Many in Maj'Eyal have heard of "demons", sadistic creatures who appear seemingly from nowhere, leaving a trail of suffering and destruction whereever they go. Their Fearscape floats far above the skies, watching and waiting, but not idly; their agents scout the land, their legions build up their forces, and their scholars develop new spells and strategies. As the barrier between our worlds begins to crack under their scrutiny, helpless Eyalites have begun to disappear, whisked up to serve as their slaves and playthings. They imbue these victims with magical powers to better survive the ensuing stresses - can you use your new-found abilities to escape the legions of Mal'Rok?

Features:

• Start with a new class, the Doombringer! These avatars of demonic destruction charge into battle with massive two-handed weapons, cutting swaths of firey devastation through hordes of opponents. Armed with flame magic and demonic strength, they delight in fighting against overwhelming odds, softening up the crowd with waves of fire, then feeding on the flames and suffering of their surroundings to stay alive while quickly reducing any group to a pile of ash and gore.
• Unlock a new class, the Demonologist, with an all-new item enhancement mechanic! Bearing a shield and the magic of the Spellblaze itself, these melee-fighting casters can grow demonic seeds from their fallen enemies. Imbue these seeds onto your items to gain a wide array of new talents and passive benefits, and summon the demons within them to fight on your side! Ever looked at a gigantic demon-cursed minotaur and wished it was on your side for once? Well, now you CAN summon one to pound your foes into paste while you cast devastating spells from afar, or call forth a squad of Fire Imps to pelt your enemies to death while they exhaust themselves on your impenetrable defenses! Demons have persistent health, making them a little more precious than disposable necromancer skeletons or summoner beasts, but can be revived from death nonetheless.
• Two new zones, with all-new art, foes, and bosses! You've seen the plains of the Fearscape before, now see the lairs and headquarters of the demons themselves!
• Over 10,000 words of written lore to find! The demons were once an enlightened, peaceful race, hailing from a distant planet known as Mal'Rok; learn what drove them to plot Eyal's eternal torture! Discover monuments to each of the demonic species and noteworthy individuals, showing the place of honor each has among them! Get a glimpse into the culture and daily lives of these sadistic invaders and their brainwashed thralls!
• Unlock a new race, Doomelves: Shalore who've taken to the demonic alterations especially well, corrupting their typical abilities into a darker form. Blink away to safety, transform into a shadowy dúathedlen to hide in the shadows or prey on your foes with blasts of darkness, use your new resilience to soak up status effects and critical hits, and assault your enemies' minds to leave them unsteady in combat!
• Between the aforementioned classes and Doomelves, a whopping 75 new talents!
• Unlock two new cosmetic options! You know you've always wanted demon-horns.
• Two new events, appearing anywhere in Eyal!
• 20 new artifacts, with unique and interesting effects. Collect the Obsidian Treasures to amass more and more power! Slip your hands into the Will of Ul'Gruth and watch your sweeping blows smash down walls! Wear a giant hideous hell-mouth as a fashionable belt!
• 7 new achievements! Conquer the worst Urh'Rok's forces can throw at you, and hang their metaphorical skulls from your profile page!

1. English Version (Condensed)

1. Faster ToME4 (v0.2.8) — Release Notes

Comprehensive performance & stability overhaul for **ToME 1.7.6** (Upstream: 0.0.1).

> **TL;DR**: Synchronous save pause reduced by **~68%** (459 ms → 145 ms); pure Lua FBO guard eliminates mid-frame rendering stalls; native memory leaks fixed. **100% pure Lua, zero external binaries, fully compatible with existing saves & achievements.**

1. 1. Save Stutter Reductions
1. Fast Snapshot Clone**: Skips memo lookups for primitive values; cuts cloning CPU time by **~33%** while preserving the exact object graph.
2. Wait-Screen Refresh**: Pumps native wait-screen redraws during snapshot cloning; reduces save-time freezes from **171.4 ms to 70.5 ms (-58.9%)**.
3. Fast Lossless Screenshots**: Direct GL pixel reads with Level-1 PNG compression; cuts screenshot capture time from **50.0 ms to 24.3 ms (-51.5%)**.
4. Redundant Work Eliminated**: Omitted unused secondary party creation and offline character dumps, saving 1,700+ transient UID allocations and ~136 RNG calls per save.

