4.1 Andor Drakon
Andor Drakon is the ElDeR cHaOs GoD, the source of all the trouble in Ancardia. He resides on the ChAoS plane, which lies beyond the chaos gate. Any PC who wants to attempt a special ending will have to face him. The requirements for passing through the chaos gate vary according to alignment and whether the PC wants to attempt the normal chaos god ending or an ultra ending, and are detailed in the sections regarding the endings.
It is a good idea to remove the Chaos artifacts necessary for gate passage immediately upon arrival on the ChAoS plane. Furthermore, drop them. They are no longer needed and only serve to further corrupt the PC, which is going to happen rapidly anyway because of the corrupting nature of the ChAoS plane. Read all scrolls of chaos resistance. Drink all potions of cure corruption.
Andor Drakon is, as might be imagined, a formidable enemy. He is fast, with a speed of 217 the last time it was checked several gammas ago. He is invisible. He casts what are apparently death rays, has a corrupting melee attack in addition to the naturally corrupting chaos plane, paralyzes, summons, casts darkness, teleports and drains stats at a fearsome rate.
His speed was gleaned from the Monster Memory which is otherwise not helpful, stating that he is beyond description. He also seems to be immune to the effects of a blessed stethoscope.
How to deal with him? Have a massively powerful melee attack. Drink all stat boosting potions prior to gate entry. Be very, very fast, the faster the better, preferably speed should be intrinsically above 200 and boosted above 400. Have excellent PV and DV. Have every resistance possible. If the PC is not paralyzation resistant, an amulet of free action (or the Boots of the Divine Messenger, for instance) is essential. A light source is essential. He is vulnerable to humanoid slaying ammo. He has been killed in many different ways, including a recent report using Acid Ball. Casting spells in general on the chaos plane is not recommended, however, as Andor Drakon claims that using magic strengthens him. In practice use of magic seems to make him faster. Prayer is definitely something to be avoided on the ChAoS plane under any circumstances. It causes greater balors to be summoned.
If a PC has much trouble on D: 50, it does not bode well as far as defeating Andor Drakon goes. He often defeats PC's who have *no* trouble on D: 50 (but are perhaps not as spoiled as those reading this).
4.2 The Chaos God ending
The Chaos God ending was the first special ending available in ADOM, as of gamma 6 (?). Today it has become kind of old-fashioned. Victory posts with "ordinary" Chaos Gods are few and far between. One reason it has fallen out of favor is because the future history of the PC after winning is bleak: after going to all the trouble necessary to even meet, much less defeat Andor Drakon, the PC revels in his glory for some time but is ultimately vanquished by a Champion of Law. Still, it is the only means of accessing a special ending if Khelavaster cannot be saved, which is very difficult. It is also the only way to achieve a special ending with a pure chaotic: a PC that starts chaotic and stays that way for the entire game. That in itself is quite an accomplishment.
4.2.1 Requirements
In order to achieve the Chaos God ending the PC must meet several requirements. These are checked during passage through the Chaos Gate. He must be C-. He must be a crowned Champion of Chaos. He must be extremely corrupted (the game will inform you when the PC is extremely corrupted). If these criteria are not met, the PC is shredded to pieces by any of several guardians or the millions of Chaos denizens Andor Drakon has collected (the exact guardian who kills the PC will have to wait for further testing, however, from memory, it is something like multi-tentacled horrors of unspeakable might check C- alignment, a chaos knight checks for crowned Champion of Chaos and says "I bow before thee, my lord!" if the requirement is met and the millions of Chaos denizens check the requirement for extremely corrupted; a successful check causes them to chant "One of us! One of us!"). Further, the PC must have the Chaos Trinity properly equipped: wear the Crown and Medal of Chaos, wield the Sceptre of Chaos in the right hand, leave the left hand empty. If this requirement is not met, Andor Drakon blasts the PC to oblivion. A successful check results in a message from Andor Drakon along the lines of "You seem to be wearing the insignia correctly. iT wIlL bE a PlEaSuRe To ShReD yOu In MeLeE!" If all of this is met, the PC winds up on the ChAoS plane to face Andor Drakon. The PC must be wielding the Sceptre of Chaos when Andor Drakon dies, although it is probably not necessary to kill him with the Sceptre (beastfighters would have difficulty doing this, but not killing him with a missile weapon while wielding the Sceptre).
4.3 Ultra endings
The Ultra endings were available as of gamma ten. In this gamma, the restriction on Chaos Gate entry for chaotics only was removed. However, the PC needs to have a mythical and long searched-for weapon - the Trident of the Red Rooster (TotRR). The steps necessary to obtain it are listed below.
