Published: 2023/08/18
Last updated: 2023/11/13
From early April through early June of 2023, on and off, I played a lot of my favourite roguelike, Ancient Domains of Mystery, or ADOM, with a fervour and determination I have not previously experienced with that game despite over a decade of (again on and off) playing and several prior victories over the years. I guess I wanted to demonstrate to myself that those previous victories weren’t just flukes, given how often prior attempts in between and after those victories had failed. I wanted to feel like I have finally mastered this game.
I think I’ve done a pretty good job at convincing myself, as I managed one special ending of some sort each of those months: a Dark Elven Barbarian who achieved an Ultra Ending, a High Elven Archer who achieved an Ultimate Ending, and a Dark Elven Chaos Knight who achieved what I’m going to call an “Ascension” to differentiate it from a “most stupid follower of Chaos” ending, if only in spirit (and highly flavourful, possibly slightly buggy, text). I never bothered naming them, so they took on their default names: “Rilian” for the dark elves, and “Legolas” for the high elf.
I keep annoying everyone on IRC with tales of, and ruminations on, my exploits, so I figured I’d get it all off my chest here and finally get some Content so I don’t feel as bad about never updating. :^) There’s some fun stuff in here anyway. Fair warning though, spoilers and meta-knowledge and all that abound, though chances are anyone reading this is at least halfway familiar with the game anyway.
No matter what, I always start the game the same way: double-checking my gear and skills, going to Terinyo and getting the appropriate quests (and food), and then going to Lawenilothehl to get Pick Pockets (if possible), identify gear in the store, talk to the Drunken Dwarf, and make my first kill — generally either an Outlaw if I want the Courage skill later, or a Mugger or Beggar otherwise. Outlaws are uncommon in dungeons but easily farmable on road squares in the wilderness, while Muggers and Beggars only show up in Lawenilothehl. From there, I’ll try to generate the goblin camp, if possible, and then leave, so that it’s explorable later, primarily to ensure I can get a plain blanket to identify, which will immediately let me know if any other found blankets are of the more useful types (fireproof or waterproof) and to get a bunch of rocks for early ammo and weight-training for <18 Strength scores. The reason I save this for later is because of how my routing from here evolved over time, a choice which means I really don’t want to risk packing on levels just yet.
Originally, my routing used to include a starting gauntlet of getting through the Puppy Cave, on the following rationale:
It’s not a bad idea per se, but it does have a higher mortality rate than you might expect, largely due to the guaranteed ants on the second floor and their unusually high PV as well as the also-guaranteed cavernous room, where it’s easy to get surrounded.
So what do I do instead? I go to the Small Cave and make a run through the Unremarkable Dungeon. This is a bit dangerous in one respect, as the Small Cave generates monsters at about twice the experience level of the PC (and halves the drop rate on top of that), but that danger is also precisely why it’s best to do it early, if possible. Further, it provides the following advantages:
The most important advantage, of course, is that the Small Cave itself never has to be traversed again, as leaving via the secret exit in the High Mountain Village opens a permanent shortcut across the river from Terinyo.
This simple routing change was enough to severely drop my early-game deaths, both because enemies were usually a bit more reasonable (except in mixed tension rooms) and because of the gear. The trick is really just not to get too greedy searching for the blanket.
From there, the next steps are pretty straightforward:
From there, what I do kind of depends on the gear I have and/or how generous the Book of Donors is being in regards to paralysis resistance. The “get past the Animated Forest” quest can be handled by going to the Fungal Caves, which is extremely worth raiding, but only with decent Willpower and said resistance, as the Fungal King will delight in killing the PC slowly otherwise. The mushrooms and the artifact he drops are very worth it at this stage in the game, especially if, as in all my winning games, he drops the Cornucopia; when ’z’apped or ’u’sed, it can instantly set hunger status to “Satiated” (it recharges over time), and it boosts Mana by 13 when equipped in the tool slot, which is superior to the bonus offered by the Orb of Mana. Actually crossing that far can be done with very solid DV and PV or with invisibility, but the best way is usually to just dig a path around it and seal the exits with doors; it’s usually not hard to get the requisite wands early on, but the same cannot be said for stellar DV/PV scores or sources of permanent invisibility.
As far as Thrundarr’s other quests go, dealing with the Arena is probably best left until after the Pyramid, unless I have access to “see invisible” from some other source, and definitely not unless I have a couple potions of exchange or a wand of teleportation, to handle potential cats. The rest is very easy to knock out.
For that reason, around this time is where I take on the Pyramid and Nonnak the Necromancer. With decent gear and a blessed potion of invisibility, it’s fairly trivial to take out Rehetep, get the Ancient Mummy Wrapping, and escape, which in turn, especially with some archery, trivialises Nonnak, who otherwise should not be underestimated — relative to his level, he hits like a truck, and he loves to use cold-based magic. A wand of fireballs makes both of these quests really easy, and one is guaranteed for crossing the Animated Forest, but I often don’t have a means to safely do so just yet, especially as I prefer to knock out the Mushroom stuff on the first go, to spare the tedium and trouble of multiple trips.
This is also a good time to get the semi-final Terinyo quest, one to take out Hotzenplotz, for a decent monetary reward and an amulet of order. All that done, I tend to still be looking for levels and a chance to get an amulet of life-saving (either directly or via wishes), so it’s a good time to finish Thrundarr’s quests and then check out the Shadowy Dungeon and the Ice Queen Domain. By this time, or perhaps after the Ice Queen stuff, it is likely possible to handle Blup’s quest to find his mom, too; it only takes a (blessed) ring of the fish, teleport control, and a wand of teleportation, one of which is guaranteed in the assassin’s guild.
The Ice Queen Domain has several nasty parts to it, and if at all possible I prefer to have a form of invisibility alongside, ideally, either levitation or an amulet of free action, to counteract the movement penalty. The reason for the invisibility is that killing enemies on certain screens increments an invisible counter, and after 20 kills the perpetual ice storm intensifies, dealing cold damage to the PC and his inventory. Rings of fire can prevent the inventory damage, but in my experience such rings are exceedingly rare. Invisibility, even if only from a potion, is also essential in that one needs to kill the Berserker Prince very quickly lest he spring a devastating horde of monsters at the PC. Thankfully, this screen doesn’t count for the kill-counter, and it’s almost guaranteed to get a Yeti corpse to drop here, which provides cold resistance. Reaching the Queen opens a dangerous quest to kill a named Frost Jarl, Haggar, in the Frost Giant Jarl Caves.
The Frost Giant Jarl Caves only go down six levels, but almost all of the enemies generated will be some variety of frost giant, or else something probably nasty up to and including molochs, and there’s a guaranteed greater vault (and thus 1-4 artifacts) there. The greater vault is not something that can be cleared at this point, generally, and will have to be revisited later. The best case scenario is probably a giant vault, but even those contain Titans, which are no joke at this point. The caves also notably include frost giant berserkers and both the named and generic frost jarls, both of which hit surprisingly hard, especially if they punch through your armour. I always try to have at least one source of regeneration for handling this place, if at all possible; it makes surprise hits a lot easier to handle, and reduces the amount of hiding needed in order to heal up.
Upon clearing that out and returning to the Ice Queen, she rewards the PC with multiple potions of cure corruption, and assigns another quest that can be an insta-kill if screwed up: killing the Chaos Diplomat chained up on her ice lake. Engaging him in combat directly is almost certainly suicide due to his high speed and multiple corrupting and piercing attacks. The trick here is to throw one of the potions of cure corruption at him, ideally blessed, which will either insta-kill him or else do tremendous damage and disable his armour-punching. Succeeding in this will net some nice permanent stat boosts that ignore potential, those being +2 to Strength, Willpower, and Toughness, as well as a temporary blessing and, per community member Yulgash, intrinsic fire resistance, though I have yet to confirm that myself.
