0.28

0.28 is a version of Dungeon Crawl Stone Soup. It was released on February 4th, 2022.

Highlights

• New Cinder Acolyte background, followers of the dying god Ignis.
• The Hells burn with new fury, filled with new monsters and effects.
• Yredelemnul completely redesigned; Okawaru and Jiyva significantly changed.
• The Spider's Nest respun - many new monsters and maps lurk within.
• Magical orbs added as a new category of off-hand equipment.

Branches, Environment

• You will learn to fear the Hells!
  • Branch-wide persistent effects:
    • Dis: ongoing -8 Corrosion.
    • Cocytus: potions cannot be used.
    • Gehenna: scrolls cannot be used.
    • Tartarus: willpower halved.
  • Timed effects are now the same for all Hells: temporary mutation, hp drain, attribute drain, and noise.
  • Floors 1-6 of each hell sub-branch are considerably smaller, and place only one pair of stairs.
  • Each hell subbranch's spawn tables are adjusted to produce more depth appropriate monsters and less chaff. (See also 'Monsters'.)
• Six new Wizard's Laboratories are added: Eringya's Formal Garden, Tukima's Studio, Yara's Duelist Academy, Borgnjor's Mausoleum, Maxwell's Workshop, and Alistair's Party Mansion.
• Abyss:
  • The Abyss no longer generates random items, and kills in the abyss grant no experience or conventional piety. (Uskayaw and Yredelemnul continue to grant their special kinds of piety).
  • Collecting the abyssal rune of zot grants two XP potions worth of experience.
  • The chance of an Abyss teleport sending the player deeper is increased, as are the rune, stair, and exit generation rates.
• Sewer maps have been re-balanced and randomized, and two new sewers added.
• Bailey maps have been re-balanced and randomized, and three new baileys added.
• Spider has two new end maps, an "Endless Swarm" map featuring broodmothers and a "Bug Friends" map featuring all non-spider insects.
  • Spider is a normal noise level again.
• Artefacts can now generate on D:2-3.
• Ziggurats no longer require runes of zot to enter.
• Exploration-based shaft traps can now happen a maximum of once per branch.

Character

• Backgrounds:
  • New background: Cinder Acolyte, an Ignis zealot. Starts worshipping Ignis, along with Scorch and a -1 flame branded weapon of choice.
  • Fire Elementalist's starting spells are revised, and are now: Foxfire, Scorch, Conjure Flame, Inner Flame, and Flame Wave. (See 'Spells'.)
  • The Enchanter background no longer starts with the Corona spell, and instead starts with a potion of invisibility.
  • The Fighter background now starts with a buckler instead of a kite shield.
  • The Abyssal Knight background now starts with 5/2/5 Str/Int/Dex (was 4/4/4).
• Player-chosen attribute increases now happen every 6 XLs, starting at XL 3, and increase a stat by 2. Demigods are unchanged.
• The experience cost of high-level skills is reduced.
• Late game XP gains are reduced.
• Formicids now dig at normal movement speed. Each cell dug causes HP drain.
• Each level of the evolution mutation now provides exactly two 'good' random mutation, activating once per XL.
• New bad mutation: devolution. Mechanically similar to evolution but dispenses bad mutations and activates once every 1/4th of an XL.
• New Demonspawn Mutations:
  • Weakening Stinger: gives a tail aux attack. Level 3 blocks the cloak slot and applies Weak on hit.
  • Demonic Touch: adds AC-ignoring damage to off-hand punch attacks. Level 3 blocks the glove slot and applies Vuln (halved Will) on hit.
• Aux attacks now trigger with a chance based on XL.
  • The chance to offhand punch now starts at 5% and increases to 50% with Unarmed Combat skill.
• Clarity from any source no longer blocks berserk from random rage.
• Strength 0's regeneration reduction is replaced with -Regen in monster LOS.
• Intelligence 0's 4/5 chance to fail scroll reading is replaced with -Scroll.
• Wanderers have more useful starting skills and new item possibilities.

