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Ancient Domains of Mystery (view source)

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* Large customization. The different races and classes, the sheer variety of equipment you can find, and the ways that you can use them.
 
Unusually for roguelikes, ADOM features quite a heavy amount of story, in the form of a detailed world to explore. The game takes place in the world of Ancardia, which is being invaded from another dimension by beings known as the Forces of Chaos. Their inherent wrongess have a [[The Corruption|corrupting effect]] on the world, turning people and animals into monsters, screwing up the weather, etc. A sage named Khelavaster has discovered that the source of Chaos' invasion of Ancardia is in a remote mountain range, the Drakalor Chain. Determined to stop [[The End of the World Asas We Know It]], he went there to stop the invasion and [[Never Came Back]], followed by hundreds of other wannabe heroes. The player is one of them.
 
A major feature is [[The Corruption]], which grants the player various mutations that can be either [[Cursed Withwith Awesome|beneficial]] or downright harmful. Another feature setting it apart from other roguelikes it the [[Karma Meter]], which determines several NPC's reactions and which of the [[Multiple Endings]] are available.
 
Find it [http://www.adom.de here]. A sequel called ''ADOM II: Legends of Ancardia'' has been released, and can be found [http://www.ancientdomainsofmystery.com/ Here], but it's still a work in progress.
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* [[Beef Gate]]: Comes in weak, strong and instant death varieties.
* [[Blackout Basement]]: The Gremlin Cave, which has water traps. You've seen the [[Gremlins|film]], so you can imagine the [[Explosive Breeder|problems]]. However, anyone who knows the Light spell can have ''fun''.
* [[Blade Onon a Stick]]: Halberds and spears.
* [[Blessed Withwith Suck]]: Most of the Chaos mutations are like this. Poisoning everything you touch is great for combat, but not as good when you are trying to eat lunch...
** [[Cursed Withwith Awesome]]: On the other hand, a few of the corruptions have minor drawbacks, such as [[Red Right Hand|becoming horrendously ugly]] - which, of course, [[Nightmare Fetishist|is subjective]].
** Several non-corruption character traits are also double-edged - [[Power Incontinence|randomly teleporting]] is overrated, and even invisibility has its (minor) downsides.
* [[Body Horror]]: The protagonist gets ~18 corruption stages, while NPCs transform into hideous chaos mutants without warning.
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** Inverted by the Insight spell, as well as potions of insight, which reveals hidden information about the ''player character''. This actually makes sense because the player can gain new abilities from various sources, such as corpses, pools and items, without knowing it.
* [[Enemy Summoner]]: Quite a lot, with the summoned things often being able to summon as well.
* [[Everything Trying to Kill You]]: Let's see: Swimming? Drowns you within a turn or two unless you have the right item or skill. Walking in the forest or mountains? [[Random Encounters]], plus starvation. Doors? Trapped. Any wild animal, including rodents? Will fight you to the death, [[Gang Up Onon the Human|even while ignoring other human NPCs such as swordsmen.]] Merely walking around in dungeons? ''[[The Corruption|Gradually turns you into]] [[Body Horror|a twisted mockery of yourself]]''.
** "Suddenly a stone block falls on your head. You die."
*** Only an early-game killer. Even a mildly experienced PC usually has too many hitpoints (at full health) to be instantly killed by these traps - though they may leave you very low on hitpoints in the middle of a dungeon filled with monsters.
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* [[Evil Sorcerer]]: Keethrax, the black druid; Nonnak, the master necromancer; Yulgash, the Master Summoner; Nuurag Vaarn, the Chaos Archmage. Plus all the dark sages and lich variants running around. Be very afraid.
** YOU can also be an [[Evil Sorcerer]] if you want. If you really want to be evil, you can [[Kick the Dog|kick the cute puppy to death]] and then laugh at the girl who just wants her dog back. And then fry everyone in the village with lightning bolts.
* [[Exactly What It Says Onon the Tin]]: The Tower of Eternal Flames. Also the Infinite Dungeon.
* [[Explosive Breeder]]: Worms of any kind and jellies should be killed before they have the chance to multiply. Kill them all. ''Kill''. '''Kill'''. Sorry, flashback.
** There are also gremlins, which are not that dangerous but which spawn explosively when they (or their furballs) touch water (naturally, there is a cave of them filled with water traps). Battle bunnies, which, while appearing only on one level of one dungeon, spawn faster than anything else in the game and are immune to scrolls of vermin control, which ordinarily neuter any spawners on the level. Thank the various gods for the {{spoiler|[[Crazy Prepared|rabbit knife.]]}}
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* [[Healing Factor]]: [[Player Character|PCs]] born in the month of Candle already inherently heal faster than Healing at 100 would let you. Trolls heal the fastest of all races. Being a healer has self-explanatory benefits. What happens when you roll up a Candle-born Trollish Healer? Near [[Wolverine]]-class [[Healing Factor]]! Especially since healers double, then triple their HP recovery at [[Magikarp Power|level 6 and 12]].
** Not enough? Start collecting items. You can wear {{spoiler|a crown of regeneration, the artifact amulet Preserver, bracers of regeneration, two rings of regeneration on your hands and one in the missile slot and wield two knives of endurance. That's eight HP healed 'per turn' through items alone.}}
*** Still not enough? One of the [[Cursed Withwith Awesome|corruptions]] grants another layer of [[Healing Factor]]. Don't forget to actually kill your enemies though.
* [[Heavily Armored Mook]]: Some of the monsters have so high armor that they can be barely scratched with normal attacks.
