The Abyss

Version 0.13: This article may not be up to date for the latest stable release of Crawl.

The Abyss is a truly bizarre place, ever-changing and twisted. It is filled with all sorts of monsters, mostly of demonic nature, whose common aim is to feast on intruders. It is also the garbage dump for many sorcerers, who delight in sending would-be champions like you to these proving grounds of madness. Reportedly, there is some structure to the chaos, as Lugonu seems to concoct schemes around this place and its denizens. The abyssal rune can be found there. The Abyss can be purposefully reached through portals in the deeper levels of the main dungeon.

A one-way gate to a demon-haunted realm, riven by chaos, its very substance impermanent and whimsical, filled with creatures out of nightmare.

The Abyss is an extra-dimensional chaotic plane without definite shape or form, inhabited by unholy horrors and ruled by Lugonu the Unformed. Whether you end up in this horrible place intentionally or as the result of sheer bad luck, dedicated explorers will eventually find the abyssal rune of Zot and perhaps even a way out!

Structure

The Abyss is a five-floor branch, with each floor an endless plane of constantly shifting terrain. Travel within or between levels of the Abyss is made difficult by several permanent branch features:

• Downstairs and branch exits appear rarely and at random. It's not possible to go upstairs in the Abyss. Doing so exits the branch entirely.
• The terrain constantly changes. Walls appear and disappear with nearly every step, even under the player's feet, cutting off and opening escape routes and revealing new monsters.
• Mapping does not work for long. Only tiles recently or currently in your line of sight are shown, and anything that leaves your sight is quickly forgotten.
• The player can be teleported at random. 20% of the time, this teleport will reset the entire map.
• Manual teleport takes longer to launch and has a chance to fail. Blinking will send you to a random tile and has a low success rate (11%/33% for worshipers of Lugonu). Teleport control is severely limited: only doubling success rate of blinks.

Entering the Abyss

There are several ways to enter the Abyss, some voluntary, most not. Abyssal knights begin the game in A:1, but can port themselves out with a Lugonu ability or risk walking to an exit. Lugonu worshipers can travel to the Abyss at any time with piety level *****.

Other players must:

• Enter a portal in Pandemonium, the Labyrinth, or floor 21+ of the Dungeon. The safest method, this will cause you to drop any distortion weapons you're carrying at the gate. They'll be there if/when you return.
• Get banished by a monster spell.
• Unwield a distortion weapon (25% chance).
• Get hit by a distortion weapon (9.9% chance).
• Severely miscast a Translocations or Summonings spell.
• Earn Lugonu's wrath.
• Draw the Damnation card from the deck of escape (may banish enemies instead).
• Step on a Zot trap (3.33% chance).

Exploration and Exit

There is also an infinite amount of experience available in the Abyss, though it is usually less efficient than Pandemonium or the finite end-game branches. While exploring is suicidal for low-level characters, it is usually survivable once you've reached level 20 or so. Exploration has its rewards, however. Although most items found here are fairly common, almost any item in the game can be randomly generated, and wandering will eventually uncover branch exits and stairs to lower levels.

Each floor of the Abyss is more dangerous than the one before, with more numerous and threatening monsters than before, as well as a higher chance of finding a branch exit or the Abyssal Rune itself.

Branch exit spawning:

• A:1 = 1/7500 revealed tiles
• A:2 = 1/6250
• A:3 = 1/5000
• A:4 = 1/3750
• A:5 = 1/2500
• Holding Abyssal rune: 1/1250

The rune can appear in A:3 and beyond, with higher odds at the deeper levels. Players carrying this rune will discover exits at a much higher rate. Lugonu worshipers enjoy increased rune-spawning rates (as though exploring 1 level deeper), and will find exits frequently, with or without the rune.

Structures

While the most common sights in the Abyss are monsters, chaotic walls, items, and altars to Lugonu, more orderly things can be found, including vaults with fixed monsters and loot, corrupted temples with multiple altars, and more.

Tips & Tricks

• The enemies found here are only slightly weaker than those found in Hell, so a full complement of resistances (particularly mutation resistance) is recommended. Getting surrounded here can be deadly, but if you can run away for long enough the level will reset, saving you from your pursuers. Swiftness or boots of running are especially useful to speed up exploration - or Flight to pass over lava (but be careful not to fall in!) - and Stealth can let you walk away from fights you just don't want to deal with.
• You may be in the Abyss for a long time, and few of its inhabitants leave corpses, so a generous supply of permafood is also highly recommended.
• Getting sent to the Abyss early (usually through Banishment) is often a death sentence, but you may be able to survive long enough to find a gate out. Use every speed advantage you can muster to avoid every combat you can; even if you can defeat some of the weaker foes, you want to spend every possible turn exploring new tiles and generating new chances of escape.
• For weaker players, surviving the Abyss is about mobility and not about XP or treasure. To this end, when you see a monster, you should head in the opposite direction. Levitation and Dig will help manufacture avenues of escape when you're seemingly trapped. Teleport scrolls are for when a horde has accumulated and you're trapped. Since teleports take a while to kick in, consider teleporting on sight when you see speedy, lethal monsters like the Executioner. Blink simply fails too often to be a reliable escape tool. Relatively few monsters can fly: use lava and deep water to strand pursuers. Spawn summons to slow/entangle pursuers. Use quiet dead ends to regenerate HP/MP. Then, get moving.
• When you're actually searching for the rune, consider sticking to Abyss:3 or 4 rather than delving all the way to Abyss:5. It may take a little longer, but the difference in monster spawn rate becomes dramatic once you hit bottom.

Monsters

• Almost any zombie or skeleton, usually of late-game monsters
• Almost any undead or demon (though tier-1 demons are very rare)
• Rare player species monsters, such as tengu and octopodes
• Humanoid casters, such as wizards and necromancers
• Almost any eyeball
• Any kind of draconian
• Any kind of deep dwarf
• Any uniques you banished to the Abyss
• Several monsters unique to the Abyss:

t Apocalypse crab	X Thrashing horror	X Starcursed mass	X Tentacled starspawn
x Ancient zyme	* Lurking horror	v Spatial maelstrom	* Wretched star

History

Prior to 0.12, the Abyss had only one floor, and finding the rune was simply a matter of wandering it for long enough.

Prior to 0.10, the Abyss' terrain shifting would happen at a much slower pace, and only when you weren't looking directly at it.

In earlier versions, the Abyss would wrap around on itself if you went too far in one direction. Also, banishment to the Abyss was one of the possible results of Hell's mystical force.