YAFAP

I finally ascended a character in nethack v3.6.0 2018-05-05 0440 EDT, after playing off-and-on for nineteen years.

I dutifully wrote up Yet Another First Ascension Post on rec.games.roguelike.nethack.

First 3.6.x ascension on gtf.org

NetHack swept like wildfire through the Georgia Tech undergraduate community, particularly computer science majors, during the Fall of 1999. I played a few games, but didn't get drawn in as deeply as many friends. Over the next few years, most of the people I knew who cared about the game ascended, often many times, but I never even reached Medusa. Most of those years I played only a few games, if any, though I picked NetHack back up for a good week or so pretty regularly. Finally, the world's most boring business trip got me back deep into the game a month ago; when 3.6.1 was released the day I quit that job, it seemed quite the omen. Today, Saturday 2018-05-05 at 0440 EDT, Dank the Valkyrie ascended to demigoddesshood via NetHack 3.6.0 on the private gtf.org server.

I can't think of anything else I've wanted to do that took nineteen years. Thanks, DevTeam, for the Greatest Game of All Time. Thanks, NetHackWiki community, for a fabulous resource. I don't ever intend to play a video game again, unless I write it, or some future children demand it.

It wasn't any kind of noble ascension, with 7 genocides, 14 wishes, and 3 well-applied amulets of life saving. But hey, I'm willing to use whatever the RNG sends me for the first time. Wishes have a pretty sharply diminishing return anyway, and it's not like I was going for genocide scrolls. One AoLS was burned choking myself with a wraith corpse, coming back, and gaining the XL, because I knew I had another one in my BoH. Lousy play of that sort.

It's really nice to engrave with a wand in the Castle, be prompted for a wish, think "isn't that normally in a chest with a scroll", and a few seconds later verify that indeed, it normally is. I'd never received two WoW on a single level before =].

The one "conduct" requirement I had was that, as a Discordian/Erisian in real life, I could play a Valk, but must become chaotic ASAP (ended up being immediately after the Quest, as I'd already cleared out the Castle). Helm of Chaos went on, lost 10 AC of divine protection, but hey that's CHAOS baby, Hail Eris and all that.

Most embarrassing moment was burning a wish on a t-shirt (because with 14 wishes, who has time to polypile up crap), going to +4 with two blessed enchant armors, thinking the limit was +5 and not +4, and vaporizing it all in the span of seconds. Combined with the loss of 10 from the Helm, that's 14 AC lost for no really good reason. Ehhh, -29 proved more than enough, combined with +6 Grayswandir (I'd never received it before via sacrifice, so I blew a wish on it this time).

Best moment was passing an amulet of poison resistance somewhere around DL10, killing a paper golem next to it, zapping the small lot with a polywand because again CHAOS and intuition, and reaping the exact AoLS and four enchant armor scrolls I could most use. I also enjoyed wiping out all High Priests, and even going and kicking the door down unnecessarily on Pestilence because what's a YAFAP without Pestilence. Never did see Demogorgon. Learned not to eat disenchanters (which I then genocided out of spite). Rodney showed up far less frequently than I've seen him on two other runs, which thanks I suppose. Never got to burn two entire WoDs, despite sitting around waiting for Famine/Pestilence to wake back up for some time.

Dank the Valkyrie's attributes:

Background:

You were a Lady, a level 30 human Valkyrie. 
You were chaotic, temporarily on a mission for Loki 
who was opposed by Tyr (lawful) and Odin (neutral). 
You were actually lawful. 

Final Characteristics:

Your strength was 25 (base:18/48, innate limit:18/100). 
Your dexterity was 18 (limit:18). 
Your constitution was 18 (limit:18). 
Your intelligence was 10 (limit:18). 
Your wisdom was 18 (limit:18). 
Your charisma was 13 (limit:18). 

Final Status:

You were unencumbered. 
You were wielding a saber. 

