YAAP: Funcrunch-Pri-Hum-Fem-Law, atheist (NAO)
funcrunch
out for myself. I ascended my first character, a priestess, on 1/11
after about a dozen deaths. That game had four conducts: no-genocide,
no-polypile, no-polyself, and no-artifact-wish (the latter two I keep
in almost every game, unless I step on a polytrap before getting magic
protection). I got about 6.9M points which I believe is my second
highest score ever (I got 8M with a Valkyrie in an earlier version),
and netted 329th place on the high-score list.
Then my husband, who previously challenged me to play a no-genocide
game (of which I've now won three), thought it would be amusing for me
to play an atheist priestess. Of course in the irony that is Nethack,
that class is probably the easiest to accomplish atheist conduct with
owing to the B/U/C identification. So I put aside my half-hearted
attempts to ascend a vegan tourist, and took up the atheist challenge.
Although I normally prefer Neutral characters nowadays, I played Lawful
so that I could get Excalibur early, since I would not be able to
sacrifice for weapons. Of course the RNG gave me plenty of altars that
I couldn't use. I consoled myself by polypiling like crazy, after
having kept no-polypile conduct for the last two ascensions. I thought
about avoiding genocide but I had had it with the flayers and liches in
the last few no-genocide ascensions and got rid of them, along with sea
monsters for good measure, although I'm much better equipped to deal
with the latter in general now. As long as I was ditching those
conducts I decided to wish for Grayswandir, since it really is pretty
much the greatest weapon in the game. And I even did a polyself once,
to eat a couple of rings of teleport control as a xorn, having gotten
teleportitis without control from a tengu previously. No luck getting
the intrinsic, but not having done this before I much enjoyed reading
the message "There is an elven mithril coat here. Eat it?" :-)
I used all but the last-wrest charge on the castle wand as I had a hell
of a time finding or polypiling most of my ascension kit. Finally I had
my bag of holding and current preferred fighter-spellcaster outfit:
silver dragon scale, cloak of magic resistance, speed boots, gauntlets
of dexterity, helm of brilliance (Mitre of Holiness). Never did get an
amulet of life saving until Vlad's Tower (ended up unused, along with
two magic lamps found in Gehennom), and I didn't get everything
enchanted properly until I found a magic marker on Orcus level with 97
charges. Then I was able to get down to AC -32 which is not bad
considering I was missing the usual 10 points of divine protection.
Then, the NAO server went down!! I freaked out. I went on IRC asking if
I was going to lose my very ascendable atheist. I was told the server
should be back up "by Tuesday". Pout! What a way to ruin my three-day
weekend. Luckily, it was back up this morning, and paxed was kind
enough to restore my game. I only lost a few dozen turns, and did the
exact same things as before the crash, basically enchanting armor and
genociding. So I believe the crash neither harmed nor improved my game,
and it can hopefully still be seen as a legitimate win.
I normally spend quite a bit of time on Orcus level, polypiling and,
for non-priest characters, checking things at the altar. Well perhaps I
should have spent even more time polypiling there, because I realized
after I got the Book that I had almost no holy water left, and after
killing Rodney a couple of times was out of wands of death, and very
shortly after out of wands of teleportation. Killing him 15 times,
including on the Medusa level and most of the Planes, was very much not
my idea of fun. At least I got to take out Yeenoghu in the process, and
(earlier) Geryon, who I almost never see.
Astral was absolutely the easiest ever - none of the Riders got
anywhere near me (although I saw in my list that something killed Death
twice), and I was once again lucky that the first altar I went to was
the correct one. While it may seem downright silly for a priestess to
ascend as an atheist, I'm proud to have met the challenge. :-)
Funcrunch the High Priestess St:18/** Dx:23 Co:18 In:23 Wi:23 Ch:17
Lawful S:2594932
Astral Plane $:0 HP:397(397) Pw:430(430) AC:-31 Xp:30/100342291
T:83014 Burdened
Vanquished creatures
Asmodeus
Baalzebub
Geryon
Orcus
Yeenoghu
Juiblex
The Wizard of Yendor (15 times)
Death (twice)
an arch-lich
a high priest
[...]
3798 creatures vanquished.
Voluntary challenges
You were an atheist
You genocided 17 types of monsters
You polymorphed 1958 items
You changed form 1 time
You used 5 wishes
Goodbye funcrunch the Demigoddess...
You went to your reward with 5510414 points,
Grayswandir (worth 8000 zorkmids and 20000 points)
Excalibur (worth 4000 zorkmids and 10000 points)
The Mitre of Holiness (worth 2000 zorkmids and 5000 points)
The Candelabrum of Invocation (worth 5000 zorkmids and 12500 points)
The Bell of Opening (worth 5000 zorkmids and 12500 points)
The Book of the Dead (worth 10000 zorkmids and 25000 points)
[...]
and 0 pieces of gold, after 83014 moves.
You were level 30 with a maximum of 397 hit points when you ascended.
You reached the 594th place on the top 2000 list.
329 6939876 funcrunch-Pri-Hum-Fem-Neu ascended to
demigoddess-hood.
385 [385]
*594 5510414 funcrunch-Pri-Hum-Fem-Law ascended to
demigoddess-hood.
397 [397]