History ChallengeRun / KingdomOfLoathing

** WereProfessor: You play as the unique WereProfessor class. Every 50 adventures, you switch between being a meek professor and a savage beast. The professor has no personal combat ability and their stats are limited to 1, but they can research monsters in order to buy skills to improve their beast form and organ capacity and craft equipment from smashed science equipment collected from adventuring as a beast in seldom-explored areas. Meanwhile, the beast is much more combat ready, but cannot run from any fight, and NPC stores are too afraid to do business with you until you become a professor again. The normal bosses become were-beasts.

* "[[HarderThanHard Bad Moon]]" is a special "moon sign" that essentially acts as a special game mode - and it's the only one that requires an "unlock" method: you can access it only if you never used any ten-leaf clovers in your previous run. Not only it's automatically set on Hardcore, but it actively suppresses many effects that normally carry between runs, to create a "level playing field". Since it's a "moon sign", it replaces all the bonuses normally given from other signs; and it has the effect of randomly subjecting you to "unlucky" adventures, which give you small bonuses and big disadvantages.

** A Shrunken Adventurer Am I: Everyone except the monsters are shrunken down to the size of insects. Your stats are locked to a base of 1, and your maximum stomach and liver are reduced to 2 and 1 respectively (and you can only drink size 1 booze). To compensate though, you can adventure in new zones in your newly enlarged campground to fight bugs for scaling equipment and potions that give huge stat buffs, and food and booze have their stat gains multiplied by 50 and their adventures multiplied by 10.

** Trendy: Any limited-time content that's more than a year old is unusable.

** Avatar of Shadows Over Loathing: Made to celebrate the release of [[VideoGame/ShadowsOverLoathing the latest KOL spinoff]], you play one of three classes with their own special skills: Pig Skinners (American football players who crush and batter their foes), Cheese Wizards (mages who specialize in spells of the dairy sort), or Jazz Agents (musical MenInBlack). The bosses are replaced with shadowy doppelgangers of themselves, as well.

** Avatar of Boris: You become a special class with its own skill tree. Mighty Boris can feast all day long and is aided by the versatile Clancy, but he CantHoldHisLiquor and will not even contemplate using any weapon but [[AnAxeToGrind his trusty axe, Trusty.]]

* "Hardcore" is the game's own [[DifficultyLevels Hard mode]]. It has all the limitations of the Ronin phase,[[note]]When you start a "normal" run, the game prevents you from interacting with other players in many ways (like receiving buffs or earning money from selling items at the Mall); this phase lasts for 30 days or until you defeat the [[FinalBoss Naughty Sorceress]].[[/note]] but extends them for the entire run. Additionally, it forbids you from using items, money, and skills from earlier ascensions; you can circumvent the last one by paying more karma to make those skill "Hardcore permanent". Being a "lifestyle" and not a "path", it can be activated in addition to all the modes described below.

** Grey You: You are made of GreyGoo. Defeating monsters instantly increase one of your base stats without the need for substats. However, you cannot earn Adventures from eating or drinking (food and booze instead increase your maximum HP and MP, respectively, but each item can only be used once per lifetime). Adventures are instead earned by defeating certain monsters and absorbing them, but only once. Some monsters also grant new unique skills when absorbed for the first time, including many sources of extra rollover Adventures to partially make up for the inability to consume items.

** Great Wolf of the Air gains a rocket launcher. He will fire it every two turns: it [[UnblockableAttack cannot be blocked]], ignores Damage Absorption (but not Damage Reduction), and gets stronger every time it's used.
** Mayor Ghost forbids you from using healing items. Also, his decrees force you to perform certain actions or use certain items (the normal version just bans a certain category of actions, like using combat items).

** [=Falls-From-Sky=] starts the fight with an attack that will [[OneHitKill instantly kill you on the first round]] unless you're blind.

* All the Dreadsylvania bosses have a "hard mode" version that is triggered when you confront them while either wearing certain items; or being under certain effects.

--> The Source: After taking the red pill (because the blue pill is just a jellybean), the player plays through the game as normal, except stat gains from edible items are gone and monsters provide less stat points on defeat, and on occasion, digital rain will appear, warning of the appearance of a Source Agent, a powerful enemy that can only be fought with path-exclusive skills taught by not giving the Oracle spoons you can find in various locations and using the phone in Spookyraven Manor. The final boss replaces the Naughty Sorceress with [[spoiler: One Thousand Source Agents.]]
--> Nuclear Autumn: You've become a nuclear mutant incapable of using any consumable item greater than size one, your stomach and spleen are reduced to a maximum capacity of three, and your liver a maximum of two.[[note]]For comparison, a normal run generally gives you a maximum stomach, spleen, and liver capacity between fifteen and twenty.[[/note]] In addition, several important [=NPCs=] are inaccessible and you will periodically get radiation sickness that will reduce your stats, forcing you to either rest or use a special item to cure it. On the flipside, you also have access to a special radiation shelter that provides a variety of useful benefits, and you can earn a currency called rads to trade for a variety of exclusive and powerful skills.

** [[{{TheMatrix}} The Source]]: After taking the red pill (because the blue pill is just a jellybean), the player plays through the game as normal, except stat gains from edible items are gone and monsters provide less stat points on defeat, and on occasion, digital rain will appear, warning of the appearance of a Source Agent, a powerful enemy that can only be fought with path-exclusive skills taught by not giving the Oracle spoons you can find in various locations and using the phone in Spookyraven Manor. The final boss replaces the Naughty Sorceress with [[spoiler: One Thousand Source Agents.]]
** [[VideoGame/{{Fallout}} Nuclear Autumn]]: You've become a nuclear mutant incapable of using any consumable item greater than size one, your stomach and spleen are reduced to a maximum capacity of three, and your liver a maximum of two.[[note]]For comparison, a normal run generally gives you a maximum stomach, spleen, and liver capacity between fifteen and twenty.[[/note]] In addition, several important [=NPCs=] are inaccessible and you will periodically get radiation sickness that will reduce your stats, forcing you to either rest or use a special item to cure it. On the flipside, you also have access to a special radiation shelter that provides a variety of useful benefits, and you can earn a currency called rads to trade for a variety of exclusive and powerful skills.

** Great Wolf of the Air gains a rocket launcher. He will fire it every two turns: it [[UnblockableAttack cannot be blocked]], inflicts enough base damage to [[OneHitKill kill you in one turn]], and it gets stronger every time it's used. The only saving grace is that Damage Reduction bonuses still work, allowing you to survive.

** To reach Hodgman in less than 1100 Adventures (which is required to get his rarest item), you must avoid fighting his lieutenants. The problem is that every undefeated lieutenant will grant a different bonus to Hodgman, making him harder.

* All the Dreadsylvania bosses have a "hard mode" version that is triggered when you confront them while either wearing certain items; or being under certain effects.

** Path of the Plumber: You are now a humble plumber, attempting to save the princess. One big homage to Super Mario RPG.

** G-Lover: Effectively the opposite of Bees Hate You. You '''love''' the letter 'g'. Equipment without the letter G in it gives no bonuses, and you can't use non-quest items or familiars without the letter G in them (and quest ones hurt you).

** Kingdom of Exploathing: The planet has exploded, destroying all areas that weren't quest-relevant, immediately unlocking all areas that ''are'' quest-relevant, and making the game harder in other minor ways.