After beginning to think that luck was something permanently factored out in nightmare mode, I have finally had a few strokes of it. I have also found the key to getting a half decent character whilst in the first dungeon. It is plainly and simply money. Money and lots of it will eventally enable you to buy enough items to take on a dungeon entrance in the wilderness and Jeff the draconian chaos-warrior is currently living proof of that. Having seen items come and go, even in the first town, and being unable to afford them, I began to go into the dungeon in search of nothing but cash. I can eat the walls (level 3 gift from chaos patron) so treasure veins are no problem. Long lines of skavens are common at the bottom of the first dungeon and these are very lucrative. Once a level is cleared, I go up a level and start again. This method got me 20,000 gold (items included, best ones are enchanted brass lanterns) in one outing and I soon had a mountain of cash. Nightmare mode requires incredible patience at times and mine was rewarded when the temple in the first town stocked a pair of hard leather boots of speed [3 +9] (+7) for ~32,000. This was a perfect find as it now makes me the same speed as the normal speed monsters. This was enough to tempt me into the wilderness once more where my luck was in again. Level 19 at the time and I have found 7 or 8 cities with loads of great stores. A bit more cash from the dungeon and a low level artifact shield (~8,000) with +2 to INT/DEX and confusion, electricity and poison resistance, as well as free action, was mine. There followed an iron crown of might [0 +11] (+3), a set of gauntlets of dexterity and a ball and chain holy avenger with +3 to attacks. I am currently level 22, having cleared a 'level 2' wilderness dungeon and am running around at 1200 feet in it. I had a lucky escape from Mandor Master of Logrus who fired an ice bolt at me. It took 100 hp off even with cold resistance, if he'd have breathed logrus at me, it would have been game over. The new items have made the game a lot easier and for anyone trying nightmare mode for the first time, focus on getting lots of cash! Hopefully I will find it a bit easier for the next 10 levels or so, until the monsters get harder than the equipment the shops stock...then I'll be in trouble again.

Haven't posted for a couple of days because there has been little to report. Jeff is now by far the longest lived nightmare mode character that I have created, standing tall and proud at level 16 (just a shave off level 17 too). I have reached the bottom of the first dungeon which was 900ft in this game (I don't know whether that is a constant for all games or not). That is not to say I find it in any way comfortable at the bottom. Jelly pits are normal, as are small fire and cold pits (zephyr hounds, dragon bats, vortexs, balls and molds or jellies). I cannot clear these yet even with the nice awl-pike of slay undead that my deity gave to me. My fears about the effectiveness of the hagaromo in the last post were entirely justified! My constitution has been both permanent and temporarily drained and it appears that the sustain stat flag on an item will merely provide resistance to the drain, not immunity :-(

As if it isn't hard enough already...

The plan is to hang around the bottom level until I reach level 20. My draconian will then gain lightning resistance and complete the base element resistances. He should also have >200 hit points and with an item or two on top of what I have an the moment, I will venture into the unknown of the wilderness once more. That will involve a search for another dungeon and clearing the monsters guarding the entrance. That is a challenge on the normal setting sometimes, I have no idea how I'm going to achieve it on nightmare setting.

My mate's latest charcter has just been gassed to death by a baby green dragon and he's very unhappy about it. I faired much better and the baby green dragon is now on the list of kills for Jeff. He is no doubt a little bitter about that :-)

Due to a prior engagement at a pub quiz, I didn't get to advance Jeff very far yesterday although he is still alive. Having dived (in the loosest sense of the word) to 500ft, I pottered around and managed get to level 12 without too many scares. No items of any note were found and that is beginning to be a recurring theme. In the normal game I would have expected at least one "out of depth" item to have been found but not even close in nightmare mode. I recalled to the town to face the wrath of the TY curse at midnight, it obliterated the town, no harm done there. Whether it was the alcohol or the lateness of the hour that fried my brain I don't know but at this point I decided to leave the relative comfort of the town for the wilderness, off in search of another settlement with possibly more shops. Since the title of the post is "still alive", I clearly made it though but not without taking on 'the wounded bear' who left me bleeding and in pain after our fierce battle. Suffice to say, I was the victor and the wounded bear becomes my third unique kill of the game (Grip and Fang being the others). My reward was an armoury shop with a 2+10 Hagiromo which sustains all my stats. Since the stat decreases appear to be permanent rather than temporary in nightmare mode, I thought this was an excellent purchase. I'll probably find out that nightmare mode ignores as stat sustaining flag on items but so far so good. Currently at 550ft in full health, more tomorrow hopefully!

Right, adventuring is underway with a new character. I usually go for a paladin or mage but just for a change, I thought I'd try my hand at a chaos-warrior. He's level 11 at the moment and going along nicely. My chaos patron has been very kind to me so far. Upon reaching level 2, my skin turned to steel (AC+25, Dex-3) which has been invaluable and my deity then rewarded me with a very nice chaotic weapon. It kept me alive against a fruminous bandersnatcher (way out of depth on level 5) due to the confusion/vampirism blows it does. This has been my easiest run so far, I definitely recommend the draconian class, the ability to run onto swamp/water/lava and not be hurt due to the levitation has been very important at the lower levels. It also means I don't fall down pits or trap doors when disarming them. The fire resistance at level 5 and cold resistance at level 10 have also been very handy. The chaos warrior has a nice mix of melee ability and ranged bolt and ball spells, as well as a deity dishing out gifts every so often. The three instances of the TY curse at midnight have not done me any permanent damage and I have not plucked up the courage to venture out of the starting town yet. Hopefully the next post will be about the same character!

Right, blog created, where to begin? I've set up this blog to keep a record of my trials and tribulations whilst playing Zangband. I won't go into detail about the game's origins or development here, a quick google search will tell you all you need to know. Besides, I think I can safely assume that anyone reading this blog will already have played the game to some degree. At the moment, myself and a friend are trying to win the game on the 'nightmare' setting. We've both being playing on and off for 9 years and have beaten the game several times. Thus a new challenge was needed and upon reading that 'nightmare' mode "wasn't even remotely fair" and "wasn't supposed to be winable" it seemed a worthy one to persue. Not even remotely fair was a serious understatement, half of my characters have been mercilessly slain by pathetic creatures before getting off level 1, some have been even killed in the town. Everything that gave you an advantage has been either taken away or lessened and everything that gave the monsters an advantage has been redoubled. As far as the game goes, I am dead, my latest (and best so far) character has just been eaten alive by a giant ant whilst blundering around in a confused daze. Not the fitting end I had hoped for with this one, although I'm getting used to these types of deaths now. The next posts will follow the ups (few) and downs (many) of my subsequent characters and I can only hope that in a few hundred posts, I may have a character that I can be proud of. If you have played the game before and have not heard of nightmare mode, do a search for the spoiler. They really haven't made it very fair...