User:Umbire the Phantom/YANI

For those reading, this is ported over from the etherpad at Hardfought which I no longer have access to. It'll honestly be easier to maintain an offline copy overall, but as far as "things I want people to be able to directly contribute to", this is probably one of the easier options until I look into all that. In the meantime, here it all is - if you wanna edit, feel free to, just don't break wiki rules or piss me off. If you wanna look at other stuff I've been fiddling with, check out my "workspace", or if you're especially nosy, see User:Umbire the Phantom/sandbox.

YANI/prospective variant idea repository/design doc for one Umbire.

Introductory notes

Formatting this from the Lumapad is gonna take some time, so it'll be a while before things're up and running to the point I'd be fine with letting people contribute so that they can properly be attributed - this is a sort of problem I had with the Hardfought Etherpad for a bit. If you wanna see that and peek at the stuff I'm moving, here you go.

In the meantime, may as well lay the ground rules for anyone agreeing to pitch in:

1. Don't be a dickhead to other contributors.
2. Don't be a dickhead to other contributors.
3. Think of this as an extended spitballing session - the purpose of this is to refine ideas in general, and to that end I'd like you to be at least open to critcism.
4. CRITICISM IS NOT LICENSE TO BE A DICKHEAD.
5. Don't be a dickhead to other contributors.
6. Signsignsignsign sign yer posts! Wiki software records who added/removed what but signing is soooooooooo much easier.
7. Respect small matters of programming. This is not "don't ever suggest something ambitious" - just keep in mind how much work a prospective idea might require to implement.

Okay?

Okay.

If you can't edit the wiki but wanna suggest something, just shoot me a line on IRC/Discord/wherever!

YANI

All YANIs listed here are mine and variant-agnostic, unless stated otherwise. All ideas that are planned for my variant in some form are listed in the variant's section.

• If a holding attack would drown you while you have magical breathing or are in a breathless form, you are instead pulled into the water and moved to an applicable adjacent square if possible, where the monster will then attempt to hold and/or crush you as normal. This will wet your inventory as is the case anytime you step into a moat - which is unusually not the case with drowning normally.
• Reading a non-cursed scroll of amnesia while confused instead "clears your mind", which still causes you to forget the current level but may also have additional, possibly beneficial effects such as a chance of enlightenment.
• Wishing for the Amulet of Yendor doesn’t fail and give you a fake if you have ever held it in the past: instead, its location will be revealed to you, though this will attract the Wizard of Yendor's attention - if it was last left in the inventory of a monster, that monster will be levelported to you. Revised from #2679 (also mine) on the YANI archive.

LumaHack

Tentative variant name. Will eventually get its own subpage.

Design principles

1. It isn't hand-holding to implement QoL and generally not be a dick to the player.
   • NetHack as a whole is already hard and, despite reactive protests to the contrary, will only get harder. Yes, this game will be harder than default NetHack, that's almost a given - but this variant is not about defining itself by its difficulty or lack thereof, since that is one facet of the whole. My primary aim is to strike a proper balance in providing that challenge in a way that isn't as commonplace with other variants, without unduly breaking the uninitiated over my knee.
   • Regular discussion of difficulty in games is a minefield as it is, because difficulty is a both a thing a lot of people don't fully understand and a thing that a lot of people don't wanna admit they don't fully understand, because too many of us like to define ourselves by how we consume this form of interactive media where we play games that are occasionally on video. But rather than sermonize about this off the bat, I'm just gonna leave it at "don't use my variant for your genitalia-measuring contests" and save the meatier stuff and Actual Opinions™ for later on this page.
2. Make player choice matter.
   • No amount of quality of life requires that the game always save the player from themselves - you choose the buttons you press, ergo you opt in to taking certain risks. Interhack is a set of guideline principles, not hard rules.
   • This also means that if a player opts to do something, they should be prepared for the consequences of those actions.
   • Alignment abuse systems are a relatively common step towards this end.
3. Keep it simple, silly.
   • I'm not the most experienced coder, and even better coders than me (read: all of them) hit a wall in making C do what it wants sooner or later, let alone with a roguelike like this. What it's been made to do is an achievement in itself, but even so I don't wanna get too overambitious, especially not until I find some level of footing from which I can tackle higher-difficulty concepts. That doesn't I don't have some quite novel ideas lined up, simply that I'm trying to take it slow.
   • This also means that, while there is no desire to eliminate any conducts from attainability, conduct feasibility will have to take a backseat to make sure the game actually functions on the base "do a normal run" level before making considerations to that end.
4. Flavor is the spice of life.
   • The plot, at the end of the day, is but so much window dressing for a hack-and-slash. That doesn't mean we can't make make certain monsters and items more memorable.
   • At mininmum, I'm thinking the role quests can have just a little more variance besides "kill this one BBEG". Just how much is something I'll have to work out gradually.
   • Side branches are something dependent on the length of the dungeon, and we might have to do some SLASH'EM style chicanery if I can't narrow down the amount of branches I want to fit in.
   • I could simply say "make boring things interesting" but that's so vague and subjective as to be unhelpful, and there's a lot to be said for monsters performing "basic" roles - getting you used to group fights, teaching you the value of spacing, things of that nature. To that end, the play is gonna be "make what currently exists more distinct".
5. Removal is a last resort.
   • I'm already hesitant to resort to "deletionism" or consolidation as a first course of action, and it doesn't strike me as useful to throw out something without thoroughly examining it first.
   • Sometimes it takes time for the right opening to appear that gels with an object or monster's role - if it ain't fixed, don't break it.
   • "Last resort" =/= "never do this" - while deleted stuff can be restored later, I'd rather work around it than without it if it's feasible to do so. If not, then we'll adjust accordingly.
   • This numbered point refers primarily to existing vanilla stuff - variant stuff is something I can cherry pick a bit more, so it'll be easier to focus on desired changes to begin with.

Mechanical inspirations

• There's a few variants that have the look of a fertile foundation to work with:
  • SpliceHack (and to a lesser extent its rewrite) as well as older versions of Hack'EM prior to going too hard on object materials and properties and over-nerfing certain items IMHO seem especially compelling.
    • God knows if I'll bother with techniques at all, though. If there was a way to implement them without potentially sacrificing too much balance...
    • The "named rooms" thing had potential, as did descriptions of paintings and such. (Reminds me a bit of Dwarf Fortress actually...) I wanna see if I can make that work on a per-room basis, possibly allowing the use of near look : to view the ceiling and/or walls in each room.
  • EvilHack and xNetHack are also candidates - both have particular methods of spicing up the dungeon and its denizens, as well as the starting races, that I quite enjoy! If I had to assign arbitrary advantages, though, xnh has the "edge" in regards to handling skills and giving the existing vanilla races a guaranteed skill they can level, while Evil's "edge" is in the expanded item selection and additional artifacts.

