The Royal Jelly

Version 0.29: This article may not be up to date for the latest stable release of Crawl.

For a list of all jellies, see list of jellies. For the obsolete item, see royal jelly (item).

the Royal Jelly J
HP	152-308
HD	21
XP	14247
Speed	14
AC	8
EV	4
Will	180
Attack1	50 (hit: acid)
Attack2	30 (hit: acid)
Resistances	rPois+ rAcid+++ rDrown
Vulnerabilities	Silver
Habitat	Land
Intelligence	Brainless
Uses	Uses nothing
Holiness	Natural
Size	Large
Type	jelly, jelly
Flags	Destroys doors See invisible Unbreathing Unblindable Unique Acidic flesh Web immune

A particularly rich and golden gelatinous thing. Smaller jellies swim and pulse just below its surface, ready to burst forth at the slightest touch.

Useful Info

The Royal Jelly (or TRJ) is the jelly boss of the Slime Pits. Located in the center of Slime:5, it will not emerge until you've entered the stone structure it resides in, or you make enough noise nearby to awaken it.

It has an impressive amount of HP, powerful acidic melee attacks, exceptional speed, and an unusual defense mechanism: whenever it's damaged, it spawns various powerful jelly-type monsters to attack you (azure jellies, quicksilver oozes, rockslimes, and acid blobs). Fortunately, it cannot pursue you up stairs, allowing you to abort attempts at killing it that you don't feel confident you can complete.

Killing the Royal Jelly causes two things to happen:

• The translucent walls of the four central vaults that the Royal Jelly guarded will come crumbling down, allowing you access to the slimy rune of Zot and the piles of treasure.
• Jiyva, the god of slimes, immediately ceases to exist once its biggest sentient worshiper dies. You can prevent this by worshiping Jiyva yourself before killing TRJ, but killing such a high-ranking jelly will result in penance. Note that you can't escape divine wrath by killing TRJ, as you still technically believe in Jiyva.

Strategy

Strategy to fight TRJ with melee/single-target spells.

Get TRJ in the corner (while hasted), throw a net, position yourself as shown, then create summons to prevent jellies from hitting you and to prevent TRJ from escaping.

How To Kill It

• Buffing up is highly recommended, regardless of your strategy. Potions of haste, might, and/or brilliance can help you deal lethal damage to TRJ before its reinforcements make life unbearable, or allow you to escape before you die.
• Fighting TRJ in one of the central corridors restricts the number of monsters that can attack you. Just be prepared for the angry jelly mob once you've either killed TRJ or chosen to retreat.
  • Summons, such as from a scroll of summoning, will prevent TRJ's slimes from reaching you, or prevent TRJ from retreating. If the fight goes badly, summons can be used to cover your retreat.
• TRJ is large, but not giant. This means that unlike every other jelly, it is vulnerable to throwing nets, allowing you to get free actions and stabs while the boss is immobile. Be aware that it will continue to spit out reinforcements.
• Melee fighters should not simply charge in and bash the thing. Even with corrosion resistance and heavy armour, fighting as many as eight corrosive opponents will quickly send your offensive capabilities and AC plummeting, leaving you weak and very vulnerable. Always soften it up before engaging it in melee, buff heavily, and stand in a corridor.
  • In a similar vein, stabbing TRJ is possible, but often inadvisable. It has enough health to survive all but the most lethal stabs, and dealing so much damage to it at once will immediately generate a large number of jellies.
• TRJ retreats behind its spawned jellies periodically, forcing you to fight through them. Attacks like javelins, Starburst, and Beogh's smite can ignore the surrounding jellies. TRJ itself is especially weak to silver, sometimes found on said javelins.
• A scroll of immolation works well: hit TRJ 1-2 times, read the scroll, then kill any of the spawns to set off a chain reaction. Make sure to have strong, hasted, potentially piercing ranged attacks and/or rF++(+) to tank the immolation blasts. Can be combined with the scroll of torment if you're careful.
  • You can also use summons or slime zombies from Animate Dead/Infestation; anything dying on either side will explode. Spectres from Death Channel are immune to the Inner Flame effect.
• TRJ is a natural creature, and thus vulnerable to torment. Reading two or three scrolls of torment will drop it to near death, and a few ranged or smite-targeted attacks will kill it despite the surrounding army. Just be aware that this strategy will also leave your own HP dangerously low (rN+++, very careful use of tree form, or being undead is highly recommended).
• TRJ can be polymorphed, paralyzed, or otherwise hexed if you have high Evocations and you reduce its willpower with a scroll of vulnerability or orb of guile.
  • Successful polymorphs will immediately create a very large number of jellies, and due to TRJ's high HD, whatever it turns into will also be dangerous: expect titans, high-end dragons, or shrikes. However, a polymorphed TRJ will not spawn any more slimes, and killing it will still unlock the rune vaults.
  • Make sure you clear out the rest of the floor, lest golden eyes chain-confuse you while your own willpower is weakened.

God Abilities

• Many god abilities can bust through TRJ. Whether it's multiple Brothers in Arms from Trog, a well-positioned Disaster Area from Qazlal (perhaps with a side of immolation), or a surge of cards from Nemelex, make sure to use the abilities you have!
• Banishing TRJ via Lugonu's ability (which generally requires reducing its willpower first) doesn't unlock the vault, meaning you'll need some way to bypass stone walls. Luckily, Lugonu provides the stone-breaking Corrupt ability. Failing this, you may need to use Shatter or even follow TRJ into the Abyss yourself.
• Okawaru worshipers can kill off all other jellies before challenging TRJ to a Duel. It will still spawn jellies in the arena, but that means that the mob of jellies will be stuck in the arena instead of roaming Slime:5. Silver javelins with both Okawaru buffs are recommended.
• Of course, if you wish to avoid this entire mess, you can simply worship Jiyva and waltz in at 6* of piety. Most of the treasure will inevitably get eaten, but you'll at least be able to make off with the rune and whatever artefacts were present. As per usual with Jiyva, Apportation may come in handy.

How To Escape It

• TRJ will not follow you upstairs, but its generated slimes will. If you plan on running back upstairs mid-fight, expect some of its spawns to follow you.
• If you need to escape the floor without pursuing jellies following you up, Haste will also allow you to make a fairly safe escape; TRJ and any quicksilver oozes will keep up with you, but nothing else will. If you wish to actually outrun TRJ and the quicksilver oozes, you'll likely need both Haste and Swiftness.
• If you've accidentally created an army of jellies and need to abort, heal up and stair dance so you can clear out the reinforcements without dealing with too many of them at a time. Entering the floor from different staircases will let you avoid being immediately surrounded.
• Shatter, while ineffective against everything you'll find in the Slime Pits, can be used to break open the loot vaults and skip the fight entirely. It is, however, very difficult to cast as well as very loud, likely attracting the attention of every slime on the entire floor.

History

• Prior to 0.27, death oozes were created, instead of quicksilver oozes and rockslimes.
• Prior to 0.23, exploding the Royal Jelly with Uskayaw's Grand Finale didn't generate any jellies.
• Prior to 0.19, the Royal Jelly could eat items and could heal itself when shot with anything other than stones.
• Prior to 0.16, the Royal Jelly did not immediately spit out a large number of jellies when polymorphed, making it a viable combat strategy.
• Prior to 0.15, hitting the Royal Jelly could generate brown oozes as well.
• Prior to 0.11, the Royal Jelly was not able to regenerate naturally. This made the fight much easier to complete over several small assaults.