Bugbear Invasion
From A KoL Wiki
Bugbear Invasion is the Summer 2012 special challenge path, introduced on May 14, 2012. This path adds variant rules and restrictions to an ascension run. Its description in The Bureau of Reincarnation reads "A parallel universe in which the Kingdom has been invaded by hostile bugbears from a different parallel universe."
In this path, new bugbear monsters appear in some zones, and adventurers must unlock and explore the Bugbear Mothership instead of the Naughty Sorceress' Tower.
Restrictions
- Banishing doesn't work as expected in all of the new zones. (This is still being spaded.)
- Players do not get additional fullness on Feast of Boris.
Divergences
- The Naughty Sorceress and her Lair have been crushed by invading bugbears.
- You don't need any of the lair keys, stringed instruments, tower items, etc.
- This also makes the 8-Bit Realm, The Hole in the Sky and the Daily Dungeon optional.
- Your telescope, if you have one, will only "see the nether regions of a giant bugbear-shaped spaceship."
- You don't need any of the lair keys, stringed instruments, tower items, etc.
- Several zones throughout the Kingdom have bugbear monsters added to them.
- In addition to assigning its normal quests, the Council sends you to investigate zones that have been invaded by enemy bugbears.
- You do not have to wait for the council to tell you about a zone; the bugbears are already there regardless.
- After you defeat enough bugbears in the wild (see below), zones within the Bugbear Mothership will open. You must complete all of the council quests (up through level 12) as well as all of the Mothership zones.
- Defeat the Bugbear Captain to finish the run.
Text
Council Text
On initial visit:
- Adventurer! Thank the gods you are here. You have arrived at the moment of our most dire need. We need someone to bring us some sandwiches before all the shops are closed!
- Only joking. We were most concerned about the rise of a Naughty Sorceress, who imprismed the King and built this big crazy tower, but . . . well . . . the tower's gone. Smashed, you might say. Crushed, really, underneath a giant space ship!
- We don't know who these alien creatures are, or what they want, but we do know they have the King and his prism. You must stop them and free the king!
- We've got reports of a bunch of bugbears wandering around the Sleazy Back Alley, Adventurer!
After clearing Council quests and Bugbear Mothership:
- Adventurer, we have discovered a weapon that may turn the tide of your fight against the alien invasion! This is a larval Jeff Goldblum! We found it mixed in with our huge collection of mosquito larvae. We thought they were all extinct but life, life gets out. Life finds a way. We're pretty sure this will help you get through the alien security. Take it and go blow those aliens sky-high! Tell 'em "Welcome to the Kingdom" and punch 'em in the face!
 | You acquire an item: Jeff Goldblum larva |
After getting the Jeff Goldblum larva, before defeating the Bugbear Captain:
- Hey, Adventurer. Good to see you. You look well. Look, this is kind of awkward, but, remember that GIANT ALIEN SPACESHIP? Maybe you might want to get rid of it?
After defeating the Bugbear Captain, before shattering the prism:
- Well done, adventurer! You blew the top clean off of that ship! So the aliens were bugbears, you say? We never would have figured that out on our own.
- Anyway, we notice you left the king in his prism. I mean, that's bad, right, because as long as he's in there we humble councilmen are left to rule the Kingdom in his stead, and gods know we're not qualified, although we do rather enjoy it. So, when you get around to it, if you've got nothing better to do, maybe bust him out of the prism?
- No rush, though.
Note that the text for shattering the prism from the King and Council still assume you defeated the Naughty Sorceress.
Strategy
The invading bugbears are new monsters which appear in specific zones (see below). They can be copied, olfacted, and banished just like any other monsters. Each invader drops a BURT (100% rate). (All the Bugbears that have been in the Kingdom before do not drop BURTs (Reynolds).)
When you have 5 BURTs (Reynolds), use them to create the Key-o-tron. With the Key-o-tron in your inventory, kill more bugbears in the appropriate zones to collect biometric data which will unlock zones within the Bugbear Mothership. Any bugbears that you killed before making the Key-o-tron do not count toward the biometric data totals.
A bugbear detector (cost: 25 BURTs (Reynolds)) increases your chances of finding a bugbear. It's not a quest item, so you may consider pulling one in softcore.
Some specific items/skills/familiars that will help:
- Transcendent Olfaction increases the likelihood of encountering a specific bugbear again. This is especially useful in the zones where you need to kill 6 or 9 of a bugbear. Time your olfactions so that you don't need to sniff again during the 40-turn duration, or use SGEEAs to remove the effect.
- A Spooky Putty sheet or Rain-Doh black box lets you copy a bugbear and then fight it again. If you have both, you get to copy 6 times a day instead of 5. These are especially useful for the first 5 BURTs, or when you only need 3 of a bugbear.
- The Obtuse Angel or Reanimated Reanimator lets you turn a monster into a wandering monster, letting you encounter it 2 or 3 additional times. Wandering copies may appear outside of the monster's native zone(s), allowing you to adventure in other zones that need questing. Be sure you have enough turns left in the day for the wandering copies to appear.
