This one has been a while. At the start of this year I'd had a win
(MuAs^Yred) and started to cherry-pick vanilla 0.23 changes into Stoat
Soup, stopping when I came to wand changes to make a different change
of our own, but it seemed like everything was coming on OK and Stoat
Soup 0.23 would be out in a month or so.

Then, well, then there was a global pandemic and I was stuck at home,
and while I thought naively that this would mean getting more Crawl
stuff done, it didn't really work out; but in recent weeks things have
got a bit better and I've managed to both do some development and to
play one more game, making this a very prolonged 2-streak.

Why VM? It's a background I haven't won, and uses one of DS's better
apts. Out the door, I thought I'd develop the starting book up to Meph
Cloud, which would probably get me through Lair, then see what had
turned up after that. Obviously no plan survives contact with the RNG;
on D:1 I found I was monstrous (hooves and claws) and on D:4 I found a
large shield of reflection, which suggested maybe I should spend some
time punching things and go back to magic later. I also found, and
took, Gozag - first viable god.

I punched my way down the dungeon, struggling with Eustachio, finding
my third body-slot mutation was horns - all this would mean fearsome
melee damage, but also that I really struggled with resistances
because of limited slots (especially MR - almost all game I had MR+)
and would more than once see useful items pushed off me by demonspawn
mutations. D:6 also gave me a +6 randart leather with {Int+2 Dex+3}
which I'd use almost all game - later on I found a +2 randart leather
with rF+++ which I used in Zot and Elf (Elf, because my one useful
source of MR was a ring with rF-) - less good otherwise but it did
mean not being Abyssed in Elf or incinerated in Zot.

I found Orc first; vexingly, an orc sorc summoned a neqoxec which
immediately gave me -20% MP. Since I was using guardian spirit (which
frustratingly was the best amulet I found until after I touched the
Orb, even late-game where it was adding less than 10% to my EHP,
albeit it did let "powered by pain" effectively heal me) and I already
had a few purple potions, I rolled it out, getting blink and Str+4. I
dipped into Orc, but it was pretty hairy, so I pressed on to D:11 and
found the Lair.

Lair:2 had an ice cave where I found the aforementioned ring {+Fly rF-
rN+++ MR+++ Stlth-} and one with {Str+4 Dex+4} - I did get lots of
good rings this game, at least. Lair:5 had a volcano with +3 gloves
with {rC+ rCorr+ Int+3} - a bittersweet find since I knew they were
costing me claw damage and would eventually get pushed off me. By
mid-Lair, I was starting to be able to use spells again.

O:2 seems to have ben a bit hairy but I cleared it and bought a book
with Ozo's Armour in a shop. I did Spider next, parting company with
those gloves, then Shoals where I'd learn Throw Flame for a bit of
merfolk-boiling and Throw Icicle for a generic mid-level attack spell
(in the end I didn't use it much).

After Shoals I went to the Vaults and found a Desolation; this was
worth it for a randart ring with {rElec rN+ Str+4 Int+4 Stlth+} which
I'd use almost all game, but here my horns grew to full-size pushing
my +2 hat of magic resistance off me; the tears I shed when this
happened were nothing compared to the tears I shed when I later found
the hat of the Bear Spirit on U:4.

I continued to V:4 then down the Depths; Louise Abyssed me on U:2
(unsurprising given my terrible MR) but I had no trouble getting
out. I added all kinds of nice rings to my collection, including
Robustness; in spite of the other attractive options I had, I found
the 8 AC hard to pass up.

I cleared V:5 by teleporting on arrival; I found here the last of my
demonic ancestry was going to be 3 levels of robust, which I certainly
wasn't complaining about. Where now? Not Zot, with no good source of
rF - and I tend to have a 4-rune minimum these days.

Crypt seemed like it would be workable, where I found this +2 leather
with {rF+++ MP-9 Dex+3 Stlth+}; I'd miss the Int and extra 4 AC for my
normal armour, but it did now mean I could have MR for Elf and rF for
Zot. By now I had a huge supply of money, so I funded 3 merchants
(armour, potion, scroll); I bought the ratskin cloak, mostly as a
convenient source of rPois now one of my ring slots was going to be
tied up with providing MR, and stacks of consumables.

Elf was easy; the final room had the entrance that's a long stone
corridor, which is a blessing if you have a lamp of fire, Mephitic
Cloud, and a bunch of iceblast and acid charges burning a hole in your
pocket. Elementalists couldn't dig the stone out, so all the elves
just had to mill around in the killing ground at the end of the
corridor. However, they paid me back by having nothing useful at all -
unusual for Elf.

Abyss seemed like the best 4th rune - I wasn't really kitted out for
Slime at all, and I wasn't going deeper in extended on this
character. I was teleported down to A:5 then into a rune vault; the
locals weren't doing me much damage so rather than hammer away and
risk being teleported again, I just fought straight to the rune and
blinked back towards an exit I'd seen earlier.

To Zot! Zot took a full four bribes, more than I expected (but I was
still fat with cash, so no problem). I did have a bit of a problem in
that a bribe ran out as I was turning the corner in the lungs, leaving
me with a previously-bribed OOF quite happily throwing fire at a
currently-bribed OOF and incidentally burning up my other allies;
eventually I just fought it out.

A bigger problem was a Zot trap across the door to the orb
chamber. Eventually I just sucked it up and stepped on it. On the way
out, with the odds in favour of me landing on the right side, I'd
blink out; the place I landed meant I found the macabre finger
necklace, which I could really have done with beforehand given my
marvellous ring collection and lack of compelling amulets.

On Z:2 I got blurry vision off an OOF; I'd mutate it out, finally
getting another pip of MR. I saw one panlord but avoided it; a seraph
on D:2 which I killed on D:1.

And that's it. Unfortunately, this means the only species I have left
is Sp...