History Main / DungeonCrawl

Picture NetHack, only the most powerful healing potion in the game [[PowerupLetdown recovers about 25 HP]], you [[OmniImpotence can't appeal to your god to save you from anything]], there is [[YouCanRunButYouCantHide no Elbereth]], all of your spells, instead of just having a failure rate, [[PhlebotinumBreakdown can backfire and hurt you]], only certain species and rare mutations can provide permanent resistances, meaning unless you get very lucky with mutations and equipment, you'll be juggling your inventory, and, most importantly, there's no [[OneUp 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 artefacts,) identifying items by using them can't cause any life-threatening consequences, and nothing other than weapons, armor, and jewellery 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.

* 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."

* HumansAreAverage: Mostly played straight (humans get no special abilities, and average apitudes), but they're tied with [[OurOrcsAreDifferent hill orcs]], [[OurGoblinsAreDifferent kobolds]] and [[{{halflings}} for fastest XP gain in the game. This is a very useful thing.

* [[{{Halflings}} Our Halflings Are Different]]: [[LoadsAndLoadsOfRaces And playable]]. Fast XP gain, good stealth, good with shields. In previous versions, they were a JokeCharacter race, but this has improved.

* OurOrcsAreDifferent: [[LoadsAndLoadsOfRaces And playable]]. They're big, brutal, and nasty. 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]].

* 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. Also applies to monsters, although there it’s more due to convenience than any in-game reason.

* 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 - miscast teleportation spells can send you here, as can distortion weapons. It's also the place where Lugonu, the paradoxical chaos god of atheism, lives. Followers of Lugonu can get the ability to jump in and out of the abyss at will. Banished monsters also end up here.

* FantasticRacism: Beogh does not accept worship from those such as you!

* GameBreaker: The Storm spells, especially [[KillItWithFire Fire Storm]]. Both spells deal damage comparable with [[AwesomeButImpractical Crystal Spear]] to ''multiple enemies'', both are partially irresistible, and both leave damaging clouds behind. Fire Storm [[BeyondTheImpossible takes it further]] by having Smite-targeting (the best type in the game) and summons fire vortices to distract survivors. If you worship Vehumet and wield a staff of energy/cast Necromutation, then you can basically cast it ''for free''.

Picture NetHack, only there's [[SquishyWizard no way to ever increase your HP above about 250]], there are [[NoSelfBuffs no healing spells]], the most powerful healing potion in the game [[PowerupLetdown recovers about 25 HP]], you [[OmniImpotence can't appeal to your god to save you from anything]], there is [[YouCanRunButYouCantHide no Elbereth]], all of your spells, instead of just having a failure rate, [[PhlebotinumBreakdown can backfire and hurt you]], only certain species and rare mutations can provide permanent resistances, meaning unless you get very lucky with mutations and equipment, you'll be juggling your inventory, and, most importantly, there's no [[OneUp amulet of life saving]] or [[GameBreaker wand of wishing]] to save you anymore!

* ArcNumber: Crawl seems to have a fondness for the number 27. There are 27 dungeon levels, the maximum experience level is 27, and the individual levels for skills also each go to 27. At least one member of the devteam has wanted to add more species and remove classes just to get the totals to 27.

* DifficultyLevels: Even finishing as a Mountain Dwarf Fighter worshipping Okawaru (generally considered the easiest combination to play) is pretty ridiculously hard, but playing some races (Draconians, Ghouls, Mummies) is, by design, much more difficult than others (Vampires, Demonspawn, Nagas.) There's also the "Wanderer" class, which starts you with a pitifully low level in a few skills chosen completely at random.

* FantasticRacism: [[KnightTemplar The Shining One]] does not accept worship from those such as you!

** More true to the spirit of the trope, ugly things and slime creatures later on in the Dungeon. They always appear in packs, are faster than most PCs, and absorb a good chunk of damage before dying or splitting. Also see the DemonicSpiders entry above for a description of the Invisible Horror.

Picture NetHack, only there's [[SquishyWizard no way to ever increase your HP above about 250]], there are [[NoSelfBuffs no healing spells]], the most powerful healing potion in the game [[PowerupLetdown recovers about 25 HP]], you [[OmniImpotence can't appeal to your god to save you from anything]], there is [[YouCanRunButYouCantHide no Elbereth]], all of your spells, instead of just having a failure rate, [[PhlebotinumBreakdown can backfire and hurt you]], and, most importantly, there's no [[OneUp amulet of life saving]] or [[GameBreaker wand of wishing]] to save you anymore!

