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[[File:SS_8_8023.png|frame|[[YASD|TeSu-01 Slain by a goblin.]]]]
{{quote|that's what's so great about Crawl: every time, you don't even have rage at the chance of the heavens to sustain you; you know, with a cold certainty something like that of a priest who has lost his faith in God, that your death was caused by none other than yourself, and that a better man could have avoided it.|'''<nrook>''', as quoted by the [[Dungeon Crawl]] knowledge bots under "fair."}}
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The original was ''Linley's Dungeon Crawl'', made by Linley Henzell in the late 1990s. It was updated a few times but development stopped in the early 2000s.
Not wanting to waste the game's potential, a group of people made an open source fork called ''Dungeon Crawl Stone Soup'' (
Picture a [[Nethack]] game in which the most powerful healing potion in the game [[
Despite all this, there are two areas where it's actually much more merciful than most roguelikes: very few hazards can even weaken your equipment, and none can destroy outright anything other than scrolls and potions. Also, (with the sole exception of statdeath from artifacts) identifying items by using them very rarely causes any life-threatening consequences, and nothing other than weapons, armor, and jewelery can be cursed. The dev team has made avoiding cheap shots one of their highest priorities, and instant kills or unavoidable deaths are nearly unheard of.
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The game has a similar fantasy setting to most roguelikes, having been inspired by most of the roguelikes of the time: elves, dwarves, and orcs all make an appearance, weapons are medieval, and magic is magic. The plot is minimal: the player's task is to go to the bottom of the dungeon, get the Orb of Zot, and escape.
Where ''Crawl'' differs from most roguelikes is in its philosophy, which is explained in the manual. The main goal of the makers is to [[Anti
''Crawl'' is also somewhat unique in that class is nothing more than a starting package and has no effect on further advancement, which is all determined by race - a reversal of the usual state of affairs.
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You can download it [http://crawl.develz.org/wordpress/ here] or play it [http://crawl.akrasiac.org/ online]. ''Crawl'' even has its own [http://crawl.chaosforge.org/index.php?title=CrawlWiki wiki] and [https://crawl.develz.org/tavern/index.php forum].
{{tropelist}}
* [[Agony Beam]]: Necromancy school offers two - the relatively mild Pain and the [[Percent Damage Attack]] Agony. There is also Torment, which is a multiple-target variant of Agony and is not a normally available spell.
* [[Animate Inanimate Object]]: There's a spell which makes weapons come to life and fight alongside you.
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** After Stone Soup version 0.8, Draconians gain a 30% bonus to success rate of Dragon Form spell, along with enhanced breath weapons that suit the draconian's bloodline.
* [[Annoying Arrows]]: Arrow traps are like this; you can normally shrug them off. The first time you meet a centaur, however, you'll find that arrows are not merely annoying, since centaurs really know how to use them. Add to this the fact that they are fast enough to pursue you while still firing an arrow every turn, and you’ll soon respect their ability to kill you.
* [[Anti
* [[Anti
** The limited amount of food forces the player to continue deeper and deeper instead of remaining on the same level for extended periods of time. There are a few ways to get off the food clock - mummies and people in lichform do not eat at all and vampires can survive indefinitely without blood, although this stops their regeneration.
** If the player stays on the same level for too long, the game will detect it and start spawning disproportionately tough monsters there. If the player kills them as well, the game may stop monster generation on that level completely.
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* [[The Archer]]: Hunters (those which use bows), and Arcane Marksmen.
* [[Arc Number]]: [http://crawl.chaosforge.org/index.php?title=27 Crawl seems to have a fondness for the number 27.]
** [[Older Than They Think|Maybe Linley's a]] [["Weird Al" Yankovic|Weird Al]] [[Older Than They Think|fan.]]
* [[Arrows
* [[Attack Animal]]: Summoners can summon monsters to fight for them, and a wand of enslavement (or the spell Enslavement) can temporarily get you a really good one, if you pick the right monster...