Mechanical changes

And now, the proposed home-brewed mechanical changes, with my own commentary (and those of others should you wish to comment):

Options

• Paranoid stuff is opt-in, not opt-out: if you don't like a particular paranoid option then... you never have to use it!
  • For the genuinely uninitiated, here's what paranoid options save you from: typoing into water, typoing into traps, or what-have-you. Paranoid options do not save you from any of the following:
    • Being bitten or drowned by, say, a piranha or eel that was already in the water you didn't typo into.
    • Having you inventory exploded by spheres, as many skilled players and speedrunners alike have complained about.
    • Working hard for good real-time speedruns - if anything, you lose way more time if you have bad movement and have to tap out of paranoid prompts constantly.
    • Being otherwise bad at [a variant of] NetHack.
  • Paranoid options do not dilute previous accomplishments, just because future players might have slightly fewer bullshit deaths to contend with on their way to die to everything else in the game. If paranoid options were really the difference-maker that let a "bad" player ascend, then that implies A) the game was never that hard to begin with, or B) the balance sucks ten tons of liquid dogshit. And on top of not being a fan of pissing all over people's hard work, I'm fairly sure neither of those are remotely true.
    • As someone who's argued against excessive tutorializing and "actual" hand-holding for NetHack, I also dislike the idea that a playerbase has to do without QoL just because it might make that game """easier""" in one arbitrary aspect, as if the DevTeam can't just make it harder in others (e.g. knockback deaths, no lizard corpse protection on new moon, spheres actually being a problem, etc.) - that's how game balancing works, and if I'm gonna be a dev, I have to be able to sort through actual balance complaints versus personal problems ahead of time.
    • If you really wanna stop supposed "hand-holding" like paranoid options, then demand people quit using MSGTYPEs and see how well that goes over.
• ...Anyway, no new paranoid warnings are going to be added, and shouldn't be too necessary in my view - the existing suite in 3.7 should do just fine at most.
  • No, no "never-paranoid" conducts. That's stupid.
  • I do want to try a tiny bit of tweaking like what Evil did, so that it actively encourages more careful play.

Existing roles

The following assumes completely vanilla NetHack roles (i.e. 3.6.7 with respect to upcoming 3.7 changes):

Cavefolk

Cavefolk tend to be cited (in my experience) as one of the less interesting roles, even with post-aklys upgrades and a dedicated patch meant to fix that (which is integrated into some variants). Indeed, how to remedy this...

• Bonuses for use of stone or bone weapons and bone or leather armor, perhaps.
  • Perhaps allow them to make their own hide armor?
• Annam seems a bit more on theme for a nemesis versus Tiamat.

Knight

Common Knight tweaks include interactions with dragons, exclusive dipping for Excalibur, heavier starting armor that secondarily boosts starting strength, and making chivalry infractions impactful.

• So we're always doing the Excalibur thing to start.
• The heavier starting armor a la SLASH'EM/Evil... more on the fence about that, but I don't hate the idea at all.

Monk

Oft-maligned by the vanilla systems, Monks get a lot of love in variants and 3.7 is finally throwing them more to work with - but there are certain angles of the role that are yet unexplored...

• Remove to-hit penalty for the weapons that Monks can advance skill in.
  • The goal is to allow for some level of weapon-using builds while not touching (or barely touching) the stuff that makes Monk THE role for weaponless. If nothing else, lean more into the Shaolin shit!
  • Could also make it a lesser to-hit penalty while Unskilled.
• Try to implement some form of fighting styles.
  • This might be based on weapon choice, worn rings or something else - I haven't decided what if anything yet.

New roles

Any new roles will likely be brewed or cherrypicked from other variants to fit the planned setting changes in mind. Wholly new roles go here.

• Convicts are a shoo-in of course, though by that token I don't know about Jedi...
• There's also the temptation to incorporate legally-distinct-in-the-event-the-dev-cares-that-much ZAPM roles.

Dungeon

Branch ideas go here.

• Perhaps lean the dungeon's setting slightly more into urban fantasy and a tiny bit of tech geekery - no one said a bustling city couldn't have old tunnels and such! It'd certainly explain all the sinks lying around.
  • Make watery areas more common a la EvilHack/xNetHack/et. al. - EvilHack's implementation of the watery Mines in particular is better than GruntHack almost entirely on the basis that you can see where you're going and thus much less likely to get lmao'd by lag. Making water monsters more commonplace is a very close second.
  • Probably not doing toilets, though. Or if I do, make them specific to certain rooms/levels (primarily "guaranteed" or high-probability ones).
• Monsters that generate in branches associated strongly with an element should automatically be given resistance to that element, even if they wouldn’t get it normally, while monsters that would be vulnerable to that element are not randomly generated at all. Revised from #3504 (mine) on the YANI archive.

Gnomish Mines

• Mordortown (tentative name): a "good" counterpart to Orcish Town, full of mostly peaceful orcish monsters. Copied from #2684 (mine) on the YANI archive.
• A Mines' End map that contains a guaranteed scroll of earth, gold golems, and an earth elemental as a reference to some Swiss folklore involving gnomes. Possibly also add a healer statue named Paracelsus, who was one of the first to name gnomes as such. Copied from #3594 (mine) on the YANI archive.

Rogue level

A lot of variants remove the Rogue level for very understandable reasons, but what if I could turn it into something... different? Expanded from #3372 (mine) on the YANI archive.

• Convert the level to an entire branch with the same generation rules as the original. The level that leads into the branch will still be a normal level.
  • The interface change is more than likely still going to rub people the wrong way, so probably omit that and consider adding it back as an opt-in feature later.
  • Most likely generate some formerly-defunct monsters there as well.

Planes

• The Plane of Water contains a few water moccasins, water demons and water nymphs, implying a connection to the fountains in the dungeon. Copied from #3367 (mine) on the YANI archive.

Dungeon features

• A foocubus generated by kicking a sink should have a small chance of wearing an apron (as it is the “dish washer”). Copied from #3448 (mine) on the YANI archive.
  • Kicking sinks for puddings is a legitimate play for early poison resistance, so it's only fair.

Traps

New traps go here.

• Make it possible to untrap or cancel certain traps and have them leave behind a certain amount of a particular item. Not too many - just enough that it might entice players to do a bit more trap-busting.