Picture NetHack, only there's [[SquishyWizard no way to ever increase your HP above about 250]], there are [[NoSelfBuffs no healing spells]], the most powerful healing potion in the game [[PowerupLetdown recovers about 25 HP]], you [[OmniImpotence can't appeal to your god to save you from anything]], there is [[YouCanRunButYouCantHide no Elbereth]], all of your spells, instead of just having a failure rate, [[PhlebotinumBreakdown can backfire and hurt you]], you can't permanently gain elemental resistances so you have to rely on your equipment to protect you from elemental attacks (and consequently you [[AchillesHeel can't have protection from all of the elements at once]],) and, most importantly, there's no [[OneUp amulet of life saving]] or [[GameBreaker wand of wishing]] to save you anymore!

* LoadsAndLoadsOfRaces: 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).
** In the latest version, you even have the option to play a sentient cat.

* LoadsAndLoadsOfRaces: The latest version has 23 playable species, most with odd natural abilities/disadvantages (the large races, for example, cannot wear most of the armour in the game).

* FrogsAndToads: They make appearances as regular enemies and aren't that easy, either; the spiny frog is a very dangerous enemy even for players who have been doing great up to this point. 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.)

* HornetHole: The Hive is a giant beehive, filled with killer bees. Mini-beehives also randomly occur in the dungeon.

* RealTimeWeaponChange: it takes time to wield a weapon; the more cumbersome it is, the longer it takes.

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 2010, with new versions released every few months and a major new version (0.8) already finished.

* OurDrgaonsAreDifferent: 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: [[LoadsAndLoadsOfRaces And playable]]. Mountain dwarves are pretty typical, but Deep Dwarves are a whole different story. They're incredibly tough, but cannot heal naturally, meaning any damage they take must be repaired magically.

* OurGhoulsAreCreepier: [[LoadsAndLoadsOfRaces And playable]]. They have to eat a lot of meat, but can tear enemies to shreds with their claws, and have a nice set of immunities.

** Water magic still exists in the Shoals. Aquamancers are the only monsters who know to use it.

You can download it [[http://crawl.develz.org/wordpress/ here]] or play it [[http://crawl.akrasiac.org/ online]]. ''Crawl'' even has its own [[http://chaosforge.org/crawl/ wiki]].

*** There's also the point that the hardest Pan levels are harder than almost anything else in the game, so instead of grinding Pan, why not just win (or do a Hell, if you haven't done all them yet)?

* AuthorExistenceFailure: Although not actually dead the original creator of the game, Linley Henzell, did suddenly vanish in 2005, abandoning the game.
* AwesomeButImpractical: A lot of the high-level spells. Sure, Ice Storm releases a massive blast of frozen vapor, but between the extremely high level needed to even have a chance at learning it and the ungodly hunger costs for casting it, you're better off sticking to lower-leveled blast spells. Same goes for pretty much every level 9 spell, and most level 8 ones as well.
** Partly subverted, as the [[BonusDungeon ziggurat]] is nearly unbeatable without using the highest level conjuration spells.
* 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; blades are better, daggers are best.

* 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 throwable projectile), but there are also halberds, tridents, scythes, glaives, and bardiches. Polearms tend to be big on damage and short on accuracy, and are the only weapons beside whips which can have the 'reaching' brand, which allows them to magically extend to hit monsters from slightly further away.

* BoringButPractical: No matter how many high-level spells you get, it's the lower-level ones that will save your life. In particular, two of the most useful escape spells in the game - Summon Butterflies, which [[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin summons a horde of butterflies]] which swarm around you and can block attacks is a level 1 spell, and Blink, a short range teleport spell which drops you in a random location (possibly next to your enemies!), is level 2.

* DungeonShop: Played straight: shops seem to appear anywhere for pretty much no reason at all. <s>Including the Swamp.</s> 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.

* TrickArrow: In 0.6 a variety of new projectile kinds have been added; <s>for example, arrows of reaping which, if they kill a monster and that monster leaves a corpse, turns that monster into a loyal zombie.</s> (…which was pulled right back out in 0.7. Oh well.) To take advantage of this, a new class has also appeared: the Arcane Marksman, an archer who can use magical enchantments on his bow to fire different kinds of magical arrows.

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

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 that version is now dominant (similar to the way Hack became NetHack). It is still updated as of 2010, with new versions released every few months and a major new version (0.7) already finished.

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, get back up and escape.

* AnimateInanimateObject: There's a spell which makes weapons come to life and fight alongside you. Possibly also mimics, although they're monsters which make themselves look like inanimate objects.
** There's a whole level, The Hall Of Blades, which is nothing but animate weapons.

