Failed ironman journal

[Sphara]

JOURNAL of a Kobold Mage
Ironman run with semi-aggressive diving.

EDIT (8th April 2019): Little journal I wrote back in January.

http://angband.oook.cz/ladder-show.php?id=22274

Town: Game begins with Farmer Maggot being generated. I sell my rapier and WoR scroll. Buy a broad sword for better melee. Buy 4 !CLW and 4 ?PD. 2 rations, 2 torches, cloak, 2+0 robe and 2+0 boots. That brings my account to zero. I go kill Maggot and he drops Sling of velocity (+7 +15). No money to buy iron shots so I enter Angband.
Level 1: Lucky start. The first item I find is a scroll of deep descent. Down I go.

Level 6: First monster encountered here is a purple mushroom patch. Yabba dabba doo! One magic missile raises me to CL 5. Learn every spell other than Fireball. Nothing spectacular on the level (2-2). Although Wand of Wonder, Staff of CLW and Rod of Light are good finds. Take the stairs on turn 1112

Level 7: Omens of death. Detect monsters. It shows 14 homonculi and 20 lemures. This is a true leave-ASAP level. Find stairs behind the first corner. Down on turn 1138.

Level 8: Enter 6-? level with zero mana. Kill a skeleton kobold and a scout with a help of _CLW. Find downstairs but I explore a bit. Murder few healers and a rattlesnake. CL 8, 35HP, 13SP. Treasure feeling 3. Not worth it. Descend.

Level 9: Enter a modest 2-? level with a rattlesnake and a giant red frog on sight. Killing them raises CL to 9. Screwed up with a summon trap and have surprisingly hard time with an orc shaman. I fail evoking _CLW with just 5 HP left. Sheer luck the game didn't end here because shaman managed to do only 3 dmg on his turn. Explore a bit and a panther enters a room while I'm low on SP. Fail using wonderwand and lose 2 PD scrolls. Panther dies after following me. Find a wand of hold monster and another _CLW. Find stairs. Descend. Turn 1977 (my year of birth).

Level 10: (3-?) Detect monsters show big pack of snagas and a dark elven mage. Latter can oneshot me. Read one ?MM. Elf mage has a clear path to reach me so I use one CLW charge. One room has a tengu and a red naga. Better not go there with low SP. Retreat from the starting point and get treasure feeling 6. Potential for a game-changer here. Manage to murder elven mage with a wand of wonder. He was holding amulet of searching (+3) but on the floor is a hard leather cap of intelligence <+2>. Now to murder snagas with a rod of light.
Snagas take me to CL 11 and one drops a lantern. Tough fighting outside a thief pit. Get a good stack of ?PD but lose a lot of _CLW charges. Finally leave the level. Level 6 item was a wand of dragons flame.

Level 11: Oh boy. 7-? danger level. Nothing worse than Orfax and a master yeek detected upon arrival. Kill Orfax with one dragon breath zap. He drops a longbow of accuracy. Now.. Arrows, pebbles, anything.. and I'll get this game going! Treasure level is cobwebs so I leave the place on turn 3294.

Level 12: 3-?. Wormtongue detected upon arrival. And he reaches me. Now it’s just either PD spam or kill him with dragon breath. I decide not to save him for later. Let’s see..
He drops Whip (+5 +6) *slay* orcs with resist cold. Improvement, but still a major disappointment. I'm on low HP after fighting a zombified human. I'll rest a bit for the second time. 50 turns and now I'm at 44/60 HP and 9/24 SP. Treasure feeling 1. Cast detect stairs and go down the nearest stairs on turn 3452.

Level 13: 3-? level, Drider detected. Find 19 iron shots (+5, +2) while approaching the drider. NICE! Driderspider goes down with two bullets. Find [+8] protection ring with more than one curse. Sheeeeit! Explore a bit further, cobweb level. I'll dive deeper. Stairs on turn 3617.

Level 14: Druid detected southeast and Grisnakh's gang in north. 3-? feeling. Head towards Grisnakh. His wolves engage first. Fighting them raises me to CL 15. Classic wolves hunting inside open room scenario happens. It was fun to see that happen the first time but now I'm mostly sick of it. That's a shame because the idea is good, but it just becomes boring after you've done it soooo many times.
I decide not to engage Grisnakh yet. Explore a bit west side. I find 4 more Id scrolls. That's nice, if I'll find something to use em for. Treasure feeling 2. Blah. Find stairs at 3911. Down.

