Shoggoth for Dummies

From LSWiki

Playing a Shoggoth is a true learning experience, much like playing one of the more complicated guilds. Although it costs lux to start one from scratch (and one that has the freedom to guild in whatever they desire) it has been suggested that playing as a shapeshifter may be a better way to get the hang of Shoggoth before jumping in head first. However, if you do want to jump in, I have some pointers and thoughts you should read over before doing so.

First, and most importantly, you want to maximize your attributes in character generation. Shoggoth grow naturally over time (in the Shoggoth language, their Vorgaal increases - which is directly correlated to your size statistic.) Ergo, it makes little sense to favor size in character generation, when it will grow on its own outside of it.

The more Vorgaal you have, the more organs - or Strunthlg - you can possess at one time (Flgathu is the term for organs currently existent on your body. I'm not sure why there is a distinction, but there is one.) I have yet to determine if any skills, attributes or else increase or decrease vorgaal growth speed, but at the time of this writing, it appears you grow one vorgaal about every hour of in game time, as long as you are not hungry or thirsty. This means a considerable time investment (or at least tick training) on your part to see substantial character development, as you are quite capable of utilizing all available Vorgaal from early on with little noticeable effect.

When you are damaged, your usable Vorgaal decreases - this means if you are using all of your Vorgaal for organs they will disappear, possibly leaving you blind, deaf, without mode of attack, or worse. Glithmrul is how you set the priority of your organs - lower priority organs will tend to disappear first when you are damaged enough for that to occur. Fungmrul is related to Glithmrul, in that it is the "inherent structural stability" of a given organ, and that means it is a priority setting you can not influence. The general consensus is to leave a portion of Vorgaal unused so that these priority settings are not as necessary.

Now that major definitions are out of the way, we can proceed with some more specific pointers.

To grow organs, use the command "perform flgathl <organ name>". Don't be afraid to alias this and all your other important Shoggoth commands, and be sure to read the help files on all of them.

First of all, grow yourself an optical receptor (Ythog) so you can see. Second of all, grow yourself an auditory tympanum, or the Shoggoth ear analogue (Mfha) so you can hear. Third of all, grow yourself a tentacle manipulator (Hngaug.) You'll need a separate tentacle for a number of useful organs, including weapons later on. Grow yourself a vocal tube (K'thee) so you can speak. You will need to get training from various NPCs to even get started, and it will be a slow process.

Train your anglic and linguistics up so NPCs can understand you - you'll need them to do so, because otherwise you'll never get the skills you need.

Use ghaunadu to satiate yourself until you can grow a digestive system, if you so desire.

At this point, you have the basics. I suggest you focus on getting the required skills to make Xelth (wings) so you can get around easier for better, and a wider variety of, training. The worst part is that one of the best trainers for many of your skills is in Shadow Tower, a world away from Losthaven. If you can get a recall scroll set to there (by someone else) after collecting some coin, it's a good idea. Major skills you will want to have specialized to a couple degrees are: animal lore, anatomy, physics, metaphysics, psychology, mathematics and metamorphosis. Skills that are important, but for a smaller selection or specific organs are things like: arcane lore, gem lore, insect lore, and so on. As you become familiar with the help files on specific organs, you will begin to see how wide a variety of skills Shoggoth utilize even for rudimentary organ setups.

Given the above, recognize that Shoggoth require a very substantial investment in intelligence and willpower just to reach a basic level of functioning. You should also bear in mind that if you intend on joining a guild, you will lose the adventurer access in a number of the skills you really need. Plan ahead.