Onei's Velvet-Pawed Path to Immortality Walkthrough - FeSu^Kikubaaqudgha/Jiyva

Version 0.31: This article is up to date for the latest stable release of Dungeon Crawl Stone Soup.

This article contains advice from other players, which may be subjective, outdated, inaccurate or ill-advised. Take advice as you see fit, and read at your own risk!

Another contender! Will you prove worthy, or rot like the rest?

Did you know 100% of deaths in DCSS are the result of taking damage? The common melee brute builds may appear efficient at first, but they suffer from a critical flaw - they let the enemy hit you. Every single time an enemy applies its claws, club, arrows, or reality shattering magic to your sensitive skin, you are exposed to the leading cause of mortality in the Dungeon. I therefore propose an alternative that will make your journey down into the depths 50% less painful, 100% less lonely, and most importantly, 300% fluffier.

The Felid Summoner.

It's not "evil magic"! It's recycling. Those bodies would have gone to waste.

Cats have a terrible reputation for being, supposedly, a “challenge species”, a “tedious ordeal of optimal play” or even an “unfun experience I’d never do again”. I’m here to inform you that this is all baseless canine propaganda, and I hope you too will learn to bow before your true feline masters as you read through this guide. As a feline Summoner, you will be able to laugh in the face of paralysis and other dastardly hexes (due to your nigh-unbreakable willpower), laugh in the face of invisible enemies (due to your intrinsic See Invisible passive), laugh in the face of melee enemies (due to your vast repertoire of loyal servants) and even occasionally laugh in the face of death (due to the extremely powerful ability to resurrect after you meet your demise).

This all comes at the high price of having the lowest amount of hit points in the game, and the inability to use any item besides scrolls, potions, evokables and jewellery. Thankfully, you won’t need any of the baubles inferior humanoids depend on, as you will delegate most of the dirty work to pathetically obedient underlings. Prepare to embark on a journey like no other - which will flip the game around completely, turning the lethal into the laughable, and the harmless into the horrifying.

This guide was written for DCSS version 0.31 (released in January 2024). The target audience here are players who have already won at least once, and would like a build off the beaten path of the tried and true brute/caster duality, or even their first Felid victory.

If you are a newcomer to DCSS and have stumbled upon this page, also check out H's Minotaur Fighter Guide - a simpler and straightforward way of learning this game. But perhaps you are the type who prefers to jump straight into a complex and difficult playstyle, following a potential madman's dubious advice? You, I like.

I personally got my first win ever as a Felid Summoner, and I believe that the caution and focus that one learns from playing this species is valuable on any character.

Travel Preparations (quality-of-life tweaks)

If you care about comfort while playing this build, I suggest editing your rc file (in online mode, it's the button right next to the "Play trunk/Play (current version)" button, and in offline mode, it's under the settings folder > init.txt). Add these at the very bottom, on new lines:

default_manual_training = true
show_more = false
fail_severity_to_confirm = 0
fail_severity_to_quiver = 5
tile_player_tile = tile:felid_2
force_more += forbidden knowledge

In order, these will:

1. Prevent the very useless and dangerous Auto-training feature from working.

2. Will help you not press "Enter" every 5 seconds while 99 allies and enemies are fighting on the screen.

3. Will allow you to cast dangerous spells without a confirmation prompt.

4. Will allow you to quiver dangerous spells without a confirmation prompt.

5. For the reasonable among you, this will turn your likely very ugly Felid sprite extracted from the default rotation - which you may somehow find cute if you suffer from an utter lack of taste - into the objectively superior black counterpart. Secretly grants bonus Willpower from the sheer confidence your glossy black fur will exude (not scientifically tested). For those visually challenged by the black-fur-on-black-floor lack of contrast, tile:felid_4 or mons:natasha are also acceptable. Offline players can also press “-” and cycle through available sprites with left and right arrow keys while ingame.

6. Notify you when Kikubaaqudgha likes you enough to reveal the darkest spells in this game.

Points 3 and 4 may be slightly controversial. The reason for this is simple - the "danger rating" of spells is based off your maximum HP, and as Felid has the lowest max HP in the game, even the actually very safe spell Call Canine Familiar will be labeled as "astonishingly dangerous" and constantly ask "are you sure????" when it's actually very safe, and in fact required for progression.

(BONUS) Because It Wasn't Hard Enough (Gem Quest)

Ah, a new adventurer embarking on a new journey filled with noble deeds and helping the innocent. What? You're learning dark magic and committing mass slaughter? Eh, I don't really care. Can you do my fetch quest? Here's my backstory: I like money. There are gems in the dungeon that are worth a lot of it. Bring them to me. The problem is, some prick is going around smashing them. You'll have to be quick before that lunatic destroys the treasure which I alone deserve. Oh, sure. Maybe you can get a cut. If I like you.

Gems are an optional speedrunning challenge where you must beat the game without exceeding a certain amount of turns in each branch. Interestingly, this build is quite good at claiming them.

Note: This makes the game objectively harder. It is for those utter fanatics who thought playing a Felid (lol) with an exotic build which involves god wrath (lmao) just wasn't difficult enough.

If you aren't feeling up to the task, ignore all interventions of Gozag in my guide (it is advice for the gem quest specifically).

Excellent, you're still here. That means a promotion is in sight for you. From 'unemployed' to 'my esteemed errand-cat', to be precise. Do add these, while you're at it.

more_gem_info = true
always_show_gems = true
explore_auto_rest = false

A company-provided timer in your sidebar will now always show you the time remaining before those precious gems start cracking. Useful, is it not? Press }, then ! to view all collected gems, and the time limit for each. What's that? You're worried about the last option? Corporate doesn't have time for things like "healthcare" or "comfort". You need to get moving, FAST. Just heal while you autoexplore, surely this won't result in coming face to face with a centaur when you have 15 HP.

If '}' is a weird key to press on your potentially non-USA keyboard (like mine), you can rebind it like this:

bindkey = [(TYPE YOUR KEY HERE)] CMD_DISPLAY_RUNES

Enough talk! Let's see if dedicating my attention span to you was a valuable use of my time.

An Agonizing Introduction (XP Level 1)

As the title suggests, pick Felid for your species (ignore the “Advanced” difficulty: that’s merely a ploy to hide true power from your grasp). Pick Summoner for your background, as is wisely recommended by the game.

You probably know this already, but press "o" to autoexplore floors when no enemies are in sight, Ctrl-D to quick-travel to locations, and "5" to wait turns until you have restored HP/MP.

Upon starting your run, you will be met with the following:

• 9 pitiful HP points, enough to get two-shotted by a quokka, defended by a lonely, single point of AC.
• Complete lack of any items (except a measly consolation magic cocktail), weapons, or armour, and only three equipment slots for jewellery only. Felid culture prohibits equipping rings on your rear-limbs, as this is symbolic of the time one spent caged by their (now rightfully eviscerated) master.
• The pathetic ability to call forth fuzzy critters from the unfathomable depths of the eldritch cosmos.
• A deranged repartition of default skill training. Press “m”. If you haven’t set up your rc file as explained in the beginning of the tutorial, set training to “manual” mode (press “/” to do so). Then, turn off every skill except Spellcasting and Summonings. Important note: at any time, should you wish to review my suggested skill training plan, view the addendum at the end of this guide.
• Your first Extra Life, ripe to be harvested by possibly the very first foe you will encounter.

All of this is, to put it bluntly, utter trash. The good news is that XP level 1 and 2 are the only thing separating you from supreme feline domination. Please refer to the following advice to avoid becoming a delicacy in the next hobgoblin feast.

• Try to avoid being in melee range of anything that isn’t a “trivial creature” - which are bats, rats, frilled lizards and ball pythons. In the latter case, if a ball python hits you with the “Constrict” status, do NOT continue fighting and attempt to retreat until you have been cleansed from the status, at which point you may resume your rampage. If you are cornered or engaged in dangerous melee with 0 MP remaining, use your magic potion immediately. You may take one step in a foe’s reach to reposition, but always remember that most of the denizens of D:1 can two-shot you.
• Cast Summon Small Mammal twice for every encounter (press “p” to do so, or - if the game complains about you being too reckless - "z" then "a"). Bats are almost useless, rats are mediocre, and quokkas are somewhat passable. If you happen to pull forth one of the latter two from your interdimensional nonexistent hat, you may direct them to get their furry heads bashed in at the nearest available enemy. This is done by pressing “t” to bring up the ally command menu, and then pressing “a” and selecting the enemy you wish to submit to death by a thousand adorable critter bites. If your fuzzy friend meets an unfortunate end at the tip of a kobold’s dagger, there’s always more where that came from - bring on the onslaught until all opposition has been reduced to quokka food. You can have up to a maximum of 2 mammals simultaneously - replace the fallen with more units eager to die in your name. While your summons fight it out, feel free to distance yourself from the action, or to press “.” to allow the battle to unfold, occasionally shooting a “t”-“a” command to direct firepower. Trying to join the action is a certain way to die - remember, do NOT melee non-trivial creatures!
• Remember the golden rule of summoning: what you can’t see cannot be seen by your summons either. No ally can attack outside of Line-of-Sight (LOS) distance. If you want something to die, it has to be on your screen. The opposite is not necessarily true: while your feline senses let you see invisible enemies, all of the critters in your starting spells (except those from Call Canine Familiar) are not as fortunate.
• You can close doors behind you by pressing capital "C" - animals of all kinds do not have paws as dextrous as yours, and will be forced to scratch your impenetrable barricade while you rest and recuperate.
• Your summons can tank stones and other missiles for you if you stand behind them, but this is extremely unreliable (projectiles continue their trajectory if they are dodged). Additionally, keep an eye out for branded weapons! A single hit from either of these is enough to go from a pristine, full health scruff to a game over screen showing 3 unidentified scrolls of acquirement. Venom and Electrocution in particular are extremely lethal. Branded melee weapons are handled in the same way as dangerous creatures of D:1, that is, drowned in pettable fluffballs until the threat is vanquished and drops their dangerous item (possibly a +34 triple sword “lol you can’t use this play minotaur next time” {flaming, Slay+12, AC+10}).

If you aren't already quitting the job on day one, I inform you that we just don't have the time to loot every grain of dust on D:1 to D:3. Your first objective in D:1 should be to reach XP level 2, and immediately going down afterwards, using a normal staircase (not a hatch). The latter tend to cause some company liabilities.

Do NOT "kite" (walking away from a creature over and over while it is in melee range of you) your foes. You WILL get your snout slapped faster than you can say “YASD” (a traditional roguelike acronym for Yet Another Stupid Death). Each step gives enemies a 33% chance to attack you for free - a few tip-taps to reposition (and swap places with your ally) is fine, but eating attacks of opportunity for over 10 turns is asking to die.

Quite an agonizing experience so far, no? Are you beginning to doubt me? Do you lust to return to a race that starts with HP in the double digits? Foolish! After this, the fun begins.

Interdimensional Battle Tactics 101

All enemies of DCSS, from the gurgling jelly to the mighty Pandemonium Lord Cerebov, are extremely unintelligent. In a situation like:

@....
.....
..S..
...E.
.....

(where @ is you, S is a friendly summon, E is an enemy and . are floors), foes would rather hammer their way through your friend (which may be an eight-headed hydra zombie) to reach you, and certainly won’t think about just circling around to one-shot the squishy cat behind. You will need to abuse this as much as possible. Try to always ensure you are shielded behind your loyal servants. This, for example, is not acceptable:

..@..
.....
.....
..S..
...E.
.....

Since the enemy can directly trace a line between you and their position (imagine they’re trying to fire an arrow at you - if they can hit you, you’re not positioned correctly), they will ignore your ally and charge directly at you to slice themselves some fresh feline cutlets. In a situation such as this, it is preferable to either A) send out more allies to return to a more favourable state

..@..
.....
.....
.SSS.
...E.
.....

Or B), retreat to a hallway.

1-tile hallways are your saving grace as a Summoner. Look at the following situation, where # represent walls:

Situation 1

#####
S.@.E
#####

The enemy is possibly an ogre about to bash you into a bloodied furball. Casting your summoning spell placed your unit behind you. Simply walk backwards to swap places with your unit, watch the fight unfold (preferably from a distance), and if your soldier perishes in honourable battle, your MP should have regenerated while they were battling it out: simply send out a fresh combatant eager to finish the job.

#####
@..SE
#####

Zero risk, zero worry. Here’s another interesting case:

Situation 2

#####
@E..S
#####

Here, you got unlucky, and casting your spell spawned your unit behind the foe you are attempting to introduce to your friends. Inspect the enemy's melee damage by right-clicking them or pressing "x", moving the cursor on them, then pressing "v". If they can't oneshot you on the next turn, it's probably safe to try summoning some additional support, hoping they will spawn behind you and allow for a Situation 1 swap.

#####
@.E..
#####

A Devilish Upgrade (XP Level 2)

Feeling brave? You may try to skip this chapter and reach XP level 3 using only small mammals. As Necromancy is tight on spell slots, the additional Scroll of Amnesia this will save later on may prove useful. Try not to die if you opt for this choice. Otherwise, keep reading.

Yeah, no, we can't fit this one into the budget. Move along. Just kill those D:2 adders with quokkas and quit whining. We'll need the Amnesia Scrolls later.

If you have reached this point, congratulations, you have won the game. You may now press Ctrl-Q to abandon the run, as objectively speaking, your chances of victory are now exactly 100.00%. Go bake some cookies. Take a nice walk in the park. Do anything else than watching pixelated animals fight. While being an animal yourself.

What? Still here? Very well.

Most of the Level 1 advice still applies, but you now have a little more room for mistakes. As soon as you level up and find yourself in a safe area, immediately memorize Call Imp by pressing "M", your new very mischievous addition to the roster. Press "z" then "b" to meet your new demonic friend. The unspeakably dark forces of Hell will be delighted to deliver you a dastardly blue imp proudly wielding a sharp stick.

This rampage machine is anything but (imp)otent. Savour the tears of the hobgoblins who once terrified you, revel in the yips of those pesky jackals - they will be poked, and there shall be no mercy. Imps will also occasionally compliment you and call you their “pillow-pawed master”, which is a step up from the blank stares of rats. Disregard these attempts to appeal to your nonexistent mercy, and send them to die in your name with more liberal usage of “t”-“a”. Unlike furry mammals, you may only have a maximum of one imp at a time.