Gods

• New (non-temple) God: Ignis, the Dying Flame.
  • Ignis altars do not generate normally, Ignis can only be worshipped from a faded altar or from the new Cinder Acolyte zealot start.
  • Ignis worshippers normally start at 5* piety.
  • Ignis has no piety gain and no piety decay.
  • Ignis grants the following:
    • Passive rF+ (fire resistance).
    • 'Fiery Armour': +7AC and fire damage to melee attackers for its duration.
    • 'Foxfire Swarm': Conjures foxfires on every open space in radius 2, which launch one-shot fire attacks ala the 'Foxfire' spell.
    • 'Rising Flame': After 2-4 turns, sends the player through the ceiling (up one floor). Can only be used once.
• Yredelemnul:
  • Piety now solely based on the number and strength of allied zombies in sight.
  • Passive reaping: slain living, demonic, and holy monsters have a chance to automatically rise from the dead as undead allies.
  • Zombies cannot leave the level and expire when the player leaves the level.
  • Yredelemnul grants the following active abilities:
    • 0*: Recall Undead Harvest: recalls undead allies to you.
    • 2*: Dark Bargain. Trade 2 zombies for a long-duration undead summon. Scales with invocations.
    • 4*: Drain Life. Same as previous drain life, but also costs 3 zombies.
    • 5*: Bind Soul. Formerly known as 'Enslave Soul', but also costs 4 zombies. A bound soul is permanent and can follow the player between floors.
  • Removed animate remains/dead and injury mirror abilities.
  • Kills by Yredremnul allies now grant full experience.
• Okawaru becomes the god of single combat.
  • New ability: Duel, granted at 5*. The Duel ability smite-targets a single non-summoned enemy in LOS (which must be threat level "tough" or higher), and transports them and the player to an Arena portal vault. Winning the duel opens a gate to return from the portal vault, and the player will be forcibly teleported back after a short duration.
  • Finesse is moved to 4* (from 5*).
  • Worshippers may no longer have allies of any kind.
• Jiyva:
  • New active 'Oozemancy' 3* ability. Temporarily turns nearby walls within radius 4 into slime-covered walls that do acid damage to adjacent monsters.
  • Mutations now changed in bursts: existing mutations decay, then new ones are added several levels at once.
  • Piety now granted solely for exploring, and only outside the Slime Pits.
  • Now grants passive regeneration of HP and MP at a high rate.
  • Passive rCorr is now granted at 2*, and jelly spawning on hit at 5*.
  • Removed: attribute shuffling, the 'cure mutation' ability, and healing/mp restoration from jelly item eating.
• Elyvilon:
  • Pacification grants full XP and works on intelligent plants.
  • Lifesaving is now completely passive, with an extra piety gated chance on top of the basic good god lifesaving chance and a cooldown.
  • Purification is moved to 1* and reduced in cost.
  • Greater Healing is renamed to Heal Self and moved to 3*.
  • Lesser Healing is removed.
• Cheibriados permits berserk while suppressing the extra speed.
  • Cheibriados now slows poison on worship and grants bend time at 1*.
• Ashenzari's passive trap protection and item identification is moved to 1*.
• The Shining One now gives Divine Shield at 1* and Cleansing Flame at 3*.

Interface and Options

• WebTiles now has a clickable action panel, similar to the local tiles inventory panel. This UI element by default shows tactically-relevant consumables, and comes with a number of configuration options (see the various action_panel... options, or right-click on the X).
• Mutation descriptions can now be inspected in the mut(A)tion menu.
• Most abilities now have targeters (similar to spell targeters). These are configurable via the force_ability_targeter option, and spell targeter configuration is moved to force_spell_targeter.
• Many improvements to menus and popups:
  • Arrow key navigation and selection is available in many more menus. This can be disabled with the new option menu_arrow_control for the classic roguelike experience. Shift-arrows replace arrows as the binding to scroll by a single line. (Console users: not all terminals support these keycodes on default settings.)
  • The quiver menu has a mode that uses hotkeys from the items/spells/abilities it is showing.
  • The stash search menu more clearly differentiates items that can be traveled to, and has a number of interface improvements. The closest (travelable) search result is always available via the enter key.
  • Description popups have been improved and actions in these popups are now activatable using the mouse on webtiles.
  • Improvements and bugfixes to many other menus.
• WebTiles mouse support is expanded.
• WebTiles supports virtual keyboards on touch devices, configurable via the tile_web_mobile_input_helper option. There have also been a number of improvements to rendering on touch devices. (Caveat: these changes are aimed at tablets, not phones.)
• Console:
  • A new console option bold_brightens_foreground=force lets bold be applied to bright foreground colors even in 16-color mode.
  • A popup accessible via ! in the help screen shows current terminal and console settings, and attempts to indicate misconfiguration. (PuTTY users may find this particularly helpful.)
• A small number of options are automatically saved across games based on their value in the relevant in-game user interface. These include default_manual_training, quiver_menu_focus (for the new quiver menu modes), and several of the action panel settings, which can be edited by right-clicking on the panel close button.
• On MacOS local games, a game menu option will reveal the rc file in the Finder.
• The inventory-full autopickup prompt now has an "(A)lways ignore" choice.
• Webtiles chat can be closed, as well as opened, via F12.

