Draft:Rampart Coliseum

Omega 0.90.4

The Rampart Coliseum is Rampart's arena and home of the Gladiators' Guild. Visitors can enter a succession of fights for money, or register as gladiators for training credit, an extra combat maneuver and the chance to become champion. Entering a fight and joining the guild are separate decisions.

Location	City travel name	Opening hours
Southeastern Rampart	arena	All hours

Registration

Choose r to register. You need Strength 13 and Agility 12, with no active Legion or Order membership. Alignment does not matter. Registration grants a club, a large round shield and 5,000 Au of Gym credit. The recruiter calls the club a "wooden sword"; it is the same ordinary club described in its entity article.

Registration makes you an Arena Trainee and adds one combat maneuver, subject to the usual haste, slow and maneuver-limit rules. Update your combat sequence to use the additional action. Registration itself does not enter a fight.

Entering the games

Choose e as an unregistered visitor, or agree to enter when returning as a gladiator. Even members of other martial guilds may enter a match without registering here.

The initial unregistered sequence starts with a pencil-necked geek, then a hornet and a hyena. Registration resets the next opponent to the goblin, skipping those opening matches regardless of earlier progress. The fixed sequence then continues through grunt, tove, apprentice ninja, salamander, giant soldier ant, manticore, spectre, bandersnatch, lich, automatum major, jabberwock and jotun. Eligible gladiators next face the champion; unregistered fighters and reigning champions move on to random opponents instead.

Arena versions of these opponents are stronger than their ordinary counterparts. The arena adds ten HP per monster level, doubles hit, increases damage by half, and wakes the opponent. A familiar monster name is not evidence that the match is as easy as a normal encounter.

The opponent carries a small grey box with a red button: the disposable garage-door opener. After defeating the opponent, collect and activate it as an item to raise the portcullises, then use the arena exit. The box is consumed. Killing the opponent establishes the victory; merely leaving the arena does not.

Rewards and advancement

A victory pays 50 Au per opponent level, with a minimum of 25 Au. Active gladiators receive double that amount. Prize money is ordinary cash, separate from Gym credit.

For a gladiator following the registration sequence, victories over the tove, giant soldier ant and bandersnatch award successive promotions and 6,000, 9,000 and 12,000 Au of additional Gym credit. Ordinary experience gained elsewhere does not advance the Arena rank. Defeating the champion as an eligible gladiator and leaving victorious makes you champion, pays 2,000 Au and awards the named spear Victrix. The spear is a prize, not something the opponent carries. The champion's strength depends on the recorded incumbent and also receives the arena's additional combat bonuses; the character's article distinguishes the title fight from ordinary encounters and documents the match-construction defect at recorded level 40 or higher.

Leaving without victory

A gladiator who leaves without a victory is expelled and loses all remaining Gym credit. The ordinary registration option is no longer offered, and the doubled member prize is lost.

In 0.90.4, the extra maneuver survives expulsion. This does not preserve the other membership benefits. In particular, the Order still rejects the record of Arena membership, while the Legion's entry check only excludes active gladiators. This makes expulsion a mechanically unusual state, not a clean return to being unregistered.

Strategy

Registration is useful even if you postpone fighting: the extra action and training credit can help prepare for adventures elsewhere. The initial credit buys two complete Gym sessions, with a partial balance left, rather than 5,000 Au of equipment.

Do not enter a match just to see the floor plan. Prepare your equipment and tactics first, and remember that an escape can cost membership benefits. The increasing opponent sequence is a reason to reassess after each fight, not to assume that the next match is another easy payday.

Trivia

The supplied initial champion is Spartacus, sharing the name of the historical gladiator who led a revolt against Rome. See Spartacus. A player who wins the office can replace that name in the game's history, so it is not a permanent identity for every champion.

The escape device turns a modern garage-door opener into a solution for an arena's portcullises, another of Rampart's mixtures of contemporary jokes and fantasy institutions.