At any moment, I encourage you to bring forth assistance from your previous, less talkative and much fuzzier friends! You may do this by either clicking the spell in the side menu (in offline mode) or pressing "p" or "za" again (in online mode). The total gang of three summons is now sufficient to circle enemies and dish out quick justice to anything on D:1. Keep being careful until you reach level 3. If D:1 fails to provide enough experience for this, carefully descend to D:2 to finish the job, but know that dealing with any of the D:2 new enemies that weren’t featured on D:1 is extremely risky - especially adders and orc priests/wizards. Try to focus on foes you are already familiar with, and use a different staircase if your chosen means of descent places you next to something you haven’t killed yet.

Canine Thralls vs. The Interdimensional Police (XP Level 3)

Increase (I)ntelligence, and only do so every single time you will be prompted with this choice in the future.

Got some scrolls? The stack with the highest amount (press "r" to bring up the (r)ead menu) has a high (but not guaranteed) chance of being Identify. Once you have found Scrolls of Identify, immediately read any you may obtain to progressively label each of your possessions. Personally, I think identifying potions before scrolls tends to increase your chances of survival ever-so-slightly. This isn't hard science, whether a DCSS player identifies potions or scrolls first is basically the equivalent of their horoscope sign.

Find a safe area. Memorize Call Canine Familiar immediately (press "M"). This is the real deal. Labelled as "quite dangerous" despite its 7% miscast rate, this extremely strong spell brings forth an Inugami - a once proud general and leader of the canine empire, re-educated into serving its feline master with unbreakable zeal. The tag around its collar proves most interesting - besides reminding it of its status before your Highness, it can also channel powerful bursts which heal the Inugami a massive amount and unleash a cleaving burst on all tiles adjacent to it. To trigger one such energy surge, recast the spell while your Inugami is alive and visible on your screen, spending 3 MP in the process.

Yes, you can spam it and pop foes open with repeated re-casts. No, you won't find funny when your Inugami dies to some overpowered death machine and you're left in melee range with it with 0 MP to spare. It's strongly recommended to prioritize energy-bursting only if one of the following applies:

• Your canine servant needs the heal.
• It is completely surrounded and the cleaving AOE would prove most effective.
• You need a quick finishing blow against a low-HP dangerous foe.

When an Inugami dies in heroic battle, it will retreat to a pocket dimension for a time to rekindle its faith in feline supremacy. When the -Dog status on the sidebar expires - expect 13 to 21 turns - it is ready to return into the fray. Other summons can take up arms while you wait.

With all that considered, Inugami are absolute beasts. Very little in the early Dungeon can survive a 1v1 with an Inugami energy-bursting when it is most needed. Not even Sigmund - he is powerless before canine brutality! Simply stand back, watch the carnage without getting hit, and laugh as adders get slaughtered from Line-of-Sight (LOS) distance.

Inugami, like imps, occasionally try to look cute and print out endearing messages in the text log. Again, do not let this affect you - remember that the canine race is lesser before feline glory, and heartlessly send them to their doom (“t”-“a”) while they obey with unfaltering zeal.

You can look (and cast) any of your memorized spells at any time by pressing "z" then "?". If it says, for example, "c - Call Canine Familiar", pressing "z" then "c" will welcome your new canine unit without having to bring up the menu every time.

How can I possibly lose with such loyal followers?

Orc priests, my noble feline acolyte. These green-robed menaces have the ability to inflict undodgeable, instant and two-shotting damage from full LOS range. Right now, no amount of summons could protect you from their devotion to the god of the Orcs. If you see one - or, Xom have mercy, two or more, do not even attempt to test their mettle. Press “X”, move the cursor towards them, and press “e” to set up an exclusion - this is your way of telling the game “NOPE”. If they stay visible on your screen for 5 turns or more, you are asking to die. Leave through the nearest up-staircase, and attempt a different portion of the level (or descend to D:3 if the level is truly doomed), leaving these dissenters alive for later. They will suffer the consequences of their insolence in due time.

Any recommendations if I am doing the Gem Quest?

Why are you still on D:2? The Temple doesn't spawn here. We want that bone altar, and we want it pronto. Get diving down to D:4, you should not be exploring more than half of each floor until then.

Additionally...

The Aforementioned Interdimensional Police (Nameless Horrors)

Every time you attempt to call a canine slave friend, there should be a small chance of a miscast, which will reduce as you progress through the arts of Summonings. Miscasts in other schools of magic are generally not too dramatic (given that the caster is not trying to sever reality itself right after learning how to say “pick a card, any card”). However, your constant telemarketing calls to the eldritch cosmos asking “Who wants to die in the name of feline supremacy?” have begun to get on the nerves of some eldritch monstrosities. TentacleMail may therefore rarely deliver you a Nameless Horror instead of your ordered furry companion. Instead of filing a complaint, slow down and consider your options. These things drain your mana on each melee hit they land on you, will only leave after you have managed to kill them, and will occasionally return your summons back to their home realm, so they may meet their family again instead of dying for a cat in a dungeon.

FAQ:

What do I do if I incur the wrath of cosmic aberrations?

It depends on your situation. If they are alone or accompanied by a joke of an enemy, getting an Inugami out and spamming energy-bursts should wreck it. Alternatively, if you have damaging wands that aren't Mindburst, feel free to gun them down.

If you are close to dangerous foes which aren't in range yet to hurt you, you may drag the the Nameless Horror to a previously cleared floor, "park" it there and return to the lower level without it, preferably with a different staircase. If you can't manage to kill it, don't forget about the horrifying creature roaming loose if you want to "stair-dance" a dangerous foe later on while clearing the lower floor. Maybe you'll meet it again near the end of your run, at which point it will tremble before the FELINE GOD you have become.

How can I minimize my chances of being investigated by the interdimensional kidnapping police?

The Summonings school is not to be messed with. It is strongly advised that you never try to cast a Summonings spell with a failure rate higher than 10%, as the consequences may be disastrous. Only violate this rule when extreme firepower is needed imminently in a life-or-death situation.

I have no MP, no friends and I am going to die. What do I do?

See below.

Break In Case of Imminent Negative HP Syndrome (Escape Techniques)

Low health? No mana? Overpowered gigachad about to annihilate you? Consider the following, from safest to most unreliable:

• Scrolls of Blinking will immediately save you, but are rare and valuable. THAT DOES NOT MEAN "save them for next game". USE THEM.
• Scrolls of Summoning/Butterflies do what you specialize in - dialing up friends - but take zero mana. The butterfly variant doesn't attack, but gently blows away your foes, granting a safe space of sunshine and rainbows.
• The useful Blink level 2 spell immediately relocates you to a random tile in sight - but it won't necessarily be available in your game. Maybe if you ask RNGesus nicely.
• Potions of Magic, and the mana acquired from them, can be condensed into the creation of a helpful friend. Again, rare and valuable, but made to be used.
• Potions of Curing will remove all confusion and poison - essential for those pesky redback spiders getting lucky hits - in addition to a small amount of HP and Potions of Heal Wounds restore a bunch of health which, on a Felid, is highly impressive. Do ensure that you can actually make use of the heal to solve your problem and aren't just delaying your death, especially if you just get hit again for the same amount you healed on the same turn.
• Potions of Invisibility drastically reduce enemy accuracy and allow you to walk away with high, but not perfect safety. Check that the foe in question does not detect invisibility by inspecting their stat window - for example, wolves, dastardly agents of the canine empire, won't be impressed.
• Scrolls of Fear immediately causes everything on the screen to regret ever messing with Your Pillow-Pawed Highness and to run away. Check, on their stat screen, that their Willpower is at ++ or less.
• Potions of Haste, beyond allowing you to walk away without getting kited to oblivion, are much stronger than new players tend to think: they effectively slow down time so you get bonus actions per turn. This is much more spectacular on other characters (your main source of damage is from your servants, which do not benefit from the haste), but it is still tremendously useful.
• A stairwell brings you back to the much safer previous floor, but brings all adjacent foes alongside you - except zombies, simulacra and summoned creatures. Still quite possibly an improvement over your current situation.
• Assuming you can survive 3-5 turns, a Scroll of Teleportation will whisk you off to a different location. Magical Inks™ Incorporated does not guarantee said location will be safe.
• Wands of Paralysis/Charming incapacitate your foe. You have to beat their Willpower - early game, that is usually around a 50% chance, but there are exceptions. The brainwashing Charming variant can be used to demolish the victim's former allies while you cackle in the back. You can also command them to go to the time-out corner by pressing "t"-"r" and selecting a tile far away from you.
• Speaking of those, Scrolls of Vulnerability assist all dastardly hypnosis techniques by cutting all creatures' Willpower (including you) by half. Beyond wands, this makes Anguish much easier to use even on terrifying uniques like Mennas, resulting in easy takedowns where you normally would have had to move mountains to barely scratch them.
• Damage Wands might, with some luck, solve your problems by murdering them.
• Potions of Ambrosia do a similar effect to Potions of Magic, but over time, and the confusion should be cured with a Potion of Curing once you have enough mana. Not to be relied upon if only a couple of turns stand between life and death.
• Unknown potions and scrolls could save you. They probably won't.
• Dying. Unlike feeble humanoids, this is an option. Try to avoid it. It will happen anyways. Do not give in to despair. Stand up. Fight again.

Do not mindlessly run away for dozens of turns without doing anything. You WILL be eating attacks of opportunity on every step and perishing in record time. At least try casting a spell once your mana comes back.

The Delicate Art of Explosive Incineration (XP Level 4-6)

If you have not pathetically perished to some turbo-murderous orc priest on D:2, you will now be the proud holder of 2 stored Extra Lives, the maximum a Felid can hold at a time. Such is the privilege of feline supremacy.

As a proud member of the most blessed race in existence, death is not the end for you. Still, you should pretend it is - it will help you take better strategical decisions. If you do meet an unfortunate end, stay focused, take a break if you are feeling frustrated, and continue to play carefully as if you hadn’t died. Most Felid runs die around 3 to 9 times in an average 3-rune run, so do not feel too bad. Felid lives are meant to be used like rare, powerful consumables, and many Felid 3-rune or even 15-rune wins have 1 or 2 deaths as early as D:1-7.

Do not quit a Felid run because of an early death! With the way the system is designed, it's almost as if you are supposed to die in early Dungeon. It's much easier to level up early on than in the late game. A life lost on D:4 is gotten back on D:7, but a life lost in Pandemonium may take a full clear of all 4 Hell branches to get it back.

I will repeat it again. Do not quit a Felid run just because you died twice in a row to the same enemy. Save your game and go do something else instead. I know it's infuriating, but that would be like using a blink scroll and then quitting because you're mad about using a lifesaving item. Lives are consumables. Playing a Felid without dying is like playing an Octopode with 2 rings. You are supposed to die.

Press “E” to see how long it will take to get your next life. Press "%" to see how many lives you have (look in the top right of the popup!)

Once again, as soon as you find a safe place, immediately add your new friend to your roster - the Blazeheart Golem. Do not even think about casting it yet! Soon enough, it will be below 10% fail rate, and you may then use it safely. Tweak your skills as follows - turn on Fire Magic, press “=” to set a skill target, select Fire Magic, and set it to 5.0. While you're at it, you should also set a target for Spellcasting at 14.0, and Summonings at 11.0.

As soon as you find an interesting wand or evokable (also known as "anything but a wand of flame"), also turn on Evocations, and set the target to 5.0.

Starting from D:3, the Dungeon loves to throw at you fast, high-damage, or sometimes even fast and high damage enemies before you are ready for them. You may therefore encounter water moccasins, ogres, killer bees, dangerous Lair enemies (wyverns & hornets are a classic), among a variety of other nasty creatures. However, you will laugh in the face of these pitiful attempts at stopping the march of progress, oneshot them with what is probably one of the highest damage level 4 spells in the game, and witness the XP trickle down like cat treats. This is what you were suffering in D:1 for - whereas your average Minotaur Fighter or Deep Elf Conjurer would meet a swift end against a swarm of light speed enemies that make your healthbar have more red than green (or sometimes yellow), you will sacrifice unholy amounts of expensive machinery, and will probably make the interdimensional inventor shipping these to you very frustrated.

More desperate for companionship and physical closeness than the most introverted DCSS win-streak players, Golems will immediately stop all action and become useless if they do not start or end their turn while being in melee range of you, resuming activity once you walk up close enough to give them a comforting paw-tap.

While it functions, it will deliver heavy-damage punches and lose a third of its health every time it does so, in addition to getting its metallic head bashed in by your very upset foes. Needless to say, this thing dies fast. Thankfully, the Blazeheart Golem is designed to pack an extremely potent explosive payload when it is destroyed, and is a master at all things related to flesh incineration. In case you have not noticed, flesh is also what you are made out of.

When a Walking Incinerator Blazeheart Golem perishes in heroic battle, it will leave behind its core, represented as a sphere of pure fire. Once this happens, IMMEDIATELY exit melee range of the core. It’s going to EXPLODE, INCINERATE everything adjacent to it (including you, if you are incapable of following basic safety protocols), and leave behind CLOUDS OF BLAZING FLAME to block passage and allow you to leave, rest, and recuperate.

Do NOT position yourself in such a way that you'd be incapable of leaving the blast zone with a single action. You WILL be oneshotted. Here is an example of what NOT to do:

.###.
..@..
..G..
..E..
.....

If @ is you, # are walls, E is your foe and G is the Golem, the walls will block your only hope of retreating, forcing you to be the recipient of up to 60 fire damage, not to mention the extra damage-over-time from the burning clouds.

If you HAVE to brace for an inescapable blast, or must walk through flame clouds to reposition away from an orc with a +99 Halberd of Feline Culling, consider briefly putting on a ring of Fire Protection/a ring of Fire! This is very fast (less than one turn) and will halve the damage, allowing you to survive.

In fact, "ring swapping" in general is a good skill to develop when playing a Felid. See a lindwurm? Ring of fire resistance. Rime drake? Ring of cold resistance. Nergalle the orcish necromancer? Ring of positive energy. Erolcha the banish-you-to-the-abyss-bot? Ring of willpower. Swapping rings is extremely fast - half of a turn to be precise. Don't try swapping amulets, though, trying to tie up a string around your fuzzy neck without opposable thumbs while a violent brute is inching closer is generally not advisable.

Here are some diagrams of potential ways you can commit feline war crimes with this improvised explosive. Again - @ is you, the one and only genius fuzzball, E are your foolish enemies, and G is your trusty golem. . represents floors, and #, walls.

Hallway Exit Triple-Blast

.EEE.
.#G#.
.#@#.
.#.#.
.#.#.

Outsmarting Lesser Beings in Open Spaces

.EEE.
..G..
..@..
.....
.....

