Tomb of Xinroch

Eh, this isn't going to be the last dungeon added ever guys. There's no need to make use of every graphic that we haven't used yet.

Well if someone had suggested putting the steam tank in there that might be pushing it.

I just like the idea of optional neutral boss monsters really.
(and bullshitting up reasons for things)

And it also slowly abuses your attributes, right? That's the one thing I always hated about vampirism.

What if it instead granted a more traditional vampiric weakness? Easiest would be vulnerability to fire, I guess, plus a cool one could be inability to pray to lawful gods.


Me too. Optional, but very hard and very rewarding.

On the dragon: many dragons in fiction have magic. Maybe this one is a necromancer?

Inability would be a bit extreme, even for IVAN - maybe it could act as a multiplier for relation changes with gods (depending on their alignment)? It could even block standing increases from certain sources, so that you can only improve the relation by sacrificing stuff.

Assuming you don't mean the previously existing chaos ending, I've used wizard mode to try the following so far:
* Talking to the master tomb guard while holding the sword and the skull of Xinroch and being Infuscor's champion
* Zapping wands of resurrection and necromancy on the skull of Xinroch
* Haven't resurrected or neck-romanced Xinroch's corpse because he doesn't leave one
* Talking to Petrus with the sword
* Sacrificing the skull and sword to Valpurus and Infuscor while being Infuscor's champion
* Spawning the resurrected Xinroch in XT1 (to simulate leading him back through the portal and up the stairs, if that's even possible). He's on the monster team, so the tomb guards attack him. It was quite a balanced battle compared to Attnam - give it a try!
* Talking to the resurrected Xinroch while wearing the shadow veil and being Infuscor's champion
* Using a lyre of charm on him with 101 charisma
* Cloning him (he doesn't get cloned and there's no message)
* Killing the master tomb guard and talking to Petrus and the prisoner while carrying his corpse
* Sitting on Infuscor's altar after killing the master tomb guard while Infuscor's champion
It seems to be a well hidden x2 victory
* Putting the skull and sword in the coffin in the cellar (which sometimes crashes the game)
* Talking to

I'm interested to see what happens if you disarm Xinroch, leave him alive, and go back to the surface with the sword. That seems like a bit more effort to set up, though. And not likely to be a x2 victory.

Sounds like quite an adventure. Don't be disappointed when you find out.
Would you like a clue?

I'll sleep on it first, probably I'll think of a few things I missed.

It's probably got nothing to do with the post-portal levels, so that rules out resurrected Xinroch and the sword. That means we're looking for something to do with the shadow veil as the TX equivalent for Elpuri.

Some possibilities, can't test these at work:
- Die while wearing the veil (and become a ghost ending)?
- Go through the portal with the veil?
- Hand the veil to necrodude, then kill him to reclaim it?
- Sit on Infuscor's altar with the veil?
- Chat with Petrus after handing off the veil to necrodude? (tried talking to petrus with the veil)
- Chat with the master tomb guard with the veil?
- Place the veil or any other related items in the sarcophagus in Attnam Crypts?
- uhhh

I really doubt it's the sarcophagus.

Yeah, I tried a few things with the veil and Xinroch's ghost (including some of those), since that makes more sense for a x2. Haven't written them down, too sleepy

Wow. Some of these things you tried, guys, would definitely deserve a special effect.

If you need a hint, just say so. You'll find it eventually, but it's quite subtle.

I am looking for ways to make the victory more awesome, so if you have any suggestions about things that could be done differently, then they would be more than welcome.

If it's something like "Player left the tomb and became the new host of Xinroch" imma be pissed.
(not going to spoil it for myself by browsing the source)

OK, so now I've talked to the high priest, the priest, the master guard, the shopkeeper, the librarian, the tailor, the smith; the imperialist, the priestess, the fruit seller, the wrestler; the master tomb guard, the quartermaster while holding the shadow veil. And to the necromancer while holding Petrus's nut. He hated me because I had aggravated the Attnam team, of course.
I've spilled acid, vomit, and glowing blood on the veil, exploded it, died while wearing it on the other side of the portal, offered it to Infuscor and Valpurus, dropped it on the world map (You can do that? You can do that with all the quest items, even though you can't sell them or donate them to the Cathedral? Or is that just wizmode?) and sat on it.
I've zapped resurrection and necromancy on the cloak, on the ghost, on the ghost while it's standing on Xinroch's skull, a human corpse, and Golgor Dhan's corpse.
*Now* it's time for a hint.

The hint is: It's not a victory.

