ULTRA-endings

Ultra-endings huh?
Sounds like something of a compound ending gained by completing a number of other ending-level requirements.

Maybe something like a continent-spanning quest that requires a key item from each dungeon and specifically not turning them in to the relevant quest-giver?
Say, the shadow veil/xinroch's sword/skull from the Tomb of Xinroch, the Shirt of the Golden Eagle from GC, a... dragon egg? From the Dragon Tower... etc.

For a suitably ridiculous ending I'd really want there to be something like killing one of the gods.

...or do you mean there's an ultra-ending for TX?

EDIT: Had a look at other roguelike ultra-endings and I'm not very impressed that some require stupid stuff like killing the right monster first or doing things in an extremely restrictive manner.

I guess you avoid the shadow veil/friendly necromancer requirement by polymorphing into a ghost?
What about an ultra ending (about high priest level) where you polymorph the Attnam altar into an Infuscor one and fulfil the dark knight ending conditions while holding Petrus's nut?

Heh, ADOM is quite weird...

Anyway, I would love to see an ultra-ending where you could fight a god. Maybe each of the current two main dungeons could offer a different god to kill?

For example, in GC you would need to steal the avatar of Valpurus from Cathedral and bring it to Oree's lair, where there is the second unused portal. The daemons were planning an assault on the place where Valpurus lives and with his avater, you can open the portal and lead an army of daemons against angels of Valurus and even Valpurus himself. Defeating him would allow you to either take his place as the King of Gods, or help Mortifer destroy the whole world and becoming a demigod as reward.

In TX, on the other hand, you could take the skull of Xinroch and bring it back to Attnam. Here you could talk to Petrus, who would offer you to use to skull to open a portal to the throne room of Moritfer. You would battle Mortifer and kill him, allowing you to either take his place as the main god of Chaos, or destroy the source of Chaos once and for all, so that Valpurus could conquer and rule over the whole world forever, with you as his demigod.

This covers both law and chaos endings, so you can choose which you favour more. And you can become a (demi)god, which is cool. Plus you have a reason to talk to Petrus even if you pick TX.

EDIT: Not related to ultra-endings, but what if TX had a special level where an enemy with Eptyron from CLIVAN spawns? That would a) present a unique obstacle, to better differentiate TX from GC, b) let us use material softening mechanic, which is cool, but would be infuriating on normal enemies - special enemy, however, would present an interesting risk, c) add an artifact axe which IVAN sorely lacks.

It's hard to see Petrus giving a quest that would likely result in another mortal being higher in the Valpurian hierarchy than him. Unless he was really confident it was a suicide mission.

We have several lawful and chaotic endings already - I think it would be good to have some neutral endings. The Tweraif victory from... LIVAN? CLIVAN? Would be a good place to start for that, maybe it could somehow build up to slaying both Legifer and Cruentus or something?

That's a good point.

Well, you ARE going against the Destroyer of Worlds, that definitely sounds as a suicide mission.


Maybe even some lower-tier neutral ending, like restoring the temple of Silva in New Attnam. With her temple restored, she could protect the village from Attnamese retaliation and you would live the rest of your days peacefully at Tweraif Academy, acting as a janitor.

Yeah, by "build up to" I meant that would be the optional extra, after the player has got the ingredients for the janitor ending.

Personally I don't like the idea of endings where you ascend to godhead, or fight gods. Seems a little too grand for IVAN, which to me at least has always had a gritty "normal" feel to it. I mean, the original ending rewards you with nothing more than your own freedom, after all. And you were never meant to be an epic hero, like in ADOM or the like - you start a naked banana grower after all...

I dunno. I think in general IVAN doesn't need more endings, just more (and more interesting) things to do before ending. After all, IVAN 050 had exactly two dungeons; 057 has three. ADOM has dozens. Crawl's dungeon has loads of sub-dungeons within the single main.

Eh, I suppose it also depends on where you want to take development... what kind of game you want to turn IVAN into.

I feel like this doesn't lend itself well to an "ultra-ending" which requires all sorts of nonsense to be completed before beating the game.

If it weren't for the fact that one of the endings is literally usurping the ruler of Attnam, I'd have voted that to be an ultra-ending for a "gritty normal" game (say, like Mount & Blade) because that's about as good as it's going to get for a regular person in a regular setting.
But we've already got that as the best possible ending for one dungeon.

For an ending to be suitably "ultra" I think it needs to be equally ridiculous and can therefore afford to be a little further out of the realm of reality in the game. Hence why I suggested taking one of the gods - defeating a god is suitably ridiculous and near-impossible. "Player defeated Cruentus and took his place in the divine pantheon" would be a neat thing to have on your hi-scores.
Though, there's only two gods who we know have a physical presence in the world, and those are Silva and... Valpurus.

