👉 The Gnomish Mines is an early-game branch inhabited primarily by gnomes and dwarves, offering excellent loot but significant danger for low-level adventurers.
Location: Branches from /Dungeon/The Dungeons of Doom between levels 2 and 5. The branch itself is 8 to 10 levels deep.
It extends downward, culminating in Mines' End.
Characteristics
- Layout: Irregular cavernous open spaces, rather than standard rooms and corridors. This makes it difficult to funnel enemies into chokepoints.
- Lighting: Completely dark, except for Mine Town. A light source (such as a lamp, magic marker, or spell) is highly recommended.
- Inhabitants: Teeming with gnomes, dwarves, hobbits, and their various pets (like ponies and dogs). While dwarves are usually peaceful to dwarven characters, gnomes are hostile to most except gnomish characters.
- Traps: Filled with polymorph traps, falling rock traps, and dart traps.
Special Levels
- Mine Town: A guaranteed mid-point level featuring a temple with an aligned priest, a lighting store, a general store, and heavily armed watchmen. It also contains the portal to /Dungeon/The Large Circular Dungeon.
- Mines' End: The bottom-most level of the branch. It contains a guaranteed Luckstone, crucial for maximizing your chances of success throughout the game, as well as significant gem deposits and a guaranteed alignment-specific artifact depending on generation.