Minotaur Berzerker and Mummy Summoner of Sif Muna, Dungeon Crawl Stone Soup

I'm determined to conquer the Lair again in Crawl and to get past the middle game which has been giving me trouble since I started playing Crawl over 2 years ago. This time, I'm playing a Minotaur Berzerker, and Sigmund doesn't stand a chance. This is an awesome class/race combo, and worshiping Trog is always a great idea for melee. The Minotaur has all the aptitudes he needs (+2 Axes, +2 Armor, +2 Fighting) to become a death machine by the end of the lair. The trick is somehow staying alive until Trog can grant you an epic artifact executioner's axe.

I find and destroy my NEStalgia guildmate's ghost. Player ghosts are rarely a match for Berzerk.

However, soon I'd die to poison. A typical death, and annoying. I abandon the Minotaur and try my hand at another Mummy Summoner, eventually worshiping Sif Muna, and the results were:

A pretty easy early game, and I took it slow until finding this altar. Now things could get serious.

Summon Imp Spam on a player ghost.

It's a good thing I summoned some monsters before going down the stairs.

And all I lost was 4 HP :D

I never stop using summon small mammals. It's a cheap way to increase the ranks and protect the monsters that count. It can also be used to quickly position your Mummy in a favourable position before sending out wave after wave of spammed summon.

Narrow passages suck for a summoner.

Sending this Ice Beast into the passage took care of Sonja.

This gnoll sergeant wasn't fucking around; he killed a good number of troops, but he couldn't kill them as fast as I could summon them right back to battle.

This was an epic battle with a Hill Giant and some Yaks. I'd found the "Shadow Creatures" spell, so I was able to summon all sorts of things.

Like these awesome wights.

And some more awesome wights. We eventually won the battle.

But on the next level I died. I honestly can't remember how--I played several games since then and none of them were very exciting. This however, was a disappointing end to a great game. I never found the Lair, which would have made things easier. The Lair is pretty much a ton of free exp, and it has to spawn on level 13 or above. I still feel Mummy Summoner is an awesome class, an will probably continue to be my "main" combination on my quest to retrieve the Orb of Zot.

The Rise & Fall of a Mummy Summoner

This is a record of two epic Mummy Summoners. After the death of my Tengu Summoner, I decided to try Mummy Summoner out in Dungeon Crawl: Stone Soup. Along the way, I took screenshots to document my adventure and to help others survive the early game as a Mummy Summoner.

After I found an altar of Sif Muna, I joined his religion. With Rank 1 Piety, Sif granted me the ability to channel magical energy (gain MP) at the cost of food. Because Mummies don't need food, the ability was free; my formidability in a battle subsequently increased dramatically. Taking down this play ghost was no problem.

With this power I could summon vast hoards of imps and canine familiars. Somehow this guy died, however, and I had to start over.

Menkaure's usually a son of a bitch. My guys had him surrounded, however. Notice how my army is drastically smaller without Sif Muna's channeling ability.

Eustachio draws near, command?

He's a unique summoner, so we had a little summoning battle.

He was totally outclassed by my thrall of imps.

I soon found the Temple and started worshipping Sif Muna again, although for this battle with Edmund I did not yet have the channeling ability.

It didn't take too long for me to find the lair and gain favor with Sif Muna. Now I was able to raise platoons of monsters once again.

Clearing out the Lair seems like it's gonna be cake.

Even this hive of Killer Bees didn't phase me... at first.

I go all-out with the summons and channeling and more summons. However, the Killer Bees are in another league and they slaughter anything and everything I can summon. Even though I set up my guys perfectly, the Bees walk through my army like it wasn't even there.

I make a run for it, but it won't be enough. A few rounds after the above screenshot I fall to the swarm. Let this be a lesson: Killer Bees require a stronger summon than imps and canines. Maybe my Ice Beasts would have been able to do the job, but other than that it's hard to know how I could have done better. Some games you get lucky and find another spellbook, other games, like this one, you are forced to deal with your default spells for a long time.