Past the Queen, this is the ideal time to finish up gathering any more applicable map pieces. Even if the Rolf quest isn’t on the menu, the pieces themselves are insanely valuable sacrificial fodder — just two are likely to be enough for a crowning. At this point I generally also cautiously attempt a raid of Darkforge, hoping to find useful weapons or especially armour in preparation for the Tower of Eternal Flames. I also, as soon as proper means are available, try to get the Ring of the High Kings. I have learned many times not to treat that too lightly, however — invisibility and a source or two of confusion resistance go a long way, and it’s not necessary to actually defeat the skeletal king to get the ring if he can be lead far enough away to allow for a quick dash in and out.
With surface-level details mostly dealt with, it’s pretty well time to focus on Orbs, coming up now and again as needed. First, the Water Orb, which requires passing Khelevaster and the CoC graveyard, and is generally quite trivial to get to, especially considering that the Snake From Beyond is easily stunned by potions of cure poison, which are almost annoyingly common. Afterwards, with the Orb as emergency healing, the Tower should be viable by now. Then, I head down past the Banshee to the Casino and scout it out. More specifically, I drop everything that I can, save that which improves my carrying capacity and a few blessed scrolls of identify, grab as much stuff from the Gift Shoppe as I can, identify it all, and put it in a corner, rinsing and repeating until all the gear is identified, and then putting stuff I want in a separate pile next to it. At this point, I retrieve my prior gear and check my money; if a bit of gambling can pull me over the edge, I’ll do so, otherwise I’ll head to the Merchant Guild via the shortcut to the surface, which tends to be just below. Entering at this point should spawn more than enough gold for what I’m after, as a rule.
After clearing the Casino, I make all haste down to the Cat Lord level, hoping to cash in on my kitty karma, and then it’s orbs all the way down, with possible trips through the shortcut to trade in bodies for potions of cure corruption.
This is probably an appropriate time to handle the Rift, though I’m always scared about doing so due to potential item destruction on the way down and end up putting it off. In older versions, this is probably more justified, but after running these three characters here, I noticed that the item destruction seems to have been toned down a lot; I even went through one game that had none.
For an ultra ending, just before hunting for the last three orbs is an ideal time to handle the Gaab’Bay quests if I haven’t already, and to satisfy the Demented Ratling. The Crown of Science is easily available as soon as it’s possible to raid Darkforge, and its dooming can help with encountering a wild boar without wasting too much time, and also makes for great rattling fodder. For a neutral or lawful ending, it’s possible to crown after satisfying the ratling and turning in the boar skull, which is highly welcome. Positive alignment can be obtained with lots of sacrificing, as well as killing undead or demons. I take on Keriax only after being fairly high-level, at least in my 30s, and obviously I tend to do the Filk stuff only after level 45, at which point I generally have all the orbs and am scumming for XP. For two of my three games, I capped it off with getting the artifacts from the Merchant’s Guild, though that’s a bit of a story I’ll get to later. Somewhere in the midst of this I also take on the Unicorn quest, generally saving the corruption removal for just before leaving the mountains or tackling Andor Drakon, as, or if, appropriate.
I did not mention the Quickling Tree or Minotaur Maze above for a reason. I generally don’t bother with the Tree given how tricky it is to get in, and I never touch the maze because of the need for lots of mapping and the inevitable stat drains; the only time I’ve successfully managed it was with my Ultimate Ending, which happens to require it. I also neglected to mention the Bug Temple, which I again only attempted in one game this time, the ultra ending, because it takes a lot of work and strategy to get through and I don’t necessarily need the rewards there.
Other than that, this more or less describes my process, so with that background out of the way, let’s get into more specifics on our three heroes.
The first character I’d like to get into is my dark elven barbarian. This was, by far, my biggest learning game. I gave it a lot of thought from beginning to end, and over multiple incarnations I made very sure to record precisely where I screwed up and what I could do about it, not trusting simply to memory and endless ruminations on the guidebooks, as before, and came up with much more effective opening moves and overall routing as a result, as I detailed above.
I should mention that my previous victories were with rather different classes: the tricky Mindcrafter, which scored me two normal victories back in the 1.1.1 days, and the humble yet practical Fighter, which scored me a Neutral Ultra Ending post-Resurrection. This time around, I wanted another melee class, but one that was a little less “boring” than the Fighter, so I decided to give the more extreme Barbarians a shot. This was my first time truly doing so, and it took me a little bit to get acclimated. However, I was impressed by it overall considering the following advantages:
Admittedly, level 40 and 50 powers are very dangerous to try to engage (you have to be essentially “naked” aside from your weapons, magical jewellery, and bracers) but should one get lucky in finding good armour with an “of rage” suffix, which is “legal” to wear without forfeiting the bonus, it could be very interesting. The powers before that are already exceptional though, especially the level 12 power, which itself is almost good enough to sell the class on its own.
The biggest downside for Barbarians is that they’re pretty well useless at learning and using magic, and, except for the above-ground elves, always start illiterate. The Potion of Literacy being available pretty early makes that a lot less of an issue than it otherwise might be, and daring the Rift and making it to the Library means even a Barbarian can achieve 100 Literacy. Thankfully, however, they have excellent prospects with missiles, even if they don’t start with the Archery skill (which provides some nice, though small, passive bonuses and access to two decent Talents) like Fighters do.
So far as race, I settled on Dark Elf in particular, as I very often do, because of several practical reasons:
On the downside, Dark Elves get terrible prices from most shopkeepers, making Waldenbrook down in Dwarftown in particular all but useless, and they suffer a large penalty to Perception when outside during the day, but that’s seldom an actual issue anyway. Overall, trades I can live with.
For star sign and talents, I went with Candle for the additional healing and talent, and I always prioritise Alert and Healthy. From there, I like to start building up the PV line along with Long Stride, Sixth Sense, Miser, and Treasure Hunter; I usually try to get Treasure Hunter by level 12 at the latest, to get the most out of it. Once all those are complete, I tend to work on speed talents, and then branch out from there depending on what the character needs. Since I ended up crowning by the time I got to this point, the weapon I received, Skullcrusher, influenced me to go down the Basher line in order to eke out as much damage as I could. I also found both True Aim and Thunderstroke, so I likewise invested a bit into shooting talents, gaining Good Shot and Keen Shot in the late game.
As for the ending, I intended from the start for this to be an Ultra Ending of some sort, and planned accordingly. This is part of the reason I was looking for a particularly tough class with high survivability, and the same reason I chose a Fighter last time.
Given that this was my big learning character, I took a lot of general notes about where I failed, and as such actually went through several prior incarnations of this same character before my winning game. My most important lessons were as follows:
All of those were very painful lessons. I’m a bit ashamed of the first and last, as I should have known better and it was my overconfidence that lost the game. The second and third were regrettable, but understandable, lessons to be learned.
On my winning incarnation, I ended up with some surprisingly good runs of luck. The Unremarkable Dungeon blessed me with a short sword of devastation, which was my primary weapon for most of the early game. After doing enough of Thrundarr’s quests, I got the guaranteed artifact Big Punch; while often a controversial choice due to its weight and lack of slaying powers, a Barbarian’s strength combined with its raw power make it a pretty good deal, and, unlike my sword, it was also indestructible. I also found an early wand of wishing in, I think, the Tomb of the High Kings, just in time to deal with Khelevaster, which is arguably the most frustrating part of attempting an Ultra Ending, given the rarity of both wishing items in general and amulets of life saving. This same wand also netted me a ring of elemental mastery and seven league boots before expiring. I never considered wishing for the ring before in the past for some reason, but it really is a game-changer, granting fire, shock, and cold immunity all in one item. I ended up getting the acid blood corruption fairly early, I think possibly in the Frost Giant Jarl caves, which completed the set, making me immune to all elemental damage. I also got the gills corruption a bit later, making the quest to find Blup’s mom a lot easier.
