History Main / DungeonCrawl

DungeonCrawl can refer to:

* ''VideoGame/DungeonCrawl'': A {{roguelike}} video game focusing on the above.

[[redirect:DungeonCrawling]]

[[quoteright:250:http://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/SS_8_8023.png]]
[[caption-width-right:250:[[{{YASD}} TeSu-01 Slain by a goblin.]]]]
-->This is about the VideoGame ''called'' DungeonCrawl. For the gameplay {{trope}}, see '''DungeonCrawling'''.

->that's what's so great about Crawl: every time, you don't even have rage at the chance of the heavens to sustain you; you know, with a cold certainty something like that of a priest who has lost his faith in God, that your death was caused by none other than yourself, and that a better man could have avoided it.
-->-- '''<nrook>''', as quoted by the DungeonCrawl knowledge bots under "fair."

''Dungeon Crawl'', or ''Crawl'' for short, is a {{roguelike}} game. (Or, more precisely, two games - one an open-source fork of the other.)

The original was ''Linley's Dungeon Crawl'', made by Linley Henzell in the late 1990s. It was updated a few times but development stopped in the early 2000s.

Not wanting to waste the game's potential, a group of people made an open source fork called ''Dungeon Crawl Stone Soup'' (look up Stone soup on Wikipedia if you feel that's an odd title), and their version is now [[WeirdAlEffect dominant]] (similar to the way Hack became NetHack). It is still updated as of 2013, with new versions released every few months.

Picture a NetHack game in which the most powerful healing potion in the game [[PowerupLetdown recovers about 25 HP]], you [[AllPowerfulBystander can't trust your god to save you from anything]], there is [[YouCanRunButYouCantHide no Elbereth]], all of your spells [[PhlebotinumBreakdown can backfire and hurt you]], only certain species and rare mutations can provide permanent resistances, and, most importantly, there's no [[AutoRevive amulet of life saving]] or [[GameBreaker wand of wishing]] to save you anymore!

Despite all this, there are two areas where it's actually much more merciful than most roguelikes: very few hazards can even weaken your equipment, and none can destroy outright anything other than scrolls and potions. Also, (with the sole exception of statdeath from artifacts) identifying items by using them very rarely causes any life-threatening consequences, and nothing other than weapons, armor, and jewelery can be cursed. The dev team has made avoiding cheap shots one of their highest priorities, and instant kills or unavoidable deaths are nearly unheard of. The game is also extremely newbie friendly. The built-in manual is very good for a roguelike. Every monster and most hazards can be examined for a short description, and there is a basic threat-level system. Not that any of this will stop you from splatting horribly.

The game has a similar fantasy setting to most roguelikes, having been inspired by most of the roguelikes of the time: elves, dwarves, and orcs all make an appearance, weapons are medieval, and magic is magic. The plot is minimal: the player's task is to go to the bottom of the dungeon, get the Orb of Zot, and escape.

Where ''Crawl'' differs from most roguelikes is in its philosophy, which is explained in the manual. The main goal of the makers is to [[AntiGrinding discourage grinding]], which they feel bores the player. For this reason, limits are always in place. Monster generation slows down once the player has cleared a level, and so there's no point in hanging around for more experience; since the player has to eat, they have a reason not to. Shops only sell items; they don't buy, no matter how many lovely items you've picked up from dead monsters. The game is balanced as much as possible: armour protects but makes attacks less accurate and evasion more difficult, powerful spells cause magic contamination which results in mutations, and items are often mixed blessings (for example, a ring which powers up your ice spells, but reduces your resistance to fire).

''Crawl'' is also unique in that class is nothing more than a starting package and has no effect on further advancement, which is all determined by race - a reversal of the usual state of affairs.

The emphasis is on strategy and building skills. ''Crawl'' has a skill system which is a mix between a PointBuildSystem and a ClassAndLevelSystem: players can 'spend' the experience they get in the dungeon on whichever skills they decide are important (or, if they can't be bothered with that, they can let the game decide for them based on which skills they most often use).

You can download it [[http://crawl.develz.org/wordpress/ here]] or play it [[http://crawl.akrasiac.org/ online]]. ''Crawl'' even has its own [[http://crawl.chaosforge.org/index.php?title=CrawlWiki wiki]] and [[https://crawl.develz.org/tavern/index.php forum]].