* 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 soon respect them.

*** There's also the point that the hardest Pan levels are harder than almost anything else in the game, so instead of grinding Pan, why not just win(or do a Hell, if you haven't done all them yet)?

* AwesomeButImpractical: A lot of the high-leveled spells. Sure, Ice Storm releases a massive blast of frozen vapor, but between the extremely high level needed to even have a chance at learning it and the ungodly hunger costs for casting it, you're better off sticking to lower-leveled blast spells. Same goes for pretty much every Level 9 spell, and most Level 8 ones as well.
** Subverted, as the [[BonusDungeon ziggurat]] is nearly unbeatable without using the highest level conjuration spells.

** Most races cannot eat chunks of meat while not hungry, but Trolls, Kobolds, and Ghouls are able to engorge themselves. Other races can obtain this ability by wearing an Amulet of the Gourmand.
* 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 most common and simplest one (and handily also doubles as a throwable projectile), but there are also halberds, tridents, scythes, glaives, and bardiches. They tend to be big on damage and short on accuracy, and also are the only weapons beside whips which can have the 'reaching' brand, which allows them to magically extend to hit monsters a short distance away.

* BoringButPractical: No matter how many high-leveled spells you get, it's the lower-leveled ones that will save your life. In particular, two of the most useful escape spells in the game - Summon Butterflies, which [[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin summons a horde of butterflies]] which swarm around you and can block attacks is a level 1 spell, and Blink, a short range teleport spell which drops you in a random location (possibly next to your enemies!), is level 2.

* BreathWeapon: most adult draconians have these, as do most dragons and some drakes. Naga can also spit poison.

* ChestMonster: Like ''NetHack'', ''Crawl'' has mimics, but they're funnier. A mimic in ''NetHack'' reveals itself upon discovery, while a mimic in ''Crawl'' stays in mimicked form while attacking you. This results in funny lines like 'the potion of healing hits you!'.
* ColourCodedForYourConvenience: 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 it a different ability.

* 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 a lot of the mutations are detrimental), and if you have a high level, there's a chance for a SuperpowerMeltdown. Played straight with Demonspawn, who slowly get more and more demonic as they get experience levels.

* 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 have killed themselves with their own club.

** Any sort of higher demon, but especially any demons marked with '1' Second rank demons (marked with '2') will just give you really bad mutations, summons hordes of minions and set you on fire. First rank demons are the Fiends and the Executioner. The Executioner will make himself ridiculously fast and proceed to hit you like a freight train. Fiends have a (nearly) unresistable spell that instantly cuts your current HP in half. While throwing fire bolts and poison arrows, and summoning hordes of minions, who then summon hordes of their own minions.

* DidYouJustPunchOutCthulhu: [[spoiler:Kill the Royal Jelly without being worshipper of Jiyva? Congratulations, you've commit deicide.]]
* DisintegratorRay: the wand of disintegration, which makes monsters ''explode''. (And is especially good on brittle monsters like statues).

* DungeonShop: Played straight: shops seem to appear anywhere for pretty much no reason at all. Including the Swamp.

* 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 tramsmutes 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.

* 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, and it keeps all its fair-folk features, most notably the lack of wings.
* FanNickname: "Orc Jesus" for Priests of Beogh.
* FishOutOfWater: Merfolk, obviously, 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. Kenku (bird people) also seem highly unsuitable for a dungeon, but that just makes it more fun.
** Actually, the Merfolk description has stated that they move as good on land as in water and that this trope is more of a misconception other races tend to have towards the race.
* FlamingSword: flaming is a brand some weapons can have, including swords.
* ForgedByTheGods: Some of the gods give you gifts, normally highly enchanted or artifact weapons. Xom, god of chaos, likes to give gifts which are often totally useless.
** And the few times they aren't useless he animates them and they try to kill you.
* 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, a fact you can sometimes exploit.)
* FrogsAndToads: make appearances as regular enemies and aren't that easy, either; the spiny frog is a very dangerous enemy even for players who have been doing great up to this point; blink frogs come in packs and, as the name suggests, can blink (short-range teleport) and there's even a frog unique, Prince Ribbit (technically he's a human in frog form, but he still counts.)
* 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.
* GenieInABottle: An efreet, actually. It doesn't give you wishes. Also it might kill you.
* GeniusBruiser: The ogre-mage is a 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.

