YASD, Nethack Tales of Woe

Lvl 30, Dlvl 29, Human Knight, petrified by a cockatice

2008-05-05T01:45:00.000-07:00

Did you know that yesterday was the new moon. I do. Cause the cockatrice attack is guaranteed on new moons. I didn't get the lizard corpse out in time.

This was my absolute best game ever. I could cast Identify with a 0% fail rate. I had finally found some gauntlets of power, it was rocking. I sacrificed and got Grayswandir. I had run into about 6 nurses in various places and got my hp up over 300. Via several sucubi I was level 30 before I went past the Valley of the Dead, where I died on the first level thereafter.

There's a priest of Moloch in the valley and I wanted his robe as a backup. There happened to be a Jabberwock standing next to him when I saw him the second time. I slipped my ring of conflict on and he was gone in a hurry. I was wearing green dragon scale mail as it was the only kind I had found so far. The a silver dragon finally dropped some scales.

This was gonna be the one. But that frickin' cockatrice got me. Bummer.

1272618 points
89502 moves

Lvl 7, Dlvl 4 (Sokoban), Human Healer, Killed by a bolt of lightning

2008-05-05T01:42:00.000-07:00

I hadn't tried a healer for as long as I could remember so I gave it a shot. And I was thinking that I usually die somewhere in the Mines so maybe I should stay the hell out of there for a while. This game I went for Sokoban and was doing quite well. Cleared out the treasure zoo and had the bag of holding. There was this nymph. I cornered her and Sokoban is a no teleport level. Then she stole all my wands and started zapping me with them. One of them was a wand of lightning.

7403 points
8435 moves

Lvl5, Dlvl 5, Human Rogue, killed by a wand

2008-05-05T01:41:00.001-07:00

Some random orc had a wand.

1689 points
2017 moves

Lvl 4, Dlvl 5, Human Tourist, killed by a minotaur, while helpless

2008-04-25T21:51:00.000-07:00

Again, I'm pretty sure this was a chameleon as I wasn't hallucinating and it kept changing. Not clear on why I was helpless.

Lvl 8, Dlvl 8, Human Samurai, killed by a water troll, while helpless

2008-04-25T21:50:00.000-07:00

Not really sure what happened here. I walked through a door I had been through before. I was put to sleep in a cloud of gas. I'm pretty sure it was a chameleon though as the first thing to hit me was a baby crocodile. Hachi triggered a rolling boulder trap on us early on. He didn't make it.

Lvl 12, Dlvl 6, Elf Priest, killed by an air elemental

2008-04-25T07:45:00.000-07:00

This one started off real bad. I wanted to play an elf and decided to try a priest as I hadn't done one of those in some time. My kitten died on turn 47. There was a ring shop and I figured at least one mimic so I was trying to be careful. Turns out there were 2 small mimics and one giant mimic and about 9 killer bees heading down the hallway. I survived that. Lots of Elbereth. Fortunately healing was one of my starting spells.

I made it down to Minetown where I sacrificed 3 unicorns and got Orcrist and Sting. Which was awesome as those became unrestricted to me. So I had some decent weapons. The lower mine got dangerous really quick so I went down to the Oracle. In that vicinity I found a spellbook of identify. Oh yeah. That was awesome. No more guessing. I cleared out Sokoban and went back to Minetown hoping to dilute some stuff and get some more holy water.

An air elemental happened by and things were over fairly quick. Which sucked as this was going great.

93761 points
20661 moves

Lvl 12, Dlvl 6, Human Barbarian, killed by Mr. Nenilukah, the shopkeeper

2008-04-24T05:46:00.001-07:00

So I got greedy. I finished Mine's End. And was cleaning up Minetown. I killed all the watch, but only got to sacrifice one of them. The watch captain almost got me. I had Jubilex and Yeenghou summoned. I had never done this before so I thought I'd give it a try, sacrificing humans to get rid of demons. I took out one of the shopkeepers and was trying to get the other one mad so I could slaughter Keystone Kops. I tried the digging a hole thing but it was a small shop and he took all my stuff. I tried to get it back but he whooped on me with my own battle axe.