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!!This game provides examples of:
* AgonyBeam: Necromancy school offers two - the relatively mild Pain and the PercentDamageAttack Agony. There is also Torment, which is a multiple-target variant of Agony and is not a normally available spell.
* AnimateInanimateObject: There's a spell which makes weapons come to life and fight alongside you.
** If the target weapon is cursed, it comes off your hand but also becomes hostile.
** There's a whole level, The Hall of Blades, which has nothing but animate weapons.
** Xom can do this to any weapon he bestows upon you at any time.
** Animated statues and mimics.
* {{Animorphism}}: Transmuters have a few spells for self-transformation into animals, Spider Form being the most easily attainable. Vampires can also transform into bats at will if their blood level isn't too high.
** After Stone Soup version 0.8, Draconians gain a 30% bonus to success rate of Dragon Form spell, along with enhanced breath weapons that suit the draconian's bloodline.
* AnnoyingArrows: Arrow traps are like this; you can normally shrug them off. The first time you meet a centaur, however, you'll find that arrows are not merely annoying, since centaurs really know how to use them. Add to this the fact that they are fast enough to pursue you while still firing an arrow every turn, and you’ll soon respect their ability to kill you.
** Pity the caster who encounters centaurs before learning Mephitic Cloud.
* AntiFrustrationFeatures: The game will stop you from doing certain things that would otherwise outright kill you (walking into deep water, auto-moving while starving), and will ask for confirmation on potentially risky actions (moving adjacent to deep water while confused, stepping into dangerous traps while badly injured). You're still likely to die for a thousand other reasons, but at least the game is rooting for you.
* AntiGrinding:
** The limited amount of food forces the player to continue deeper and deeper instead of remaining on the same level for extended periods of time. There are a few ways to get off the food clock - mummies and people in lichform do not eat at all and vampires can survive indefinitely without blood, although this stops their regeneration.
** If the player stays on the same level for too long, the game will detect it and start spawning disproportionately tough monsters there. If the player kills them as well, the game may stop monster generation on that level completely.
** Grinding is possible in two areas that allow infinite supplies of items to loot and monsters to slay: Abyss and Pandemonium. However, both are fairly dangerous - characters that can grind there are likely to be ready for the endgame anyway.
** If you stay on a level long enough (and we do mean ''absurdly'' long an amount of time, far longer than it takes to complete the game), the game will tell you that the universe ended [[TheDevTeamThinksOfEverything while you were standing around.]]
* ArcNumber: [[http://crawl.chaosforge.org/index.php?title=27 Crawl seems to have a fondness for the number 27.]]
** [[OlderThanTheyThink Maybe Linley's a]] [[Music/WeirdAlYankovic Weird Al]] [[OlderThanTheyThink fan.]]
* ArrowsOnFire: ''Crawl'' doesn't so much have flaming arrows as it does magical arrows which turn into bolts of flame when fired. It's also possible to get a bow of flame, which turns ordinary arrows into bolts of flame.
** There's also a [[KillItWithIce freezing]] variant.
* AsteroidsMonster: Inverted and then played straight with slime creatures, [[BlobMonster living wads of goo]] that tend to travel in packs. When they see a tasty adventurer such as yourself, they merge to form bigger and stronger slime creatures unless you can kill them quickly enough. If you let them merge all the way into a titanic slime creature, they can start doing upwards of 100 damage in a single hit, so generally running away is the best strategy if they get that far. If you can manage to get away, they'll split up again after a while. You could also try polymorphing a large slime creature... [[OhCrap but that tends to just generate several nasty monsters like storm dragons or giant orange brains]].
* AttackAnimal: Summoners can summon monsters to fight for them, and a wand of enslavement (or the spell Enslavement) can temporarily get you a really good one, if you pick the right monster...
* AwesomeButImpractical: Lehudib's Crystal Spear is the most powerful conjuration in the game. What's the problem? It has a short range (bad for spell casters), it's inaccurate, and it requires a player to train a somewhat mediocre spell school to high levels in order to cast it. Oh, and it's overkill against anything other than a few unique demon lords. Iron Shot, Crystal Spear's little brother, is cheaper, has better range, is easier to cast, and most enemies will die after a few hits.
** Subverted with the Storm spells, as they appear to be impractical due to their high level and hunger cost. Smart players can lower/bypass the costs for casting them and it's [[GameBreaker well worth the effort to acquire one.]]
** Random artifacts quite often wind up in this territory. While they're mostly more powerful than their mundane variants, they can still be useless for the player by having ruinous negative effects in addition to the good ones or simply being of a type the player's character can't use effectively.
* AwesomeYetPractical: In general, a high level conjuration or summoning spell will have a vastly greater impact in battle than several weaker spells costing the same MP and more turns. This is to balance the fact that they're harder to cast and cost more nutrition.
* BackStab: Stabbing is a skill available to all players, even those not using blades - you can 'stab' with a mace for example, which just means you're making an attack on a sleeping or distracted enemy. Stabbing attacks do more damage, in some cases getting up to ForMassiveDamage levels - we're talking one-hit kills on a sleeping ''hydra'' - but it depends on your Stabbing skill, and the weapon used; short blades are the best.
* BadassBookworm: If one begins as a spellcaster but learns lots of fighting skills, then they've become one.
* BalefulPolymorph: Circe ([[SpellMyNameWithAnS Called Kirke in this game]].) is one of the unique enemies, and like in the classic story she has a spell that turns you into a pig. She is also surrounded by pigs that change back into humans when you beat her. This trope is also the backstory of another unique, Prince Ribbit, [[BewitchedAmphibians a frog who only turns back into a human when killed.]]
* BareFistedMonk: Monk is a playable class, and as you'd expect, monks have no weapon but are skilled in unarmed combat.
* BenevolentBoss: With the exception of [[JerkassGods Xom]], all of the gods are fairly lenient (the good ones give you a chance to redeem yourself, and the evil ones are perfectly okay with anything as long as you show results).
* TheBerserker: Berserker is a playable class. Like the real Viking ''berserkr''s, berserkers in Crawl wear only animal skins to begin with.
* BewareMyStingerTail: Present on various enemies, like scorpions or manticores. Green Draconian player characters gain one naturally at level 14, and certain other characters (the rest of the draconians and [[SnakePeople Nagas]]) can get it through rare mutations.
* BigEater: Some species have high metabolisms and need lots of food. Ghouls also have seemingly bottomless stomachs, able to gorge themselves even (especially) on rotten meat without ever becoming full.
** Most races can’t eat chunks of freshly butchered meat while not hungry, but Trolls, Kobolds, and Ghouls can. Other races can obtain this ability by wearing an Amulet of the Gourmand.
* BlackMagic: Necromancy is considered to be this by Zin, The Shining One and Elyvilon.
* BladeOnAStick: ''Crawl'' doesn't have as many as ''NetHack'', but it does have a few, all classed under the Polearms school. The spear is the simplest and most common one (and handily also doubles as a throw-able projectile), but there are also halberds, tridents, scythes, glaives, and bardiches. Polearms tend to be big on damage and short on accuracy, but can reach an extra tile to attack like whips of reaching.
* BloodKnight: While many gods like the killing of certain enemies, a few are ''only'' happy if the player is killing everything they come across. For fighters Trog will bestow [[TheBerserker berserker strength]] and protect his followers from its [[DangerousForbiddenTechnique harmful effects]] as long as they keep a steady stream of death and corpses coming his way. Casters have Vehumet, who doesn't even care about the corpses part, probably because his [[WaveMotionGun preferred]] [[FantasticNuke methods]] [[LudicrousGibs don't leave any]].
* BodyHorror: Demonspawns and their mutations can eventually become one of those.
** Worshipping the Slime God can also result in your gaining mutations that eventually culminate in you becoming a slime monster in all but name.
** The laboratory of Cigotuvi, a master of flesh-altering spells, is full of this. Not only is it a WombLevel full of horrible, twisted mockeries of life, there are several areas filled with mutagenic fog that will swiftly devolve you unless you take proper precautions. Then there are the in-progress experiments: sickly, deformed elves, orcs, and humans that are locked in various organic cells. They invariably beg for death... if they haven't [[AndIMustScream been robbed of the ability to speak altogether]].
* BonusDungeon: The ziggurat.
** Also the Hells, Pandemonium, and to some degree [[GaidenGame Dungeon Sprint]] in 0.7. The devs seem intent on adding harder and harder ones [[RubberBandAI until they've got one that nobody can finish.]]
* BonusLevelOfHell: (As if the main game isn't one of these already.) Four of them, so you can pick which one your character is most likely to survive 10 seconds in, or, for the truly insane, try to retrieve the extra runes on the last levels of all four branches. All of them are, in fact, based on different parts of [[DivineComedy Dante's Inferno]].
* BoomStick: Many magic wands are Boom Sticks, since they fire out bolts, beams and enchantments. The rods are also boomsticks, but slightly more complex; most carry their own set of spells which can be evoked by the wielder.
* BoringButPractical:
** Okawaru, the god of war offers only equipment gifts and two fairly non-flashy powers. Despite lacking in flavor text, though, Okawaru is often considered to be the best god for melee characters.
** This applies to several spells:
*** Summon Butterflies (which [[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin summons butterflies]]) is a low-level spell that is immensely useful at blocking most enemies.
*** Conjure Flame. It deals no damage directly, but is immensely useful in early game because it can block most enemies, and later on when stronger enemies can be lured into the flames created.
*** Mephitic cloud is very low on direct damage output, but it has a chance of confusing its target, making it tremendously useful until late game.
*** The most basic of basic spells, Magic Dart. It doesn't scale up damage a lot with your level. It also has a paltry 1MP cost and no spell hunger at all. Wizards start with it and are by far the mage package with the greatest lifespan.
**** It can also be used to trigger things or take out spores for just one MP.
* BreathWeapon: most adult draconians have these, as do most dragons and some drakes. Nagas can also spit poison.
** Demonspawns can randomly get a breath weapon as part of their demonic heritage (Removed as of version 0.8) and other races can get them if they're ''really'' lucky with mutations.
* BubblegloopSwamp: the Swamp branch.
* CannibalismSuperpower: Mostly averted: in contrast to most other Roguelikes, ''Dungeon Crawl'' features very little special effects for eating enemies. Played straight with Gastronok, a slug who, according to his description, gained superb intelligence and magical powers by eating a powerful wizard.
* CareBearStare: The healing ability granted by Elyvilon, goddess of healing, can pacify monsters and make them uninterested in fighting you.
* {{Cap}}: Lots and lots of them. The main reason for caps in this game is that spells increase in power as the player becomes more skilled in the appropriate school of magic, so there needs to be a limit or players would be able to cast very cheap low-level spells (eg. the level 1 Magic Dart spell) at a ludicrously high power level.
* ChainLightning: Inserted as a level 8 Air/Conjurations spell in the game. There is also a less powerful version called Static Discharge, which causes an electric shock which jumps to nearby enemies. And sometimes the person who cast it.
** A favorite spell of the unique monster Nikola, who is [[ShoutOut named after]] famous inventor [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nikola_Tesla Nikola Tesla]]. In his hands, it can deal buttloads of damage in very short order. Bring something that gives you electricity resistance.
* ChestMonster: In older versions of ''Crawl'', mimics stay in mimicked form while attacking you. This results in funny lines like 'the potion of healing hits you!'
* ChoiceOfTwoWeapons: Generally in Crawl, you have several weapons that you frequently use and switch between them depending on situation. Normally this is a melee weapon and a ranged weapon, but it depends on what your skills are - for example, you might have found a really powerful polearm, but be inexperienced in fighting with them, so when it comes to a battle that you can't afford to lose, you'll probably switch to a weaker weapon that you know better.
* ChurchMilitant: The game is practically full of these, as many gods enjoy their followers slaying foes. Of particular note are The Shining One and Zin, who both want their followers to purge the world of evil creatures, and Okawaru, who is the god of war: his followers are Church Militants in a Military Church.