Final Attributes:

You were piously aligned. 
You were magic-protected. 
You were fire resistant. 
You were cold resistant. 
You were sleep resistant. 
You were disintegration-resistant. 
You were shock resistant. 
You were poison resistant. 
You resisted hallucinations. 
You saw invisible. 
You were telepathic. 
You were warned. 
You were invisible to others. 
You caused conflict. 
You could teleport. 
You were protected. 
You took half physical damage. 
You took half spell damage. 
You were very fast. 
You had reflection. 
You had free action. 
Your life would have been saved. 
You were very lucky. 
You had extra luck. 
Good luck did not time out for you. 
You survived after being killed thrice. 

                                         Genocided or extinct species: 

                                         mind flayers 
                                         master mind flayers 
                                   ----- liches 
                                   |.... demiliches 
  ---------------               |  |..%. master liches 
  |.......).....|               |. |..._ arch-liches 
  |  ---------..--       -----  |. |..%% disenchanters 
     |.......|...--  -.......-  |..|.%.% erinyes (extinct) 
     |.......|.$+.---.........--|..----% 
     |...@..%-....+$...........||.....). 7 species genocided. 
     |....@..|....---.........-----%.%%. 1 species extinct. 
     |.......|..$--  -.......-    -----| --More-- 
     ---------..--    ---|----    --...%.%.       ---.--     --).--------- 
             ...|      |.%.--------..%.%%%.  -------...       |... 
            -----      |.$.%..)..|..%).%...  |...(%/%..       ----- 
                        ------...-  .%..).  --$..------ 
                             |...!- ...%%. --/.%.| 
                             ---...----%----.).--- 
                               |.......$%.%$...| 
                               ---------------- 
Dank the Lady               St:25 Dx:18 Co:18 In:10 Wi:18 Ch:13  Chaotic 
Astral Plane $:0  HP:291(291) Pw:110(110) AC:-29 Xp:30/100115265 

                                         Voluntary challenges: 
                                          You genocided 7 types of monsters. 
                                          You used 14 wishes. 

Farvel dank the Demigoddess... 

You went to your reward with 1895818 points, 
The Book of the Dead (worth 10000 zorkmids and 25000 points) 
Mjollnir (worth 4000 zorkmids and 10000 points) 
Grayswandir (worth 8000 zorkmids and 20000 points) 
The Orb of Fate (worth 3500 zorkmids and 8750 points) 
The Bell of Opening (worth 5000 zorkmids and 12500 points) 
The Candelabrum of Invocation (worth 5000 zorkmids and 12500 points) 
Excalibur (worth 4000 zorkmids and 10000 points) 
       1 amulet of life saving (worth 150 zorkmids), 
       1 amulet of magical breathing (worth 150 zorkmids), 
and 0 pieces of gold, after 63702 moves. 
You were level 30 with a maximum of 291 hit points when you ascended. 

• Asmodeus
• Baalzebub
• Orcus
• Juiblex
• The Wizard of Yendor (thrice)
• Death (6 times)
• Pestilence (thrice)
• Famine (6 times)
• an arch-lich
• 3 high priests
• 2 mastodons
• Medusa
• 10 krakens
• 2 master liches
• a ki-rin
• 4 balrogs
• 11 purple worms
• 3 gray dragons
• 3 silver dragons
• 13 red dragons
• 4 white dragons
• 4 orange dragons
• 5 black dragons
• 7 blue dragons
• 4 green dragons
• 4 yellow dragons
• 24 minotaurs
• 9 jabberwocks
• Lord Surtur
• 4 baluchitheria
• 26 Angels
• 2 demiliches
• Vlad the Impaler
• a master mind flayer
• 4 Nazgul
• 8 disenchanters
• a shopkeeper
• 36 aligned priests
• a priestess
• a tourist
• 2 mind flayers
• 16 air elementals
• 15 fire elementals
• 17 earth elementals
• 31 water elementals
• 6 electric eels
• 18 giant eels

but the species who got it hardest were gnomes, at 58.

w0000000000000000000000t!