Religion

• Maybe try my hand at god-specific minions and RRAG-specific pantheons and deities a la dNetHack. Maybe.
  • This is one of those SMOPs where I actually want the idea, but the execution is going to be A Lot.
• Most gods will immediately become very angry if you sacrifice the corpse of one of their own priests, much less on their own altar. Revised from #2602 (mine) on the YANI archive.
• Perma-conversion to a different alignment while your god is angry enough will incur "divine harassment" similar to that of Rodney's, with some obvious differences - this harassment can occur alongside Rodney's as well. Revised from #3376 (mine) on the YANI archive.
  • Summoned nasties are replaced with one or more minions, depending on power level.
  • Converting back to your original alignment will halt harassment for its duration, though it will be much harder to appease them or (re)gain their favor.
  • If you were crowned prior to perma-conversion, your deity will react more violently against you, with a chance of very immediate retribution...
• If you would receive your first sacrifice gift, but it already exists in the game somewhere, your god will inform you of where it is and also will tell you if the artifact no longer exists. Copied from #3486 (mine) on the YANI archive.

Monsters

Specific new monster ideas go here.

• I've had an interest in post-quest exclusive monsters and "shiny" rare spawns. Feasibility of either is another ask, though...
  • A "shiny" monster would be a unique monster of a given class (probably one per letter as a floor) that is insanely tough even for high-level characters, but revives and pacifies once defeated and can be tamed easily afterward.
• Quest guardians and leaders:
  • Friendlies representing a specific role closely enough should have intrinsics and abilities resembling those of that role - they're also worth buffing besides if we're allowing characters to potentially access quest by killing the leader.
  • A lot of variants lower the entrance level to XL 10, but raise monster generation and the like accordingly - probably keep the course on that as well.
• Specific vanilla monster changes, in rough order of monst.c/monsters.h:
  • Attacking a queen bee immediately awakens all non-tame killer bees on the level and turns them hostile. Revised from #2699 (mine) on the YANI archive.
  • Tengu are renamed to kotengu.
  • Titans are counted as M2_GIANT and may introduce themselves with Greco-Roman names - hostile ones will declare their names and titles to try and scare you, possibly yelling and waking monsters as well.
    • Because it's not like they become pushovers just from a weakness to Giantslayer - hell, the artifact could use some application!
  • Rope golems death drop leashes and bullwhips as of 3.7 - add grappling hooks to the mix as well, and keep them rare (but not too rare). Idea credit: carlarc, PavelB
  • If a mail daemon delivers a scroll of mail and you have kept illiterate conduct, they will offer to read the message to you.

Monster generation

• If a group of monsters are generated and none of them already have a potion of gain level, A) one of them may be replaced with a higher-up, or B) an additional one can generate among them. (e.g., ogres can get an ogre lord or much more rarely an ogre king, soldiers and sergeants can get a lieutenant or captain, etc. etc.) Conversely, taking out a higher-ranked monster in view of their underlings may cause a "rout", scaring them into fleeing. Revised from #2834 on the YANI archive, with additional credit to aosdict and slengtorm.
  • Have to settle on either A or B eventually... At the moment leaning towards the latter.
  • Partly inspired by how dNetHack handles generation of certain monsters such as the orc of the ages of stars.
• "Routs" can also happen in a different form on the quest: upon defeating your quest nemesis, some hostile monsters in the quest branch may flee from you for a while. Revised from #3531 (mine) on the YANI archive.

General items

Specific new item ideas go here.

• Forging should be a thing!
  • Probably lift forging straight from Evil and work from that base.
  • I've always wondered if there shouldn't be race-specific forging materials or recipes, but hmmm...

Weapons

• Stilettos are currently completely identical to knives. Differentiate them by making them more of a stealth aid. (Specifically, increase damage dealt on sleeping monsters and perhaps make stealth work like pre-3.7 while wielding it).
  • If possible, try to differentiate knife-skill weapons a bit more from daggers. This may require a dnh-like damage system, but hopefully won't - the primary concern in that case is cumbersomeness to implement.
• Make war hammers 1d8+1/1d8 as in dNetHack, and add xNetHack's war hammer as the "greathammer". Replace the vanilla war hammer with...

Spells and spellbooks

• Spellcasting monsters have a chance of generating with a spellbook on hand, and using #loot towards a peaceful spellcaster or #chatting while wielding a spellbook may prompt that spellcaster to offer a spellbook trade.
  • In theory, the player would be incentivized to trade off spare/unwanted books for desired ones. In practice... they probably just kill the NPC when they think no one's looking. Cute, but if I'm gonna stick with this at all, it needs more time on the burner.
• The spellbook of cure blindness is replaced with the spellbook of clearsight. At Basic or lower, the spell cures blindness like normal. At Skilled or higher, also gives temporary super-vision (maybe astral vision or X-ray vision?) as well as see invisible, and suppresses hallucination for that duration.
  • ...if I can make it so that sight is ignored by hallucination for the duration I should.
  • This might be the "simpler" fix to cure blindness getting power-crept - not every spell is gonna be used late in the game, but this gives it *a* use case.
• The spell of cure sickness is directional as in EvilHack and Hack'EM, and does not anger monsters unless it would harm them.
• The spell of remove curse is also directional.

Rings

• A blessed ring of sustain ability additionally confers limited level drain resistance: if a level would be lost, the ring will unbless instead, with a chance for the ring to become cursed. Revised from #3219 (mine) on the YANI archive.
  • Drain resistance pre-3.7 is rough to get without reliance on artifacts or polyself, and while black DSM gets a nice boost from it, it still requires that you, well... face a black dragon. You probably have reflection or something else that lets you deal by then, but even so I wanted to encourage at least a bit more creativity.

Wands

• The wand of probing autoIDs if used to engrave on a square with a buried item(s), revealing those items to the player as well. Revised from #3420 (mine) on the YANI archive.
  • ...I feel like they do this already? If they don't though then hey ho!

Tools

• When you first open or tip an ice box that was generated cursed, it may spawn a gelatinous cube or a group of P monsters, respecting level depth. There is also a chance that the corpses inside may be aged as well, and an even smaller chance that some of them rot away immediately upon you opening the icebox.
  • Might be a bit mean... eh, not really. Should make the odd one-off trap ice boxes at least marginally interesting.

Iron chains

• Have them and the heavy iron ball use the flail skill so they aren't completely useless.
• Do what Hack'EM did and incorporate them in a few forging recipes.