* ColorCodedForYourConvenience: draconians. When you begin playing a draconian, it's brown, because it's in its immature form; but once you reach level 7, it grows up and turns one of 9 different colours, each of which gives different abilities.
** Unlike the original Crawl, Stone Soup provides various information in forms of colored text, including the types of corpses/mutations, artifact identifiers, prohibition of items (dark grey items cannot be used at all, red items are prohibited by your choice of god, purple items can be used but are quite risky), etc.
* CombatMedic: The Healer class is actually pretty effective at fighting to begin with, as they begin with skill in unarmed combat.
* CombatTentacles: The playable octopode race can their tentacles to slap and squeeze enemies to death. This ability is also available to players who can cast [[PartialTransformation Beastly Appendage]] as well as a few nasty enemies.
** Beastly Appendage can no longer give you tentacles as of version 0.11. It gives you claws instead
* ComboPlatterPowers: The randomly generated artifacts can have any combination of effects. Thus you can have a spear which poisons your enemies, makes you resistant to fire, and lets you teleport. Quite often, one or more of the effects is either situationally or inherently negative, forcing the player to consider if the random artifact is worth using at all.
* TheCorruption: Averted and played straight: it's really more of background radiation induced by FunctionalMagic and it doesn't affect your alignment, but it can be annoying (having a level of 5 or above causes you to [[GlowingEyesOfDoom glow]], which makes you easier to see and can mutate you). If you have a high level of it, there's a chance for a SuperpowerMeltdown. Played straight with Demonspawn, who slowly get more and more demonic as they get experience levels.
* CowardlyBoss: Prince Ribbit will use his teleportation powers to try to escape you if he gets seriously injured.
* CursedWithAwesome: Some of the bad mutations have a good effect. For example, horns prevent you from wearing helmets, but give you a headbutt attack.
* DamageDiscrimination: None, but enemies will try not to hit other enemies if they can avoid it. Sometimes they ''can't'' avoid it; a confused enemy can hit other enemies, and even ''itself''. Many an ogre has killed itself with its own club.
* DarkIsNotEvil: Ashenzari, the god of divinations and curses who all-but-demands that you wear cursed gear. He's one of the very few gods who does not reward killing or sacrificing corpses ''at all'', not even for specific monsters, and grants no directly offensive powers.
* DarkMessiah: Hill Orc Priests of Beogh are probably this.
* DeathOfAThousandCuts: Zombies and skeletons are vulnerable to this, since they can't regenerate; you can hit them a bunch of times, escape, heal up, hit them some more until they die. This doesn't work on most other enemies because they heal.
** Also present with deep dwarves. Even with their innate damage-reducing ability, it can still fall under BlessedWithSuck for player characters.
** Very relevant, however, for summoners. Even fairly weak creatures can slay powerful foes if there's enough of them.
* DebugRoom: Wizard mode, which gives you pretty much full control over your character and the game world.
* DestroyableItems: Scrolls are vulnerable to fire damage, and potions can be shattered by cold.
* DidYouJustPunchOutCthulhu: [[spoiler:Kill the Royal Jelly without being a worshiper of Jiyva? Congratulations, you've committed deicide.]]
* DifficultyLevels: Winning with a Spriggan Enchanter worshiping Nemelex is pretty easy, but playing some races (Mummies, Ogres, Demigods) is, by design, much more difficult than others (Vampires, Trolls, Humans). There also is a "Wanderer" class, which starts you with a pitifully low level in a few skills chosen completely at random.
* DivineIntervention: All the good gods will occasionally protect you from damage that would have killed you. It's not a reliable way to escape death - at most it buys you one more turn.
** The orc god Beogh will do the same thing for players who follow him, but only if you haven't done anything to piss him off.
** Elyvilon, the god of pacifism and healing, has a more reliable version that will always block fatal damage for a short time but will greatly reduce your piety each time it activates.
* DisintegratorRay: the wand of disintegration, which used to make monsters vaporize, and now makes them ''explode''. (It’s especially good against brittle monsters like statues).
* DualBoss: Dowan and Duvessa, the elf twins! Dowan is a SquishyWizard and Duvessa is a mighty warrior. If you find one twin, the other is sure to be on the same dungeon level somewhere. They also have TwinTelepathy, so if you kill one of them, the other one [[TurnsRed gets stronger]] (Duvessa goes berserk while Dowan gains several more powerful spells).
* DualWielding: The player can only wield one weapon at a time. However, some monsters, particularly two-headed ones, are capable of this.
* DummiedOut: The source code for regular Crawl shows a mutation that was never implemented ("Your chest, abdomen and neck are covered in intricate, arcane blue/green writing"). Supposedly, it was given by an "evil" god when a character converted to its religion.
* DungeonBypass: Often necessary. Sometimes the only way to escape a monster is to run for the stairs to the next level.
* DungeonShop: Played straight: shops seem to appear anywhere for pretty much no reason at all. [[strike: Including the Swamp.]] As of version 0.7, the animal-based standard branches (Swamp and Lair) don’t get shops anymore. But they can still show up pretty much anywhere else.
* DurableDeathTrap: Played more or less straight with basic roguelike traps, though the BottomlessMagazines aspect is averted, as projectile based traps will eventually run out of ammo.
* EarlyBirdBoss: The infamous Sigmund can show up as early as the second floor. When most players are still using [[WithThisHerring robes and daggers]] Sigmund can bring invisibility, confusion, flame spells, and a massive stat-boosted scythe to the party. Get used to him being the last thing you see. [[{{Invisibility}} Or don't see]], as the case may be.
** In more recent versions, they introduced Grinder, a minor demon with a bunch of elemental resistances (most notably to Mephitic Cloud) and a paralysing spell who can show up as early as the third floor.
* EldritchAbomination:
** Abominations, unsurprisingly, which are so weird that the game can't even attempt to describe some of them. One of them can't even be ''seen'' by most beings; it's only if you have supernatural sight that you find out it's an abomination at all.
** There is also a spell, ''Malign Gateway'', that opens a portal to a dimension supposedly populated by these. Luckily, whatever abomination lurks on the other side, only its massive tentacle reaches through the portal.
** Possibly Lugonu, God of [[HyperspaceIsAScaryPlace the Abyss]], as well, for granting followers abilities that corrupt reality itself.
* ElementalBaggage: Elementalists have this with their summoning and transmutation spells: you cannot summon an elemental without a quantity of the element to form it from, which as the game notes, is not a problem for air or earth, but difficult for ice and fire. The same goes for some transmutation spells - the spell Sandblast transmutes a stone into a blast of rock shards, although it also works (but less effectively) with the ambient grit in the dungeon. The exception to ElementalBaggage is conjuration spells, since these explicitly conjure things out of nothing, so they can make fireballs without needing any element.
* ElementalEmbodiment: Crawl's elements can appear in embodied forms. The spell Summon Elemental lets the player create these, although [[ElementalBaggage a quantity of that element is required]].
* ElementalPowers: This is one of Crawl's few plot points. Crawl has the classical elements of Air, Earth, Fire, and Water, but in the time that Crawl takes place, Water elemental magic has somehow been forgotten. Instead, there is Ice magic, which is not the same. Water elementals do exist, however.
** Water magic still exists in the Shoals. Merfolk Aquamancers are the only monsters who know how to use it.
* ElementalRockPaperScissors: Played straight. Ice and Fire are opposites, Earth and Air are opposites. Fire hurts ice monsters and vice versa. Players who are skilled in Fire magic find it difficult to learn Ice and vice versa.
* EnergyBall: Which size would you like? The small Magic Dart, the large Iskenderun's Mystic Blast or the huge Orb of Destruction?
* EverythingTryingToKillYou: It's a roguelike.
** Spells and abilities that are supposed to summon friendly allies can potentially do the opposite.
* EvilIsEasy: Played straight with the gods. See GodOfEvil below.
* ExcusePlot: The main plot is literally a one-liner.
-->They say that the Orb of Zot exists deep, deep down but no one ever got to it.
* ExtremeOmnivore: Jellies. They eat any item they touch, except stones. This also means that they eat anything you throw or fire at them. AND it heals them. You'd better hope those arrows you're wasting are doing more damage than the jelly is gaining from eating them.
* TheFairFolk: while the elves in the game are clearly Tolkien-ish, there is a spriggan race (based on the mythological Cornish fairy of the same name) that keeps all its fair-folk features. Most notably the lack of wings.
* FallenAngel: Profane Servitors, ex-Angels/Daevas corrupted by Yredelemnul. Has immunity to holy damage, is much stronger than regular Angels and comes with an aura that shields everything that tries to kill you. Worshiping Yredelemnul only protects you from the aura.
* FanNickname:
** "Orc Jesus" for Priests of Beogh. (Alternately called “Orcus Christ” by some of the more irreverent players.)
** Some of the names in the game are notoriously difficult to spell properly, effectively forcing nicknames into existence. (Seriously, it takes a while to learn how to spell "Kikubaaqudgha", let alone figure out how to say it.)
** Okawaru's role as a generic melee god is referenced by an occasionally used nickname: "Default".
** Lugonu was named "[[TomTheDarkLord Lucy]]" during its earliest development stages, and is still sometimes nicknamed that.
** Somewhat cryptically for new players, fans often use abbreviated forms of the races and classes. [=MiBe=] is a minotaur berserker, [=MfIE=] is a merfolk ice elementalist and so on.
*** Fans will also use abbreviations for other aspects of the game, such as some of the wordier spells (e.g. [=LRD=] is Lee's Rapid Deconstruction, etc). [=IOOD=] stands for Iskenderun's Orb of Destruction, which is particularly problematic as the spell's name was shortened to just Orb of Destruction.
* FantasticRacism: Beogh, god of the orcs, does not accept worship from non-orcs, seeing them as inferior. The "good" gods (The Shining One, Zin, and Elyvilon) do not accept undead or demonspawn, and Fedhas Madash, god of plants, fungi, and decay, does not accept the undead.
* FaustianRebellion: It is entirely possible to abandon your god if you no longer find them useful, and/or to choose a new god. This will usually make the god you abandoned [[EvilIsNotAToy angry at you]]; however, it is entirely possible to [[BadAss survive their wrath until it runs out]]. Doing this with the necromancy god is an explicit part of one strategy guide for a Mummy Wizard.
* FeaturelessProtagonist: You get to choose your name, race, class, maybe a starting weapon, and that's about it. ''Crawl'' never asks the player to supply a gender or any other personalising details. Indeed, for the more humanoid races, the in-game description of them is 'You are rather mundane.'
* FighterMageThief: Crawl divides all the character classes in five different groups - but there is great variation within each (except maybe Adventurer):
** Fighter - includes anything with focus on plain combat, from heavily armored warriors to BareFistedMonk and stealthy assassins.
** Zealot - includes every class that starts with a religion: priests, berserkers, healers, and knights of some evil gods.
** Warrior-mage - includes combat-oriented magic classes, such as weapon-enchanting skalds, magical assassin stalkers and arcane marksmen.
** Mage - includes the generic spellcaster class wizard as well as several more specialized mages.
** Adventure - includes only two classes, the device user class artificer and the randomized wanderer.
* FireIceLightning: Present in Fire, Ice, and Air magic spells, respectively. There's also Earth magic, but that tends to be pure physical or NonElemental damage. Weapons can also have flaming, freezing, or electrocution brands (among others).
* FishOutOfWater: Most obviously applies to merfolk (semi-literally; they can get by just as well on land as in water), but the game makes a small plot point of some of the player species being unsuited for a dungeon (since they enter it from ground level). For example, the only playable orc species is the hill orc, while all the ones in the dungeon are cave orcs.
** A more literal example: With Fedhas Madash's sunlight ability, you can dry up the pools of water you find in the dungeon, possibly resulting in literal fish out of water.
* FlamingSword: Flaming is a brand some weapons can have, including swords. These weapons are quite helpful against hydras, since they prevent them from growing new heads.
* ForgedByTheGods: Some of the gods give you gifts, which are normally highly enchanted or artifact weapons. Xom, god of chaos, likes to give gifts that are completely useless. Occasionally subverted, as the gifts aren't always special in any way.
