Ternebrae et More (now at Alpha 3.0)

[getter77]

https://gym.itch.io/tenebrae-et-mort  Win

A roguelike in the spirit of Nethack, explore the dungeon underneath an Italian villa in the 15th century. The condottiero Perin Nazana has gone mad, locking himself in his massive dungeon containing vast treasure and deadly foes.

Build your character and adventure through over 30 levels.
Who are you?

Live your character's life before your journey into the dungeon. Choose a background and stat, then live your character's life 5 years at a time. Follow the path of a peasant turned soldier, or choose a life of contemplation and prayer. Be a craftsman, an alchemist, a knight, an inquisitor. Your choices decide your skills, and your skills protect you through the dungeon!
What do you do?

Choose your approach. Kill any in your way, or charm your way through the dungeon. Craft deadly potions as an alchemist, convert hostile foes as a priest, or bribe those foes as a merchant. Gather a group of protectors or finish it solo. Use magic, might, charm, or money to reach Perin!
What's to come?

More monsters, more loot, more magic! In short, more content and challenges to overcome.

The current version of the game is an "alpha" version: beatable, nearly feature complete, somewhat untested. This is currently a Windows only game, though macOS and Linux are certainly possible in the future.
Hardware requirements

    A PC built in the last 20 years
    A keyboard and mouse

[getter77]

Alpha 2
   

Reworked map generation. You're less likely to see the larger, cave like maps on higher levels, and the maps are generally smaller now.

    Reworked monster spawning. I adjusted some spawn tables and rates to increase the bad guy count.

    More variety in human NPC equipment

    Tweaks to hunger/rate of hungriness.

    Minor bug fixes

expanded ossuary and library branches, which were previously one level deep. I also added a handful of "mythical" weapons. These are dropped at the end of the vault branches and are quite powerful, but previously they were mostly "slash" type weapons. I added more "bash" and "polearms" weapons to this mix.

[getter77]

Alpha 2.7

   

Cut the main dungeon floor count from 30 to 20. Overall the total floor count will remain the same because...
    Added a new branch: Kobold Cavern and increased floor count on all the other existing branches. Going forward this will be the strategy for adding more levels and level variety. Look for more themed branches in the future.
    Diversified Kobolds a bit. They can spawn as workers, soldiers, scouts, and veterans.
    Added a new boss to the end of Kobold Cavern
    Tweaked the spawn tables to correspond with the new floor counts
    Added new throwing weapons: war darts and throwing axes.
    Various bug fixes for traps, potions, vault spawning, item dropping...

Weapons can now spawn as low, normal, or high quality. The low and high quality weapons will have prefixes, and their power and penetration will be modified.

Memorized spells now cost half their casting cost and ignore the "read/write" check when casting. Casting a spell by reading it from a book requires a literacy check because you're, well, reading it. This gives memorization a real reason to exist!

    Implemented a trap system and added a couple trap types to the map generator. The current traps a pretty basic: an arrow trap and a "sealed room" trap, where the room gets partially sealed off. The "mechanics" skill is now used for detecting traps in addition to lock picking.
    Added a new tool, the mattock. Use this tool to remove walls.
    Added a new "infighter" behavior, which has monsters wanting to fight other monsters in addition to fighting you. A new "knight" monster has this behavior, and the new "raging" monster mod adds this behavior to monsters, too.
    Added a bunch of monster modifiers, similar to item modifiers. You should now occasionally see monsters with prefixes like "oversized", "lame", "devout", etc. These modify monster stats, skills, and behaviors.

[getter77]

Alpha 3.0

Bug fixes, vendor changes, spawn changes, and a new tile set.

    Added a new tile set based on DawnLike. Press "F2" to switch to this in game.
    Added more tiles to the original tile set. Press "F1" to switch to this set.
    Added healing to Priest NPCs. Exchange Favor for health with this new dialog option.
    Added a holy water "potion" that strips any and all active effects
    Tweaked the player stat display in the top right of the game screen
    Tweaked the lighting effects a bit
    Fixed like a dozen bugs

    Added two new spells - Polymorph and Shape of Gata Carogna. Polymorph is a fantasy staple, and in this game it transforms your target into a new, randomly selected creature from the spawn list. Shape of Gata Carogna is a shape shifting spell that gives your character strength, dexterity, and bash bonuses.
    Added two new monsters - Spina de Mul and the iaculo. Spina de Mul is a mythical sorcerer from Ladin legends. He carries the gem Rajëta, which in this game has the ability to pacify any creature. The iaculo is a serpent that launches itself like a javelin to attack.
    Added a book of random spells, tweaked the spell book/scroll spawn rate

The Palace of the Fates is the new branch that spawns fairly deep into the dungeon. Notably this is a "static" branch, unlike all the rest, meaning that the floor layout will be the same every game. This let me try my hand at a different kind of dungeon designing, which I enjoyed quite a bit, and I think you may as well.

With a new branch comes some spawn reshuffling and new monsters. Fairies now only spawn in the new branch, and I've added a couple new fairy types as well: the Squasc and the Mazapegol. Like the more generic "fairy", these tricky creatures can drop artifacts and a ton of gold, but are also powerful magicians. The new branch also features a new boss, which if you don't know anything about the fabled Palace of the Fates, then I won't spoil anything.

I also added a new type of ghost, the Pandafeche, which actually takes the roll of the generic "ghost" enemy. The "ghost" monster is still around, but it's a bit more dangerous.

Finally, I've added a generic "demon" monster. These are late-game enemies that can cause all kinds of trouble. They can cast spells, spawn cursed items, attack you with their claws.. just generally nasty creatures.

    Added disable effect resistance mods. All those annoying effects like paralysis and cursed can now be resisted with the right equipment.
    Added a "blood" effect. Tiles will turn red in the vicinity of a fight.
    Added light sources and a "light" effect. Light sources increase your FOV and project a colored light on cells in the area.