1990 Total Recall]]''. |
| 313 | ** You can build a [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Time_Cube timecube]], a ridiculously expensive one-use [[TimeStandsStill Time Stop]]; the activation message and the achievement for using it ("Cubic and Wisest Human") are taken from the old Time Cube website. |
| 314 | ** You can wish [[VideoGame/{{Doom}} idkfa]] with the Wish command. It enables the God mode. |
| 315 | ** The descriptions of several artifacts like the Laser Pistol reference Videogame/DwarfFortress. |
| 316 | ** One of the loading-screen quotes, "Yes, I know the secrets of the circuitry mind. It's a flaming wonder, telepath", is a quote from Music/BlueOysterCult's ''Flaming Telepath''. |
| 317 | * ShmuckBait: The game warns you ''repeatedly'' not to equip the Amaranthine Prism. If you do so anyway, you'll never be able to remove it, will fail the quest to retrieve it, and [[spoiler:will inevitably die as it strips away your willpower.]] Equipping it in a Precognition and reloading is much safer, but not without consequence; multiple ''somethings'' across the psychic sea will notice and get pissed at you for chickening out. |
| 318 | * ShroudedInMyth: Qud's artifacts, robots, Becoming Nooks, and ruins have their origin in the Eaters of Earth, but only hints are known about their civilization and the cataclysm that ended it. [[spoiler:The Eaters achieved an interstellar civilization, joined a powerful alien Coven which governed all known regions of space, and were entrusted by the Coven with imprisoning the godlike entity Ptoh on Qud... it is this last act which may have lead to the Eaters' demise.]] |
| 319 | * {{Sidequest}}: Many of the quests and locations are completely optional, but [[NoPointsForNeutrality finishing them is a good idea]] if you can manage it. |
| 320 | * TheSixStats: Strength, Agility (Dexterity), Endurance/Toughness (Constitution), Intelligence, Willpower (Wisdom), and Ego (Charisma). Ego impacts the effectiveness of psychic powers (on top of persuasion and intimidation effects), while Willpower impacts the length of [[{{Cooldown}} cooldowns]] (on top of determining mental resilience). |
| 321 | * SkillScoresAndPerks: A downplayed example. All skills require one 'root' skill for their category. Most don't require anything else beyond high enough stats, but there are a few skills with additional prerequisite skills, especially in the Long Blade and Bows / Rifles trees. |
| 322 | * SlaveryIsASpecialKindOfEvil: While the [[ANaziByAnyOtherName Putus Templar]] explicitly have the overall goal of eradicating all mutants in Qud, it's briefly mentioned that they also keep mutants in slave pens. Perhaps thankfully, no mention is made of exactly ''what'' kind of slavery the human supremacists engage in. |
| 323 | * SleepyEnemy: Slumberlings are a sleepy sort of BossInMooksClothing that you can easily and ''thankfully'' avoid, common enough to find even in [[NoobCave the Rust Wells]]. They're giant craggy [[BearsAreBadNews bears]] big enough to mistake for boulders, and heavy enough sleepers that no amount of mayhem nearby will wake them up. Only direct damage can wake them up, at which point they will start swinging to kill, charge quickly across the field, and ''always'' make a beeline for the player. They're very quick to fall asleep again if they don't immediately reach you, so you have an option if you whacked one through accidental AOE attacks and aren't high enough level to survive their swipes more than a couple turns. |
| 324 | * SpikeShooter: One of the uses of the quills mutation. It fires in every direction at once, too, making it great for when you're surrounded by mooks. |
| 325 | * SprintShoes: Ninefold boots send you forward twelve squares in the time it would normally take you to move three squares, essentially giving a 300% speed increase. They actually do this by [[FlashStep teleporting you forward those extra nine squares]], however; in other words, [[GravityIsAHarshMistress keep these turned off while walking in skyscrapers]]. |
