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Having screwed up enough courage to make an attempt at snatching a bauble from Smaug,
Embor moves off into the empty room to the east of the ascending staircase ‘<‘ and puts the quest into motion.

No, no, none of that here.
Hidden keyhole and secret entrance be damned…we’ll do it ourselves! 

Embor turns again to Druidic powers found within the
‘Book of Nature Magics [Gifts of Nature]’,
‘Turn Stone to Mud’

The spell makes short work of the granite and quartz veins that lay between rooms, hallways and chambers within the dungeon.
A tunnel begins to take shape.

And, in a few quick turns Embor is secretly in place for ingress into the foul chamber.

 Before removing the last bit of granite and entering the main chamber Embor again casts ‘Detect Life‘.

Other than the newly revealed group of creatures to the north, of which Embor hopes to avoid altogether:

11 Forest Trolls ‘T‘
9 Wolves ‘C‘
1 4-Headed Hydra ‘M‘
3 Eastern Dwarves ‘h‘
1 Dark Dwarven Lord ‘h‘
1 Blacklock Mage ‘h‘
1 Ironfist Priest ‘h‘
1 Stonefoot Warrior ‘h‘
1 Rot Jelly ‘j‘
1 Black Naga ‘n‘
1 Tengu ‘u‘
1 Blood Falcon ‘B‘
1 Giant Red Scorpion ‘S‘
1 Giant Red Frog ‘R‘

there appears to be 1 new entity in the east wing, a Werewolf ‘C‘.

*OOC*

Before I crack into it, let’s take a quick look at what’s inside the chamber.

Outer Chamber

A Rogue ‘p‘ in the outer chamber area.

West Wing

Six Wolves ‘C‘ occupy the west wing, easy to alert but more nuisance than problem.

East Wing

1 Blackguard ‘p‘
1 Soldier Ant ‘a‘
1 Werewolf ‘C‘The Werewolf is a bit of a fight but, no real problems here.

Center

Smaug ‘D‘…’nuff said.

Sorcerer ‘p‘…Bad magics, 18 levels out of its normal range.

Young Gold Dragon ‘d‘…because one dragon isn’t enough, imho.

I imagine there’s some weird arcane shenanigans going on in this chamber, but I really don’t feel the need to investigate it.
My intention is to avoid this area at all costs and not wake the occupants.
Best to let a sleeping Smaug lie.

North Wing

The prize…?

Continued Here:
Angband: On the Doorstep pt.4

Godspeed little druid.

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So, here then is the Human Druid, Embor.Child of a serf and black sheep of his family.

In pack and on person are carried small treasures.

Modest but honestly earned gear wielded.

And, after descending a flight of stairs to level 22 is now On the Doorstep, in the dungeon that is Angband.

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Entry & Starting Map on Level 22

What appears to be a normal start map.
Your results will vary as Angband randomly generates all maps.

The Bad Feeling

On the Angband scale of feelings a character gets upon entering a level ‘Omens of death haunt this place.’ is number 9…on a scale of 1 to 9.
In contrast, number 1 on that scale reads ‘This seems a quiet, peaceful place.’

Druidic Powers and Magic Devices

Druids have the ability to ‘map’ a portion of their surroundings with the use of the spell ‘Sense Surroundings‘…aptly named. 

It is incredibly helpful as you can imagine and is found in the ‘Book of Nature Magics [Gifts of Nature]‘.

With a quick evocation of nature magics Embor is able to sense the environment within the dungeon.

Nothing out of the ordinary as of yet, I am intrigued by the door-ed small chamber to the north west and the cross shaped chamber to the north east.

Embor now employs a helpful magic device taken from a blackguard on level 21, the ‘Rod of Treasure Location‘.

And, with a quick zap…

Lovely ‘*‘ populate the chambers that contain objects, magic items or weapons and ‘*‘ denotes buried treasure such as coins or jewels. The chambers I was interested in contain loot and only a short distance from the start location. Promising.

Now for the last of my starting actions before moving I cast ‘Detect Life‘ from the ‘Book of Nature Magics [Lesser Charms]‘, an incredibly useful and potentially lifesaving spell, especially when you feel that omens of death haunt the place you stand.

‘Obad Hai, reveal to me those living denizens of this sunless deep!’

A crushing blow.
A long list of foes and at the top a beast of legends,
the old wyrm himself…Smaug ‘D‘!

Smaug is no joke and running into him on level 22, 40 levels above where he’s normally found is, to say the least, unexpected. The experience gained upon killing him is insane, just one catch there, you have to kill him.

The chambers to the west look just about as bad with a number of long fights and 3 named, unique monsters; Ibun ‘h‘, Uglúk ‘o‘ and Lugdush ‘o‘. 

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The ‘Plan’
 I’m not sure Embor is up for this fight, having struggled with smaller fights in the past. I’m more concerned with aggroing the entire lot and simply be overrun.
I suppose if I’m clever enough and, with a little luck, I could pull the groups out individually and work my way through them, taking short rests in between to recover hit and spell points before moving to the next…might work.
Or, I could simply bypass all of it and pick my way through the remainder of the level without getting mixed up in this mess at all. Could be some good loot scattered about this level. Or, I could call the level a wash and head back up the stairs to start over.

Anyway, while mulling it all over, I take another look at Smaug not knowing if or when our paths would cross again and grabbed some screen shots to send to a friend for a laugh or two when I notice something about the cross shaped chamber.
There, the small northern chamber, an object all by it’s lonesome, unguarded.
Hmmm.

