Introduction to ADOM

[Deceptus]

Hi.

I was bored, so I mangled some quick reccommendation for a really nice roguelike - Ancient Domains of Mystery, or ADOM. (can be downloaded from http://www.adom.de)
Your quest is to find the gates of Chaos and cease the existance of the vile powers... or take control over them yourself. Although a bit bored by fruitless losses, this game still can hook me up for some time.

I think it's the game worthy of playing by RB'ers, maybe even simply for the fact of a big variety in character customization. ADOM has 9 playable races and even more classes, each of them being very different (you earn my title of the Biggest Ballbreaker if you win the game with a Mindcrafter).

Among all the combinations, I decide to choose Gnomish Barbarian. While this sounds silly, this combination has it's pluses. I can aim for Heir talent (available if you can start the game with 3 talents - you take Boon to the Family, Charming and finally Heir, which ships you with an uber-item to start off) easier, because Gnomes start with one free talent. They also start with a Spear and two weapon-marks to it. Spears are my favourite because they add to Defensive Value (which is helpful to evade enemies' attacks) while packing a good punch, and there are many powerful polearms in the game.

I mentioned Talents. What are those? Every three levels you can choose a Talent. It can boost some of your statistics, for example - Hardy adds to your Hit Points total. Some talents unlock the other talents, and some talents can be taken only at the start of the game or have other restrictions (only a dwarf, for example, can take Iron Skin talent).

At the start, I get 2 talents (one standard and the other for being a Gnome). I go for Alert - +1 to Perception isn't very helpful for non-archers, but it unlocks Treasure Hunter (with Miser), which works like MF gear in Diablo 2. You find 50% items more than usual, so you have a better chance of landing an uber piece of gear. The other trait is Tough, for +1 toughness. I don't know if it was a right call, but I want to survive early on, and I can't get Tough later on. I will try to catch all the HP giving talents early.

I start the game with nice Strength and Toughness - 20 and 21, respectively. Other skills are mediocre - 14 Pe will allow me to have a nice range of vision. Ch and Ap aren't really useful (both 10) and usually get down to 1 at the later portions of the game.



My journey starts on a huge... world map. Unlike Nethack, there's a pretty big world to explore. I head to the nearest village - Terinyo. This is a no-brainer to visit this one first - you get quests in this place and you have to buy food before you go further.



Taking your quests is more important than you think. Right after visiting Terinyo, you have to check your skills. If you don't have Healing, you need to get it ASAP, because it's one of the most important skills. However, there are two quests that are exclusive from each other - taking one prevents you from taking the other. You can take the mission of:

1: Rescuing the tainted carpenter from the Village Dungeon, east of Terinyo. This quest is set upon you by the village elder, Rynt.
2: Guth'Alak the druid asks you to kill Keethrax, who has gone mad and is bidding animals to his control to do very bad things. (Blood Raven, anyone?)

Our gnomish barbarian actually has to take the quest number 1. It's the only sure way to get Healing (the others are way too random and rare to ever occur), the quest is overall easier. You also learn Bridge Building, which although rarely useful, can be nice in some situations (most notably Tomb of the High Kings).



Here you can see Smashem - the gnomish barbarian and the spiritual successor to... shhh, no telling! - talking to Rynt. It also highlights where to look for the elder.

There are other quests in Terinyo:

-Tywat Pare (it's an anagram of something - cookie for anyone who guesses), the town's sheriff, is worried about Kranach, who plunders the countryside. Hunt Kranach down BEFORE you get character level of 6 (troll's clvl must be lower than 5, because trolls are slow learners and thus get their levels earlier), and the reward of 3000$ is yours. Quite helpful, but difficult to find (looking for Kranach may be long, and you may encounter many other obstacles on your way, like erratic bears... [stop thinking about MoO!]), and raiders are quite a tough nut to crack.
-The tiny girl in Terinyo asks to find her puppy. It may be tempting to go to Puppy Cave (which shows up on your map after you talk to her), but in fact it's NOT a good idea. Why? On PC:2 (meaning Puppy Cave level 2) there are always Ants - very dangerous monsters for non-spellcasters. Ants breed fast and are hard to hit. If you have luck to have means to kill or bypass ants, you have to fight in a harsh PC:5, which spawns a lot of difficult monsters and has very open spaces. After you reach the end of your destination - PC:6 - you will find another harsh obstacle. The obstacle is Vault. Vaults are areas full of monsters that can sometimes hide an artifact within, but require a lot of heavy fightning. Luckily, the puppy will never be generated within the vault. But you may prolly have to go through the vault to retrieve him.