| 326 | ** If that's too crazy for you, there are bounding boots; these provide a standard speed increase while walking normally, and boost your sprinting speed from double to ''triple'' your walking speed, though you have to wear them for one hundred turns before they'll improve your sprint. |
| 327 | * SpreadShot: A feature of the shotgun family of weapons. |
| 328 | * SquishyWizard: Dedicated enemy espers are like this. The player can be one by putting all their stat points in Ego and Will and focusing on ultra-long-range mutations, but (due to the point-build system for stats and mutant powers) that's not the only way to make a mental mutant; you can play a psionics-based MagicKnight, KungFuWizard or a NinjaPirateZombieRobot if you prefer. |
| 329 | * StanceSystem: Long Blade skills unlock three different stances; Aggressive, Defensive, and Dueling. You get different combat bonuses from each stance, and the stances also change how Long Blade abilities work. |
| 330 | * StarScraper: The Spindle, so large it takes up multiple grid spaces on the world map. Naturally, the end game is based around opening and climbing it. |
| 331 | * StatusBuff: Using mutations like the Ego Projection or Adrenal Control can enhance your physical capabilities. Also, [[PowerUpFood eating certain food]] might give you some buffs, and then there's all those [[SuperSerum injectable tonics]]... |
| 332 | * SubsystemDamage: Limbs of characters can be dismembered from certain attacks. |
| 333 | * SuicidalOverconfidence: With a few exceptions, most monsters won't hesitate to attack you on sight, even if you can plow through their ranks with ease. |
| 334 | * {{Superboss}}: |
| 335 | ** [[spoiler:In Bethesda Susa, you can meet Saad Amus The Sky-Bear, a HumanPopsicle. If you wake him (or he gets woken up by, say, the insane rocket-wielding enemy in the same room), he's an outrageously tough boss fight, but successfully beating him will let you claim his sword and jetpack, two of the best items in the game.]] |
| 336 | ** Oboroqoru, the Ape God of Kyakukya, can be found in a lair somewhere near that village; he's outrageously powerful, but if you beat him, you can claim the Fist of the Ape God, an InfinityPlusOneSword for anyone who uses clubs and is strong enough to carry it. |
| 337 | ** While not unique, Leering Stalkers and especially Chrome Pyramids are stronger than almost any enemy in the game, never need to be fought as part of any quest, and will only be encountered by players exploring far, far deeper into the caves than they ever (currently) need to go or wandering around the [[ShmuckBait Deathlands]]. |
| 338 | * TheSwarm: Several enemy types operate like this. There's even a trait, Swarmer, that makes them more deadly the more of them are next to you. |
| 339 | ** Special mention should be made for Vent Crabs, which are individually trivial but are usually fought in groups of thirty or more. |
| 340 | * {{Telepathy}}: This is one of the mental mutations. It's quite useful for commanding your allies from a distance. |
| 341 | * TheManyDeathsOfYou: Done primarily in "tombstone" text for failed runs, featuring gems such as "crushed under the weight of a thousand suns". Some get achievements, too. |
| 342 | * TimeStandsStill: One of the game's artifacts, a timecube, can be used as a one-shot item to stop time briefly for everyone but you. |
| 343 | * TheTurretMaster: The ''player'' can be this, if they invest enough in the Tinkering skill branch to learn how to make turrets. There are the grenades that spawn a mini-turret too. |
| 344 | * TheUnpronounceable: The uniques and legendary enemies tend to have names out of this trope's playbook. |
| 345 | * VampiricDraining: The Syphon Vim mutation allows you to steal the life force out from the opponent. |
| 346 | * VideoGameCaringPotential: Qud is a hostile place, but you don't ''have'' to be a total murderhobo. With the reputation/faction system and a little NPC luck, you can make friends with wide classes of beings that would otherwise be kill-fodder, including insects, robots, oozes, snapjaws, mollusks, trolls, the Putus Templar, the Mechanimists, and many others. |
| 347 | * VideoGameCrueltyPotential: On the other hand, you can kill neutral or friendly [=NPCs=] and rob their items. |
