We are proud to announce the release of Dungeon Crawl Stone Soup 0.14: “The Shadowy Depths of Madness” is released! 0.14 features two new races, a new god, a new branch, many new spells, enemies and items, and a wealth of other changes.

Download DCSS 0.14 here, or play it online on one of many servers across the world!

The release tournament will begin at 20:00 UTC on Friday 11 April, with all online 0.14 games counting towards your score. See the tournament website for more details, including how to set up or join a clan.

0.14′s highlights include:

Characters: Two new races: Formicids, an insectoid species with permanent stasis and an affinity for digging, and Vine Stalkers, a parasitic plant on a human host – very fragile, but possessing great regenerative ability, permanent guardian spirit, and a powerful magic-draining bite. Recommended backgrounds and species have been adjusted; in particular, backgrounds can recommend species that don’t necessarily recommend that background and vice versa (e.g. Chaos Knight -> Troll may be recommended whereas Troll -> Chaos Knight is not). Fighters and Gladiators start with better weapons. Poison damage is now deterministic.

Two new races: Formicids, an insectoid species with permanent stasis and an affinity for digging, and Vine Stalkers, a parasitic plant on a human host – very fragile, but possessing great regenerative ability, permanent guardian spirit, and a powerful magic-draining bite. Recommended backgrounds and species have been adjusted; in particular, backgrounds can recommend species that don’t necessarily recommend that background and vice versa (e.g. Chaos Knight -> Troll may be recommended whereas Troll -> Chaos Knight is not). Fighters and Gladiators start with better weapons. Poison damage is now deterministic. Places: The lower half of the dungeon has been transformed into a new branch, the Depths; five levels long and containing the entrance to the Realm of Zot. The Vaults require a rune to enter. Ziggurats now require three runes to enter in lieu of an entry fee.

The lower half of the dungeon has been transformed into a new branch, the Depths; five levels long and containing the entrance to the Realm of Zot. The Vaults require a rune to enter. Ziggurats now require three runes to enter in lieu of an entry fee. Monsters: A great deal of new enemies appear, primarily in the Lair sub-branches – from new specialist nagas to plants with vicious volleys of thorns to demonspawn with a variety of sets of mutations and jobs. Three new uniques make their debut: Natasha, the lost felid familiar of a powerful wizard; Asterion, a powerful minotaur king; and Vashnia, leader of an elite squad of naga sharpshooters. Adjustments have been made to many other enemies.

A great deal of new enemies appear, primarily in the Lair sub-branches – from new specialist nagas to plants with vicious volleys of thorns to demonspawn with a variety of sets of mutations and jobs. Three new uniques make their debut: Natasha, the lost felid familiar of a powerful wizard; Asterion, a powerful minotaur king; and Vashnia, leader of an elite squad of naga sharpshooters. Adjustments have been made to many other enemies. Gods: Dithmenos the Shadowed makes a debut, granting followers an aura of shadows and many abilities related thereto. Divine wrath is now contingent on gaining experience; it can no longer be “waited out”. Zin and Okawaru no longer care about the deaths of allies.

Dithmenos the Shadowed makes a debut, granting followers an aura of shadows and many abilities related thereto. Divine wrath is now contingent on gaining experience; it can no longer be “waited out”. Zin and Okawaru no longer care about the deaths of allies. Spells: A great deal of spells have been added to the Summoning school, allowing the creation of minions from lightning spires to harpies and sphinxes to your very own spell-casting construct. Glaciate, a level 9 Conjurations/Ice spell, makes its debut as a replacement for Ice Storm; it creates a powerful cone-shaped icy blast that can freeze enemies solid.

A great deal of spells have been added to the Summoning school, allowing the creation of minions from lightning spires to harpies and sphinxes to your very own spell-casting construct. Glaciate, a level 9 Conjurations/Ice spell, makes its debut as a replacement for Ice Storm; it creates a powerful cone-shaped icy blast that can freeze enemies solid. Items: Several new rods have been introduced, from the rod of clouds with its ability to call forth strange and powerful cloud effects at high power to the rod of ignition with great explosive power. Many new pre-defined artefacts are available, and several have received tweaks and modernisation. All scrolls now identify on read.

For a list of other major changes, see the changelog. Many thanks to all those who have contributed to Dungeon Crawl Stone Soup. We hope you enjoy playing 0.14!

(Update 2014-04-10 16:20 UTC: OS X binaries of 0.14.0 are now available from the downloads page. Many thanks to frogor! -neil)

(Update 2014-04-24 20:36 UTC: Debian/Ubuntu packages in 0.14 are now available! See the downloads page for more info. ~Grunt)