* [[Awesome but Impractical]]: Lehudib's Crystal Spear is the most powerful conjuration in the game. What's the problem? It has a short range (bad for spell casters), it's inaccurate, and it requires a player to train a somewhat mediocre spell school to high levels in order to cast it. Oh, and it's overkill against anything other than a few unique demon lords. Iron Shot, Crystal Spear's little brother, is cheaper, has better range, is easier to cast, and most enemies will die after a few hits.
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* [[Back Stab]]: Stabbing is a skill available to all players, even those not using blades - you can 'stab' with a mace for example, which just means you're making an attack on a sleeping or distracted enemy. Stabbing attacks do more damage, in some cases getting up to [[For Massive Damage]] levels - we're talking one-hit kills on a sleeping ''hydra'' - but it depends on your Stabbing skill, and the weapon used; short blades are the best.
* [[Badass Bookworm]]: If one begins as a spellcaster but learns lots of fighting skills, then they've become one.
* [[Bare
* [[Benevolent Boss]]: With the exception of [[Jerkass Gods|Xom]], all of the gods are fairly lenient (the good ones give you a chance to redeem yourself, and the evil ones are perfectly okay with anything as long as you show results).
* [[The Berserker]]: Berserker is a playable class. Like the real Viking ''berserkr''s, berserkers in Crawl wear only animal skins to begin with.
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** Most races can’t eat chunks of freshly butchered meat while not hungry, but Trolls, Kobolds, and Ghouls can. Other races can obtain this ability by wearing an Amulet of the Gourmand.
* [[Black Magic]]: Necromancy is considered to be this by Zin, The Shining One and Elyvilon.
* [[Blade
* [[Blood Knight]]: While many gods like the killing of certain enemies, a few are ''only'' happy if the player is killing everything they come across. For fighters Trog will bestow [[The Berserker|berserker strength]] and protect his followers from its [[Dangerous Forbidden Technique|harmful effects]] as long as they keep a steady stream of death and corpses coming his way. Casters have Vehumet, who doesn't even care about the corpses part, probably because his [[Wave Motion Gun|preferred]] [[Fantastic Nuke|methods]] [[Ludicrous Gibs|don't leave any]].
* [[Body Horror]]: Demonspawns and their mutations can eventually become one of those.
** Worshipping the Slime God can also result in your gaining mutations that eventually culminate in you becoming a slime monster in all but name.
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* [[Bonus Level of Hell]]: (As if the main game isn't one of these already.) Four of them, so you can pick which one your character is most likely to survive 10 seconds in, or, for the truly insane, try to retrieve the extra runes on the last levels of all four branches. All of them are, in fact, based on different parts of [[Divine Comedy|Dante's Inferno]].
* [[Boom Stick]]: Many magic wands are Boom Sticks, since they fire out bolts, beams and enchantments. The rods are also boomsticks, but slightly more complex; most carry their own set of spells which can be evoked by the wielder.
* [[Boring but Practical]]:
** Okawaru, the god of war offers only equipment gifts and two fairly non-flashy powers. Despite lacking in flavor text, though, Okawaru is often considered to be the best god for melee characters.
** This applies to several spells:
*** Summon Butterflies (which [[Exactly What It Says
*** Conjure Flame. It deals no damage directly, but is immensely useful in early game because it can block most enemies, and later on when stronger enemies can be lured into the flames created.
*** Mephitic cloud is very low on direct damage output, but it has a chance of confusing its target, making it tremendously useful until late game.
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* [[Combat Medic]]: The Healer class is actually pretty effective at fighting to begin with, as they begin with skill in unarmed combat.
* [[Combat Tentacles]]: The playable octopode race can their tentacles to slap and squeeze enemies to death. This ability is also available to players who can cast beastly appendage as well as a few nasty enemies...
* [[Combo
* [[The Corruption]]: Averted and played straight: it's really more of background radiation induced by [[Functional Magic]] and it doesn't affect your alignment, but it can be annoying (having a level of 5 or above causes you to [[Glowing Eyes of Doom|glow]], which makes you easier to see and can mutate you). If you have a high level of it, there's a chance for a [[Superpower Meltdown]]. Played straight with Demonspawn, who slowly get more and more demonic as they get experience levels.