Yes, this actually works. The enemies on the sides won't even swerve around, captivated by the shining metal of your loyal robot.

Some things to consider:

• If a foe has a reaching polearm (tridents, halberds, glaives, spears...), they will completely ignore the Golem and instead repeatedly puncture you, which means you'll have to wait for the Golem to detonate itself by having it use its self-damaging melee attacks. Here is a trick: remember, the Golem remains activated if they start or end your turn next to you. You may walk back and forth to enter and exit its range repeatedly, thus reducing the damage taken from the polearm by about 50%, and still triggering the explosion!

..E..
..G..
..@..
.....

..E..
..G..
.....
..@..

..E..
..G..
..@..
.....

• When you step away from the explosive core, your foes also get a chance to act. Keep in mind that enemies which were in melee range of you may follow you out of the blast zone, thus dodging the explosion as they pursue you.

..C..
.E...
.@...

In this example, C is the imminently exploding core, triggered as you began your previous turn next to the dying Golem, and chose to move diagonal down-left. If you walk downwards now, it is possible that the enemy will also walk downwards alongside you, and dodge the explosion. You should instead wait, so that they are still located in the blast zone when the core detonates!

• If the enemy is super strong/tanky/resistant to fire, keep in mind you'll be very close to them should they survive the explosion. For example, trying to take out a full-health hydra in Lair with a single Golem may result in the hydra walking through the fire, still barely clinging to life, and oneshotting you. Try to use other summons to reduce their health into explosion kill-range before risking your life in this fashion.

• The flame clouds left behind by the blast also deal heavy damage. If a creature has been left on the brink of death from the explosion and is now standing in a flame cloud, it might be worth just waiting one turn while it is in melee range (instead of moving away) so that it remains stuck in the flames and dies. The flame tick happens before they get a chance to melee attack, but do be absolutely sure that you won't need more than one tick, or some two-headed ogre might just oneshot you on the same turn it is reduced to 2 HP.

From now on, the plan is as follows:

• Summon an Inugami for every single trivial-to-medium difficulty battle. Make use of “t”-“a” to direct focus, and do not hold back until the entire canine demiplane has been sacrificed to mitten-pawed glory.
• Demolish every single high damage or out-of-depth (OOD) enemy by letting them uselessly punch a robotic time bomb over and over until it inevitably burns them to a crisp. Ice beast? Boom. Ogre? Boom. Bullfrog? Boom. Wyvern? Boom. Water moccasin, yak, two-headed ogre, sleepcap, gnoll sergeant, any Unique creature, hornet, ugly thing, scorpion, troll, orc warrior? BOOM. They will not survive, and if they somehow do, you can simply bring out more golems for your foes to commit the same mistake. So much for having “human”-level intelligence - clearly, the humanoids are hopeless, dull-witted morons before feline genius.
• Stuck in a pinch with no MP and a really angry dude invading your personal space? Getting turned into a porcupine by a very merry centaur? Getting a taste of orcish zealotry and being told that "smite makes right"? Use wands! They are the guns of the fantasy world, and will dispose of any pesky denizen of the Dungeon. Do not hesitate to spam these against dangerous uniques, centaurs and orc priests. The bolt ones, like Quicksilver, Light or Acid, are especially effective. Remember, if you use Charming, you can "t"-"r" the mind-controlled foe to get away from you, then use that distance to execute a swift, zero-risk retreat!
• If you end up in a terrible situation, refer to the Escape Techniques listed in the previous chapter of this guide.
• In the semi-common case where you encounter the unique siblings Dowan and Duvessa, always slay Duvessa first, preferably with an incinerating payload. Otherwise, Duvessa will get very mad, run at you at light speed and oneshot you.

Try to abuse the 1-tile hallways described earlier in Battle Tactics 101! This guarantees your foes will not attempt to circumvent your units to instead give you a very uncomfortable petting session. You are extremely frail, and lingering in melee range of anything that isn’t a basic orc or a D:1 creature is bound to result in your doom. Constantly use your turns to reposition and ensure you are always behind your summons! If your summons lose, you will be the next target on the list, and you will NOT survive should you stand your ground with tooth and claw. Run, rest and try again.

The Proper Way To Roll Your Face On The Keyboard (Macros)

Getting tired of "zbzc....o....zbzc....o" yet? You can press Ctrl-D to set macros and begin feeling like you are playing some tryhard MOBA instead of composing Beethoven's Tenth Symphony on your keyboard.

For example, press "Ctrl-D", then "1", then type "zb" in the field to link the "b" spell that appears when you look at the spell list (accessible with "I" while in-game). On each press of "1", you will now cast the "b" spell.

Back in my day, you had to draw a pentagram and whisper demonic prayers each time you'd want a skeleton friend. Who thought it was a good idea to automate murder?! Can't you appreciate a good old blood sacrifice in the rules of the art?

This is my favourite loadout:

• 1 for Call Canine Familiar, and later Haunt.
• 2 for Summon Blazeheart Golem, and later Infestation.
• 3 for Summon Lightning Spire, and later any spell of your choice.
• 4 for any other useful spell.
• w for Animate Dead. Normally, it's used for (w)ielding weapons, buuuut... yeah. No opposable thumbs and all.
• e for Death Channel.
• Spacebar for an emergency spell - I like a simple Blink, or, for bonus coolness points, the heart-racing Death's Door. Big button, big problems! I actually remember to use my emergency spells this way.
• c for any other useful spell.
• Later in the game, (Q)uiver Anguish (or, in Crypts/Tomb, Dispel Undead), and cast it with p.

This way, every single time you want both your ally-creation buffs (such as when descending a new staircase), simply press "we". To dial up the early-game squad, press "123". In case of trouble, your salvation is right on the biggest button of your keyboard. For a mega-scarab death rave, press "ep21"!

Dastardliness, Cackles and Dark Tricks (God Choice)

You have only three equipment slots to fulfill Ashenzari’s bondage fantasies, no time to learn the ways of Invocations, and would not benefit from weapon gifts with your lack of opposable thumbs. As the lead of an interdimensional kidnapping startup, you should delegate EVERY task to your staff and NEVER do any work yourself.

Ru is technically quite viable for you, but as you don’t care for employee wellbeing, in-office buddhist yoga sessions are not at the top of your schedule. Plus, you will need both of your paws to play with the Orb of Zot like a ball of yarn. There was also once a time where feline CEOs such as you would strike a divine partnership with Gozag and crack open endless amounts of lootboxes and microtransactions, but that time has come to pass.

We need loyal subordinates, and we need them fast, reliably, and cheaply. Let us therefore learn arts and magic as dark as the colour of our fur, from scratch, under the tutelage of the villainous god Kikubaku-

Kikubaquk-

Kikubaaqudq-

Kikubaaqudgha. Yes. That's how you spell it.

Untainted souls are so much more fun to corrupt! But... why are you so fluffy? I need goth elves and black mascara. I can't have my subordinates looking like this!

Sorry Kiku, malnourished nerds and lanky skeletons are just so passé. If you wish to increase your approval ratings among the public, research has shown that a marketable, plushie-like mascot is a much better driving force for sales and engagement.

Anyhow. The reason I suggest picking Kiku for this build is to secure the mid-and-late game, as the Summoner background is so powerful (as you may have noticed already) that no immediate divine assistance is required. For now, Kiku will do absolutely nothing to help you - focus on proving yourself worthy by engaging in senseless, indiscriminate murder. Or, in other words, just the usual routine. Kikubaaqudgha's altar can spawn in D:3, the Temple, as deep down as D:11 - it really doesn't matter at all, you just need to have joined Kiku before entering Lair.

That still seems wise to me. What I REALLY don't want to see you doing is MISSING the altar and doing a merry-go-round the dungeon looking for it on company time. You'll probably want to find that Temple between D:4 and D:7, looking out for odd rock formations. And if it's not in that Temple, you'll want to look out for evil looking structures, all the way down to possibly D:11.

"An evil god, Kikubaaqudgha requires worshippers to cause the death and destruction of as many creatures as possible." Well, that's rich. It's not as if almost every single other god wants the exact same thing. Why am I being singled out?

Actually, I lied. Kiku does do one thing right away. And that's flaming you in the message log when you lose the run. Let that be motivation to play intelligently.

Murder and Electrical Engineering (XP Level 7-9 to Lair)

Remember, use your scrolls of Identify! Drop those useless Scrolls of Brand Weapon, Enchant Weapon or Enchant Armour. Maybe a lesser biped will come across those and thank you. Ha! Fat chance.

Between level 7 and 9 (variable depending on your dungeon adventures), the ability to memorize Summon Lightning Spire will be made available to you. This is the big gun, the heavy artillery, and other militarily pleasing expressions. Whereas the Blazeheart Golem granted the power to slay individual high-level threats, the Lightning Spire welcomes a little bit of ranged combat to the battlefield. This stationary turret has zero chill, and will electrocute anything breathing the same air as you in record time, only stopping once you and your allies are the only thing left standing. However, it occasionally likes to sleep on the job, so make sure to wake it up with more ample usage of “t”-“a”. Remember that neither the Golem nor the Spire have vision as refined as yours, and will completely ignore invisible enemies - most commonly orc wizards. You can still direct fire on a visible enemy, and if a sneaky invisible trickster is in the way, they will still get zapped!

To tap into this immense electrical power, open up your skills menu with “m” - notice that your Fire Magic should be close to reaching 5. Now, turn on Air Magic, and set a target to 5. Remember, do not attempt to cast a Summonings spell above 10% fail rate! As our offense is starting to reach a comfortable level, also consider increasing your defense - turn on Fighting and Dodging, and set a target to 10 for both of them.

There are two main issues: first, the Spire is highly considerate of your wellbeing (which is nice, for the velvet-pawed deserve utmost comfort) yet also just as compassionate towards your other summons (which is less nice, as they are disposable and unimportant lesser beings). It will therefore not shoot if its piercing, bouncing bolt would cause harm to you or to any of your loyal servants. Strangely, it seems to hold a grudge against the Blazeheart Golem, and will occasionally zap it anyways, but this is uncommon - most likely, the Golem dimension played an amusing prank on the Spire dimension before you ripped both of them from their home realm to perish in unspeakable agony. Just kidding. They’re constructs. They don’t feel anything.

The second issue is that unlike other units, the Lightning Spire is incapable of moving out of your way or swapping places with you. This is problematic if you cast the spell in a hallway, potentially blocking your escape route.

#####
.S@.O
#####

You can’t walk backwards to escape the ogre (O), and the (S)pire won’t do anything, too afraid of daring to disrespect you (@)!

Instead of trying to melee an ogre with 0 Unarmed Combat skill, I propose an alternative - a disciplinary paw-scratch. Press 'v', select your Lightning Spire, then confirm the prompt in the message log. This will attack it, and immediately one-shot it no matter what, allowing passage again. An alternative is to recast the spell, though this is risky - it may simply land in an equally unfortunate position.

With all of that said, you should be set for clearing floors until you find the entrance to the Lair, somewhere on D:8-D:11.

Get that Kiku guy on your contacts list, then get into that Lair, in that order! I'll consider you for employee of the month if you have over 5000 turns remaining by D:8. Not that this is much of a title, considering you are my only contractor in this place. Any lower amount, and you'll have to start moving those legs a bit faster.

Your faithful trio - Inugami, Spire and Golem - will make quick work of anything the game may attempt to impede your progress with. Remember to also put on any jewellery you may find (press capital "P") - Intelligence, Wizardry, Magical Power, Protection and Fire Protection are the best rings you could hope for (in that order), and Magic Regeneration, Regeneration, Reflection, Acrobat and Faith are the best amulets (also in that order) - for now. Avoid Guardian Spirit.

If you find a runed door vault with a ghost in it, this could be an opportunity for instant acquirement of three degrees from the Summonings College! They are worth boatloads of experience, but can range from trivial to lethal. Inspect them with "x"-"v", and check their kit - if they have Conjurations that could annihilate you or dangerous Summonings spells, they should be left alone. If they, however, only have a few joke cantrips or only know how to o-tab like a Minotaur Berserker, then it is time to guide them to eternal rest. Once the floor is fully cleared, gather up all your friends, open the door, and make them bash golems, eat electricity and be eaten by spirit-wolves until they die (for the second time in their existence).

The true threats are ranged attackers - centaurs, steam dragons, electric eels, or big packs of orc priests (speaking of, if you left enemies (such as orc priests) or nameless horrors behind on upper floors, now is the time to come back and dispense a rightful whooping!). Since Spires have almost zero evasion, they will gladly tank arrows for you (unlike those scumbag canines), so they may be of great use should you face off a centaur - hide behind them, and let the ranged battle unfold. Which will win, wooden sharp sticks, or thousand-volt lightning bolts? Spoiler alert: the latter.

However, keep in mind:

..@..
..S..
.....
.....
...E.

This is not a safe way of hiding. The centaur (E) will still turn you from a cat to a porcupine while the Spire will desperately attempt to dish out damage before you die in an anxiety-inducing Damage Per Turn race. First, consider Wands - polymorph is especially effective, as wielding a bow is quite hard without opposable thumbs. As you may have discovered yourself. Otherwise, you can spawn more summons - if an Inugami gets in melee range, the centaur will panic and stop shooting. Consider a Scroll of Fog or Summon Butterflies if things get too dire. Of course, the classical melee brute tactic of hiding behind a corner/closing a door (press capital 'C') and waiting for the centaur to get closer remains efficient here.

• Electric eels deal unreal amounts of damage. These living death traps are resistant to your Spire, and will three-shot you. To add insult to injury, they’re worth almost no experience - for comparison, a single scorpion rewards you with about 53% more experience than one eel. Thankfully, there's a trick: a zap from a wand of flame will oneshot or twoshot them, due to the steam clouds this technique will spawn. If flame is unavailable, most other damage wands, while rarer, will make short work of them.

• Steam dragons are deceptively dangerous. Their breath weapon will turn the heat up in every sense of the word, and may even twoshot you should the dice be animated by murderous intent. Thankfully, there is counterplay - a ring of fire protection, or a ring of fire. If you can give yourself a + of rF, this battle will go from terrifying to laughable. If rF is not available to you, tread lightly, and be ready to retreat out of their sight the moment you are hit.

• If you’re unlucky enough to encounter a Meliai or the unique Jeremiah, know that they are practically cyber-augmented orc priests. Just one isn’t that bad, but they often hang out with their friends, and you do NOT want to be the centre of attention of bee-witch gossip. Eating a quadruple smite in one turn can happen, and it will kill you. Potions of Invisibility work, and so do Wands of various kinds - or have them be zapped one at a time by your spire before they notice your presence, and they should fall relatively quickly. Otherwise, pushing a Golem in their faces will ensure a fiery doom.

