Meteoran

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

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

Meteorae are the people of the heavens, fallen to earth. They possess exceptional skills, an uncanny sense for the space around them, and the ability to recover health and magic as they explore the dungeon. However, as creatures clearly not native to the world, they are easy prey for the dark forces that hunt adventurers - they have one-tenth as much time as normal before Zot finds them. (See the section on 'Zot' for more.)

Innate Abilities

• Otherworldly: Meteorae are astral creatures, and thus easily found by Zot. Their Zot clock runs 10 times faster (only +600 decaAut per floor, and receive 200 turns after Zot finds them).
  • When Meteorae are about to be caught (<50 turns and <10 turns on the clock), their line of sight decreases by 2 or 4, respectively (their life is fading out).
• Passive Mapping 1: Meteorae can sense parts of the layout of the dungeon around them.
• Explore Regen: Meteorae regenerate HP and MP as they explore. For every new tile uncovered, you regenerate 1/210 of your max HP and 1/135 of your max MP. Unaffected by Passive Mapping or magic mapping. Unlike exploration piety, Explore Regen has fewer restrictions and works even in the Temple, while flying over deep water in Shoals, etc.
• Glowing: Meteorae glow, as if they were inflicted with Corona. They are unable to go invisible, their stealth is reduced, and monsters are more likely to hit them. Followers of Dithmenos can suppress the glow by turning into a shadow.

Meteorae have a base Strength of 9, Intelligence of 9, and Dexterity of 9 (before background modifiers). They start with an extra MP point.

Preferred Backgrounds

• Warriors: Fighter
• Zealots: Cinder Acolyte
• Adventurers: Wanderer
• Warrior-Mages: Transmuter
• Mages: Earth Elementalist

Level Bonuses

• +1 strength, intelligence, or dexterity (equal chance) every 3rd level.
• 20% more HP than average.
• +5 willpower per level.
• At levels 9 and 18, your Passive Mapping is upgraded to ranks 2 and 3, respectively.

Starting Skills and Equipment

Meteorae start with the skills and equipment listed for their background.

Difficulty of Play

Thanks to their extremely restrictive turn conducts, playing Meteorae like any other character is outright impossible. They often have to use meta turncount strategies just to live, such as skipping floors and having an odd branch order; see the Strategy section for more details. These tactics often make Meteorae underleveled, even with their absurd aptitudes, let alone undergeared.

Skill aptitudes

The higher the value, the better the aptitude.

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

Strategy

• Meteorae should heavily consider ranged weapons, or at least, Throwing. Ranged combat means that you don't need to regenerate, don't need to tank hits (as much), and don't need to use MP, enabling you to better tackle enemies above your weight level.
• Visiting shops is often a struggle. Be prepared to simply never visit a shop again - this applies especially to the Orcish Mines, so come only when you're prepared. Gozag might ease the pain a little, but using Call Merchant will introduce even more shops to consider.

God Choice

• Jiyva gives even more regeneration and plenty of outs for monsters you can't handle. Meanwhile, Meteorae are naturally fast-paced enough to best deal with Jiyva's item eating slimes. But, as usual, Jiyva is rarely found early - you'd already would have plenty of piety with other gods.
• Okawaru synergizes well with the Meteoran playstyle. Those who skip branches are often underleveled, even with a +2 XP aptitude, meaning that their battles are considered 'tougher' and reward more piety. This can be used to get consistent and strong buffs that make up for being underleveled. Okawaru will also gift a healthy amount of gear, both ranged and not.

Shaving Turns

Meteorae play like no other species, at least in any form of casual manner. Here are some pointers to playing a turn count species effectively:

• Routing: If possible, try to do branches in sequential order. This means going to Lair as soon as you find it, and if possible, the Lair branches right after. If not, make sure to leave plenty of time to backtrack.
  • It's best to know the tools you'll need for each floor. Whenever it'd be a reliably castable spell, a decent amount of relevant consumables (like lignification for Lair), and/or a certain level of weapon training, these set goals can help make things reliable.
• Remember that full clearing every floor is nigh impossible for a Meteoran. Be ready to skip floors on a dime, and bank a healthy amount of turns for navigation and dangerous situations, alike.
  • This does not mean that you can't autoexplore! Though take a close look and note when you'd be going far just to uncover a few extra tiles, and be prepared to descend very early. Autoexplore is still inefficient with turns, so the more optimal way is to not (unless you're overprepared).
  • Try to take every unknown staircase you find. This includes downstairs and upstairs, even if you'd feel unprepared. This exposes the greatest amount of tiles, which along with a large burst of healing, exposes the greatest amount of items. If you aren't ready, you can go back up.
  • Unlike a 'proper' turn count run, there's no need to completely skip branches. Most notably, you can do Orc and the Elven Halls just fine, though you might have to do both in one go.
• It is extremely difficult to pinpoint when you're ready to take on the next challenge, and a surprising unique or situation might change your plans, anyway. Your extra HP and MP should make up for being somewhat underleveled. This, of course, ignores god choice.
  • Mummies and self-restricting Gnolls (using only 1 type of offense) can already survive with severe deficiencies, so you could (maybe!) compare their skill levels to yours.
• Abuse the exploration regeneration to the fullest. Strong players can already get away with exploring-instead-of-resting, and that's on regular species without a gimmick to encourage it. Whenever you need to heal, explore, whenever that'd be in a upper floor or not.

History

• Meteorae were added in 0.29. Their initial trunk version had already beaten the game's high score record (on June 12th, 2022).
• The Mayflytaur, a joke species with a very similar concept, was implemented during the April Fools 2022, during 0.29-trunk. See that page's history for more details on their development.