1. Rendering & Combat Smoothness
1. Pure Lua FBO GC Guard**: Fixes engine defect where FBO finalizers corrupt active drawing targets mid-frame; defers cleanup to the next `use()` call, eliminating driver/LLVM stalls.
2. Hit-Warning Rate Limiting**: Throttles directional arrows (`hit_warning`) to **1 per 500 ms**; prevents arrow volleys from flooding emitters and lagging the game.
3. UI & Mask Batching**: Caches hotkey text rasterization (**-23.6%** display CPU); batches effect-mask geometry into single vertex calls.

1. Engine & Upstream Bug Fixes
1. Native Memory Leak Fixed**: Switched character export compressor to embedded `lzlib` with proper cleanup, eliminating **~12.8 MiB leak per 50 exports**.
2. Log & Cache Hardening**: Fixed `CacheList` modulo bug (now utilizes all 5,000 slots); restored `truncate_printlog`; bounded chat text & bytecode caches.
3. Particle Leaks Fixed**: Added finite lifetimes to `notice_enemy` and `dreamhammer` emitters that previously leaked indefinitely.

1. 4. Optional Settings (`config.settings.faster_tome.*`)

All enabled by default. Toggles include: `fbo_gc_guard`, `hit_warning_interval_ms` (0 to disable), `snapshot_refresh`, `screenshot_png`, `save_clone`, `offline_chardump`, `unused_party_cleanup`, `export_gzip`.

---

1. 中文版（精简版）

1. Faster ToME4 (v0.2.8) — 版本更新说明

适配 **ToME 1.7.6** 的全面性能与稳定性大版本（对比上游基准：0.0.1）

> **核心摘要**：存盘主线程卡顿减少 **~68%**（459 ms → 145 ms），告别存盘假死；纯 Lua FBO 保护消除渲染卡顿与绘制错乱；根治多处内存泄漏。**全插件纯 Lua 实现，零 C 扩展依赖，100% 兼容原版存档、成就与规则。**

1. 1. 存盘卡顿深度优化
1. 快照浅克隆提速**：基础类型跳过哈希查表，对象图 100% 一致的前提下纯克隆 CPU 耗时减少 **~33%**。
2. 存盘画面定期刷新**：同步快照期间定期刷新原生等待条与界面，最大停顿时间从 **171.4 ms 降至 70.5 ms（-58.9%）**，不再白屏假死。
3. 极速无损截图**：底层像素直读 + 1 级无损 PNG 编码，截图耗时从 **50.0 ms 降至 24.3 ms（耗时减半）**。
4. 冗余流程彻底剔除**：省去未使用的临时导出队伍克隆与离线角色卡序列化，单次存盘省去 1,700+ 临时 UID 与约 136 次随机数消耗。

1. 2. 渲染与战斗流畅优化
1. 纯 Lua FBO 回收保护**：修复引擎原生 FBO 析构重置绘制目标导致后续掉帧的缺陷，延后至下次 `use()` 统一安全释放，消除驱动重编译与长帧。
2. 受击提示限速**：远程受击箭头默认 **500 ms 冷却节流**，杜绝多重箭雨或高频连击瞬间刷爆粒子导致的严重顿卡与视效干扰。
3. 界面与特效合批**：快捷栏文字光栅化缓存（绘制 CPU **减少 23.6%**），地图效果遮罩改为顶点数组批量绘制。

1. 3. 上游缺陷与内存泄漏修复
1. 根治导出原生内存泄漏**：改用引擎内置 `lzlib` 并严格释放流状态，彻底消除每 50 次角色导出约 **12.8 MiB** 的原生堆内存常驻泄漏。
2. 日志与缓存加固**：修正 `CacheList` 模运算差一错误（用满全部 5,000 槽位），恢复日志截断功能，加固聊天框与字节码缓存上限。
3. 终结粒子常驻泄漏**：修复 `notice_enemy` 与 `dreamhammer` 粒子发射后在后台永久空转的缺陷。

