That was a good run. Steel two-handed sword and a devotion to the dark
arts gods.
I had so many rings, wands (I made sure to give away any that might bypass my resistances), a belly full of blink dog (there was a pack of them on one level of the gloomy cave and I travelled through there quite frequently) and quite a bit of upgraded armour, such as a helm of PP, troll hide cloak of fire resistance and steel chainmail.
I probably should have been more worried about bringing the armour on my appendages up to speed, though... I had steel boots but they were destroyed by acid blood, and at least one of my stylish AF ommel hair gauntlets broke at some point and I hadn't found anything to replace them with in a long time.
I definitely got a bit cocky. Pretty sure I'd been at least a couple of levels deeper into the cave (I like to go to deeper levels quickly, so that it gens them based on the earliest stats possible) but I was going back and forth, systematically clearing out the earlier ones, selling stuff to a shop I found and offering relevant items to my beloved Nefas as well as Infuscor.
When I spotted a skeleton during one of my trips I thought nothing of it, expecting it to crumble in a hit or two.
Skeleton warriors had been no problem for me in the past, after all. However, this particular one had found itself a +4 iron mace somewhere, and by the time I realised shit was going wrong both my arms had been smashed into paste and I could neither use wands nor break them.
Helpfully, in my last-ditch effort to pray, I prayed to the wrong god - Mellis. Oops. That explains the polymorph.
Not that I think it would have saved me, anyway - I can't remember the exact ins-and-outs of the gods in the game (I haven't played the game much in a long time), but I don't think any of the ones I was pally with gave new limbs, and besides I might have died on the next strike before I could teleport, anyway.
I actually think I may have been cursed at somewhere along the line, to boot... I'd been struggling to land normally-easy hits for a while. Think it might have been when I was about to starve and had to pray to a bunch of sub-par gods before I hit one that gave satiation. Whoops. Scabies was the god I was aiming for, does she grant her followers bodyparts in a pinch? I can't remember, but she seemed a more likely candidate than Nefas or Infuscor. Either way, that was fun! Killed Rondol after a couple of aborted attempts (well, I kinda mirrored myself, twice, and then a third time when I got blown up and my wands destroyed, so that was helpful even if the first clone died immediately), and took down an unexpectedly tough werewolf, followed by another later on that was a pushover. Also ate two of my previous corpses.
Obviously, I haven't played IVAN very much on this computer. It's been several years since I discovered the game, all of my lives together would take up a great many pages, I imagine. That was a pretty high score by my standards, though! I suck at the game, still. Especially now, when I'm out of practice. 
Author
Topic: How did you last die? (Read 2376790 times)