| 348 | * VigilanteMilitia: The Fellowship of Wardens is a faction of Wardens who protect villages from threats. They are capable and deadly fighters, but if you manage to befriend with Wardens, they can tell you the location of other villages and settlements. |
| 349 | * VoluntaryShapeshifting: Mimic monsters can change their sprite to match walls, floors, water, and even the player. |
| 350 | * TearOffYourFace: If you use attacks that can dismember the opponent's limb, it sometimes dismembers their entire face. You can even equip the dismembered face as a mask! |
| 351 | * TrialAndErrorGameplay: As usual for roguelikes, you'll probably lose a lot of characters learning how to play the game. Luckily, the potential frustration of this is somewhat lessened by all the variety in character creation... |
| 352 | * UnknownItemIdentification: Artifacts must be identified before they are wielded. The player can identify items based on their intelligence, or pay a tinker to identify them. Trying to examine an item with low intelligence can cause it to break, including large devices in the world. |
| 353 | * UnspecifiedApocalypse: Enough time has passed since the demise of the Eaters that almost no knowledge of their society (or its downfall) remains, even among True Kin. [[spoiler: Towards the end of the main quest, Old Barathrum speculates that the Eaters offended an alien federation enough for the planet to be quarantined, but even he doesn't seem to know exactly what sin the Eaters committed, how their civilization was destroyed, or how long ago it all was.]] |
| 354 | * WalletOfHolding: Averted. The common currency of Qud is fresh water, and every dram counts against your weight limit. Liquid water is really heavy, so players are encouraged to trade for valuable gems and artifacts to reduce how much they have to carry. Even if you find a spring of fresh water, you need enough empty waterskins to hold it all. |
| 355 | * TheWanderingYou: If you manage to get lost on the Qud's world map (and you will), you'll certainly feel like you're getting brutalized by this trope. |
| 356 | * WarpWhistle: The town recoiler family of devices. Even better, there are also ''programmable'' recoilers, allowing you to warp-whistle to a spot -- any spot -- that you can imprint on the recoiler. |
| 357 | * WastelandElder: The elder of Joppa, and he does the [[MrExposition Mr. Exposition]] bit, too. Nuntu, the leader of Kyakukya, qualifies as well, despite being an albino ape. |
| 358 | * WeBuyAnything: Conveniently, any merchant will buy anything you're carrying. Also conveniently, they never run out of water to pay you with, either. |
| 359 | * WhatMeasureIsAMook: Killing normal [=NPCs=] of a faction doesn't actually ruin your reputation, unlike when you kill legendary characters or unique characters. |
| 360 | * WideOpenSandbox: This game boasts huge procedurally-generated world, and you can explore various places or vast underground caves as you want to. |
| 361 | * WingedHumanoid: The wings mutation, which can make it a lot easier to deal with hazards (like monsters and getting lost) when you're outdoors. |
| 362 | * WizardNeedsFoodBadly: Your character needs to drink to survive, and your water doubles as your currency. [[spoiler: At one point in the early game questline, it's possible to contract a disease which makes drinking unpleasant and possibly even harmful.]] |
| 363 | * YeGoodeOldeDays: How most look back on Qud's pre-apocalyptic days. The Putus Templar takes this a step further; they are willfully ignorant to any secrets you might have regarding the past, though their reasons are not specified. |
| 364 | * YetAnotherStupidDeath: Like many classic roguelikes, some of the fun involves seeing all the ridiculous ways that your character can die. Some of these deaths are subject to AchievementMockery. |
| 365 | * ZeroEffortBoss: Legendary characters are usually deadly since they are often high-leveled and have additional mutations, but on the other hand, they are sometimes just a high-leveled version of very weak creatures like glowpads or vines, which can't move at all. |
| 366 | |
| 367 | ---- |
| 368 | Live and drink, tropefriend. |
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