Level 15: Two orc uniques here. Lotsa wolves and escorting orcs. Illusionist also here, he could (will) be trouble. Danger 4-?. Got illusionist smashing him with lightning arcs. Very important kill, if I wanna stay longer here. Dark elven priest appears while fighting wargs. He blinds me twice but eventually dies to bullets. He drops ring of rFrC. Extremely nice at this point.
Lagduf has woken up and he's after me. He's gotta go now. He drops useless quarterstaff. Trying to disarm a chest fails twice and leaves me slowed with reduced STR. DAMMIT! And right after the STR-drain, treasure feeling shows 8! It's do or die, not leaving the level until I see what's the jackpot hidden here. Or a priest book.
Found the treasure!!! Elven Cloak of Aman +22. +4 stealth and rDisen. Found in a regular four-room box vault. Outside artifacts, this is probably the best cloak I'm gonna see in this game (even if I live to see Morgy). TRUE JACKPOT! Also find rod of treasure location and (+4) searching amulet. Cherry on the top: before leaving the level, Brodda drops [7,+3] FA boots. Turn 4612, I leave the level that had game-changing loot.

Level 16: 4-? Only black orcs in sight. Free exp and minor loot. Orcs down, loot level 4. Its appears to be moria cave level. First moaning spirit here. He got two shots at my DEX score. Gonna dip deeper, turncount at 4842.

Level 17: Omens of death. 31 silver ants detected. I don't know the formula for danger feeling, but one silver ant is 6 levels out of depth. So I guess 31 qualifies as a death omen. Mugash also here.
I decide to level up somewhat killing the ants. Treasure feeling typically low for an ant pit: 3. Ruined the turncount here, it's 6111 when descending but now at CL 21. Mugash dropped firebrand Morning Star. I will be using that.

Level 18: 4-? feeling. Lots of monsters detected with a spell but nothing out-of-depth. Shambling mound being the nastiest, if it decides to scream. It dies to a fireball. No good treasures here so DOWN, DOWN I go. Turn 6286.

Level 19: Another 4-2 level. Zap some ogres and find stairs. Steps taken 6791.

Level 20: 5-? start, and my one of my least favorite Angband scenarios occurs here. That is beginning to explore a new level with a hound fight. I'm looking at 4 energy hounds and probably many more behind them. My only bolt spell is electric arc. Phase door luckily gets me away from them. Explore a bit of the east side and find lightning long sword. Drop firebrand here since I don't have elec resistance and unresisted damage is about the same with both weapons.
Kill some light hounds, lose 2 !CSW and dive deeper ar 7019.

[Sphara]

Level 21: 5-5. Detect a vault. Outside possible invisible monsters, the deepest foe is a forest wight. Unfortunately, the vault requires digging tools and I don't have any. Outside the vault was a Staff of Teleportation. Extremely important. Deeper I go, 7472.

Level 22: Murderous level. This is gonna be ugly. Possible ancient dragons here. Found my first !Restore Mana, drink it immediately as I was at 11 SP. I need mana NOW, not in my grave! Manticore detected. It's tough but nowhere near bad enough triggering Danger 8. Bolg also here.
Find staff of sleep monsters but leave it there. Too much weight atm even though I dropped the iron shots for now.
Manticore woke up without me knowing and interrupted my fight with ogres. Used second to last zap of that dragon’s flame wand. Iridescent beetle and Castamir are the reasons for the level feeling. I gotta get outta here. Enter level 23 with 8105 turns spent.

Level 23: Anxious feeling, lotsa uruks and forest trolls around. But nothing to trigger that feeling yet. It truly is starting to get anxious because I'm still going with just one spellbook. The level is another moria-level. 6-3 feeling, even more uruks and ogres. Fumbling down the stairs at 8641.

Level 24: 4-? level. Cornered in southeast, huge gang of dark hounds blocking the rest of the level. Use one _Tele charge. Left the level at 9085 after finding second tele staff and a rod of illumination.

Level 25: 5-? feeling. Vault detected and nothing too dangerous in there. Mage and a frost giant. But its disappointingly another + shaped vault that requires digging. Found +2 intelligence ring at least and took the stairs at 9656.