* GoddamnedBats: Totally true of Crawl's bats. They barely even hurt you, but hit multiple times in a turn, and have so much evasion they're hard to kill (most annoying is that they're so fast they can move toward you, hit you, and move out of reach in one turn, meaning that you can't melee them unless you make some odd moves).
** More true to the spirit of the trope, ugly things and slime creatures later on in the Dungeon. They always appear in packs, are faster than most PCs, and absorb a good chunk of damage before dying or splitting.
*** And run away when damaged... Slime creatures have incredibly annoying habit of fleeing and coming back within seconds, but with full health.

* HealingFactor: Trolls regenerate from injury super quickly, and have the metabolism to enable this. Averted with the new race, deep dwarf: they cannot heal naturally at all.
* 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 hitpoint healing, but a much greater amount of it.
* {{Hellfire}}: available to some demons and demonspawn, and more nasty than just fire.
* HyperspaceIsAScaryPlace: The Abyss is a plane of chaos, with no recognisable 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 - miscast teleportation spells can send you here, as can distortion weapons. It's also the place where Lugonu, one of the gods of chaos, lives. 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, turns any monster unable to resist the enchantment into your willing slave, who then obeys a small set of commands you can give. 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.

** 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". Recently added feature is that Xom is almost always amused with his followers dying.

* 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 way to kill ice aligned monsters.

* LevelDrain: Wights and wraiths can drain the player's experience, as can weapons and wands of draining - however, the player can also use those weapons, and learn spells to drain enemies as well.

* LoadsAndLoadsOfRaces: The latest version has 23 playable species, most with odd natural abilities/disadvantages (the large races, for example, cannot wear most of the armour in the game)
* 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 gain skill in the Shields school.

* 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 out sticky flames.

* 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 which boost the power of spells in those schools.

* MercyRewarded: Elyvilon likes it when you pacify monsters instead of fighting them, although she doesn't punish you for fighting.

** For magic attacks, the most obvious non-elemental one is Magic Dart, which is simply a dart of pure irresistible magic that never misses it's target. (Crawl has magic resistance, but it only applies to enchantments.) Elemental attacks can be resisted by appropriately elemental monsters.

* PlayerPreferredPattern: it is joked that most people play Mountain Dwarf Fighters of Okawaru, which supposedly is the easiest to advance with.

* RewardingInactivity: What Cheibriados, god of slowness, does. He rewards you for taking your time, and even slowing yourself deliberately.

* StatDeath: If any one of your stats drops to zero, you're dead.

* ThatOneBoss: Sigmund is a human [[strike:wizard MagicKnight nutcase]] {{badass}} notorious for killing off a lot of early level characters; he wields a scythe, which at this point in the game is a powerful weapon (in player's hands it performs pretty poorly), and can become invisible, cast confuse on the player and throw fire. Most players will avoid or escape him if they meet him, unless they have an edge, like a wand or potion.
* TookALevelInBadass: Draconians are fairly lousy to begin with; they're quite strong, but their bodies are the wrong shape for most 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. (And for yellow draconians, they don't even have to wait, they can spit acid at will.)

* TrickArrow: In 0.6 a variety of new projectile kinds have been added; for example arrows of reaping which, if they kill a monster, and that monster leaves a corpse, turns that monster into a loyal zombie. To take advantage of this, a new class has also appeared: the Arcane Marksman, an archer who can use magical enchantments on his bow to fire different kinds of magical arrows.

* UniversalPoison: Played straight and slightly averted. 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, for example, causes you to slow as well.
** There's a spell - Poison Arrow - which can't be fully resisted by living creatures.

* VillainForgotToLevelGrind: the reason why DungeonBypass works (sometimes). If you can't kill Sigmund the first time you meet, come back after you've leveled up (or at least, found yourself items which will make it easier to kill him).

* WakeUpCallBoss: The first unique you meet. ''Especially'' if it's [[ThatOneBoss Sigmund]] At this point in the game you probably haven't identified potions of healing or scrolls of teleportation. It's teaches 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 will have to face them eventually, and if you just run through levels not fighting anything you will eventually meet something faster and stronger than you.
* WizardNeedsFoodBadly: The need to eat (the "food clock") and the lack of dungeon level regeneration is constantly moving the adventurer forward and down in search of sustenance. 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 stats and an inability to use potions (including healing potions).

** 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 will likely not scale to the very most powerful spells).

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* 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 at least, found yourself items which will make it easier to kill him).

* 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 teaches 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 will have to face them eventually, and if you just run through levels not fighting anything you will eventually meet something faster and stronger than you.

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 that version is now dominant (similar to the way Hack became NetHack). It is still updated as of 2010, with new versions released every few months and a major new version (0.6) already finished.