Orcish Mines

Version 0.30: This article may not be up to date for the latest stable release of Crawl.

The Orcish Mines are filled with the cave orcs native to the Dungeon, their humanoid labourers, and piles of freshly mined gold. Enterprising merchants have set up trading posts to help relieve the orcs of the latter. The entrance to this branch can be found between levels 9 and 12 of the Dungeon. This branch is 2 levels deep. This branch contains the entrance to the Elven Halls.

The Orcish Mines are an early branch full of orcs, gold, and the entrance to the Elven Halls. Although the Mines lack a rune, the bottom floor contains a guaranteed collection of shops, and the gold found along the way makes it easy to afford any particularly useful treasures they may sell.

Layout

The Orcish Mines are two floors deep and found between Dungeon:9-12. The entrance stairs are usually decorated with orcish idols and occasionally even altars to Beogh, and they are often guarded by a large group of orcs.

Orc:1 is often made up of several disconnected open areas, which can be accessed by using the upstairs on Orc:2. Orc:2 itself features an end vault, often with organized buildings. These layouts can vary greatly (as can their difficulty), ranging from a handful of scattered rooms, to one huge room dominating much of the level, to an entire fortified compound housing Saint Roka and a throng of followers.

As the Mines are made almost entirely of rock, bringing a wand of digging allows you to create shortcuts between portions of a floor. Expect almost no hallways or chokepoints aside from those you dig yourself.

Useful Info

It's easy to get surrounded in the Mines. You'll often encounter at least a few orcs upon entry, who will shout to alert nearby enemies. Use stair dancing to separate groups of orcs; even a crowd of orc warriors and priests can be a handful.

Monster difficulty is variable. Most denizens are plain orcs, warriors, priests, and wizards. You'll also encounter orc sorcerers, orc high priests, orc knights, and usually one or two orc warlords. A few other monsters, such as ogres and stone giants, can spawn. Since almost everything is armed, pay attention to weapon brands. There's a good chance to encounter orcs with electrocution, distortion, etc.

The mines typically contain 1000-3000 gold, and a host of shops. You'll also find plenty of equipment from the orcs themselves, so there's a good chance to find branded gear. Melee orcs carry plate armour and heavy weaponry, while you'll find plenty of robes from the mages.

While most of the Orcish Mines can be reached via normal staircases, some portions may only be accessible through escape hatches. As these sections almost certainly contain more gold and may contain shops, it's not a bad idea to eventually use each escape hatch, just in case. It is not especially safe to do this until you feel confident that you can take on large groups of standard orcs, however, as an unlucky hatch may land you in a lot of trouble with no easy way out.

Recommendations

Although the Mines entrance may be discovered first, it is common to ignore it until you've attempted the Lair, which is widely considered to be a less dangerous branch. Some character types, in particular Venom Mages, may wish to clear the Mines first since the only poison-resistant monsters here are wargs. The hordes of low-level monsters make this branch a good place to build piety with gods who award killing regular monsters, heretic priests, or spellcasters. Necromancers can also make good use of the large quantity of corpses generated here. Followers of the orc god Beogh may wish to max out their piety before entering here so they can recruit as many high-level allies as possible.

No specific resistances or other intrinsics are required to clear the Orcish Mines, although being strong in melee or having good spells for crowd control is highly recommended. Good willpower and a rank of fire resistance and negative energy resistance should be enough to protect you from the spells of orc wizards and sorcerers. If you cannot comfortably defeat roaming orc packs in the Dungeon, you are not ready for this branch.

Along with granting access to the Elven Halls, the bottom level shops are an excellent incentive to clear this branch. Their contents aren't free, but it's common to find at least one item for sale that is useful throughout the game.

Monsters

o Orc	o Orc wizard	o Orc priest	o Orc warrior
o Orc knight	o Orc sorcerer	o Orc high priest	o Orc warlord
g Gnoll	g Gnoll shaman	g Gnoll sergeant	h Warg
T Troll (monster)	T Deep troll	T Iron troll
O Ogre (monster)	O Two-headed ogre	O Ogre mage
C Cyclops	C Stone giant	C Ettin

One of the Orc:2 final vaults, pf_orc_diabolical, features several demonspawn and common demons guarding a portal to the Pandemonium:

4 chaos spawn	4 hellwing	4 ice devil	4 orange demon
4 red devil	4 rust devil	3 neqoxec	3 sixfirhy
3 smoke demon	3 soul eater	3 sun demon	3 ynoxinul
6 demonspawn (monster)

Uniques

6 Amaemon	R Azrael	@ Donald	x Erica
O Erolcha	e Fannar	w Gastronok	@ Harold
g Jorgrun	@ Josephine	f Maurice	o Nergalle
c Nessos	@ Rupert	o Saint Roka	T Snorg
K Sonja	o Urug

History

• Prior to 0.18, the Orcish Mines were four levels deep.
• Prior to 0.14, the Orcish Mines' entrance was located on D:6-11.
• Earlier versions of Crawl had sections of the Orcish Mines that were completely disconnected from all other areas. Using shafts, escape hatches, or teleports carelessly could maroon your character in an unescapable area, unless you had a source of digging or teleportation.