FAQ with spoilers

Spoiler Warning: This page contains spoilers which may affect your IVAN experience negatively

How do I end the game?

A. There are five different ways.

• Death - Very typical ending for IVAN (as the title itself suggests). Simply, get killed by something, like monsters or land mines, but not limited to those...
• Freedom - Slay Elpuri and give its head to Petrus
• Knighthood - Can be achieved by giving Petrus the Shirt of the Golden Eagle
• Avatar of Chaos - Kill Petrus and take his left nut out of town. Mortifer takes you in personally
• High Priest - Kill Petrus, become Valpurus's champion and sit on the golden throne wearing the Shirt of the Golden Eagle

What is the "Ommel cerumen trick"?

A. It is a way to maximize the player's INT and WIS with extreme ease. Of course, it is a kind of exploit which breaks some of background game mechanisms, and regarded as a cheat and will be looked down upon, if you have been informed and still tried. First, find a scroll of change material, and then read it to change something large enough into ommel cerumen, and eat it. Although you can't make other ommel stuffs or holy banana flesh, it works because DevTeam failed to forbid player to make ommel cerumen.

What is the "library exploit"?

A. It is a simple trick utilising a flaw in the game's shop mechanics involving the use of Attnam's library building, allowing for the cost-free repossession and thus resale of items in order to make a substantial amount of gold with no consequences for the player - provided it is done correctly. It is widely regarded as cheating. First off, any eligible items for sale in the library (scrolls, books) should be dropped on the door tile of the shop, once the door has been opened. Once all items have been dropped, stand on the tile directly above the open door and 'k'ick the items downward so that they leave the store and sail forth into the snow outside. Once all items are removed from the store, pick them up and sell them again, repeating the process until the Librarian is broke. You can also buy everything in the library and gain your money back, allowing for access to many great items (such as the SoCM) early on in the game. Caution: be careful of when you kick the objects out of the store, as they may collide with the patrol guard who patrols the outer walls - this will turn all of Attnam hostile towards you.

What should I wish for?

IVAN has a lot of items, but the following are extremely useful and so are a good idea to wish for. The data is accurate for v0.50.

• scroll of change material: This is a great way of improving your gear and limbs. Which materials you can wish for depends on your intelligence; thus you may wish to polymorph to a more intelligent monster before using this. Good materials include eg. phoenix feather, mithril and octiron.
• scroll of taming: There is nothing like a good pet, but do not try to use this on a quest monster. Note: This doesn't include Rondol, Guuzamesh, and so on.
• Wand of Cloning: These by themselves are not useful, but if you do have some other useful item to clone, this is worth its weight in gold. With one charge you can clone a pile of five items. Note that certain items like wands of cloning, scrolls of wishing or scrolls of charging cannot be cloned because this could be abused. It is therefore sometimes wise to drop more than five items in pile in case the game doesn't allow some to be cloned. If you have a powerful pet like Ivan or a mammoth, you may lure it above the items so it will be cloned, too. You can also stand on the item pile and zap yourself, in which case you will be copied along with the stack. Note that when cloning a pet or yourself, the clone will be born without any equipment and only four items under it will be copied.
• Wand of Resurrection: If you have managed to get a unique monster as a pet, this may be extremely useful. It may also be used to quickly replace lost limbs.
• cloak or ring of invisibility: Invisibility is a great tactical advantage, but it also causes much more dangerous monsters to be generated.
• ring of polymorph control: Very useful if you happen to have a way of polymorphing. Note that being very powerful may cause tough monsters like dark mages to spawn, which is not nice if you encounter them after you have returned to your original form.
• amulet of life saving: Basically gives you a second life. That's a *lot*.
• magical whistle: Handling more than two pets is almost impossible without this.
• Mjolak, Turox, Saal'Thul, Vermis, Neerc Se'ulb, thunder hammer: Way more powerful than normal weapons. Saal'thul also grants invisibility and Vermis gives teleport control with teleportitis while it also randomly teleports creatures you hit with it. It is sometimes wiser to wish for a broken thunder hammer instead of an intact one, since the game often generates better materials for broken items to compensate the need of repairing.
• Holy Banana of Oily Orpiv: Has terrible explosive power which can aid you in boss battles. Also trains all attributes when eaten. Be sure to store this in a hard container like strong-box, because if it explodes in your inventory, you're in BIG trouble.
• Armor of Great Health: If you have scrolls of enchant armor, this gives a huge boost to your HPs. Again, a broken one may have a better material, but usually you want to use a scroll of change material for this one, anyway.
• Belt of Levitation: You're flying as long as you have this equipped. Makes you tougher to hit, and nearly immune to bear traps and mines. Make sure something doesn't step on a mine if you're near one, though; you can still be hit by the blast.
• Money: You get 50 million roubles, which I was able to sell for just 2 gold pieces.