I really like that you can encounter things like "a skeleton of a kobold" or "a zombie of a tourist". It's really entertaining. However, I just encountered the ghost of a mistress warlady on GC2, who promptly delimbed and beheaded me before I had much of a chance to react.

I'm wondering what sort of relations there are between the former monster and it's undead counterpart, and what spawn conditions/controls are set for them. Obviously I should never encounter a real mistress (let alone mistress warlady) on GC2 outside of wizmode or a mid/late game return to New Attnam. The fact that this one showed up - in ghost form, but still extremely dangerous - makes me wonder however...

(Note: this was in 507.)

No; my sole code contribution to IVAN is the acid shield, if I recall correctly.
As far as the rest of this conversation... I feel like it makes sense that most weapons are the domain of the God of War. Including the most primeval of those weapons, the Spear. It makes sense for him to also have Battle Axes. If the changes suggested here are mostly flavor and won't have a strong balance impact, I see no reason to change that.

Giving the more tool-like weapons - such as hammers, (normal) axes, sickles - to Loricatus also makes sense to me. The thunder hammer as a tool of Loricatus also makes sense.

What would be the game impact of these changes?

Those souls were never damned. They were simply collecting bananas and got a chance to leave. If anything, they were freed from damnation.

Everyone seems to wonder if the forum still lives when they first arrive. I wonder why. I mean, yeah, this community is basically kept alive by foul necromantic magicks, but it seems there are still a number of us that check it at least daily...

Re: (non)standard monsters: I've got no problem with it. I'm not really concerned with avoiding *fantasy* tropes (note the emphasis). We already have goblins, kobolds, orcs, golems, ghosts, skeletons, zombies... But IVAN also has it's own unique flavor, with things like frogs, mushrooms, porcupines, frogs, the Enner, donkeys, frogs, gibberlings...

Where my concern lies is in heavily copying other *roguelikes*. We don't need an ADOM-style chaos mutation mechanic. We don't need to find the *foo* of Yendor. We don't need levels that re-generate each time you enter them (though a bottomless dungeon might be interesting at some distant point in the future). We already have a few unnecessary roguelike tropes, such as fountains and dungeon shops. Note that I don't have a problem here, as the former (fountains) are kinda fun and the latter is more a gameplay improvement than anything else, and is great as such. I don't have a problem with adding commonly-used elements of other roguelikes on occasion... it's just something to be aware of.

I think this is a cool idea. Admittedly it plays into some fantasy tropes, but I personally am OK with that.

It might be interesting to add a high-level material akin to D&D adamant - that is, unbelievably strong, keeps an edge, but if exposed to sunlight it rapidly becomes brittle and weak (in-game: perhaps it starts to "rot"). Then, vampires would prefer this material for weapons and armor as they don't really go out in the sun anyways - and it would exaggerate their weaknesses if they did.

Speaking of "rot", currently it's a very linear thing: your ommel bone breastplate is fully functional right up until the moment it disintegrates. I would like to see this modified a bit - rotting items would become progressively less useful as they become more rotten. The simplest mechanic I can think of is a simple linear decay of material strength as a function of rot - something like

rotLevel = (itemAge / timeUntilRot)
itemStrength = materialStrength * (1-rotLevel)

which would cause, for example, an ommel bone helmet to decay from 100% AV to 0% AV as the item proceeds from brand new to completely rotten.
This does penalize the use of such items pretty heavily, so it might be reasonable to add an extra factor into the rotLevel calculation above - perhaps double timeUntilRot so that rotLevel goes from 0 -> 0.5, and an item of such a material will both lose usefulness slower and will never drop below 1/2 strength.

For the record, I think it's a bit amusing for tin to work against ESP. Dunno if I like it being totally impenetrable but it's funny nonetheless.

Re: Scabies and her prayer effects sucking. At this point, I'm just vomiting ideas. If y'all decide the RoU is the best solution, that's fine. Personally, I feel there is a better way to make her interesting. I just don't know what it is.

It makes sense, in my mind, for the champion of a deity to personify the deity's sphere of influence, and to spread that influence through the world - i.e. the Champion of the God of Law and Order being the world's greatest police officer. In that sense, it could also be interesting if a devotee of Scabies became a plague carrier - themselves immune (though a Cha hit might be thematically appropriate) but spreading horrible diseases everywhere they go. Food might rot faster around them, though the champion themselves might need less food to survive. (After all, it wouldn't make sense for a god to starve their champion to death - even if that god were the god of famine). The poison-spray could be nifty too. Each of these effects might be a gift ring (or amulet or cloak or ...).

Personally, also, I dislike the association between "mutation" and "polymorphing". I mean, I suppose it makes sense in that eating mutant flesh gives you polymorphitis - but the mutants themselves do not polymorph. I think it might be more thematic if the mutations were a little more permanent and subtle, like fucking with attributes (with a tendency towards raising them, but not in every case) or even ADOM-style chaos mutations.

Here's an alternate idea for a Scabies championship-type gift: a unique wand with infinite (or quasi-infinite - perhaps it recharges itself periodically?) charges which randomly does one of several thematic effects when 'z'apped. Things such as a polymorph ray, or a splash of poison.

Also, why does the Godess of Famine feed you? I mean, yes, it's school food, but still... seems anti-thematic.