How to Kill Morgoth: Playing Angband

[Huinesoron]

Gribblins II

… is on Dungeon Level 76! Which is frankly insane. There's monsters down here I've never even heard of: the familiar Ancient Dragons have given way to Great Wyrms, and the array of cat-on-the-keyboard-named demons have acquired Lesser and Greater Balrogs to support them.

In terms of Unique, named monsters, I killed one of the Ringwraiths a few levels back, but ran the heck away from Osse, Nan the Giant, and some sort of master Beholder. On DL76 I can see Glaurung himself right outside the room I'm in, so I need to think hard about whether I can take him.

Gribblins is currently Character Level 48, with 899 max health and an absurd 399 spell points. All her spells are utility spells, so she never uses most of those; her actual spellcasting looks like this:

• Object Detection and Reveal Monsters, coupled with a Rod of Magic Mapping, to scan the surrounding area regularly.
• Teleport Other to get rid of monsters who are too dangerous/annoying.
• Recharging to recharge her Staves of Speed (makes her faster) or Banishment (removes one breed of monster from the level).

… that's it. At least 300 of her spell points are unnecessary.

Her equipment is almost entirely unique artefacts. She's running around with:

• Gurthang, which is on fire and poisonous, and extra strong against dragons.
• Bard's bow, which adds a little speed and shoots well.
• Narya, which boosts all her stats, adds some speed, makes her immune to fire, and can be activated to straight-up block some attacks from Evil creatures. I think it's also where she gets her telepathy, letting her sense monsters she can't see.
• A Ring of +6 Constitution, because otherwise her health would be about 650. If I find another source of Constitution, this is being switched for her Ring of +9 Speed, which will get her to +20 Speed normally, +30 using a Staff.
• An Amulet of Trickery, which makes her a bit stealthy and fast; it's not great.
• The Phial of Galadriel, which... emits light.
• A unique armour named Thalkettoth, which gives a bit of speed.
• A cloak from Valinor named Colluin, which can be activated to give double resistance to the common elements. This is very useful: if a Great Ice Wyrm does 1600 Cold damage with its breath, doubled resistance will take that down to 400.
• Elros' shield, which is terrible, but is the only source of Hold Life I've ever found. That means it stops monsters from stealing my XP, which almost all of them want to do this far down.
• A helm called Holhenneth, which prevents blindness and lets me see invisible things.
• Lightning gauntlets named Pauraegen, which are basically useless this deep (they can do 30 damage; Gurthang does over 300).
• Wormtongue's boots, which add speed, make me immune to traps, and give me an Extra Move - while moving, my speed is doubled, which is insanely good.

Overall her equipment is... fine. Gurthang, the cloak, Narya, and Grima's grubby shoes are fantastic; almost everything else could be swapped out if I could replace the fragile network of resistances they give. Of the 20 resistances and protections available, I have 14; but 6 of those are only on one item each. I can't swap those items without losing a resistance, and I can't lose most of my resistances without, y'know, dying.

There's still 25 levels to go before we reach Morgoth. That is a long way through uncharted territory. But for now, the dungeon is dark, and I am alive.

hS

EDIT: hahahaHAHAHAHA.

Fought Glaurung. Nearly killed him (immunity to fire is amazing). He ran away, pushing past the Great Wyrm of Law he had summoned. I tried to fight the Wyrm. It breathed Sound at me once and I died, from over half health, just like that.

So long, Gribblins. You did shockingly well, until you didn't.