Draft:Duke
The Duke rules Rampart and grants the quests that advance you through the ranks of nobility. The supplied initial Duke is Cormorant. His audience at Rampart Castle is the route to the title; finding and killing a physical Duke elsewhere does not make you his successor.[1][2][3]
| Initial name | Recorded character level | NPC combat level | NPC HP |
|---|---|---|---|
| Cormorant | 10 | 7 | 220 |
Encounters
The castle guards admit characters of level 3 or higher, at any hour. The Duke offers quests through the audience rather than standing at the entrance as an attackable creature. Accepting his first request makes you a Commoner; refusing causes 25 unavoidable damage and prosecution under Rampart's law.
A physical Duke can appear as a notable resident of a mansion, where he starts hostile and sleeps if generated at night. This is a random resident, not a guaranteed Cormorant encounter. Historical office-holders can also appear through wilderness encounters or summoning; ordinary dungeon population does not select them. Summoning the historical-NPC type selects a random recorded person, not specifically the Duke.
The initial Cormorant is a melee fighter with attack strength 21, armor class 5 and base damage 35, worth 140 experience. These are combat parameters, not a promise of 35 HP lost on every blow. He carries no special quest object and offers ordinary greetings, jokes or dismissive remarks rather than castle services. Later Dukes can have different fighting styles and dialogue based on their recorded careers. Nobility does not itself pacify a Duke encountered away from the audience.[4][5][6][2]
Succession
Follow the castle quests: surrender the Goblin King's head from the Goblin Caves, Defender and dragonscale armor in that order, then present the Orb of Mastery. The final audience leaves the Orb in your possession, awards 10,000 experience and makes you Duke. There is no requirement to exceed Cormorant's recorded level, and nobility does not exclude guild membership.
Your predecessor abdicates, your name is recorded, and the castle's treasury access changes as described on the vault page. In 0.90.4, this succession records your name and behavior but retains the previous Duke's recorded character level. Consequently, the HP of a later Duke NPC does not automatically reflect your level when you gained the title.
Killing a physical Duke instead produces a distant fanfare and replaces the recorded office-holder with a randomly named successor. It grants neither nobility nor the quest rewards and does not lower the recorded level. Changes to shared history normally affect later games; games marked as cheated do not write that history.[4][7][8]
Strategy
Pursue the title through audiences and preserve the requested objects. Defender is a useful weapon before its turn-in, so arrange a replacement; the final Orb presentation has no equivalent equipment cost because you keep it. If handing over a spare Defender, store the preferred copy outside carried inventory: the quest automatically chooses a matching item without a copy-selection prompt.[9]
Hunting Cormorant in a mansion offers no shortcut to the treasury privileges. Conversely, a hostile Duke in a residence does not mean that the castle quest line requires a fight with its ruler.
References
- ↑ lib/omega.hi in Omega 0.90.4.
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 mon.c in Omega 0.90.4, line 529 (
make_hiscore_npc). - ↑ mon.c in Omega 0.90.4, line 626 (
determine_npc_behavior). - ↑ 4.0 4.1 guild1.c in Omega 0.90.4, line 191 (
l_castle). - ↑ house.c in Omega 0.90.4, line 218 (
make_mansion_npc). - ↑ lev.c in Omega 0.90.4, line 11 (
make_country_monsters). - ↑ mon.c in Omega 0.90.4, line 134 (
m_death). - ↑ file.c in Omega 0.90.4, line 281 (
save_hiscore_npc). - ↑ inv.c in Omega 0.90.4, lines 1631–1659.