* [[Cowardly Boss]]: Prince Ribbit will use his teleportation powers to try to escape you if he gets seriously injured.
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* [[Debug Room]]: Wizard mode, which gives you pretty much full control over your character and the game world.
* [[Destroyable Items]]: Scrolls are vulnerable to fire damage, and potions can be shattered by cold.
* [[Did You Just Punch Out Cthulhu?]]: {{spoiler|Kill the Royal Jelly without being a worshiper of Jiyva? Congratulations, you've committed deicide.}}
* [[Difficulty Levels]]: Winning with a Spriggan Enchanter worshiping Nemelex is pretty easy, but playing some races (Mummies, Ogres, Demigods) is, by design, much more difficult than others (Vampires, Trolls, Humans). There's also the "Wanderer" class, which starts you with a pitifully low level in a few skills chosen completely at random.
* [[Divine Intervention]]: All the good gods will occasionally protect you from damage that would have killed you. It's not a reliable way to escape death - at most it buys you one more turn.
* [[Disintegrator Ray]]: the wand of disintegration, which used to make monsters vaporize, and now makes them ''explode''. (It’s especially good against brittle monsters like statues).
* [[Dual Boss]]: Dowan and Duvessa, the elf twins! Dowan is a [[Squishy Wizard]] and Duvessa is a mighty warrior. If you find one twin, the other is sure to be on the same dungeon level somewhere.
* [[Dual
* [[Dummied Out]]: The source code for regular Crawl shows a mutation that was never implemented ("Your chest, abdomen and neck are covered in intricate, arcane blue/green writing"). Supposedly, it was given by an "evil" god when a character converted to its religion.
* [[Dungeon Bypass]]: Often necessary. Sometimes the only way to escape a monster is to run for the stairs to the next level.
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* [[Elemental Powers]]: This is one of Crawl's few plot points. Crawl has the classical elements of Air, Earth, Fire, and Water, but in the time that Crawl takes place, Water elemental magic has somehow been forgotten. Instead, there is Ice magic, which is not the same. Water elementals do exist, however.
** Water magic still exists in the Shoals. Aquamancers are the only monsters who know how to use it.
* [[Elemental Rock
* [[Energy Ball]]: Which size would you like? The small Magic Dart, the large Iskenderun's Mystic Blast or the huge Orb of Destruction?
* [[Everything Trying to Kill You]]: It's a roguelike.
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* [[Evil Is Easy]]: Played straight with the gods. See [[God of Evil]] below.
* [[Excuse Plot]]: The main plot is literally a one-liner.
{{quote|
* [[Extreme Omnivore]]: Jellies. They eat any item they touch, except stones. This also means that they eat anything you throw or fire at them. AND it heals them. You'd better hope those arrows you're wasting are doing more damage than the jelly is gaining from eating them.
* [[The Fair Folk]]: while the elves in the game are clearly Tolkien-ish, there is a spriggan race (based on the mythological Cornish fairy of the same name) that keeps all its fair-folk features. Most notably the lack of wings.
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* [[Faustian Rebellion]]: It is entirely possible to abandon your god if you no longer find them useful, and/or to choose a new god. This will usually make the god you abandoned [[Evil Is Not a Toy|angry at you]]; however, it is entirely possible to [[Badass|survive their wrath until it runs out]]. Doing this with the necromancy god is an explicit part of one strategy guide for a Mummy Wizard.
* [[Featureless Protagonist]]: You get to choose your name, race, class, maybe a starting weapon, and that's about it. ''Crawl'' never asks the player to supply a gender or any other personalising details. Indeed, for the more humanoid races, the in-game description of them is 'You are rather mundane.'
* [[Fighter, Mage, Thief]]: Crawl divides all the character classes in five different groups - but there is great variation within each (except maybe Adventurer):
** Fighter - includes anything with focus on plain combat, from heavily armored warriors to [[Bare
** Zealot - includes every class that starts with a religion: priests, berserkers, healers, and knights of some evil gods.
