Spriggan

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

This page is about the player species. For the monster, see Spriggan (monster).

Spriggans are small magical creatures distantly related to Elves. They love to frolic and cast mischievous spells. They are poor fighters and have little physical resilience, though they are incredibly skilled at dodging attacks. They are terrible at destructive magic - conjurations, summonings, necromancy and elemental spells. On the other hand, they are excellent at other forms of magic, and are very good at moving silently and quickly. So great is their speed that a Spriggan can overtake a Centaur. Their size makes them unable to wear most armour. They cannot wield large weapons, and even most smaller weapons require both hands to be wielded by a Spriggan.

Innate abilities

• Spriggans are little. They get bonuses to EV and Dodging, but are too small for many items.
  • They are completely unable to use most two-handed weapons: great swords, triple swords, dire flails, great maces, battleaxes, executioner's axes, halberds, scythes, glaives, bardiches, longbows, triple crossbows, javelins, and anything medium-sized species can't wield.
  • Large one-handed weapons: magical staves, double swords, tridents, demon tridents, and broad axes, are two-handed weapons to them.
  • In addition, spriggans are unable to wear the following types of armour: kite shields, tower shields, gloves, boots, helmets, and any type of body armour apart from robes or hide-based armour (animal skin, troll leather armour, and dragon scales).
• Acute Vision: Spriggans can see invisible.
• Fast 3: Spriggans cover ground extremely quickly during movement. Each move takes 0.6 decaAut (which is as fast as a 167% speed monster).

Spriggans have a base Strength of 4, Intelligence of 9 and Dexterity of 10 (before Background modifiers). They have +1 to base magic points.

Preferred Backgrounds

• Warriors: Brigand
• Warrior-mages: Warper, Enchanter
• Mages: Conjurer, Earth Elementalist, Venom Mage
• Adventurers: Artificer

Level Bonuses

• +1 intelligence or dexterity (equal chance) every 5th level.
• 30% less HP than average.
• +7 willpower per level.

Starting Skills and Equipment

Spriggans start with the skills and equipment listed for their background, with the following exceptions.

• Incompatible body armour is replaced with an animal skin or robe.
• Javelins are replaced with boomerangs.

Difficulty of Play

Spriggans are fairly easy to play, mostly due to their fast movement speed. Where a normal species would need to fight or expend resources, a Spriggan might be able to just run away. They also have high evasion, a massive Stealth aptitude, and are good with a few types of magic. High willpower is a nice bonus on top.

However, they have very low HP, and are too tiny for most armour. Always keep this in mind, even when you have huge EV and feel that nothing can touch you. A few bad rolls — or a few evasion-ignoring attacks — can be fatal. Fortunately, Spriggans' high speed makes it easy to remain in control and fight or flee from battles on your own terms.

Skill aptitudes

The higher the value, the better the aptitude.

Skill	Aptitude	Skill	Aptitude	Skill	Aptitude
Attack		Miscellaneous		Magic
Fighting	-2	Armour	-3	Spellcasting	2
		Dodging	3
Maces & Flails	-3	Shields	-3	Conjurations	-3
Axes	-2	Stealth	5	Hexes	2
Polearms	-3			Summonings	-2
Staves	-3	Invocations	0	Necromancy	-1
Unarmed Combat	-2	Evocations	3	Translocations	4
Throwing	0	Shapeshifting	2	Alchemy	1
				Fire Magic	-2
Short Blades	1			Ice Magic	-2
Long Blades	-2			Air Magic	-1
Ranged Weapons	0	Experience	-1	Earth Magic	-1

Strategy

In the early game, the main threats to a Spriggan are:

• Getting trapped between monsters. Careful exploration - so that you don't have to retreat towards unexplored areas - is nearly essential to avoid the possibility of being trapped.
• Scary ranged attackers. An early orc priest can one-shot you, for instance. Spriggans have two defenses against this. The first is speed - in many cases, you can run away, and enter from a different staircase. The second is their great Stealth, which lets you dodge enemies. Considering that many Spriggans stay in light armour for the entire game, training some stealth costs little and helps a lot.
  • Note that monsters can't attack outside line of sight. If both you and the monster have a ranged attack, then keep monsters at the edge of LOS (7 tiles away). If you take too much damage, step away to force the monster outside LOS, allowing you to make a getaway.

While spells like Blink and Iskenderun's Mystic Blast can negate the former threat, ranged attacks will always remain a problem. Also, certain monsters (such as killer bees and black mambas) are even faster than you, so you can't just run away.

With the speed to kite, high dexterity and a tendency for light armour, Spriggans can be good at Ranged Weapons. Note, however, that they can't use longbows and triple crossbows. Kiting is powerful, but not the be all, end all: your fragility is still noticeable in a ranged fight.

Spriggans have a high aptitude in Shapeshifting, but note that entering Serpent, Statue, Dragon, or Storm Form will negate your fast movement speed. However, due to the HP and defenses these forms provide, you may want to use them anyways.

Background Choice

Spriggans' innate abilities make them well-suited to a few particular classes:

• Enchanters: Spriggans' aptitudes heavily favour stabbing, as they are quite talented in Stealth, Short Blades, and Hexes. Moreover, their high speed works very well for a stabber: unlike normal speed races, a few bad rolls of the dice will not leave a Spriggan with an angry ogre sticking to them like glue.
• Alchemists and Brigands: Both of these builds rely (early on, at least) upon inflicting high levels of poison on monsters from a distance. Spriggans' speed allows them to maintain that distance, allowing them deal with many threats without ever letting them into melee range.
• Necromancers: Spriggans have passable aptitude with Necromancy, and the ability to raise several meat shields for yourself is always helpful.
• Conjurer and Summoner types in general: Being able to maintain distance while blasting is a great thing. Unfortunately, Spriggans' aptitudes for such magic are rather terrible, but spells like Fulminant Prism (Conjurer) and Summon Forest (later on) also use your greater aptitudes.
• Hunter: As mentioned in the main strategy section, Spriggan hunters are able to continuously kite melee enemies and maintain distance.

God Choice

Spriggans are reasonably good with most gods, but a few stand out (in no particular order):

• Kikubaaqudgha: Goes well with a necromancer build. The torment ability is a bit more useful for Spriggans than most races, since their speed provides a powerful escape option.
• Trog: A somewhat paradoxical choice, but actually pretty strong. Spriggans' intrinsic speed makes post-berserk slowing noticeably less dangerous, as you remain faster than regular speed enemies. Trog's Hand helps out with their low HP, and Brothers in Arms is a powerful panic button in general.
• Ashenzari: Complements a stabbing build very nicely. The detection and scrying can be good for avoiding danger, particularly around corners.
• Okawaru: The armour gift can be useful for Spriggans, since they are guaranteed to be wearable. Also boosts and gifts ranged weapons.

Cheibriados is considerably more difficult, since this god removes one of Spriggans' primary advantages (speed).

History

• Prior to 0.29, Spriggans could wield triple crossbows, and had a +2 aptitude to Slings and Bows.
• Prior to 0.27, Spriggans had a +4 Dodging aptitude and started with base 11 Dexterity, but EV had a hidden stepdown.
• Prior to the removal of the hunger system in 0.26, spriggans had Slow Metabolism 2 and were Herbivorous, meaning they required very little food, but could only eat rations.
• In 0.20, demon tridents became two handed for spriggans again.
• Prior to 0.19, Spriggans could not use triple crossbows. Also, morningstars, eveningstars, long swords, scimitars, demon blades, war axes, spears, demon tridents, and greatslings were two handed for them.
• Prior to 0.16, Spriggans began play with a potion of porridge in place of a bread ration.