** And the few times they aren't useless he likes to animate them so they try to kill you.
** "Cursed gloves? [[ItAmusedMe Have a ring!]]"
* FragileSpeedster: Spriggans can move much faster than any other characters, but they can only get about half the already low amount of HP other characters can get. However, they can also gain Evocations skill insanely quickly (ability to use magic items,) and a Spriggan with some legendary decks of summoning gifted by Nemelex Xobeh is one of the most powerful character builds in the late game.
* FriendToAllLivingThings: The healer class has the ability to pacify monsters, turning them neutral (which, for some reason, doesn't ACTUALLY turn them friendly, just neutral: they'll still attack if you're in their way. They'll also attack hostile monsters, which you can sometimes exploit.)
* FrogsAndToads: They make appearances as regular enemies and aren't that easy, either; the spiny frog can be very dangerous for players who aren't expecting it. Blink frogs come in packs and, as the name suggests, can blink (short-range teleport). There's even a blink frog unique, Prince Ribbit (who’s technically a human in frog form, and even leaves a human corpse when you squish him, but he still counts.)
* FunnyAnimal: Averted with Felids, a playable race of sentient cats. Who lack both humanoid body structure and hands, making them unique among playable characters as being unable to use wands, weapons, thrown items, or even items like "robes" or "hats" which otherwise fit everyone.
* TheGambler: Followers of Nemelex Xobeh gain several powerful card-related abilities.
* GameplayAutomation: As a part of Dungeon Crawl Stone Soup's design philosophy, the game features several examples of automating tedious actions:
** Automated exploring
** Fast travel to dungeon branches, shops, altars or player-set waypoints
** Automated travel exclusions and level annotations to remind the player of possibly dangerous or important things
** Automated equipment shuffling - in contrast to NetHack where changing one's armor requires several commands to remove the old armor pieces first, Crawl automatically removes any armor that needs to be taken off for the change and re-equips cloaks and such afterwards.
* GardenOfEvil: Oklob plants form these. They are large plants that spit acid at the player with stunning accuracy. Staying in one's range for too long is going to hurt the player character and their precious equipment.
** Worshipers of Fehdas Madash can plant said Oklob plants, turning the game into a turn based strategy game.
* GenderNeutralWriting: The gods in the game are supposed to be beyond gender, and thus it's wrong to refer to them as male or female. Therefore, on the god description screens, there are no mentions of gender, even though {{fanon}} tends to refer to Lugonu, Elyvilon, and Sif Muna as female, and the rest as male. Also applies to monsters, although there it’s more due to convenience than any in-game reason.
** Crawl is also the only major roguelike that [[{{AFGNCAAP}} doesn't give the player character a gender]].
* GenieInABottle: An efreet, actually. It doesn't give you wishes. [[EverythingTryingToKillYou And it might kill you]]. Still comes in handy if you need something to deal with hydras.
* GeniusBruiser: The ogre-mage is an ogre which, unlike most ogres which only know how to hit people with heavy weapons, is intelligent enough to use magic. Player ogres are something between standard ogres and ogre-mages - they are moderate at both hitting and casting. A second example of this would be fighting characters who have learned magical skill.
* GreenThumb: Worshippers of Fedhas, god of plants, can move past plants, cause corpses to decompose into mushrooms, and cause plants to grow.
* GlassCannon: Many player characters are these, but the specifics vary:
** Tengu are a bird-people race that has excellent aptitudes for combat skills but very low hit points.
** Spellcasters are typically these - many spells are extremely powerful but spellcasters themselves tend to have lower hit points than melee characters.
** Ogres, both [=NPCs=] and player characters. They hit hard and have some natural protection, but can't wear most armor and aren't very good dodgers due to their size, rendering them very vulnerable against stronger enemies.
* GodsNeedPrayerBadly: The gods in Crawl only exist as long as people believe in them. Most gods don't have a problem - they have plenty of followers. However, [[spoiler: Jiyva is special in that most of its followers are slimes, which are unintelligent and thus their belief isn't worth much. Its only major intelligent follower is the royal jelly, which is an enemy in the game and which can be killed. If the royal jelly is killed, nobody is left to believe in Jiyva and the god stops existing - unless the player is a worshipper of Jiyva as well.]]
* GodOfEvil: Some of the gods are described by the game as evil. Whether the gods themselves agree is unknown.
** There is a gameplay factor to this. The good gods are very lenient about punishment; even if you upset them (through depreciated acts or abandonment), they still only place you into "penance", which just means you need to perform appreciated acts to get back in their good graces. They will ''only'' seek retribution if you start following an evil god later.
*** "Good" gods also hold their followers to much higher standards, all of whom have laundry lists of things that they dislike, most so called evil gods don't really care what their followers do, as long as they kill and sacrifice for them.
* GoodHurtsEvil: Reciting Zin's scripts in front of certain evil creatures often results in this. Also applies to weapons of Holy Wrath, which are blessed by The Shining One to cause more damage to demons and the undead.
* GoodNewsBadNews: The bad news comes first, and the good news is hardly comforting:
--> You feel nature experimenting on you. Don't worry, failures die fast.
* GoodThingYouCanHeal: Inversion: Deep Dwarves have a damage shaving feature that reduces all damage they take, but they [[BlessedWithSuck can't regain HP by themselves.]] They will need magical devices, potions, divine help or magic to heal. People don't play a whole lot of [[RedShirt Deep Dwarf Fighters]].
* GradualRegeneration: Mostly played straight - as in most Roguelikes, characters in Dungeon Crawl regenerate their hit points and magic points over time. The deep dwarf race avert this by not being able to heal naturally, and other races heal at different rates. It takes a long time for a mummy to heal, but trolls heal extremely quickly.
** The Sickness status condition knocks out your natural regeneration for a while. It's generally a good idea to wait for it to wear off before you start exploring again.
* {{Hammerspace}}: ''Crawl'' has the typical Roguelike variety: the player can carry anything that is not too heavy for the player to carry, until all 52 item slots are filled up. Because an item stack takes only one item slot, 20 javelins take just as much room as a single dart.
* HealingFactor: Trolls and satiated vampires heal extremely fast, as does anyone with troll leather armor, ring of regeneration or the regeneration spell. Each of these has the drawback of speeding up one's metabolism significantly.
* HealingPotion: ''Crawl'' uses two kinds of healing potion; one heals only a small amount of HP, but will cure you of any negative status effects. The other is pure hit-point healing, but a much greater amount of it.
** The latter is also available in form of a healing wand. More favored than potions because they cannot be destroyed, but exceedingly rare and difficult to recharge.
* {{Hellfire}}: Available to some demons and demonspawn. Even nastier than regular fire, as it's not subject to fire resistance.
* HolyHalo: The Shining One's followers eventually receive one. It serves several purposes: monsters inside the halo are easier to hit, invisible creatures turn visible and your stealth is crippled (which isn't that bad, given that The Shining One dislikes stealth attacks anyway). Holy [=NPCs=] such as angels have similar halos.
** [[InvertedTrope Inverted]] with [[FallenAngel Profane Servitors]]. Their dark aura hides other monsters from you, though you can cancel it out with your own halo.
* HolyHandGrenade: The Holy Word spell can be granted by scroll, or by some of the powers of Zin and The Shining One, two of the good gods. It causes huge damage to all unholy monsters, and slows and scares them.
** Pre 0.6 Cleansing Flame was essentially this, allowing devout TSO worshipers to hurl balls of positive energy over a long distance. Averted that Cleansing Flame does little damage to beast type monsters, including the original's intended target.
* HornetHole: The Hive is a giant beehive, filled with killer bees. (Removed as of version 0.10, although you can still find bee chambers.)
** Occasional bee chambers. Occuring even at the Realm of Zot. Where do they get the material for honey?
* HumansAreAverage: Mostly played straight (humans get no special abilities, and average apitudes), but they're tied with [[OurOrcsAreDifferent hill orcs]], [[OurGoblinsAreDifferent kobolds]] and {{halfling}}s for fastest level gain in the game. Thanks to the game's AntiGrinding philosophy, this means they're able to avoid CantCatchUp.
* HumanSacrifice: Several temple designs of evil gods feature these. And of course, the gods who like corpse sacrifices aren't averse to human corpses either.
* HyperspaceIsAScaryPlace: The Abyss is a plane of chaos, with no recognizable structure, and full of demons and awful monsters. It's a VERY dangerous place to be. It's not established whether it is Crawl's 'hyperspace' dimension, but it is associated with translocation - miscasted teleportation spells can send you here, as can distortion weapons. It's also the place where the evil god Lugonu the Unformed lives; altars to her are scattered about, and are the easiest way to escape if you don't mind the wrath of your former deity (if applicable). Followers of Lugonu can get the ability to jump in and out of the abyss at will. Banished monsters also end up here.
* HypnoRay: the wand of enslavement, or the spell Enslavement, tries to turn any susceptible monster into your willing slave, who you can then [[SquadControls give a small set of commands]]. One useful command is 'Wait here', since if the monster happens to be a dangerous one, you probably don't want to be around when the enchantment wears off...
* InvisibleMonsters: Unseen horrors are naturally invisible. And horrible. Several spellcasters can ''turn'' invisible temporarily, but you could walk right into an unseen horror while it is asleep without seeing it.
** Fortunately, there are ways to see invisible creatures -- certain races can see invisible on their own (Felids, Nagas, Spriggans, and Vampires), and others can use a ring, enchanted hat, or random artifact (though such equipment is often quite rare). Alternatively, you can use a divine halo, force them to move into something that would be displaced (like fog or water), or just set them on fire.
* ItAmusedMe: Xom, god of chaos. He sees his worshipers as toys (indeed, Toy is the official title of a Xom worshiper) and one moment might give you super strength, and the next moment summon a bunch of monsters to kill you.
** [[RuleOfFunny Xom finds this hilarious!]]
* JerkassGods: Worshipping Xom is not for those who lack the ability not to take it personally [[BerserkButton when he laughs at you for dying]], [[EverythingTryingToKillYou which will happen extremely often]]. Of course, neither are [[NintendoHard roguelikes in general]], really.
** Xom is usually randomly doing good and bad things. Once he gets bored, he forgets about the good part. Unfortunately his interests range from "watching player use random and potentially dangerous item in difficult combat" to "watching player semi-permanently degenerate". A recently added feature is that Xom is almost always amused with his followers dying.
** Averted by most other gods, however. No matter how much a god may dislike you doing something (drinking blood for the good gods, using Haste for Cheibriados, etc), they'll usually give you a pass if you haven't identified the effect that pisses them off. This is rarer in Roguelikes than you'd think.
** Fedhas, the god of plants, will always be pleased by your contribution to the ecosystem...''when you die''.
** Contrary to what the term "evil" might imply, the dark gods actually avert this-so long as you make regular sacrifices to them and don't go apostate, they'll [[BenevolentBoss shower you with gifts]].
* KatanasAreJustBetter: ''Crawl'' seems to agree. The katana is the best long blade of its kind (better than the scimitar, long sword, and falchion). The only better long blades are demon blades (which are supernatural), great swords (which are just [[BFS really big swords]]), and double and triple swords (which are just silly, and also explicitly said to be magical).
** Katanas were removed in later versions, however. The only remaining katana is an artifact (albeit a rather good one).
* KillItWithFire: Recommended if you're going to try to fight a hydra with a bladed weapon. A FlamingSword will stop the hydra growing more heads. Also a good way to kill ice-based monsters or wood golems.
** Certain player characters may gain the ability to breathe fire via mutations, spells or racial abilities(Red Draconian). Demonspawns may obtain a racial mutation that allows them to hurl hellfire.
** Almost every spell in the Fire Magic school is designed as an offensive conjuration spell, except for two spells that are used defensively.
* KungFuWizard: Transmuters get levels in unarmed combat, making them surprisingly good brawlers. This is to encourage them to use shape-shifting spells; in most non-human forms, unarmed combat is the only type of combat possible.
* LaserGuidedAmnesia: The scroll of amnesia is a precision tool that allows you to forget one arbitrary memorized spell. The same effect is offered by the wizard god Sif Muna.