** Warrior-mage - includes combat-oriented magic classes, such as weapon-enchanting skalds, magical assassin stalkers and arcane marksmen.
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** A more literal example: With Fedhas Madash's sunlight ability, you can dry up the pools of water you find in the dungeon, possibly resulting in literal fish out of water.
* [[Flaming Sword]]: Flaming is a brand some weapons can have, including swords.
* [[Forged
** And the few times they aren't useless he likes to animate them so they try to kill you.
** "Cursed gloves? [[It Amused Me|Have a ring!]]"
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** Worshipers of Fehdas Madash can plant said Oklob plants, turning the game into a turn based strategy game.
* [[Gender Neutral Writing]]: The gods in the game are supposed to be beyond gender, and thus it's wrong to refer to them as male or female. Therefore, on the god description screens, there are no mentions of gender, even though [[Fanon]] tends to refer to Lugonu, Elyvilon, and Sif Muna as female, and the rest as male. Also applies to monsters, although there it’s more due to convenience than any in-game reason.
** Crawl is also the only major roguelike that [[
* [[Genie in
* [[Genius Bruiser]]: The ogre-mage is an ogre which, unlike most ogres which only know how to hit people with heavy weapons, is intelligent enough to use magic. Player ogres are something between standard ogres and ogre-mages - they are moderate at both hitting and casting. A second example of this would be fighting characters who have learned magical skill.
* [[Green Thumb]]: Worshippers of Fedhas, god of plants, can move past plants, cause corpses to decompose into mushrooms, and cause plants to grow.
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*** "Good" gods also hold their followers to much higher standards, all of whom laundry lists of things that they dislike, most so called evil gods don't really care what their followers do, as long as they kill and sacrifice for them.
* [[Good Hurts Evil]]: Reciting Zin's scripts in front of certain evil creatures often results in this.
* [[Good News, Bad News]]: The bad news come first, and the good news are hardly comforting:
{{quote|
* [[Good Thing You Can Heal]]: Inversion: Deep Dwarves have a damage shaving feature that reduces all damage they take, but they [[Blessed
* [[Gradual Regeneration]]: Mostly played straight - as in most Roguelikes, characters in Dungeon Crawl regenerate their hit points and magic points over time. The deep dwarf race avert this by not being able to heal naturally.
* [[Hammerspace]]: ''Crawl'' has the typical Roguelike variety: the player can carry anything that is not too heavy for the player to carry, until all 52 item slots are filled up. Because an item stack takes only one item slot, 20 javelins take just as much room as a single dart.
* [[Healing Factor]]: Trolls and satiated vampires heal extremely fast, as does anyone with troll leather armor, ring of regeneration or the regeneration spell. Each of these has the drawback of speeding up one's metabolism significantly.
* [[Healing Potion]]: ''Crawl'' uses two kinds of healing potion; one heals only a small amount of HP, but will cure you of any negative status effects. The other is pure hit-point healing, but a much greater amount of it.
** The latter is also available in form of a healing wand. More favored than potions because they cannot be destroyed, but exceedingly rare and difficult to recharge.
* [[Hellfire]]: Available to some demons and demonspawn. Even nastier than regular fire, as it's not subject to fire resistance.
* [[Holy Halo]]: The Shining One's followers eventually receive one. It serves several purposes: monsters inside the halo are easier to hit, invisible creatures turn visible and one's stealth is crippled (which isn't that bad, given that The Shining One dislikes stealth attacks anyway). Holy NPCs such as angels have similar halos.
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* [[Hornet Hole]]: The Hive is a giant beehive, filled with killer bees.
** Occasional bee chambers. Occuring even at the Realm of Zot. Where do they get the material for honey?
* [[Humans Are Average]]: Mostly played straight (humans get no special abilities, and average apitudes), but they're tied with [[Our Orcs Are Different|hill orcs]], [[Our Goblins Are
* [[Human Sacrifice]]: Several temple designs of evil gods feature these. And of course, the gods who like corpse sacrifices aren't averse to human corpses either.
