Not to be confused with The Avatar of Boris (Naughty Sorceress equivalent in Avatar of Jarlsberg).
Avatar of Boris is the Spring 2012 special challenge path, introduced on February 15, 2012. Players may select this path in Valhalla, instead of a dietary challenge path. Its description in The Bureau of Reincarnation reads, "You're filled with the spirit of Boris, the voracious, ferocious, and prestigious Legendary Warrior of the Times of Old. Armed with only your trusty axe Trusty and your faithful minstrel Clancy, you'll use an entirely new set of skills to defeat the Sorceress."
During an Avatar of Boris run, players are given a unique set of equipment and skills, along with a companion in place of the standard familiars. Boris's (and therefore, your) feasting is the stuff of legend, but his (and your) alcohol tolerance is very poor.
Restrictions
- Equipment
- Trusty, your two-handed axe.
- Attempting to directly equip any other weapon or offhand yields the following message: Boris has no need of lesser weapons. Trusty is all you need.
- Attempting to equip another weapon through an outfit yields the following message: Boris doesn't need that lowly item.
- You may unequip Trusty (e.g. to equip a time halo at rollover).
- You cannot equip shirts as Torso Awaregness will be unavailable, unless you ascend under a Gnomish sign, where you can still purchase the Torso Awaregness skill.
- Familiars
- No access to familiars. Attempting to equip a familiar or place one in the Crown of Thrones yields the following message: Boris has no need for familiars!
- Your minstrel Clancy will perform functions similar to a familiar and will change functionality depending on what he has equipped. His initial equipment will make him restore HP and MP post-fight (similarly to a Ghuol Whelp, but 100% of the time).
- Cannot use familiar hatchlings. Attempting to do so yields the following message: Boris has no need for familiars.
- Skills
- No access to any non-Avatar skills.
- Skills gained outside the guild trainer, such as Gnome skills or Spookyraven skills, can be obtained as usual, but any previously permed are still unavailable unless obtained in-run. For obtaining a Spookyraven skill, the Avatar of Boris acts as a Seal Clubber.
- Locations
- Since you have no guild affiliation, you cannot open Fernswarthy's tower or basement.
- You cannot adventure in The Sea. Attempting to talk to An Old Man gives the following message: That shack you saw on the main map was just a picture of a shack drawn on the ground.
Divergences
- Players will become intoxicated (and unable to adventure) upon reaching a drunkenness level of 5.
- Players may eat to 20 fullness. This increases to 25 with Legendary Appetite, or 30 with Appetite and Stomach of Steel.
- Players start with Boris's key and may immediately access Boris's Gate, which serves as a skill trainer.
- Attempting to bring an astral weapon or off-hand item during reincarnation yields the following warning:
- The Avatar of Boris won't use anything but Boris's trusty axe, Trusty. Are you sure you want to take that astral pet?
- Attempting to bring an astral shirt during reincarnation yields the following warning:
- The Avatar of Boris has no need to cover his manly nipples, do you really want to take that astral pet?
- Attempting to bring an astral pet sweater during reincarnation yields the following warning:
- The Avatar of Boris has no need of familiar companions, do you really want to take that astral pet?
- You cannot drop the Avatar of Boris path until day 3. Boris hated quitters.
- Upon freeing King Ralph you must choose a class. If you choose a Moxie-based or a Mysticality-based class, muscle will switch with your new class's main stat. If you still have certain quest items when you do this, including Boris's key and Frobozz Real-Estate Company Instant House (TM), they are lost. (Not all quest items are lost in this way.)
- Players may free pull Boris's Helm or Boris's Helm (askew).
- On the Feast of Boris, despite being a holiday dedicated to you, you do not gain additional stomach capacity, just like other challenge paths. The wandering monsters also only drop the lower-level food.
Class
Rather than playing any of the traditional 6 classes, you will play as an Avatar of Boris with entirely different skills.
- Your main stat is Muscle.
- You will not be accepted into any of the traditional guilds. You will not be able to use a guild to unlock any quests or areas.
- Boris didn't want to belong to any organizations that would have him as a member. Of course, given his history of violence and tendency to eat everything he saw, almost no organization would have him as a member, so it didn't come up very often.
- You will not be instructed on how to obtain access to the Shore. Note that a bitchin' meatcar will still work if built, as will a Desert Bus pass or a pumpkin carriage.
- You receive Muscle class items from Your Pen Pal.
- The Captain of the Gourd wants Knob Goblin firecrackers.
- The Tr4pz0r gives you Muscle class rewards.
- You find a dead Seal Clubber and get a Ben-Gal™ Balm from the tavern quest.
- You get a giant discarded bottlecap from the Giant Trash Quest.
- You can find a tattered wolf standard in The Haunted Bedroom to learn Snarl of the Timberwolf.
- The remains of a jilted mistress does not drop any chintzy jewelry.
- The Avalanche! adventure at The Icy Peak will not occur.
- You count as a Muscle class for the darrrt game in the pirate bar.
- In the PvP attack dialog, your method of attack defaults to Bully.
- No class name appears in the "search players" dialog. However, the class name "Avatar of Boris" does appear on public character sheets, and in the Ascension History (with an axe icon).
