Chiron, Centaur Death Knight

This page is a Diary of a Crawler, the journal of an individual character. This page probably contains spoilers.

Introduction

Hi! What follows is the adventure of a CeDK, a Centaur Death Knight.

Dungeon: 1 to 3

OK! We have embarked again on our quest for Zot! Er, the Orb of Zot. We've never seen it before... ...

Going well so far. Found a dagger of freeze. Nothing dangerous yet on D:1 or 2. Anyways for a centaur, you can always run away, no need to run around columns. Thus you can go through the early levels whacking things without too much worry (which possibly encourages too 'loose' play later on? naaaahhhh).

First two levels cleared already. Chiron is already level four with 36HP!

Oh by the way, we have chosen Yredelemnul as our God. The undead servants are pretty handy. You can get a LOT of them! They give added safety (hey, meat shields!) plus the zombies you get from the tougher creatures still seem to have a pretty decent attack. With Yred... you don't have to worry about leaving your zombies behind, you can recall them easily with the second God-given skill "Recall Undead Slaves". The zombies/skeletons you animate can't go up or down stairs though. That's OK - you can just bring the bad guys to them if need be!

You can also carry down a corpse or skeleton to a new dungeon level and animate it there.

Also the Y-man gives out better servants (flying skulls, vampires (who themselves summon more creatures), wights, wraiths) from time to time, after you kill a bunch of things for him. (No need to pray, sacrifice. Just avoid the holy stuff!)

OK, D:3 had two orc wizards which were a bit dangerous. Dispatched 'em in melee range with an orc zombie helping out. Down to D:4 we go...

Dungeon: 4 to 7

OK! On Dungeon: 6 now having mostly cleared 4 and 5. VERY NEARLY DIED HERE! Went down the stairs and in one turn went from 47 HP to TWO in a single round! A centaur shot 3 arrows, hit twice. DEEP DEEP TROUBLE! Was amazingly saved by an orc zombie who was adjacent. First move was to put the zombie between the centaur and myself (ranged creatures I think usually won't fire through other creatures). I had a chance to survive a zombie attack, and I did (zombie hit but for no damage).

Then I checked my inventory. Erg, most potions were not ID'ed - definitely will rectify ASAP! But I did know learn about scrolls of fog and teleport. Moved one step to avoid having to get attacked by the zombie again, while still keeping him between the centaur and myself. Then read the fog scroll which blocks vision in a small area around the caster. So the centaur couldn't shoot me, whew! Read scroll of teleport and prayed. Luckily, one of the un-ID'ed rings I was wearing was teleport control!

So I went to another area of the map which I knew from peeking down a stairwell on the prior level. Safe for now, but with 2 HP at the moment!

OK, things are pretty crazy right now. I am down to D:7 at the moment with half the monsters on the level chasing me. Had to run from D:6, also was being chased. Busted out the wand of lightning. Have 49/55 HP, Very Hungry, so not in grave danger.

The whole level is very open without corridors, so had to find a "flat" spot where the bad guys would line up nicely. Then, BOOM!!!! Lightning blasts rip through my enemies. Now Yredelemnul has granted me two flying skull servants. Great! Still a phantom, orc warrior and other various stuff still around though.

Still crazily fighting on D:7. There are a HUGE number of kobolds and big kobolds here. Hungry and at about 47 HP, not really in danger. My kobold and orc zombies died pretty fast, and my flying skull servants also perished, though they got in a lot of hits. Now just hiding behind my beetle zombie who's blocking the corridor and doing a great job of holding them off for now while I rest and eat a little.

Ruh-oh down to 17 HP with a centaur on my tail. (It's a polymorphed big kobold. Have been using a wand of random effects, got a few blasts out of it so OK. This centaur isn't nearly as dangerous as a regular one because it lacks a bow.)

Hiding behind a newly created kobold zombie - my only meat shield at the moment. I really need to find a spot to rest up.

... finally had to use another teleport scroll. I don't want to waste my potions of healing / heal wounds yet, nor my lightning wand. Teleport scrolls seem to be pretty easy to come by.

The Orcish Mines part one

Hello! Alright, I think giving an entire blow-by-blow is just not going to work - the journal will be 100 pages long! Survived the crazy D:7, there are still unexplored parts there, but most of the bad guys have been vanquished. Doing the mines now with two greater undeads with me (given to me by Yredelemnul). My wight has a great sword of draining so he's VERY helpful, as well as a skeleton warrior who's a great fighter and can reanimate stuff himself which is somewhat useful mostly, although it's very cheap to animate the dead myself.

Both of these guys can go up and down stairs so I have definitely brought them along. We were lucky to dispatch an orc sorceror who was adjacent to the stairs and was immediately hacked to death.

I also went back and killed that centaur that nearly killed me on D:4 I think it was - so I now have a bow and arrows, which is another great strength of the centaur race (60 aptitude). I haven't had to use it yet as I'm still content to melee things with this dagger of freezing which is working good enough for now.

Main skills so far are Fighting (6), Dodging (5) and Invocations (5). I only have Fighting and Dodging "turned on" for now. AC is a respectable 11 wearing a +4 orcish robe. Unfortunately centaurs don't gain full benefit from wearing Armour (they also have horrible Armour aptitude), I found a +4 orcish plate but that only brought my AC to 15 with an EV of just 2! So centaurs do need to have good HP because they are going to get hit a lot by melee or ranged. Their Dodging skill aptitude is very bad also, but I'm leaving it on anyways just so he has a chance to dodge a few things.

It turns out I'm going to have to avoid the mines until I get some form of digging, or a lot stronger. The only stairway to the lower levels is surrounded by orcs, including an orc warrior. I was lucky not to have died there, I had to use another scroll of teleport to escape. I also have quaffed my last potions of healing / heal wounds. That could very well have repercussions later on, but hopefully I'll find some more, or a wand of healing would be fantastic.

The Orcish Mines part two

Hm. Back to the Mines! After killing a bunch of creatures on D:8 through 10, I decided to come back here with 2 flaming corpses in tow. They are pretty decent undeads - when they hit they Sticky Flame their opponent!

The orc warrior dispatched one of them but with a bunch of other orc zombies we managed to clear the nasty staircase.

...

But after much fighting, many orcs, ogres, wizards and priests slain we come to another stairway with 3 or 4 priests plus about 10 orcs and some warriors, it's time to leave again! We can still go to the Elven Halls but with no see invisible, no potions of healing at all I think the Lair is probably the safest place to go.

The... Snake Pit?

Hi! I've played a HUGE amount now without writing - it's more fun to play than to write! At this point in the game, Chiron the CeDK has cleared out the Lair pretty much completely, although a few undiscovered pockets could remain.

...

Level 14 and currently fighting in the Snake Pit. Gotta say I'm liking the drain life power that Yredelemnul gives you - it drains ALL living enemies in your field of vision and restores a bunch of HP to your character. I'm pretty sure it scales upwards the more creatures there are on the screen, though I don't know the exact mechanics.

Back to the game!

...

OK, Amazingly, through two mutation potions (I like to gamble for the better ones) and one cure mutation (which got rid of the bad ones), Chiron has gained the ability *control translocations*. That is HUGE!