If 5 days in the game passed and you haven't gone to PC:6 (just to generate the living doggy), the puppy dies. You can finish the quest afterwards by giving his remains (DO NOT EAT CUTE DOG'S REMAINS. NEVER EVER. You will be doomed if you do so. Same for kobolds' corpses.) to the tiny girl. After that, you can spend some time playing with her. What a sad story. Sniff.

(For laughs you can use a Wish to wish the Cute Dog in Terinyo. That kind of mayhem couldn't be done even by Skulla's armies. )

-After you reach level 10, the sheriff will ask you to kill Hotzenplotz in Lawenilothehl (try saying that 5 times fast). Kill the bad guy for Amulet of Order
-OR-
-You can go to Lawenilothehl and accept Hotzenplotz's quests to kill Jharod (he's the one that teaches you Healing, but after you kill him you can use the Chaotic way to learn Healing at Kranf Niest's), and later Tywat Pare (you can lure him out of the city and then slay him)... and if you want to be real badass, kill Hotzenplotz later anyway.

Anyway, I take quests from Rynt, from tiny girl (no intent to finish it now, but it will reveal the location of Puppy Cave to me) and Tywat Pare (you can kill Kranach without it and still get the reward with no problems, but I just wanted to be clear).



There are many caves around Terinyo. To the northwest, there is Small Cave. It's a good place to start - it has a guaranteed waterproof blanket (which can be sometimes useful to avoid rusting your items) in it, and is a good training ground. However, you have to hurry, because the monsters have twice as better level than you! It is a good idea to enter there once, generate monsters at level 2, and enter there later (because SMC is the only way to enter High Mountain Village, through Unremarkable Dungeon).

Northeast, close to the road where you started, is Puppy Cave. Appears after taking tiny girl's quest.

Southeast are Village Dungeon (if you took Rynt's quest), and Druid Dungeon (after taking Guth'Alak's quest). In Village Dungeon, at VD:4 is guaranteed Jharod (who can teach you Healing after you bring Yrrigs to him, and can heal you for free seven times) and at VD:7 is Yrrigs, the mad carpenter. You do the quest not by killing him, but by luring him to VD:4 and letting Jharod touch him.
The Druid Dungeon drags out for 10 levels, after which you meet tough Keethrax and his animals. They will be hostile to you even if you are a Druid, to whom no animals are hostile (which is useful because you don't have to fight cats). Kill Keethrax to collect an artifact of Chaos (quite useless black torc, which can be useful to make a sacrifice to your god out of). Guth'Alak's reward will be either wand of cold or Herbalism or Gardening skill (and if you are a druid, he will give you also a ring of elemental mastery).

If you head south of Terinyo, you will find Lawenilothehl. There are many outlaws and bandits out there, and a black market where you can buy some items, but they are expensive. Barnabas rarely has something worth of interest in his stock.

On the south-eastern edge of the mountains, you will find a very specific Infinite Dungeon. Each level is different in the sense that if you enter, for example, ID:1, leave it and get back, you will get a completely new level. It's an awesome place to level up a weak character.

Finally, on the far west, you will find the main dungeon of the game, Caverns of Chaos, where you will spend majority of the game... but that's the other story.

Smashem goes to Small Cave to generate the monsters at low level and gain his first kill, which is more important than it looks like at the first glance.



I killed a goblin rockthrower as my first kill, and I immediately note it in monster memory. Why do I do this? Because later on you meet the old barbarian. After you kill enough monsters - 500 or so - he will ask you to kill 20 monsters of those whom you first killed. So it's important to get a nice first kill. Goblin rockthrowers are fairly common. A good place is also Lawenilothehl, because there are a lot of hostile cutpurses and bandits, which are rather harmless even to a beginning character (although watch out for assassins!). Taking a good first kill is very important also if you decide to make an ultimate ending - you will have to kill a quickling bard named Filk, who appears at the level of Infinite Dungeon equal to the number of killed by you first kill monsters.

As Smashem goes further to explore Small Cave, I leave you. Hope that you will find some interest in the game.