I had two pairs of lenses. Kinda weird.

67086 points
13141 moves

Lvl 5, Dlvl 4, Human Archealogist, killed by a pony

2008-04-24T05:45:00.001-07:00

Too many trap doors. Wasn't ready for what I ran into.

Lvl 7, Dlvl 7, Dwarf Valkyrie, killed by a rotted killer bee corpse

2008-04-24T05:41:00.000-07:00

This was kind of a fluke that I gave up on. I let the game randomly select my roll to test out some new config settings I had just worked out. I stayed out of the mines for the most part and got down to the Oracle. Where I saw 8 or 10 killer bees. I took care of most of them using Elbereth and running back upstairs. Near the end one poisoned me and my strength dropped to 9. After killing them all I tried one of the corpses and apparently got an older one.

6104 points
4176 moves

Lvl 7, Dlvl 6, Dwarf Valkyrie, killed by a gold golem, while helpless

2008-04-22T02:13:00.000-07:00

Oh this was going to be so awesome. There was an alter of the first floor. And I converted a neutral alter on the third floor and then got Mjollnir. Sweet! I went all the way down to the Oracle for no particular reason. I stepped on a magic trap and got blinded. Damn (and now that I write this, I'm noticing a pattern). There was a giant bat and a soldier ant. Crap. I was able to engrave Elbereth even though I was blind, so I pulled through that. Then I went wandering around and came back and stepped on the same damn trap. Stupid! I even had a stethoscope. I love having a stethoscope.

5601 points
3873 moves

Lvl 5, Dlvl, 4, Dwarf Valkyrie, killed by a giant bat

2008-04-22T02:11:00.000-07:00

I stepped on a magic trap, got blinded and then killed by the bat that was summoned by the trap.

1266 points

Lvl 8, Dlvl 8, Gnome Wizard, killed by a system shock

2008-04-22T02:02:00.000-07:00

I'm just no good at playing a wizard. I always run out of power and then get stuck. I made it down to Minetown, barely, and was feeling pretty safe. It was really weird when I hit the first level of the Mines. I was a gnome so I felt fairly secure in venturing down. But when I got there, all I found was corpses. At first I thought a rolling boulder trap had taken out a few. But then it was just more corpses. Then I found the ghost of some samurai who had just ate it a few minutes earlier. Then everything made a lot more sense. So there were two ogres I had to run past to get to Minetown. Again I had a little bit to clean up once I got there, but things seemed okay. Until I got stuck in a corner with an orc zombie coming one way and an elf the other way. So I can't Elbereth my way out of it. Actually, I did. I started with a wand of slow monster so I zapped the elf and got the zombie running far enough with Elbereth that I made it out of the corner.

But shortly before that I had, in desperation, put on one of the rings I started with. It was a ring of polymorph. Not polymorph control, just polymorph. When I put it on, nothing happened. I never took it off. I got to the temple and was trying to close the door when I died.

Oh, and my cat, who later died in action with a centipede, stole some boots of speed for me. Awesome.

8235 points
4269 moves

Lvl 6, Dlvl 6, Human Tourist, killed by an imp

2008-04-21T05:51:00.000-07:00

My kitten was killed falling into a pit on turn 68, doh! Sometime thereafter I survived 4 rothes and a gecko with Elbereth and darts. Not bad. I made it down to the oracle and ran into a giant ant and a zombie. Elbereth was fine until the elves showed up. I flashed the camera a few times and ran like hell.

The first floor of the mines had killer bee. I went back up a got a little dog. I stayed put on the stairs with Elbereth and the little dog handled most of the rest. 3 of the killers bees got killed by a rock trap running away from my Elbereth.

I got separated from the dog by a trap door. Then worn down by some gnomes before the imp finished me off. Not a bad run though.

2806 points
3235 moves

Lvl 8, Dlvl 9, Human Valkyrie, killed by a lecrotta

2008-04-21T05:49:00.000-07:00

Was I blind? Either that or it was invisible. Anyhow, it was over quickly. And there were entirely too many trap doors.