Level 26: Uldor, Lugdush, Ugluk and Nar here. Does seem rough even though I could probably kill them. Danger feelie 5. Found red dragon scale mail from a dropped chest. Proceed closer to stat gain levels. Turncount 9986. Aaaaand the game crashed.. Damn master version!!!
Started again from the beginning. Went to kill the monster that dropped the chest (illusionist). It wasn’t red dragon scale mail anymore, it was shield of elvenkind +2 stealth and poison resistance. Would’ve been jumping for joy if this hadn’t been a kobold. Hardcore ironman is basically ruined because of that crash but what can you do?

Level 27: Feelings are murderous. Reaching stat gain levels isn’t happening easily. Killed gorbatshov the captain and he dropped armor way too heavy for me. Bar chain mail of resistance. Spent way too much time here. Eventually found a vault in northwest corner but it was too much. Marilith, mature black dragon, scroll mimic and such. Whopping 11178 steps taken when entering level 28.

Level 28: 5-? and started with energy hound fight. Proceed and play sloppily. Let red scorpion take down my STR by one. Miscast partly responsible. Forced to fight huge pack of hounds to reach the stairs. Annoying. The hound game is on! 11904.

Level 29: Uneventful 5-2 level. Reached CL 26 and got my STR back. Stat gain levels reached at 12260.

Level 30: 6-? start. Low carrying capacity and lack of spells are really starting to cripple me. Nothing good here.

Level 31: 5-? I’m gonna kill Ulwarth here. Ulfang’s boys are notorious not dropping anything. Let’s see if this premise holds.
It did. He dropped absolutely nothing. Left the level

Level 32: 5-2. I’ve found 2 acquirement scrolls along the way. I’m gonna step down the stairs and read em on level 33. I know it’s probably too early, but desperation is starting to grow on me. Turn 13710.

Level 33: 5-5. Other acq scroll gave a junk short bow but the other one granted the game’s first artifact. Hard leather cap ‘Rilion’. It gives +3 INT, +4 DEX , +1 LIGHT and provides resistance to fire and blindness. AND IT HAS EVOCABLE STONE-TO-MUD. In other words, a great hat.
Level itself is infested with uniques: Lokkak, Mim, Mim’s kids. There was also a lone sorcerer on the level which woke up. Found THREE potions of intelligence. Got MAX SP boosted to 79.

Level 34: At turn 14125, I finally save the game on 5-? level.
Continue the game. Kill three uniques here (Bullroarer, Grisnahkh and Golfimbul). All drop forgettable weapons. Grisnakh dropped a Battle Axe of Acid, which I switch into for minor damage upgrade. Leave at 14779.

Level 35: 6-?. Uneventful, don’t explore much, just get some rod-detected items. Kill few mumaks and reach CL 28 HP 118 SP 85. Descend at 15265.

Level 36: Lantern of True Sight found after blinking away from still sleeping colbran. Level feeling 6-?. Little exploration reveals Gorlim. One turn at him on sight will probably end the game here. Another potion of intelligence. SP jumps to 119. IF ONLY I HAD JUST ONE MORE SPELLBOOK! Leave the place, hoping that Gorlim won’t spawn too soon again.

Level 37: 5-? level. Couple of detect monsters later, Anga & Sanga show their heads. Perfect depth to kill both of them and hope for winner items. Aaand a mystic around. Wakes up, summons an aranea among other shit and ruins the plot of approaching Umbar brothers. At least for now.
I use 2 speed potions to pelt the brothers. I forgot both were fire resistant. Aranea interrupts the fight. So does that fucking mystic. Both fall to fireballs and the Umbar bro’s still alive. Sanga drops a Phial, hope its better than my lantern. After ID, it doesn’t have Sinv or rBlind. So, It’s worse. Sanga also drops an artifact scimitar that has evocable telepathy but miserable damage. I’ll switch to it. Anga drops nothing worth even to shit upon. At 16031, gtfo.

Level 38: 5-4. Unimpressive level. Kill one 5-headed hydra, avoid black knights. Floor loot absolute zero from a small vault. Waste of time in this level. Had to resort to PD spam to reach the stairs. Down at 16918.