- The Field of Strawberries in A Moment of Reflection gives you yellow matter custard. In the Croquet Grounds, you fight a croqueteer.
- You receive a pig-iron helm from the Empty lot.
- The secret from the future gives nothing. Boris hated secrets.
- You can get the Instru-mental encounter at the Hobo Marketplace. You can buy a dinged-up triangle. You do not get offered a sealhide drum.
- You learn Summon Leviatuga from Grandpa.
- Upon breaking the prism, you will lose the Boris path, and be asked to choose one of the original classes to play until you ascend again. Your stats will be switched to fit the new class.
Quests
- Since you cannot equip other weapons, you cannot fight the Knob Goblin King by wearing the Elite Guard uniform. This also means that you cannot discover the password to access the Dispensary.
- You do not have access to the Nemesis quest and therefore cannot obtain boxen for a bartender, a chef, or a 4-d camera.
- During the Mt. McLargeHuge Quest you cannot equip the Mining Gear to enter Itznotyerzitz Mine. A new monster called mountain man, which drops ore, appears in the Mine.
- Clancy does not count toward the +50% item drops needed in Twin Peak, but the Song of Fortune does, as does Hungry Eyes. If you don't have Song of Fortune or Hungry Eyes yet, you may use cyclops eyedrops, or stack up astral mask + Baron von Ratsworth's monocle + observational glasses + miner's helmet + Hustlin', or maybe drink some crystal skeleton vodka or pumpkin juice, or just burn the hotel down.
- No star weapon is needed at the lair; instead, Trusty needs to be equipped.
- Trusty is made of stuff older than the stars, and makes short work of the cage.
- You do not have to equip the huge mirror shard:
- You laugh as the beam of energy harmlessly bounces off your powerful chest muscles and shoots back down the hallway. You hear a muffled curse and the sound of breaking stone.
- You need not fear the Sorceress's familiars:
- Calling on all the Boris inside you, you emit a mighty bellow, and the sorceress's pet goes running. That takes care of that!
- You do not need a Wand of Nagamar. The third form of the Naughty Sorceress is The Avatar of Sneaky Pete and requires no special items.
- Defeating the Naughty Sorceress in hardcore does not produce any equipment as a reward, stainless steel or otherwise.
Avatar
Your avatar is replaced by:
When wearing outfits, the outfit avatar overrides this avatar.
A custom avatar is not affected.
Skills
You begin with two skills:
Mighty Axing – A normal attack that never fumbles and gives +1 muscle substat if used at least once during combat, even if it misses.
Laugh it Off – Restores 1-2 HP.
Rather than purchasing new skills for meat, you may revel in Boris's glory at Boris's Gate. You may learn skills from 3 trees: Fighting, Shouting, and Feasting. Each skill you learn costs one "point", regardless of rank.
Initially players start off with 1 point. This pool can be increased by completing ascensions as Avatar of Boris. Completing a normal (softcore) difficulty run will increase the pool by 1. Completing a hardcore difficulty run will increase the pool by 2. These increases are permanent and carry over all future Avatar of Boris runs.
Players gain a point per level gained, up to level 15. If you want more than 15 skills, you must ascend repeatedly for bonus starting points.
You cannot skip ranks within a skill tree. In order to learn a 3rd-rank skill, you must first learn the 1st-rank and 2nd-rank skills from that same tree.
You can have only one song effect active at a time. Singing a different song will remove the first one automatically.
Once you have learned all of the skills in a category the page will say:
- You have mastered <Skill Type>.
Clancy
Clancy is your bard, and serves as a replacement for your familiar.
Clancy can level up, but he does not gain weight like other familiars. Effects that increase familiar weight have no effect on him. He gains a level by encountering special path-specific noncombat adventures, and some skills can also increase Clancy's level (eg More to Love).
Clancy's effects depend on which instrument he is using. New instruments may be found in various places; using one causes him to swap to it, changing his avatar, and giving you back the previous instrument.
When Clancy uses the crumhorn or the lute, his effective volleyball or fairy weight is 5 times his level.
Strategy
Rewards
- If this is your first run as the Avatar of Boris, opening the letter from King Ralph XI unlocks a new class tattoo. There is also a sparkly tattoo available upon completion of a hardcore run as an Avatar of Boris.
- Players will receive a Thwaitgold stag beetle statuette upon defeating the Naughty Sorceress.
- Learning all Boris skills (which requires a minimum of 15 extra Boris points at the start of the run) will grant a Note from Clancy after ascending, which grants Request Sandwich.
- Reaching Level 30 as an Avatar of Boris makes you eligible for the And My Axe trophy.
- Freeing the King, or dropping Avatar of Boris, will make you ineligible for the trophy.
History
- Somewhere around the beginning of September 2012, Avatars of Boris became unable to enter The Sea. Prior to this, they could talk to the Old Man and enter normally. This caused some glitches:
- When obtaining a Sea skill, you were treated as a Turtle Tamer.
- If you broke the prism and changed class after entering the Sea but before finishing all of the Sea quests (little brother, big brother, grandpa + skill, grandma), you were unable to proceed with any of them. This broken state persisted until you ascended.