I totally bet it's the ghost ending by dying with the veil. Or more boringly, just dying after delivering the veil.

If it is, it doesn't let you know that anything different happened on the death screen in wizmode. Also it's not taking the veil off while standing in a wall or the ocean.

Oh. I found the ending outside WM just adding the veil to inventory via script. It really isn't a victory at all.

How about just trigger the ending by having the player hand the veil to the necrodude? If the player should be kept from using it on the post-portal levels, the portal could be kept inactive unless the player applies the veil on it and activates it. This would consume the veil.

Yep, this is the one. The "victory" gives your death score a 2x boost, and changes the death message. I admit it is quite low-key. I sort of thought it was lame that a freedom victory would say "and continued to further adventures" when the game just ended right there. Maybe it gives a small incentive to return the veil. The player also can opt out of returning the veil and go ahead directly with the game, to avoid the fetch-quest.

There are other ways to traverse to the final level of Xinroch's tomb. Has anyone figured out how?

Has anyone got any ideas for ultra-endings?

And because my post was moved to the ultra-ending thread, I'm gonna write it here again.

What if ToX had a special level with an enemy wielding Eptyron from CLIVAN? It's an artifact axe that softens material of whatever it strikes. This would have several positive effects:
a) ToX would have a completely unique threat; it needs special levels like GC, but with dangers and enemies distinct enough to make the dungeons feel different,
b) material softening is very cool mechanic, but wouldn't work on regular enemy because of frustration; on unique enemy, it would make him interesting and dangerous,
c) there would be an artifact axe which IVAN now sorely lacks.

Also, what about making one of the maze rooms a whole special maze floor floor instead? Just as GC has zombie level, ToX could have maze level. That would quite break the similar room-and-corridor level stereotype and hopefully make it a challenge with strong walls and several guaranteed strong enemies (like the dwarf on zombie level).

Would need minotaurs because fantasy maze tropes.

Also goblins.

The problem with mazes, especially large mazes, is backtracking. If the maze has tree topology then a large portion of tiles need to be traversed twice. That's not so bad if you can use the 'g'o command to automove through corridors, but IVAN's automove stops at corners and on items.

Two approaches to making automovement smarter in this kind of situation are Angband's run command and Crawl's autoexplore command.

Angband's run command is invoked like in IVAN - you press . then a direction and it keeps moving in that direction. If you're in a corridor, it follows the turns in the corridor without asking for confirmation. It stops when the path forks (in quite a broad sense) or when a game event interrupts you (interruptions are configurable).

Angband's system is also augmented by the squelch system, which lets the player tell the game to ignore specific items, types of items, or general items of different levels of quality. Ignored items are automatically dropped, don't show up on the floor, and (crucially) don't interrupt you when running. In IVAN this would help greatly when running through mazes filled with inedible corpses and low-quality equipment.

Crawl's autoexplore command automatically guides the player to unexplored accessible areas, taking the shortest possible route. Basic implementation is pretty simple with Dijkstra maps, but Crawl may provide some additional features (like stopping on new item detextion). Darren Grey doesn't like autoexplore. Or doesn't like games where autoexplore is a useful feature, because choosing which area to explore in a procedural map should have strategic/tactical consequences.

I think it would be best to implement one of these solutions before making mazes in IVAN larger than they currently are.

What if the mazes were built as a series of much smaller mazes, connected by corridors in a semi-linear pattern (some side branches to allow for special items / enemies / etc)?

I remember there was some controversy around the material softening mechanic. There was a low-level magic user character which would go about the dungeon performing material softening spells at quite a rapid rate, which frustrated some players. Eptyron was pretty crazy. I worked on that artefact before I thought of using a generic material softening algorithm, and I never went back to reintegrate the newer behaviour into the axe. At the moment I don't plan to introduce it into the code, but someone who likes to do some code archaeology might like to do so? I imagine such an artifact might appear in another dungeon. The source is here.



Could do. As Serin alludes to, IVAN might need to offer a better 'go' function. I'm pretty sure someone tried it here (I was a bit of a n00b in that thread). Whether it was an optimal method beats me. You can make a maze room the size of a level. It has to have odd numbered dimensions, and the room always generates a door(?) so there needs to be room around the sides for a door. EDIT: reminds me I need to put some more work into the maze generator to make it more elegant.

Yeah, kobold alchemists... That's why I think it should be limitied to only a single unique enemy.


I don't think it's really that necessary if we are to have a single maze floor - backtracking through a single floor is quite survivable for me, it's much worse in e.g. NetHack, which has 15 maze floors as an endgame area and no 'go' function...