Level 39: Annoying 5-4 level. Nexus vortices everywhere. I got to identify rNex but with Hp this low, those breaths also do noticeable damage. Leave the place, supposedly nearing my doom.

Level 40: 5-3 Ancient dragons, black wraith, storm giants. Cannot deal with any of these so the best solution is to go deeper, right?. Still no spellbooks. Feeling a relief as I leave the level at 17632.

Level 41: 5-? once again. Drink my first enlightenment potion. 5-6 level, Shagrat spotted and nothing too bad elsewhere around the starting screen. Angband.live lags like a mofo.
Minor treasure vault detected. Cannot go in without teleport other since it has both Vargo and the Queen Ant. Descend.

Level 42: Traditional 5-?, drink my second enlightenment. Next room has Gorlim and neekerbreeker next to each other. What a combo to wake up there, I thought.
Young gold dragon drops Attacks and Knowledge spellbook! In a same room I do find <+3> Ring of STR. Replace INT ring and finally get my elven cloak’s <+1> speed to show again. Horrible downstairs locations. Three stairs clustered and guarded by a night mare. I cannot teleport since there is awoken vampire lord other side of the level. PD spam screws up, I land next to the bone horse and right into a chain-confusion survival game. Lost most of my curewounds potions. But managed eventually to blink away. Area was also infested with black puddings, one willowisp and an ancient green dragon that LUCKILY never woke up. Descend.

Level 43: 7-5. High danger. Probably because of an animal pit that has nether hounds and one plasma hound. Even with the new spellbook, more and more monsters are a no-no because this measly low HP. Constitution is at 11 so its gonna take a lot of time to fix that up. Needed a speed potion to kill a lone nether wraith. Well, at least to lower the chance it won’t instakill me.

Level 44: 3-? and the first cavernous level. I hope the stairs are not out of reach. Glabrezu drops gauntlets of free action so finally I do have a handgear. Ditch boots of FA and switch to boots of stealth <+2> I’ve been carrying. Enter Heroic stealth and 145 AC. HP and speed are the main worries now. Well, when are they not? Exit cavern level at turn 19424. Find rod of magic mapping on my way to the stairs.

Level 45: 5-?. Find scroll of banishment close to entrance point. Leave soon after that. Unremarkable stuff.

Level 46: Kill some minor dragons. Greater basilisk guarding 3 stairs room. Spot another set of stairs in north. KKlimb down at turncount 20146.
Level 47: Ariel, AMHD, Vampire Lord detected upon arrival. It’s getting too
heavy. Stealth keeping me alive. If it fails, the game fails. SAVE here. I need to leave this place. Gonna rely on my staff of teleportation here.

Level 48: 5-3, dread pack, ancient dragons, floors low on items, descend deeper.

Level 49: 6-2 level. I started with killing some vrocks. Notice the Queen Ant. I guess I try killing her. Cannot reach QA because Ren the Unclean interrupts and nearly kills me. I also step on a summoning trap and now other side of the level has an awoke Dreadmaster. Descend.

Level 50: 4-4 level. Master mystic wakes up after just few turns on this level. Man, I hate those guys! Evading everything, desperately looking for items. Died to that motherfucking master mystic. Stupendously unlucky set of events. Phased next to it.
Epilogue: Never should have phase door’d without casting Detect Monsters first. The loot in general, was pretty weak. I did not find anything to Teleport Other with. I cannot help but think stealth kind of failed here. Although those mystics tend to wake up easily, no matter how quietly you tiptoe around.


EDIT 8th April 2019: I dunno what to say. Just don't play sloppy if you're relying on stealth and find nothing during an ironman game

[Grotug]

Also: just don't get unlucky.

[Bandobras]

Also, remember to get back up to town to sell loot. Noob mistake...

... kidding. Great write-up; thanks a lot!

[NightLizard]

I don't know why, but whenever I read a diary like this in Angband, the game seems so fun and I immediately get an urge to play Is it fun to make a diary as well maybe? Never tried.

[Grotug]

I had a lot of fun writing up my account linked in my signature. So, yes, journaling the hero's journey can be fun.

[Sphara]

Thank for positive feedback

I started writing another, a Dunadan Necromancer. The guy is still alive on angband.live, but the journal already has so many curse words I doubt it would be appropriate to publish here

EDIT: Nah. The character is dead already.