Artifacts

• The Banes occupy a pretty weird design space - they're either too narrow and thus "useless", or hit broad enough targets to be at least viable, but not so much that they aren't overlooked for "general-purpose" artiweapons anyway. Obviously I don't plan to get rid of them, but comments from Loggers and others (yes I saw your notes, hi Logs <3) indicate this is at least worth pondering at length.
  • EvilHack probably does the most to "redeem" the Banes in particular, with Dragonbane being an arguable example of overtuning in that regard - pretty much everyone wants those gloves now, even if only to make Gauntlets of Purity. xnh and dnh are also pretty good examples in terms of Bane improvement.
• To examine the Banes properly, they're worth looking at on an individual basis first:
  • Dragonbane: The poster child for "kinda alright for general use but not really necessary against their target monster". A broadsword is an... alright base weapon, not much to write home about. A broadsword with reflection suddenly becomes a very tempting prospect, but almost 90% of that is the reflection itself. Vanilla dragons themselves are not nothing, but they're lackluster for what dragons in D&D-likes and dungeon crawlers usually represent.
  • Werebane: The poster child for "heavily overspecialized" - there's only three werecreatures, only one of them is a super-significant threat (goddamn winter wolves), and any silver weapon can do the same job with enough proficiency; to top it all off, it's just a fancy silver saber against everything else. Object materials make it even worse off, since you can get silver anything on paper and have a weapon perfectly fit your character's skill set.
    • Hard mode: Don't just add more werecreatures specifically to "solve" this problem - adding new ones in general isn't a bad idea, but doesn't actually change anything about the artifact directly, which is the aim of these notes. Making artifacts offhandable as in SLASH'EM/Evil does give it some more indirect life as well.
    • My personal solution? Make Werebane additionally "poison" on hit in a way that slows or even suppresses HP regeneration, with better odds of suppression against werefoo. Becomes esp. applicable against target monsters, but retains a (possibly nasty) edge against other monsters.
• Vorpal Blade:
  • Maybe replace Vorpal Blade as the neutral crowning gift - I'll probably borrow buffs from Evil et. al. anyway, but I also want a crowning gift that leans a bit more into the "neutrality" theme. On the note of Vorpal Blade, I also have a nice little plan for it...
    • ...Maybe Dichotomy might be the muse of choice here.
  • Print "You hear a snicker-snack!" if a monster is instakilled with Vorpal Blade and you cannot see the victim, including if you were wielding the artifact yourself (e.g. killing a zombie while blind and telepathic).

Misc./unsorted

• If a monster aggravates you (typically via cursed potions of invisibility but also sometimes by fighting shrieking monsters), you should additionally gain detection of that specific monster for a limited time.
  • Miiiiiiiiight be a SMOP. But hey, worth the shot - I hate immediately forgetting a monster like that's location after it happens.
  • If the monster is not hostile, replace "aggravated" with "<slightly> annoyed'.

New-to-the-variant branches

Wonderland

Yep, an Alice-themed branch! Probably one of my more ambitious ideas. Need to actually read that story first...

• Portal entrance should replace the wall/door/whatever that usually leads into a closet and be flavored as a "giant shimmering mirror". Location should be above Medusa similar to the Ice Queen's Realm.
• Middle(?) floors: A hillside with scattered trees, violet fungi and various J, including "nonsense" monsters (spoiler for the jabberwock monster class lol), which leads to a dark woods area with a guaranteed jabberwock.
  • No points for guessing why violet fungi.
• Last floor: Throne room with a special ruler monster that may prove a deadly surprise to the aspiring adven-- sure okay it's the Queen of Hearts, you probably guessed that already. Also she has Vorpal Blade so look out!

Dilapidated Shuttle

ZAPM-style branch. We have a "past" branch in the Rogue level, so why not a "future" branch? We also somehow don't have many references to clan eit's work outside of SLEX (yep, this is also Amy's fault!) so...

• Probably have the entrance in the early floors of Gehennom or just above the Castle. Maybe having it in the Castle will help sell the whole "crashed deep into the earth" angle.
• Gonna have to play more ZAPM to ensure the vibe is curated properly, too. Study Doom as well...
• Zombies and demons and aliens ahoy!
• Maybe honor the old ZAPM challenge by hiding a wish at the end! To balance this out, I'm thinking of a few things:
  • Split up wishes in general xNetHack style and place one of them here.
  • Have a throne set to give a guaranteed wish on first sit.
  • Do something dNetHack-ish and gate a second guaranteed artifact wish behind it.

New-to-the-variant races

All races that have a "complete" draft will be given their own subpages as needed.

Kobolds

• Theme: Seemingly weak scoundrels with an easily-underestimated cunning streak
• Neutral or chaotic
• Tentative attribute caps:
  • STR: 18/50
  • DEX: 18
  • CON: 18
  • INT: 16
  • WIS: 18
  • CHA: 16
  • Note: Can easily raise one of these, just dunno which yet. Gnome STR/CON should be enough for now; stats should be lowish but not too low with what I'm planning.
• Intrinsics by level up:
  • XL 1: Infravision
  • XL 3: Poison resistance ("domestic" kobolds aren't acclimated to harsh underground conditions)
• Unique traits
  • Basic/Skilled in darts
  • Basic in pick-axe (they're "natural" mine-dwellers but not nearly as proficient at digging as dwarves)
  • Gnomes and dwarves are always hostile, while other kobolds are occasionally peaceful
  • Special Rules
    • Can potentially tame lower-level kobolds by #chatting to them
    • Gain 1 less AC from most non-DSM body armor - it's an awkward fit for them
      • Maybe an additional penalty for weight...?
    • In return, they gain an AC bonus from proximity to allied kobolds
    • Tame allied kobolds can follow you to other levels with greater proximity than a normal tamed monster

Gnolls

• Theme: Hyena-like beastfolk with a bloodlust that's hard to tame
• Neutral or chaotic
• Tentative attribute caps:
  • STR: 18/**
  • DEX: 20
  • CON: 18
  • INT: 16
  • WIS: 18
  • CHA: 16
  • Note: Initial caps were borrowed from an actual SRD or w/e for a gnoll - riker pointed out they were super low, which was intentional since I wanted to work using that as a base, but decided "fuck it" and settled on these for the time being.
• Intrinsics by level up:
  • XL 1: Infravision
  • XL 4: Poison resistance (base level for EvilHack gnolls)
  • XL 7: Stealth
  • XL 10: Hunger
  • XL 10: Sickness resistance (become properly resistant to all forms of disease, including whatever's in carrion)
• Unique traits:
  • Basic/skilled in flails
  • Basic/skilled in spears
  • Special Rules
    • Gnolls are scavengers by nature, and also by habit - any weapons and armor they start with might be partly eroded.
    • While monsters can be peaceful as normal, many have a lower chance to generate as such for gnolls, with the exception of certain chaotic monsters for chaotic gnolls - gnomes and elves are never peaceful. Gnolls are the only monsters that can be peaceful towards player gnolls with the "usual" probability.
    • Gnolls in roles with "standard" pets start with a tame hyena instead (or a hyaenodon if playing a mounted role).
    • Gnolls can tolerate rations, but prefer raw meat: they can even consume corpses that are old, but not yet tainted without taking damage, though they always get ¹⁄₂ of the nutrition. This is boosted to ²⁄₃ if eaten while hungry or lower on nutrition.
• Notes:
  • There needs to be SOME kinda perk in exchange for the hunger property - hobbits have bigger stomachs in general, giants have regeneration, but what should gnolls have...?

