How to Kill Morgoth: Playing Angband

[Huinesoron]

To my (unreasonable?) surprise, Lupa the Kobold Ranger has just stepped down onto level 35 and is not dead. She's scraped together some decent equipment, including a very nice Longbow of Power which lets her shoot most stuff.

Her favourite trick, however, is her daggers. Most games I've run into the Fire and Ice artefact daggers, Narthanc and Nimthanc; this time I've discovered the Lightning version as well, Dethanc. It turns out they can be thrown at monsters, doing much more damage than just wielding one, and can then be collected for later use. As artefacts, they can't be destroyed by things like acid breath passing over them, or by breaking when thrown (unlike arrows, which break all the time).

So the really big, scary, or annoying monsters get a dagger or three to the face. Vampires, which drain experience? Narthanc, with a Nimthanc chaser if needed. That 5-headed hydra which had me panicking last level? Weak to cold; Nimthanc brought it near to death and an arrow finished it off.

It's not how I thought a Ranger would play, but it's working very nicely so far. Lupa I is already third place in my hall of fame, and unless she gets unlucky she should keep going a while yet.

(Now watch as the vault on this level one-shots her.)

hS

[Legate of Amon Lanc]

I've been reading about your experiences for a while, Hui, and found them very entertaining. Now I tried the game for myself, and I can see where the appeal comes from. It's like old-fashioned Diablo (the first one), except in the coat of something still a decade deeper into the past. But I like it! It's well-built. It has probably as much to do with the "real" Angband as... as many other "adaptations" of Tolkien may, but hey. It is at least not pretending.

Certainly whoever has made it must have put quite some effort into it. And I very much enjoy the "classic" RPG element with the classes, races and rolling.

My High Elven Ranger didn't get very far yet and to be honest, I am not sure that I am going to continue, but hey, never say never. It was in any case interesting to try, so thanks for bringing this to our attention.

[Huinesoron]

Originally Posted by Legate of Amon Lanc

I've been reading about your experiences for a while, Hui, and found them very entertaining. Now I tried the game for myself, and I can see where the appeal comes from. It's like old-fashioned Diablo (the first one), except in the coat of something still a decade deeper into the past. But I like it! It's well-built. It has probably as much to do with the "real" Angband as... as many other "adaptations" of Tolkien may, but hey. It is at least not pretending.

Certainly whoever has made it must have put quite some effort into it. And I very much enjoy the "classic" RPG element with the classes, races and rolling.

My High Elven Ranger didn't get very far yet and to be honest, I am not sure that I am going to continue, but hey, never say never. It was in any case interesting to try, so thanks for bringing this to our attention.

Yeah, it's very much a 'Tolkien + fantasy' game. A lot of the 'fantasy' is actually made up for the game (or rather for 1983's Moria, on which it was based): early-game monsters the Yeeks exist solely because it let them use the letter y. But the artefacts, and most of the unique monsters, are heavily Tolkien-y.

Even with that, it's an unholy mashup of the Ages of Middle-earth: Lupa I killed Golfimbul (who famously fought Bullroarer Took) and Mim (betrayer of Turin) one level apart, then popped back to town to take out Farmer Maggot. But there's something utterly delightful about rampaging through the dungeon dressed as a Rider of Rohan, wielding Aule's own hammer to smash Orcs to bits by the light of the Phial of Galadriel. (The title screen quotes the Second Prophecy of Mandos, so maybe we're supposed to imagine that like Turin, all these villains and monsters have come back from the dead to serve Morgoth in the Dagor Dagorath?)

One thing it does get right is that invading the base of an incarnate evil demigod would be brutally hard. Case in point:

Lupa I - Kobold Ranger - RIP



Lupa made it down to dungeon level 46, and seemed to be in good shape. She had a nice longbow, a variety of arrows (she'd just picked up some Arrows of Wounding, which sounds good), and was still throwing her trio of elemental artefact daggers at anything which needed a faceful of fire/ice/lightning. She had native speed of +3, and had learned the spell of Haste Self, which let her get up to +13. Combined with an auto-recharging rod of Slow Monster, she could at least match the speed of pretty much anything in the dungeon.

She ran into trouble clearing out a strange room filled with lava pits. She actually got through the room all right, but had to teleport a bunch of high-level monsters across the dungeon to do it. When she went to explore the rest of the level - it said there was good treasure there, and the lava vault hadn't really delivered - she avoided the Balrog of Moria, but ran into a tag-team of Harowen the Black Hand (a unique thief) and a Death Drake.

Yes, the same kind of Death Drake that killed Celebestel II out of nowhere. This time she could see it coming, so of course she made herself scarce, right?

Ummm... well, it bit her and only did 20 damage or so, out of her 350. Harowen tried to pick her pocket and teleported away, so it was only the two of them. So sure, let's try this!

> You smite the death drake.
> The death drake breathes nether.
> You die.

Death Drakes: not to be messed with. Sorry, Lupa; at least you're my second-ranking adventurer to date.