* LetsFightLikeGentlemen: The Shining One demands this of any followers. In practice, this means that the character worhipping The Shining One is punished for using poison in combat and using unchivalrous stealth attacks against non-evil sapient monsters. Unfortunately, this also applies to attacks you reflect or any attacks that hit monsters that are sleeping just outside your range of vision.
* LevelDrain: Wights and wraiths can drain the player's experience, as can weapons and wands of draining. But the player can also use those weapons, and learn spells to drain enemies as well.
** [[MacroGame The ghosts of your mature Draconian characters]] come equipped with a [[BreathWeapon blast of negative energy]] instead of the BreathWeapon they had in life. They can spam this, which makes them even more dangerous than player ghosts usually are.
** If you somehow get drained below level 1 (which is very hard to do without getting killed first), it results in instant death.
* LifeDrain: The level 3 spell Vampiric Draining does this - it drains life from enemies and adds it to your health. Weapons can also be vampiric, healing and feeding the wielder when they hit.
* LifeMeter: Nicely shows just how much damage that last hit did.
** Zombies and skeletons don't have life meters. Presumably it's because they're already damaged from their first death, so it's hard to tell how much more damage it'll take to kill them.
** Rakshasas also lack life meters; this is due to their skill with illusions, allowing them to mask their physical condition. It also makes it harder to tell which one is real when they [[DoppelgangerSpin start spawning copies]] of themselves, especially once they all start blinking all over the place.
* LightIsNotGood: Angels are mostly just as bloodthirsty as demons, and have large haloes to make finding the player easier.
* ALoadOfBull: Minotaurs are present in the game, both as monsters and [[MassiveRaceSelection as a playable species]]. They're good at melee and ranged combat but suck at using magic. They also are better at mapping out the Labyrinth side levels than any other race.
* LovecraftianSuperpower: Jiyva's gifts to the player are various mutations, most of them technically beneficial. But they take such forms as [[EyesDoNotBelongThere eyeballs covering the PC's body]], or the PC growing pseudopods.
* LuckBasedMission: The game may just say "Screw you" and spawn Grinder or Sigmund in as early as level 3. Bonus points if the level is tiny, forcing you to risk death just trying to skip them.
* LuckilyMyShieldWillProtectMe: Unlike a lot of roguelikes, ''Crawl'' takes this trope a little more seriously. While in most, a shield is merely considered a boost to one's armour no different from, say, chainmail or a helmet, in ''Crawl'' shields are a defensive tool. They provide no armour boost, but give the player a chance of completely blocking a hit, which increases as they increase their Shields skill. Certain magical shields can even reflect attacks back at your foes!
* MacGuffin: The Orb of Zot! It's apparently so valuable that it's held deep underground in a realm which you can't even get into without magic runes, guarded by hundreds of monsters... but nobody knows what it actually does, or what its powers are.
* MacGyvering: Many items and spells can be exploited beyond their obvious uses. One of the best examples is Conjure Flame - while the obvious use is blocking corridors with flames that hurt anything that dares to cross them, it can also be used for [[SmokeOut creating lots of steam to break enemies' line-of-sight]], clearing forests, manipulating the spread of "flood-fill" cloud attacks such as Poison Cloud and of course, [[KillItWithFire killing stuff with fire]].
* MacroGame: The player may encounter ghosts of previous characters in the Dungeon. Ghosts have similar strengths and weaknesses as they had while alive, which includes any really nice equipment they were using when they died. This can make for some really nasty surprises for future characters, though player ghosts cannot use stairs and [[DungeonBypass can therefore be skipped]].
* MageKiller: Berserkers and other servants of Trog. Trog despises and hates magic, and will not only reward slaying magic users, but will also gift followers with AntiMagic perks and weapons.
* MagicKnight: Skalds start with skills in the melee weapon of their choice and self-buff spells. Reavers get (well, ''got''; they were [[DummiedOut de-implemented]] after 0.8) blasting spells instead. Transmuters frequently shapeshift and beat monsters down with their newfound natural weapons. Worshipping Makhleb allows throwing around destructive blasts of power and summoning demons without having to worry about spell failure from heavy armor (the demon may decide to eat your face, however).
* MagicPants: Clothing merges into a shapeshifted player's new form.
* MagicMisfire: Of every shape and color. They range from harmless (an ice mage getting a bit frosty, an enchanter making the dirt glow) to {{YASD}} (a necromancer rotting from the inside out, a translocator getting stuck in [[HyperspaceIsAScaryPlace Abyss]]). Even minor failures can become dangerous as magical contamination builds up in the caster, ending in a [[YourHeadAsplode violent terminus]] for those too desperate or stupid to stop casting.
* MagicWand: ''Crawl'' does have a number of magic wands, but these in fact more closely fit the BoomStick trope. Instead it's actually the magical staffs that are {{Magic Wand}}s; for example, the staff of channeling allows the player to regenerate their magic points, the staff of wizardry makes it easier to cast spells, and there are staffs for most of the schools of magic that boost the power of spells in those schools.
* ManaDrain: the eye of draining can drain your mana from a distance, which heals it.
* ManaMeter
* ManaShield: the amulet of guardian spirit protects you from harm but consumes your magic points in doing so.
* ManOnFire: Crawl has a Sticky Flame spell which covers an enemy in sticky, burning liquid. The mottled dragon (and mottled draconian, which you can be if you're lucky with draconian maturation) can also breathe sticky flames.
** [[TheDevTeamThinksOfEverything Lanolin is highly flammable.]] [[BaaBomb Thus, Sticky Flame will spread between sheep.]] [[RuleOfFunny Xom (of course) finds this hilarious.]]
** Flaming Corpses are literal men on fire; more precisely, they're the reanimated remains of people who burned to death. They exist only to set other things ablaze -- namely you. And they run faster than you (unless you're playing a faster race like a centaur or a spriggan).
* MassiveRaceSelection: The latest version has 24 playable species, most with odd natural abilities/disadvantages (the large races, for example, cannot wear most of the armour in the game).
* MasterPoisoner: Venom Mages, a playable class that focuses on Poison magic.
** Also Olgreb, a legendary mage whose is referenced by some spells and artifacts named after him. Said spells and artifacts are potent enough to be able to overcome poison resistance in monsters.
* MaximumHPReduction:
** The rotting status will gradually reduce your character's maximum HP while in effect. Like in the above example, you can repair small amounts of rot by using healing potions or wands while at full HP. Ghoul characters can also restore rotted HP by eating meat (preferably rotten), which helps offset the innate decay they suffer from. Then there's the spell called Borgnjor's Revivification, which fully heals you at the cost of ''permanently'' reducing your maximum HP.
** ''Crawl'' also has Maximum MP Damage, though only two character races have to worry about it; deep dwarves and mummies both have emergency abilities that require you to sacrifice one point of MP. Deep dwarves can use their ability to recharge magical devices (like a wand of healing), whereas mummies can instantly restore their stats and some rotted HP.
* TheMaze: One of Dungeon Crawl's occasionally generated optional challenge levels, the Labyrinth features tight corridors that cannot be permanently mapped and that also occasionally shift. There are no enemies save for rare occurrances of hungry ghosts and [[spoiler:the Minotaur who guards the exit]]. The real challenge is finding the way out before starving to death, but successful players are rewarded with a bunch of reasonably good items.
** A tip for traveling through a Labyrinth: the closer you get to the center, the stronger the walls will become. Ergo, when you start seeing stone and metal walls, you're getting closer.
** As a ShoutOut to the Greek myth, Minotaur characters can map out more of a Labyrinth than any other race.
* MercyRewarded: Elyvilon likes it when you pacify monsters instead of fighting them, although she doesn't punish you for fighting. (Unless you kill something while praying for divine protection.)
* MessianicArchetype: Playing as a Hill Orc priest of Beogh, a.k.a "Orc Jesus". However, you're far from being TheMessiah; the methods of a priest of Beogh are [[DarkMessiah suitably Orcish]].
* MirrorBoss: What makes the unique rakshasa Mara so dangerous. He has the ability to create an exact copy of anything within his line of sight, and most of the time, that'll be you. Fortunately, he can only create one such copy of a given creature at a time, and you can make your copy somewhat more managable by [[WithThisHerring wielding something completely unsuitable as a weapon and/or wearing inferior equipment]], but it won't do anything to your copy's spellcasting ability. Once your copy's out, though, you can switch back to your normal gear and commence battling as usual.
* MookChivalry: Averted. Smarter monsters will make room for their mates so they can more easily gang up on you. If you enforce this by luring them into a narrow corridor, they will try to round a corner to get at you.
* MultiMeleeMaster: Crawl's skill system allows you to train and gain experience with any weapon, so it's possible to master several weapons at once.
* MultiRangedMaster: Similarly, players can master different kinds of ranged weapons.
* MundaneUtility:
** In addition to being one of the classic tricks of necromancy, the spell Animate skeleton is also a neat hands-free way of peeling the flesh off a corpse. In fact, Ashenzari's altars typically have a book of Animate skeleton near them precisely to allow their bound servants to butcher corpses.
** Transforming oneself to an giant ice beast will be very effective against monsters not resistant to cold. However, transmuters will also use the spell to cross ponds of water with ease. Said ice beast can also butcher corpses on its own, so transmuters who've been stuck with a cursed blunt weapon can do this to get food.
* {{Nerf}}ing: This tends to happen between versions. The most obvious nerf is for Summoners, who can summon monsters to kill for them; the rule is that any monster killed by a player's summon is worth only half the experience it would be otherwise.
** In particular, the devs like to nerf anything that's considered obviously better than any other choice and ends up being [[ComplacentGamingSyndrome used regardless of your play style]]. The recent halving of extra damage done by vorpal weapons and removal of the "Detect Creatures" spell fall into this category, as did the removal of the "Tomb of Doroklohe" spell in the first Stone Soup versions.
* NintendoHard: This game ''is'' going to kill you, and when you make a new character, the ghost of your dead character is going to kill ''him''.
* NitroBoost: Potions of speed as well as the Haste spell.
* NominalImportance: The unique enemies have names, and when you see one you know you're in for a more difficult battle than normal.
** The randomly generated artifacts are a slight aversion of this, since they have real-looking names, but are not guaranteed to be important, or even worth having at all. It's not uncommon to find artifacts with abysmal stats or negative attributes, and many are cursed.
** As a hill orc of Beogh, your orcish followers will gain names if they survive and kill for long enough. They can still die like any other orc, but it is potential fuel for VideoGameCaringPotential.
* NonElemental: Crawl's normal weapons are less immediately powerful, but more versatile than elemental (branded) ones, since there are several weapon enchantment spells that won't work on already-branded weapons. Similarly, there are several elemental staves which, unlike the regular quarterstaff, have the additional problem of being impossible to enhance (they can only ever have the damage and accuracy stats of a normal staff).
** For magic attacks, the most obvious non-elemental one is Magic Dart, which is simply a dart of pure irresistible magic that never misses its target (magic resistance in Crawl only applies to enchantments, not magical energy). Elemental attacks can be resisted by appropriately elemental monsters.
** Eventually the game reaches a point where monsters are almost immune to any attacks that are not non-elemental. Fortunately for mages, all earth magic, a bit of air magic and three pure conjurations spells are non-elemental, and a few other spells are only partly resistable.
* OddJobGods: Jiyva, the god of slime, and Cheibriados, the god of slowness.
** Cheibriados is the god of time -- he just wants his followers to take it easy and enjoy every single second. Trying to speed up insults him, since you obviously don't appreciate it if you are moving as fast as you can. Jiyva fits this to a T however.
* OhCrap: Xom (The God of Chaos who sees you as his plaything) is getting BORED.
** [[HyperspaceIsAScaryPlace You are cast into the Abyss!]]
** You open the door. [[ZergRush The killer bee buzzes angrily! (x12)]]
* OneSizeFitsAll: Averted. Some races are so tiny they can't wear armour at all, or wield large weapons. Some races are so huge they need enormous armour.
** But played straight in the case of the many varieties of dragon armour, which magically fits on every race.
** And robes, though one can amuse himself with mental images of a spriggan whose robe trails three feet behind him or an ogre whose robe doesn't reach his knees.
* OneHandedZweihander: Larger races can wield some two-handed weapons as one handed weapons, but they're still more effective when used with two hands. Also inverted with the smaller races - they may need two hands to hold a weapon which the larger species can hold with just one.
