The Double Realm

[Darvin]

The boss in the curse world is entirely optional. I also thought you had to beat him, but it appears this isn't the case. Also, there appears to be scripted events that can cause the crusader to become cursed.

[The Avatar]

You become cursed every time you level up. This bypasses curse immunity.

[gjaustin]

[Darvin]

Yup; there's a level 10 Shade boss there. Easy to miss since if you reveal his tile while exploring the real world he won't give a boss speech. I originally thought he was the second form of the dragon boss, as I only encountered him after having defeated the dragon.

[The Avatar]

He should probably give his boss speech as soon as you enter the curse realm if you reveal him in the real world.

[Darvin]

Same goes for the dragon boss if you reveal his tile while exploring in the curse world. Through sheer bad luck, I've only heard each boss speech exactly once.

[The Avatar]

I heard them both in my first run. Do you have to kill both bosses?

[Darvin]

You only need to kill the dragon, not that killing the shade is too hard. Certainly if you have resistances or DR finishing off the shade makes sense the dragon boss loses its curse on attack.

[gjaustin]

I played some more as an Orc Wizard with Binlor/Rock Heart prep and I'm still not that impressed.

It works, don't get me wrong, but it's not really any stronger than Human Wizard with Whrrgarbl.

[Nandrew]

Yeah, generally speaking: you don't HAVE to kill the shade, it's just not always easy to get into a situation where you'd be able to avoid it.

Crusader gets the curse-on-level simply because it doesn't feel right that his "perk" would immediately make the level more boring.