http://crawl.montres.org.uk/morgue/damerell/morgue-damerell-20191229-172129.txt With this win, I've won a game with every god; a relief because I've been not repeating gods before reaching this point, and now I can have a free choice of gods as I do the last few species. As a result, I didn't particularly choose Ely for KoAr, I just only had kobold and spriggan as unwon species that could worship Ely at all. However, it worked out pretty nicely; the character turned out effective apart from the combination of kobold fragility and EV-based defences meaning I sometimes got into trouble by taking a single big hit, and Ely could always get me out. (That said, I did struggle in Depths, so it wasn't all plain sailing). I ended up angering Ely three times, but had plenty of heal wounds to burn through at those times. The first time was sheer carelessness; I used Divine Protectin on Shoals:2 then read a scroll of summoning because it didn't occur to me my allies getting kills would be prohibited. The second time I used it on Elf:2 having lethally poisoned something with a rapier of venom; I soon rebranded it. The third time, at least, was intentional; I had allies out but thought my choices were to either invoke Divine Protection and possibly take penance, or to die. On that occasion my life was saved by Ely, so it was worth it. I took TSO on D:5 then switched to Ely in the Temple. These good gods were a poor fit with KoAr in one sense; they don't let you stab something you've enslaved. Since the wand of enslavement was my only way to deal with some opponents this was a bit unfortunate. I made heavy use of wands and misc evocables in the early and middle game, up to about XL 20, and trained Evocations up to 12. After that, however, I was dumping my XP into spells. I found a book of Battle early and learned Infusion and Shroud of Golubria in spite of Ko's bad Charms aptitude; I used Shroud all game, but would amnesia out Infusion only to take it again in Shoals when I had more MP, using it to boost the limited damage from my rapier. I also found a book of Geomancy, and given Ko's otherwise flat spell aptitudes thought I might as well be an earth elementalist for a bit. I didn't really plan to be a mostly-spellcaster, but I found a +2 robe of magic resistance very early and would wear it almost all game. This worked OK, with Heal Other and Stone Arrow carrying me through the Lair; I got LRD online on Lair:6 and at that point it was very effective. After Lair I hit a labyrinth and got a +4 hand crossbow {velocity, rC+ MR+}; I'd planned to train Crossbows to mindelay at some point and started shortly after this. I'd eventually replace it with an ordinary +9 flaming I made out of spare enchant weapon scrolls. Orc:2 had a manual of Fighting in the shops which I bought and cashed, a lucky find. Spider and Shoals both got pretty hairy, with Arachne in Spider and my first round of penance in Shoals, but by now I'd learned Iron Shot which could do a lot of the heavy lifting, and was training Conjurations with a view to getting IOOD and maybe Spellforged Servitor. I knew there was a book of the Dragon available in Orc, and thought my endgame plan might be to get enough Summonings for Dragon's Call. I did Elf next; I had good MR and fancied it more than Vaults. It was mostly OK apart from the second round of penance, and by the time I left I had IOOD online. I also got a ring with {+Fly MR+ MP+9 Int+3} which I'd use all game. To Vaults; a combination of IOOD and Iron Shot was now my main offence. I was Abyssed very briefly but got out OK, and Vaults was mostly OK apart from struggling with yaktaur packs at times. I got Spellforged Servitor online and used it for a while, but was not entirely impressed, sometimes having to move to avoid being hit by its orbs of destruction. I'd amnesia it out later. Depths was, as mentioned, a bit of a struggle; particularly it had the huge all-level vault with loads of caustic shrikes etc, where I'd take my third round of penance. However, I did find a ring with {Wiz +Blink Str+2} which started to make Dragon's Call look viable, and also a book with Ozo's Armour. After finally clearing Depths I went to V:5; this was pretty easy going, and had Wyrmbane. I was in two minds about this - my rapier wasn't cutting it, except it wasn't really my main offence; the resistances and AC would be nice, and I was at a stage where it would be easy to get to +18 and would damage many opponents; on the other hand given the -2 aptitude it was going to need a chunk of XP to get online. I decided to use it. I try to go for a minimum 4 runes these days, so went to the Abyss; thankfully this wasn't the interminable experience it can be at times. I found a rune vault I could easily beat, scooped up the rune, and found an exit nearby. I bought all the remaining useful consumables and went to clear Zot. By now I had Dragon's Call online, but made less use of it than I expected. I'd use it to clear out a few draconian packs and deal with one orb of fire on Z:5. Halfway down Zot I got the money to buy randart acid dragon scales I'd seen in Orc; since I'd bought all the consumables I thought I might as well give them a go. They turned out to be +6 {+Blink rC+ rCorr Str+4}, which was very handy. I lost a point of AC and EV compared to the robe plus Ozo's, but had much better defences without Ozo's, and the extra Str meant it didn't really affect spellcasting chances especially since the extra resistances made it easier to keep the ring of wizardry in use. Z:5 was pretty easy going - ancient liches and orbs of fire alike can be blown up with IOOD. The orbrun was fine apart from hitting a panlord, ancient lich, and some other monsters all together on Depths:5, but I simply read a teleport and backed up into a corridor. Species left: spriggan, mummy, ghoul, demonspawn.