The Town of Rimhold, and Rings Reforged

Three RulesVersion bumps this week (167 → 170), and two big changes behind them: there is now a town — Rimhold, depth 0, above the first floor — and rings and hero abilities have been redrawn along a single line. An ability is a trained art you buy; a ring is a bound magic power you find. Plus three UI fixes.

If you're certifying runs: anything recorded against last week's build will not replay clean against this one. Expected, not a bug.

Priority this week

• Rings and the Trainer's new arts. Six abilities are now ring powers and seven old rings are now Trainer arts. Are the strong rings worth their bite? Is any new art an auto-buy, or never worth the gold?
• The town loop. The Merchant and Trainer no longer appear on dungeon floors — you climb depth 1's up-stairs to shop. Does going back up feel worth the walk, or does it make shopping something you skip?
• Rimhold itself. Roofs, torchlight, townsfolk who wander and talk, signposts, the boneyard. Anything that looks wrong, blocks you, or breaks immersion.

Added / changed

The town: depth 0 above the first floor (GH #552). Climbing depth 1's up-stairs now takes you out to Rimhold instead of refusing. The Pit at the centre is the only way back down — walk into it and you drop to depth 1, beside the up-stairs rather than on them. The Trainer stands in the Training Center and the Merchant in the Trading House on every run; neither appears on a dungeon floor any more. Their offers key off the deepest depth you've reached: the Merchant's gear rack re-rolls only when that grows, while potions and scrolls restock every visit. No combat and no Mood in town. Test: go down to depth 3 or 4, climb all the way back out, shop, drop back in. Visit twice without going deeper, then again after a new deepest floor. Watch for: gear that re-rolls when it shouldn't (or doesn't when it should), a potion/scroll cap that doesn't reset between visits, landing on the stairs and bouncing, a Trainer or Merchant somewhere in the dungeon, or anything hostile following you up.

Rimhold is lived-in: townsfolk, signposts, the boneyard (GH #553). Four to six residents wander the lanes and speak when you bump them; a signpost stands by each named building's door and tells you what it's for. Both are free — no turn spent. Along the north edge is a boneyard with a grave for each of your profile's fallen heroes (these are memorials; they don't bless or heal — the real graves are still down in the dark). Test: bump every resident and every signpost; play a few runs on a profile with deaths and check the boneyard fills in order. Watch for: a resident standing in a doorway or wedged where you can't get past, the same line repeating oddly, a signpost that says the wrong building, a grave missing or duplicated.

Rimhold's look (GH #554, GH #563). The town has its own trampled-mud and broken-rim tileset, painted roofs that fade away when you step into a building, hanging signs, torch posts with warm light, a painted Pit, and portraits for every townsfolk role. The HUD title reads "— Rimhold". Test: walk in and out of every building and around the whole Pit rim. Watch for: a roof that doesn't lift (or lifts for the wrong building), a roof covering the Pit or a lane, a torch post whose light isn't there, a resident rendered as a bare glyph, a child sprite that looks oversized next to the adults.

Rings are magic, abilities are training (GH #489). The biggest rules change of the week.

• Six abilities left the Trainer and became ring powers — you only have them while the ring is worn: the dowser (Treasure Sense, from d2), the surveyor (Mapsense, d3), the flicker (Blink, d4), the ghost-stone (Phase Walk, d6 — costs 1 HP per 3 squares of stone passed, and can kill you), the reprieve (Last Stand, d7 — now heals you to full, then the ring crumbles), the far door (Teleport, d8 — every use feeds the Mood, the only thing besides a kill that does).
• Seven old rings became Trainer arts: Duelist's Form (+2 front-arc melee), Haggle, Field Surgery, Anchor, Scavenger (more chest gold and a chance at an extra item), Wand Mastery (now 50%), Sniper (now +4 wand damage). The Flensing Knife folded into Backstab, which gets an edge on a flank strike.
• Surviving rings reworked: the arrow-ward now deflects half of all missiles; old blood turns every damage-over-time tick into healing; quiet blood feeds the Mood nothing but costs 10 max HP; the red tithe lifesteals 35% but a healing draught mends only half your missing HP; the barrow-ward always passes on a fallen hero's art; the ironroot is retroactive to every depth you've reached; the ashen band also halves fire/frost ticks and scorching ground; the twin doubles the other ring — bite included. Berserk no longer lifesteals.

Test: wear every ring you find, and stack the twin with something that bites. Phase Walk through a long wall at low HP. Trigger the reprieve. Use the far door on a floor where the Mood is already high. Buy at least one of the new arts and play a whole run around it. --start-depth 7 puts you where the late rings (ghost-stone, reprieve, far door) start dropping. Watch for: a ring power that stays after the ring comes off, a ghost-stone death that feels unfair rather than earned, a reprieve that doesn't crumble (or crumbles without saving you), old blood blocking a venom bite outright (it shouldn't any more — the venom takes, then mends), and any art or ring that is plainly always-take or never-take.

The HUD says what your rings do (GH #562). Ring powers now appear in your ability list named for their ring ("Blink — the flicker"), with a "Granted by…" hover line. Below the ability rows there's a Rings list: each worn ring's name and a one-line summary, with the full description on hover — shown even when you have no abilities. Cooldowns lost their "(N)" suffix; the greyed tone and the hover's "Ready again in N turns" carry that now. Test: wear zero, one and two rings, including an unidentified one and a biting one. Watch for: a summary that wraps badly or overflows the panel, a ring power row with no ring name, a cooldown you can't read.

Fixed

Greyed-out abilities are readable again (GH #551). Reported through the in-game form: an ability you couldn't use right now was too dark to read against the button plate. It now uses a dedicated disabled tone — still clearly dimmer than a usable ability, but legible. Test: have an ability on cooldown or out of range and read the row. Watch for: disabled text you still have to squint at, or disabled text you can't tell apart from ready text.

Win screen fits at 1080p (GH #550). The "Submit to Hall of Fame" button sat right on the bottom edge. The layout is now measured by the same code that draws it, and at smaller resolutions the submission column moves beside the buttons instead of off the bottom. Test: win a run (any ending) at 1920×1080 and, if you can, at 1280×720. Watch for: anything clipped or touching the screen edge.

No more negative HP on the death screen (GH #557). A killing blow that overshot showed "HP -3/74" in the run summary. HP now reads 0. Test: die to a big hit. Watch for: a negative number anywhere — death screen, HUD, or a replay.

Found something? Esc → Report a Bug/Feature, same as always.