Chud

CANNIBALISTIC. HUMANOID. UNDERGROUND. DWELLERRRRS.

Chud is a racial mutation which trades some small penalties and stress micromanagement in exchange for equally small bonuses and heightened mobility. It is an extremely unpopular mutation, thanks to its feeble bonuses, irritating cost, and the fact that it takes up a build's sole racial mutation slot.

Location

Chud is located in the Sewers, deep in a hole in the southwestern portion of the zone, where the red chuds dwell. On the map page, it is at grid reference AX04, inside the APC. The area is dark and will require a light source, as well as around 10 climb to traverse some climbs en route. Chuds and chobos are along the path to this mutation, which may pose a danger to very low level characters.

Effects

This mutation grants:

   Passive: +1-1 beat resistance
   Passive: +1-2 slash resistance
   Passive: +1-1 stab resistance
   Passive: +1-1 acid resistance
   Passive: +1 Senses
   Passive: +2 Climb
   Passive: +1 Fuck
   Passive: -2 Rifles
   Passive: -2 Pistols
   Passive: +20% resistance to suffocation
   Passive: +20% resistance to toxic exposure
   Passive: +100% resistance to vampirism
   Passive: +20% resistance to nanite healers
   Passive: -40% resistance to radiation poisoning
   Passive: Chud mobs, junkers, freaks, aboms and specters will never attack unless provoked.
   Passive: Chud claws replace fists.
   Passive: +1 Senses when in dark areas.
   Passive: Moderate destress when in sewer tiles.
   Passive: Stress gain when in outdoor tiles.
   Passive: Can see well in the dark, but blind in lit areas.
   wail command: Call friendly chuds to aid with combat.
   wail <text>: Wail a cosmetic catchphrase for chud mobs to return.
   minions command: Check the the status of personal chudrep (see below).
   Access to chudnet. Chat with other chuds.
   Access to the Chudhive apartments.
   Access to the Chud Network.
   Access to the Stomach.
   Partial citizenship in Necropolis.
   If cloning in Freedom City, will always clone in Sewers and take damage on cloning.

Advantages

• Minor soaks. These are much too small to make any practical difference outside of very early-game PvE.
• +1 Senses, plus another +1 when in the dark. This bonus equates to +0.5-1 Dodge and Focus, and is vastly inferior to bonuses provided by Hideous Freak and Vampire.
• Bonuses to trash skills. Fuck has little utility, and for niche fuck minmax builds, Vampire is better. Climb is very easy to boost outside of Chud with Salamander, which gives twice the bonus alongside other utility with much less cost.
• Bonuses to trash resistances. Suffocation damage (from drowning) is extremely slow, and if it comes close to killing a character, that character is more than likely overencumbered and dead anyway. Toxic exposure has the opposite problem; it is too damaging and dangerous for a 20% resistance to help.
• Necro citizenship. This ensures that chuds will never be attacked by junkers, which is a big safety bonus, and also allows them to take advantage of both the Cluster Hunt and Cluster Fuck jobs, netting 1000 XP per completion. Both FCEF and Abom Nation shops are also open to chuds.
• Chud claws. These have a hidden chance to pass on any diseases that the chud is infected with to other targets, but it's only an unreliable chance, and the damage of the claws is very poor, so these are largely useless.
• Destress in the dark. This offsets sunlight stress, and can destress in large amounts at high levels of stress.
• Choppy night vision. Chud night vision is inconsistent and very awkward to handle, but it is occasionally useful, especially in sewer tiles.
• Chud minions. Minion strength requires a lot of effort to max and the minions are of only moderate strength. They also leave extremely quickly, but they are the only minions in the game available at no cost whatsoever (even zombie summons have aggro management problems when using howl).
• Chudhive access. The Chudhive is the worst apartment in the entire game, but it is at least free to chuds.
• Stomach access. The Stomach is a unique shop that sells chobo knives, cheap nanite healers and garden weasels. It is exclusively accessible to chuds, which lends them some purchasing value for these items.
• Chud Network access. The chief advantage of Chud; the chud network allows for very high mobility through several locations with no movement mutation or Focus required, and also makes chuds very slippery, allowing them escapes from several areas which non-Chuds cannot follow.

Disadvantages

• -2 to gun skills. Guns are some of the strongest weapons in the game, and this is a stiff penalty, especially to Rifles (which normally gets value from its low investment requirements).
• Penalties to trash resistances. Nanite resistance is very minor, since most chuds take Iron Liver and Hyperimmune, which nullifies nanites anyway. Radiation resistance is also largely meaningless, since radiation is totally resisted with radiation suits or similar preparation.
• Restricted vision. Chuds must wear sunglasses when in well-lit areas, or else they will be blind. Areas that are too dark, however, will also blind them. This is minor but fiddly micromanagement.
• Stress gain when outdoors. This can range from a minor inconvenience to a significant problem, depending on the chud's Cool and number of Implants. During extended outdoors treks, use of THC may be necessary.
• Damage on cloning. The damage is treated like a fall, and applies beat damage; it can break limbs and damage brains if it crits, especially on characters with Nimble Fingers and poor beat soaks. Fortunately, this only happens in the Freedom City clone tank, so it can be countered by switching tank locations to any other tank. Unfortunately, there is a long-standing bug that constantly resets a character's clone tank to Freedom City after gaining stars, which means that cloning locations must be carefully micromanaged after gaining stars.
• Costs a racial slot. The racial is one of the biggest decisions in choosing a build, and choosing Chud as a build's racial is cementing that build to mediocrity compared to other racial options available.