* [[Hyperspace Is a Scary Place]]: The Abyss is a plane of chaos, with no recognizable structure, and full of demons and awful monsters. It's a VERY dangerous place to be. It's not established whether it is Crawl's 'hyperspace' dimension, but it is associated with translocation - miscasted teleportation spells can send you here, as can distortion weapons. It's also the place where the evil god Lugonu the Unformed lives; altars to her are scattered about, and are the easiest way to escape if you don't mind the wrath of your former deity (if applicable). Followers of Lugonu can get the ability to jump in and out of the abyss at will. Banished monsters also end up here.
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* [[Katanas Are Just Better]]: ''Crawl'' seems to agree. The katana is the best long blade of its kind (better than the scimitar, long sword, and falchion). The only better long blades are demon blades (which are supernatural), great swords (which are just really big swords), and double and triple swords (which are just silly, and also explicitly said to be magical).
** Katanas were removed in later versions, however; the only remaining katana is an artifact (though a rather good one).
* [[Kill It
** Certain player characters may gain the ability to breathe fire via mutations, spells or racial abilities(Red Draconian). Demonspawns may obtain a racial mutation that allows them to hurl hellfire.
** Almost every spell in the Fire Magic school is designed as an offensive conjuration spell, except for two spells that are used defensively.
* [[Kung Fu Wizard]]: Transmuters get levels in unarmed combat, making them surprisingly good brawlers. This is to encourage them to use shape-shifting spells; in most non-human forms, unarmed combat is the only type of combat possible.
* [[Laser
* [[Let's Fight Like Gentlemen]]: The Shining One demands this of any followers. In practice, this means that the character worhipping The Shining One is punished for using poison in combat and using unchivalrous stealth attacks against non-evil sapient monsters.
* [[Level Drain]]: Wights and wraiths can drain the player's experience, as can weapons and wands of draining. But the player can also use those weapons, and learn spells to drain enemies as well.
* [[Life Drain]]: the level 3 spell Vampiric Draining does this - it drains life from enemies and adds it to your health. Weapons can also be vampiric, healing and feeding the wielder when they hit.
* [[Life Meter]]: nicely shows just how much damage that last hit did.
* [[Light Is Not Good]]: Angels are mostly just as bloodthirsty as demons, and have large haloes to make finding the player easier.
* [[Loads and Loads of Races]]: The latest version has 24 playable species, most with odd natural abilities/disadvantages (the large races, for example, cannot wear most of the armour in the game).
* [[Luckily, My Shield Will Protect Me]]: Unlike a lot of roguelikes, ''Crawl'' takes this trope a little more seriously. While in most, a shield is merely considered a boost to one's armour no different from, say, chainmail or a helmet, in ''Crawl'' shields are a defensive tool. They provide no armour boost, but give the player a chance of completely blocking a hit, which increases as they increase their Shields skill.
* [[MacGuffin]]: The Orb of Zot! It's apparently so valuable that it's held deep underground in a realm which you can't even get into without magic runes, guarded by hundreds of monsters... but nobody knows what it actually does, or what its powers are.
* [[MacGyvering]]: Many items and spells can be exploited beyond their obvious uses. One of the best examples is Conjure Flame - while the obvious use is blocking corridors with flames that hurt anything that dares to cross them, it can also be used for [[Smoke Out|creating lots of steam to break enemies' line-of-sight]], clearing forests, manipulating the spread of "flood-fill" cloud attacks such as Poison Cloud and of course, [[Kill It
* [[Macrogame]]: The player may encounter ghosts of previous characters in the Dungeon. Ghosts have similar strengths and weaknesses as they had while alive.
* [[Mage Killer]]: Berserkers and other servants of Trog. Trog despises and hates magic, and will not only reward slaying magic users, but will also gift followers with [[Anti
* [[Magic Knight]]: Skalds start with skills in the melee weapon of their choice and self-buff spells. Reavers get (well, ''got''; they were [[Dummied Out|de-implemented]] after 0.8) blasting spells instead. Transmuters frequently shapeshift and beat monsters down with their newfound natural weapons. Worshipping Makhleb allows throwing around destructive blasts of power and summoning demons without having to worry about spell failure from heavy armor (the demon may decide to eat your face, however).