Later on, I found a grand total of four rings of djinni summoning, two of which I used, netting a staff of purification about midgame, and an endgame wish for a girdle of giant strength, replacing one I had found but accidentally got destroyed in the Bug Temple. Overall, this was also a game where I was just swimming in artifacts due to finding ~5 greater vaults, all of giants, save the one in the Frost Giant Jarl Cave, which was actually one of undead, which I cleared out in the late game as a means to get more XP. It went surprisingly well, too, with me escaping without a single stat drain, due to having a high Mana stat and good ranged weaponry by that point in the form of my favourite quarrel, Thunderstroke. Actually, I also had the arrow True Aim in the same game, which is pretty rare. Even the sling Whirlwind made an early appearance, though I never used it. One of the more interesting things I found was an armour set called Wyrm’s Behest, which is essentially karmic dragon scale mail, granting immunity to all four elements. That used to be a joke in the ADOM Guidebook, so I was pretty shocked to see it added in these more recent versions. All told though, I generated 53 artifacts, the most I’ve ever seen in a game thus far.
I had several other proud moments, but one simple one that stands out in my mind was my clearing of the Bug Temple just before attempting the Scintillating Caves, which I did to acquire the guaranteed scrolls of magic mapping in order to minimise the danger and corruption of navigating the caves. I had done this twice previously, but both times with high-level Mindcrafters who could stand back and use a variety of abilities, as bugs weren’t immune to telepathic mindcraft in 1.1.1. I’d been a bit scared to try since then with other classes, but I had a very good plan of action this time.
This part is easier to understand with a map (based on a common dump):
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^ = Secret doors (non-standard marking, but I don't have colour here)
i = Various bugs
] = Statues
< = Stairs up to the temple entrance
# = Wall
. = FloorFirst, I carefully cleared the outer area (not pictured) by using my returning missles. Then, I descended the stairs and made judicious use of a well-charged wand of fireballs to eliminate the initial swarm of guards. From there, I took advantage of my maxed out Stealth skill in order to seal all the passages except the main with wands of door creation. This is all honestly pretty much standard procedure. Where I had fun with it was the final stretch, where there’s a slight entryway that leads to a room full of bugs. If one fights just outside the entryway, given normal enemy AI, you’ll end up fighting just one bug at a time, but in melee range, and those ones all attack many times per turn and ignore armour, so that’s still not a very good idea. However, the entryway gap, being just one tile, is the perfect size to accommodate a single tile of magma, courtesy of a rare staff of minor volcano summoning. Doing that, I was able to then just pepper the horde of bugs inside with all the random ammo, both bow and crossbow, that I had been carrying around, without fear of a returning missile failing to do its job. This works because magma does fire damage to anything trying to cross it (except missiles, apparently), so only fire-immune monsters will even try. I did screw up at the end and forgot that some of my worn gear was susceptible to fire damage, losing the aforementioned girdle as well as a cloak of protection and bracers of regeneration. That wasn’t very nice, but I was able to replace it all between that wish and random loot. Highly satisfactory overall, though, and I then cleared the Scintillating Caves without a problem.
One thing I do more or less regret is that I failed the cat quest via an early lapse of attention. However, I only killed that one cat, so the Cat Lord was at least generated uninterested. I did manage to turn the situation around a little bit by using that same staff of minor volcano summoning to back him into a corner and kill him for a sizeable chunk of XP some time before the Bug Temple adventure, at least.
Approaching the endgame, I had two other setbacks: the Ancient Stone Circle and the Merchant’s Guild.
The problem with the Ancient Stone Circle was that, initially, I attempted to enter it at day 90. However, I misjudged how time passes when waiting, and managed to wait until just past the hour-long window for entry. This forced me to wait another 30 in-game days, which I did with random dungeon exploration and a lot of wilderness waiting. The trick is to ensure that blessed seven league boots are equipped and then walk back and forth in the tiles directly west of it, as each back-and-forth is guaranteed to take 15 minutes that way, allowing very precise manipulation of the time. At least the fight was straightforward.
The other major issue was the Merchant’s Guild, which I was attempting to raid for the 4 random artifacts as well as hoping for enough XP to gain my final level in the process, maximising my chances for success in the final fight. It’s important to note that while most of the gold in the place is easily accessible, the final vault is blocked by the Wyrm and the artifacts can only be reached via teleportation, which is restricted until the Wyrm is defeated.
While I did get my final level, doing so was easily my most harrowing experience in ADOM to date. It’s a bit easier to follow with a map (recreated from a screenshot):
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Y = Eternium golem
W = Great Gray Wyrm
@ = Various scribes
$ = Gold
( and [ = Various artifacts
# = Wall
. = Floor
+ = Closed door
/ = Open doorI had a reasonable plan, but it was riskier than I realised and did not survive contact with the enemy: I intended to go to the Great Gray Wyrm’s chambers and assassinate him via the barbarian’s triple-damage attack combined with a backstab, in what should have been at least a 6x hit with my strongest weapon. However, I missed. This caused me to be subjected to a number of attacks in retaliation, which made me panic a bit. This was further exacerbated when I noticed multiple eternium golems begin to crowd me, so I decided that maybe this was a terrible idea and made to leave, heading south and then using the northernmost corridor to head east, chased the entire time by the Wyrm, making it to the main antechamber and trying to fight my way through to the entrance. It was here I realised I had made a critical mistake.
Normally, a summoning enemy summons its minions very close to itself, typically seeking to try and surround a player. The Wyrm, however, has a special mechanic designed to take advantage of my exact line of thought; it instead summons golems every few turns at the entrance of the Guild. I had forgotten about the line of guards just below the Wyrm’s chamber and thought they were summons, furthering the illusion. Given ADOM’s rules, it is impossible to use an exit that leads to the world map if there are any monsters in the immediate vicinity, so I was entirely trapped. To make matters worse, even with three counts of acid immunity (I got acid immunity when I crowned, plus I had the acid blood corruption and a ring of elemental mastery), I was still suffering from equipment destruction from the eternium golems’ acid breath, losing, at least, a crown of regeneration, cloak of invisibility, bracers of regeneration, multiple rings (including one of regeneration, but, thankfully, not a spare ring of djinni summoning), and tons of ammo and scrolls.
I realised that I had no choice but to try and finish killing off the Wyrm as I had originally intended, as this was the only way to stop the summoning and open any possibility of escape, so I started heading north-west to the corridors there, where I knew he had chased me. I was immune to damage from the acid spit, but not from the golems’ physical attacks, so I was still losing a lot of hit points and had to resort to going through some of my healing potions, a use of the Chaos Orb of Elemental Water, and even my second prayer in the whole game, so I was getting very, very nervous — I really didn’t want to die and have to start all over again after having gone through so much up to this point, especially with the mistake being one of my own tactics. However, I managed to make it into the corridor and trap the Wyrm in a corner, taking it out with dragon-slaying quarrels while trying to fend off several golems at the same time.
Killing the Wyrm lifted the restriction on teleportation in the level, so I immediately teleported to the artifact pile, both to loot and to regroup. My four artifacts that time were pretty decent; I got Venom Mantle (acid blood corruption in cloak form), Scorpion’s Sting (arguably the best one-handed spear), the Robe of the Master Monk (decent armour), and the Stone of Ages (amulet that protects against unnatural ageing to some extent and offers some nice defence and a few rare resistances). After catching my breath, I then teleported back to the Wyrm’s chamber, where I was able to then take advantage of the corridors to line up the golems for a much less painful cleanup, though not before switching my armour to one that granted another count of acid immunity, hoping to ward off further item destruction. I’m honestly not sure if that even helped, as the items I was losing were all iron (the ring of regeneration was gold, but that seems to be a meaningless difference in this case), wood, and paper; it may well be that no amount of protection is sufficient for that.
