Don't mind Amane down there
◊, today we'll be playing one of the more unique races, even among those that are already pretty gimmicky. That's the ghoul
◊. The ghoul is basically the big eater among big eaters in this game. While other races will eventually get full, the ghoul effectively has a bottomless pit for a stomach, however, this is important for their survival. See, a ghoul also rots over time, not very quickly, but its max HP will continually drop. To stop this, they eat meat (and for some reason, rotten meat is more effective than normal meat). Eating meat restores your current HP and your max HP, so eating during combat may actually be a good idea for these guys.
Beyond that, they have claws and are good at meleeing... and not much else. They're also undead and come with the corresponding undead resistances. Eh, we'll get into the details of play style as we go along. Right now it's time for a class Yuyuko is going to be religious
◊. The Abyssal Knight works under Lugonu, who is a bit of an odd one out among the Crawl deities. Her domain is a place called the Abyss and never appears in the Temple due to the fact that she managed to tick off a good number of the other Crawl deities. Again, more details on that later.
Because we're stuck in the Abyss.
◊ Oddly enough, Abyssal Knights are the only class in the game that start in the Abyss instead of floor 1 of the main dungeon. You can explore a bit here since this version of the Abyss is meant to be friendly to level 1 characters. So a few interesting details about the Abyss
◊, one, you can never remember what's beyond view because what's beyond view is constantly changing. The Abyss, for lack of a better word, is one big glob of cancerous mutation, demons, and whatever other sorry sucker got stuck here. Stick around long enough and some Rank 1 Demon is sure to sodomize your sorry butt. Anyway, the stained slab to the bottom right is Lugonu's altar. If I remember, it has about double the chance to appear compared to the gateway out (to the top left). Lugonu's interesting in the fact that many players will first play under her because they wanted to escape the Abyss since Lugonu's first ability she grants you is the ability to escape the abyss, which, well, this isn't a friendly place, you'll need it if you've got a pack of demons trailing you.
There's also abominations, demons, etc
◊ that roam here. Note, a level one character can take on a midge (to the left) or a lemure (below) individually. Together is more problematic and that small abomination will just tear you in half. Anyway, if I stick around much longer, much meaner things than an abomination will show up, so we'll have an Abyss centric update some time later when we actually are wondering the Abyss with a much better equipped character.
An important thing to note about the Ghoul
◊, it can eat just about anything (in fact, the corpses it can't eat in this game without causing harm can be counted on two hands). It can't be poisoned, it can't get sick, corpses that can cause rot won't cause it to rot. In fact, the only corpse you have to worry about is one that can cause the eater to mutate and that's because mutations cause the undead to simply rot (this bypasses the Ghoul's normal defense against normal rot). Mutations have a handful of random positive and negative effects that living races can get, undead however, can't quite make those changes to their bodies and so instead just rot from exposure to mutative effects. Anyway, this means you chop everything you see, carry that meat along with you and eat it when it becomes rotten because ghouls like rotten meat more. That means you grab that otherwise usually poisonous kobold corpse and make sure to eat it later.
Banded Mail, sweet!
◊ Anyway, another thing about ghouls, they heal slowly in addition to being in a perpetual rot. What does this mean? You eat even more. Eating heals you and so you eat when you're hurting. Plus, despite having such odd means of healing, the ghoul tanks. It has a great HP growth, a natural inclination to learn the fighting skill (which increases max HP), and comes with a nice set of resistances to help it survive the non-physical attacks.
You feel weakened.
It was a potion of gain strength.
I'm not kidding when I say mutations are purely detrimental for undead.
Lugonu accepts your kill.
So what does the vengeful goddess of the space between realities like? Well, she's a lot like Mak, kill stuff and pray over the corpses. Luckily, she'll just settle for lots of kills since Yuyuko kind of needs every last chunk of meat she can get her claws on. And what other abilities does Lugonu give besides the ability to escape the Abyss?
Lugonu's second ability is called Bend Space.
◊ Fitting with the theme of an angry goddess, it's basically blink, but with more collateral damage. It hurts you, it hurts those around you.
Welcome to the Ossuary, another portal place.
◊ Besides the nice treasure to the left we can't quite reach yet, what's so special about this place? For one, it's filled to the brim with undead.
◊ And also filled to the brim with traps.
◊ Not to mention, it's a task in finding hidden doors. Have that 5 button at the ready.
Seriously, lots of traps.
◊ Anyway, our final challenge is fighting a couple of mummies. combat-wise, mummies are relatively unnotable. However, when they die, they can either turn one of your potions into a potion of rot (which makes you rot when you drink it) or curse a piece of equipment. This can more detrimental than you might give them credit for. And with them defeated, treasure belongs to Yuyuko!
Meanwhile, new ability from Lugonu! It's called Banish. Basically, you can point at an enemy and poof them into the Abyss.
The hobgoblin is charmed.
q - a wand of enslavement {zapped: 1}
Okay, so this wand basically gets you a temporary ally. Useful if you manage to grab an ogre or a troll and have them wreck a crowd while you run.
And new ability from Lugonu called Corrupt. For lack of a better word, I'm going to call it the nuke.
◊ It's hard to describe, so I hope to show it off sometime soon.
Artifact armor!
◊ Or artefact armour if you feel like spelling it the way they do. Regardless, KICKASS. If I haven't already explained artefacts yet, they're basically normal items with special properties. They basically can't be enchanted or eroded and have unique properties that that item could otherwise not have. For example, Tecvesto allows Yuyuko to RAGE despite normal armor never having that ability
◊.
Okay, so this is the sky beast.
◊ It's got a few weird properties. It can make it rain in a square, it can turn invisible, and it can bite you with some electrical damage. They can be quite a pain in the butt, so instead I just apply that wand of enslavement and let the orcs kill it for me.
Let the corruption spread!
◊ Let the cancer grow! Let the disease take hold! AHAHAHAHAHA!
Next time? More eating.