* [[Magic Pants]]: Clothing merges into a shapeshifted player's new form.
* [[Magic Misfire]]: Of every shape and color. They range from harmless (an ice mage getting a bit frosty, an enchanter making the dirt glow) to [[YASD]] (a necromancer rotting from the inside out, a translocator getting stuck in [[Hyperspace Is a Scary Place|Abyss]]. Even minor failures can become dangerous as magical contamination builds up in the caster, ending in a [[Your Head Asplode|violent terminus]] for those too desperate or stupid to stop casting.
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* [[Nerf|Nerfing]]: This tends to happen between versions. The most obvious nerf is for Summoners, who can summon monsters to kill for them; the rule is that any monster killed by a player's summon is worth only half the experience it would be otherwise.
** In particular, the devs like to nerf anything that's considered obviously better than any other choice and ends up being [[Complacent Gaming Syndrome|used regardless of your play style]]. The recent halving of extra damage done by vorpal weapons and removal of the "Detect Creatures" spell fall into this category, as did the removal of the "Tomb of Doroklohe" spell in the first Stone Soup versions.
* [[Nintendo Hard]]: This game ''is'' going to kill you, and when you make a new character the ghost of your dead character is going to kill ''him''.
* [[Nitro Boost]]: the potion of speed.
* [[Nominal Importance]]: The unique enemies have names, and when you see one you know you're in for a more difficult battle than normal.
** The randomly generated artifacts are a slight aversion of this, since they have real-looking names, but are not guaranteed to be important, or even worth having at all. It's not uncommon to find artifacts with abysmal stats or negative attributes, and many are cursed.
** As a hill orc of Beogh, your orcish followers will gain names if they survive and kill for long enough. They can still die like any other orc, but it is potential fuel for [[
* [[Non
** For magic attacks, the most obvious non-elemental one is Magic Dart, which is simply a dart of pure irresistible magic that never misses its target. (magic resistance in Crawl only applies to enchantments, not magical energy) Elemental attacks can be resisted by appropriately elemental monsters.
** Eventually the game reaches a point where monsters are almost immune to any attacks that are not non-elemental. Fortunately for mages, all earth magic, a bit of air magic and three pure conjurations spells are non-elemental, and a few other spells are only partly resistable.
* [[Odd Job Gods]]: Jiyva, the god of slime, and Cheibriados, the god of slowness.
** Cheibriados is the god of time, he just wants his followers to take it easy and enjoy every single second. Trying to speed up insults him, since you obviously don't appreciated it if you are moving as fast as you can. Jiyva fits this to a T however.
* [[Oh Crap]]: Xom (The God of Chaos who sees you as his plaything) is getting BORED.
* [[One Size Fits All]]: Averted. Some races are so tiny they can't wear armour at all, or wield large weapons. Some races are so huge they need enormous armour.
** But played straight in the case of the many varieties of dragon armour, which magically fits on every race.
** And robes, though one can amuse himself with mental images of a spriggan whose robe trails three feet behind him or an ogre whose robe doesn't reach his knees.
* [[One
* [[One Stat to Rule Them All]]: Intelligence for any characters that desire any magical capabilities. The other two basic stats have little to no point unless you're a transmuter or your character is totally magic-free.
* [[
* [[Our Angels Are Different]]: Angels are present as monsters that are typically quite tough to deal with - especially if one is undead and relies on black magic to kill stuff. Angels and their tougher cousins Daevas are [[Good Is Not Nice|very aggressive]], unless the player is a very zealous follower of a good god in which case they'll be indifferent.
* [[Our Centaurs Are Different]]: [[Loads and Loads of Races|And playable]]. They're fast, and deadly archers, but they don't get much protection from armor, and they need to eat more food than most due to their size.