• Should you be so hapless as to encounter the unique slug mage Gastronok, you must immediately try to avoid empty spaces. Hug walls, surround yourself with allies - if you find yourself with 4 or more completely empty tiles, you WILL be twoshotted with an insanely powerful, irresistible Airstrike ability. If you have found a scroll of Silence, I highly recommend using it as soon as you’ve churned out a few friends to help take him down. If you do not have silencing abilities, keep him at the edge of Line-of-Sight while the battle unfolds, hug walls and potentially some Small Mammals, and be ready to step away the second you are smited by Airstrike. Even with wise positioning, all it takes are approximately 3 casts to detonate you into an unrecognizable mess of gore and fluff.

For the rest of the run, don’t ever have rF- or rC- no matter what. Yes, even if it means giving up an Int+10 ring (you can also wear rF+/rC+ to cancel out the rF-/rC- if it’s really good). Vulnerabilities will be your doom: 50% extra damage is plenty to oneshot you before you even realize what has happened. Press % to check your resistances.

A Malodorous Fanbase (*.....)

Allow every dopamine receptor in that brain of yours to fire up when the message:

Kikubaaqudgha grants you a gift!

appears for the first time in the message log.

Gather up your lucky trinkets and your maneki-nekos, it's time for some Kiku Gacha Lootbox opening. You will receive a batch of low-level Necromancy spells, but in truth, we only actually care about a single one of them - Animate Dead. The others are so laughably irrelevant you shouldn't even spare a single picosecond contemplating their existence.

You ungrateful sack of fleas! Of all gods, I am the one to grant the most gifts to even my least precious followers, and you still have the nerve to be discontent?

Unfortunately, you only have a 50% chance of getting Animate Dead - the other 50% will result in Fugue of the Fallen, which is a decent melee combat spell - a discipline which your weak and unarmed kitty paws are unfortunately not well suited to. For now.

Unlucky? Do keep an eye out for Animate Dead in book shops or loot piles to compensate for Kiku's lack of etiquette. If you still cannot find it, it's not a huge deal. Infestation is a guaranteed gift later on, and can replace it.

You will want to memorize Animate Dead right after your Lightning Spire is below 10% failure rate, and immediately turn on your Necromancy skill, setting a target all the way to the maximum of 27.0.

If you have not received Animate Dead, skip the rest of this chapter, coming back to it should you eventually obtain it from another source.

You may have noticed that the many denizens of the Dungeon are very disrespectful of your Eminence, soon to be their overlord and army commander. Your first task will be to re-educate these ruffians into submission and obedience. Animate Dead provides a buff lasting for about a dozen turns. Each enemy slain while this buff is active has a chance to betray their former allies and serve you as a... slightly more malodorous version of themselves. These will escort you until you leave the floor, or have them perish in battle.

When Animate Dead becomes castable (<12% fail rate), you may begin playing like such:

• Initiate each battle with a batch of highly loyal summons praising how good of a slaver friend you are.
• Begin emanating such confidence with Animate Dead that the defeated will turn against their former companions in your name.

Now, whenever a foe is slain, there is a high chance they will become an ally - and betray their former allies, making the latter join your army in turn, and so on, until all are at your beck and call. It's just like rolling a snowball!

The little militia that will now follow you around will act as a testament to your charisma. Recasting Animate Dead will, however, dismiss all of your current servants, with the hopes of replacing them with fresher, potentially more numerous ones. Therefore, it's great practice to cast Animate Dead when encountering a pack of enemies (yaks or bees, for example, are good fodder), and to only recast it once your lackeys are falling apart.

This is way too complicated for the fluffball that serves as your brain. Join me instead, and gain permanent reaping of the deceased instead of trying to emulate my power with puny magic!

Pah! Don't listen to my competitor. Their worshippers are brutes and thugs, whose first word at birth was "Axe".

Some extra useful tips about this spell:

• Insubstantial enemies (like Will-o-Wisps from Swamp) and most undead creatures will never be recruited.
  • There is an exception: Vampire Mosquitoes and (much, much later on) Death Scarabs are undead, yet can still be turned! They both make for fantastic allies!.
• High speed enemies, like bees, vampire mosquitoes, frogs or snakes will always catch up with you, and will swarm enemies before you even see them on your monitor! Boulder beetles are actually quite slow, and won't get to keep their signature rolling attack.
• Hydras, and much later, Death Scarabs, in zombie slave form, are hideously overpowered and will play the game for you.

Undead... slaves? Pah! I am no slaver. They still have free will! They will turn against those who harm or mistreat them! Can Summoners say the same? I think not! And yet, I am the unholy one?! Disgraceful!

And while what Kiku just said is true (watch out with those Scrolls of immolation), Zombies (and all other undead companions) have no comprehension of the concept of chains of command, and will think you completely innocent if you send forth a golem to blow up in their faces. They will also idiotically stand in the flame clouds and die, waiting for your next order. The Blazeheart Golem should only be used for initiating snowballs or taking down high priority targets once your necromantic journey has truly begun. Feel free to recast Blazeheart Golem - or to step away from it to deactivate it - if it is about to incinerate your army to get a fresher, less explosive specimen.

Kiku grants the ability "Unearth Wretches" very early for on-demand zombie creation. I suggest not using it in the Dungeon, as the results will be disappointing. Wow! A cockroach zombie with 3 damage!! Why thank you, you shouldn't have. It's the intention that counts, Kiku.

I didn't even mean to send these over. I was just doing some housekeeping, brushing up my skulls, sacrifical altars and blood fountains, and accidentally threw a kobold into an interdimensional wormhole. Hate when that happens.

The Most Important Lootbox of All (***...)

Depending on when you started your worship of Kiku, this may happen before even entering Lair, or at some moment while you are clearing it. Regardless, you will eventually read once again the message:

Kikubaaqudgha grants you a gift!

Well, well, well. Looks like we've got another Kiku Gacha Lootbox on our paws!

Here is my tier list of possible outcomes:

• S: A Run-Defining Asset: Death Channel, Anguish
• A: Great, Though Not Required: Borgnjor's Vile Clutch, Dispel Undead
• B: Worth The Slots, Could Do Better: Martyr's Knell
• F: Insult to Feline Glory: Curse of Agony

You'll always get all of these, except two, chosen at random. Not getting Death Channel is especially sad, but manageable. You'll still want to check every book shop and loot pile for a chance at acquiring it.

Commerce? Capitalism?! My spells are 100% locally sourced, woven by the expert craftsmanship of unionized and esteemed skeleton artisans! You would resort to purchasing mass-produced, store-bought necromancy that's probably also full of microplastics? You and me have a lot of work to do before we can get along with each other.

If you get Anguish, you should learn it as soon as possible, and also turn on Hexes and set a target to 8.0. Because Felids are so adorable and masters of mind-manipulation, you have a +4 aptitude to it!

As for that "Unearth Wretches" active ability... I strongly recommend saving up your piety to reach the gifts faster. Try not to use it for now. More on that in the next chapter.

Employee Tour at the Zoo (The Lair)

A place filled to the brim with creatures that mostly only know how to walk fast and melee attack, put against your most loyal servants which precisely exploit these vulnerabilities. Who will win? If you guessed the former, you are wrong. It is scientifically impossible to lose with my guide.

• The Golem decimates black mambas, spiny frogs, komodo dragons, polar bears and hydras.
• The Spire will annihilate packs of yaks, killer bees, wolves, blink frogs, and even death yaks (though those make take a few castings and a bit of kiting, alongside the occasional Golem).
• The Inugami is simply always good.
• If you have it, Animate Dead generates even more support.
• Eventually, if you also get it, Death Channel is similarly highly useful.

For some reason, the architects of this place decided a place filled with dangerous wildlife and inaccessible architecture would make a great place for a central hub. You'll have to come back to this place at least a whopping three times - for all 3 S-Branches, so there is little time to waste. Do not explore more than half of Lair:1. In Lair:2 and Lair:3, your main objective is locating those 2 first S-Branch gates - once both are visible, you can go down to Lair:4 and Lair:5, where you'll have to pinpoint that Slime Pits entrance. You always have less time than you think in this place, get moving! Try to keep at least 600 leftover turns when you complete the Lair.

Have a glance once in a while at your jewelry collection by pressing "P". Rings of wizardry and intelligence reign supreme. Rings of Protection, Magical Power or Fire Resistance (for accidental Golem mishaps) will significantly contribute to your survivability. Rings of Dexterity or Evasion are passable, and everything else is pretty much mediocre. Amulets of Guardian Spirit should not be worn unless they are a particularly amazing artefact.

Prioritize wearing an Amulet of Magic Regeneration to replenish your forces quickly - Regeneration is the second best option, Reflection, the third, Acrobat, the fourth, Faith, the fifth (On Demigods, it will print a message saying "You feel a surge of self-confidence", but there is no such message for Felids, because they already have maximum self-confidence), and Guardian Spirit, the worst possible option (enjoy losing access to all your summons because you took one wrong step). If you somehow find the Amulet of Vitality, congratulations, you have won the game - it is disgustingly powerful on a Felid.

Should you encounter elemental threats (such as the mage Fannar, an Efreet, or a Lindwurm), swap on a ring granting a relevant resistance! It is extremely fast to do so. Just don't forget to put your normal ring back on afterwards, especially if you were using one of the vulnerability-granting rings of fire or ice. Do not casually run around with an elemental vulnerability (rF-/rC-) on a Felid. You WILL be oneshotted.

If you run into trouble, it will likely be caused by:

• Blink frogs. They tend to sneak behind you no matter your masterful positioning by blinking frenetically. Do not hesitate to send a few zaps of your wands their way to teach them some discipline. They make quite good zombies!
• Catoblepas and Basilisks have a love for garden ornaments, and would delight in turning you into one of them - do not ever stand 2 turns in a row in the calcifying breath of the former, and ensure multiple allies block you from the stunning gaze of the latter. Lightning Spires are immune to petrification. If you see the message "You are slowing down" and you're put against a lonely Basilisk, feel free to spawn a few friends and have them handle everything while you stand there as a pretty feline statue. However, getting petrified in dangerous screens is a death sentence, and you should read a scroll of teleportation or quaff a potion of cancellation before you turn to stone.
• Dream sheep can simply choose to put you to sleep from across the entire screen, which also allows any creature which would hit you to deal immensely boosted damage. If you are well defended by varied summons - and maybe also have Animate Dead/Death Channel active - they will handle all the lowly grunt work while you sleep like the spoiled feline noble you are. If you get taken by surprise, though, prepare for an emergency - Scrolls of Fear in particular should give you some breathing room.
• Hydrae die easily to intelligently placed Blazeheart Golems and Spires. If they touch you, however, you may very well go from full HP to an empty health bar. If you used a staircase while a hydra was visible, using that staircase again will probably result in it ambushing you and immediately oneshotting you the moment you press ">". Do avoid this unfortunate scenario.
• Skysharks, in similar fashion, should not touch you, as their damage increases with every melee hit they land (represented as Might, then Berserk buffs). Golems are similarly most effective.

Huge welcoming party in Lair:5? Got marked and the entire country of Australia is coming after you? Both Animate Dead and Death Channel are memorized and castable? Try Unearth Wretches. I recommend using this ability as little as possible to reach ****** piety faster, but the effects are spectacular with 1 to 3 uses of it when it is most needed. Make sure both buffs are active, activate Unearth Wretches from your 'a' menu, and watch the screen flood with allies.

You may encounter some dangerous uniques in the Lair. Urug, Fannar, Gastronok and Nessos in particular may destroy you before you even realize what just happened. The counter to each one of those is, respectively, Amulet of Reflection/Anguish for Urug, Ring of Cold Resistance for Fannar, scroll of Silence for Gastronok and Wand of Polymorph and/or Anguish for Nessos (and potentially Amulet of Reflection). If you possess the counter, use it, and then feel free to test their mettle against your faithful friends, but if you do not have this counter, set an exclusion with “x”-“e” and do not come back until you have cleared Lair:5. ESPECIALLY if they are wielding some overpowered gear.

You may also encounter Sonja. Her HP bar is made out of paper. But don't let her touch you. She has tickets for a free cruise to the Abyss. You do not want those.

Ice Caves and Volcanoes? Death traps. Do not attempt them. Do NOT even enter them. You won't even be able to use the loot.

Gauntlets’ difficulty vary on the enemies you find inside - if you see a valuable book containing some awesome spells (see the next chapter), I encourage you to try your luck, but otherwise, it is not worth battling dangerous enemies in a cramped space that will limit the effectiveness of your allies. You can inspect a Gauntlet's contents by fully autoexploring the level, then doing a Ctrl-F search with "@" as the input, which will list all items in the Gauntlet. As for the Minotaur at the end - the javelins are absolutely brutal, but if you can read a Scroll of Vulnerability, then cast Anguish, the poor cow-person will simply two-shot themselves. Do not try to take on the Minotaur without the help of any consumables or evokables, you won't win.

Well, the earthy gem is down there, in Lair:5 - the first one you'll be collecting for me. This could be the start of a fantastic partnership, or of my eternal disappointment in you.

Compendium of Sinister Plans (Midgame Spells)

Once you are reaching the lower levels of the Lair, it is time to update your spell repertoire. First, use Scrolls of Amnesia if you have them to remove the now useless Summon Small Mammal and Call Imp. Their respective demiplanes will thank you for ceasing your kidnappings.

You should now plan to have:

• Call Canine Familiar
• Summon Blazeheart Golem
• Summon Lightning Spire
• Animate Dead OR a spell from this list
• One or two more spells from this list (if you opt to pick up two spells, they should not take up more than 11 slots together).

Not enough slots? Train Spellcasting! Each slice of 0.5 Spellcasting levels will grant 1 slot. Do not train this more than you actually need, set your training targets properly. Each general XP character level also grants 1 free slot.

You'll want to not take up every slot you have available right now - you'll need 7 for Haunt soon, and 8 for Infestation in a bit. Try to leave behind 4 available slots at minimum.