6407 points
3699 moves

Lvl 11, Dlvl 6, Human Samurai, killed by a gargoyle

2008-04-21T05:44:00.000-07:00

I completely cleared out the Gnomish Mines and was hanging out in Minetown trying to identify stuff. I had Snickersnee from sacrificing monsters out of a bag of tricks I found. This gargoyle came up and totally kicked my ass. I tried engraving Elbereth, but that didn't work. I didn't think to use the potion of extra healing I had on hand.

As a sidenote, it's a pain in the ass when you're lawful and can't kill any dwarfs for mithril or pickaxes.

60579 points
14872 moves

Lvl 15, Dlvl Quest 6, Killed by an ogre king while helpless

2008-04-19T17:18:00.000-07:00

It was a great run. I technically finished the Quest, though I never made it off the level where the nemesis, Thoth Amon, was. I really should have zapped him with a wand of death right from the start. Instead I let him curse and destroy my helmet and cloak of displacement and blessed dwarvish mithril. Engraving Elbereth with a wand of fire kept all of the monsters he summoned away. So I did zap him and got the quest artifact. But there were a ton of monsters running around. And they kept summoning more with scrolls and wands. I stayed by the Elbereth and the altar that was there. I already had Cleaver and Trollsbane and got Dragonsbane from sacrificing trolls to get rid of the bodies.

Anyhow a vampire lord had been summoned and it was giving me trouble. On one of my forays to try and get rid of him he summoned some monsters with a wand. One of which landed on my Elbereth and didn't have room to move. Then I got hit with a potion of paralysis and it was all over.

I had telepathy for practically the whole game. But I never found a blindfold or a towel to use it. Idefix got polymorphed into an umber hulk which was cool. He dug up a lot of the Gnomish Mines. He also killed the priest in Minetown and some of the watchmen. Later he turned into an air elemental which was great for taking care of chickatrices. He also killed several shopkeepers, the Oracle, and the rest of the watch. He bought it in Sokoban. Must have polymorphed again.

It said that I extincted ogres after killing 208 of them. Which apparently didn't include the one standing on my Elbereth when I died.

408161 points
46423 turns

Lvl 10, Dlvl 9, Human Valkyrie, Killed by an ochre jelly

2008-04-16T02:01:00.000-07:00

I ran into my dead tourist from the last game. Got a bunch of gold and a ton of cursed stuff. I had several large boxes which made for some nice stashes. I got down to the lowest level of the Gnomish Mines and found a vampire and a vampire lord. The vampire was pretty easy. The vampire lord I had to engrave Elbereth several times. I finally killed him after round 4 or 5. There was an ochre jelly in the room. No big deal I thought. I'll just pick up a few of the darts I'd thrown. Well I was already pretty low on hp from the vampire lord. The ochre jelly engulfed me and everything was over. Damn.

37865 points

Lvl 3, Dlvl 5, Human Tourist, Killed by a wererat while helpless

2008-04-15T07:44:00.000-07:00

I really need to pay attention to where I am walking. I knew that there was a floating eye in that hallway or nearby.

893 points

Lvl 8, Dlvl 8, Gnome Wizard, Killed by a mumak

2008-04-15T05:19:00.000-07:00

Right off I started with a ring of slow digestion. That makes things so much easier. However my kitten got killed by a dwarf in the mines. Which sucked as I had a magic whistle (in retrospect I could have used it to get it away from that dwarf). But the kitten had helped me clear out a jewelers so I had 7 or 8 rings. One was a ring of invisibility. I was doing ok heading through the mines until I fell through a trap door. Shortly after that I must have it a magic trap or something because I was blind and then surrounded by a guardian naga and a mumak. I got a way from them with my invisibility ring then headed down the nearest stairs to get out of the way. I ran into a group of uruk-hais so I wasted the remainder of my power on them. I went back upstairs and tried to lay low in a corner. The mumak walked right up to me and finished me off. Even while invisible. I didn't even think to try Elbereth or anything else.