* [[Our Demons Are Different]]:
** [[Loads and Loads of Races|And playable]]. Demonspawn are a [[Jack of All Stats]] race not much unlike humans, with special mutations and the inability to worship the three good gods.
** In addition to playable demonspawn, there are dozens and dozens of NPC demons ranging from minor imps to large abominable devils with [[The Unpronounceable|unpronounceable]] names.
* [[Our Dragons Are Different]]: But not directly playable, save for the Dragon Form spell. ''Draconians'' ([[Half
* [[Our Dwarves Are All the Same]]: Not quite, but still [[Loads and Loads of Races|playable]]. Deep Dwarves are tough and capable necromancers and priests, but they lack natural regeneration. The Mountain Dwarves that were present in earlier versions resemble the traditional dwarves more.
* [[Our Elves Are Better]]: [[Loads and Loads of Races|And playable]]. High Elves are pretty standard, Deep Elves are cave-dwelling [[Squishy Wizard|Squishy Wizards]] with incredibly magic power and laughable resilience, and Sludge Elves are jungle-dwelling [[Kung Fu Wizard|Kung Fu Wizards]].
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* [[Our Ghosts Are Different]]: [[Undeath Always Ends|And slayable]]. A player character who dies may leave a ghost that carries on most of the deceased player's abilities and weaknesses as well as a [[Ghostly Goals|fair share of hatred]] towards anyone attempting to complete the Orb quest - that is, [[Macrogame|new player characters]].
* [[Our Ghouls Are Creepier]]: [[Loads and Loads of Races|And playable]]. They have to eat a lot of meat to prevent themselves from rotting, but can tear enemies to shreds with their claws, and have a nice set of immunities.
* [[Our Goblins Are
* [[Halfling|Our Halflings Are Different]]: [[Loads and Loads of Races|And playable]]. Fast XP gain, good stealth, good with shields. In previous versions, they were a [[Joke Character]] race, but this has improved.
* [[Our Liches Are Different]]: And playable - not as a race, but as a form. The player can learn the Necromutation spell which will result in a temporary transformation into lich form. As a result, the player gains improved stats, a fairly potent draining touch and the various resistances and vulnerabilities associated with being undead. In addition, they lose the ability (and the need to) eat.
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* [[Scaled Up]]: The Dragon Form spell, which the player can obtain and use at high levels of transmutation magic.
* [[Schizophrenic Difficulty]]: The AI director vascillates between being a [[Monty Haul]] and (much more frequently) [[Killer Game Master]], with the consistency of a manic ten yea old on pixie sticks. Sometimes you get a dragon hide on the first floor, sometimes you get a ''dragon'' on the first floor. Some days its all rings and randarts, sometimes the AI just decides to spawn fifty jellies. Players learn to laugh about it, or cry.
* [[Self
** Some players may also go for speed runs(lowest number of turns, fastest real time), or ascend with the lowest level humanly possible.
* [[Shapeshifter Mode Lock]]: Vampires can change into bats, giving them increased dexterity. If, however, they have their dexterity drained while in bat form, it's possible to end up such that turning back into a vampire would leave them with zero or less, which would kill them. Therefore they're stuck in bat form until they can regain it.
* [[Shout
** ''[[The Young Poisoners Handbook]]'', the starting spellbook for venom mages, is a 1995 film about a real life poisoner.
* [[Sibling Rivalry]]: Edmund is jealous of his older brother Sigmund, and for a reason: Sigmund is a notorious killer of junior adventurers while Edmund is more like an average brute with an expensive flail and a [[Informed Ability|good ability with sums]].
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* [[Stat Death]]: If any one of your stats drops to zero and you don’t fix it within a certain number of turns, you're dead. In earlier builds, it was instant death.
* [[Stat Grinding]]: Almost none - the game deliberately tries to avoid this. It was finally stamped out in version 0.9. To train skills, you have to gain experience - however, it doesn't matter ''how'' you gain that experience. For example, you could focus all your training on spellcasting, and you'll level up in that even if you're killing enemies in melee combat. It's a little weird, but it completely solves the grinding problem, while leaving the decisions entirely in the player's hands as to how they actually want to fight.