Unnamed serpentfolk

• Theme: Offshoot of naga, probably of the "snaketaur" subtype of serpentfolk
  • Perhaps use a similar tack to dNetHack's half-dragons? Specifically, have elemental powers and or additional effects, possibly tied to alignment
• Any alignment
• Tentative attribute caps:
  • STR: 18
  • DEX: 20
  • CON: 18
  • INT: 18
  • WIS: 20 (snakes have a reputation for cunning)
  • CHA: 14
  • Note: Might raise another attribute a bit, but the idea is that these serpentfolk are quite nimble, and while not exactly wimps, lacking legs doesn't do much for carrying capacity.
    • DEX lowered to 20 per Loggers's input
• Intrinsics by level up:
  • XL 1: Infravision
  • XL 3: Poison resistance
  • XL 15: <Swimming/water walking> (they are half a snake)
    • Initially was the former at XL 10 but might need to sit on this a while
• Unique traits:
  • Basic/Skilled in Trident
  • Can #chat to snakes to potentially pacify them, akin to rats and Convicts, and nagas' mumblings become intelligible to them
    • Include YAFM if chatting to what turns out to be a snake while hallucinating
    • Hard Mode: No referencing Krowl's works
  • Can wear all armor minus boots, similar to the playable salamander of notdNetHack

Taddol

• Theme: Essentially "ettinkin" - two-headed beings that have mixed elven and giant ancestry
  • Source: This d20pfsrd thing
• Can be neutral or chaotic
  • Most NPC taddol will be default neutral; primarily to play on the idea of "Balance"
• Tentative attribute caps:
  • STR: 18/**
  • DEX: 18
  • CON: 16
  • INT: 19
  • WIS: 19
  • CHA: 16
  • Should probably have better HP growth than elves to reflect giant heritage
• Intrinsics by level up:
  • XL 1: Searching
    • Two minds and four eyes makes a perceptive character
  • XL 6: Sleep resistance
    • Same as elves but later
• Unique traits:
  • Basic/skilled in twoweapon
    • Lowered to basic if playing a role that would not have it normally
  • Cannot wear hard helms
    • A taddol's heads are close enough (possibly partly fused) that a rigid helm would never fit properly. You'd never agree which head to wear it on anyway. Possibly make exceptions for rigid stuff if they would fit neatly enough atop the heads.

New-to-the-variant roles

All roles that have a "complete" draft will be given their own subpages as needed.

Defector

• General theme: What if one of the Yendorian army's recruits had their brainwashing undone?
• Any alignment
• Playable as: Any race that can wear most armor and wield weapons
• Starting equipment: Total AC of 6 (had to steal what "junk" equipment you could)
  • +0 dented pot
  • +0 leather armor
  • +0 pair of low boots
  • +0 dagger and +0 short sword or +0 knife and +0 spear
  • 1-3 uncursed cram rations
• Intrinsics by level up
• Quest ideas
  • Join a resistance faction and work against Rodney's soldiers, including your former platoon who's carrying out dungeon excavation to expand Croesus's gold storage.
• Skills
  • Starting Skills
    • Basic: short sword/dagger or knife/spear depending on starting inventory, perhaps basic in bare handed combat
  • Skill caps: monsters can use practically any weapon, so try to keep Skilled or better to to things that mercs generate with, plus a couple of bonus
    • Basic: morning star, crossbow, pick-axe, dart, hammer, club, bow, crossbow
    • Skilled: Bare hands, broadsword, long sword, flail, mace, saber/scimitar, polearms, twoweapon, trident, axe
    • Expert: short sword, dagger, spear, knife
• Unique traits:
  • Special Rules
    • Other mercenaries become hostile on sight unless you are disguised or not visible to them - there's a price on the head of traitors.
    • Trying to bribe them is an act of cowardice that your god will frown upon (likely in the form of an alignment penalty, rather than smiting).
• Other traits

Janitor

• General theme: Viable Tourist-style joke role based around "cleaning" up the dungeon
• Lawful or Neutral
• Playable as: human, dwarf, gnome
• Starting equipment: Total AC of 7
  • +0 leather gloves
  • +0 leather jacket
  • +0 pair of low boots
  • +1 broom or +1 mop (equal chance of each, will start with knowledge of both)
  • 1-2 uncursed food rations
  • 1-2 uncursed candy bars
  • 1-2 uncursed potions of fruit juice
  • 1-2 uncursed potions of water
  • Small chance of 1-2 uncursed potions of booze
  • uncursed skeleton key
  • uncursed towel
• Intrinsics by level up
• Quest ideas
• Skills
  • Starting Skills
  • Skillcaps
    • Basic
    • Skilled: Bare hands
    • Expert: Quarterstaff
• Unique traits:
  • Special Rules
    • Angering peacefuls by letting them slip on recently mopped tiles will anger your god or induce a luck penalty unless you are chaotic
• Other traits

Pugilist

• General theme: Bare-handed fighter vaguely similar to a Monk, but with much more focus on weaponless physical prowess and limited magical skill that can be used to augment it
• Any alignment
• Playable as: Any race minus serpentfolk
• Starting equipment: Total AC of 6
  • +2 leather gloves
  • +0 pair of low boots
  • 1-2 uncursed food rations
  • 1-2 uncursed candy bars
  • 2 uncursed potions of water
• Intrinsics by level up
• Quest ideas
  • Quest nemesis: This is one I've had in the oven for a hot minute. The Pugilist's nemesis is two-fold - the 'primary' nemesis is a boxing champion of some kind, a powerful and quasi-demonic foe with a similar set of armor and attacks as you would depending on your alignment, while the "actual" traditionally-covetous monster is the champ's promoter. He's way more on the shrimpy side compared to his boy, but he's got some nasty tricks up his sleeve during your 1v1 fight against the champ, and he's not a very graceful loser!
  • Quest artifact: The Belt of Apollo
• Skills
  • Starting Skills
    • Basic: Bare hands
  • Skillcaps
    • Basic
    • Skilled
    • Expert: Bare hands
• Unique traits:
  • Special Rules
    • No weapons, with next to no exceptions - unless you're chaotic, and even then the weapons you can actually take skill in are limited.
    • Especially no kicking! This might be a restriction to just lawful Pugilists - considering flavoring neutral Pugilists as kickboxers or other similar fighters (maybe some Muay Thai?), while chaotic Pugilists are gonna be much "dirtier" in comparison.
• Other traits
• Notes
  • Been sitting on this for a hot minute, but given the news about Weathers... there's no tomorrow, after all.

