Victory!!!!!!!! I honestly thought the game was impossible, but I now know it is only almost impossible. I finally defeated elpuri today, and returned to the surface to give his mantle to Petrus. I was a total knuub and didn't bother to take screen shots.
Leg/Arm Str in the 40's
Dex/AGi in the high 20's
end 20
perception 22
Int/Wis over 80 - this helps so much, its crazy. I was able to teleport all the way across the level, and with esp i could see almost every monster on the level. I was a fast learner which helped me get to the low 30's, then a wand of cloning and 13 scrolls of charging(im not kidding, it was crazy) gets me to 50. then the dolphins kick in.
all my gear was valpurium. I was wielding +6 vermis and a +5 valpurium shield. I defeated Rondol. Guggy, and the skeleton. all other mortal monsters were getting pwned by my offense, and my army of diesel pets was helping a lot (Vetran dark knight, mistress torturing chief, slave, like 5 other mistresses). I wanted to find a mortifer alter and get the Mace, but one was never generated. I made sure I used all 14 zaps of my wands of poly on top of alters too to see if I could get one generated. no luck.
Some observations:
This was the first time I resisted the temptation of an enchanted Mojo and stuck with Vermis/shield. I love the idea of buff character cleaving monsters in two, but I think the net effect of a weapon/shield is a better proposition
Being in favor of the chaotic gods will get you far. I have always in the past tried getting the favor of the lawful gods because of atavus's gift, but you are much better off having esp/haste/mistresses/bottles of troll blood, etc.
I think wearing Kicking boots abuses AGI. I dont have any acutal source data to reinforce this, but I cant find another reason. I kept chugging ommel sweats, but my agi would just abuse down. I was running constantly to train it, but it seems like it was on auto-abuse.
Is it frowned upon to make a mirror save before talking to petrus and use the same character to try a better ending ( I forgot to do that as well, but in case I ever manage to get another character that far I would like the groups opinion. its not exactly save scumming, but it isnt exactly kosher either.)
was elpuri emanating lightning in all directions? I kept getting my potions/wands exploded when I got near him. it was rather annoying.
is there any way to actively heal pets other than hoping they drink healing liquids you drop?
Elpuri can get stuck in brown/mommo slime. in this game he got stuck next to a wall, so every zap of my wands o lightning ended up hitting him four times. made slaying him a cakewalk.
thanks for all your advice over the last 2.5 years! I look forward to the new version the team is secretly working on!