The Essentials

Something to unlearn from your melee brute runs: wide open space is GOOD. Closed, narrow corridors are BAD. This time, YOU are the one outnumbering them. And it's all thanks to these spells:

Death Channel (Level 6 Necromancy) - Like Animate Dead, it is another self-buff you can stick onto your 'e' keyboard macro. Its effect is simple: instead of letting the innocent souls of both living and demonic beings voyage into the afterlife to meet their relatives, you will force the essences of their being to stay behind and cause suffering to their former friends and coworkers. The sheer mass of allies produced is truly a spectacular sight - you may have Animate Dead and Death Channel activated at the same time, in which case every kill will generate up to two allies, flooding the entire screen with green circles in record time. Unlike Animate Dead, as soon as the status expires, your entire protective wall of spectres will vaporize in a single turn, and reveal some very unamused individuals who will gladly charge in and destroy your defenseless scruff. Do ensure you have some less ephemeral allies as backup.

Remember: at this stage of the game, if you aren't pressing the Death Channel button every single time something vaguely resembling an enemy appears on your screen, you should be passing the keyboard to an actual cat, who will no doubt play much more competently than you.

Spectres, unlike zombies, can also see invisible creatures and fly over liquids no matter their original species, which is interesting when such details matter.

I am a firm believer that everyone deserves a second shot in life. Or death, rather. Didn't visit that natural park you always wanted to go to? Couldn't tell your crush you loved them before getting crushed by a rock? Ran out of motivation to write your DCSS guide? Become a mindless thrall and forget about all your regrets! What, did you think I'd actually give you the chance to do these things you missed? Get real.

Anguish (Level 4 Necromancy/Hexes) - Ah, the ultimate answer to the thing Felids despise most - creatures with unreal quantities of ranged damage. This spell attempts to curse the entire screen with 100% reflection damage, meaning all damage they inflict on both you and allies... will be dealt back to them in full. Yes, dear lindwurm, do shoot a fire bolt through my horde of yak zombies, that will totally end well for you.

The lindwurm is wracked by anguish!!!!
The lindwurm dies!

I especially recommend you try it on: orc priests, meliai, any early game dragon, centaurs and their warrior variants, uniques with disgustingly overpowered spells... You have to beat their Willpower, but as any tyrannical regime would tell you, repetition is the key to domination! If the foe of interest has Will++ or less when you examine them, simply cast the spell again until they are successfully cursed.

If you cast the zpell from the 'z?' menu, you'll be able to move the cursor over each enemy and check the percentage chance of successfully landing the curse. Will+++ or even Will++++, like death yaks, or the Minotaur at the end of a gauntlet? No problem. Simply read a Scroll of Vulnerability to cut that confidence in half, and they will regret ever contemplating hurting a fluffball as adorable as you are. Consider that your Willpower will also be divided by two, which can be problematic if that means a nearby enemy spellcaster can easily land a nasty Paralyze or Banishment on you.

Brainless or artificial enemies (from gently gurgling jellies to the dreaded Orbs of Fire) have no concept of love, hate or righteousness, and will remain completely unaffected by Anguish. They won't be unaffected, however, by your swarm consuming them.

Blazeheart Golems become a DEVOURER OF GODS when put against Anguished enemies, who will be blasted both by the immense guilt of damaging your precious robo-friend, and by the more literal explosion of blazing fire that will ensue.

I like to put Anguish on my "Q"uiver, and to cast it with "p" right after I have unrolled a batch of summons. 2-3 casts for a single enemy should be your maximum number of attempts - do not spend your entire mana bar trying to curse a particularly rebellious specimen! You do not want to be left with zero mana - and a very angry reptile in your face - because you tried and failed to curse a Hydra 6 times in a row.

The Wu Jian council always lectures its followers to "use the enemy's strength against themselves". I try to do the exact same thing, and somehow, now it's "evil" just because it's me doing it? What injustice!

The Complements

These are certainly worth the slots.

Borgnjor's Vile Clutch (Level 5 Necromancy/Earth) - It's a beam. It ignores allies. Point, click, and everything in its path that doesn't resist constriction, isn't located on a deep water/lava tile and hasn't sworn allegiance to your indisputable leadership will be irresistibly crushed into a fine paste and denied the ability to move. Resist the temptation to run around going squish-squish-squish on everything you see without casting any other spell - you will demolish a yak pack. You will think to yourself "wow I'm so OP". You will annihilate a hydra. "haha I am unstoppable". You will come face to face with a black mamba. You have no zombie yaks or hydras protecting you because you thought it would be funnier to give a few animals a power massage. You get fully poisoned and die. This spell is a complement, not the main carry. You will need to train Earth Magic, and set a target to 6.0.

Martyr's Knell (Level 4 Necromancy/Summonings) - Is your wall of undead flesh and soul getting deconstructed too fast by rampaging elephants? Clearly, your makeshift RPG party has too many fighters, and needs a cleric. This poor soul does absolutely nothing except absorb 50% of all damage taken by any of your allies, trying its best to regenerate away the harm constantly imposed upon it. When it inevitably has its health bar popped like a balloon, it turns into a Flayed Ghost, which splatters blood all over the place and causes a great deal of drama and spectacle. Said Ghost is decent at fighting, but extremely fragile. Therefore, when a Martyr transforms, you may immediately bring out a new one to help protect this Ghost, and that new one will also turn, until you now have 3 Ghosts at the same time and enough blood to receive a lifetime title of honour at your local blood bank. So much for 'evil' magic.

Blink (Level 2 Translocations) - Ah, yes, it's that one spell which every single DCSS character wants. You are playing a game called DCSS, no? Train Translocations, and set a target to 5.0. You'll also need to REMEMBER TO USE IT, which is the worst thing about this spell. I like to bind it to a macro on Spacebar. If the button is bigger, it causes more neurons to fire in my brain. Which makes me actually use Blink when might-hasted Donald is in my face instead of drinking a Potion of Heal Wounds only to get oneshotted immediately afterwards. Remember, this spell has a cooldown of a few turns after use.

The Wilderness Trinity

No Death Channel? Kiku isn't feeling the festive cheer and is gifting you utter trash? Try these on for size. I recommend ignoring this section if you have good necromantic spells.

It's called the Wilderness trinity, because they all appear in one of the random spellbooks, named the Book of the Wilderness. You may also find them in various other tomes!

Summon Mana Viper (LV 5 Hexes/Summonings): It moves fast. It hits hard. It knows how to do nothing except those two things. It also demolishes enemy spellcasters by applying its dastardly antimagic venom on every hit. Does that remind you of anyone? Indeed. This is just like having a Minotaur Berserker of Trog by your side. Enjoy. Turn on Hexes with a target of 8.0 if you wish to use this spell. Maximum Summon Capacity: 1.

Summon Forest (LV 5 Translocations/Summonings): This one requires open space to be cast, which renders it useless in hallways - which the Lair and Mines are interestingly very scarce in. Successfully using this spell results in a maze-like formation of tree-walls, which are immune to damage, block Line-Of-Sight, and deal heavy melee damage to nearby foes. Feel free to run around the maze while pursued by an angry pack of animals - they will simply bring about their doom. The main downside: all this offensive power depends on the Dryad at the centre, which has suicidal tendencies and will gladly run into melee range of a Komodo Dragon. If she is slain, the spell will abruptly end. To prevent this, make use of “t”-“r” or "t"-"f" to remind the Dryad that her life is worth living, and make her fall back to safety. Keep in mind that barking out such orders will also cause your other allies to run in fear alongside her, so cast Summon Forest first, then use "t"-"r" if you do not need immediate support, and then dispense the rest of your army. If you can keep her alive long enough, snapvine tentacles will eventually start to spawn, which will utterly decimate anything still alive. They also constrict enemies, making them easier to hit by your other summons! If you quiver this spell with "Q", you will be able to see on the sidebar when the spell has enough space to be casted (the text will be coloured). The price for such power? Turn on Translocations and set the target to 8.0. Maximum Summon Capacity: 1.

Summon Cactus Giant (LV 6 Summ): An interesting - less dangerous, for starters - upgrade over the Blazeheart Golem. Its role is very similar - stand in hallway, tank hits, eventually destroy the attacker with immense damage. The melee damage of the Cactus Giant is decent, but each hit it receives inflicts heavy reflection damage. It’s perfect to use against those pesky hydras, and should be your go-to 1v1 spell against high damage melee targets, just like the role the Blazeheart Golem once served. It has a great synergy with a couple of spells:

• Summon Forest: While foes take damage bludgeoning their way through the Giant, they take even more punishment from the berserk trees surrounding them!
• Anguish: Double the reflection damage. Goodbye, melee enemies.
• Martyr's Knell: A twice bigger health pool to apply even more reflection damage throughout its lifespan. Longer duration, more time to regenerate mana, a great opportunity to recast this spell and do it all over again!

You will need around Summonings level 14 to use this spell. Maximum Summon Capacity: 1.

Pig-People and Pig-Iron (Orcish Mines)

After the Lair, it’s time to head into the Orcish Mines. Clear the Dungeon until you find the entrance if you haven’t done so already, then delve into the brown-hued staircase. Extra spicy death trap welcoming party? The answer: Animate Dead, Death Channel, Unearth Wretches. Remember: use this only if you need it! Your piety is precious, and the maximum tier (******) should be inching close by now.

Would you look at how good of a boss I am? You get a vacation here. Feel free to take your time here, there is no gem of interest to me in this place.

Orcs are not especially renowned for gentles caresses. Especially not the ones with a red danger square around them. In particular, avoid orc knights, warlords, and especially ettins from breathing on your scruff. In this Mines, the popcorn (DCSS term for very easy but numerous foes) is plentiful, and the sources of ranged damage even more so. This means that Anguish is an absolute star player here, easily beating orcs' pitiful Willpower and generating gargantuan armies of zombies and spectres in tandem with Animate Dead/Death Channel. Summon Lightning Spire also excels at thinning out the hordes.

Some notable foes:

• Orc sorcerers make most characters tremble in fear, because they have the overpowered Paralyze spell. You are not most characters. You most likely will not be paralyzed due to your infinite feline self-confidence. What such charisma won't protect you from, however, is a laser beam of pure blazing fire in your face. These (or the darkness damage variant) can twoshot you. They fall quickly to Anguish, but ring-swapping to obtain relevant resistances may prove interesting if you are being threatened.
• Kobold blastminers have a cute little ranged weapon. They like to go pew-pew-pew with it. It doesn't do that much damage. What does do damage, on the other hand, is the titanic cannonball they are packing (Bombard) should you get into semi-close range. Do not walk into a 4-tile radius of these without any ally in between - you will be - you guessed it - twoshotted.
• Orc high priests, and the aforementioned sorcerer can summon some demonic allies. Most are fairly weak, but Soul eaters will constantly smite you for darkness damage from across the screen (rN+ helps) and sixfirhies move at lightspeed and twoshot you with huge lightning damage. Did you know "sixfirhy" were originally named after a cat walking on the keyboard of a DCSS developer? It's true! Anyhow, kill that sorcerer/high priest and their friends will vanish, never to be seen again. Direct your minions to focus fire on these walking YASDs with “t”-“a”. Evokables, like wands, can prove useful for this. Using a staircase will also never have summoned demons follow you through it.

There are many possible layouts in Orc:2 - one in particular is peppered with centaurs of all types, and is extremely risky to clear - make ample use of fog/butterfly scrolls, chokepoints, and corners. A few other layouts will invite the attention of Saint Roka herself, which you should only ever duel when she is alone, as she uses Smite almost every other turn. A Scroll of Vulnerability alongside Anguish redirects those smites back to sender! A particularly entertaining vault is filled to the brim with dozens upon dozens of ogres, and while it's quite terrorizing for most characters, you should laugh it off and collect enough gold pieces to replace the clay pellets in your litterbox - as ogres make for excellent undead.

The more unfortunate among you may also encounter Azrael, or rather, Supreme Turbo Augmented Orc Priest of Mega-Doom. Most of his spells are fairly reasonable and can be tanked by your devoted friends, aside from one: Call Down Damnation. It will not oneshot you, but it can certainly twoshot you, and there is absolutely nothing stopping him from spamming it. The easiest way to deal with him is to sip on a Potion of Invisibility, then command your swarm to delete him as quickly as possible. He is vulnerable to icy damage, so a wand of iceblast tends to explode the last specks in his HP bar if your army found itself insufficient for taking him down. He also has Willpower, which means the spell that starts with "Ang" and ends with "uish" works tremendously well. Do not even think about using Scrolls of Silence, for all his spells come from his raw, primal hatred of cats incarnated into spheres of blazing fire.

Speaking of the latter, if you have a strong batch of allies, think about using scrolls of Silence! They will render all of the orcish upper caste incapable of blasting you with Beogh's fist, demons or elemental wrath. Even Saint Roka will be forced to rely only on her sword (fair warning: she knows how to use it).

Finally, if you find yourself before a gigantic crowd susceptible to remote detonating you with a one turn quadra-smite, consider a scroll of Immolation. Not only does it score a large quantity of points in the EXPLOSIONS department, killing a single orc with a wand or a Spire is bound to wipe out the screen. Of course, refrain from any pyromaniac tendencies if you are adjacent to two or more enemies with Inner Flame. Just one explosion can be survived with rF+.

Orc:2 is guaranteed to contain at least 4 shops. Unfortunately, we are still in the age of Fantasy Middle Ages. Big Data and targeted marketing has not been invented yet. Therefore, these dull merchants will, most of the time, try to sell you OP demon swords and crystal plate armours you can't even use. Perhaps, with some luck, a fine librarian fellow will sell you one of those necromantic spells Kiku might have refused to gift to you.

A Divine Heist (******)

Alright, this is the big moment. As soon as you are notified with the message:

Kikubaaqudgha will grant you forbidden knowledge.

Immediatately open your 'a'bility menu, and use "Receive Forbidden Knowledge". You will be gifted, every single time, Haunt, Infestation, Borgnjor's Revivification and Death's Door. Only 3 of these are of interest to this build. I believe you have guessed which ones already.

Infestation and Death's Door will be quite far away from usable status. But, if you have obeyed my every word (I see no alternative), Haunt should be at the very least near the 20% failure rate range. Intelligence and Wizardry jewellry helps a ton here.

You should memorize it, now. Not enough spell slots? Use a Scroll of Amnesia and remove Summon Blazeheart Golem. I believe you must be getting tired of that thing incinerating your undead army. Call Canine Familiar is also a reasonable candidate. If you have no such scrolls, train Spellcasting - remember, 0.5 skill levels = 1 spell slot.