New-to-the-variant monsters

Monsters with "complete" drafts (i.e. stats and qualities that I'm very likely to stick with by the time I first code them in) get subpaged.

• This is a quick and dirty list of monster qualities:
  • Difficulty: Intended monster difficulty
  • Attacks: Attack routine.
  • Level: Monster level here.
  • Speed: Movement speed.
  • AC: Base armor class before any equipment and all that.
  • MR: Magic resistance score, saving throw, willpower, whatever you wanna call it.
  • Alignment: Alignment value.
  • Generates in: Branches they appear in.
  • Genocidable: Can you magically wipe out these things or no?
  • Diet: What they eat.
  • Size/weight/nutrition: Monster size, weight value, nutrition in that order.
  • Resists: Stuff they resist.
  • Confers: Stuff their flesh/meat/etc. grants.
  • Other traits: Stuff that goes at the bottom of a {{monster}} template or otherwise isn't listed above.

Cockatrices and cousins

• cryolisk: Ice version of the pyrolisk, but with more cockatrice-like traits and an excuse to make ice statues a thing.
  • Difficulty: Undecided
  • Attacks: Gaze 2d6 cold, bite 1d6 slow
  • Level: 7
  • Speed: 6
  • AC: 6
  • MR: 30
  • Alignment: Neutral (0)
  • Generates in: Dungeons, Gehennom (icy levels only)
  • Genocidable: Yes
  • Diet: Omnivorous
  • Size/weight/nutrition: Small/25/25
  • Resists: cold, poison
  • Confers: cold (¹⁄₅), poison (¹⁄₅)
  • Other traits: Oviparous, animal, no hands, hostile
  • Notes: None

Canines

• The Shackled: Humanoid, three-jackal-headed priestess of an unknown deity. Normally peaceful unless you've killed all the jackals in a game...
  • Difficulty: Undecided
  • Attacks: Weapon 4d10 physical, Bite 2d8 physical, Bite 2d8 physical, Bite 2d8 physical, cast 2d8 clerical, cast 2d8 clerical
  • Level: 30
  • Speed: 18
  • AC: 4
  • MR: 85
  • Alignment: Neutral (0)
  • Generates: Unique, non-random
  • Genocidable: No
  • Diet: carnivorous
  • Size/weight/nutrition: Human/1450/400
  • Resists: poison, drain
  • Confers: lycanthropy
  • Other traits: humanoid, overlord, nasty, picks up food and items
  • Notes: This has been brewing in my mind for a while, but a quip by aosdict gave me an ideal name. Feels appropriately Dark Souls-y. She still needs a "proper" name, though - apparently Kali appears in the form of a group of jackals when offering meat to her, based on Bengali tantrik tradition. Hmmm...

Eyes and spheres

• hellwatcher: A thoroughly malicious beholder-like being that bites and belches balls of blistering lightning bolts at trespassers.
• abyssal juggernaut: Vaguely spherical being that spews smaller eyes and spheres, will claw and try to grab you with its pincers, and may even try to cancel-gaze you. Explodes into strong sphere monsters upon death.
• Noxious sphere: A poisonous sphere that acts like the vanilla spheres, but leaves behind poison clouds when it explodes. Copied from #3493 (mine) on the YANI archive.
  • Difficulty: Undecided
  • Attacks:
  • Level:
  • Speed:
  • AC:
  • MR:
  • Alignment:
  • Generates in:
  • Genocidable:
  • Diet:
  • Size/weight/nutrition:
  • Resists:
  • Confers:
  • Other traits:
  • Notes: Reading a scroll of stinking cloud while confused should produce noxious spheres alongside gas spores (which is an UnNetHack-ism iirc).

Imps and minor demons

• xeno cultivant: A decidedly alien impish life-form with unusual plant-like traits, it can hide in the ground and will leap at targets - if it gets low on HP, it'll go berserk, try to grab onto an opponent and self-destruct.
• heartbreaker: Only randomly generates on February 14th.
• daitengu: Humanoid tengu of the "red-faced long-nosed guy" variety.

Quadrupeds

• Hyena: If we have gnolls, we gotta have hyenas.
• hyaenadon: Bigger ancestor of the hyena.

Vortices

• Mist phantom: A humanoid-shaped gaseous being also intended to be a replacement vortex form for shapeshifting vampires. Based on #3498 on the YANI archive, with additional credit to aosdict and Elronnd.

Angelic beings

• Aurox: A quadrupedal angelic being, based on the extinct species of cattle combined with the “golden calf” Biblical motif, as well as the Bull of Heaven from the Epic of Gilgamesh - there's a secondary pun involving the word "aura" and gold's chemical symbol Au. What they lack in spellcasting prowess compared to the ki-rin, they make up for in sheer physical strength. Expanded from #3491 (mine) on the YANI archive.
• Cherub: Only randomly generates on February 14th. Powerful angelic being that is usually peaceful, and is based on the actual cherubim.
• Putto: Only randomly generates on February 14th. Small humanoid angel based on the little guys that get called cherubim.
• Amourett: Only randomly generates on February 14th. Larger humanoid angel that is a much "older" putto - their name is a pun on "amour" (French for "love") and "amoretto", a name given to a putto that represents a cupid-style angel.

Bats and birds

• Rabid bat: Needs little introduction or explanation. Bats are more likely carriers of rabies than rats (but far less than dogs).
  • Difficulty: Undecided
  • Attacks: Bite 2d4 drains CON
  • Level: 3
  • Speed: 22
  • AC: 7
  • MR: 0
  • Alignment: Neutral (0)
  • Generates in: Dungeons, Gehennom
  • Genocidable: Yes
  • Diet: Carnivore
  • Size/weight/nutrition: Small/30/5
  • Resists: poison
  • Confers: nothing
  • Other traits: Animal, flies, hostile, infravisible, poisonous

Elementals

• garstiger: A vicious tiger-like elemental being that emits poison clouds while moving, can attack with poison gas breath, and explodes into a cloud of gas on death. Polymorphing into a garstiger will cause monsters to flee from you (because as a poison elemental you smell awful).
  • Notes: Pun based on something Amy told me re: a monster I inquired about. (And of course she 'stole' it after. :B)

Flora and fungi

Tentative plan is to repurpose this monster class and add plant monsters.

