Spriggan

This page is about the player species. For the monster, see Spriggan (monster).

Spriggans are small, magical creatures distantly related to Elves. They love to frolic and cast mischevious spells.

Spriggans do not adventure the same way that most species do. They are poor fighters, have little physical resilience, are too small to handle many weapons and armour, and are terrible at destructive magic - Conjurations, Summonings, Necromancy and elemental magic. On the other hand, they are excellent at other forms of magic and are very good at moving silently and quickly. So great is their speed that a Spriggan can overtake a Centaur, and more than even Halflings or Kobolds, they can be massively frustrating to simply hit. They can also survive on very little food, and in fact do not eat meat at all - a diet which serves them well when they take up the path of Necromancy after all, or worship gods who accept blood sacrifices.

Innate abilities

• See Invisible: Spriggans have supernaturally acute eyesight.
• Slow Metabolism 2: Spriggans need almost no food.
• Herbivore 3: Spriggans gain more satiation from non-meat food, but they cannot eat meat, including chunks from corpses.
• Speed 3: Spriggans cover ground extremely quickly during movement.
• Spriggans are tiny and cannot use many weapons and armour.

Preferred Backgrounds

Spriggans are among the least versatile races in the game. They usually become Assassins, Abyssal Knights, Transmuters, Warpers, Enchanters, Stalkers, Wizards, Necromancers, Air Elementalists, Earth Elementalists, Venom Mages, and Artificers.

Level Bonuses

• Spriggans get an Intelligence or Dexterity (equal chance) increase every 5 levels starting at level 5.
• Spriggans gain 30% less HP than average
• Spriggans gain 30% more MP than average
• Spriggans gain 7 magic resistance per level

Starting Skills and Equipment

Spriggans start with the skills and equipment listed for their background, with the following exceptions.

• Potions of porridge replace bread rations.
• Stones replace throwing nets.

Difficulty of Play

Spriggans are a fairly easy race to play, because the early game is a breeze and they are able to rely on their great speed and magic resistance the whole game. They are also the only race with a "tiny" body, giving them great Dodging ability complemented by their excellent aptitude for it. They are not as effective with Short Blades and ranged weapons as Kobolds or Halflings, and have lower HP, as well as a worse aptitude for Fighting.

Spriggans also have tremendous spellcasting aptitudes, but this is where they run into trouble. Since they cannot eat chunks, spell hunger is a substantial limitation for Spriggan spellcasters – especially with the removal of The Hive in 0.10, formerly a source of large amounts of herbivore-friendly food.

When playing a Spriggan, you should avoid casting most spells until you can bring their hunger cost down to zero; otherwise, you will burn through your limited food supplies and starve. To bring spell hunger costs down, focus on raising the Spellcasting skill and your Int.

Even without spell hunger to contend with, Spriggans must carefully manage their permafood, as the only infinite sources in the game are raids on the Abyss or Pandemonium, and those are by no means guaranteed. If they are lucky, they find a staff of energy.

Skill aptitudes

The higher the value, the better the aptitude.

Skill	Aptitude	Skill	Aptitude	Skill	Aptitude
Attack		Miscellaneous		Magic
Fighting	-2	Armour	-3	Spellcasting	+3
Short Blades	+1	Dodging	+4	Conjurations	-3
Long Blades	-2	Stealth	+4	Hexes	+2
Axes	-2	Stabbing	+4	Charms	+4
Maces & Flails	-3	Shields	-3	Summonings	-2
Polearms	-3	Traps	+3	Necromancy	-1
Staves	-3			Translocations	+4
Unarmed Combat	-2			Transmutation	+3
		Fire Magic	-2
Throwing	+1	Ice Magic	-2	Invocations	-1
Slings	+2	Air Magic	-1	Evocations	+3
Bows	+2	Earth Magic	-1
Crossbows	0	Poison Magic	0	Experience	130

Strategy

Spriggans make excellent Enchanters and Transmuters, and generally have a very easy time in the early game thanks to their blazing speed (and unlike Centaurs, they don't need to eat all the time). The middle game is where things begin to get tough for Spriggans, as more enemies have decent ranged attacks, and their speed/dodging is no longer so insurmountable an advantage. Spriggans are also among the most frail races in Crawl; they have very low HP, compounded by the severe restrictions on the armour they can wear.

Spriggans have several tools for dealing with this, however. Their Spellcasting is keen enough that in practice, they have little trouble with attack spells, despite low aptitudes for Conjurations and elemental magics. They are also bar none the best sneaky assassins in the game. Aside from their uber Stealth and speed, their Hexes aptitude makes them great with invisibility, confusion, and other magical means of making enemies vulnerable to Stabbing (which they also excel at).

Spriggans also have tremendous ability at Evocation. A Spriggan with a rod of destruction is nigh unstoppable, at least by monsters. The problem is to survive until you can acquire or find (good luck with that!) one, and then to survive the hunger from the rod (Int and spellcasting skill help with spellcasting hunger, slow metabolism 3 helps with walking about, but NOTHING in the game mitigates Evocations hunger at all.).

Finally, they can get a lot of mileage out of gods who grant allies (Yredelemnul, Makhleb, Fedhas, or - for an offbeat choice - Trog), as they can happily use all the meatshields they can get. Even better, all of these gods accept blood sacrifices or have other uses for corpses, which is great for Spriggans who don't need meat anyway. On the other hand, Sif Muna or Vehumet could add a lot to a Spriggan's already great magic game. Zin can help compensate for the Spriggan's picky diet through his Sustenance ability, and Spriggan are utterly unaffected by his dietary restrictions as theirs are already more severe.

This wiki also contains a Spriggan Enchanter Guide.