Haunt (Level 7 Necromancy/Summonings) allows you to point and click any foe on your screen to send a squad of undead hitmen after it. They are professionals for three main reasons:

• Punctuality. They immediately spawn in right next to the Creature of Interest.
• Efficiency. Not only do they deal huge damage, they also lock the Creature of Interest in place and dish out Slow and Willpower/2 debuffs like candy. Invisible enemies? They have never heard of such an obstacle.
• Discretion. Once their grisly work is complete, they will swiftly evaporate out of reality, awaiting their next contract. Still, you may occasionally spot them damaging or even slaying some bystanders - can't have the word spreading around, after all.

Beyond the obvious assassination benefits, there are synergies with other necromantic spells as well:

• Anguish: Since this spell immediately dials up a considerable amount of allies, it's just more hitpoint to feed into the reflect-damage engine.
• Borgnjor's Vile Clutch: Is the Creature of Interest dodging all assassination attempts like the leader of some totalitarian regime? Perhaps they won't be laughing as much once you reduce their Evasion to near zero by applying constriction, thus letting the ghostly specialists carry out their grim task with great ease.

Bind them to the keyboard macro you used for the spell you have forgotten with the Scroll of Amnesia (Ctrl-D to do so). Haunt can have up to 8 spectral assassins out at once, so if one cast didn't bring them all out, you can dial 1-800-KILLTHATDUDE again and tell them to get moving by immediately recasting the spell. There really is no reason to not have these guys out constantly. They do good work, and they only take up 7 mana in pay.

Well. "Only" 7 mana. Is it just me, or these spells sure are getting quite hungry? I mean, all those Anguish casts, all those repeated Vile Clutches, summons, self-buffs, and now awesome spectral hitmen? This flimsy mana bar just isn't cutting it.

Well? Look around your library, perhaps I tossed Sublimation of Blood in your general direction. Or perhaps not. I am getting forgetful for my age. Which is many thousand millenias.

No, no. That flimsy health bar isn't cutting it either, now is it? Transferring the problem from the blue bar to the green bar isn't going to solve our problems.

An oddly inviting, squishy sound resounds through the Dungeon.

Now comes the part where this guide takes a highly controversial strategic choice: abandoning Kikubaaqudgha in favour of Jiyva. Yes. Abandoning gods in DCSS is, almost always, a poor decision, with rare exceptions. I believe this is one of those exceptions:

The greatest part of Kiku is the spell gifts. You have already gotten all of those. Let us look at the rest of what Kiku offers, shall we?

• Torment protection, an almost useless resistance to have, except in the very late-game.
• Death curse protection, an even more useless resistance, only of interest in the Tomb, a super late-game branch.
• The ability to invoke Torment, which is completely identical to the Scrolls of Torment you have no doubt been collecting, and most likely haven't even been using.
• Miscast protection, which does not actually block the truly bad part of miscasts - not getting to cast the spell.
• The only actually good ability, Unearth Wretches, which takes even more mana, is expensive to spam, and must be spammed to collect any army worth its salt in the midgame onwards.

Now let us look at what Jiyva offers:

• Free HP and MP regeneration that is exactly equivalent to wearing, somehow, four amulets of HPRegen and MPRegen at the same time.
• Endless mutation drops, granting boons such as free rF+, free rC+, free AC, free SH or free HP bonuses, all extremely difficult to acquire on a Felid.
• Instant emergency endgame summons from the Slime Pits when taking sudden, large amounts of damage (also known as "an average day" for a Felid), which can fight and demolish even the strongest foes.
• An active ability that oneshots any melee range living or corporeal undead creature, no questions asked.
• Complete pacification of all gelatinous creatures, some of which count themselves among the most feared foes of DCSS.
• A free rune of Zot.
• rCorr. For free.
• The so-called "downside" of having slurping jellies roam around every level and digest all items they can find - except artifacts, runes and gems -, the vast majority of which you never could use anyhow.

The Slime God has not received the attention of anything sapient in a very long time, and will be overjoyed enough to shower you in piety after just a bit of exploration. I won't lie, it sucks to have some great scrolls be devoured before your very eyes. I judge it to be a small sacrifice compared to-

Turncoat! Betrayer! You lawless toxoplasmosis-infested flea-ridden fuzz-thing! How dare you suggest abandoning the righteous forces of evil and torture for some first-grader slime making experiments?

Right, there's also the whole "divine wrath" thing. Let's unpack this. For the next 5-8 floors, you will have to deal with:

• Occasional Symbols of Torment. These are usually not triggered in dangerous moments, but when they are, enemies are also tormented as if you had just read a Scroll of Torment. In any case, Jiyva's first piety star (*.....) will immediately grant the first rank of their regeneration passive, and potions of Heal Wounds can be relied on for a quick heal.
• Occasional Stat Drain. Rather harmless when it is Intelligence or Dexterity, but having your Strength reduced to zero can paralyze, then slow you. (Note: this is rare.) Carry around jewelry with a Strength bonus, and equip it if this happens, taking it off when your Strength has returned to a normal level.
• Occasional HP drain. This is probably the most dangerous part. Losing 30 max HP for a short time can hurt, as it's not like you had a lot of the stuff to go around in the first place.
• Slain enemies will occasionally be revived in undead form. These are generally weak on their own - the more annoying part is that it steals your chance at reanimating them with your own magic.
• Rarely (5% chance), casting a Necromancy spell will deal a small amount of darkness damage. Mostly harmless, especially if you have rN+, but it can tip you over the edge if you were already almost dead.

An interesting fact: rN+ reduces both the Torment, darkness damage, and the HP drain. When abandoning Kiku, if it is not rendering your spells unusable, I strongly recommend equipping at least one rank of rN+.

Another interesting fact: dying as a Felid removes all Stat and HP drain.

Final interesting fact: Dispel Undead - a spell which Kiku may have gifted you - makes swift work of the annoying revived undead they keep throwing your way.

I have done this multiple times while playtesting my own guide. I have never once lost a run to Kiku's wrath.

Well, it's up to you to choose now. Will you follow me through this high-risk, high-reward play?

As my employee, you don't have a choice here. We have to cut healthcare out of the budget, because you spend way too much company time resting and regenerating. We'll be hooking you up on those experimental slime chemicals from now on. Maybe you'll help a breakthrough in pharmaceuticals, once we're done scraping your dissolved remains off the floor.

If not, I understand. I will continue writing this guide assuming a Jiyva swap, so the final piece of Kiku-specific advice I will grant is this: if you do not perform the god-swap, to offset the mana-draught, do one of the following:

• Equip an amulet of MP regeneration.
• Equip an amulet of HP regeneration, memorize Sublimation of Blood, and cast it early and often, NOT when you are desperate for mana and NOT when you can't afford to lose the HP. Put it on an easily accessible macro.

Now, allow me to divert my attention back to the brave and fearless, which are certainly not those people I was talking to in the previous paragraph. Indeed, to convert to Jiyva, you will need a Jiyva altar. Press Ctrl-F, and type "Jiyva". There is a 2/3 chance it spawned in Lair, and an additional small chance it appeared somewhere else.

Found it? Excellent, convert now. I suggest doing this as fast as possible - right after you receive Kiku's Forbidden Knowledge - to minimize the time spent experiencing divine wrath while clearing the deadly S-branches. Which is not a fun time. Proceed to the next chapter of this guide.

Is the Jiyva altar impossible to find? Good news: there is another option. Bad news: it involves... a mild amount of anxiety.

By Reading This Section, You Attest That Onei Will Not Be Held Responsible For Any Splats Which May Ensue (Diving Slime)

Okay, I'll be the first to admit we have departed from anything resembling sanity at this point. Whatever. Let's do this.

Going into the Slime Pits this early in the game is obvious suicide for most characters. Naturally, there is a trick at play:

• Kiku's Unearth Wretches instantly summons neutralized denizens from your current branch to turn into undead.
• Slime undead are extremely strong and plentiful, and their sheer mass protect you from dangerous melee attackers.
• The vast majority of Slime's creatures are exactly that - dangerous melee attackers.
• You have an entire full piety bar to use on Unearth Wretches, all of which will go away the moment you succeed in your goal and convert to Jiyva.

I believe you can see where this is going.

Having to do this is unfortunate. No, not because it's dangerous, I don't care about your wellbeing. I'm just worried about the Starry Gem. As one of the shortest ones in the game, diving Slime means you'll have to go down for the dive, go back up, rank up your Jiyva stars, then go back down, get that Gem, then back up again... Look, Jiyva is extremely important, so we can't change our minds now, and it's definitely still possible to get that Gem after doing all this, but it will be tight. Get moving!

You will need, ideally:

• To have cleared the entire Lair and Orcish Mines.
• To have both Animate Dead and Death Channel.
  • If you have only one, Death Channel is more important, but it's still possible with just Animate Dead.
    • If you have neither, I have no idea what you did to RNGesus, but it must not have been very nice.
• To have at least one Scroll of Blinking and one Scroll of Revelation.

These also help:

• Potions of Resistance.
• Potions of Brilliance.
• Scrolls of Summoning/Butterflies.
• A ring of Resist Corrosion.
• Potions of Haste.

Equip rCorr if you have it, and won't render your spells unusable in doing so.

Stand on top of the Slime Pits entrance. Drink Brilliance, if possible. Cast Animate Dead and Death Channel, whichever you have, hopefully both. Drink Haste, if possible. Go in.

I don't care what you see. Immediately use Unearth Wretches. Not on the brink of death? Use it again. Again. FLOOD THE SCREEN.

Once you have an army to protect you, immediately try to find a downstairs, wasting no further time. Go down. Does this look survivable for at least 2 turns? Yes? Unearth Wretches. AGAIN. Use your piety. ALL OF IT.

Is death imminent? Escape. Use the strongest means available. Just try to keep one Scroll of Blinking for Slime:5, preferably. Of course, if what is at stake is losing the run, use your last one.

Reach Slime:5. You know what to do. Unearth Wretches. Get that army in working order. Remember, you only lose Unearth Wretches if you somehow reach ...... piety, the lowest possible amount.

Read your scroll of Revelation. Don't have it? Tough luck, you'll have to manually explore to find the altar. It's usually somewhere close to the centre. If you do have it, press capital 'X', and survey the map for an "unknown altar" icon. That's your destination. Get moving.

Converting to Jiyva instantly renders the entirety of the Slime Pits completely harmless. You just need to get to that altar, and you'll have succeeded. Is it utterly swarmed and blocked by slimes of many nutritious flavours? That's what the Scroll of Blinking is for. Yes, blink on top of the altar, even if it's surrounded by deadly enemies. One turn is all you need. If those enemies include acid blobs and/or azure jellies, you may find the Potion of Resistance useful in preventing a oneshot.

Is the Royal Jelly prowling about? Command your army with 't'-'f' to NOT ATTACK IT. Not only does it spawn horrible amounts of OP slimes, it will also destroy the Jiyva altar if you somehow manage to kill it with your army of gelatinous doom.

Convert. Do it. You got this far. No second thoughts. Don't worry, your army won't go hostile. Even though you just angered the god of Necromancy itself.

Jiyva gurgles in joy at your terrifying pilgrimage all to worship them (even though you just murdered half their followers and turned them to undead servants).

You know, I was kind of hoping this would happen. It's been a while since I had the fun of smiting a mortal with horrible, debilitating dark curses.

Assuming you succeeded, the way back up will be peaceful and of utmost serenity. Surely Kiku's wrath will be a nice, relaxing affair after going through this.

Venomous Spiders On One Side, Angry Ancient Death God On The Other (D:11-D:15, S-Branches)

Before proceeding any further, clear the last floors of the Dungeon. This should give you a taste of what Kiku's wrath is like in a relatively safe environment. "Relatively", because there are probably centaur warriors prowling about with digusting amounts of ranged damage. Anguish. Haunt. Deadly armies. You know the drill. This shouldn't be too difficult. You'll also find the Vaults entrance on D:13 or D:14, with its signature swarm of human guards decked out in tons of metal. Perhaps they should have thought about protecting the inside of their skulls as well, as they are very vulnerable to Anguish as well.

That Smoky Gem is down there, in D:15! If you did things properly, grabbing it shouldn't be too hard. What's harder is keeping it intact. Try to have at least 800 turns remaining when you collect it! And as for D:11-D:15, don't explore more than half of each floor, except on D:13-D:14, where you'll want to find the Vaults entrance, and get moving again immediately afterwards!

Got some spell slots? Here's a suggestion:

Dispel Undead (Level 4 Necromancy) is the least complicated of all dark spells. Walk up to melee range of some rotting fool, press it, blast them with huge (3d31 at max damage, comparable to a Lehudib's Crystal Spear), unavoidable, defense-bypassing pure damage. Flavour-wise, your dark research has come to teach you the invisible forces holding together a corpse which shouldn't be animated, and the ways to unravel them. More creatures are undead than you may think:

• Bog bodies from the Swamp.
• Pharaoh ants from the Spider Nest.
• Any Player Ghost.
• Any creature reanimated by a deep elf death mage's lost souls.
• Death scarabs from the Tomb. You might encounter some early in the Nest, or after "accidentally" blasting your Infestation (covered lower) scarabs with, say, a scroll of immolation and turning them hostile.
• Most importantly, any of the zombies/spectres/simulacra reanimated by Kiku's malice.

Once D:15 is cleared and the entrance to Depths has been unveiled, it is time to go suffer in the S-Branches - considered by many DCSS players to be a large difficulty spike - accompanied by Kiku's constant stalking and horrible curses, because it wasn't hard enough. All according to plan.

You'll want to go to the S-Branch which has two words in it first. That means, the Snake Pit or the Spider Nest. The latter is much easier than the former, because there is less ranged damage, more hordes to turn into highly efficient undead, and the most dreadful threat within - the Ghost Moth - is countered completely by Haunt and Death Channel. Meanwhile, the Snake Pit is full of Naga Sharpshooter aimbot hackers, giga-flame-smite Salamander Tyrants, and the unique Vashnia, queen of ridiculous felid two-shots. Not to mention that some nagas actually have some Willpower to resist Anguish, unlike the animalistic and weak-willed creepy-crawlies.

Ironic, considering that most DCSS characters tend to fear spiders much more than snakes.

That first S-Branch isn't too terribly tight, thankfully. That doesn't mean it's another vacation! Once again, explore only about half of each floor, except the fourth and final one, where you'll probably have to spend a lot of time fighting tooth and nail and looking for that Gem. Oh, and a rune, too. But that one isn't that important, now is it? If you have leftover time when going up, you can full-clear the first floor, it's not like we'll be coming back here anyhow.