• Shrubling: A diminutive bipedal life form that can hide along other plant life and fires seeds and rocks at you from its mouth - thankfully, it's not very strong and easily scared, making it likely to flee after taking any damage from any source. Chatting to one after it begins fleeing this way will pacify it.
  • Based on Deku Scrubs from The Legend of Zelda.
• Shrubbit: A larger form of shrubbit with arms. Some peaceful ones run their own shops.
  • Based on Deku Scrubs and more particularly Business Scrubs from The Legend of Zelda.
• Fernentis: A large-sized bipedal floral life form with leaves sprouting from its back. It's very fast and strong offensively, but is also skittish and dislikes eye contact. Don't leave it in your line of sight too long...
  • Is totally not the Bracken from Lethal Company. Loosely based on the Latin for "fern being".
• Dixon fern: A cold-resistant variant of fernentis that prefers snowy locales.
  • Named for the above and the man fern.
• Flytrap: A medium-sized flora that is sessile, but lashes out at passersby.

Lich

• Primevil: A strange undead entity, it is a powerful sorcerer that hears the pleas of its fallen alien brethren and seeks them out to resurrect them, all the while looking to make a fiery statement of the offender's corpse.
  • Difficulty: Undecided
  • Attacks: Cast 0d0 vile
  • Level:
  • Speed: 18
  • AC:
  • MR:
  • Alignment: Chaotic
  • Generates in: Gehennom, shuttle
  • Genocidable: No
  • Diet: Inediate
  • Size/weight/nutrition:
  • Resists:
  • Confers:
  • Other traits:
  • Notes: Yes, the original name was an anagram of "arch-vile" - was seriously treading water when it came to the name that day.

Elves

Taking a page from xNetHack's book and giving the elves their own class.

Revomer

Renaming the rust monster or disenchanter monster class to better reflect any additions I make to it.

• Rotwilter: A vaguely dog-like creature that rots organic items by licking them.
  • Difficulty: 10
  • Attacks: Bite 1d4 decay, passive 0d0 decay
  • Level: 7
  • Speed: 10
  • AC: 4
  • MR: 0
  • Alignment: Neutral (0)
  • Generates in: Dungeons, Gehennom
  • Genocidable: Yes
  • Diet: Omnivore, eats organics
  • Size/weight/nutrition: Large/750/200
  • Resists: poison, sickness
  • Confers: illness
  • Other traits: Animal, hostile
  • Notes: None

Aberrants

Taking another page from xNetHack and giving the umber hulk some classmates.

Humans

Split elves from humans per above.

• Queen of Hearts: But of course, who better than to off your head!
  • Always generates with Vorpal Blade if it has not yet appeared.

Zombie

• fell commander: A vicious undead thrall whose magic missile machine-gunning makes for major misfortune.

Demons and similar beings

• abyssal avenger: A large demon that attacks with claws and fireballs.
• burning baron: A large demon that is a stronger form of abyssal avenger, with the same attacks and more HP.
• cyborg culler: Similar to the above two, but with power that far exceeds them. One appears in the Shuttle, and you'd better hope it's the only one you meet.
• Gorellik the Fallen: If Yeenoghu can stick around then so can he! Ol' Gore's not exactly powerful enough to have a lair, and so prowls the depths of Gehennom, seeking some way to restore his former glory - in the meantime he's become more and more feral... He also increases in speed and savagery as he loses health, to a maximum of 30(!), and shifts between gnoll and hyenadon form.
  • Level: 51
  • Speed: 12
  • AC: -3
  • MR: 60
  • Generates in: Gehennom
    • Can be generated randomly with a very low chance.
  • Diet: Inediate
  • Attacks: Weapon 3d6 physical, Weapon 3d6 physical, claw 4d8 stun
  • Resists: fire, poison, drain
  • Confers: poison resistance
• Gorellik: ...and now his hyaenadon-like form!
  • Level: 51
  • Speed: 12
  • AC: 0
  • MR: 60
  • Generates in: Gehennom
  • Diet: Inediate
  • Attacks: Claw 3d6 physical, Claw 3d6 physical, Bite 5d4 lycanthropy
  • Resists: fire, poison, drain
  • Confers: poison resistance

Sea creatures

• Puffer fish: A sea creature with a bite attack and a passive barbs attack. Its corpse is a reliable source of poison resistance, but it is poisonous to eat even when tinned - depending on a not-yet-determined-factor (including at minimum whether you're a Chef or not, spoilerspoiler), eating a tin of puffer fish that you made yourself has a chance of inflicting poison damage anyway, with a similar but lower chance for random tins of puffer fish. Expanded from #4012 (mine) on the YANI archive.
  • Level: 9
  • Speed: 12
  • AC: 0
  • MR: 0
  • Generates in: Dungeons, Gehennom
  • Diet: Omnivore
  • Attacks: Bite 2d6 physical, passive 2d6 barbs
  • Resists: poison
  • Confers: poison resistance

Quest nemeses

• Janitor: Your nemesis is the Unwashed Mass, P, who takes reduced damage from non-cleaning implements and becomes faster the more damage it takes - the parts that fall off animate as various blobs and pudding-like oozes.
• Pugilist: Your nemesis is a fighting champion promoted and advertised by the under-handed Skip G., @, nickname "Dame". He generates as peaceful when the goal level is created and spectates your fight with his champ among the crowd, including a bunch of body guards. Skip and his bunch are... not quite above the table, to say the least.
  • Lawful Pugilists get the Big Bad Balrog: Malar the Bloody Baron, &. Despite being a demon, Malar won't try to cheat you during your fight - no gating, no nasties, just good clean bludgeoning you with their bare hands.
    • Their concept is a pun on Balrog, the boxer character from Street Fighter known outside of the U.S. as M. (Mike) Bison.
  • Neutral Pugilists get the Timeless Ten-Fingered Terror: Phantom of the Octagon, &. A demon capable of warping around you and phasing, the Phantom will generate with much of the same armor and items as you.
    • Its concept is a pun on "shadowboxing".
  • Chaotic Pugilists get the Frightening Knight in White: Donovan Drago, &. Drago is the only non-demon of the Triad of Champions, but is no less fearsome - a chaotic Pugilist gains a substantial alignment bonus for beating him without cheating!
    • Named for Don King and Ivan Drago, with a nod to the former being responsible for the Great White Hope marketing spin. Fuck you, Donnie!
  • Skip himself - full name Damian (G.W.) DesGuardia, @ - will rush the stage the instant you beat his boxer to try and put you down himself. While he's no former boxer, Dame's no pushover either, and shows his hand by transforming once you bring down the champ.
    • Named for Skip Davis, George Washington Duke and Joe DeGuardia.

New-to-the-variant items

Items with a "complete" draft get subpaged.

Weapons

Broom

• Type: Weapon-tool
• Size: two-handed
• Appearance: sweeping stick
• Damage vs. small: 1d4
• Damage vs. large: 1d2
• To-hit: +0
• Skill: quarterstaff
• Base price: TBD
• Weight: 25
• Material: Wood
• Other traits
• Uses:
  • Apply in a direction to move items on your square in that direction or sweep away dust engravings.