1. 4. 独立开关配置（`config.settings.faster_tome.*`）

全部优化默认开启。需要时可在配置中独立调整：`fbo_gc_guard`（FBO保护）、`hit_warning_interval_ms`（受击间隔，0为不限速）、`snapshot_refresh`（快照刷新）、`screenshot_png`（极速截图）、`save_clone`（克隆加速）、`offline_chardump`（跳过离线导出）、`unused_party_cleanup`（跳过临时队伍）、`export_gzip`（无泄漏压缩）。

One year has passed since the one the Orcs call the "Scourge from the West" came and single-handedly crushed the Orc Prides of Grushnak, Vor, Gorbat, and Rak'Shor.  The Allied Kingdoms, now linked by farportal to their distant, long-lost Sunwall allies, have helped them conquer most of Var'Eyal.  The few remnants of the ravaged Prides are caged...  but one Pride remains.  Kruk Pride, isolated on an island, is the last orcish settlement that stands; they, too, face their impending doom.  The Sunwall has blockaded the only exit point from the island, and now, the technologically advanced civilization of Steam Giants have come down from the mountains to take their homeland with machines and weaponry unlike anything else on Eyal.  Kruk Pride has reverse-engineered their technology before; their only hope is to do it again and rise up against the Pride's foes.
 

Features:

• Explore a whole new campaign from level 1 to 50, one year after the events of the original Tales of Maj'Eyal campaign. Liberate the Orcs (or die trying) by rising up against the Sunwall, the Steam Giants of Atmos, and other dangers that may lie in wait...
• Play as one of three new races: the battle-hardened Orcs, the brutal Yetis, and the unstoppable Whitehooves. Discover their stories, their pains, their hopes... and their awesome racial powers!
• Risk your life in over 20 unique zones! Explore the ruins of a lost city, lay siege to the Sunwall forces at the Gates of Morning, and raid the Steam Giants' mining quarry - each has its own unique foes and hazards, leading each to feel and play different from the others.
• Play as one of the four new tinker classes: Gunslingers, Sawbutchers, Psyshots and Annihilators! Plus a class evolution: Technomancers! Crush and rend your foes with heavy metal, electrocute and immolate them with your gadgets, charge across the battlefield or nimbly strafe in style - each plays differently, and none provide any shortage of ways to slay your foes.
• Master steam technology to build powerful tinkers to augment your equipment. Need to close in a bit quicker? Turn your boots into rocket boots! Having a hard time deciding whether to shoot someone or stab them? Build a Hand Cannon into your gloves, or deploy a Weapon Automaton to do the stabbing for you! If you have a problem, steamtech has a solution, usually involving explosions; with over 80 different powerful contraptions to craft, enjoy unparalleled versatility and trying something different with every playthrough.
• Master the tactical uses of over 140 talents! Fire bouncing trick-shots and psychic-infused shots, use your steamsaws as shields or wheels, terrify your foes with long mechanical arms - there are no "boring" talents here, everything has its own special applications and properties!
• Use advanced technology in the world of Eyal! Burrow through sand, plant bombs to destroy tunnels, and discover that you aren't alone in using it...
• Infusions and runes are for puny humans; implant new medical injectors to pump an array of experimental chemicals into your body! Injectors can use any (infinitely reusable) salve in your inventory as long as they're off their cooldown, giving you versatility you've wished you could get with a couple of inscriptions.
• Loot over 70 new and powerful artifacts. Pump lead into foes with big guns, quick guns, and explosive guns! Shred them with saws that maim, saws that thirst for blood, and saws that aren't really saws! Violate common sense by strapping a rocket to your back and calling it a jetpack!
• Enjoy dying in horrible and exotic ways at the hands (or claws, jaws, guns...) of over 140 new creatures! Not mere piles of stats and chain-stuns, these foes will provide unique challenges - suffer the Sunwall's newest cosmic spells, the new breeds of ritches that infest and multiply, the Steam Giants' elaborate defense systems, and find new strategies to adapt to each!
• Earn a trunkload of achievements! Have your accomplishments recognized for liberating the Orcish people, displaying exceptional mercy or cruelty, or showing your prowess with impressive feats! Give a boss a fate worse than death, show Sunwall forces how frustrating it is to fight a Radiant Horror as a paladin, come out on top against impossible odds, display a suicidal lack of situational awareness, and wear a badge of pride or shame for each!
• Read roughly 27,000 words of new lore to immerse yourself in the world! Learn how things have changed since the Scourge's campaign, feel hatred and/or pity for your foes, uncover grand schemes and sinister plots, and notice the elaborate connections between Var'Eyal's numerous factions. Every zone has a story behind it, and every story ties into a bigger picture; enjoy a tale of horror and humor, of intrigue and glory, of despair and hope.
• Earn the right to use the classic (and Ashes of Urh'Rok) classes in Embers of Rage, and the new tinker classes in Maj'Eyal! Play a Brawler in the East to fulfill your life-long dream of suplexing an entire nation of giants, or play a Sawbutcher in Maj'Eyal to shred through Dreadfell in a whirlwind of sawblades and steam!