Mechanics

Chud has an immense number of changes associated with it, but most of these are small adjustments that are straightforward. Some are more complex, however.

Chudnet

Chudnet is an entirely cosmetic feature. It can be toggled on/off with chudnet on/off, and spoken on with chud <message>, which will display the message to all other chuds logged in to the net with the "Chudde" prefix:

   [chudnet] chudde ReadTheFineWiki says, "Buff chud."

Chudnet will also display a special message when any chud player in the game wails, either to summon chuds or to pass a message among them.

Wail

Wail has two forms: a basic wail and a wail with an argument, written wail <message>.

Wailing without an argument will use the chud's chudrep to summon chud minions. These minions will follow the player chud around for a limited time, until growing bored and "wandering off", which causes them to immediately die on their tile (which will stress Empaths). This action has a fairly long cooldown.

Wailing with a message as an argument will set all NPC chuds in the area to relay the message that the player chud has specified. NPC chuds wail autonomously on a regular basis, but non-chuds will only hear a "keening wail", while player chuds will hear whatever message is currently spread among the NPC chuds by a player's wail. This is an entirely cosmetic feature.

Minions

"Minions" refers to both the minions command, which checks the status of all minions, and the concept of minions in general, which chuds can summon with wail. Upon using wail in a sewers tile, two to four minions will spawn and follow the player chud around, joining in any combat that the player chud enters into and then dying off after a short time. The stats of chud minions mirror the summoner's stats before any increases from temporary buffs, implants or mutations. Summoned chuds will always spawn with their bare claws as weapons, but if they are given other weapons, they will use those instead. Upon death, the relevant weapons can be retrieved from their corpse.

The strength of chud minions depends on the summoner's chudrep, which is a measure of their reputation in the chud community. The higher the chudrep, the greater the percentage of the summoner's stats will be passed on to the summons. Chudrep can be raised by killing targets alongside summoned chuds, and is lowered by allowing chuds to grow bored and "wander off". For this reason, it is more advantageous to kill summoned chuds than it is to allow them to grow bored and die autonomously. A common chudrep grinding method is to summon chuds and then rampage throughout the Orphanage. Maximizing chudrep takes a huge amount of killing, so this is a time-consuming process.

Chud minions are notoriously inconsistent. Their pathing is much worse than that of other minions in the game; they can get lost very easily, can refuse to move for no reason, and sometimes follow directions in unexpected ways, which can make dealing with chud summons an aggravating, "herding cats" experience. They also wander off very, very quickly (a matter of seconds), often too quickly to get any utility from them.

Finally, chud minions allow sex by default, and can be fondled to increase horniness. They will grant IP in the bestiality Fetish if engaged in sex.

Chud Vision

Chuds cannot see well in well-lit areas, and will be totally blinded by light in broad daylight. This can be countered with sunglasses, which are zero thickness items, so this is not a serious problem. Conversely, in dark areas, chuds will be able to see perfectly. However, there is a "sweet spot" of darkness; chuds in darkness can see perfectly, but chuds in the same condition who are wearing sunglasses will suffer reduced vision. Chuds in extremely dark areas, such as the Labyrinth, will be just as blind as a non-chud would be, and will need minimal lighting to obtain sight.

Chud Network

The Chud Network (or "chud tunnels") is a series of zones that are inter-connected, and allow for very quick travel across the HellMOO world that is accessible only to chuds. They function like an "express roadway", and skip over several less important zones to provide quick access to more important ones. Depending on the distance and terrain covered, the chud network can be significantly faster than flying, and while it is always slower than Blink, it is also much more reliable. The network is complex enough to deserve its own page, but as a brief overview, it connects to the following zones:

• Weezer Village
• Lurleen (plus Remote Church and The Acres)
• Freedom City
• Gangland
• Slagtown
• Corpclave
• Wasteland
• New Clearwater
• Maas Neotek
• Screaming Chasm

Notable omissions from this list are Botany Bay and Necropolis, which cannot be reached through the tunnels. However, as an added bonus, all of the connected zones can be reached without going above-ground, which prevents sunlight stress. Note that Chud does not protect characters from dangerous mobs that may be inside or near the network, such as New Clearwater turtles and Screaming Chasm ash beasts.

Appearance

This mutation adds the following line to a character's description:

   He/She has leathery gray skin, bright yellow eyes, and a hunched back.

Mutations
Racial Mutations	Abomination • Chromemouth • Chud • Empath • Genetic Purity • Hideous Freak • Vampire • Zombie
Focus Mutations	Carrie • Chiller • Fuck Machine • Salamander • Screech • Writhing Smoke
Movement Mutations	Leapfrog • Phaser • Clairvoyance
	Flight • Blink • Medium
Soak Mutations	High Density • Firewalker • Rubberskin • Snakeskin • Yeti Skin
	Lithodermis • Solar Sponge • Silicone Skin • Eelskin • Yeti Fur
Miscellaneous Mutations	Billygoat • Bleeder • Bloodhound • Brainslug • Brute Strength • Camelfat • Enigma • Fibrocartilage • Hooligan • Hyperimmune • Iron Liver • Junkrat • Mule • Nimble Fingers • Plant Whisperer • Ripper • Stench • Twitchy Nerves • Superclot • Xray Vision
Joke Mutations	Cat Ears • Caucasian • Third Nipple
Defunct Mutations	Jammer