ARCHIVED Naughty's Demonspawn Conjurer of Vehumet guide
Overview
This guide centres around playing a Demonspawn Conjurer of Vehumet in the simplest and most direct way.
While Deep Elves and High Elves have better aptitudes for this style of play they are more frail than Demonspawn and also, in the author's opinion, less interesting due to the lack of mutations.
Rationale
There's a few synergies for a Demonspawn Conjurer of Vehumet that require explanation:
- The Conjurer's starting book leans toward Ice Magic for it's midgame damage dealing with the excellent Freezing Cloud and Bolt of Cold spells.
- Vehumet's passive conjuration bonusses help a lot to mitigate a Demonspawn's -1 aptitude for Ice Magic. So Freezing Cloud, Bolt of Cold and later Ice Storm are easier to cast.
- If your Conjurations skill is higher than your Summoning skill (which this guide pressumes) and you either start as a Conjurer or manage to find the book of Conjurations early enough the first gift you get from Vehumet is the book of Power. This contains Iskenderun's Mystic Blast and Orb of Destruction as well as other midgame nukes which will greatly increase your survivability.
- With Vehumet's gifts you get guanranteed access to Ice Storm, one of the most powerful spells in the game. You would eventually get this with Sif Muna as well but it can take a long time to arrive.
- There's a Demonspawn mutation (Icy Envelope) that gives extra AC but is removed by casting or being hit by Fire Magic. While the chance to get this mutation in any particular game is very small, sticking with Ice Magic means you don't lose the AC advantage as often. There's no corresponding mutation that is undone by casting Ice Magic either.
- Conjurer's and Demonspawn have a common trait, they have harder early games but get a lot better from midgame onwards.
Mutations
The raison d'etre of Demonspawn is mutations. As you level up you get random, positive mutations that change your character. They are too many to go into detail here and the rules are a little complex so look up either Demonspawn Mutations on this wiki (a little out of date as of this writing) or ds mutation rules on Henzell for more detail.
Instead of an exhaustive list here's some notes about the mutations that interact with a Conjurer.
- Powered by Pain. This is an excellent but passive panic button for Demonspawn that rely on MP.
- Powered by Death. The healing from this mutation can be very powerful once the mutation levels up. It does increase hunger though which can be a problem for spellcasters.
- Foul stench. The main bonus for this mutation is that contaminated (brown) chunks don't cause Nausea quite as often which helps alleviate spell hunger. The rot immunity and miasma clouds are nice but you can't rely on them.
- Ignite Blood. In 0.10 this is almost commically over powered and tactically interesting for Conjurers:
- It turns blood spilled in your line of sight into flame clouds like those you create with Conjure Flame.
- It makes you totally immune to damage from flame clouds.
- It makes slightly more blood get spilled.
- Any pure Conjuration like Magic Dart, Iskenderun's Mystic Blast or Orb of Destruction can frequently cause bleeding on 'bloody' monsters (undead and demons don't have blood).
- Butchering the fresh corpses of monsters often causes blood to be spilled nearby.
- Nightstalker. You might think the decrease in line of sight distance would hurt a Conjurer but on the whole it helps.
- Thin skeletal structure. You'll need to bump Str to counteract this mutation as Demonspawn Conjurer's start with only 8 which is the safe minimum for Str to be.
- Demonic Guardian. This does help, especially if it maxes early on, but the demons will start to get in the way when Freezing Cloud and Ice Storm are your major damage dealing spells. Be careful not to accidentally attack your guardian and turn them hostile.
- Monstrous. There's a 1 in 10 chance of being monstrous and you'll be informed about this when you get your first mutation. This is the main mutation that can ruin a run as a Demonspawn because it deprives you of three body slots. I wouldn't blame you if you quit when you got this but there is a plus side worth considering, if you train Unarmed Combat and play as a kind of Monk, Conjurer hybrid it can be a lot of fun although very tricky.
- Yellow Scales. This is probably the most useless scales mutation, even in the Slime Pits it only helps a little becuase it doesn't protect your gear.
- Icy Envelope. A welcome boost in AC for a magic user but it dissaptes every time Fire Magic is used by you or hits you. Also available in spell form as Ozocubu's Armour. Do these stack?
Stats
Always bump Int unless you get the thin skeletal structure mutation, in which case keep Str around 8.
Strategy: Overview
The long term plan is to get Ice Storm and some utility spells like Haste and Repel/Deflect Missiles.
Armour
Robes of resistance or the rar