Not all adventurers seek fortune, not all that defend the world have good deeds in mind.
Lately the number of sightings of horrors have grown tremendously. People wander off the beaten paths only to be found years later, horribly mutated and partly insane, if they are found at all. It is becoming evident something is stirring deep below Maj'Eyal.
That something is you.

Forbidden Cults is a big expansion for Tales of Maj'Eyal to let you explore the horrors that lurk beneath the surface, to delve in long lost knowledge and lore and as usual to die a lot!

Forbidden Cults makes two new classes available to play:

• Writhing One: Give in to the corrupting forces and turn yourself gradually into an horror, summon horrors to do your bidding, shed your skin and melt your face to assault your foes. With your arm already turned into a tentacle, what creature can stop you?
• Cultist of Entropy: Using its insanity and control of entropic forces to unravel the normal laws of physic this caster class can turn healing into attacks and call upon the forces of the void to reduce its foes to dust.

Both those classes use a new resource called Insanity that gradually makes you both more chaotic and powerful as it fills up.

Forbidden Cults makes two new races available to play:

• Drem: A corrupt subrace of dwarves, that somehow managed to keep a shred of sanity to not fully devolve into mindless horrors. They can enter a frenzy and even learn to summon horrors.
• Krog: Ogres transformed by the very thing that should kill them. Their powerful attacks can stun their foes and they are so strong they can dual wield any one handed weapons.

Forbidden Cults adds many new zones for you to explore and die in:

• Kroshkkur: An ancient Sher'tul Fortress laying half in ruins that serves as a focal point, and home, for all kinds of creatures seeking lost knowledge.
• The Maggot: A huge living corrupted worm about to destroy Kroshkkur! Teleport inside and save your sanctuary of horrors!
• The Godfeaster: Deep undergroud the ground shakes as ... -- redacted by corrupt forces --
• The Scourge Pits: On the south of the Iron Throne lays a fool pit of ... -- redacted by corrupt forces --
• Forbidden Tomes: Find special artifact books of ancient lore. But, read at your own peril, for the story they tell may very well suck you in... quite literally.
  Maybe you will even find The One That Writes...
• Occult Egress: A strange, extremely old, contraption of unknown origin. It seems to require some kind of code sequence to activate. Maybe you will find some during your adventures?
• The Entropic Void: So you think you are strong? Powerful? Invulnerable? In the end, entropy always wins, as you will learn...

What would an expansion about horrors be without a bunch of new horrors to torment you with? Please give a warm welcome to:

• Searing Horrors: You liked luminous horrors? You loved radiant horrors? You will absolutely adore their searing big brothers!
• Nethergates: It sleeps. Maybe it should stay that way.
• Netherworms: Vampiric worm masses that are bound to tickle your fancy! And tickle hard.
• Fearful Symmetry: Geometry has never been so lively!
• Entropic Shards: Take an entropic crystal, shatter it with tentacles. And die.
• : And more ...

"DarkGod, is that all?" Obviously not! You will also find your usual addition of:

• Lore: Delve into the dark forgotten secrets of the world, where sanity is a very tenuous idea.
• Artifacts: Discover new objects of power and use them to further your own goals.
• New wyrmic tree: Unlock the scourge drake for your wyrmics.
• Glass Golem: Unlock the glass golem option for your alchemists.
• Events: Discover new strange contraptions in familiar zones. What could go wrong?
• Achievements: Because there can never be enough!