Formicid

Trunk-only: This article pertains to a feature of Crawl which is being tested. It will likely change before the next release, and may even be removed entirely.

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This page covers the player species. For the monster, see Formicid (monster).

Formicids are a species of humanoid ants. Just like their tiny insect ancestors, the Formicids are well adept at earth work, both on the physical and magical sides. Their abilities have been used to tunnel immense underground communities and structures, many of which are tens of thousands of years old. Perhaps unfortunately, their strong ties to earth have left them completely impervious to being teleported or hasted; Formicids are tied to the Earth with a complete sense of stasis. While this is seemingly a bad effect for a dungeon adventurer, stasis has the beneficial effect of preventing many types of nasty hexes and maledictions. With the ability to lift ten times their own weight, the Formicids have strength rivaling that of ogres. This, along with the fact that they have four arms, allows Formicid warriors to carry both a shield and a two-handed weapon at the same time. Formicids make good earth and venom mages, but are quite capable at both melee and ranged combat too, albeit a bit flimsy. They are naturally bad at air magic and conjurations.

Innate Abilities

• Formicids' exoskeletons grant them +1 AC and +5 HP.
• Antennae 3: Formicids can sense monsters within 7 tiles (even through walls) and can also see invisible.
  • Formicids cannot wear any form of headgear.
• Formicids have four arms, and can treat most melee and ranged weapons as one-handed. They can wield giant clubs and giant spiked clubs with two hands, and are also capable of throwing large rocks despite their average size.
• Formicids can dig through walls as an innate ability.
• Formicids can create a shaft under themselves as an innate ability, allowing them to escape downwards, but at the cost of making a great deal of noise.
• Formicids have permanent stasis, rendering them immune to translocative effects and Haste, but also granting immunity to paralysis and slowing. Lugonu's Bend Space ability and the Passage of Golubria spell work as normal, however.
  • In addition, Formicids cannot memorize Swiftness.
• Formicids are vulnerable to poison. Unlike characters in Spider Form, they can make up for it with 2 sources of poison resistance.

Preferred Backgrounds

• Warriors: Fighter, Hunter
• Zealots: Abyssal Knight, Death Knight, Healer
• Warrior-mages: Transmuter, Arcane Marksman, Enchanter
• Mages: Earth Elementalist, Venom Mage
• Adventurers: Artificer

Level Bonuses

• +1 strength every 4th level.
• 20% less HP than average.
• Average MP.
• +4 magic resistance per level.

Starting Skills and Equipment

Formicids receive the skills and equipment listed for their background.

In addition, they start with potions of poison identified.

Skill aptitudes

The higher the value, the better the aptitude.

Skill	Aptitude	Skill	Aptitude	Skill	Aptitude
Attack		Miscellaneous		Magic
Fighting	1	Armour	1	Spellcasting	0
		Dodging	-1
Maces & Flails	0	Shields	3	Conjurations	-1
Axes	0	Stealth	3	Hexes	2
Polearms	0			Summonings	0
Staves	0	Invocations	2	Necromancy	0
Unarmed Combat	0	Evocations	1	Translocations	-1
Throwing	0	Shapeshifting	0	Alchemy	3
				Fire Magic	0
Short Blades	0			Ice Magic	0
Long Blades	0			Air Magic	-2
Ranged Weapons	0	Experience	1	Earth Magic	2

Strategy

???

History

Formicids will be added in 0.14.

During much of their development, formicids were known as dwants (or dwarf-ants).

References

Formicid development branch

Tavern discussion