The Realm of Zot

Version 0.12: This article may not be up to date for the latest stable release of Crawl.

A region of the dungeon that is so terrifying, so full of madness, frenzy and lunacy, that it has been locked securely against random trespassers. Only the most demented adventurers would dare gather the required keys, break the seal and penetrate deeper — all in the vain hope for a fabled artefact no one has ever laid eyes on before. The Realm of Zot is five levels deep and can only be entered when carrying at least three runes.

This gate leads to the Realm of Zot, the final stage of your quest as its deepest level houses the infamous Orb of Zot. Both the Orb and this Realm have a fearsome and questionable reputation, but one piece of information seems to be for certain: The monsters inhabiting this area and protecting the Orb are strong and strange - some of them nowhere encountered but here.

The Realm of Zot is the final branch in the game. It houses the goal of your quest, the legendary Orb of Zot, but its ferocious guardians won't let you just walk in and take it without a fight...

Useful Info

The Realm of Zot is 5 floors deep. Three locked portals to the Realm are always found on the 27th floor of the Dungeon. To unlock them, you will need three runes of Zot, acquired by clearing other Dungeon branches.

The layout of the Realm of Zot is similar to the Elven Halls (a series of small and large rooms interconnected by narrow corridors). The Realm is filled with a number of dangerous opponents, many of which are seen nowhere else:

• Any mature draconian
• Fire dragons, ice dragons, storm dragons, shadow dragons, bone dragons, iron dragons, and golden dragons
• Ghost moths and moths of wrath
• Death cobs
• Killer Klowns
• Curse toes
• Liches and ancient liches
• Electric golems
• Orb Guardians
• And the ever-terrifying orb of fire

The final floor of the Realm of Zot houses the Orb of Zot. It is defended by some of the most dangerous monsters you will face, and in a layout that makes reckless behavior extremely risky. Teleport control is disabled on the floor, and since the biggest open areas available are filled with several of the nastiest opponents in the game, teleporting is a much less reliable panic button than it is elsewhere

Visiting and clearing the Realm of Zot can be done long before you decide you've collected enough runes and are ready to win the game, and doing so will likely provide you with useful items and a significant amount of experience. It isn't until you actually pick up the Orb itself that the game enters its final stage. Read the Orb of Zot article for details on the Orb, the ascension run, and winning the game.

Recommendations

The first four floors of the Realm of Zot can be cleared as soon as you've acquired 3 runes of Zot and reached the entrance on D:27, but doing so without preparations for its many threats can be extremely costly:

• The bands of draconians you encounter have a wide variety of abilities at their disposal; engaging an entire band at once will give them time to corrode your gear, rot you, blast you with smiting and hellfire, banish you to the Abyss, or simply kill you with heavy damage. Whenever possible, try to break up the band and take them out one or two at a time, and if possible change your resistances to match the threats you face at the moment.
• Due to the rock walls of Zot and their ability to multizap, electric golems can inflict staggering amounts of electricity damage very quickly. While it isn't necessary to keep up electricity resistance at all times, be ready to have it as soon as an electric golem appears. As they are fairly rare, a few potions of resistance should be sufficient. This also applies to storm dragons, but they're significantly more survivable without it.
• Most of the time, Killer Klowns aren't too dangerous. However, their melee attacks inflict extremely random effects, and they can occasionally get lucky and deal heavy damage or undesirable status effects with a single blow. If possible, kill or soften them up from a distance before engaging in melee. Their single most damaging attack is their cold attack, so having rC+ is usually a good idea when fighting them.
• Curse toes are one of the only sources of torment in Zot, and charging in to face one will rapidly deplete your HP and force you to fight your way through a horde of nasty undead foes. Lure them into range around a corner to take away their biggest advantage.
• By far the most dangerous opponents in Zot are the orbs of fire. These opponents can do tremendous amounts of fire damage very rapidly, and will pile bad mutations on you if you don't have mutation resistance. On top of that, they are extremely durable. Unless you are extremely confident in your skills, don't explore Zot without a bare minimum of rF+, and avoid actually fighting orbs of fire without rF++ or better.

The fifth and final floor of the Realm of Zot is taken up almost entirely by the sprawling Orb chamber. See the Zot:5 article for details on how to handle the Orb chamber and its guardians.

History

In 0.13. floor layouts in Zot will usually be full-floor vaults, and narrow corridors will be almost entirely done away with.