Somehow, I made it through intact, and with my final desired level. I felt pretty shaky at the end with how close a call it was, and it actually made me take it very light-handedly for a couple of days; I definitely over-prepared for facing Andor Drakon in the final fight. Still, it was incredibly exciting, and easily one of my most memorable battles in this game.
No other monster in the game scares me quite like that Wyrm did, with maybe the exception of ultimate doppelgangers, which in every game came close to killing me at least once. Their fearsomeness comes primarily from the fact that they mimic your DV, PV, and Speed as well as doing percentage-based damage keyed off of your maximum HP and attacking multiple times per turn. If that wasn’t bad enough, they’re also normally immune to every kind of thrown/fired projectile, with the exception of Merchants’ special coin-throwing attack, and also shrug off bolt spells.
After all of that excitement, my victory against Andor Drakon was almost anticlimactic in comparison. I definitely over-prepared a bit, having many potions of boost speed and toughness and two amulets of life saving, among other things, but it worked out very well. Unlike my previous attempt at defeating him in my first ultra ending, this time I forewent melee entirely, focusing instead on using Thunderstroke to deal damage at odd angles. This turned out to be a highly successful strategy and I lost only a couple of points from his stat-draining spell all told. I also did something I don’t usually do and made good use of a torch in the tool slot as a light source, so that I could free up my necklace slot for a necklace of the eye, maximising my range of vision between the two. Turns out I barely needed that, given he didn’t bother trying to teleport all over, as he sometimes does. Victory was surprisingly swift, and, at that point in time, coupled with the Wyrm business, an immense mental relief.
I was initially content to have proven to myself that I could really do this, but I felt the urge to try for another, newer ending I had heard about, the so-called ultimate ending, and not too long afterwards decided I just had to roll up a new character and try again. Interestingly, I don’t seem to recall any false starts on this attempt; I think I managed it with just my initial character.
When planning this run, the most daunting aspect in my mind was actually the Minotaur Maze. In my first ultra ending, I attempted it, but was horrified at how many stat drains I was suffering, as well as the sheer difficulty of just navigating the place, as it’s filled with a number of tedious mazes with exits that lead to dead-end floors. I couldn’t really plan for how to handle the latter as much other than considering a risky run through the Bug Temple, but in recognition of the first point I decided that ranged attacks would be best. I also wanted a class with a lot of power behind it, and considering the two, I realised that I hadn’t had much experience with the Archer class yet, so I decided to give it a try.
In terms of advantages, Archers:
So far as race, normally I would very likely go for a Dark Elf, if only to get Find Weakness in this case, but I decided to go with a High Elf this time for two primary reasons: a double chance at the artifact bow, Sun’s Messenger, and the fact that the starting missile weapon for Dark Elves is the piddly hand crossbow while a High Elf gets a standard bow. Starting with elven chain mail is a very nice bonus, and the better shop prices were the cherry on top. Being fellow elves, High Elves also have excellent Dexterity and respectable Mana, and their life span is even greater than Dark Elves. Starting at Lawful alignment made dipping down for Pickpocket a necessity, but after getting Detect Traps in the opening circuit it’s not hard to get back to Lawful again, and I played most of the game that way, since it was required in order to get to Rolf anyway (more or less).
For star sign and talent, I pretty much did the same thing as before, except instead of the Basher line I got all of the archery-related talents.
This time around, my luck was tilted a bit differently, but still very good in many respects, even when it spoiled my plans a bit. For instance, I intended to play this High Elf in a way that makes him feel like a high elf, using largely blades and bows; it didn’t quite work out that way. Early on in the Unremarkable Dungeon, I switched from using my starting dagger to a whip, noting that my Dexterity was double my Strength (and whips honestly get some incredible bonuses as you boost the weapon skill), but that came to a screeching halt as the dungeon gifted me a hatchet of devastation, which became my mainstay for quite some time, as well as a crystal tower shield. Funnily enough, I had actually only picked up that hatchet because I planned to use it to cut down trees after clearing the Village Dungeon; I had no idea what I had for a good twenty minutes at least. I did keep using bows at this point, as ammo was reasonably plentiful and my starting bow most agreeable. This continued to be my primary gear until after Dwarftown, where, as a necessity for meeting Rolf, I ensured I picked up Rolf’s gear. Wielding the axe and shield, but left-handedly, was comparable in damage to my hatchet and also indestructible. A bit before I managed all of that I also found a short sword of penetration, which found several uses throughout the game, and a bloody dagger (high crit rate), which I kept as a backup but never ended up really using.
I overall did my usual route, starting with the Unremarkable Dungeon as before; the only real difference was that I had to manufacture some alignment change to get to Neutral in order to obtain Pick Pockets and Detect Traps, and then get back to Lawful in order to get Rolf’s gear, which I managed via killing non-hostile monsters and sacrifices in the Borderland Settlement respectively, I believe. Instead of accidentally double-tapping an early cat, this time it was a karmic lizard in the Unremarkable Dungeon, so I played Cursed from there, having no real recourse. Somewhere in the early circuit, I ran across the artifact Quicksilver Bracers, which grant several nice intrinsics and boosts speed, so that was quite welcome.
While doing the early-midgame quests, I slipped into the Ice Queen Domain and ran into some trouble in the Frost Giant Jarl Caves, despite being well-equipped, due to the guaranteed greater vault, which contained giants. I expended over 130 arrows before deciding that I just simply couldn’t handle the gang of Titans without more levels, at least, no matter how badly I wanted the artifacts. Thankfully, it wasn’t hard to finish off the actual object of my quest, and the slaying of the Chaos Diplomat went perfectly smoothly as well.
Not long afterwards, I realised that I could very reasonably crown at this point without missing out on anything, so I focused my efforts on doing so, which would also remove my cursing in the process as I climbed the ranks of piety. I managed to do so, but didn’t have enough money on-hand to carry on much further, but then I remembered that I could now, having lost my curse and gained Lucky, access the Merchant’s Guild. What I found there in the immediately-accessible vaults was more than enough to get me crowned. When I was crowned, I gained shock immunity, but that wasn’t enough to stop me from being stunned at my gift — Thunderstroke. A major reason of why I chose to be a High Elf was the double chance at getting the artifact bow, Sun’s Messenger, and here I had a quarrel, a weapon I associated more with Dark Elves, and I had utterly neglected crossbows this time in anticipation of it. Thankfully, the quarrel came with both a heavy crossbow and a few spare generic quarrels, so it wasn’t terribly hard to boost my skill level. The initial training with bows wasn’t wasted, either; Thunderstroke is staggeringly strong, but slaying ammo outperforms it every time against the relevant opponents, and using both forms of archery greatly improved my strategic choices.
I took a moment to consider things, and realised that I needed to handle the Maze soon, as it closes as soon as one hits level 30. I decided to go back into the Frost Giant Jarl Caves and finish clearing that vault. However, when I saw how much experience the Titans and such were giving me, I bailed, afraid I’d power-level too quickly and miss my chance. Instead, I prioritised getting the Water Orb, in case I needed emergency healing, being forced to let Khelevaster die. As a precautionary step, I then made a Darkforge run in hopes of finding a good piece of armour, or maybe a magic staff. I found neither, but I did find something rather unexpected — the knife Silence of the Dead. Finding it this early, and lacking a slaying weapon, I immediately made it my main weapon, happy at least that I could play the High Elven Archer type a little more convincingly now. It turns out that it is in fact a fantastic weapon, arguably one of the best in the game, especially in a big fight, due to its excellent base stats and blood-drinking ability, which boosts them even further in combat, alongside its humanoid slaying powers and poisoning abilities.
