Wanderer

Version 0.21: This article may not be up to date for the latest stable release of Crawl.

Wanderers are people who have not learned a specific trade. Instead, they've travelled around becoming "jacks-of-all-trades, masters of none". They start the game with a large assortment of skills and maybe some small items they picked up along the way, but, other than that, they're pretty much on their own.

The wanderer is an adventurer who has tried multiple professions without devoting himself to any particular discipline. The items in a wanderer's starting inventory usually (but not always) relate to his starting skills.

Preferred Races

If you feel you must play a Wanderer, the game recommends you play as a Human, Hill Orc, Spriggan, Centaur, Merfolk, Draconian or Demonspawn.

Starting Equipment

Wanderers start with 1-2 random weapons, random armour, various miscellaneous items, and sometimes a random spell book or two, all weighted towards those you have good aptitudes for.

Possibilities include any of these:

• Melee weapons - club, mace, dagger, short sword, falchion, hand axe, spear, or quarterstaff, which may be enchanted up to +2.
• Ranged weapons - shortbow, hand crossbow or blowgun, which may be enchanted up to +2, with ammo but often not a lot.
• Occasionally a second weapon of a different skill (melee or ranged) which will always be +0
• Shields: buckler or (normal) shield, always +0
• Armour: robe, leather armour, ring mail or scale mail, possibly enchanted up to +2
• Throwing nets
• Default spellbooks: 1st level spellbooks including Book of Air, Battle, Callings, Maledictions, Changes, Spatial Translocations, Minor Magic, Conjurations, Necromancy, Flames, Frost, Geomancy, or the Young Poisoner's Handbook
• Randart spellbooks: "Beginner" spellbooks that contain two low level spells of a particular theme.
• A second randart spellbook, as per the above.
• Scrolls
• Potions
• Wands: Enslavement, Paralysis or Flame
• Evokables: Box of Beasts, Lamp of Fire, Fan of Gales or Phial of Floods (1/3 chance instead of a wand)

You will always get 1 melee weapon or 1 ranged weapon and at least a robe for armour and one food ration. If you get a ranged weapon you may not get a melee weapon. This leads to the worst-case scenario of getting a blowgun with 1 curare needle and nothing else.

Starting Stats

Wanderers receive 12 stat points distributed at random when they start the game, with a 50% less chance to increase a stat if it is already 17 or higher when a point is assigned by the algorithm. It is not correlated to their starting equipment, so it is possible for a Wanderer to start with little more than a robe and spellbook, yet still have an Intelligence of 10. This does not affect racial modifiers, of course; a DEWn will still have a higher intelligence than a TrWn on average.

Starting Skills

You may receive 1-5 levels in the Weapon skill of your default weapon (but not always), Fighting, Armour, Unarmed Combat, Dodging, Stealth, Evocations, Spellcasting, and various schools of magic, not necessarily relevant to any starting spell book you may have.

History

• Prior to 0.21, wanderers could start with a wand of confusion instead of a wand of paralysis.
• In 0.16, wanderers start with a randart spellbook instead of starting with a level one spell memorized. They also have a chance to spawn with a box of beasts or an elemental evoker instead of a wand. The starting equipment your character receives is also recorded in the game log.
• Prior to 0.14, wanderers began with scrolls of teleportation recognised.