Part 62: Tollymain, SpAs - One

So after looking at the current LP list I decided to roll with a SpAs of Trog. Hope it's not too similar to the SpEn rolling around. I mean, there's not too many similarities other than the fact that they both stab things and are spriggans, right?

So without further ado I give you

The Misadventures of Tollymain



We start our story with a lowly spriggan with a well-crafted dagger, some assassin-like clothing, and a blowgun with ammo of varying effectiveness.



When we take a look at our skills we see that we kind of suck, though not nearly as badly as some other races would. Me personally, I like to top off the skills that aren't whole numbers during the beginning. Optimal play? Hardly. But my inner demands I do so anyway. Afterwards I plan to mostly pump stealth to give me a shot at stabbing things. Unlike that SpEn earlier, I don't get a second shot at backstabs. Yet.



One thing I do with most spriggans (and a lot of other character types) is pick up all weapons with egos i see early on, within reason. You never know when you'll get lucky, and a scroll of detect curse helps avoid any terrible dumb deaths by starvation or constant whiffing.



Spriggans and blowguns go very well together. Kiting things with poisonous needles is flagrantly overpowered early on. With its even slower than average speed and weakness to poison this worm doesn't stand a chance.



Dammit. Overtrained Short Blades skill. Oh well I suppose another level couldn't hurt





Yeah, enough training S. Blades for now. It is an important skill for spazzes of all flavors, but it's not my biggest priority by a long shot.

Much stabbing later, I run into this:



Orc priests are scary as fuck when you're a spriggan. They are most certainly not to be fucked with when they can smite your ass to death in two turns with ease.

He doesn't notice me, so being the good crawl player I am I back off and save this encounter for lat-





Yeah I'm a terrible player. On the bright side, I survived! More importantly, you get to see the effects of curare. Curare is motherfucking amazing. It poisons the target, slows them, and has a chance of instant-killing them through asphyxiation. I do not know the mechanics for that last one. The priest dies pretty easily, despite my retardedness.

Dungeon level 4 brings a new threat.



Gnoll packs. They'll fuck up early spriggans easily, skewering them on their spears (and presumably bringing them back to camp to roast a la shish kebab). I place an exclusion in their room and truck on. No reason at all to fight them right now.



Later, I find a couple pieces of jewelry and a book of magic. The amulet is pretty decent for an early spriggan would-be berserker. Usually guardian spirit is a terrible thing, but spriggans need all the health-padding they can get and I certainly don't plan to cast spells.

The ring is just plain shit though. Fuck that thing.



I check the book just in case it might be a game-changer. Book of Conjurations. Extremely good for some characters, not so much for the spriggan who'd be starting from square one. Yeah this is going into the "Landmine" section. More on that later, it's a Trog thing.



Eustachio! He usually summons a cloud of weak demons and small mammals, but not this time around. I probably should go back and pick up that sabre, actually. This dagger is shit for fighting hand-to-hand.



Grinder! (I ran away like a bitch. I've got no tools for dealing with his bullshit. He's resistant to poison and I can't kill him in melee fast enough. One paralyze and I'd probably drop like a stone.) I pick up that book later, after Grinder's wandered off.



Stealth reached 11, I took a screencap because I felt like it. I stopped training it at 12 and started training Stabbing up. Generally you want about 10-12 stabbing max for the game. I aim for 6 or so in the early game.



Pikel! Nobody saw me, so I quietly placed an exclusion in the room, closed the door, and tiptoed away. Pikel hits like a truck this early on, and that whip of his might be elec. Even without the slaves, he could possibly one-shot my ass.



Another book landmine! This is the one from the Grinder screenshot. That's it for interesting things that happened on D:4, really.

D:5 is wide-open boring spaces and chaff. Very shortly after I enter the level, I find the Ecumenical Temple.



Blood for the blood god

I immediately gain one ability. I can set all spellbooks in sight on fire, destroying them for piety. Trog hates spells and spellcasters even more than he hates seeing blood being inside of people and not spilled on the ground like it properly should. This ability has one practical use, though. That flame from the burning book is pretty intense. Conjure Flame levels of intense. Yeah, Trog basically lets you use spellbooks as one-time-use Conjure Flame spells. Little bit of an exploit, but useful on serious early threats like ood hill giants and hydras.

That's all for this post, though. Next time we may get to the Lair.