One problem with the ultra endings is the necessity of changing alignment more than once at a relatively advanced stage of the game. All PCs attempting an Ultra ending must procure the Crown of Chaos and Medal of Chaos. In order to receive the quests for the Medal of Chaos from Gaab'Baay the PC must be at some flavor of chaotic alignment. There are six quests total, the first of which is to "satisfy the mutated one" which refers to completing the demented ratling's demand for six artifacts. The demented ratling will also only talk to chaotics. The demented ratling reveals the secret of the Stone Circle, where Keriax, the multi-headed chaos dragon who holds the Crown of Chaos resides. In practice the PC is usually fully C by the time the Medal of Chaos is obtained, since the quests for the Medal of Chaos involve killing a farmer, usually a non-hostile monster. After receiving the Medal of Chaos, the PC is free to change alignment, since the Stone Circle can be entered regardless of alignment. Remember the PC must change back to at least some flavor of neutral alignment in order to retrieve the TotRR. Khelavaster will not summon the TotRR for chaotics. The problem becomes more vexing since the longer high level PCs remain chaotic, the more difficult it is to change alignment back towards neutrality or law, becoming very difficult at experience level 50. There have been two reports of a C PC changing back to neutrality at experience level 50. The first sacrificed small amounts of gold between 100 - 200 times using two separate neutral altars (the first altar's alignment changed during the sacrificing). The second used the same technique with a single lawful altar. The PC must balance the necessity of changing alignment as *early* as possible in order to get back to neutrality with the necessity to change as *late* as possible in order to satisfy Gaab'Baay's quests, some of which involve delivering rare or precious items (a scroll of danger and a potion of cure corruption respectively). If the PC has wishes to spare, of course, this is not a problem. In practice all of this should be done by about experience level 40 - 45 at most, ideally sooner although scrolls of danger can be near-impossible to find.
Malte Helmert elaborates further on this phenomenon; the PC in question is experience level 50:
> I'm currently playing a dwarven bard in g16pre2 going for an ULE. He has the Trident,
> Orbs and two Trinity parts - the only thing that is still lacking is the L+ alignment.
> Saccing small amounts of money took me from C to LN. Unfortunately, you can't get
> further than that with altars. Even saccing millions of gp doesn't work, I checked
> with another character using WADOMF. It seems like altars only change your alignment
> (at least at high level) if you are of a different alignment than the altar (this
> does not seem in keeping with my previous experience, so maybe it is not valid for
> lower-level characters and in any case needs to be investigated more thoroughly).
>
> So the question is, how do you get to L+ again when you're level 50?
>
> I found three ways:
>
> * giving food to beggars. One blessed or uncursed stomafillia gives 2 "stones" on the
> alignment scale, giving more yields more stones (100 gives 200, but it looks like there
> is an upper bound or something, as 1000 didn't give 2000). I didn't check too much with
> other food, but it also seems to have an effect (made some experiments with large
> rations), but less so, probably depending on their satiation value.
>
> * giving money to beggars. Giving less than 1000 doesn't have an effect, giving 1000 or
> more (no matter how many) gives 1 stone.
>
> * healing your pet. This gives 6 stones (tested with Cure Light Wounds and Heal), but it
> only works when your pet is actually wounded. So you'd want to find a way of getting your
> pet constantly hurt but not killed. This isn't exactly easy.
>
> As LN starts at 1000 stones on the white side and L+ ranges from 5000 to 6000 stones, the
> "easiest" way of getting there seems to be giving 4-5 millions of gold to beggars in steps
> of 1000 - if you have the money and can perform one give action in two seconds, it'll still
> take more than two hours. It follows that this is a major PITA, so you'd better do the
> chaos quests early if going for an ULE. This is no problem for the UNE, as altars can get
> you to N= fairly easily.
IMPORTANT UPDATE: all of the above has seemingly been made moot by the March 25th, 2002 discovery by Queff Himalaya that a level 50 chaotic PC (although a C- PC has not been tested) can move to neutral alignment in one turn by giving the Dwarftown Priest 1,000,000 gold pieces. This is obviously less tedious than the methods above and much less dangerous than sacrificing at altars. It also may be removed by Thomas in future versions, so be careful.
ANOTHER IMPORTANT UPDATE: it has been discovered (April 11th, 2002) that giving gold to the Dwarftown Priest, even with a high level C- PC, can change the PC's alignment. High level (48) PC's that were C- were able to achieve LN status using this method, when the Dwarftown altar was generated as a lawful altar. Note that the status is only LN. Further measures are necessary if the PC wants to achieve L+ status.