Mop

• Type: Weapon-tool
• Size: two-handed
• Appearance: sweeping stick
• Damage vs. small: 1d4
• Damage vs. large: 1d4
• To-hit: +0
• Skill: quarterstaff
• Base price: TBD
• Weight: 25
• Material: Wood
• Other traits
• Uses:
  • Has wetness function similar to towels that can slightly increase damage and provide other effects.
  • Applying a wet mop can wipe your square or any adjacent square clean of engravings and make them "wet floor" squares - these will dry out after a few turns, and applying a dry mop on a wet square will remove any wetness/grease. Greasing the mop and applying it at a square creates a "slippery floor" tile with a higher chance to make monsters slip, but a lower chance of remaining afterward.
    • Applying a wet mop at monsters can wipe grease off their armor or remove cream pie glop from their face - this will subject the mop to passive attacks, such as burning from a fire elemental or rotting from a brown pudding. Doing so to a peaceful monster will anger them.
    • Attacking a b or P with a wet mop does double damage and scares them.

Ball-peen hammer

• Type: Weapon-tool
• Size: one-handed
• Appearance: small hammer
• Damage vs. small: 1d4+1
• Damage vs. large: 1d4
• To-hit: +0
• Skill: hammer
• Base price: TBD
• Weight: 15
• Material: Steel
• Other traits
• Uses:
  • Apply on or towards a squeaky board to repair it - beware, this'll make a lot of noise!

Clawed hammer

• Type: Weapon-tool
• Size: one-handed
• Appearance: small hammer
• Damage vs. small: 1d2+1
• Damage vs. large: 1d2
• To-hit: +0
• Skill: hammer
• Base price: TBD
• Weight: 10
• Material: Steel
• Other traits:
  • +2 to-hit and +2 damage when thrown
  • Can be multishot
• Uses:
  • Apply on or towards a squeaky board to repair it - beware, this'll make a lot of noise!

Armor

Coat-of-arms

• Type: Cloak
• Worn:
  • AC: 1
  • MC: 1
  • Grants additional attacks via manifestation of phantom 'extra limbs', but with a to-hit and/or damage penalty based on dexterity

Statues

Ice statue

• Type: Statue
• Material: Ice
• Uses:
  • Dying to a cryolisk or a strong enough cold attack makes one of these - they can also randomly generate in <insert ice branch here>, the icy floors of Gehennom, and rarely the main dungeon.

New-to-the-variant artifacts

All artifacts that have a "complete" draft blah blah you get it.

Monk-style artifacts

...I don't know if I'll stick with this or the other Monk gifts. That all depends on a few things, including how easy the two-weaponing fists is to lift from GnollHack and how easy it is to tie a first gift candidate to something else besides just alignment.

Wildfire Fists

• Base item: Gauntlets
• Alignment: Undetermined
• Intelligent: No
• Associated role: Monk (first sacrifice gift)
• Properties
  • Improved power regen while worn
  • Bare-handed combat can damage hostile monsters behind a target
  • Force-fighting does a fiery uppercut with 2-4 hits but lower damage
• Notes
  • I edited this specific one a bit from the original, as a form of trying my hand at "fighting styles" - this was originally the "Lightning Fists" and was gonna be the faster counterpart to the "slow and powerful" Thunder Fists. Problem there is, I need at least three artifacts if I'm gonna do it this way...

Mountain Fists

• Base item: Gauntlets of power
• Alignment: Undetermined
• Intelligent: No
• Associated role: Monk (first sacrifice gift)
• Properties
  • Half physical damage while worn
  • Bare-handed combat can drive enemies down into a pit on their square
  • Force-fighting can break boulders
• Notes

Tsunami Fists

• Base item: Gauntlets of dexterity
• Alignment: Undetermined
• Intelligent: No
• Associated role: Monk (first sacrifice gift)
• Properties
  • Very fast speed while worn
  • Bare-handed combat allows multiple strikes as if two-weaponing
  • Has a chance of automatic counter-attacks on a miss if safe to do so
• Notes

Storming Fists

• Base item: Leather gloves
• Alignment: Undetermined
• Intelligent: No
• Associated role: Monk (first sacrifice gift)
• Properties
  • Displacement while worn
  • Bare-handed combat can knock monsters back one or more spaces
  • Force-fighting can knockback at will but creates a loud noise
• Notes

The Belt of Apollo

• Base item: champion's belt
• Alignment: Neutral
• Intelligent: Yes
• Associated role: Pugilist (quest artifact)
• Properties
• Notes
  • Named for Apollo Creed of Rocky fame, whose actor Carl Weathers passed away on February 2, 2024. There isn't always a tomorrow - so fight like hell today. RIP - may he claim his own belt at the pearly gates.

Cauterizer

• Base item: Stiletto
• Alignment: Lawful
• Intelligent: No
• Associated role: Healer (first sacrifice gift)
• Properties
  • +1d4 to-hit
  • Deals +1d8 fire damage versus non-fire resistant targets, and vulnerable targets that are not thick-skinned lose +d4 current and max HP.
• Notes
  • Based on the old Fire Dagger from NetHack Plus.

New-to-the-variant traps

"Wet floor"

• You and monsters that move onto a wet floor square have a chance to 'fumble' and slide a few squares in the direction you were moving in - the victim may take damage, become stunned, or be immobilized for a few turns.
  • Pray you don't end up sliding into the drink!

Full Credits-and-other-thanks-so-far

In no particular order:

• aoei: Funny, entertaining and overall willing to tolerate my nonsense more often than not.
• Luxidream: His knowledge and highly-skilled play is always a joy to experience.
• aosdict: He was willing to archive all these YANIs in the first place, and his work on xNetHack is stellar. (Still due to try newer versions!)
• amateurhour: Good-natured chap with a decent sense of humor that helped me appreciate Monks.
• Amy: Yeah, yeah, I know, just listen. Even wacky off-the-chain ideas have their limits, whether in terms of practicality, tastefulness, taboos, general all-or-nothing lenses, and/or otherwise. But the girl's actually had some pretty good ideas that've interested me in a vacuum, and while I'm not as interested in testing boundaries on player sensibilities (because I'm not entitled to a playerbase and that's just Not Me And My Vision as a person end of the day), I do wanna see where I can eventually push this variant, and I won't lie and say she hasn't been an inspiration in some manner.
• K2: Good guy with a good variant, also very aspirational in terms of what it makes possible. Also hardfought server runner, does so much for us as it is.
• The DevTeam members past and present: They created a wonderful thing that people've turned into a wonderful playground and we should all appreciate that at the end of the day.