Lvl 8, Dlvl 6, Human Valkyrie, Poisoned by a quasit

2008-04-15T03:54:00.001-07:00

I made it to minetown with Excalibur and ran into my ghost. I also saw a chickatrice and a yellow light, now that's a bad combo. So I went back upstairs to head the other way until I had a blindfold or something or telepathy. Then I saw the quasit, and thought, "Aha, I really need poison resistance." Then I died.

7419 points

Lvl 6, Dlvl, 4, Orc Barbarian, Killed by a bat

2008-04-15T03:52:00.000-07:00

I hit a magic trap or something and got blinded. Bats hit hard, or at least fast and a whole lot.

1876 points

Lvl 9, Dlvl 7, Elf Ranger, Killed by a gnomish wizard

2008-04-15T03:50:00.000-07:00

What an ignominious way to go. I had carefully taken care of a pack of winter wolf cubs one level up. Got down to minetown and ran into another. Took care of them, even without cold resistance. Then a gnomish wizard actually successfully casts his spell and kills me.

16204 points

Lvl 6, Dlvl 6, Human Valkyrie, Killed by a fire ant

2008-04-15T03:48:00.000-07:00

Team Ant strikes again. I ran into a ghost and some killer bees. I engraved Elbereth. Good. Then a werewolf showed up and read a summon monster scroll. Bad.

Oddly, for three games in a row there have been 2 jackals in the first room.

3111 points

Lvl 7, Dlvl 6, Human Barbarian, Killed by a mumak

2008-04-15T03:46:00.001-07:00

I came around a corner and ran right into this thing and before I knew what hit me I was gone.

4223 points

Lvl 1, Dlvl 2, Human Rogue, Killed by gnome while helpless

2008-04-15T03:45:00.000-07:00

NO FOOD.

Lvle 5, Dlvl 4, Human Tourist, Killed by a giant rat

2008-04-15T03:44:00.000-07:00

So tourists start out with 4 potions of healing. You'd thing I would use one when I got into trouble.

1358 points

Lvl 2, Dlvl 2, Elf Ranger, Killed by a small mimic

2008-04-15T03:41:00.000-07:00

Man, so much was going right with this game. On the first level I found two chests and by the time I hit the second floor I had two wands, a magic whistle, a ring of levitation. Things were rockin'. Then I came into an armor store. And I knew there was going to be a mimic. And I walked into it, and I died. So lame.

327 points

Lvl 10, Dlvl 10, Human Valkyrie, Killed by brainlessness

2008-04-14T09:14:00.004-07:00

I fell down a trap door in the lower levels of the Gnomish minds where I first encountered the master mind flayer. I ran my ass away. I had a helmet on or I'd have been gone right away. Fortunately the stairs were in a single space wide hallway. So I engraved Elbereth a few times on the stairs and tried to throw stuff at the mind flayer. He was shooting arrows back at me. The best thing I had to engrave Elbereth with was a wand of digging. Eventually it got worn down enough for the flayer to come back after me and do me in.

28503 points

Lvl 9, Dlvl 3, Human Barbarian, Killed by a soldier ant

2008-04-14T09:14:00.003-07:00

Go Team Ant! I found a throne room and was kicking some butt. Then somebody threw a potion of confusion at me. I had to keep trying to defend myself and ended up killing Idefix (who had been really helpful this game). I believe I lost telepathy at that point. Which is why the ants were able to sneak up on me.

16322 points

Lvl 5, Dlvl 5, Killed by an invisible dwarf lord

2008-04-14T09:14:00.002-07:00

Not much to say here. It was a pretty good start for a tourist, but I never got any armor together and that left me a bit vulnerable.

Lvl 10, Dlvl 11, Human Valkyrie, Killed by an owlbear

2008-04-14T09:14:00.001-07:00

This one really started to piss me off. I hit 3 polymorph traps. That just gets old. In this case I saw team ant approaching and headed back upstairs when the owlbear got hold of me.

