Treasure trove

Version 0.13: This article may not be up to date for the latest stable release of Crawl.

Once upon a time, an enterprising thief who was also a wizard, terrified of being caught committing an act of burglary, created a system of portals leading into the secret treasure troves and chambers of the rich. Too scared to loot them himself, he instead charged an extortionate fee for entry to anyone who wanted to rifle through them. The secrets of the gateways died with him when his fellow thieves, disgusted at his betrayal of their 'ideals', had him murdered. With his death, the now-uncontrolled portals began moving rapidly from one dimension to the next, only stopping long enough to absorb magical energy.

A treasure trove is a small sub-branch, filled with loot specifically tailored for your character using acquirement code (usually around 16 items, though this can vary). They are usually perfectly safe, though a few possible layouts prove dangerous. Only one treasure trove can generate per game, and they are not guaranteed to appear in every game. The troves chosen are mostly random, though if a trove is entirely inappropriate for your character (e.g. a book trove for a fighter), its probability of appearing is reduced but not eliminated. Thus, fighters may occasionally end up in a book trove (where they will mostly find manuals), or unarmed fighters might rarely get a weapon trove.

Troves can only be accessed through a locked portal entrance which can generate almost anywhere. To unlock a treasure trove, you must bring it the item it demands:

• There is a 1/3 chance that it will ask for an item available in a shop. This will often be an artefact, but may be a high-value mundane item. Unless the item itself is incredibly useful, these troves are effectively just asking for gold.
• Otherwise, it will ask for an item or stack of items. There are a number of possibilities, each individual item type being equally probable:
  • Armour (20% chance overall): It will ask for a gold, storm, fire, or ice dragon armour. The armour must sufficiently enchanted as well; gold and storm dragon armour requests can range from +2 to +4, while fire and ice can range from +3 to +5.
  • Weapon (15% chance overall): It will ask for a demon trident, demon whip, or demon blade, with required enchantments of +4 to +6, determined separately for accuracy and damage.
  • Potions (20% chance overall): It may ask for 8+2d3 potions of heal wounds, 12+2d4 potions of curing, 3+1d3+1d2 potions of speed, or 2 potions of cure mutation.
  • Wands (10% chance overall): It will ask for either a wand of heal wounds or a wand of hasting with 7+1d2 charges.
  • Scrolls (20% chance overall): It will ask for 4 to 6 scrolls of blinking, 10+1d3+1d4 scrolls of teleportation, 12+2d4 scrolls of identify, or a single scroll of acquirement.
  • Miscellaneous items (15% chance overall): It will ask to see the abyssal rune, the slimy rune, or the horn of Geryon. In this case, the required item will not be taken from you.

For items with enchantments or charges, the values the trove asks for are minimums. Thus, a trove asking for a +4, +5 demon whip will accept a +6, +6 demon whip without protest. The item's brand makes no difference, and it will even accept artefacts provided they have sufficient enchantment (although the latter option may not be desirable). In the case of stacks of items, the trove will only take as many as it's asking for if you have more than the required amount. Of course you shouldn't carry excess items anyway in order to avoid item destruction and free up inventory space.

The cost of a trove has no bearing on the quality or type of items you will find inside. Also, unlike most portals, treasure troves are not timed and will remain active until you deal with them. Once you enter and exit one, however, it will be sealed forever.

Strategy

Much like scrolls of acquirement, a treasure trove's yield can run all the way from near-worthless to jaw-droppingly awesome. More often than not, though, it's worth opening a treasure trove if you find one. Odds are that there will be something in there you want.

When it comes to jewelry, you do have some control over what a treasure trove will generate. The code prefers to give you amulets and rings you haven't identified yet, so if there are still several items left unidentified, it may be worthwhile to go to any jewelry shops you have access to and buy any garbage items you haven't identified yet. Spending a little money on an unidentified ring of hunger or amulet of inaccuracy might significantly improve your odds of getting that ring of slaying or amulet of resist mutation you needed.

Treasure troves often ask for gear with a particular enchantment level. While the base type requested is non-negotiable, the enchantment level requested is the minimum that it will allow. For example, if a trove asks for a +4,+5 demon blade, it will accept a +6,+6 vampiric demon blade. On the other hand, if it wants a +5 fire dragon armour, it won't accept a +5 gold dragon armor. A wise player will stash a few scrolls of enchant weapon, scrolls of enchant armour, and scrolls of recharging to maximize his chance of manufacturing the required item.

If you don't have enough of a particular consumable item to open a treasure trove, you will eventually be able to find what you're missing by farming the Abyss or Pandemonium for long enough. Whether or not doing so is worth the risk and tedium involved is up to you.

If you don't remember where you last saw a particular item, don't forget that pressing Ctrl+F will let you search for specific items you've already come across. This can save you a tremendous amount of time backtracking.

History

Troves were introduced in 0.6. Prior to 0.8, they worked differently: instead of always asking for an item and being untimed, they began with a very long timer (around 10000 turns). When attempting to enter, the player would be prompted to pay one of two amounts of gold: a large amount (usually around 2000-4000 gold) to enter the trove now, or a small amount (around 200 or so) to 'fix' the portal. The latter choice would make the trove untimed, but it would then require a specific item to enter, much as troves do now; the player would not know the item required until after they had chosen to fix the portal. The choice was removed because it was always optimal to pay to enter if you could - it is always possible to find more gold if you need it for something else, but there is no guarantee of being able to find the right item anywhere in the dungeon.