The Tomb

This page is about the dungeon branch. For the card, see Tomb card.

The Tomb of the Ancients is a place of damnation, of horrors animated by the vilest necromancy. Honest creatures of the surface turn pale at the mere mention of its name, The list of those who have returned from this place of pure death is exceedingly short. The Tomb is three levels deep and contains the golden rune. Its entry is either on Crypt:2 or Crypt:3.

A way to the Tomb of Ancients, a place of damnation, of horrors animated by the vilest necromancy.

The Tomb of Ancients (usually referred to only as the Tomb) is a branch located under the Crypt, inhabited by dessicated mummies of all kinds. It holds the golden rune of Zot, in addition to other treasures.

Location, Layout and Monsters

Stairs to the Tomb are found on floor 2 or 3 of The Crypt. It's only 3 levels deep... but don't let that lull you into a false sense of security: it's one of the most dangerous places in the game, even for powerful characters. You'll meet a wide variety of mummies, which if not carefully dealt with can decimate you in a variety of nasty ways.

Unlike other areas of the game, the layout of the Tomb is mostly fixed, with only a few insignificant variations. In order to reach the end, one must first go through the entrance hall on Tomb:1, then down to the large hall on Tomb:2, into one of the side rooms back up to Tomb:1, through a long hall (sometimes called "The Greater Mummy Gauntlet") to another staircase down to Tomb:2, and from there down to Tomb:3. Teleport control is not possible until picking up the rune, and although random teleports can break this sequence, doing so on Tomb:1 is inadvisable.

Also unlike many other areas of the game, the locations of encountered monsters are roughly fixed in every instance of Tomb, although exact placement can vary somewhat due to monsters wandering. In order of difficulty, the monsters one meets are:

• Flying skulls: Although not dangerous themselves, they will alert nearby sleeping mummies of your presence.
• Mummies: Although only a nuisance, their death curses will curse equipment in your inventory. They are found all throughout Tomb.
• Guardian mummies: They hit harder and faster than normal mummies, and their death curses can be quite nasty. Although they are found throughout Tomb, there is a very large concentration of them near the up staircases on Tomb:3.
• Mummy priests: Slightly slower than guardian mummies, but tougher. They cast Torment, Smite, Summon Undead and Summon Demon, and their death curses are even nastier. One tends to find them scattered throughout Tomb as well, although they are less frequent than guardian mummies.
• Sphinxes: The only living things one will find in Tomb, these can paralyze, confuse, smite, or simply beat you to death if you are not careful. They have moderate durability, but no resistances to speak of and no death curses. One only finds them outside the main hall on Tomb:1 - there will always be a group of several sphinxes laying in wait there.
• Greater mummies: The biggest threat in Tomb, they have the same spells as a mummy priest, but over three times the health, 50% more HD, and faster movement. These will kill you if you are not prepared. You'll find a few in the entrance hall on Tomb:1, a few more in the main hall on Tomb:2, a large number in the arcade on Tomb:1, then finally a good number more in the main chamber in Tomb:3. Try not to take more than one of these on at once!

Mummies have the annoying ability to bestow a death curse curse upon you when killed, which can be as simple as cursing an item of gear all the way up to stat drain, torment and draining. See the death curse page for more details.

On the plus side, the Tomb contains a rune of Zot and a large amount of loot in the side chambers on Tomb:3. Scattered loot is found throughout the rest of the branch.

Recommendations

If not done correctly, Tomb is one of the deadliest places in the game. A character facing Tomb must tackle these three problems:

• Greater mummies and mummy priests can torment you, instantly cutting your HP by up to half. They can then smite you to finish the job.
• Greater mummies and mummy priests can summon a ton of undead and demons, which in addition to mobbing you also means they will frequently abjure your own summons.
• All mummies cast death curses when killed. The normal mummies only curse your items, but the others can slow you, rot you, torment you, drain you, drain your stats, and even occasionally kill you outright if you are low enough on HP. Since there are so many mummies in the Tomb, these effects can quickly reach debilitating levels.

Some strategies, with their specific strengths and weaknesses, are outlined below.

Overall

One should mix and match the strategies below: it is unlikely that one can do Tomb simply by being a Zin or a Kiku worshiper, or simply by having Dispel Undead, but a lichform necromancer of Kiku, or Zinnite with a holy weapon and silence, stands a very good chance of making it. The best general advice is to know your limits: if one encounter with a greater mummy nearly killed you, then the next one may very well finish you off. If you find your HP rotting beyond what you can repair, or that you are burning through all your royal jellies because of stat drain, don't continue - get out. It is by no means necessary to do Tomb to finish the game.

Silence

Mummies are quite vulnerable to this spell, and with a good enough melee weapon you can even kill a greater mummy while it is in the silence radius. Silence is far more effective if combined with pre-silence Haste; in fact, if you are wielding a non-holy weapon this may be necessary. Be sure that the spell is at high enough power! Without that, it will run out before you kill the mummy, giving it a couple turns to cast while you are still silenced. Similarly, don't try to take on more than one greater mummy at a time just with Silence. They have a lot of HP, and unless you are extremely strong you may not be able to take out two before the Silence runs out. Make sure you have enough AC/EV to survive the mummies in melee: they aren't the most dangerous, but they can be a danger to weaker characters.

The downside to this strategy alone is that you still need a way to deal with the death curses. Without that, you will have many rotted HP and drained stats to recover during and afterwards. Be sure to bring along some potions of restore abilities or royal jellies in case your stats drop too low for comfort.