I was still slightly under where I wanted to be in terms of levels despite all this, so to help I decided to get the final obvious dwarven map piece; I had collected the others up until this point except the random drop and the one in the scroll shop in the antediluvian dungeon. Previously, I should note, I had acquired a cloak of invisibility, which I put to good use in the Ice Queen Domain, but also used to quite accidentally rob the potion shop in the Borderland Settlement. Taking inspiration from that, I intended to rob the scroll shop of the map piece due to its outrageous price. While doing so, I also noticed a second golden “?” on the floor. I thought that perhaps the mimic I had killed in the shop had dropped the random map piece and managed to take it as well. To my absolute shock, however, this turned out to be the artifact Scroll of the Finder instead. This scroll, when read, grants a small amount of corruption, but also acts as, randomly, a scroll of gold, item, or monster detection…or a scroll of magic mapping. Testing it, I found that, when the scroll was blessed, the magic mapping effect was equivalent to a blessed scroll of that kind, as one would expect. I was elated at this, as it meant I didn’t have to try and raid the Bug Temple (I never got a staff of minor volcano summoning this entire game), and figured it was a good a sign as any that now was the time to finally handle the Maze, even if I was still one level off from where I wanted to be at level 28. I should note too that despite robbing the store of two incredibly valuable items, as I wasn’t caught or even detected, this seemed to have a rather minimal effect on my alignment, and I wasn’t Cursed or Doomed afterwards.
Despite my resolve, I found shortly thereafter, at 70 days of game time, a wand of cold, so I immediately made a rapid detour to the Tomb of the High Kings and acquired the ring there, as well as netting seven league boots. Afterwards, I immediately departed for the Maze.
Surprisingly, the Maze wasn’t quite as bad as I had feared. I made good use of a few scrolls of magic mapping I had obtained previously, and then the Scroll of the Finder as needed, and took careful notes as to my progression. I also didn’t have to worry about food, as I had previously obtained the Cornucopia. The reason for such painstaking behaviour is that the Maze isn’t like a normal dungeon in two respects: it really is a proper maze, and even has illusory walls in later areas, and it also has multiple false pathways. One “only” needs to reach level 5, but between the real floors and all the “fake” floors the lead to dead ends, the Maze actually goes to a potential depth of 14 levels. My initial foray got me a dead end around level 4, but my second round of guessing was dead-on and I got to where I needed to be quickly. I encountered little resistance up to this point, making very good use of my archery and the related Talent lines to quickly take down opponents before they could close in and try to drain me…for the most part. I did lose a few stats, but they were spread out over multiple attributes and very easy to recover. My use of the artifact scroll also netted me a corruption at this point, but the very best one — acid blood. I believe I also had “yearning for the flesh of order” at this point, acquired during the Frost Giant Jarl Caves’ vault attempt, but there was little point in removing it at the time. I also learned one very important fact that saved me later: I could severely limit the impact of the minotaur mages’ confusion spells by using a ring of the pure mind and equipping the Water Orb, which pushed me past a Willpower breakpoint.
At any rate, I am very glad that magic mapping includes items that are spawned on the floor, because I nearly forgot the all-important reason I came in — to get the artifact Weird Fire Starter, which is necessary to enter the post-game Ultimate Dungeon, the entire point of my run. What had me so distracted? Thoughts of beating the guardian of this place, The Minotaur Emperor, something I had never done before. I was right to be worried — it was a much closer fight than I’d like to admit. I was able to start out by sniping three of his four mage bodyguards (I never saw the fourth, so he probably never even moved) before anyone realised what was going on, but then he started chasing me and the real fight was on. Even with the boots and 115 speed, he still kept up effortlessly, which scared me a bit. I did fairly well in the melee, but he eventually scored a really nasty hit that nearly one-shotted me. I was, very fortunately, able to get some distance by moving diagonally around a corner, then pray for healing. Continuing the fight, I was actually interrupted by a newly-spawned ancient minotaur, and the Emperor was able to also get another couple of hits in. I zapped a wand of teleportation to get some distance for a bit more archery and was able to kill him with Thunderstroke shortly thereafter. I grabbed the axe as a trophy as well as some stat-boosting potions he dropped, and moved to exit, being more than done with the place. At the last moment I decided to grab his body to trade it for a potion of cure corruption, but I accidentally grabbed the ancient minotaur instead, noticing a couple of floors up when I went to bless it to stop it from rotting. I decided to just drop it and carry on; after all, the hardest task up to that point, and the one I was most dreading, was over.
I managed to recover my lost stats using the dropped potions and a little bit of Garth training, and then decided to finally finish clearing the greater vault, netting the quite welcome artifact pickaxe Hammerhead and the quite useless Lead Axe.
At this point, I was a bit behind schedule, lacking any other Orbs. Next up was, by necessity, the Fire Orb, but I still hadn’t run into any rings of ice, and set out to scum for some via digging up “great treasure” graves in both graveyards, pickpocketing and killing everything I could in the Infinite Dungeon (on floor 12, the first floor with the necessary danger level), and, when that failed to turn up much, item polymorphing, all to no avail. On top of that, I got poison hands in the Infinite Dungeon, and, when attempting to remove it via a mushroom of purity, also accidentally lost my acid blood corruption, a crushing blow. While doing item polymorphing, I did score my first (and only until the post-game dungeon) ring of djinni summoning, which I used to obtain the Find Weakness skill. I held out hope of getting the ring I wanted naturally, but that skill was too important to pass up, since it affects ranged attacks too, and Thunderstroke doesn’t have slaying powers.
Ultimately, my efforts proved fruitless, so I tried for one more wish, this time via pool-draining in Darkforge, something I normally avoid because of the unpredictable side effects. In the end, I didn’t get a wish, but I did get a bit of unnatural ageing (cured later), cursing and dooming, (removed with a single sacrifice), losing paralysis resistance (previously obtained from the Tome of Donors), and see invisible (I think I got this via an invisible stalker corpse at one point), but gaining petrification resistance and permanent invisibility. I had forgotten how incredibly useful the latter was, and it served me very well the entire game, even in the Ultimate Dungeon. I never did get back see invisible, but I did regain paralysis resistance shortly after the Tower via the Tome.
At this point, I gave up and did something else I’ve never done before: assaulting the Tower of Eternal Flames with only higher-metal and artifact equipped gear, leaving more vulnerable and/or extraneous equipment in a nearby dungeon so I could travel a bit lighter. While attacking the Tower, to my surprise, I found the vibrating artifact rapier, Hornet’s Sting, as a random drop; this was quite welcome, as, while an uninteresting weapon on its own, it also grants both teleport control and teleportitis, which is quite convenient. When I finally got to the Ancient Chaos Wyrm, I actually one-shotted him with a blessed quarrel of dragon-slaying, my cleanest boss kill in the entire game. Quite a bit of fun.
Afterwards, heading to the Casino, I was again shocked at my luck, or lack thereof: not one single artifact, and the only item worth getting at all was a bit too late — a cursed red dragon scale mail. I got it anyway, doing just a little gambling to afford it. I did also make note of an eternium two-handed sword mayhem (+18, 8d5+25), which would have been amazing with my Barbarian…or arguably my future chaos knight. However, it was not to be this time around. I had a further spell of very bad luck shortly thereafter when trying to convert an altar; I underestimated the amount of gold it would take and was divinely reprimanded via the destruction of all of my equipped gear, including the armour I had just bought, my seven league boots, my crossbow, and my precious crystal tower shield. I was able to eventually replace everything except the shield, at least.
During this exploration stage, between a weird statue and some potions/scrolls of education, I netted Gardening, Herbalism, Appraising, and Detect Item Status; another odd bout of luck. Detect Item Status certainly is useful.
Continuing on, I focused on gathering up some holy water and trying to find the final map piece, and in the process gained the Air and Earth orbs, found a replacement set of seven league boots, and took on the guaranteed greater vault found here, netting the too-good-to-be-true dooming girdle Celestrix alongside a middling, at that point, shield, Lust for Glory. As I started clearing this vault, I hit level 36 and thus also found myself in possession of the Rune-covered Trident, a very welcome addition due to its undead and demon-slaying properties.
