http://crawl.montres.org.uk/morgue/damerell/morgue-damerell-20200130-193731.txt

"Leading the charge is the mightest scion of evil"

Why a mummy assassin? I didn't fancy the obvious MuNe combo (although
this character just came out as another kind of necromancer), I'd
never played an assassin, and it seemed like the curare needles would
at least let me overcome some early-game nuisances.

Now I have a win with every god, I'm taking the first apparently
viable altar; I splatted a total of 6 MuAs before this game, including
deaths with Vehumet (no good at all), Ash (it seemed like the skill
boost would help with mummy's abominable aptitudes and of course
clarity is nice to have; this was working OK but died of carelessness
in Lair), and the obvious option of Gozag (blown up by Gastronok with
a Potion Petition ready to go, so carelessness again).

I last played Yred to win a kitty in 2017; they seemed like they might
be a good choice both because Yred is a really easy route to 2 runes
(and one where terrible apts don't matter because nothing about the
murder katamari depends on your skills) and because Drain Life could
cover for the inability to quaff heal wounds. This worked out, but you
probably knew that since this is a YAVP.

I got Yred on D:3; came close to dying in an ossuary and a sewer, but
got lucky on D:7 when I found Eos, which I'd use all game, and the
amulet of the Air. Since by then I had Animate Dead, and Yred started
to spit up permanent allies on D:8, I was into the phase where you
just roll a murder katamari around the dungeon with relative impunity.

Even with mummy's terrible apts, I was a lot more robust than the
kitty of Yred, so could generally charge into combat ahead of my
minions, which helped to keep them around in the Depths/Vaults phase
where they start to be badly outclassed; I knew that if things went
south I could Drain Life or simply retreat behind a wall of
meatshields.

Orc turned up before Lair; I had plenty of money to spend so I cleared
Orc, getting one of the endings with a horde of ogres. I bought +2
boots with {+Inv Str+7 Int-4} which I'd use all game, and a ring of
fire to cover up my fire vulnerability; the brooch of Shielding was in
a shop and I saved up for that, buying it around the time I cleared
D:14.

Lair was also OK; I'd find the robe of Night which I was tempted by,
but which in the medium term didn't actually seem a good fit with the
hordes of allies - reduced LOS means they're always getting out of
sight and chewed up without your knowledge. Instead for a while I used
a +5 scale mail I found on D:14, and started training
Armour. Somewhere around here I also found a manual of Throwing, which
I cashed; I'd not otherwise have bothered training so much given that
I had Yred minions in the way half the time.

On D:15, Yred coughed up the first bone dragon. Yred would wait until
V:5 to give me a profane servitor, which was fortunate because the
interaction with Eos isn't ideal - I'd lose both the umbra from the
servitor and the effective SInv from Eos's halo. I still kept using
Eos all game even after profane servitors starting turning up because
it was much better than any other option.

Snake and Swamp alike were straightforward katamari-rolling exercises;
on Swamp:4 I found a ring with Stlth- - I mention this because for
some reason almost every artifact ring I wanted to use all game would
have Stlth-.

I went to Elf next, which paid off; I got a ring with rF++ (and
Stlth-) which was the point where my resistance problems were
effectively solved, a ring with {Int+4 Dex+6} (and... Stlth-,
naturally), Bear Spirit making MR largely irrelevant for the rest of
the game, the moon troll leather armour, and the robe of Vines.

I was really tempted by the robe of Vines, but I think mostly because
wearing it with its No Potion Heal on a mummy feels like you're
getting away with something. Even given that I was already getting
guardian spirit from Bear Spirit, my defences were just much stronger
with the moon troll leather. I'd keep moon troll leather on all game,
and started training Spellcasting for MP, producing the odd result of
a winning character with highest skill Spellcasting 23.8 but which
used practically no spells except Ozo's Armour.

Vaults went swimmingly - I appear to have killed Boris on V:4 without
actually seeing him - well enough that, knowing that Depths chews up
Yred minions, I went straight on to V:5, teleporting to the edge and
building a katamari from there. V:5 gave me both Ozo's Armour (albeit
it took a while to train up Charms and Ice enough to use it) and a
ring with {Wiz rElec rF+ Str+3} which I'd use for extra rF against
OOFs. (I expected to use the wizardry, but in the end didn't really
have anything whose failure rate became acceptable with it on.)

I worked down Depths next, killing Boris again (at least I saw him
this time). Depths was getting pretty tough on the minions but as
mentioned the way I could spend more time in the front line by virtue
of not being a naked cat was helping them out. On U:4 I found a manual
of Long Blades; given the awkward Eos / profane servitor interaction I
did identify some randart long blades finding +10 scimitars with
{slice, *Contam rElec MR+ SInv} and {flame, Dex+7}. I agonised over
this for a bit but decided even with the manual it was just too much
XP in Maces and Flails to walk away from.

I was planning to go for at least 4 runes, but thought I'd at least
attempt to clear Z:1-4 first and see how bad they were. I was kind of
aware I didn't have much to deal with orbs of fire (and I met one on
Z:1); I tried an antimagic morningstar but it didn't really shut down
the OOF's magic and of course just wielding it knocked about 30 EHP
off me. I did win and clear the rest of Z:1-4 but it was clear this
was going to be a problem.

Next I went to Crypt, enslaving Margery who'd be a useful ally until
Z:5 where she got killed almost immediately, and also collecting
Aizul, Mennas, Sojobo, and Boris (again). I thought I might try and
get some good out of mummy necromancy, so learned Dispel Undead,
optimistically hoping I could get Haunt online.

Abyss seemed like it would be the least bad fourth rune. I didn't
always have minions, but was tough enough to mostly handle it; I
blundered around Abyss:3 for ages before getting teleported into the
rune vault.

Finally to Z:5. I struggled badly with orbs of fire (and the damn
things kept turning up in pairs), burning through the four scrolls of
summoning I'd brought in order to be able to retreat repeatedly. After
that, however, it was all fine; I grabbed the Orb and while I saw
three panlords on the orbrun, I didn't have to kill any of them.

Just spriggan and demonspawn left...