Ossuary

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

The ossuary is a small tomb containing the remains and grave goods of some distant relatives of the pharaohs, along with the corpses of their retainers and household animals. It is undoubtedly riddled with many traps, and its undead denizens are unlikely to take kindly to looting.

You can make out a staircase leading downwards into a small tomb. Sand surrounds the staircase and is continuously pouring onto it. Before long the staircase will be gone. They say that some distant relatives of the pharaohs were entombed here.

Ossuary is a temporary portal level found in the early Dungeon. Ossuraries are filled with undead monsters, including mummies, often contain traps, and have a pile of treasure at the end.

Ossuaries may appear on Dungeon: 4-8. The portal is signaled by a "hiss of flowing sand"; if you take too long, the entrance closes. Ossurary entrances usually have yellow walls around them.

Layout

The Ossuary's layout is unpredictable. Although it's always a fairly small floor, it ranges from a wide open crypt with little cover, to a series of interconnected rooms, all separated by doors.

Monsters

Most ossuary layouts house the usual undead:

Z Zombie

Z Skeleton

M Mummy

Other monsters only appear in specific layouts and are usually more dangerous:

z Wight - Have normal speed, enchanted weapons and are capable of draining you.

W Wraith - Very strong for an Ossuary, and capable of slowing you down with its melee attacks. Many layouts with them start with some wraiths locked behind transparent walls.

ZSimulacrum - Fragile icy constructs that deal extra cold damage.

ZSpectral thing - Spirits that can fly, have draining attacks, and are immune to Hexes.

s Scorpion - The only living monster encountered in ossuaries. Can inflict poisoning.

M Menkaure - A unique mummy, capable of Torment. Fragile, but extremely dangerous.

z Weeping skull - Not terribly dangerous physically, but constantly exudes life-sapping clouds of excruciating misery.

M Bog mummy - A mummy that can cast Throw Frost and Slow. Can be found in a partially-submerged ossuary variant.

For the various derived undead you'll encounter, the base types will be monsters that tend to be seen in the upper dungeon, ranging from goblins and kobolds through elves and humans up to around water moccasins.

Tips & Tricks

• The Ossuary is often found very early in the game. Ice Elementalists, Venom Mages and Necromancers without Dispel Undead may want to skip it if they have no means of dealing with undead enemies.
• The mummies you encounter are slow, but hit hard. Fire damage or weapons of holy wrath will make short work of them.
• Even average speed species are faster than mummies and zombies, so are able to disengage if things get sour. Fast species like spriggans can handle many layouts without a single fight.

History

• Prior to 0.19, players could find a decayed bog body instead of a bog mummy in a flooded ossuary. It was weaker than its swamp-dwelling brethren and had Throw Frost instead of Bolt of Cold.
• Ossuary was added in 0.5.0 and was first called "Minitomb".