* [[Sucking
* [[Suicidal Overconfidence]]: Almost any creature in Crawl will attack the player, even if the odds aren't exactly in its favor.
* [[Super Drowning Skills]]: Unless you're Merfolk. Crawl's interface stops the player walking into deep water, but levitating players can still drown if their levitation wears off over water.
* [[Super Weapon, Average Joe]]: Even a mere kobold with a dagger of distortion can banish the player to the Abyss.
* [[Superpower Lottery]]: The [[Planet of Hats|Demonspawn's racial hat]]. While all of their mutations are ''theoretically'' useful developing a power like hollow bones or magic mapping has led to a practice affectionately known as [[Press X to Die|"gnoll time"]].
* [[Superpower Meltdown]]: Have a high enough level of [[The Corruption]], and there's a chance you might [[Stuff Blowing Up|spontaneously explode]].
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* [[Theme Twin Naming]]: Dowan and Duvessa.
* [[The Unpronounceable]]: Crawl is notorious for featuring gods and monsters with names that are hard to spell correctly and often equally hard to pronounce: Kikubaaqudgha, Yredelemnul, Neqoxec, Ynoxinul, Ilsuiw... some of these names were reportedly created by allowing a cat to walk on the keyboard.
* [[Took a Level
* [[Transformation Ray]]: the wand of polymorph other can transform a monster into another monster. This is actually quite risky, since it's very possible to create a worse threat than the original. The wand is ''supposed'' to transform a monster into a monster of similar threat, so a rat will never turn into a dragon, but even so, what the game considers a 'similar threat' is often quite unpredictable. The best use for this wand is to change a monster that you are poorly equipped to fight - for example, an ice beast when you only have ice spells.
* [[Trick Arrow]]: In 0.6 a variety of new projectile kinds have been added; <s> for example, arrows of reaping which, if they kill a monster and that monster leaves a corpse, turns that monster into a loyal zombie.</s> (...which were pulled right back out in 0.7. Oh well.) In 0.7, there was a new class, the Arcane Marksman, who can use magical enchantments on his bow to fire different kinds of magical arrows, but this was removed for 0.8
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* [[Villain Forgot to Level Grind]]: the reason why [[Dungeon Bypass]] works (sometimes). If you can't kill Sigmund the first time you meet, come back after you've levelled up (or else found something which will make it easier to kill him).
* [[Voluntary Shapeshifting]]: There's a school of magic which specializes in this, and vampires can change into bats. Merfolk transform their legs into mermaid-style tail when in water and back into feet when on land.
* [["Wake
* [[Walk It Off]]: Most characters and monsters will gradually heal from almost all wounds. Some creatures can't regenerate - deep dwarves will never gain passive healing and vampires need blood to do so.
* [[
* [[Wall Crawl]]: some monsters have the ability to cling to walls. This allows them to pass over obstacles like deep water.
* [[Weak but Skilled]]: In a way, this is a Dungeon Crawler's normal mode of operation - there is rarely a point where you're powerful enough to be 'safe' from attack. It's especially true at the very start of the game, where a couple of hits from even the lowest level monsters can finish off a weak character. Wanderers are probably the best example; they begin with a random skill set and random equipment, and are thus in a worse position than any other class upon entering the dungeon, since they are literally not equipped to fight.
* [[Whip It Good]]: Whips are fairly swift weapons that are good in the early game but pack fairly little punch against tougher foes. However, some whips are [[Forged
* [[Wizard Needs Food Badly]]: The need to eat (the "food clock") and the lack of dungeon level regeneration constantly pushes the adventurer forward and down in search of sustenance. Though it’s worse for magic users, as most forms of magic increase hunger to the point where a ring of sustenance is a prized possession.
** Mummies, however, don't need to eat, although they have rather terrible skill aptitudes and can’t use potions (including healing potions).
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[[Category:Roguelike]]
[[Category:Freeware Games]]
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