21876 points

Lvl 10, Dlvl 11, Human Barbarian, Killed by a disenchanter

2008-04-08T07:36:00.000-07:00

I'm actually not certain what it was. Could have been a giant mimic or something, but it kept changing form and I wasn't hallucinating. I will admit I got a bit careless after I lost the bags of holding. But I did try to keep things together for a while. I ate a tengu corpse that I shouldn't have. The teleportitis was a pain and part of what drove me on to my demise. All that teleporting really hammers the hunger, and most of my food was in the bag when it exploded.

But still, I did survive a pair of chickatrices in sokoban with a handy lizard corpse. And I totally polymorphed a rust monster into something easier to kill after he screwed up my two-handed sword. I also ate a giant corpse without dying this time. Conveniently the first wand I tried was a polymorph one. Overall my best game since I started playing again.

40145 points

I think I'm going to cry

2008-04-08T04:39:00.000-07:00

I just blew up two bags of holding. I cleared Sokoban and had a whole ton of stuff in my bag of holding (all my potions, rings, scrolls, money, food, and some tools). I went back up a few levels and picked up a bag I had found earlier. It never even occurred to me that it was magical. Damn.

Lvl 1, Dlvl 2, Human Tourist, Killed by a boulder

2008-04-07T04:32:00.000-07:00

From a trap triggered by my little dog I might add. Damn dog.

118 points

Lvl 6, Dlvl 6, Human Valkyrie, Killed by a soldier ant

2008-04-07T04:28:00.000-07:00

Team Ant scores again. I was being careful too. Stayed out of the Gnomish Mines as that seems to be where I always die. I even wrote Elbereth in the dust. Twice. It didn't seem to last too long this time. But it has been working lately. A big help, that.

I even got my diety to cure my lycanthropy after a wererat got me. Then I tried to sacrifice it. Oops. Forgot about the rules for that. Pissed the diety off and converted the alter to chaotic. Doh.

2576 points

Lvl 4, Dlvl 4 Human Barbarian, Killed by a garter snake while helpless

2008-04-07T04:25:00.000-07:00

I really should have been paying more attention and not walked into that floating eye.

717 points

Lvl 6, Dlvl 4, Human Valkyrie, Killed by a rothe

2008-04-05T15:55:00.001-07:00

Caught between a rothe and a ghoul. And the stairs were on the other side. Maybe I should start fooling around with using Elbereth. Might give me a bit more of a chance next time.

Lvl 7, Dlvl 6, Human Monk, Killed by blast of frost

2008-04-05T06:26:00.000-07:00

Freakin' werewolves! I was taking things really easy. Being careful. I was in mine town and things looked ok. I saw a werewolf a and had space to move. So I went and got a bow I found then went back and got the other one I found after I wielded the arrows and quivered the bow and threw the bow. That was dumb. Anyhow I got the other bow and put things in the correct hands and tried to take the werewolf on from a distance. He got in close then summoned some pals and one of them was a winter wolf that hit me with the frost breath. One of my potions exploded and then things were all over.

I figure just to mix things up I'll let the computer choose my race and class every third game or so. And I got set back up on nethack.alt.org.

Lvl 5, Dlvl4, Human Barbarian, Killed by a water demon

2008-04-05T06:23:00.000-07:00

So I see this water demon off in the distance and I'm like, "Whoa, time to get out of here and head back up a level." I've got a big head start so it should be no problem. Then I hit a teleport trap that puts it between me and the stairs. The demon just pounded on me with a morning star.

1531 points

Lvl 5, Dlvl 4, Human Barbarian, Killed by a dwarf

2008-04-05T06:20:00.000-07:00

I thought that it might be a bad idea to keep letting the computer randomly choose my race and class. So back with the trusty barbarian. Then I caught lycanthropy from a werejackal. At least it wasn't a wererat.

1306 points

Lvl 4, Dlvl 5, Dwarf Caveman, Killed by a rothe

2008-04-05T06:19:00.000-07:00

I know how tough rothes are. I really do. I know I should have run away, but I didn't.

