History VideoGame / CavesOfQud

** With all that being said, you're an unknown quantity to most pre-existing robots, so most of them won't like you. Your best chance at changing that is getting in the good graces of the [[TheFairFolk Naphaali tribe]], and then sharing oil with their [[MachineWorship chrome idols]].

* AfterTheEnd: A thousand years after the end, to be precise.

* SprintShoes: Ninefold boots send you forward twelve squares in the time it would normally take you to move three squares, for essentially a 300% speed increase. They actually do this by [[FlashStep teleporting you forward those extra nine squares]], however; in other words, [[GravityIsAHarshMistress keep these turned off while walking in skyscrapers]].

* StarScraper: The Spindle, so large it takes up multiple grid spaces on the world map. Naturally, the end game is based around opening and climbing it.

* CloudCuckooLander: Qud's white books have text that is randomly generated every game (via Markov chains). The resulting prose is... very reminiscent of this trope. [[spoiler: Two of these books have clues buried in their text that lead to the location of the Ruin Of House Isner artifact pistol.]]

* TheSixStats: Strength, Agility, Endurance, Intelligence, Willpower, and Ego. Ego is somewhat unusual because it represents how much the character influences other people via speech or intimidation, and the effectiveness of their psychic powers.

* ForbiddenFruit: Putus Templar leaders carry [[spoiler:Eaters' nectar, which provides permanent stat boosts but may mutate the "impure".]] None of them are brave enough to try it.

* LuckilyMyShieldWillProtectMe: Shields can be held in the hand or (in the case of the smaller ones) worn on the arm, providing extra points of "Armor Value" that go against the attacker's "Penetration Value" when deciding how grievous a connecting blow is; when you successfully block the attack, anyway. Proper shield use requires the appropriate skills; [[DidntThinkThisThrough without them, shields just hamper your dodging]].

* {{Roguelike}}

* MultiMeleeMaster: In theory, you could gain enough skill points and attributes to max out all the melee weapons. In practice, though, most players stick to [[WeaponOfChoice one type of weapon]].

** Golgotha is normally a maze full of deathtraps, slime, and absurd quantities of [[TheSwarm vent crabs]]. However, breaching the bunker on the surface lets you access an elevator shaft that leads directly to the bottom floor. Surviving the fall is another story, but possible with a Rubbergum Injector and over 100 hit points. Having some form of flight also allows you to just flap your way down the shaft, level by level. Just, uh, make sure your flight is good enough to have you fumble mid-descent...

** A lot of the nomenclature is sourced from early Semitic culture, as well: [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Resheph Resheph]] was a god in the same Semitic pantheon that gave rise to Yahweh, and Qudshu (which is extremely similar to "qudzu", the rusting plant) is a variant name for the deity usually identified as [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qetesh Qetesh]] today. And of course, Resheph as depicted in ''[=CoQ=]'' has a massive number of similarities to Jesus of Nazareth.

* SlaveryIsASpecialKindOfEvil: While the [[ANaziByAnyOtherName Putus Templar]] explicitly have the overall goal of eradicating Qud of all mutants, it's briefly mentioned that they also keep mutants in slave pens. Perhaps thankfully, no mention is made of exactly ''what'' kind of slavery the human supremacists engage in.

** Golgotha is normally a maze full of deathtraps, slime, and absurd quantities of [[TheSwarm vent crabs]]. However, breaching the bunker on the surface lets you access an elevator shaft that leads directly to the bottom floor. Surviving the fall is another story, but possible with a Rubbergum Injector and over 100 hit points.

* ExpospeakGag: The Gaslight Flyssa. A flyssa is a type of saber, and gaslight is just a way of producing light. In other words, it's a [[LaserBlade lightsaber]].

* {{Expy}}: The Putus Templar sound and behave like the Knights of Genetic Purity in ''TabletopGame/GammaWorld''. If you're a mutant, they will attack you on sight.

** The Putus Templar in a nutshell. They're a radical faction of True Kins, and they want to exterminate everyone who is not a pure, unmutated human.
* FantasyCounterpartCulture: Qud has some elements from Middle Eastern culture. The Eaters who inhabited Qud ("Quds" in Arabic means "holy") before the cataclysm called their rulers Sultans, creatures that resemble humanoid camels are the most common merchants, the Six Day Stilt (itself already somewhat reminiscent of a Middle Eastern bazaar) has tents for people to smoke hookahs, and the term "Saad" (Arabic for "prosperity" or "success") is used as an honorific for certain prominent individuals.

* FissionMailed: In the Tomb of the Eaters, [[spoiler: you must enter Brightsheol, but the only way to do that is to lay in Resheph's sarcophagus and ''[[DeathIsTheOnlyOption die]]''. If you do this, the game will indeed tell you that you died and even present a standard death screen with your score... but a brief InterfaceScrew places you in Brightsheol, and your quest continues.]]

The game is still in active development, has been released available on Steam Early Access in 2015, which can be played [[http://store.steampowered.com/app/333640/ here.]] The {{Wiki|Rule}} is [[https://wiki.cavesofqud.com here]].

* BreakableWeapons: Most of your weapons are vulnerable to rusting and/or breakage.

* UnknownItemIdentification: Artifacts must be identified before they are wielded. The player can identify items based on their intelligence, or pay a tinker to identify them. Trying to examine an item with low intelligence can cause it to break.

*** Since individual reputations are randomly generated, you can sometimes get into a situation where the Head Watervine Farmer in Joppa is immediately mobbed and slain by the other farmers, for anything from eating their young to [[ArsonMurderAndJaywalking cheating at dice]].

* ArtifactOfDoom: The Amaranthine Prism, which causes people who possess it to become obsessed with it. If you equip it at the end of the questline where you're sent to retrieve it, you'll never be able to remove it, and it will steadily amplify your Ego further and further while lowering your Willpower... until eventually [[spoiler:your willpower hits zero and you die.]] Going by the in-game texts about it, it's the key to a SealedEvilInACan named Ptoh, though there doesn't seem to be any way to interact with it beyond that.

* ShmuckBait: The game warns you ''repeatedly'' not to equip the Amaranthine Prism. If you do so anyway, you'll never be able to remove it, will fail the quest to retrieve it, and [[spoiler:will inevitably die as it strips away your willpower.]]

* SkillTree: A downplayed example. All skills require one 'root' skill for their category. Most don't require anything else beyond high enough stats, but there are a few skills with additional prerequisite skills, especially in the Long Blade and Bows / Rifles trees.

* ArtifactOfDoom: The Amaranthine Prism, which causes people who possess it to become obsessed with it. If you equip it at the end of the questline where you're sent to retrieve it, you'll never be able to remove it, and it will steadily amplify your Ego further and further while lowering your Willpower. Going by the in-game texts about it, it's the key to a SealedEvilInACan named Ptoh, though there doesn't seem to be any way to interact with it beyond that.

* BoringButPractical: All those copper/silver/gold nuggets you see in merchant inventories? Those aren't just VendorTrash, they're a much lighter way of carrying your wealth than what they're worth in [[PracticalCurrency water]]. Also qualifying is the basic tinkering recipe for making ''lead slugs'' for your guns.