All of the above has another implication - the PC cannot be crowned until the Medal of Chaos (or the TotRR itself, if an Ultimate Chaos God ending is planned) is obtained. Fallen champions will never receive the TotRR nor survive passage through the Chaos gate, so the nice benefits of crowning must be deferred until the Medal of Chaos or TotRR are obtained.
4.3.1 The Trident of the Red Rooster
The Trident of the Red Rooster is the ultimate weapon available in ADOM. Its characteristics can be found in Appendix L, but more importantly, it allows passage through the Chaos Gate regardless of alignment. Retrieving it is a lengthy process outlined below.
4.3.1.1 The Filk quest
The Filk quest is available from the Assassin Prince, on behalf of the Mad Minstrel, once three requirements are met. They are: the PC is at least experience level 45, the PC has successfully taken Sharad-Waador's quest and slain Srraxxarrakex and the PC has in his possession the artifact dagger Needle which is one of the rewards Sharad-Waador provides for killing Srraxxarrakex. After receiving the quest, the PC may elect to kill the Assassin Prince since he carries Needle's companion dagger Sting. Dual-wielded, they are enormously powerful. The object of the quest is to kill Filk, a named quickling bard.
The Assassin Prince gives some cryptic hints provided by the Mad Minstrel about Filk's location. They mean that Filk can be found on the level of the ID corresponding to the number of first-killed monsters killed. Note that this number can change as the quest proceeds. As a quickling, he is obviously fast, but Filk is the fastest of them all with a speed of 1500. When attacking Filk, note two things: he has the highest DV of any monster in the game at 500 but a PV of zero. Needless to say he is difficult to hit. However, once he is hit he is easily killed. He also shares the properties of karmics, although he is not named as such. Use missiles, wands, spells, mindcraft or companions to kill him.
4.3.1.2 The Mad Minstrel
After the Filk quest is completed, the PC should visit the Mad Minstrel. He will provide access to and information about the location of the Scintillating Cave (found in the western part of the wilderness south of the RotHK caves very close to the Ruined City).
4.3.1.3 The Scintillating Cave
The Scintillating Cave consists of eight cavernous levels. As one of the last places the PC will visit, it is dangerous and has a high generation rate featuring very dangerous monsters. Ancient Karmic Dragons, Greater Molochs and Emperor Lichs are common. It is best to simply get to the down staircases as quickly as possible unless the PC is an absolute walking tank by this time (which some aspiring to Ultra endings are). The objective is to find the down staircase to the lair of the Emperor Moloch.
4.3.1.3.1 The Emperor Moloch
By this time the PC has probably faced Greater Molochs and can imagine what the Emperor Moloch will be like. Extraordinary PV, not much DV, slow and hits like a ton of bricks. In addition, the level he resides on is massively corrupting. He must be killed quickly or lured off the level. He is vulnerable to phase daggers, ball spells, high effectivity bolt spells, demon slaying missiles including the rune-covered trident (although it is not guaranteed to return) and greater telekinetic blast. The twin daggers are not effective. When killed, he drops two guaranteed items: the crumpled scroll and a moloch armor weighing 15000 stones(!). The crumpled scroll is the key to the TotRR.
4.3.1.4 Khelavaster in Terinyo
At this stage in the game Khelavaster can be found in Terinyo. He is invisible. When given the crumpled scroll, he will summon the TotRR. Remember the PC must be of neutral or lawful alignment.
4.3.2 The Avatar of Order ending
To finish this ending the following requirements must be met: the PC enters the Chaos Gate as a crowned L+ Champion of Law wearing the Crown and Medal of Chaos and wielding the TotRR. The PC must not be intrinsically doomed or cursed other than due to wearing the Chaos artifacts. There is no corruption requirement. Kill Andor Drakon while wielding the TotRR.
4.3.3 The Avatar of Balance ending
To finish this ending the following requirements must be met: the PC enters the Chaos Gate as a crowned N= Champion of Balance wearing the Crown and Medal of Chaos and wielding the TotRR. The PC must not be intrinsically doomed or cursed other than due to wearing the Chaos artifacts. The PC must be extremely corrupted (the game will inform you when the PC is extremely corrupted). Kill Andor Drakon while wielding the TotRR.
4.3.4 The Ultimate Chaos God ending
To finish this ending the following requirements must be met: the PC enters the Chaos Gate as a crowned C- Champion of Chaos wearing the Crown and Medal of Chaos and wielding the TotRR. The PC must not be intrinsically doomed or cursed other than due to wearing the Chaos artifacts. The PC must be extremely corrupted (the game will inform you when the PC is extremely corrupted). Kill Andor Drakon while wielding the TotRR.