Let's get started. Do not Ctrl-G into the branch - you'll arrive there weak and unprepared, and if there is a welcoming party at the entrance, you are likely to have roughly the entire medical history of poisoning injected in your bloodstream as you sit there and get pwned. Instead, Ctrl-F for the entrance gate in Lair, and stand on top of it. Cast your self-buffs - Animate Dead and Death Channel. Good. Now, you can actually go down.

My recommendation for survival - armies of allies. Of course, you won't immediately have one, which makes the first few turns of each floor the hardest.

If only you had an ability that let you instantly summon that army. It's a shame. Truly. I have no idea what other choices you could have done to not be stuck in this situation right now.

A shy and distant slurp echoes faintly before the god's sarcastic tone.

Trust me, it will all be worth it in the end. For now, rely on Haunt, Anguish, and/or Borgnjor's Vile Clutch, depending on what you have. Your objective is building a swarm of Animate Dead zombies, wiping out the 4 floors of your first S-Branch until Infestation becomes castable. Which should be, all things considered, relatively soon. Perhaps a showcase of your imminent reward shall motivate you.

Infestation (Level 8 Necromancy) is, if you were unlucky and failed to find Animate Dead, your salvation. If you do have it, it's still your salvation, because this spell creates Death Scarabs from the bodies of any slain enemy (INCLUDING undead and artificial beings, but except summoned foes and Kiku wrath undead), bypassing Animate Dead (no zombie and scarab from the same slain foe!). What is a Death Scarab? Why, nothing short of a star resident of the branch which terrorizes 15 rune DCSS characters the most - the dastardly Tomb of the Ancients. Let's check those stats out:

• Moves and attacks faster than light itself. To be precise, every single time you get a turn, they get three.
• Irresistible Slow debuff on hit.

Infestation is a point-and-click ability, in a 5x5 square. The game makes it quite obvious. Like its point-and-click cousin Haunt, you'll be spamming this one a lot. Use a Scroll of Amnesia, forget one of your old starter Summoning spells, and bind the macro to Infestation instead!

Ideally, you'd get 2-3 from your first fight on a new floor. You'd take them for a pack walk, try not to blink when a new foe comes into view and they immediately charge towards it, cast Infestation again, and so on, gradually turning the entire floor population into scarabs. Unfortunately:

Your death scarab crumbles into dust!

Their lifespan is... limited. Certainly more impressive than Death Channel, but limited nonetheless. Once you have drawn the first blood, you need to keep the killstreak coming. If you have won a fight, and are now accompanied by invertebrate friends, it is YOUR time to start prowling about the level like some bloodthirsty, horrible beast for fresh scarab meat. Most importantly, unless you are on the brink of death, you should not be constantly waiting in place twiddling your paws until your HP and MP thresholds get to 100% - your scarabs will just get bored of your lack of courage and evaporate out of reality.

Here is an option to assist you in your SSS-combo-stacking fighting game quest. Ctrl-S to save and quit the game, and edit your rc/options file as indicated at the beginning of this guide, adding the following line:

rest_wait_percent = 60

This mildly dangerous option (you should be getting used to my unhinged recommendations by now) makes it so your character will start autoexploring (when you press 'o') at 60% HP/MP instead of 100%. Seems scary? A little, but Jiyva's high regeneration rate means that you'll most commonly be at 100% for your next fight, as you'll be healing while moving. Efficient!

Personally, I like it. If you don't want it, don't take it. I won't judge you on this one. For once.

Disregard that option. For all intents and purposes, that "explore_auto_rest" I had you add at the beginning of your contract is effectively setting that value to 0.

Enough talk about using my stolen gifts. Let's finish you off.

They Bite, They Fight, They Rot (Spider Nest)

If you have rolled this branch, you have been granted the Necromancy-special easy mode midgame. Despite what you may think, rPois isn't actually that important with this build, because the assorted venomous bites won't actually be able to reach you if you play correctly. Let's get cracking.

• Meliais are as horrifying as they were in the lower parts of the dungeon, and should be dealt with as swiftly as possible - note that their willpower is very fragile when faced with a scion of the One True Pillow-Pawed race, which makes them vulnerable to Polymorph/Charm wands or Anguish.

• Spark Wasps can pull off anime "teleports behind you" moves with extreme electric damage. They must be Anguished on sight. Haunted. Borgnjor's Vile Clutched. I don't care. Each turn those blue pixels exist on your screen, you are increasing the likelihood that you'll lose the run and be forced to go do something productive instead. We don't want that, now do we?

• Orb Spiders are highly annoying pests that will challenge you to a game of dodgeball without consent. The ominous purple Orbs of Destruction they will hurl at you inflict extreme, potentially oneshotting, undodgeable damage, and should be avoided at all costs. The easiest way to neutralize them is to have any creature eat the Orb for you - enemies work too, but the most reliable choice is any allied unit. A simple use of your Blink cantrip can also save your scruff, but do mind the heat-seeking properties of Orbs in open spaces, and be ready to Blink a second time.

• Broodmothers are nasty and will challenge you to a Zotémon duel, and they're a big fan of the Poison Type. Do remind them that Ghost versus Poison type is Not Very Effective. If you need to reach them from behind their wall of allies, use Borgnjor's Vile Clutch or Haunt.

• Arachne, a unique boss, deals 3 trillion ranged poison damage. Ring-swap to rPois. Or drink a Potion of Resistance. She is also quite vulnerable to Anguish. No rPois? At least try to not let her get a clear shot, get those Haunts and Borgnjor's Vile Clutches unrolling.

• You don't want anything in this branch to be adjacent to you, but you especially don't want Radroaches adjacent to you. Enough said.

• Ghost Moths are the signature enemy of this branch that gets the DCSS community trembling in fear, mainly because of their undodgeable, point-and-click gaze instantly deleting your entire MP bar. Do note that the DCSS community is also filled with fans of conjurations and blaster spells. As a proper gentlefeline, your much more subtle and intellectual magic isn’t limited to the turn it was cast. Casting Haunt once on one is pretty much a guarantee that it will die (if the spectres can reach it). If they are ruining your day, a Potion of Invisibility will shut down their mana-draining ability.

Also, they are invisible. But the feline master race has little patience for such trivialities. You won't even notice. Just don't be surprised if your scarabs/zombies are ignoring them.

Jiyva gurgles inquisitively, wondering how ghost moths reproduce if they can't see invisible, but are invisible themselves.

Realm of the Aimbot Hackers (Snake Pit)

There are many snakes. They move fast. They die fast, especially if you Anguish them. They fight well.

The Second Ordeal (Second S-Branch)

Kiku, why is the reader still alive? I was trusting you (and assorted spiders and snakes) to kill them. How did they get this far?

I always try my best. What makes you think they're still alive? I'm pretty sure they're just reading for fun at this point.

Fair enough. Well, tough luck, potential survivor, as it's about to get worse.

Check the success rate of Death's Door in your (M)emorization menu. If you are stacked with Wizardry/Intelligence buffs, it might be below 60%. Or not. That's fine too. You'll still want to start making room for it.

Start training Spellcasting to receive just enough slots to add it (0.5 level = 1 spell slot!), or use Scrolls of Amnesia on starter Summonings spells to free up slots.

If you make room to add it while clearing the second S-Branch AND the failure rate is below 50%, keep in mind this spell is utterly overpowered and will save even the most desperate situations. More on that later, but it might actually be worth gambling on if your other options aren't looking too good. Watch out: if you miscast it, it will likely just finish you off you with ~20 darkness damage. Until it reaches less than 20% failure rate, it's a last resort. LAST RESORT. Now is not the time to "save blinking scrolls for later". NO.

If you'd like to check how long you'll still have to deal with Kiku's wrath (assuming it is still pursuing you - if you abandoned in Orc:2, it is probably over now), press, in this order, '?'-'/'-'g'-'k'. There are five tiers:

• "Kiku's wrath is upon you!"
• "Kiku well remembers your sins."
• "Kiku's wrath is beginning to fade.
• "Kiku is almost ready to forgive your sins."
• "Kiku is neutral towards you."

Once you reach the final tier, you are finally free, and will be able to fully enjoy necromantic magic with glorious slime-powered regeneration for the rest of the run!

Not only is this second S-Branch a death trap, it's also super tight on time. Clearly, management thought the less turns employees spend in these places, the better. Typical ivory tower fools. Anyhow, when you find a normal staircase and the surroundings are clear and safe, just go down. You'll need a lot more time than you think to tackle those hydra parties and javelineer shooting ranges on the last floor!

Grand Oneshot Fiesta (Swamp)

This one is interesting, because most enemies here have ridiculous damage, but little ways of actually reaching you to apply it. It was already important before, but it is EXTREMELY important here to keep yourself surrounded by a cocoon of cold, well-meaning hugs from your assorted undead. Leaving your frail and vulnerable body exposed is opening the door to getting oneshotted by the extremely high damage hydrae, bunyips, alligators, will-o-wisps... Well, they actually have to do the effort of walking towards you to kill you (except the will-o-wisp). Which makes this place better than Shoals in my book.

• Eleionoma are an exception to this rule, and are also complete bullshit. I don't like swearing in my guides, but these ones deserve it. Their signature spell, Splinterspray, pierces allies, has huge range and deals up to 72 damage. A dull-witted minotaur may say, "they aren't that bad, I just tab them with my axe". Well, dear bovine comrade, Splinterspray has its damage negated 3 times in a row by your AC score. This means their existence is basically an insult to Felids in particular. Suffer not a single one to live. The counterplay? There is little - a ring of +4 Protection is worth a quick-swap when they are around, as it translates to a +12 AC bonus against this attack due to the multiplier. Because these aren't OP enough, they also giga-self heal when they touch trees. Just drop a fat Haunt or two on them on sight, the less seconds they breathe, the better.

• Swamp Worms are pretty harmless on their own, but they can shoot a beam that pulls the first entity hit into melee range of them. If you let them get a clear shot, you can get extracted from your massive army into a death trap. Mind the gaps in your formation.

• Bloated husks just run at you doing nothing and explode in a 5x5 area when they die. Not so unlike your old Golem pal. Aside the fact that this can make them deal huge damage to your army, it will, on average, take out half of your entire HP bar every single time if you get caught in the blastzone.

• Will-o-wisps endlessly churn out drones to seek and destroy you with huge fire damage. This will be blocked by allies, and Haunting them is highly wise. If you are exposed to their antics, though, consider ring-swapping to obtain rF+.

• Swamp dragons are not very dangerous, aside from the fact that they place disgusting green poison clouds all over the place. Got stuck in the chemical spill? Ring-swap to rPois, and you can immediately shut off every neuron in your brain that had registered their existence. No rPois? A potion of Resistance does the same thing. Otherwise, a potion of Curing heals all poison, but it won't help if you just get poisoned again by the cloud on the same turn. Focus on getting out, by walking, using the Blink spell or even a precious Blinking scroll if it truly matters.

• Shambling mangroves have a point-and-click constrict. It's kind of like the Borgnjor's Vile Clutch you may have chosen to obtain, but with even less counterplay. It ends when they perish, so hit them back with your own flavour of point-and-click, known as Haunt.

• Goliath frogs and Spriggan riders have reach (polearm) attacks. Don't just stand there 2 spaces away while they ignore your allies and prepare themselves a fine feline brochette.

I Swear You Had A Health Bar A Second Ago, Must Be Seeing Things (Shoals)

Ah yes, welcome to the funhouse of doom.

• Merfolk javeliners are utter cancer.

Crossroads of Immortality (The Ultimate Spell)

If you've actually made it this far, I sincerely congratulate you. The hardest part is over. Kiku should have forgiven you, or be very close to doing so.

Whatever. You're boring. If you need me, I'll be over here. On my throne of skulls. Watching slasher flicks. I'll especially not be watching your run, waiting for the moment you splat so I can cackle evilly at my indirect revenge. I would never do that. That sounds like something Zin would do.

Reap the fruits of your struggle. Behold - a level 9 spell, ranked among the legends of Polar Vortex, Shatter, Dragon's Call, Fire Storm...

A frenzied, disgusted sloshing resounds, as Jiyva remembers all those times their precious slimes exploded in collateral damage caused by these spells.

Not to worry. This one deals 0 damage. To your enemies, that is.

Death's Door (Level 9 Necromancy), on a successful cast, will immediately nuke your (already minuscule) HP bar, always setting it to around 10-20 HP points remaining. This will never directly kill you.

Not off to a good start, are we? The important part: for the next 18-25 turns, you CANNOT die through ANY means, and this buff CANNOT be removed. Picture this: while it is active:

• HP is an illusion.
• AC is an illusion.
• EV is an illusion.
• SH is an illusion.
• Elemental resistances? You guessed it - an illusion.

Do you see what I see? An eloge to felinekind. A loveletter. An enchantment which takes away all that makes them bad, leaving only the good. Every other species in DCSS is (rightfully) TERRIFIED of this spell, because when it ends, they will still be left at 10-20 HP, ready to be oneshotted by the tickling touch of a feather and rocketed back to the character selection screen. But cats know no such weaknesses, for they alone know the bony touch of oblivion all too well, and can respawn after even Death's Door proves ineffective at saving their lives. It's not like having 17 HP is that different from having 103, after all.

This means that you, dear reader, can afford to be extremely proactive in using this thing.

Picture the following scenario: going about your usual murderous business, some ranged cheater takes out 40% of your HP in a single attack, leaving you at 60%.

• Scenario 1: "Hey, I still have most of my health, it's fine."
  • Assuming you dodge reliably, how long do you think you could actually stay alive if that foe just refused to die and kept pelting you? 12 turns, at most?
  • That's assuming you dodge reliably, anyhow. You might just die next turn.

• Scenario 2: Cast Death's Door NOW!!
  • You now have exactly more than a dozen turns in which you have absolute certainty that death is impossible.
  • You can forget entirely about cowardly tactics such as "hiding behind allies" or "ring-swapping", and dedicate all resources to making sure that enemy is no longer on your screen by the end of the time period, whether through escape or murder.
  • Seriously, you can just read a scroll of immolation to blow up your entire army and everyone alongside it. You can just walk into melee range of hasted Ancient Liches and start blasting them with Dispel Undead. You can casually approach any living or corporeal undead creature, invoke Slimify from your (a)bility menu, and melee attack until you oneshot them. Embrace the power. Cleanse yourself of fear.

Unlearn your preconceptions. Forget your Minotaur instincts. There is Life, there is Death, and there is You, standing perfectly still at the line in between. This is your feline destiny.

Death's Door goes through a cycle:

You stand defiantly in death's doorway! You seem to hear sand flowing through an hourglass...