While I also like the "badass normal" feel of the player in IVAN, ultra-ending should be truly "ultra" - something you shouldn't be able to do regularly or without a bit of luck, but all the more cool for your troubles. If becoming a god should be seen as too much, I still think defeating a god would work nicely - remember all the Conan stories where he wipes the floor with sorcerers and gods, wielding only his two-handed sword. This is how I imagine the IVAN player looks like - you don't have magical power, but still can curb stomp even Izzy himself.

The humble beginnings and... "high turnover rate"... of characters gives IVAN quite a gritty feeling, which definitely a point in its favour. But it's already a game where a lucky and well-guided character can surpass all the embodied NPCs in everything except perhaps spellcasting, land ownership, and having non-stolen Justifiers. Having challenges to match characters like that seems reasonable; it's already halfway there with the high priest ending.

I suppose I could see an ending where you become the avatar of a deity - effectively becoming their impersonation on the physical realm... Or perhaps gaining divine immortality and some sort of demi-god status. Or even maybe carving out a new spot in the pantheon and becoming the God of Edible Fruits or whatever.

But actually facing - and slaying - an immortal, divine being? I dunno. I just don't see it.

But then, I'm also not developing this game. The only reason my profile says "Developer" is because I contributed a few lines of code 10 years ago (acid shield, and one other item - amulet of elemental protection perhaps?).

I think part of the issue is that the most powerful (mortal) person in the entire game as it currently exists is Petrus so we don't really have anything to aim higher for except the gods.


I think the current "best" endings currently fill this role, or come close, since they involve becoming the champion of either Mortifer or Valpurus.
I'm personally thinking the next logical step up the ladder is to challenge them, or the other gods.
Maybe something less silly than fighting a god would be to become the champion of X god, and then beat down the champion of Y god on the other end of the good/evil scale?


That's what makes it an ultra-ending. It's near impossible and ridiculous.
Facing a god is easy enough, especially given the whole physical presence thing for a few of them. As it is, Valpurus can severely damage you by doing even less than shrugging his shoulders.
Beating them in combat is an entirely different story, and should be so insanely unlikely that doing so deserves a unique ending.

We also don't know that they're immortal, because the game lore doesn't elaborate. Hell, we don't even know how the gods work other than the fact that they can conjure up (or teleport in) items, limbs and NPCs out of nowhere when you ask them to.
For all we know Infuscor is an insanely powerful dark mage who locked herself in some arcane library and communicates via world-spanning ESP.


As a side note, I'm not trying to be instantly dismissing of your ideas because I do think they have merit. I just think that having a ridiculously over the top scenario for the best possible score multiplier ending in the game would be super cool.
I also like the idea of, say, any character being able to approach a God and instantly being fried for so much as looking at them the wrong way without proper preparation.

I'll give you that.

I also suggest that if we're going to continue this line of thought - I do have some ideas on it beyond "Don't" - we start a new thread. I know that moderators can move posts about, but my mod powers have rusted from disuse. So I'll leave it to someone else.

Okay. Suppose you do implement an ultra-ending, with a score multiplier (and difficult level) beyond even the High Priest ending. I suggest, then, that the god to be challenged be Cruentus, god of war and blood. Slaying the previous god would be a fitting way to ascend to that title. (Plus, the PC is already somewhat Kratos-like.) Aside from which, being one of the "lesser" gods, it's slightly more feasible that a mortal might be able to take him on.

As an added thought, you might give a lesser score multiplier (and ending) simply for being slain by Cruentus. Perhaps if Cruentus kills you, you get an ending where he recognizes your prowess (you were able to reach and battle him, after all!) and he transforms you into one of his Angels? or Archangel?

Hmm, I could see a whole chain of score multipliers - if you reach Cruentus' realm, but are slain by his angels (who else would populate his realm?) you get a x2. If you reach, but are slain by, his archangel Gladius (I mean, who else would be the miniboss?) you are transformed into an angel for a score multiplier of x3. If you slay Gladius, but Cruentus kills you, he turns you into his new archangel for a score multiplier of x5. Defeating Cruentus himself would allow you to become the new God of War and Blood for a score multiplier of x7.

Alright. I've convinced myself. This would be awesome. However, the angels in Cruentus' realm ought to be buffed substantially, as should Gladius. Merely getting there would have to be extremely difficult as well, and involve shedding a *lot* of blood. Preferably innocent blood. Probably also require some fetch quest, and some shenanigans with an altar of Cruentus.

Well, according to some of the old lore documents in game files, the gods manifest in their cities over the world. There was something like Dulcis being a giatn swan in a forest city of elves and so on.


I love this!

You're right about the old lore stuff, but that's never really touched upon in-game. Hence why I only mentioned Valpurus (who is said to carry the world on his back) and Silva who I think was referred to by one of the Tweraif people but not sure.
Here's the wiki article I put together on that particular subject, from the old dev documents.

Yep, mods please zombie limb transplant the ultra-ending portion of this thread to a new thread?
Thoroughly interesting discussion by the way.

Hummm... I haven't exercised my mod powers in quite some time myself. Though even if I mess up, I suppose Cap could fix it.

EDIT: Voila! I edited the first post to add a title.