By this point, I was deeply concerned that I hadn’t found the sixth, final map piece yet. It was constantly echoing in my head that it almost always drops very shortly after getting the fifth piece, so I finally backtracked to the antediluvian dungeon to look around. To my shock, I found it on the same floor as the scroll shop, in a random pile of loot. How about that.
With the fragments re-united, I decided to take on the rest of the Rolf quest at this point and immediately set out for his fortress. I suspect this quest was meant to be done at a much lower level, because I breezed through every part of it. I was a little alarmed on the first floor, both by the infinitely respawning constructs, which gave me flashbacks to my Barbarian’s attempt at the Merchant Guild, and by having to kill a powerful Lawful creature to get the Unpick Axe, but in both cases my fears were pretty well unfounded. I took a few bottles of antediluvian wine, just to have spares in case I lost one somehow. I stashed them all in the Puppy Cave for safe-keeping, and then headed for the Stone Dragon Caves. I was very worried about this, as the breath of stone dragons is considered non-elemental and does a lot of damage, but it wasn’t that big a deal. It was a bit unnerving seeing bones everywhere from fallen dwarves, combined with the low visibility on top of it all, but despite the oppressive ambiance, the boss battle was much more straightforward than I expected, with Thunderstroke ripping and tearing through him. Weirdly enough, I found a bottle of antediluvian beer on the way out, so I never did pick up my wine stash.
After shuffling some gear around, I then corrupted Bergbringer to start the volcano stuff. I was, again, fairly nervous since I had never been here before, but since I was properly fireproof, it wasn’t really a big deal and was kind of fun. I managed to secure the optional artifact necklace The Heart of Ancardia, and, in an odd twist, cleared a tension room full of ice dragons; this netted me a scroll of education that taught me Necromancy, of all things. I never found a use for it, really, not being someone who makes much use of companions anyway.
Afterwards, I recruited Yggaz via the beer and set about ending the volcanic scourge. Hitting the Ice Queen Domain, it rapidly became apparent that Yggaz was having a hard time following me due to my invisibility, and that the monsters still alive there were going to be a problem, so I was forced to wear normal mummy wrappings in order to be visible, and to kill everything that came near. Very luckily, I had found a ring of fire, which helped me protect my gear.
Focusing again on the task at hand, I suddenly remembered that, while I didn’t have to do the quests tied to them, it would probably be pretty fun to get Needle and Sting, so I proceeded to do just that, first killing off the Assassin Prince, and then clearing the Lightning Dragon Caves. That done, I proceeded straight to the final Orb, that of Mana. It was a little dicey at times, and a careless moment lost me a few stat points, but I came out with minimal fuss otherwise.
I decided at this point to head up to my safe zone in Dwarftown and decide on my final steps. After a few misadventures on the way up, including a close fight with an ultimate doppelganger, I realised that I still needed a few levels, being only level 46 at this point, and figured that it was high time to visit the Merchant’s Guild again.
This time, I was much better prepared. I had previously acquired some spell knowledge in Slow Monster, so after sealing the room in with the Unpick Axe, I cast that on the Wyrm, retreated to a corner, and peppered him with dragon-slaying ammo. Thanks to my multiple attacks per turn and blessed seven league boots, I was able to take him out in a tense, but very quick fight. He lasted for 5 hits, making him at least 5x as powerful as the Fire Orb guardian, I suppose. This did upset the entire guild, but there were zero additional summons, so it was very quick and painless to clear it out. In a bout of deja vu, I netted the Black Tome and Skullcrusher, along with the Scorched Spear and the Boots of the Far Wanderer. Not a bad haul, save the book, though I never really ended up using any of it save the boots, which also, like the vibrating sword, grant teleport control along with teleportitis, as well as a modest speed boost. The Wyrm himself also dropped a wand of destruction, something I had been hoping to find before my final descent, which was icing on the cake.
Next, to help with levelling and to get some more corruption removal, just in case, I tackled the Rift, suffering absolutely zero negative effects on the way down, a complete first for me.
Still unsatisfied, I ground out the last couple of levels between the crumbling cave and the dragon caves, then finally made a dash for D:50. I gained Wyrmlance on D:49 via a potion of uselessness; this would have obviously been very welcome earlier, but wasn’t of much use to me now. I cleared enough of D:50 to make my way to the levers and destroy them with my wand and left, all quite painlessly. Now, however, was where the real trial would begin.
With my natural speed and gear layout at this point, my speed was 173, which was a tremendous advantage. I made sure to also expend a bunch of holy water blessing all of my slaying ammo for maximum damage output. Finally satisfied with my getup, I entered the final dungeon.
Any confidence I had was quickly shattered when the very first thing I tried to fight, a common bat, took many more dagger hits to both hit and kill it than I ever expected. It only got worse from there, and the way down was fraught with tension, though my superior archery skills evened the scales a bit. What really got me was reaching the eleventh and final level and seeing that it was legitimately labelled as FUQ. It certainly was not a misnomer.
To better understand how this went, here is another map (recreated by me, but with random and guaranteed enemy placements, if not always symbols, copied from a common screenshot since I don’t have a complete one of my own; I am uncertain of the placement of any specific monsters except the initial Ghost Lord and the molochs and balors, but the common screenshot’s placement in the middle chamber seems pretty close to my memory):
########## #########
#........# ####&j.....#######
#.######.# ####EDxEE...........##########
#.##EdY..# #FEEHj&Ex####................##### ##############
#.##jE#### ################ #x.j.j.&.j.E.x.j.E...######.......&..&.###
#.###### #............# #...............#......##&.......&&&...&.###
#.##...#################+######...............##&...............&..&.....#
#..#.<./.......G+..............................#&..............&&&...&.&.#
####...####.#####.#############...............##&...............&..&.....#
##### #.# #.# #...............#......##&.......&&&...&.###
#.#####.#####.########## #j.L.x.&.j.j.E.j.E...######.......&..&.###
#.##jL...Cj##.#xLWGEEEG####................##### ##############
#.##xjDEYEO##.####jGEHj...........##########
#.##CxEEUHE##.# ####E&.....#######
#.###########.# #########
#...d.x.L.E...#
###############
j = Writhing mass of primal chaos
E = Elemental
x = Grue
L = Emperor lich
& = Molochs and balors
Other letters = Various monsters
< = Stairs up
# = Wall
. = Floor
+ = Closed door
/ = Open doorAfter using the Scroll of the Finder to map the area, I saw a Ghost Lord right in front of me, and had a feeling this was definitely not going to be an easy fight. I started out by taking care to avoid accidentally opening what I suspected to be secret doors, and then moving to take out the Ghost Lord and seal off the two southern corridors via the Unpick Axe; thankfully I still had a bunch of rocks I never dropped from when I intended to seal off the Merchant’s Guild. Moving into the central area, I tried to lure enemies out one at a time, but I was foiled by the Emperor Lich’s alarmingly powerful confusion spell, made even more potent than usual due to his exceptionally high level. In order to avoid moving randomly, I resorted to casting Flaming Hands, which I had earlier acquired via a spellbook, on a nearby writhing mass, though this wasn’t terribly effective. My overall goal was to make it back to the cover of the hallways, which I did eventually succeed in, but only after expending a prayer and several potions in healing, and suffering the acquisition of the “bulging cranium” corruption due to a series of balor hits. Finally able to properly defend myself, I dispatched the lich, balor, and writhing mass. I took a moment to then zap the wand of monster detection and noted then the monster closets in the north-west and south-west corners of the antechamber. I noted especially that the south-western one contained yet another Emperor Lich, and that beyond the line of enemies I had seen in the antechamber were even more balors, molochs, and what I knew to be the true final boss, Baalz’ab-buul, the Supreme Balor, in the easternmost area.