* OneStatToRuleThemAll: Intelligence for any characters that desire any magical capabilities. The other two basic stats have little to no point unless you're a transmuter or your character is totally magic-free.
** You still want to have enough points in them so they can't instantly be dropped to zero or below (generally 8 is enough to survive most stat-draining situations).
* OneUp: Felids get an extra life every few levels - very unusual for a roguelike, but then Felids are an unusual race.
* OurAngelsAreDifferent: Angels are present as monsters that are typically quite tough to deal with - especially if one is undead and relies on black magic to kill stuff. Angels and their tougher cousins Daevas are [[GoodIsNotNice very aggressive]], unless the player is a very zealous follower of a good god, in which case they'll be indifferent.
* OurCentaursAreDifferent: [[MassiveRaceSelection And playable]]. They're fast, and deadly archers, but they don't get much protection from armor, and they need to eat more food than most due to their size.
* OurDemonsAreDifferent:
** [[MassiveRaceSelection And playable]]. Demonspawn are a JackOfAllStats race not much unlike humans, with special mutations and the inability to worship the three good gods.
** In addition to playable demonspawn, there are dozens and dozens of NPC demons ranging from minor imps to large abominable devils with [[TheUnpronounceable unpronounceable]] names.
* OurDragonsAreDifferent: But not directly playable, save for the Dragon Form spell. ''Draconians'' ([[HalfHumanHybrid human/dragon hybrids]]) are, however, playable, and get breath weapons (of a random type) when they hit level 7 and have "matured."
* OurDwarvesAreAllTheSame: Not quite, but still [[MassiveRaceSelection playable]]. Deep Dwarves are tough and capable necromancers and priests, but they lack natural regeneration. The Mountain Dwarves that were present in earlier versions resemble the traditional dwarves more.
* OurElvesAreBetter: [[MassiveRaceSelection And playable]]. High Elves are pretty standard, Deep Elves are cave-dwelling {{Squishy Wizard}}s with incredible magic power and laughable resilience, and Sludge Elves are jungle-dwelling {{Kung Fu Wizard}}s.
* OurFairiesAreDifferent: [[MassiveRaceSelection And playable]]. Spriggans are ugly little blighters with a distinct FairFolk flavor; they're one of the most popular species, since they're fast, skilled at magic, and don't need to eat much. But they're [[FragileSpeedster painfully frail]] and physically cannot eat meat in a game where enemy corpses are the only reliable source of food.
* OurGhostsAreDifferent: [[UndeathAlwaysEnds And slayable]]. A player character who dies may leave a ghost that carries on most of the deceased player's abilities and weaknesses as well as a [[GhostlyGoals fair share of hatred]] towards anyone attempting to complete the Orb quest - that is, [[MacroGame new player characters]].
* OurGhoulsAreCreepier: [[MassiveRaceSelection And playable]]. They have to eat a lot of meat to prevent themselves from rotting, but can tear enemies to shreds with their claws, and have a nice set of immunities.
* OurGoblinsAreDifferent: [[DefiedTrope But not playable]], unless you count kobolds, who have incredible stealth skill and a usually beneficial carnivorous diet.
* [[{{Halfling}} Our Halflings Are Different]]: [[MassiveRaceSelection And playable]]. Fast XP gain, good stealth, good with shields. In previous versions, they were a JokeCharacter race, but this has improved.
* OurLichesAreDifferent: And playable - not as a race, but as a form. The player can learn the Necromutation spell which will result in a temporary transformation into lich form. As a result, the player gains improved stats, a fairly potent draining touch and the various resistances and vulnerabilities associated with being undead. In addition, they lose the ability (and the need to) eat.
* OurMermaidsAreDifferent: [[MassiveRaceSelection And playable]]. They're of the "tails transform into legs" type, and as capable on land as any other race. In water, they're nearly unstoppable.
* OurOrcsAreDifferent: [[MassiveRaceSelection And playable]]. They're big, brutal, and able to eat rotten meat, and possess great XP gain. They're also looking for their messiah; orcs following Beogh can become what has been nicknamed "[[MessianicArchetype Orc Jesus]]," complete with walking on water. Of course, [[DarkMessiah a lot of killing is needed to earn that title]].
* OurOgresAreHungrier: [[MassiveRaceSelection And playable]]. They're not {{Smash Mook}}s, however, but {{Glass Cannon}}s due to their combination of massive strength and inability to wear armor. Some are [[GeniusBruiser competent mages]] as well.
* OurTrollsAreDifferent: [[MassiveRaceSelection And playable]]. Their regeneration is amazingly fast, and they can eat pretty much anything... which is good, considering that their regeneration gives them a hyperactive metabolism that requires them to consume massive amounts of food.
* OurVampiresAreDifferent: [[OverlyLongGag And playable]]. They can survive indefinitely without blood. How much they have in their system determines how "undead" they are, but they need at least some blood to regenerate.
* OxymoronicBeing: Spriggans can choose to be hunters by class, effectively being vegetarian hunters.
* ThePaladin: Paladin used to be a playable class, but is no longer a class after changes in version 0.8. A martial follower of the Shining One is still very paladin-like, however.
* PaletteSwap: Stone Soup introduces an odd variation of this: Weaker versions of an enemy are always dark ASCII colors. Stronger, but otherwise similar, enemies are the lighter shade of the same color.
* PartialTransformation: The Blade Hands and Beastly Appendage spells; the former turns the caster's hands into scythe-like blades, while the latter gives them a random temporary mutation -- arms to tentacles, horns on their heads, talons on their feet, et cetera.
* PercentDamageAttack: Agony.
* PlotCoupon: You need at least 3 [[{{MacGuffin}} Runes]] to enter the [[VeryDefinitelyFinalDungeon Realm Of Zot]].
* PoisonedWeapons: quite a few. Most of the melee weapons can be venom-branded, which gives them a chance to poison enemies that they hit. The spell Poison Weapon temporarily applies this brand to your current weapon. Arrows, bolts, darts, and needles may also be poisoned as well.
* PoisonMushroom: This being a Roguelike, some potions are "unidenfitied" and could be anything, including poison. They do have one or two positive uses, however, for some players....
* PowerFloats: Tengu, the bird people race, don't have wings, but they get the ability to magically fly at level 5, and get permanent flight at level 15.
* PowerNullifier: Some weapons have the antimagic brand, which is able to prevent monsters from casting spells. The scroll of vulnerability cancels all enchantments nearby and reduces the magic resistance of everyone nearby.
** The Silence spell prevents sounds from occurring within an area for a limited time, so while it doesn't actually nullify magical power, it nullifies the ability to use magical powers, since spell words can't be spoken and scrolls can't be read. It's no good for stealth, because the unnatural silence immediately warns enemies that you're there.
* ProngsOfPoseidon: one of the weapons some fighting classes may choose to begin with is a spear, but for merfolk, this is replaced with a trident. Gladiators also get to use the trident, since they did in real life.
** Hell Knights and other demon-aligned monsters can carry demon tridents, and followers of The Shining One can transform one into a holy trishula.
* RandomNumberGod: Xom is a god of Chaos that grants you rewards and punishments that are largely random. He's also possibly the only deity in anything that literally [[LampshadeHanging calls himself the Random Number God]]. (Some of the time, at least. He can be referred to by several different titles, one of which is periodically chosen randomly.)
* RandomlyGeneratedLevels: Like most {{Roguelike}}s, Crawl features these. Levels are created using several different templates and are often spiced up with hand-crafted rooms with special features or monster vaults, making them even more varied than in most Roguelikes.
* RareCandy: Potions of Experience and Gain <Stat>, as well as the treasured Experience card found in some decks.
* RealTimeWeaponChange: It takes time to wield a weapon; the more cumbersome it is, the longer it takes.
** Common {{YASD}}: [[RandomlyDrops Find a gold dragon armour]] (the strongest and heaviest armor in the game,) neglect to retreat to someplace safe to put it on, and get [[CherryTapping picked to death 1 HP at a time]] by a goblin that was hiding around the corner [[InTheBack before you can finish putting it on]] and actually get the AC bonus.
** Crystal plate armour has 40% more AC, but lacks the elemental resistance of the GDA. Which one is stronger depends on the situation.
* ReligionIsMagic: There's not much difference between magic and religion (and there are gods of magic)... some religious powers even use up magic points. However, religious powers tend to be more powerful and accessible than magic (no need to learn spellcasting and all the magic schools, no need to wear light armour).
** Religious powers tend to be more costly and less versatile than magic. The most powerful blasting powers are only accessible to spellcasters and followers of Nemelex - god of cards - who doesn't directly grant the powers, just magical decks of cards, which can contain cards of blasting.
* ReligionOfEvil: Since some of the gods are evil, their followers are required to be as well; some gods require you to kill as often as possible.
* RequiredSecondaryPower: If PC is invisible, but can't see invisible, he's penalized for not seeing what he's doing.
* RewardingInactivity: Before the version 0.10, the three good gods used to grant piety slowly over time, in contrast to other gods who required activity for increasing and preserving piety.
* RoadRunnerPC: Spriggans and centaurs are faster than ordinary enemies, but at a price. Both races are limited in their armor (centaurs need centaur barding, spriggans are limited to robes and animal skins). Centaurs need to eat ''a lot'' of food due to their large size, and have poor melee skills. Spriggans, while small enough that they rarely need food, are [[FragileSpeedster painfully fragile]], and worse, herbivores who can't eat slain enemies.
* ScaledUp: The Dragon Form spell, which the player can obtain and use at high levels of transmutation and fire magic.
** Only requires transmutation magic if you are playing as a Draconian.
* SchizophrenicDifficulty: The AI director vascillates between being a MontyHaul and (much more frequently) KillerGameMaster, with the consistency of a manic ten yea old on pixie sticks. Sometimes you get a dragon hide on the first floor, sometimes you get a ''dragon'' on the first floor. Some days its all rings and randarts, sometimes the AI just decides to spawn fifty jellies. Players learn to laugh about it, or cry.
* SelfImposedChallenge: You only need 3 runes to unlock the endgame, but many players go for the bonus levels, collecting upwards of 20 or more. When this wasn't enough the developers started adding clearly uncompetitive joke builds. Enjoy your [[IntelligentGerbil Felid]] [[DittoFighter Wanderer]] of [[JerkassGods Xom]].
** Since version 0.9, only one demonic rune of zot will ever spawn per game, so the maximum number of runes any character can collect is 15 as opposed to the literal hundreds possible before.
** Some players may also go for speed runs (lowest number of turns, fastest real time), or ascend with the lowest level humanly possible.
* ShapeshifterModeLock: Vampires can change into bats, giving them increased dexterity. If, however, they have their dexterity drained while in bat form, it's possible to end up such that turning back into a vampire would leave them with zero or less, which would kill them. Therefore they're stuck in bat form until they can regain it.
* ShoutOut: There are tons of shout outs scattered throughout the game. In addition to everything taken from mythology and other dungeon-crawling games, the developers threw in plenty of references to pop culture. Various item and enemy descriptions will have passages from famous works ranging from Shakespeare to The Lord of the Rings.
** The (removed in version 0.10) spell Maxwell's Silver Hammer, which is used to make blunt weapons more deadly, is a direct reference to Music/TheBeatles' song of the same name about a man who murders people with a hammer.
** ''TheYoungPoisonersHandbook'', the starting spellbook for venom mages, is a 1995 film about a real life poisoner.
** The image for [[http://crawl.chaosforge.org/index.php?title=Hungry_ghost Hungry Ghosts]] looks rather like the Slimer from ''{{Ghostbusters}}''.
** As stated above, the monster Nikola is named after the famous inventor [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nikola_Tesla Nikola Tesla]].
* SiblingRivalry: Edmund is jealous of his older brother Sigmund, and for a reason: Sigmund is a notorious killer of junior adventurers while Edmund is more like an average brute with an expensive flail and a [[InformedAbility good ability with sums]].
* {{Sidequest}}: Crawl has lots of dungeon branches and you're not required to enter all of them. Most have a rune at the bottom, but you only need three to enter the Realm of Zot and get the Orb of Zot. A self-imposed challenge is to get all the runes and escape.
* SimpleStaff: Played straight with the quarterstaff, which is just a stick. Averted with the lajatang, which is a real-life weapon, a quarterstaff with added blades.
