Before I get into the tragic tale of Grabble, my short-lived Marsh Taur, I wanna start with some inside baseball. So, you know what finally pushed me to impulse-buy Caves of Qud after yesterday’s article? Endlessly intrigued by the game, I conveniently found an episode of Three Moves Ahead featuring the punishing roguelike. (I love listening to video game podcasts while I exercise in the morning. Three Moves Ahead is always in my rotation, and I highly recommend adding it to yours!)
It captivated me hearing about the behind-the-scenes craftsmanship of Caves of Qud. Freehold Games spent 17 years making the game, and December 2024 should’ve been the team’s big moment. Only for the title to be majorly neglected by a startling number of games media outlets. So, if you’re out there and you happen upon this, Freehold Games squad? I got your back.
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Now, on to Grabble. Grabble, God rest his soul, is a Marsh Taur — one of Caves of Qud‘s preset characters if you’re afraid to create your own (which I was). The Marsh Taur is the Tutorial character, so when I was let loose into the world after learning the basics? Of course I went with my new creature comfort. My first formal foray into the Caves of Qud universe didn’t last too long, sadly.

on the first day, grabble was born. he didn’t survive to see a second.
Grabble entered the village of Joppa, a Caves Of Qud “Baby’s First Area.” I spoke to Mehmet, the closest character of interest. He gave me a simple, easy quest. “Find the filthy vermin messing with our village and bring back his corpse.” Bet! Smooth sailing — the destination was only a hop, skip, and jump away from the village. What could possibly go wrong?
Grabble takes his happy ass over to Red Rock. When we get there, it’s a bunch of Witchwood Trees. Okay, cool! The tutorial taught me that Witchwood Bark heals you but causes confusion. Using my gamer brain, I naturally think casually hitting the tree would yield results. I smack the tree five times — no bark. (I would find out after the fact that you need the Harvestry skill to accomplish such a feat.)
Fine! We’ll find this village menace and worry about collecting bark later. After all, Grabble is one of the most “survivable” presets in Caves of Qud. Of course we’ll have time to clean the area up afterward! Looking at my starting skills, something concerning made itself known that I guess I mentally blocked out when doing the tutorial.

oh, grabble’s about that life in ‘caves of qud,’ huh?
Uh… slow down there, Grabble. We’re here on a murder mission, yes. But, we’re good guys! It certainly won’t be necessary to use such brutality. Our search continued. Witchwood trees, other trees, shale… no Joppa fiend yet. We travel along two other screens full of trees, grass, and nothing to concern ourselves with. That would quickly change.
Grabble walked into what we thought was another peaceful stretch of nature. However, that’s when Caves of Qud brought the hammer down on my bald head. Suddenly, a rock appeared at Grabble’s feet. “Huh?” I said. Another rock hits Grabble square in the head, taking 4 HP off his 18 HP bar. “What the hell is going on?!” I look over at the “action queue” and find out a baboon is throwing stones at Grabble!
We trained for this! Let’s show this bastard what we’re about, Grabble! Well, what Grabble and I failed to see were the three other baboons launching rocks from some godforsaken corner. One annoying stone turned into a hailstorm of hearty rocks. Grabble thugged it out for a hit or two, but 14 HP turned into 4 within the span of a few seconds, so we did the only other reasonable action and ran like hell.

‘caves of qud,’ i understand you a little better now
We run down to the adjacent area, thinking the coast was clear. One of those damn baboons followed us, however. And I saw red. The “good guy” promise I made broke within five minutes of trying to commit to it. I toggled “Butcher Corpses” to become active. Instead of playing nice, Grabble was going to dismember his prey and cut his body into pieces as a message to the other baboons.
To Grabble’s credit, he did cut one baboon’s arm off — and I’m pretty sure successfully ended a life. But then, another baboon snuck up behind Grabble, fatally biting him and ending a king in the prime of his life. Game Over. Go Home. Caves of Qud humbled both of us in one fell swoop. I sat there, mouth agape, staring at the meager end-of-the-run stats. I had to laugh. My bloodlust, unsurprisingly, led to my downfall. Grabble was my first Caves of Qud lesson. 1. Don’t Get Too Cocky. Heard.
A ten-minute run with as interesting a story as ten minutes can tell. I see you, Freehold Games. I already comprehend a sliver of the love put into this project. Who knows? Maybe I’ll make my future runs a constant source of entertainment for y’all, if you want to hear about how pathetic my purist roguelike skills are! Oh, also, I spoke to and traded with a beetle during the tutorial. So, yeah!
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