Nothing was left in the immediate vicinity that could see invisible, so I immediately made a point of using the Unpick Axe to seal off both of the monster closets, then took out the rest of the monsters in the main antechamber with Berserk tactics to hasten the job. I then took out the initial row of molochs hiding behind the little wall, and then took advantage of my high perception to snipe the horde of molochs and balors out a bit at a time. For most of this fight I made use of various types of bow and crossbow slaying ammo, and, when that got low, blessed regular ammo; I was fearful of losing Thunderstroke in the crowd. I made very good use of the piercing attack throughout all of this; I really love it. It turned out that aside from two initial balors, it was mostly various molochs until I got towards the last two rows in the back. Being a bit less fearful at this point, and mostly out of slaying ammo, I switched to the Rune-covered Trident and used it to take them out, counting on its demon-slaying properties to get me through. This worked wonderfully, and I was able to make good use of Thunderstroke and my piercing shot class power to clean up their limited summons. During this, I came across my second ring of djinni summoning in this game, but could think of nothing that was worth wishing for at the moment, so I saved it for emergency healing; I never ended up needing it.
When I got to the final boss, the Supreme Balor, I was surprised to find that he was quite inattentive and passive, allowing me to gather up all of the surviving ammo I had expended, including quite a bit of relevant slaying ammo. When he finally decided to get moving, I kept my distance and peppered him with the slaying ammo until he fell. He, too, was a summoner, but for some reason all he got off was a spell to summon a bunch of griffons, who couldn’t see me anyway. Deciding to ignore them, I just cleaned up my ammo, mostly out of habit, and of course grabbed the object of my quest, the artifact Scroll of Omnipotence, use unknown.
Getting back to the top was pretty painless, though I did have a bit of a scare when I tried teleporting to one of the stair cases and was rebuffed, landing nearby — it turns out that an Emperor Lich had spawned and was waiting there. Thankfully, I was able to take it down rapidly using the Rune-covered Trident, before it had a chance to use its confusion attack. Some ice giants had clustered nearby as well by that point, so I used the piercing attack and Thunderstroke to finish them off.
Making it out, I made sure to have the unicorn remove all of my corruption. That done, I left the Drakalor Chain, ending the game. I was staggered to find that this ending was worth way more than any Ultra Ending I had done, racking up a grand total of 28,708,732 points.
After completing the Ultimate Ending, I figured I’d be done with ADOM for quite a long time. However, at the back of my mind, I knew that there were two ending types I’d never tried: a regular chaos god ending and a chaos knight challenge game, which has its own unique ending variants as well. I decided that I might as well continue my streak and try again.
I initially wasn’t really sure how I wanted to play this. I knew only that I wanted a game with a Chaos Knight as some sort of challenge run, that I hoped for one of the more unique crowning gifts, and that one way or another, I’d run up against limitations, either from a lack of NPC aid or a lack of class powers. I had to decide too what kind of ending to go for, and eventually decided on the “ascension” run only because the only real difference between a “regular” chaos god ending and an ultimate is the acquisition of a single artifact buried ridiculously deep in the Infinite Dungeon, as well as the fact that I just did an ultra ending two games ago. I guess I figured a simpler challenge game would be a nice send-off, overall. It did take me until just after the Frost Giant Jarl Caves to finally make up my mind, though.
I suppose I should further elaborate on what makes this a challenge game any way you slice it:
Class powers for Chaotics, which ended up being irrelevant to my run, for completion, are as follows:
While the crowning gifts are mostly good, and the class powers potentially interesting, that is definitely pretty rough.
As far as race went, I initially was considering using Mist Elves for two reasons: their exceptionally good starting armour, and their native mist armour, which reduces incoming damage by half, after PV. However, in my first two attempts, I found myself frustrated by their fairly sub-par starting weapon (mithril long spear) and low HP, so I decided to again go with my old standby of Dark Elf, which also gave me Alertness as an added bonus. I felt that a hardcore evil dark elf ascending way beyond his initial lot in life also made for a better story, too.
In all cases, I felt obligated to roll-scum a bit until I got corruptions I could work with. In my winning game, I forget one of my starting corruptions, but do recall that they included merged eyes and mists of cHaOs, meaning I spent a significant portion of the game as essentially legally blind, with a Perception of 1, though with See Invisible at the same time, which is the only reason I tolerated it.
This was definitely a run of oddly good luck combined with weird challenges, especially early on. While doing my initial circuit, I quickly came to realise the implications of some of what I was doing. For starters, I was unable to buy any food, and I had to suck it up and get Healing via killing Jharod to get it from Kranf Niest, which incurs a minor loss of stats. Secondly, when I went to go get the Tome of Donors, I was kind of baffled to learn that it wasn’t usable by anyone of Chaotic alignment; this was bad news, as I had come to rely on it for paralysis resistance in particular. While I was grateful to find a pair of seven league boots in that same dungeon, I was starting to get concerned that my luck wouldn’t hold out when it came to food, both because of the lack of access to cooked lizards and the lack of easy access to paralysis resistance, something I consider essential to tackling the Fungal Caves, which nets one of two artifacts that can help with the food situation. As such, I decided to try and convert to Neutrality at least long enough to handle these situations.
To my surprise, not only did this take forever and a considerable amount of gold, but it seemed like my PC was only too eager to turn back to Chaos for even the smallest infringement, since I had so little positive alignment all told due to the class feature that cuts alignment gains. I constantly found myself teetering back and forth and running a very real risk of upsetting both gods, but I did finally manage to even it out and was comfortably deep into Neutrality towards the tail end of Thrundarr’s quests, I think.
As I continued on, I had some uncanny item luck again, finding a sword of sharpness early in the Caverns of Chaos, and also finding the (dubious) artifact girdle, Celestrix, in D:11, after clearing a minor undead vault. This was enough to boost my confidence considerably, and I powered on for a good while along my usual route. When I arrived at the Dwarven graveyard, I was astonished to find one of the most coveted ego weapons in the game: an eternium spear of slaughtering (+3, 3d10+9). The additional defence from spear + shield and my already stellar PV made me feel like a walking fortress for a while, and that spear was good enough to where I used it for most of the game, reaching level 14 of spear mastery.
With my early circuit done, I poked my head into some of the other random dungeons, and in the antediluvian dungeon I managed to find a ring of djinni summoning, which I used for rings of elemental mastery, further bolstering my defences. Feeling rather good about that, and having also found a ring of invisibility in my travels, I eventually headed to the Ice Queen Domain and set about knocking out her quests.
I found that, once again, the Frost Giant Jarl Cave’s vault was full of giants, and, as usual, at this point some of the bigger ones were just too much to handle. I did, however, manage to get white and black dragon scale mail, as well as the artifact armour Nature’s Companion in a random surge of power on the first floor. Normally, this would be a welcome find, but my other armour was just too good in terms of PV to go back to that (it’s only +8, and I didn’t need the fire or shock immunity thanks to my ring).
Having cleared these quests, and having spent most of the game up until this point with no class powers, I was running out of ways to delay on making a final decision on how to handle this game, and after careful consideration I decided that I would aim for the “ascension” ending, as discussed previously, so I decided to seal the deal with a crowning, which lead to two disappointments: I forgot to swap gear around, so I ended up with acid immunity (I prefer aiming for the hard-to-get lightning immunity), and my crowning gift was the most mundane, a fairly uninteresting two-handed sword called Death’s Sting. No slaying powers, no aura of terror, just death ray resistance and…acceptable stats.
Rather annoyed, I continued on, and immediately after getting past the Animated Forest, en route to the Water Temple, I found a wand of wishing. I used it to get a staff of purification (just in case) and a girdle of giant strength to further augment my tanky build. Thinking a moment, I then wished for an amulet of life saving for Khelevaster, not because I intended an ultra ending, but because it would net me several additional scrolls of chaos removal. I had one charge left, but decided to save it for later.
