Omega pasta for /vg/ Roguelike General

Omega

Download official release (0.80.2): http://www.alcyone.com/max/projects/omega/
Download development version (pre-alpha): https://github.com/cwc/OmegaRPG

This is a humorous roguelike in the spirit of ADoM.  It is very challenging so I am writing this guide in order to help newcomers get the hang of things.

When you start the game, it will ask you if you want to run a character or play yourself.  For now, you should select play yourself.  It will now ask you a series of questions to determine your starting attributes.  Since this is your first character, I recommend cheating so that you get 18 in every stat.  Don't worry, it'll still be very challenging for you.

Now that you have a character, you should be inside the main city.  The city has the same layout every game, but the shops are assigned to random buildings.  The open doors are shops.  Most of the closed doors are homes.  At this point, I recommend visiting every open door.  Once you have finished that, press 'M' to access the quick travel menu.  You can now easily visit any shop in the city.  Great!  Now 'S'ave your game.  What I want you to do is create a copy of your savefile to save you the trouble of visiting every shop at the beginning of every game.  I know this is cheating, but you are only going to do it for a little bit until you get the hang of things(trust me, it'll save you a lot of time).

You'll notice that there are several guilds throughout the city.  These include the following:

Arena
Collegium Magii
Mercenary Guild
Order of Paladins
Sorcerors' Guild
Thieves' Guild (these guys are behind a closed door)

Paladins and sorcerors have alignment requirements.
You can be in more than one guild

Additionally there are 5 different altars (in the city).  These include the following:

Odin (granite altar graven with a gallows)
Hecate (silver altar inlaid with a black crescent moon)
Set (sandstone altar with a black hand drawn on it)
Athena (golden altar inscribed with an owl)
Lords of Destiny (crystal altar in the form of an omega)

All of these have alignment requirements except for the Lords of Destiny.
Upon joining a religion(other than Lords of Destiny) you will gain a spell.

As a beginner, I recommend you join Hecate (requires chaotic alignment), the Arena, Thieves' Guild (costs money), and the Collegium Magii.
Joining the arena gives you an extra combat action and some credit at the gym.  To change your combat actions(and utilize your new one) press 'F'. I recommend setting it to lunge center and block center.  If you should ever happen to obtain boots of speed you'll find yourself with 6 combat actions. Don't forget to assign your new actions.
Join the Collegium Magii last.
You might have to fight a round in the arena to get enough money to join the thieves guild.
Don't do more than a few rounds in the arena to start with.(it gets hard fast)
Replace your weapon with something from the armorer or pawn shop as soon as possible.

Now that you have chosen a religion and guilds, it is time to get into the main part of the game.  By now you have probably noticed the hedge maze just north of the castle.  At some point you will need to explore that.  When you do, make sure to search(several times) before walking through any doorway(while standing on top of the door square).
If you see a monster, e'x'amine it.  If it sounds like it could be scary, get the fuck out of there and come back when you are stronger.

When you are feeling ready to explore a dungeon, go to the fast food restaraunt and purchase 10 meals.  Now feel free to exit the city.

On the world map, you'll want to go southwest, south, and search to find a hidden cave entrance.  This is where the first quest takes place.  You can officially accept the quest at the castle once you've leveled up a couple times.  Inside this dungeon you will find a lot of goblins.  Kill them, collect any loot you can find, and identify/sell loot at the thieves guild back in the city.  Do not identify items by using them. Daggers are hardly worth anything(but you can 'f'ire them at enemies).
Don't dive down too far.  Seriously, take it one dungeon level at a time. This game does not forgive impatience.

Once you've leveled up a couple times, join the explorers club in the city and visit the castle.  If you find yourself wondering how to get more mana, you can do so by leveling up or by paying the folks at the sorcerer's guild.

Be careful when exploring the world map.  Some of the random encounters are very tough for low level characters.  If you have a source of invisibility, that is a very useful way to escape dangerous encounters.
If you follow the road to the northeast, you will reach another town where you can purchase a map of the area and a horse(horses are very useful for exploring the world map, but you can't take them in dungeons).

When you reach level 4 or 5, go see if you can advance in your religion and guilds.

Don't forget to look at the help files '?'.  In particular, look at the command list.
't'alk and 'v'ault are both very usefull commands.

This concludes the Omega beginners guide.  This should be enough for you to get started.  See if you can finish the first quest.  Good luck!