* SkippableBoss: All of them. The recommended strategy on almost every unique is "Run away unless you KNOW they can't ruin your day, and come back when you're ten levels higher." The uniques considered most deadly are the ones who are ''hard to run away from'', either by being fast, having ranged attacks or casting debilitating status effects.
* SleazyPolitician: According to the player's title, they become one when they maximize their stabbing skill.
* SquadControls: Any allies you have can be given simple commands with the Talk button, like 'follow me', 'wait here', 'attack target', etc.
** You can also control what kinds of items your intelligent allies will pick up, like whether you want them to pick up anything they find or just the stuff that you drop (mindless allies like the undead still won't pick up anything).
* SquishyWizard: Played mostly straight: wizards tend to be squishy, and so do most of the races which make good wizards. Ogres are an exception.
* StatusBuff: Zin's Vitalisation skill buffs all three of your stats. You also get various other buffs like Haste, potions of might, potions of agility, Berserk, etc.
* StatDeath: If any one of your stats drops to zero and you don’t fix it within a certain number of turns, you're dead. In earlier builds, it was instant death.
* StatGrinding: Almost none - the game deliberately tries to avoid this. It was finally stamped out in version 0.9. To train skills, you have to gain experience - however, it doesn't matter ''how'' you gain that experience. For example, you could focus all your training on spellcasting, and you'll level up in that even if you're killing enemies in melee combat. It's a little weird, but it completely solves the grinding problem, while leaving the decisions entirely in the player's hands as to how they actually want to fight.
* SuckingInLines: Unlike most spells which hit the enemy instantly the [[NamesToRunAwayFrom Orb of Destruction]] spends its first turn hovering stationary in front of the caster. On turn two it takes off, rapidly gaining speed and power before enveloping the target in a tender [[LudicrousGibs 9d50 embrace]].
* SuicidalOverconfidence: Almost any creature in Crawl will attack the player, even if the odds aren't exactly in its favor.
* SuperDrowningSkills: Unless you're a Merfolk, Octopode, or Gray Draconian (the first two can swim while the third doesn't need to breathe). Crawl's interface stops the player walking into deep water (and warns the player about trying to move near deep water while confused), but levitating players can still drown if their levitation wears off over water.
* SuperWeaponAverageJoe: Even a mere kobold with a dagger of distortion can banish the player to the Abyss.
** If a weapon of draining spawns on floor 1 and you get hit with it, you can basically kiss your character goodbye as what few XP you've gained are sucked away.
* SuperpowerLottery: The [[PlanetOfHats Demonspawn's racial hat]]. While all of their mutations are ''theoretically'' useful developing a power like hollow bones or magic mapping has led to a practice affectionately known as [[PressXToDie "gnoll time"]].
* SuperpowerMeltdown: Have a high enough level of TheCorruption, and there's a chance you might [[StuffBlowingUp spontaneously explode]].
** Yet it's possible to have enough HP to survive.
* SwordAndSorcerer: The elf twins. Duvessa has the Sword, Dowan is the Sorcerer.
** Random artefact weapons can (very rarely) be generated with a "noisy" attribute, causing them to be very, ''very'' chatty while they are wielded.
* TakenForGranite: There's a Petrify spell which turns enemies to stone for a short time, and also a spell to turn the player into an animate statue (which makes them invulnerable to lots of kinds of damage). Statues are also pretty formidable enemies in the game, despite being unable to move. One unique enemy called Roxanne is the sapphire statue of a mage whose experiments with transmutation magic went horribly wrong. She can't move, but that doesn't stop her from casting spells...
* TalkingWeapon: ''Crawl'' has an artifact sword that ''sings''. Don't worry, it's very rare, you're not likely to see it very often.
** In tense battles, it starts ''screaming'' instead, which actually hurts enemies (as well as making a huge racket). If you cast Silence, [[TheDevTeamThinksOfEverything it changes its name to "The Sulking Sword".]]
* TarotMotifs: The decks of cards are very similar to Tarot cards, and can be used to evoke various powers.
* TeleportSpam: imps, blink frogs, and Prince Ribbit (who is a blink frog) will do this.
* ThemeTwinNaming: Dowan and Duvessa.
* TheUnpronounceable: Crawl is notorious for featuring gods and monsters with names that are hard to spell correctly and often equally hard to pronounce: Kikubaaqudgha, Yredelemnul, Neqoxec, Ynoxinul, Ilsuiw... some of these names were reportedly created by allowing a cat to walk on the keyboard.
* TookALevelInBadass: Draconians are fairly lousy to begin with; they're quite strong, but their bodies are the wrong shape for wearing armour and their dexterity is terrible. Then they advance to experience level 7, mature into their adult form, and suddenly they have a breath weapon that's only limited by their hunger and the few turns it takes to recharge it.
* TransformationRay: the wand of polymorph other can transform a monster into another monster. This is actually quite risky, since it's very possible to create a worse threat than the original. The wand is ''supposed'' to transform a monster into a monster of similar threat, so a rat will never turn into a dragon, but even so, what the game considers a 'similar threat' is often quite unpredictable. The best use for this wand is to change a monster that you are poorly equipped to fight - for example, an ice beast when you only have ice spells.
* TrickArrow: Until 0.8, this was the style of Arcane Marksmen. (They now use hexes to debilitate foes instead.)
* TricksterGod: Possibly Xom, who uses his powers to amuse himself... in game, however, this title is given to Nemelex Xobeh, a god who appreciates trickery and gambling, and gives his followers magical decks of cards to use.
* TurnUndead: The undead are vulnerable to weapons of holy wrath (blessed by The Shining One, god of not-liking-unholy-stuff), and the Dispel Undead spell is essentially Crawl's version of Turn Undead - it is, however, a necromancy spell, meaning that any characters who want to be holy can't use it.
* TwinTelepathy: Dowan and Duvessa, the elf twins, have a psychic link, and either one of them knows instantly when the other is killed.
* TurnsRed: Kill one of the elf twins and the other will go berserk upon seeing you.
* UndignifiedDeath: If the player loses too much of an attribute (Strength, intelligence or dexterity) they will eventually die in an unceremonial fashion:
** Too low strength will result in the character collapsing under their own weight.
** Too low intelligence will result in the character forgetting to breathe (making them literally TooDumbToLive) - if the player character doesn't need to breathe, [[TheDevTeamThinksOfEverything the death message is changed so the character forgets to exist at all]].
** Too low dexterity will cause the character to die in a BananaPeel accident.
* UnexplainedRecovery: The Felid race can gain "extra lives" which revive them somewhere (theoretically) safe if they die.
* UniversalPoison: Played straight. There is only one poison status, and a potion of healing will cure it. However, there are a few kinds of poison which add more effects on top of being poisoned. Curare-tipped blowgun needles, for example, will also slow you down and start suffocating you.
** There's a spell and a weapon (Poison Arrow and the Staff of Olgreb, respectively) which can't be fully resisted by living creatures.
* UnskilledButStrong: Some races, such as trolls and demigods, have poor skill aptitudes but compensate by having good stats and other attributes to begin with.
* UnstoppableRage: The Berserk status gives significant bonuses (doubled speed, enhanced damage, temporary extra HP) with a period of fatigue and a risk of passing out afterwards. Put it this way: a Felid is a sentient housecat. A Felid Berserker of Trog (whose powers support your rage) can rip apart a herd of elephants with its claws and teeth.
* UnusableEnemyEquipment: Averted: you can pick up and use any equipment dropped by an enemy that you're capable of wielding or wearing, and this is a common way to acquire new stuff (especially since the enemy will likely have obligingly demonstrated the equipment's capabilities while attacking you). However it IS kind of true in reverse; there's some equipment which the player can use, but which the enemies can't... often because it's a difficult feature to code for. For example, enemies don't use the wand of enslavement on the player because there's no artificial intelligence or interface to handle being enslaved.
* VampiricDraining: the name of a level 3 spell which does exactly this. See the example for LifeDrain.
* VideogameCrueltyPunishment: Elyvilon, god of healing, has a neat punishment for too sadistic players; being a god of pacifism, she ''blunts your weapons''.
* VideoGameLives: Felids get an extra life every few levels, which is rare in modern games and even rarer in roguelikes. It even says 'Extra life!'.
* VillainForgotToLevelGrind: the reason why DungeonBypass works (sometimes). If you can't kill Sigmund the first time you meet, come back after you've levelled up (or else found something which will make it easier to kill him).
* VoluntaryShapeshifting: There's a school of magic which specializes in this, and vampires can change into bats. Merfolk transform their legs into mermaid-style tail when in water and back into feet when on land.
* WakeUpCallBoss: The first unique you meet. At this point in the game you probably haven't identified potions of healing or scrolls of teleportation. It's teaching you probably the most important lesson of Dungeon Crawl: pick your fights (especially if it's out of depth) and have an escape plan (scrolls of teleportation should not be a first choice for escape). It also teaches the second lesson: don't be afraid to fight. You’ll probably have to face them eventually, and if you just run through levels not fighting anything you’ll eventually meet something faster and stronger than you.
* WalkItOff: Most characters and monsters will gradually heal from almost all wounds. Some creatures can't regenerate - deep dwarves will never gain passive healing and vampires need blood to do so.
* WalkOnWater: An ability given only to the most faithful worshippers of Beogh (hence the FanNickname "Orc Jesus").
* WallCrawl: Some monsters (mostly small reptiles and arachnids) have the ability to cling to walls. This allows them to pass over obstacles like deep water.
** Cast the Spider Form spell and you can do this, too.
* WeakButSkilled: In a way, this is a Dungeon Crawler's normal mode of operation - there is rarely a point where you're powerful enough to be 'safe' from attack. It's especially true at the very start of the game, where a couple of hits from even the lowest level monsters can finish off a weak character. Wanderers are probably the best example; they begin with a random skill set and random equipment, and are thus in a worse position than any other class upon entering the dungeon, since they are literally not equipped to fight.
* WhipItGood: Whips are fairly swift weapons that are good in the early game but pack fairly little punch against tougher foes. However, some whips are [[ForgedByTheGods demonic or heavenly]] in origin, and are extremely devastating weapons.
* WhyAmITicking: You can force this on enemies with the Inner Flame spell, which makes them explode violently into clouds of fire when they die. It's great for [[HerdHittingAttack killing off big clumps of monsters simultaneously]] or for blocking off passages. [[{{YASD}} Just try not to stand right next to an enchanted enemy when you kill it]].
* WizardNeedsFoodBadly: The need to eat (the "food clock") and the lack of dungeon level regeneration constantly pushes the adventurer forward and down in search of sustenance. Though it’s worse for magic users, as most forms of magic increase hunger to the point where a ring of sustenance is a prized possession.
** Mummies, however, don't need to eat, although they have rather terrible skill aptitudes and can’t use potions (including healing potions).
** Vampires don't need to consume food, either - though when completely bloodless they do not heal over time, so you will likely still want to drink some blood every now and then.
** Spellcasting hunger can be eliminated in various ways, including the staff of energy, being a mummy, vampire or in lich form, or just having sufficient intelligence and Spellcasting skill (though this last solution scales much more slowly than spell hunger).
** The ones who get it worst, however, are berserkers, since their signature ability costs a huge amount of nutrition in exchange for a huge but double-edged boost in combat, and can only be used when well-fed enough that it isn't life-threatening. If they rely too much on the ability and aren't from a "carnivorous" race they're almost guaranteed to starve.
* WombLevel: Cigotuvi's [[BonusDungeon Wizlab]], which is the lair of a master flesh mage. It's a ginormous organic compound with a layout that resembles intestines; the walls are strangely fleshy and have eyes and mouths on them, the doors are actually sphincters, and transparent membranes replace the transparent rock walls you find everywhere else. It's also filled with [[BodyHorror the horrible results of Cigotuvi's experiments]].
* YouNoTakeCandle: The unique goblin Ijyb speaks in this manner.
* ZergRush: A fairly good strategy for a player with good summoning spells, as well as the favorite trick of many enemies. Some spells are used almost exclusively for Zerg Rushing - this is how Summon Small Mammals acquired its FanNickname "spammals".
----