Things continued relatively uneventfully for a while, and I cleared the Water Temple and the Tower of Eternal Flames surprisingly painlessly for the most part. Back in the Caverns of Chaos, right around the Wall of Flames, I had another bout of good luck, finding first a ring of djinni summoning, which I used for Detect Item Status, and then finding the artifact knife Serpent’s Bite, which not only, as the name suggests, poisons on every hit, but also slays humanoids, a trait I found very desirable and made good use of whenever I could.
This time around, the Casino wasn’t so disappointing: I found both the Scroll of the Finder and my old friend True Aim. I didn’t bother with the Scroll this time around, as I had no real need for it, but I was extremely happy to find the arrow, as it comes with a generous +10 bonus to hit, and I felt like this class couldn’t hit the broad side of a barn without it. As I was considering my skills and weaknesses, I realised that I had neglected one important thing: spellcasting. This class actually has some semi-caster potential with clerical spells, but it doesn’t come with Literacy or Concentration. Literacy can be handled in a couple of ways, but Concentration requires a wish, so I used my old wand’s final charge to do just that. Probably a pointless gesture, given how reluctant I am to use magic, but it seemed a good idea to get some more flexibility anyway. I believe at this point I also went down and cashed in on my Kitty Karma to get the ring of the master cat. Of all the troubles I had in this game, oddly, avoiding cats was not one of them.
At this point, I decided I might as well try my hand at the giant vault I had left half-complete, and thanks in part to True Aim I was able to successfully complete it, netting my favourite armour, the chainmail of the martyred crusader, and two weapons, a staff called Nature’s Breath and a mace called Michal’s Transmogrifier. I had no use for either, unfortunately, but was very pleased with the armour at least.
Considering again my magical failings, I decided to knock out the Library in order to boost Literacy to 100 and also get some additional scrolls of chaos removal, and did so with minimal fuss, netting yet another ring of djinni summoning in the process; I never did find a use for it, actually.
Content with my side-questing for now, I continued my trek into the Caverns of Chaos, making steady progress. When I hit the guaranteed greater vault on D:45, I found it was fire monsters this time, mostly dragons and elementals. I’d been immune to fire for most of the game, and was also extremely well-equipped, so it was a total cakewalk. I found some rather interesting artifacts there: Eagle’s Claw, which grants levitation when wielded (that would’ve been great for getting the Ring of the High Kings, but I was long past that, obviously), a decent halberd, Arak’s Guard, and, most amusingly and shockingly, the Paladin’s friend, Justifier. Justifier is almost completely useless to anyone that’s not a Paladin because of its unlisted feature of doing double damage for them and half for anyone else, but what I found so weird was that it was pretty deeply ironic, given that a Chaos Knight is essentially a kind of anti-paladin.
Setting that aside, I finished gathering the Chaos Orbs. At this point, I had managed to find several wands of destruction, and knew precisely what I had to do get a victory, so I had another bout of thought: I was only level 35, but I was feeling pretty powerful with all the exceptional gear I had, as well as my DV/PV and speed scores. I was also, truthfully, really burning out at this point. I considered if perhaps I didn’t actually need those last 15 levels, didn’t need Needle and Sting, didn’t need to bother with the Merchant’s Guild or the Lightning Dragon Caves. Maybe I should just end this…so I did. Just, almost not quite the way I intended.
Making my way down to D:49, I was amused to find that my usual toss of a potion of uselessness netted me the Silver Key. Truly, useless for useless, as I had little further concern about locked doors at this point. I wished I had gotten the nifty artifact boots, Moloch’s Thorns, when I crowned so I could stomp my way through, but it was not to be.
Arriving in D:50, I intended to simply dig my way through like usual, but I was in for a nasty shock: the level had been generated with undiggable walls! My heart sunk, and for a bit I was convinced I was completely screwed, as I’d be forced to contend with a lot more fighting than I wished, including the central room full of writhing masses of primal chaos. I know I’ve brought up D:50 before with little fanfare, but here, to understand my usual technique versus what I found, let’s look at a map (based on my victory file and a common screenshot):
############
#\CCGjCCCCC#XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
#CCCGjCCCCC############ ####### X #########
#CCCGjCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCC# #CCCCC# X #.......#
#^###################C# #CCCCC# #######################.......#
#CC...CCCCCC## #C# #CCCCC# #........./.........../.......#
#CCC.........## #^########CCCCC# #.........#############.......#
#&CCC.GGGGGG..# ###jjjjjjj######.# #.........# #.......#
#&&CC.GGGGGG..#####jjjjjjjjjj#####.#####.........######### #####+###
#8&CC.GGGGGG......jjjjjjjjjjjjCCC=CCC..+........./.......# #.#
#&&CC.GGGGGG..#####jjjjjjjjjj#####.#####################/##### #.#
#&CCC.GGGGGG..# ###jjjjjjj######.# X #.........# #.#
#CCC.........## #^########CCCCC# X ###########.........# ###.#######
#CC...CCCCCC## #C# #CCCCC# XX #........./.........# #.........#
#^###################C# #CCCCC#X#####..<..#####.........# #.........#
#CCCGjCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCC# #CCCCC#X#.........# #.........# #.........#
#\CCGjCCCCC############X #######X########### ########### ###########
############ XXXXXXXXXXXX
^ = Secret doors (non-standard marking, but I don't have colour here)
# = Wall
. = Floor
+ = Closed door
/ = Open door
< = Stairs up
= = Pool of lava I placed (after killing the Chaos monster)
8 = Chaos Gate
\ = Levers (non-standard marking again)
X = Potential/intended digging path
j = Writhing mass of primal chaos
& = Balors
G = Ghost lords
C = Various Chaos monstersTaking a moment to calm myself, I made use of a staff of minor volcano summoning I had been toting around to seal off the central chamber full of writing masses and clear out the two connecting ones immediately preceding it, and then picked them off with my less-than-stellar archery for a good while until I felt confident enough to step through the lava and take out the remainder one by one. Amazingly, this hadn’t woken up anything in the final chambers and I was able to complete the rest of my plan as usual, clearing out the two chambers holding the gate controls (starting with the top) and then looping back and destroying the first lever. It seems I need not have bothered though; the very moment I pulled the second one (a mere two turns later thanks to my teleportation), the game immediately ended, and so did my challenge run, with no chance for monsters to interfere.
I was rather intrigued by the ending, as the gods of Order and Balance worked together to recreate me from nothing after I “most foolishly” ended my own existence via this act of self-sacrifice, and made me essentially an avatar of Balance, as I was N=. I do wonder if there’s not a mistake though — it claims I “protect Ancardia from the forces of Chaos and Balance forever” in one line and then says that my efforts “keep Chaos and Order in Balance”. I suspect that the first instance of “Balance” there should be “Order”, really, since that fits the context better and also matches up with the similar text in a Neutral Ultra Ending, which this seems to be copied from. Either way, a very interesting end to a long, dangerous, redemptive journey.
Well, not as long as usual, I suppose. This game was actually my fastest due to not grinding, good item luck, and skipping several quests, and also in terms of in-game time since I found those seven league boots right away and didn’t have to worry about the Ancient Stone Circle. All told, I completed this run in just over 61 in-game days versus 147-157 with the other two, and almost 19 hours of real time instead of 31-33.
I still can’t believe I had the stamina and ability to run through this game three times in as many months, all with special endings of some sort. I am also, as always, amazed at how different each of those games felt just because of the whims of the RNG and the various differences afforded by each class and race combination.
I think I’m pretty well done with this game for a good while now, as you might well imagine, but it’s definitely one that holds a dear place in my heart. Probably too much so, as I end up quietly judging any rogue-like game I play by it, and I fear I’ve been spoiled by it. Rather hard to regret that much, though.
As is traditional, I’ve included my victory files below as both proof and trophies: