The Royal Jelly

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

For a list of all jellies, see list of jellies. For the obsolete item, see royal jelly (item).

the Royal Jelly J
HP	152-308
HD	21
XP	14247
Speed	14
AC	8
EV	4
Will	180
Attack1	50 (hit: acid)
Attack2	30 (hit: acid)
Resistances	rPois+ rAcid+++ rDrown
Vulnerabilities	Silver
Habitat	Land
Intelligence	Brainless
Uses	Uses nothing
Holiness	Natural
Size	Large
Type	jelly, jelly
Flags	Destroys doors See invisible Unbreathing Unblindable Unique Acidic flesh Web immune

A particularly rich and golden gelatinous thing. Smaller jellies swim and pulse just below its surface, ready to burst forth at the slightest touch.

Useful Info

The Royal Jelly (or TRJ) is the jelly boss of the Slime Pits. Located in the center of Slime:5, it will not emerge until you've entered the stone structure it resides in, or you make enough noise nearby to awaken it.

It has an impressive amount of HP, powerful acidic melee attacks, exceptional speed, and an unusual defense mechanism: whenever it's damaged, it spawns various powerful jelly-type monsters to attack you (azure jellies, quicksilver oozes, rockslimes, and acid blobs). Fortunately, it cannot pursue you up stairs, allowing you to abort attempts at killing it that you don't feel confident you can complete.

Killing the Royal Jelly causes two things to happen:

• The translucent walls of the four central vaults that the Royal Jelly guarded will come crumbling down, allowing you access to the slimy rune of Zot and the piles of treasure.
• Jiyva, the god of slimes, immediately ceases to exist once its biggest sentient worshiper dies. You can prevent this by worshiping Jiyva yourself before killing TRJ, but killing such a high-ranking jelly will result in penance. Note that you can't escape divine wrath by killing TRJ, as you still technically believe in Jiyva.

Strategy

How To Kill It

Buffing up is highly recommended, regardless of your strategy. Potions of haste, might, and/or brilliance can help you deal lethal damage to TRJ before its reinforcements make life unbearable, or allow you to escape before you die.

• TRJ is large, but not giant. This means it is vulernable to throwing nets; allowing you to get free actions while the boss is immobile. Its many slime allies can still attack, if you don't funnel them in a hallway.
• Melee fighters should not simply charge in and bash the thing. Even with corrosion resistance and heavy armour, fighting eight corrosive opponents will quickly send your offensive capabilities and AC plummeting, leaving you weak and very vulnerable. Always soften it up before engaging it in melee, and buff heavily. In a similar vein, stabbing TRJ is possible - but often inadvisable.
• TRJ retreats behind its spawned jellies periodically, forcing you to fight through them. Attacks like javelins, Starburst, and Beogh's smite can ignore the surrounding jellies. TRJ is especially weak to silver.
  • Fighting TRJ in one of the central corridors restricts the number of monsters that can attack. Just be prepared for the angry jelly mob once you're done. Summons, such as from a scroll of summoning, will prevent TRJ's slimes from reaching you, or prevent TRJ from retreating. If the fight goes badly, summons can be used as your own retreat fodder.
• TRJ is a natural creature, and thus vulnerable to torment. Reading two or three scrolls of torment will drop it to near death, and a few ranged or smite-targeted attacks will kill it despite the surrounding army. Just be aware that this strategy will also leave your own HP dangerously low (rN+++, or else being undead is highly recommended).
• A scroll of immolation works well: hit TRJ 1-2 times, read the scroll, then kill any of the spawns to set off a chain reaction. Make sure to have strong, hasted ranged attacks - or rF++(+) to tank the immolation blasts. You can also use summons or slime zombies from Animate Dead/Infestation; either side that loses, will explode.
• TRJ can be polymorphed or paralyzed if you have high Evocations and you reduce its willpower with a scroll of vulnerability or orb of guile. Beware of golden eyes!
  • Make sure you clear out the floor, or otherwise make absolutely sure you're secure, lest golden eyes chain-confuse you.
  • Successful polymorphs will immediately create a very large number of jellies, and due to TRJ's high HD, whatever it turns into will also be dangerous: expect titans, high-end dragons, or shrikes. However, TRJ will not spawn any more slimes, and killing it will still unlock the rune vaults.

God Abilities

• Many god abilities can bust through TRJ. Whenever it'd be multiple Brothers in Arms from Trog, a well positioned Disaster Area from Qazlal, or a surge of cards from Nemelex. Make sure to use the abilities you got!
• Banishing TRJ via Lugonu's ability doesn't unlock the vault, meaning you'll need some way to bypass stone walls. Luckily, Lugonu provides the stone-breaking Corrupt ability. Failing this, you may need to use Shatter or even follow TRJ to the Abyss yourself. Banishing stil requires TRJ's will to be reduced in some way or another.
• Of course, if you wish to avoid this entire mess, you can simply worship Jiyva and waltz in at 6* of piety. Most of the treasure will inevitably get eaten, but you'll at least be able to make off with the rune and whatever artefacts were present. Apportation may be handy.
• Okawaru worshipers can kill off all other jellies before challenging TRJ to a duel. This will leave all the treasure to pick up at your leisure as TRJ (or you) will die in the arena and not on Slime 5.

How To Escape It

• TRJ will not follow you upstairs, but its generated slimes will. If you plan on running back upstairs mid-fight, expect some of its spawns to follow you.
• If you need to escape the floor without pursuing jellies following you up, Haste will also allow you to make a fairly safe escape; TRJ will keep up with you, but nothing else will. If you wish to actually outrun TRJ, you'll likely need both Haste and Swiftness.
• If you've accidentally created an army of jellies and need to abort, heal up and stair dance so you can clear out the reinforcements without dealing with too many of them at a time. Entering the floor from different staircases will let you avoid being immediately surrounded.
• Shatter, while ineffective against everything you'll find in the Slime Pits, can be used to break open the loot vaults and skip the fight entirely. It is, however, very difficult to cast as well as very loud, likely attracting the attention of every slime on the entire floor.

History

• Prior to 0.27, death oozes were created, instead of quicksilver oozes and rockslimes.
• Prior to 0.23, exploding the Royal Jelly with Uskayaw's Grand Finale didn't generate any jellies.
• Prior to 0.19, the Royal Jelly could eat items and could heal itself when shot with anything other than stones.
• Prior to 0.16, the Royal Jelly did not immediately spit out a large number of jellies when polymorphed, making it a viable combat strategy.
• Prior to 0.15, hitting the Royal Jelly could generate brown oozes as well.
• Prior to 0.11, the Royal Jelly was not able to regenerate naturally. This made the fight much easier to complete over several small assaults.