The spell just started, and the timer is engaged. (White "DDoor" status in the sidebar)

Your time is quickly running out!

Don't freak out. That actually just means it's about halfway done. You still have time. But if the whole "murder" angle is not looking good, start plotting your escape now. (Gray "DDoor status in the sidebar)

Your life is in your own paws again!

If you did not plan this out correctly, this is the part where they kill you. Because the invincibility just ran out. And you have 12 HP. Death's Door will go on cooldown (Yellow -DDoor in the sidebar) for the surprisingly short duration of 1-3 turns, so you cannot immediately recast it to protect yourself. Shoutout to the developers for recently changing this to say "paws" and not "hands" for Felids specifically!

You step away from death's doorway.

Death's Door is ready to be used again. Many times, I have managed to recast the spell while still engaged in combat, just because I had retreated safely into the middle of my army, or because I had an all-skill-no-luck EV dodge of a ranged attack that should have killed me. In that case, you simply get the 18-25 turns of invincibility all over again.

A note: Potions of haste are ridiculously strong in tandem with Death's Door. They effectively lengthen the duration by 33%. For the same reason, being Slow in Death's Door is terrible, as it shortens the duration by 33%. As expected, Haste and Slow cancel each other out.

Squishy Interlude (Slime:5 & Ring/Amulet Selection)

You might have reached (******) in Jiyva piety, or will soon. When that happens, Ctrl-G your way to Slime:5.

Ecstatic wobbling resounds before all this juicy, delicious loot!

Yikes. Well, at least the artifacts will be spared. Try to collect as many useful items as possible, and, of course, the rune.

And the GEM. If you're tight on turns, forget the loot, get back up to that Lair, NOW!!

Speaking of "useful items", your inventory is probably getting full. Here is how I choose my rings. Bold = Good.

• If Wiz is causing your Death's Door to be more reliable, it's highly valuable.
• +X Int is never bad.
• +X Str is more important than it looks, as just having one to quick-swap on might stop a 0 Strength situation. Keep one in your inventory at all times. Not necessarily worn.
• Resistances aren't as useful now that we have a spell to take out Death itself on a nice Sunday movie night hangout. But they are still interesting to dial down oneshots and twoshots - rF+ in particular is pretty good, as this damage type is quite common. Jiyva already gives you rCorr for free.
• +X MP is decent. But Jiyva's mana regeneration is already almost infinite mana. You can do better.
• +X Dex gives EV. But not as much as a +5 EV ring. You have enough EV to go around already. Find better.
• Will+ is not very useful, because cats know nothing of self-doubt. Will-, however, is bad, as it re-introduces all those annoying hexing experiences other species have to deal with. Cancel it out with a Will+ if it's really worth it.
• All the "dangerous" properties like "Drain", "Corrode" can mostly be ignored. Except "Slow". That one is bad. Only take it if it has huge bonuses to compensate.

And here is how I choose my amulets. Bold = Good.

• RegenMP - more mana. More scarabs. More Death's Door. More fun.
• Acrobat is surprisingly great, as you spend a lot of turns just waiting and moving around. +15 EV is serious business, especially when it comes to surviving an expiring Death's Door.
• Reflection, in a similar vein, blocks some attacks, and can even return some ranged ones to sender.
• Regeneration is interesting, because it has a lot of chances to tick while you move around your army. But I think the above ones are better.
• Faith is useless. Are you going around using Slimify on everything you see? No, you are not. Do better.
• YASD Guardian Spirit: "Oh no, my beloved feline friend! You took quite the hit there. Good thing I spread it to your mana bar to offset the damage! You now have 5 MP and 30 HP, instead of only 10 HP! What do you mean 'I needed that mana for Death's Door'? You don't need spells to protect yourself. You have me!"

Knife-Eared Folks and their Floating Knives (Elven Halls)

This area is completely optional-

No, it's NOT. Get that GEM!! Great, another one of these places where you dilly-dally thinking it will be fine only to spend a thousand turns running away in fear from reality-shattering archmagi on the final floor. Do this one just like the second S-Branch - use SAFE staircases, which have no enemies around them, IMMEDIATELY, and dedicate all your effort and care to looting that Elf:3 fortress!

-but I encourage you to clear at least the first two floors to acquire bonus experience, and polish up your Death's Door. At this point, you should only be training Necromancy. Maybe Spellcasting if you are desperate for slots. Because SOMEONE has been eating all the Amnesia scrolls.

A distant sound of paper being dissolved in acid echoes through the Elven Halls.

The Elves haven't been hitting the gym. Their muscles are weak, because they play DCSS all day. When you drain all that education out of their skulls by turning them to zombies, they do almost nothing except contribute their hitpoints to the Anguish fund. We do not want this. We want OP scarabs. Spam Infestation left and right on these fools. Even the dancing weapons.

A death scarab bursts out of the +4 trident of felid slaying!

How does that even work? Whatever. Let's talk timed portals. Semi-rarely, you may find:

• The "crackle of arcane power". Wizard Laboratories are pocket-sized adventures ranging from litterboxes of loot to death traps. If I were you, I'd avoid Tukima's Studio, unless having a clone of yourself spam Haunt on you while OP dancing weapons pwn you sounds funny. The rest should be fine. Watch out for Doroklohe’s Tomb, it will appear to be safe then jumpscare you with tons of endgame mummies or other OP foes. If you want to clear that one, stay in the entrance and wait (5) over and over, don't wander off into the main room.

• The "coins being counted". A Bazaar is almost always worth it. This one might even be worth reading a Scroll of Revelation for. If you have the gold to spare, of course (press '$'). In your shopping spree, stock up on delicious potions, interesting scrolls, and spells that might be missing from your kit.

• A "distant wind". Ah, yes, the Death Trap Desolation of Salt. This place kills so many players. Luckily, this build is probably one of the best at taking it head-on, and the loot tends to include some sick rings and amulets. If you wish to test its mettle, my advice is to just spam Infestation on those trillions of saltlings rushing to melee you. Simply run around and Infestation everything you see until the screen is covered in scarabs. You may need to use Death's Door if things go south.

In the Elven Halls, and especially Elf:3, there are a wide variety of professionals with PhDs in kitty-murder. The valedictorians here are:

• Dancing weapons: Don't mistake them for floor items, notice the little music note icon on their sprites. Some are utterly trivial (+1 trident of holy wrath) while others will be your doom (+9 executioner’s axe of antimagic). Don’t fight too fast, and check the brands and enchantments of what you are faced against. If it has enchantments of +4 or more, or is branded with Flaming, Freezing, Venom, Electrocution, Antimagic, Protection, Speed or Distortion, it’s a threat. Did I just list almost every possible brand? Hm.

Regardless, Borgnjor's Vile Clutch completely demolishes them, because their defenses are all-dodge-no-armour (like you!), and that spell cannot be avoided. Haunt is also interesting.

You'll find an extreme amount of these behind the big runed gate in Elf:2, known as the Hall of Blades. I generally don't even bother opening it. These enemies are hard enough, and the shiny metal they leave behind isn't even designed for quadrupeds. Psh!

• Deep elf master archers: You may be purring in mockery as 5 arrows whiff past you one after the other. Enjoy becoming a porcupine when a single shot cuts away 50% of your HP. These should never, ever get a clean line of fire at you, and should have Haunts dumped on them immediately if they do. Like any ranged foe, remember that closing doors behind you can prove surprisingly effective.
• Deep elf elementalists: TRY NOT TO STAND NEXT TO WALLS! It is their strongest attack, because they can point and click walls to remote-detonate them. Anyways, as a herder of allies, you should be prioritizing wide open space instead. The Blink spell can help you get away. The other elemental flavours of pain aren't as bad, as long as you keep drowning them in undead.
• Deep elf sorcerers & high priests: Damnation hurts. Sending foes to block their line of fire by standing adjacently to them will make them hesitate, as they’re not masochistic enough to blow themselves up.
• Deep elf annihilators: With your high EV, most of the time, they will miss, but when they don’t, ouch. Their worst spell is the Crystal Spear, but it has thankfully limited range, so keep your distance (more than 4 tiles).
• Deep elf blademasters: It’s an elf, but with +99 daggers of kitty-slaying and rocket-boot thrusters. Don't let these touch you.
• Deep elf death mage: It's you! But less fluffy. Therefore lesser. Their signature spell, Call Lost Souls, summons some harmeless, annoying puffs of spectral matter that will revive once nearby dying elves into a ghost variant (this adds a little skull icon on their sprite). When they are reanimated thus, if you have Dispel Undead, you can walk up and blast them - otherwise, your other tools are just as efficient as they are on their living counterparts.

Thankfully, these elven bullies are mostly hidden in their big fortress somewhere in Elf:3, and can be dealt with in little groups at a time, as the entrance to their headquarters is conveniently shaped like a funnel. Approach the final vault, lure in a few volunteers, dispose of them, rest, and return, until the flood stops. Dashing in, battling all of them at once, and expecting to win is extremely foolish.

If you have Summon Mana Viper, it can have impressive results here! Antimagic-biting an Annihilator to force them to use their puny arms instead of their reality-shattering conjurations is quite effective.

Unlike the lesser humanoids, Banishment is very unlikely to happen to you here. If it does happen, stay calm. The first instinct of many players is to start walking in diagonals to find an exit, but you should not be doing this with this build. You have the ability to organize a nice little fortress with your allies, and fend off invaders coming from all sides. After proving to Lugonu your fighting prowess, you will be let out without complications. Dying in the Abyss is very undesirable, as you will simply respawn in another equally dangerous location of this infinite plane of madness.

Addendum: From Lackey to Supervillain (Character Building)

For convenience, I will gather all skilling targets and the spell memorization order in this section. Feel free to return here as you need for quick reference!

Your Propaganda Arsenal (Spells)

Throughout this run, you will be encouraged to memorize, in this order, and approximately at these points of the game:

(Note: the "LV" numbers are how many spell slots you need for each spell, not your XP level. As for the locations on the right, you should be able to cast these spells somewhere around reaching these places.)

• LV 1 - Summon Small Mammal (D:1)
• LV 2 - Call Imp (optional - Necromancy is very tight on spell slots and Scrolls of Amnesia are precious, but this spell helps prevent early splats) (D:1)
• LV 3 - Call Canine Familiar (D:2)
• LV 3 - Summon Blazeheart Golem (D:2-D:4)
• LV 4 - Summon Lightning Spire (D:4-D:7)
• LV 4 - Anguish (D:6-Lair:2) (Not guaranteed!)
• LV 4 - Animate Dead (D:5-Lair:2) (Not guaranteed!)
• LV 6 - Death Channel (Lair:3-Orc:2) (Not guaranteed!)
• LV 7 - Haunt (Orc:2-First SBranch:1)
• LV 8 - Infestation (First SBranch:2-Second SBranch:2)
• LV 9 - Death's Door (Elf:1-Vaults:2)

Also useful, at any point:

• LV 2 - Blink (Not guaranteed!)
• LV 5 - Borgnjor's Vile Clutch (Not guaranteed!)
• LV 4 - Dispel Undead (Not guaranteed!)

As marked on the list, Kiku's delivery service can be a little bit... lacking at times.

Running a forbidden knowledge book printing business isn't easy. I'd like to see you explain to your publisher why blood sacrifices are essential to have in "Fun Necromantic Activities for Children"!

Check your "M"emorization screen every so often. Ctrl-F to see if you missed any books in shops or in rune door vaults. Whenever you have the spell slots required to memorize the next spell, do so immediately and, if it has an entry in the section below, adjust your skills appropriately.

Skip to the next entry on the list if you are incapable of finding a spell anywhere in your game. As soon as you find a missing spell, however, you should add it to your repertoire as soon as possible to catch up. I strongly encourage you to cast every single one of these fantastic incantations at least once in your game!

If you fail to obtain one of the crucial Kiku spells, a member of the Wilderness Trinity can certainly come along as a replacement:

• Summon Forest (Translocations 8, Summonings 11)
• Summon Cactus Giant (Summonings 14)
• Summon Mana Viper (Hexes 8, Summonings 11)

Studying the Dark Arts (Skills & Training Targets)

As soon as you start your run, train these skills and set them to these targets, with the "=" button:

• Spellcasting: 14
• Summonings: 11
• Turn off Stealth and Dodging.

Right when Summon Blazeheart Golem has been memorized, add the following skills:

• Fire Magic: 5
• Forget Summon Small Mammal as soon as you can.

After Summon Lightning Spire has been memorized, complement it with this:

• Air Magic: 5
• Fighting: 10
• Dodging: 10
• Forget Call Imp as soon as you can.

(OPTIONAL) - Blink will never not be useful, and can come along at any point in your run:

• Translocations: 5

If you find Animate Dead, your necromantic journey can truly begin.

• Necromancy: 27

Upon getting either Death Channel or Anguish, power yourself up like so:

• Necromancy: 27 (if you have not already done so)
• Hexes: 8 (only if Anguish has appeared in your game)

Want Borgnjor's Vile Clutch? You'll need some Earth Magic:

• Earth Magic: 6

Forget Summon Small Mammal, Call Imp, Summon Blazeheart Golem, Call Canine Familiar, and Summon Lightning Spire (in that order) if you need spell slots.

Ultimately, after Death's Door's failure rate has dropped below 5%, your choice of ultimate pick to iron out your last weaknesses is quite open-ended. Some suggestions:

Granite or Dragon Talisman:

• Shapeshifting: 16

Fugue of the Fallen + Unarmed build:

• Unarmed Combat: 27
• Fighting: 15
• Dodging: 19

High level Summonings:

• Summonings: 21
• Translocations: 16 (only for Malign Gateway)

Unused Text

Life would be so much simpler if everyone was an undead thrall, you know? Perfect order, absolute obedience, flawless coordination. I bet technology would be propelled centuries foward if people stopped clutching that worthless "identity" everyone keeps talking about.

Through some unfathomable magical force, all DCSS characters are seemingly capable of learning any discipline in minutes while doing utterly unrelated things. In real life, it would be like mastering painting while going to do reps in the gym. Or getting an education while playing Dungeon Crawl Stone Soup.

And yet, they pour all of that experience into knowing how to swing a metal stick really, really fast, or how to correctly pronounce "pew pew" while conjuring forth assorted metal pellets and crystal shards. But in their tutelage, they learn next to nothing about the omnipresent entity that is Death itself, and when the words "You die..." finally stain the bottom left corner of their screen, they are left powerless.

In this guide, we will not make the same mistake. We will learn to know Death until it becomes that friend we go to the movies with on rainy Sundays.