Meanwhile... listening to the tales of the fallen Lupa I is someone with a solid grudge against Morgoth, a vested interest in getting into - and out of - Angband, and no particular qualms about how to do it. She's been digging through some old books, and sure, there's pretty dire warnings attached to some of this stuff - but that just means it's effective, right? And in order to get her husband back, there is nothing, nothing she won't do.

It's time to fight fire with fire.

Morwen I - (Dun)adan Necromancer

>You case Nether Bolt.
>The pitiful-looking beggar dies.

hS

[Blind Guardian]

I've been lurking quite a bit, but I just wanted to let you know that I'm also invested in your game and I love your drawings!

Poor Lupa!

[Huinesoron]

Originally Posted by Blind Guardian

I've been lurking quite a bit, but I just wanted to let you know that I'm also invested in your game and I love your drawings!

Poor Lupa!

Thank you! I'm glad people are enjoying it. ^_^

Like most of them, Lupa pretty much brought it on herself - the Death Drake was marked in red, which meant it was further up in the dungeon than it should be. She (or I) ought to have known that it could probably do some serious damage. But we live and learn, and that will not happen again.

Morwen is down on dungeon level 7 right now, looking for the "something worthwhile" the level feeling told her about and hoping it's not just the poisoned war hammer she's already picked up. Her spellcasting is quite limited - she has Nether Bolt (her primary attack; secondary is her sling), Sense Invisible, Create Darkness, Bat Form (faster, with better senses, but weaker), and Read Minds (ie, Detect Thinking Creatures). Create Darkness is more useful than it sounds - there's nothing really weak to Dark in the game, but as a Necromancer, Morwen has the Unlight ability. Her spells have a high failure rate if she tries to cast them in the light, so she needs to darken rooms before going on the offensive.

Of course, until her night-vision improves, this does mean she can barely see her hand in front of her face. She had to retreat hastily on her first dive when she ran into a rapidly-breeding pile of worms and couldn't tell how out-of-control they were until it was too late.

She also has two slots for new spells; next time she goes up to town, she'll pick up a new spellbook and see what damage she can do.

EDIT: So it wasn't the hammer - it was a scroll of *Destruction*, dozens of levels above where it should be, which she just incautiously read and blew up most of the level. Ah well, she was done there anyway!

(Scrolls, like practically everything else, are unidentified at first. She picked it up as a "Scroll titled 'extor temo'". They're randomised every game, too, so the only way to find out what a scroll or potion does is to either read/drink it, or sell it to a shop.)

hS

[Blind Guardian]

Originally Posted by Huinesoron

rapidly-breeding pile of worms

BARF

Nope, nope, nope, nope!!

[Huinesoron]

Originally Posted by Blind Guardian

BARF

Nope, nope, nope, nope!!

The great thing about Angband (from that perspective) is that even the most horrifying things... aren't. I think they were Nether Worms, which meant there were little dark grey ws everywhere, and that was it.

Lady Morwen is not having a lot of luck. Her basic equipment is too heavy for her weedy Necromancer arms, so she's at a permanent -1 to speed. She nearly got to trade out her (heavy) crossbow for a (much lighter) shortbow - but the bow turned out to be cursed, and made her hallucinate all the time. She has no decent equipment, has only picked up resistances to Electric and Cold (along with her innate Nether resist), and is having to wear a ring that grants a tiny amount of infra(red)vision in order to see anything that doesn't actually glow.

The worst part was just now. She was 15 levels deep, and knew the level had excellent treasure somewhere on it - probably an artefact of some kind. She ran into a pit of minor demons, and cut a swathe through them. Demons resist Nether Bolt, but the smaller ones she could cast the Crush spell on (kills anything with less health than 4* your level, damaging you a bit on the way), and the larger ones went down to a single crossbow bolt each. She was leaving a trail of loot behind to collect once they were all dead.

And then a nruling banished her to another level entirely, and 2/3 of her crossbow bolts - and all the lovely loot - were lost forever.

(Still, at least a different level gave her a Staff of *Destruction* to replace the scroll she read last time. That'll be useful in... about 50 levels or so.)

EDIT: Angband taketh, and Angband giveth. Down on Level 17 (after two trips to town), Morwen has procured a Cloak of Thorongil, which gives her acid protection, protection from fear (nice, but not essential), See Invisible (yay!), and Free Action (ie, no instadeath from paralysis!). Then she fought a werewolf and a zombie orc in the same room, which was great: she just repeatedly vampirised the wolf to keep her health up, and cast Tap Unlife to restore mana by draining the zombie. From that little room, she found an Ivory amulet of regeneration, and a Main Gauche (lightweight weapon, hoorah!) of Carry More Stuff - er, sorry, of Strength. That +2 Strength means she's well below her weight limit again, and back up to neutral speed. (Of course, she still can't hit for toffee, but that's okay - she only actually uses her melee weapon by accident.)

Still lacking Cold resistance (though I have a ring tucked away back in town), but other than that we're good for the next few levels.

hS