The Lord of the Dream has a primary, secondary and tertiary ability, chosen at the start of the game. You can reveal them immediately by taking the Portent talent, or by studying the flavour text given at the start of each floor.
Flavour messages[]
When entering the first floor, you will be told the Lord of the Dream's Primary ability:
- When he sings, those who listen go slowly mad -> Makes you choose your own death
- When he dances, thoughts wither and die -> Your powers decay
- When he speaks, those who disobey are punished cruelly -> Makes decrees
- When he beckons, all must give him gifts -> demands gifts
When entering the second floor, you will be told the Lord of the Dream's Secondary ability:
- His body breaks storms -> Elemental resistant
- His skin shatters swords -> Physical resistant
- His will bends time -> Takes double turns
- His gaze halts arrows in flight -> 15 second time limit
When entering the third floor, you will be told the Lord of the Dream's Tertiary aiblity:
- They say his father was a titan -> Well-armored
- They say his mother was a vampire -> Drains your life
- They say his father was a serpent -> Poisons you
- They say his mother was a harpy -> Pierces defenses
Primary Abilities[]
Makes you choose your own death[]
At the start of each of your turns, you are presented with five choices and must pick one. You can't pick the same choice more than once. When you run out of choices, a new set of five is generated. Dance Puppet! always seems to appear.
Examples of choices:
- Poison 8
- Ward 30
- Dance Puppet! (like the Hand of Glory ability, offensive cards affect yourself this turn)
- -1 Action This Fight
- Exile Hand
- 20 Damage
- Gain 5 Curses
- -1 Card This Fight
Untested:
- If the choices get 'worse' as the fight goes on
- If the choices are tailored to your deck/build
Your powers decay[]
After you play a card, there is a percent chance that it will decay to a 'worse' card for the rest of the fight. What cards decay into what seems to be hard-coded. It also affects cards stolen by Anticipate, amusingly.
Cards revert to normal when you use Flee or Assassin‘s Vanish abilit.
Examples of decays:
- Anticipate decays to Charm
- Resilience decays to Stoneskin
- Dodge decays to Avoid (!!)
- Attack (N) decays by 1
- Circle decays to Swiftness
- Skewer decays to Jab
- Jab decays to Slice
- Accelerate decays to Focus
- Charm decays to Slap (costs 1 action, deals 1 damage)
- Swiftness decays to Slice
- Slice decays to Slap
- Coup de Grace decays to Strike (3)
- Focus decays to Sift
- Psionic Blast decays to Slap
- Avoid decays to Slap
- All the level 2 and level 3 Wizard elemental spells become the version one level lower
Untested:
- What the % chance is, and if it's just a straight %
Makes decrees[]
At the start of each of your turns the Lord of the Dream makes a decree. Every violation of the decree deals 5 current and 5 maximum damage (the current damage can be resisted if you're invulnerable, but the maximum damage cannot). All decrees stack. Similar to maximum damage debuffs in other fights, they should wear off if you leave the fight such as via Flee or Assassin's Vanish.
Examples of decrees:
- DO NOT play cards whose names contain the letter 'Y'
- Each turn, DO play an Attack card
- DO NOT play Equipment cards
Untested:
- If the decrees are tailored to your deck/build
Demands gifts[]
At the start of each of your turns, the player is instructed to give the Lord of the Dream N gifts from his hands, where N is 1 on the first two turns, 2 on the next two turns, etc. These cards are put in the Lord of the Dream's hand and permanently become part of his deck after being played. These cards are permanently transferred between the decks and don't return to the player's deck after use or anytime later. (Snitching cards with Anticipate does not return the cards permanently either.) Although it's possible to gift the Lord temporary cards, like from Deck of Wonder. If you leave the fight such as via Flee or Assassin's Vanish, your deck goes back to normal. If you gift him Last Chance he will use it and die, but since the Achievement requires you to reduce his health to 0 make sure to NOT do this.
Secondary abilities[]
Elemental resistant[]
Like the talent, all elemental damage he takes is halved (rounded down?).
Physical resistant[]
Like Blur, all physical damage he takes is halved (rounded down).
Takes double turns[]
If you get this one, I'm sorry. Every turn he takes, he gets an extra turn after it. TODO: Interaction with extra turn effects (Haste, Storm, Last Chance)? Three turns or four?
- Use poison
15 second time limit[]
TODO: Never gotten this one, but I'm guessing it's like Usuri Trackers but 15 seconds instead of 10. If you get this one, figure out your game plan BEFORE entering and make sure there will be no IRL interruptions.
Tertiary abilities[]
Well-armored[]
Seems to be a bit buggy? Sometimes it gives him nothing, but other times it gives him Donnerschwert (Equipment, deal 1 air damage whenever you play an attack card), Jasra's Tome, Celestial Plate. Using the Altar to Aston to make him start with a Sword might have a buggy effect on this one.
Drains your life[]
TODO: What % of damage he heals, and if it's just physical damage or all damage
Poisons you[]
TODO: Is it 3 poison each time he takes a turn?
Pierces defenses[]
Same as the Sublime talent, all damage sources from the Lord of the Dream are piercing.