The Lion's Rear

“I am considering narrative inheritances. The stories we were told when our minds were more putty-like, the follies that shaped who we are, that shape the whole of Qud.”

“Have you come to any conclusions?”

“Not yet, but that’s not the point.”

[Iseppa of Grit Gate]

With the 1.0 release of Caves of Qud I have been spending a lot more time with it, I wasn't expecting anything other than Balatro and Metal Gear to take my time this year, but it stole my heart again. it works great on my laptops, it works great on my steamdeck, it works great with a controller. It's a beautiful incredible game and I have been having so much fun playing it that I thought I should come back through and log some of my 1.0 run.

Irushum is a Nomad, a class added through a Steam Workshop mod, a tough character who can conserve water and food by fasting, and who carries a tent which can store a few chests of items and whatever other furniture you can pick up and drop in there. Mine has a collection of metal folding chairs in it. Irushum is an adept mind-warrior and mace-wielder and axe-handler. I'm writing this from more or less the midpoint of the game, and will begin by summarizing Irushum's journey.

I am playing with a few other mods installed, including one personal favorite called Salt Shuffle Revival which adds a Trading Card Game element to social dialogues. I'll probably go over my whole mod setup later on.

If you don't want to be "spoiled" on both the Procedural and Narrative aspects of Caves of Qud, you can mute #IrushumCavesOfQud.

I'm playing this on Roleplay difficulty because I want a chance to experience the whole thing -- then I can come back through on Classic and be relentlessly swallowed in to the sand.

If you are curious about the sort of stories and generative gameplay you can experience in the Caves of Qud, there's an RSS feed and it'll mirror to my Lion's Rear Mastadan account. Some of this came from my Mastadan thread that I started for this playthrough and i'll pull most of that in here.

#IrushumCavesOfQud

As the season finally swept toward salty I set out from the village on the canyon edge of Moghra'yi toward the Stiltgrounds. Not an entirely pious pilgrimage as the preacher demanded of me, but something like it. Now only weeks further on, under the watchful gaze of countless esper spies I stand under the Spindle, intending to travel to its tip.

and I realized I ought be writing my story down for you, Sister. There's little chance it'll be delivered across Mogrha'yi -- thousands of tales like mine have been littered within those deep caves of Qud over the eons since the Gyre poisoned the land.

Qud provides so many opportunities to gain power and influence, and I have wielded these well, cementing powerful allies and collecting powerful tools. I had for a time an ally far too strong to manage as a tool, I grew fearful of its acid pseudopods, and so I recoiled to a random surface ruin, dismissed it from my service and as that massive semi-sentient sludge spat blood sweat and tears at me, I slammed my recoiler again and wept. There is now yet another legendary creature roaming the surface of Qud. I know not where I left my old friend, but I hope some day I may encounter and slay the monster I created.

I have gained the sorts of mind abilities we only whispered of as dreams in the Freehold creche and I've seen countless more in action. I have attracted inter-dimensional assassins, and slayed them all firing beams of light and sundering their minds. I have carried artifacts from those Far places, too, incredible weapons and wonders, and the wonders of the Eaters. Those blasted Eaters.

A tree, a tree!, Sister, the mayor of a small hamlet at the base of the Spindle told me "they ate earth and belched freight at the stars, and this place was their stomach." It was only a matter of time until I was back here, intending to work my way through that stomach.

But first I will tell you of the Kindren and the Reef, the Fulcrete and the Sludge.

#IrushumCavesOfQud

Sent by the village elder with some disk that the apple farmer's daughter had stumbled on, I was introduced to a people who call themselves Urshiib, bear folk, who lived together under a leader named Barathrum. I ingratiated myself with their tribe seeking access to their artifact markets and found myself to be their savior, and their go-fer. They sent me in to a festering hole, a disgusting trash pit, to recover a robot, some piece of scrap. "Live and drink!" they would say from their "secure" little hole in the ground, bah! I found a vertical shaft and flew down in it with some wings I picked out of a cave while traveling to the Urshiib home in the first, and I picked up their bauble and I left the way I came.

I think they were more impressed than they should have been, but they sent me off again to another festering hole in the ground. I went off on my own for a time. I built my power network, sharing water broadly, and delving deeply for more water. I met a warden who was a giant clam, who offered I step in and step out somewhere else.

At one point the Reef came alive and a polyp-jeweled hermit walked out of the lattice. He grinned at me and bartered a broken hand rail. When I turned my head to nod goodbye, he was gone

I emerged in the Palladium Reef, in Maqqom Yd, a place far too dangerous for someone of my old stature, and traveled for the first time to the spindle and eventually as well to the Yd Freehold, to speak to some of those Svardym I'd read about. Along this way, I started to meet more and more powerful members of the Sightless Way, but never anyone truly dangerous.

I learned to convince many to join my cause, many who were too weak to travel with me, a guilt I carry still, those weak-minded creatures who stepped in front of my enemies to be stepped out. For a time, I traveled with a newly-sentient chunk of Fulcrete I had come across in my travels. A proper waste of Spray-a-Brain, no doubt, but the animated fulcrete could protect itself in my travels and acted as a great friend for a time.

I remember hearing a story of another traveler named BlindIRL finding and befriending and empowering a sludge. Eventually I had opportunity to visit a historical site on the edge of the Rainbow Wood, and I met a wine-engorged sludge who shared its drink with me, and I shared my vision for Qud with it. And I shared the Ichor Merchant's wares with it. I learned from this first sludge of the danger in doing so, of creating a beast that endangered its creator, but not so powerful that it could not perish.

