Brb 2 mins+, the Raven-born Dwarven Mindcrafter, managed to close the gate in 1 hour, 34 minutes, and 10 seconds. Time starts after name entry, which is how in-game time in the .flg is measured. Video: https://www.twitch.tv/videos/355692637 or https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iUuaY9jLpUQ.

Why dwarf?
  • The run goes for a quick Rolf set, and doesn't waste time waiting for the guaranteed lawful altar in settlement. The other lawful races are much weaker.
  • Detect Traps is useful in general and seems to allow a fast Mana Temple strategy.
  • Digging resources can be quite tight, so Mining (which mindcrafter gets at an oddly high level) is helpful.
  • Access to Mithril Skin is a nice side benefit.
  • Hammerhead, while not the best, would be a reasonably helpful crowning gift, as there's no guarantee that the run will have any fireproofing items.


Why mindcrafter?
  • Not having to RNG into teleport control is a big boost to reliability. Also necessary to guarantee early access to Rolf set without some crazy elite dwarven guardian strats.
  • Confusion blast trivializes a lot of enemies that would otherwise kill the character or waste a lot of time. Confusion also comes in handy for Air Temple.
  • Reduced confusion duration is helpful against ACW and especially archmage, and there's no guaranteed confusion resistance.
  • Their crowning gift pool is quite good, with only staff of the wanderer being a complete dud.
  • The monster detection from Eyes of the Mind can save you a massive amount of time by avoiding nasty tension and threat rooms.


Why Raven?
  • +10 speed is OP.
  • The run can't count on fireproofing gear, so RCT is needed in lieu of cheap tricks versus ACW. The trident ends up saving time later on in Earth Temple and D:50 as well.


Point buy?
19 Strength, 6 Learning, 11 Willpower, 10 Dexterity, 22 Toughness, 1 Charisma, 1 Appearance, 18 Mana, 10 Perception. 3 starting talents with 4 points left over.

Talents?
Healthy -> Hardy -> Tough Skin -> Iron Skin -> Steel Skin -> Mithril Skin -> (Immune to Pain, Quick, Very Quick, Affinity with Axes, Greased Lightning)... -> Doesn't matter past this point.

The route:
  1. I startscum for ring of the fish. This is for UD rivers as well as Fungal Caves, both of which need to be taken care of before Swimming can be acquired.
  2. Started out in Terinyo, bought rations, lured sheriff to Hole in the Wall for an amulet of order, and then picked up the Carpenter quest.
  3. Generated Goblin Camp and used confusion and true berserk to grab the weapons, armor, and shields. Lucked out with a mithril sword and a large mithril shield.
  4. Scouted SMC and found a great stairs layout, but the blanket was impossible to retrieve due to a mixed tension room.
  5. Gained Healing the lawful way, making some use of confusion on Yriggs to make things safer.
  6. Dove through UD.
  7. After getting to HMV I went back to Goblin Camp to pick up a bunch of rocks. Lost a good deal of scrolls because I'm an idiot (random blanket I picked up in UD was *not* waterproof). Killed dwarven veteran from across the HMV river with a combination of rocks and mind blast. He dropped a completely average eternium hand axe and chain mail.
  8. Retrieved the wand of teleport from VDDL, making use of the mouseover glitch to find it without needing item detection or digging.
  9. Picked up some cooked lizards and the arena championship from a very confused Bonk. I do the arena for Backstabbing, but the random monster quest is generally faster than going back up to arena, and you still get the reward.
  10. Picked up Rolf's axe in Dwarftown, and took down an easy first random monster.
  11. Went down to Fungal Caves, picked a lot of morgia (needed to gain several points of Willpower to qualify for Immune to Pain), and took down the overlord for Cornucopia and some excellent mushrooms. Both ecstasy and purity can be extremely helpful, and I got two of each.
  12. Finished up Thrundarr's quests for Rolf's Shield, taking care of the random monster quest quickly with a stashed, confused monster. Got the arena dwarf's map fragment on the way up.
  13. Finally picked up some more potions in the now-generated settlement.
  14. Had to go to Griffyard to level up to 13, then headed back to Pyramid for Ankh, AMW, and the pick axe.
  15. Made short work of the Griffyard, picked up the second map fragment and the elemental gauntlets, hitting L+ along the way.
  16. Blessed and sacrificed the two map fragments to crown with circlet of the pure mind. Possibly the best crowning gift as it eliminates confusion issues and lets you maintain mental shield longer.
  17. Completed Blup's quest and picked up Swimming.
  18. Leveled up to 16 in Darkforge and waited a bit in wilderness for the RCT delivery.
  19. ToEF was quite rough, with two seemingly unavoidable tension rooms, one of fire elementals and one of fire giants. Prayed for a pick axe on the top floor, and avoided most combat (apart from the tension room) by digging to ACW's row, firing off a mind blast, and then retreating. ACW was a bit harder than necessary as I started out with thrown rocks instead of RCT by mistake!
  20. Turned in the portal quest on my way down and started the final dive. Water temple was trivial, navigated past eternal guardian with teleportation, skipped casino, and somehow still managed to qualify for cat ring.
  21. Got low on digging supplies in Air Temple when one of my two wands was destroyed. The temple itself was quite easy. Before opening the central room, I confused Yulgash several times through the wall (confusion duration stacks), which prevented him from doing any summoning.
  22. Took a fairly straightforward approach to Earth Temple, using up my wands of fireballs. I've tried some fancier strats with mind blasting ASB through the walls, but just going straight for it seems more consistent.
  23. Mana Temple went fairly smoothly, but I ended up losing my door creation and bunny summoning wands, putting D:50 in jeopardy. In the future I should just drop this stuff first; even with Detect Traps it isn't safe enough. Triggering an alarm trap on the bottom row seems to persuade Nuurgy to venture out early. Dispatched him with the help of blessed ecstasy shrooms and cursed potions of invisibility.
  24. Surprisingly, I didn't lose a million years in D:50, improvising with a greater earth elemental companion on one lever and a confused greater chaos servant on the other.