Mass Abjuration

In no way, shape or form is this spell enough to deal with Tomb on its own. However, it is very useful to have if you cannot silence the mummies. Otherwise, their summons may overwhelm you, and at the very least block you from reaching them. Mummies enjoy summoning things such as neqoxecs to mutate you; being able to abjure them quickly is often vital to stopping yourself from leaving Tomb with malmutation in addition to the normal rotting. Be sure to have it a high enough power (at least 10 Summoning skill or so) that you don't simply end up wasting all your MP trying to abjure the mummies' summons.

Finding the Grand Grimoire to even get access to this spell is by no means guaranteed. If you lack access to Mass Abjuration, high-powered castings of Fire Storm, Ice Storm, or Tornado are another way to deal with summons (and the mummies themselves). If all else fails, remember that all summons have a finite lifespan, and going back upstairs and waiting a few dozen turns will get rid of them.

Necromutation/Undeath

Being undead provides complete protection from the torment that the mummies are so fond of throwing at you. Additionally, it protects you against many of the nastier mummy death curse effects: you will not rot, be tormented, or suffer backlash damage from them. Mummies and ghouls have these characteristics intrinsically; vampires can gain all of them by becoming bloodless, and living characters can gain all of them by casting the spell Necromutation. Other than the high casting cost, there is no downside to casting Necromutation in Tomb: nothing in there casts Dispel Undead, and nothing can summon anything that casts it either. It will often pay for its own casting cost in terms of turns spent without hunger, and hungerless channeling.

Being undead, however, is not an option if you are worshiping a good god. Also, unless you are a ghoul or a vampire, you will be unable to drink potions, depriving you of a good way of restoring health and/or MP. Restoring stats can be an even greater problem, since you will have to become living again in order to eat or drink (mummies can restore their stats by sacrificing one permanent MP).

Dispel Undead

By far the most efficient way to deal damage to the mummies through magic (with the possible exception of very high-powered Shatter) is by casting Dispel Undead at them. Be very sure to have this spell at high power - even at full power, it may take several casts to take out a greater mummy. Wield a staff of death and/or be in lichform if necessary. Try to close to melee range while using this spell on greater mummies, possibly by using a corner. This makes them much less inclined to summon undead and demons, which will block you line of fire and force you to waste turns and possibly MP either killing or abjuring them. The same can hold true of mummy priests, although since they are slower and weaker it is usually possible to kill them from range with this spell.

The other downsides to Dispel Undead are that it is single-target only, and that it's a Necromancy spell - those who worship the good gods will be unable to use it without incurring penance.

Kikubaaqudgha

The god of Necromancy provides a number of tools which are extremely handy in dealing with Tomb. In fact, being a Kiku worshipper is arguably the easiest way to tackle the Tomb.

Firstly, depending on your piety, he may lessen or entirely prevent mummy curses. When you add up all the item cursing, rot, stat drain, and other headaches that death curses cause, this makes clearing the Tomb far less painful than it would otherwise be. Additionally, Kiku provides some protection from torment, again scaling with piety. It never reaches 100%, but it's much better than nothing, and it couples very well with rN+++. If that isn't enough, he also provides guaranteed access to Necromutation, which will protect fully from torment. As icing on the cake, Kiku also provides access to Dispel Undead and Haunt, other useful anti-mummy tools. However, he doesn't provide any particular way to deal with summoned monsters, so you will likely need Mass Abjuration or high-powered attack spells for that.

The downside to using Kiku to do Tomb is that he does not grant piety for killing undead, and his protection scales with piety, so you will become vulnerable if you waste too much time in there. Make sure to enter with 6* piety, preferably after just having tackled a living/demonic branch. Don't make the mistake of taking Tomb right after Crypt with Kiku.

The Shining One

The Crusader God is not as strong as Kiku in Tomb, but he can still be immensely helpful. First of all, he gives rN+++ at max piety, which softens the blow of torment (reduces it to 35% HP loss rather than 50%, and this adds up over multiple torments). Secondly, he gives a holy weapon, which is by far the best way to kill mummies in melee. Thirdly, he gives HP for undead kills, which greatly increases survivability in Tomb and can help offset some mummy death curses. Cleansing Flame is also a good weapon for dealing with the mummies and their demonic summons.

Finally, his Angel/Daeva summons are extremely useful - their own holy weapons hit hard, they serve as meatshields, and (perhaps best of all) they will absorb the death curses of any mummies they kill. The downside is that they can be mobbed by summons and they are vulnerable to abjuration themselves, so you cannot sit back and let them do all the work. Be aware that using lots of holy warriors also will drain your TSO piety (Then again, you will also be scoring lots of it from all the killed mummies, so it tends to even out if you don't go overboard). Also note that TSO provides no direct protection from mummy death curses, apart from the draining effect.

Zin

A somewhat unusual choice for Tomb, and only for those with high powered Silence and possibly a holy weapon from their TSO days, Zin provides some protection from mummy death curses for those who don't wish to go down the path of Necromancy. He stops the nastier rot, and of course will protect you from mutation caused by any summoned neqoxecs. His vitalization can be used to cure the lighter rot as well as to reverse stat drain, although this will use up piety. Lastly, those who find themselves in a real bind can use his Sanctuary power as a last resort.

Raw Power

For those characters who are already maxed in power, mummies are perfectly vulnerable to high-powered Shatter, Tornado or Fire Storm. This isn't exactly an efficient or subtle way to do Tomb, but it certainly will work, and with lichform and channeling may even be sustainable. Even the greatest characters, however, will need a way to deal with the death curses - again lichform comes to mind, since most characters who can cast a level 9 spell can probably cast Necromutation. This is unlikely to be the strategy for those who are trying Tomb for the first time, but rather is more likely as a strategy for Ziggurat raiders.