- The Artistic Goth Kid drops crayon shavings that let you copy a bugbear (but not a regular monster). He'll drop up to 7 shavings per day.
- Banishing helps more than Olfaction in some places. For instance, banishing the beanbat means you will encounter only batbugbears in the Beanbat Chamber (and screambats, which are scheduled).
- A Pair of Stomping Boots will help quite a bit for various reasons: Free runaways can hasten the bounty hunt-like collection of bugbear data; The invading bugbears are ideal targets for stomping into paste, since they're unusually powerful for their zone, so instantly dispatching them can save you some trouble; The data of squashed bugbears is still collected, the only drop that's lost is a fairly expendable BURT; most of them, counting as animals, drop very handy beastly paste.
Zones with bugbears
The Bugbear Mothership
The Bugbear Mothership can be found by clicking on the Main Map. It is located to the right of The Nearby Plains, where the Lair of The Naughty Sorceress normally is. There is also a ship link in the top pane.
Each level of the Mothership cannot be accessed until all rooms in the previous level have been cleared.
First Level
- For the Medbay: Sniff the anesthesiologist bugbear. Keep fighting them until one of them activates the robo-surgeon. Kill that. Banishing does not seem to work here (spading needed!).
- For Waste Processing: Boost item drops. You're looking for handful of juicy garbages. The creepy eye-stalk tentacle monster has the best drop rate for them; the grouchy furry monster drops them at a lower rate, and the scavenger bugbear doesn't have any at all. So, you can either banish the scavenger bugbear and/or grouchy furry monster, or sniff the tentacle monster. Keep using the juicy garbage until you get the badge. Equip the badge and click the zone again to shut down the trash compactor.
- For the Sonar: Boost non-combats. Set the first knob to 2, the second knob to 4, and the third knob to 8. You don't have to click the zone a final time.
Second Level
- For the Science Lab: Boost item drops. Kill spiders to collect quantum nanopolymer spider webs. Use the webs on the scientists. Repeat 10 times.
- For the Morgue: Kill bugbear morticians to collect 5 bugbear autopsy tweezers. Boost non-combat and remove each body part from the corpse. A set of tweezers is used up for each non-combat. Banishing the bugaboos speeds up tweezer acquisition.
- For Special Ops: Use 50 BURTs (Reynolds) to create a UV monocular. Shoot a flare if you got a flaregun from the pirates. Equipping an oil lamp, magic lamp or a Rain-Doh green lantern will provide the illumination needed, or you could consider summoning and equipping a fluorescent lightbulb. (NOTE: A Light that Never Goes Out or a third-hand lantern doesn't seem to work). Equip the monocular, and look for a fight. Clear this zone by defeating 6 Special Ops bugbears. This zone needs a lot more spading.
- All three zones on this level require a final click (which costs 1 turn) to complete them.
Third Level
- For Engineering, boost item drops and kill drones to get drone self-destruct chips. Use the chips on the liquid metal bugbears; you will need to kill 6 this way. You may banish or ignore the battlesuits.
- For Navigation, Sniff and kill the N-space assistants. Alternately, banish or ignore the unspeakables. Each assistant you kill will inflict you with 2 turns of an effect that prevents you from continuing in the zone. Either switch zones at that point, or remove the effect with a bugbear purification pill, soft green echo eyedrop antidote, or taking a Disco Nap w/ Adventurer of Leisure. After killing about 10 assistants, power should be restored.
- For the Galley, Sniff angry cavebugbears or banish trendy bugbear chefs. Each cavebugbear you kill will increase the difficulty of all cavebugbears in the area by 20 Monster Level. Conversely, using a Pacification grenade on a cavebugbear will reset the difficulty back to its base level of 200 ML per cavebugbear. The area is completed after 5000 attack-points of cavebugbears are killed, including Monster Level bonuses. With no ML modifiers and no pacification, you will need to kill a total of 15 cavebugbears, with the last one being a very very very very very very very very very very very very very very angry cavebugbear.
- All three zones on this level require a final click (which costs 1 turn) to complete them.
Bridge
- To enter the Bridge, you must complete all the Council quests and the first three levels of the Mothership and receive the Jeff Goldblum larva from the Council by reaching Level 13. Go to the Bridge and beat the Bugbear Captain, then click the Bridge again to reveal the king in his prism. Unlike the Naughty Sorceress, the bugbear captain will not debuff you, and there are no further obstacles, puzzles, etc.
Rewards
- Players will receive a Thwaitgold woollybear statuette upon defeating the Bugbear Captain.
Notes
- During a Bugbear Invasion run, you may see instructions to enter the Adventurer Contests as if you were on a normal run, as this change was made to the original Naughty Sorceress quest after the Bugbear Invasion challenge path had been implemented. Clicking on this quest tracker will you take to the normal lair and may cause the bugbear mothership to disappear. Defeating the Naughty Sorceress will not reward you with the thwaitgold woollybear statuette, but your ascension history will still record the completed ascension as being a Bugbear run.
- This was disabled on September 21, 2023.