There is a place I stumbled upon called Bey Lah where yet more creatures I'd read about were hidden away from the rest of Qud. Their village was under crisis, and my attempts to aid it were unsuccessful and cost my first sludge its life. I returned days later to Bey Lah and there was not a soul there, I will not write more of this sadness.

Eventually, I started to delve in to Bethesda Susa as the Barathrumites had requested of me, to plug a disk in to a stone and record its screams. I had befriended the Mechanimists in my travel to enter their holy place without violence, but I was met with much violence in the upper levels. I met rocket turrets which could kill me through my force bubbles. Many times I got out by the skin of my teeth or less and woke from a long fever a dozen parasang or more away back in the Stiltground. Minor miracles that I could continue to throw myself at this.

I created another sludge, a more powerful sludge, a sludge too powerful, but a sludge which could help me navigate those frozen halls, I would step in before the sludge, locate and kill the Cloneling while dodging or kiting the piles of swarming creatures, after which I could let Heptakristus join me and help clean up the mess with its own brand of mess. I still to this day have vivid waking nightmares sometimes of Bethesda Susa's clonelings creating impossible clones of my dear Heptakristus Ova-Phrinon which would immediately stun, disarm, nauseate, intoxicate, and drain the life of me. Countless unremembered surprise deaths in that cold dead hospital. Eventually I succeeded, but only through much gritting of teeth. I conquered that place too and I returned to Grit Gate and returned to a life of go-fer, errand boy for Ortho, and their eventual savior.

During that time I was colonized by fungi in the service of these damned bears, and killed the shopkeep of Kyakukya in defense, a truly shameful moment. If only I had know their mayor sold a cure book before I showed up spewing spores looking for the cure. I berated Heptakristus for the killing blow, though it was my own travels that brought us to such infection in the first.

“Are you worried that you’re getting further away from your ideal self?”

“It’s unclear to me that I should be.”

[in conversation with Shem -1, a sentient chromeling of Grit Gate]

We were attacked by Arcologists of the Putus Templar while I was at Grit Gate. Many of the Urshiib and a sentient chromeling fell in the battle but we succeeded; the place is still covered with the putrescences emitted by Heptakristus in defense of the place. A tough sort of mutually assured destruction. The Templar are intent on stopping us from ascending the spindle, and I can only wonder why. I traveled back to the Spindle where I am now. Barathrum requested I enter the Tomb of the Eaters and climb it so that he may as well; I may as well.

#IrushumCavesOfQud

It took me many days and moons to gain the grit and the guts to ascend the Tomb of the Eaters. I entered numerous times, always with a recoiler at the ready. Some days I would be engulfed in acidic goo and melted out in to tunnels underneath the Tomb. Some days I would have my armor snatched from my chest by a flying robot while I was being engulfed in acidic goo and melted out in to the tunnels underneath the Tomb. Some days I would be incinerated or crushed by machinery.

Each time I would venture out in to Qud once again to grow more strong, more sharp. I am finely honed. I wield crysteel now, and I hear rumor of yet more powerful materiel in the lands to the east; my personal stash contains a water baron's wealth ready to give to skilled craftspeople and merchants. I replaced my wings with two robotic arms, helping hands, and gave them crysteel as well. I can sunder minds and fire lasers.

In my time wandering, I discovered new bounties; I started hearing secrets of the lairs of the Girsh Nephilim and would kill them given the opportunity and the power to do so. In the forests north of the Palladium Reef, I discovered the mouth of Shug'ruith, a massive sand-eater spoken of as one of the Nephilim, one of those plague-bearers and have recorded rumors of Rermadon's possible location. I learned that at least two others are hidden under those hovels those Barathrumites had previously sent me down, under Golgotha and Bethsaida. Someone oughtta do something about that.

After fleeing my sludgy friend, I found a new friend, a trustworthy friend, a legendary albino ape named Keoyakomooku-Kayaoee. She rides on rocket skates despite my anxiety she'll ignite my rifle's plasmatic clouds. She's done so more than once, but so far has managed to handle herself and the gear I've given her.

We ascended the Tomb, eventually. I was warned of grave dangers of the Tomb but I learned I could power through the machinery in the lower levels using my force bubbles to cut through dangerous machinery. I entered the tomb of each of the sultans prepared to fight manmade horrors beyond recognition but they only looked at me in wonder. I eventually met an eternal machine body waiting still for Resheph himself. Poor fool; he enshrined me there, as though I were Resheph himself. My deeds and my death will forever be inscribed on the walls of the Tomb of the Eaters. The annals even remember Heptakristus Ova-Phrinon, that blessing of a tetrakaidecasludge that still hunts surface ruins of Qud.

In the brief moments I was whisked away to the gate of Brightsheol, I did consider staying. I've grown so powerful, and was so nearly bored by it. Knowing, however, that there are lands I have not explored and new depths to have plumbed, knowing that I can find the Girsh, and I can kill them, tethers me to this realm.

All this pomp and circumstance to request permission to proceed. All that permission to no avail, I am back on some shiib-chase. A new title and a new set of errands. But the annals will always speak of my death on the 16th of Simmun Ut.

On the 16th of Simmun Ut, Irushum died peacefully and was laid to rest in the Tomb of the Sultans.

Graffitti is scrawled across the surface. It reads:

"|ive and d▲ink."

Do not believe what they say. I AM RECOMING.