Items

• New item type: orbs, occupying the shield slot.
  • Orbs give no SH and impose no shield penalty, but always come with an ego.
  • Orb egos are all new:
    • Light: a radius 3 halo.
    • Wrath: *Rage (20% chance to berserk on melee hit).
    • Mayhem: chance to frenzy a monster in sight after a kill, causing them to wildly attack friends and foes alike ala the Discord spell.
    • Guile: reduces Will by ++ for both the wearer and those they try to hex.
    • Energy: gives a source of passive channeling, which gives a chance to refund the MP of a cast spell and a chance to backfire. Backfires cause confusion or Int drain. Scales with Evocations.
• New glove ego: infusion, spending 1 MP per melee hit to add extra damage.
• New unrand: the +3 Mad Mage's Maulers {Infuse+∞ RegenMP Int-3}. These use all available MP to give proportional bonus damage to a melee hit.
• New unrand: the dreamshard necklace {*Dream}. On receiving a lethal or near-lethal hit, the dreamshard necklace shatters, averting the blow, healing the player, releasing dream allies, and fog. Otherwise does nothing.
• New "early-game" unrandarts, unlikely to appear after the early game:
  • Delatra's gloves. These gloves heal the wearer for drinking unknown potions and give the wearer MP for reading unknown scrolls.
  • The woodcutter's axe is a vorpal +8 war axe that always swings at 10 aut regardless of skill and speed modifiers.
  • The staff of the Meek is a +7 quarterstaff of protection that gives extra AC when below 55 HP.
  • Throatcutter is a +7 long sword of draining with a 1/3 chance to instantly kill foes that are below 21 HP.
• Shields and armour:
  • Shield penalties scale linearly with skill, completely disappearing at skill 27. The size of the penalty depends on the shield's encumbrance rating and species size factors.
  • Shields are no longer affected by Str, only Dex.
  • Armour and shields no longer impose to-hit penalties.
• Riposte is removed from long blades and base damage is increased.
• The skill requirements for minimum delay for executioner's axes and bardiches are reduced to 24; for triple swords the requirement is reduced to 22.
• *Rage now causes berserk on 20% of hits. This chance stacks linearly among items and with the berserkitis mutation. Certain unrands grant a higher chance.
• Evokable berserk is removed as an artefact property.
• The generation of throwing ammunition is reduced.
• Wand generation is reduced.
• The electrocution brand triggers 25% less often.
• One '+' of regen is reduced to 0.8 HP/turn (was 1.0 HP/turn).
• MPRegen amulets are buffed to 0.4 MP/turn (was 0.25 MP/turn).
• The archery ego is renamed to 'hurling' and now only applies to throwing.
• Unrandart tweaks:
  • The staff of Battle now triggers the battlesphere on melee hits (in addition to the usual spell trigger).
  • The robe of Clouds' thunder cloud ability is now passive, placing storm clouds on enemies within range 2 each turn.
  • Leech no longer has *Rage, and now has Harm and Drain.
  • The necklace of bloodlust now gives a 50% chance to go berserk on hit.
  • The Zealot's sword now gives a 20% chance to go berserk on hit (up from 5%).
• The hat of the bear spirit gives a 20% chance to go berserk on hit, increases the bonus HP from going berserk, and reduces the slow duration after. It no longer has rN+.
• The ring of the Mage is now a ring of Wizardry and Archmagi.
• The autumn katana loses Clarity and gains a chance to manifold assault on hit.
• The glaive of Prune turns the wielder into a prune when paralysed, petrified, or asleep, halving the damage received for the duration.
• Lear's Hauberk is reduced to +18 (was +27).
• The trident of the Octopus King loses +Will.
• Wucad Mu now counts as two sources of channeling. This means it is twice as likely to refund MP and the probability of backfiring is squared.
• The robe of Misfortune loses Contam and Drain.