Also, no doors…anywhere.
Now that doesn’t really mean anything as secret doors reveal themselves only when you get up next to them but, maybe I could access that north chamber without having to fight Smaug and grab whatever that object was.
My imagination begins to run away with thoughts of mithril shirts, magic rings or, dare I think it, the Arkenstone. What could possibly be stashed away in the chamber behind a dragon’s chamber?
‘Probably something good,’ the burglar in me says ‘something shinny’.  Thoughts of leaving evaporate as I now start looking at ways to ‘Bilbo’ a trinket from Smaug and bring it back to my waiting company of dwarves.

Continued Here:
Angband: On the Doorstep pt. 3

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‘And how do you intend to enter Smaug’s chambers?
Through the front gate? As a house guest?
You would be ashes before you took your seventh step.’

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Several weeks ago I was presented with an interesting and quite unexpected situation while playing Angband.

I had at the time started to play a Druid class character, in part because I was intrigued to see how the class would play in Angband and also to take a small break from a Priest character I had been leveling for the past month or so.
Now, playing the Priest took place during a break from playing my Ranger and, playing the Ranger took place during an even longer break from playing my ‘iron man’ Warrior character and, is a story for another post.
I am currently on a break from the Druid and playing a Paladin which is a break from a Mage but, this story concerns the Druid.
So many breaks and yet, always playing.

The Druid had been (still is) a learning experience in the application of cautionary movements and selective engagements. Though I relied heavily on spell casting they weren’t abundantly offensive or overly powerful. Ranged weapons helped little and melee was an act of desperation most times.
I was just starting to get a feel for the classes subtle control and wary exploration type of play when the adventure presented itself.
I didn’t recognize it initially, I think I was a bit stunned by what I was looking at.
I laughed and pshawed out loud for certain.
I stared at the screen for 10 or so minutes trying to figure out some way to salvage the level.
I wasn’t sure the Druid had enough ass in his pants to tear into the mess I was looking at, not like the Priest anyhow.
So I continued to look at the screen.

I was ready to call it quits, ‘shift <‘ and head back up the stairs, reset the level and return when, I recognized what it was I was looking at, something familiar, and thought…maybe?

Here, before me was the chance to burgle from the ‘Chiefest and Greatest of Calamities’…Smaug!

And I was going to do it Bilbo style!

Well, I was gonna attempt to rip the old wyrm off and run away…at the very least.

Continued Here:
On the Doorstep pt. 2

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I’ve been playing Angband since November-ish of 2020, not my first go around with the game but definitely the longest serious stretch of play.
It has captured my attention.

Recently a very interesting situation presented itself in game, a unique and unexpected encounter that I’m chomping at the bit to get into and will post later. Before I get into those upcoming posts I feel I need to give a very brief, bare bones description of the game to maybe pique your interest and look into it for yourself.

If you’re not familiar with Angband it’s not your fault. We play in a world drowning in games and Angband is an OLD GAME, built on a OLDER GAME, inspired by a SLIGHTLY OLDER GAME which places us somewhere around 1980.

It’s a dungeon crawler based on Tolkien’s legendarium but it feels like old school D&D to me…imho.

In short, the game is:

‘Angband is a roguelike game set in a high-fantasy universe. The game world is made up of levels, numbered from zero (“the town”) to some maximum depth. Levels are increasingly dangerous the deeper they are into the dungeon. Levels are filled with monsters, traps, and objects. Monsters move and act on their own, traps react to creatures entering their square, and objects are inert unless used by a creature. The objective of the game is to find Morgoth at depth 100 and kill him.’

The Angband Manual 

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Angband Is Low Tech
No big tits, big pecs characters with unique glowing armor sets.
No community gathering place to show off your rare epic mount.

Just you (@), the drooling village idiot (t) and your little home (8) in an ASCII world.
There are options to play with very basic tile set graphics but I perfer ASCII.

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Angband Is The Devil In The Detail
This game may seem simple but it’s more complicated and difficult then you may expect.

You will need to manage the limited resources you carry, watch your encumbrance, eat, and maintain a light source.
All those pesky little details that have been removed from so many modern games are in play here and may kill you if you’re not careful.

In contrast, I had a character in WoW with a quiver that held 28,000 arrows and as unbelievable as that was, those arrows also weighed nothing. What’s the point in keeping count at all?
Arrows in Angband take up space, have weight and they break…often.

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Angband Is Unforgiving
It’s a difficult game that punishes stupidity and mistakes.
Don’t believe me? Roll up a Human Mage as your first character and see how far you get.
This poor bastard didn’t even make it to the dungeon, killed in town, level 0…there’s 100+ levels to this game.
May as well have died during character creation ala Traveller.

And while were looking at this gravestone keep this in mind when playing. When your character dies, it’s dead. No re-spawn points, no resurrection, no do-overs…just dead.

Permadeath abides.

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Angband Is Imagination Heavy.
A player must engage with this environment, especially when playing in ASCII.

Imagine that this: ‘S‘

Is actually this:

Or this: ‘j‘

Equals this:

And this: ‘D‘…

Well, here there be dragons!

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I suppose it’s no wonder that this and others games of similar ilk (Dwarf Fortress) mostly go unnoticed in the world or are, in general, ‘unknown’.
They’re too hard, require too much thinking and reward you with…text?

But I was promised unique, oversized spaulder skins!!!

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This game will challenge you.

You will yell.

You will die…repeatedly.

It may be the most skillful bit of gaming of your life.

I invite you to explore the game on your terms and make your own opinions.

Download it here from the curators: Angband
Very Helpful: User Manual and Strategy Guide

Luck friend!

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