850 points

Lvl 5, Dlvl 7, Hum Arc, Killed by giant bat

2008-04-05T06:18:00.001-07:00

This bat totally snuck up on me.

1854 points.

Lvl 4, Dlvl 3, Dwarven Valkyrie, Killed by kitten

2008-04-05T06:17:00.000-07:00

Pitiful.

905 points

Lvl 8, Dlvl 4, Hum Barb

2008-04-05T06:11:00.000-07:00

I don't even remember what it was that killed me this time. But I got tagged by a werewolf in the Gnomish mines. I tried to make the most of it and lasted for a while afterward. I had packs of wolves on 3 different levels. Some tame frost wolves mixed in too. Which was kinda cool but didn't really help in the end.

6558 points

Lvl 6, Dlvl 7, Hum Monk, Killed by and orc mummy

2008-04-05T06:07:00.000-07:00

I tried another randomly created character that got off to a decent start. Until I fell through a trap door, got separated from my pet and was softened up by a straw golem before the mummy finished me off.

2454 points.

Level 8, DLVL 5, Human Samurai,Killed by Soldier Ant while blind

2008-04-05T05:57:00.000-07:00

This was my first game in quite some time, and it was going great. I found a co-aligned altar early and got Snickersnee from offering. But my dog got killed by a gold golem. Then Team Ant showed up.

As a side note, this wiki is awesome. No more poking around random FAQ's looking for what I need. Most of the information is linked right from the main page and the rest is easy to find via the search.

Lvl 11, Dlvl 6, Hum, Bar, killed by a hallucinagen-distorted giant ant, or something

2006-01-21T01:21:00.000-08:00

I gave up on interesting characters and went back to where the survivability is. Strength. Barbarians. Had a good run too. Finished the mines (then I lost my cat on the lowest level, something was slowing me down and I didn't get to my cat before the troll killed it, damn troll). Finished sokobon, and had gone back to Minetown which had a co-aligned alter. I was gonna try and scarifice something into existence. I had a few piles of stuff set about near the altar. A kobold shaman came in and grabbed a cursed scroll of create monster and then read it. Not a problem, I was planning on doing that myself. I cleaned everything up and then something caused me to hallucinate. I'm not really clear on what that was. I had set my unicorn horn down while doing something else. I went to go pick it up but being hallucinating and all I didn't realize that there was a guard, or maybe the priest standing in my way. I hit him (her, it) then almost immediately got zapped by a wand which paralyzed me. Then I got whacked until I died. Kind of a bummer there, it was shaping up to be a good game.

Lvl 4, Dlvl 4, Dwa, Arch, killed by a coyote

2006-01-21T01:18:00.000-08:00

Another try with my pseudo-Indiana Jones thing here. I ran into a bugbear and really didn't stand a chance so I beat feet out of there. But there were a couple of coyotes and a rat on my tail. I didn't outrun one of the coyotes.

Lvl 4, Dlvl 4, Dwa, Arch, killed by a kobold while helpless

2006-01-21T01:14:00.000-08:00

I really wanted telepathy. I know just whacking floating eyes is a bad idea. I had thrown everything I had at it without killing it. I thought, maybe if I hit him just one more time that'll do him in. Not so much. A kobold wandered up while I was frozen and offed me

Level 1, Dlvl 2, killed by a kobold's dart

2006-01-16T10:21:00.000-08:00

Female gnome healer. Letting the computer choose for me might not be the best idea. My cat bought it under a falling boulder trap. That was not a good sign. Shortly after that a kobold was chasing me down the hallway throwing darts. I tossed a couple back but not enough.

Level 1, Dlvl 3, zapped by a shopkeepers wand

2006-01-16T10:16:00.000-08:00

Nuetral healer. Human I think, although I didn't really play long enough to notice. Fell through a trap door into a shop that was closed. I had to kick the door open, as it was locked, and he wanted to charge me 400 for it. I actually had it but thought that maybe if I left quickly things might blow over after a while. But it was not to be. I don't even know what kind of wand it was. Doesn't really matter as he could probably have just whacked me over the head with it and that would have done me in.