* [[Hoist Byby His Own Petard]]: Shooting a [[Magic Missile]] in a narrow corridor? [[Too Dumb to Live|Bad idea]]. Chances are, a typo makes you cast it straight at the wall, so it constantly rebounds at you and hits you again and again and again until you're dead.
** There is a spell called Death Ray. [[Captain Obvious|It also bounces off walls]].
* [[I Can't Use These Things Together]]
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** More like, "Gold pieces are ''lethal''." You will only ever underestimate the [[Badass Normal|Casino Shopkeeper]] ''once''.
* [[Joke Item]]: The si -- an artifact that multiplies, and cannot be gotten rid of easily.
** Actually it may be considered a [[Lethal Joke Item|lethal joke item]], as you have a supply of renewable projectiles as well as sacrifice fodder for your god. Even more mundanely, the sis make excellent [[Vendor Trash]]. The "you can't get rid of it" applies to an area that you can never return to (e.g. the Infinite level dungeon which generates a different level each time you move up or down a floor).
** Potion of Stun Recovery, Scroll of Cure Blindness and the potion of uselessness which has [[Lethal Joke Item|a single real use, for which your god rewards you.]]
** And then there's the Scroll of Literacy Check. "If you can read this, you must be pretty good!" (If your Literacy skill is not above 90, it'll read "f u ...")
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** Killing even a single feline of any type makes an enemy of a powerful NPC, causing many to refer to them as [[Goddamn Bats|"those damn cats."]]
* [[Karmic Death]]: Don't eat the corpses of cute little helpless things (eg dwarven children, the tiny girl's puppy). Also, think very hard about attacking obviously good (Lawful) people. Some of them are very, very good at defending themselves. Or have extremely nasty friends who will kick your ass.
* [[Kill It Withwith Ice]]: Naturally, the easiest way to get through the Tower of Eternal Flames. [[That One Level|Still not very easy, though.]]
* [[Kill It Withwith Fire]]: Remember these words when you find the Temple of Elemental Water.
* [[Kill It Withwith Water]]: Specifically, holy water. Use it on the undead for a [[One-Hit Kill]].
* [[Kleptomaniac Hero]]: Almost anything can be useful, so it makes sense to pick up different things. Even a "scroll of cure blindness" (which can be turned into a blank scroll by dipping it in water) or a "potion of uselessness" ({{spoiler|which can be thrown to propel yourself on the [[Slippy-Slidey Ice World|icy level]] of the Caverns of Chaos, resulting in an impressed deity giving you an artifact.}})
* [[The Legions of Hell]]: The Forces of Chaos are pretty much [[Expy|this game's version]] of them.
* [[Lethal Lava Land]]: [[Exactly What It Says Onon the Tin|The Tower of Eternal Flames]].
* [[Lethal Joke Character]]: Mindcrafters (essentially psions) are hard to play and weak against undead/unlife, but their powers do not miss and (mostly) ignore armour. Gaining Telekinetic Blast at lvl. 15 is the make-or-break point.
* [[Lethal Joke Item]]: {{spoiler|The potion of Uselessness. Really. If you apply the rules for Conservation of Momentum near the end of the game, the gods reward you with a free artifact for your cleverness.}}
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* [[Outlaw Town]]: Lawenilothehl
* [[Painting the Medium]]: tHe WaY cHaOs CrEaTuReS sPeAk, AlSo KnOwN aS "cHaOsPeAk".
** Not to mention what the {{spoiler|Chaos Dimension}} looks like. {{spoiler|It's an entire screen filled with ASCII garbage, looking not unlike the [[Kill Screen]] in [[PacmanPac-Man]]. Fitting for an ASCII game.}}
* [[Planet Heck]]: Features in the {{spoiler|[[Multiple Endings|Ultra endings]]}}.
* [[Plot Coupon That Does Something]]: Go ahead, use one of the [[Artifact of Doom|Chaos Orbs]] in your tool slot. [[Evil Is Not a Toy|We DARE you]].
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* [[Self-Imposed Challenge]]: Nearly every aspect of the game has been played to death, so there are quite a few of these. One of the most extreme was playing (and ''winning'') with a weight limit of 100s. A normal player would finish the game holding 100-500 times that much in inventory, never mind their equipment. In addition, several artifacts that are needed to complete the game each weigh 100s, so the PC had to be naked and carrying nothing else (including food, armor or weapons) while moving them to the bottom of the dungeon.
** One player nearly won the entire game with a completely blind character. The only reason it wasn't finished was because there is a particular endgame action that cannot be done while blind.
* [[Shout-Out]]: Many. Notably, you can find phase daggers, moss of marelion and morgia root, which originally appeared in ''[[Zork (Video Game)|Beyond Zork]]'', [[Infocom]]'s oddball text adventure/RPG hybrid.)
** "They say that at times, things can get zorky."
** It is also possible to find {{spoiler|[[The Lord of the Rings (Literature)|Sting]], though it doesn't shine blue if goblins are near}}.
** Hurthlings always start the game wearing a [[The Lord of the Rings (Literature)|cursed ring]].
*** There are many, many, references to Lord of the Rings. Non-hostile orcs will ask you about the one ring, and black hurthlings (hobbits) will ask about their precious, and can be tamed with fish, as some other examples.
** The Song of the Mad Minstrel is actually one of [[Robert E. Howard (Creator)|Robert E Howard]]'s poems.
** One of the random artifacts is [[Cthulhu Mythos|The Black Tome of Alsophocus]].
* [[Slippy-Slidey Ice World]]: Spiked boots don't work. It's also not friendly to reptiles. {{spoiler|Thankfully, it's possible to dig your way through part of it.}}
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