!This game provides examples of:

Not wanting to waste the game's potential, a group of people made an open source fork called ''Dungeon Crawl Stone Soup'' (look up Stone soup on Wikipedia if you feel that's an odd title), and their version is now [[WeirdAlEffect dominant]] (similar to the way Hack became NetHack). It is still updated as of 2012, with new versions released every few months.

Despite all this, there are two areas where it's actually much more merciful than most roguelikes: very few hazards can even weaken your equipment, and none can destroy outright anything other than scrolls and potions. Also, (with the sole exception of statdeath from artifacts) identifying items by using them very rarely causes any life-threatening consequences, and nothing other than weapons, armor, and jewelery can be cursed. The dev team has made avoiding cheap shots one of their highest priorities, and instant kills or unavoidable deaths are nearly unheard of. The game is also extremely newbie friendly. The built-in manual is very good for a roguelike. Every monster and most hazards can be examined for a short description, and there is a basic threat-level system. Not than any of this will stop you from splatting horribly.

Picture a NetHack game in which the most powerful healing potion in the game [[PowerupLetdown recovers about 25 HP]], you [[AllPowerfulBystander can't trust your god to save you from anything]], there is [[YouCanRunButYouCantHide no Elbereth]], all of your spells [[PhlebotinumBreakdown can backfire and hurt you]], only certain species and rare mutations can provide permanent resistances, and, most importantly, there's no [[OneUp amulet of life saving]] or [[GameBreaker wand of wishing]] to save you anymore!

* ScaledUp: The Dragon Form spell, which the player can obtain and use at high levels of transmutation magic.

** Crystal plate armour has more AC, but lacks the elemental resistance of the GDA. Which one is stronger depends on the situation.

* HornetHole: The Hive is a giant beehive, filled with killer bees.

*** "Good" gods also hold their followers to much higher standards, all of whom laundry lists of things that they dislike, most so called evil gods don't really care what their followers do, as long as they kill and sacrifice for them.