Level 2, Dlvl 2, done in my a small mimic in a shop

2006-01-16T10:14:00.000-08:00

I really knew that it was a mimic. I did. It was 4x4 sized shop but I walked into it anyway. I let the game choose my starting race, class, and alignmnet this time. A female lawful dwarven archeologist. I really saw this one going places. Such a shame.

Level 16, Dungeon level 6 (Quest), Choked on a Hill Giant corpse

2006-01-15T13:28:00.000-08:00

This was my best game ever. It was also a ridiculous way to die. I had been as far down as Medusa's level, I didn't have a good way of crossing the water so I was meandering around working on some other stuff. I was on the lowest level of the Valkyrie quest getting the rest of the loot and and trying to bump my strength on all of the giants. This was dumb as I already had gauntlets of power. Anyhow, I didn't wait near long enough to try to eat another one, and I died. Kind of anitclimactic, no?

Dlvl 4, XP 3, Tourist caught between a giant bat and a little dog

2006-01-07T21:41:00.000-08:00

I was thinking if I went out as a Tourist I might be a little more careful. I had Sting 'cause I found a runed dagger and my coach clued me in on naming it to that effect. I saw the little dog when I entered a room (hey those suckers are mean). It was only two spaces away. My cat had stepped on a teleport trap in the previous room so I decided to retreat back to it and try my luck. It only put me over one room where the dog was soon following. Two doors to choose from. I took Door Number One on the left. Which opened right into a giant bat. Not much chance after that.

Dlvl 2, XP 2, killed by a gas spore's explosion

2006-01-07T20:29:00.000-08:00

The rock that hit me on the head just kind of softened me up. Another rock from the same trapdoor killed my cat. The gas spore that I bumped into around the corner finished me off.

What got me started

2006-01-07T14:44:00.000-08:00

This is something I posted elsewhere that was my original inspiration for this blog:

A few days ago I was playing some nethack at work. I was playing a Valkyrie, I think and had just cleared out the Gnomish mines. And on the bottom level I had even taken out a vampire and a vampire lord. I was up to level 12 after eating a wraith. From somebody's bone file I had a cursed Frost Brand which I was pretty sure I could uncurse to some good use. I was back up in Minetown gathering stuff and about to head back down to pick up some more. I had been in a store and had therefore dropped and picked back up my dwarven mattock which I was using as my primary weapon. On the way to the stairs I ran into a cockatrice. It hit me once or twice but nothing happened. So I figured I could take it out. So I hit it. But I hadn't re-wielded my mattock. So I hit it bare-handed, and promptly turned to stone. Game over.

Just now I was rocking in another game. This time I'm a barbarian and I've again just cleared the Gnomish Mines. I've got the artifact Cleaver and I'm gathering stuff back upstairs with me. I'm down a few points of intelligence after the mind flayer I met at the bottom of the mines, but I'm a barbarian, so no big deal. I see a cockatrice via telepathy as I've got my towel over my eyes. And I kill it. But I never took the towel off. So when I step over the corpse I FEEL what is there. Hmm, it's a cockatrice corpse. That's interesting. I've just turned to stone. Game over.

I had something very similar happen a year or so ago with my best game to date. Damn cockatrices. And it's not like it isn't entirely preventable. I need to practice safe dungeon-crawling or something. Get me some gloves.

Dungeon level 2, a kobold with a wand of fire

2006-01-05T19:19:00.000-08:00

That was quick. Experience level 2 on dungeon level 2. A frickin' kobold.

Level 9, Gnomish Mines, Fire Ants

2006-01-05T19:04:00.000-08:00

I ran into some fire ants on my way back down the Gnomish Mines after a teleport trap sent me back up to dungeon level 2. They hit me before I knew what was happening. And then my potion of paralysis boiled and burst. Paralyzing me. I tried praying when I got the chance, had about 12 HP's left. Set kept them back for a round or two, but the bastard didn't heal me. Turns out I had a wand of teleportation I hadn't ID'd yet. Oh well.