Monsters

• New unique: Mlioglotl. A unique horror with the power to corrupt the level, changing terrain and summoning other abyssal horrors, as well as cause fear. Appears in the S-branches and rarely in the abyssal lair end.
• New Hell monsters (with subbranch):
  • Wendigo, collapses simulacra into painful iceblasts (Coc)
  • Nargun, hits hard and petrify (Coc)
  • Quicksilver elemental, with antimagic and quicksilver bolts (Dis)
  • Crystal echidna, throws barbs and crystal bolts (Dis)
  • Creeping inferno, which explodes into a Fire Storm (Geh)
  • Stoker, keeps at range and calls creeping infernos (Geh)
  • Searing wretch, a hard hitting fighter that strips fire resistance (Geh)
  • Tainted leviathan, a giant with a ring of miasma and mesmerise (Tar)
  • Putrid mouth, a ghost with poisonous melee and miasma breath (Tar)
• New Spider monsters:
  • Pharaoh ants are undead that drain and bind souls on death.
  • Steelbarb worms are fast, regenerate, resist fire and apply barbs in melee.
  • Jorogumo are tough, ensnare, cast bolt of draining and have hornet poison melee.
  • Broodmothers summon spiders and bite to summon spiders.
  • Culicivora join spider packs with a vampiric bite and heal other.
  • Sun moths are holy with a single tile halo, sticky flame, and energy bolt.
  • Radroaches are armoured roaches that cast irradiate, greatly contaminating the player.
• New monsters: walking tomes, which summon living spells that cast themselves at the player. Appear in Depths and the Tukima's Studio wizlab.
• Demonspawn warmongers' Sap Magic effect now causes a short term -Cast after casting a spell.
• All derived undead retain their reach, constriction, and trample attacks.
• Red Devils now apply barbs on hit, instead of hopping back.
• Wretched Stars only apply one temporary mutation per use of corrupting pulse, and use the spell less often.
• Demonic and holy monsters are now susceptible to fear, berserk, alistairs intoxication, and ballistomycete spores.
• Monsters have a chance to break a door permanently when opening it. This chance is higher if the mosnter is berserk.
• Classed draconians have a fixed colour per job.
• When Dowan dies Duvessa goes berserk permanently; when Duvessa dies Dowan gains haste permanently.
• If Jiyva dies Dissolution's summon eyeballs is replaced with a cantrip.
• Kills by and of player-frenzied monsters now grant XP.
• Ironbound Beastmasters are removed.

Spells

• Kills by summoned allies now grant full experience.
• Spell summon caps are reduced:
  • Summon Small Mammal, Summon Hydra, and Monstrous Menagerie are capped at 2.
  • Haunt is capped at 8.
  • All other summon spells except Summon Horrible Things and Dragon's Call are capped at 1.
• New spell: Summon Cactus Giant (L6 Summonings). Summons a giant which attacks very slowly but has enormous spines, impaling melee attackers.
• New spell: Scorch (L2 Fire). Hits a random enemy within 3 tiles, dealing fire damage and (if damage is dealt) applying short term rF- to the foe.
• New spell: Flame Wave (L4 Conjuration/Fire). Burns adjacent creatures, then when channeled by hitting '.' (like Searing Ray), repeatedly hits enemies in an increasing radius.
• New spell: Enfeeble (L7 Hexes). Enfeeble irresistibly applies weakness and antimagic to a single foe. Targets that fail a Willpower check are also dazed and blinded.
• New spell: Anguish (L4 Hexes/Necromancy). All enemies in sight must pass a Will check or gain the new Anguished status effect. Whenever Anguished monsters deal damage, they take the same amount of damage right back.
• Yara's Violent Unravelling can now unravel summons, killing them immediately and turning them into explosions. It is now smite targeted.
• Inner Flame is now smite targeted.
• Corpse Rot now scales with spell power, placing more clouds per corpse and reaching up to range 2 with sufficient clouds.
• Death Channel now works on demonic and holy creatures. It also now works on corpseless living creatures.
• Metabolic Englaciation has a minimum slow duration when successful.
• Eringya's Noxious Bog now places a bog under the caster, as well as on cells with only one adjacent wall. The caster is now immune to their own bog.
• Slow is now level 1 with a lower power cap.
• Searing Ray and Storm Form have reduced power scaling.
• Storm Form's blinkbolt ability is now always LOS range.
• Passage of Golubria now has a range that scales with spell power.
• Blink now has a cooldown that scales with spell power.
• Lesser Beckoning's power cap is reduced to 100 and range reduced to 5.
• Bolt of Magma, Corona, Shadow Creatures, and Invisibility are now monster

   only.