I’ve been meaning to write on Caves of Qud for a long time, but it’s such a huge topic! In the meantime you may enjoy this Youtuber getting a “lesser victory” as a pacifist, never killing a creature, while playing a “Classic mode” permadeath game. (58 minutes)
Making it much easier is that there’s a lot of ways to gain experience in CoQ without killing anything, so you aren’t stuck at level 1 the whole game. If you play a mutant character you can pick which mutations you begin with, with Force Bubble, Phasing and Precognition being a few that help you escape many forms of danger. And CoQ has a variety of items that you can use to overcome tricky situations, like mechanical wings, and a spiral borer for digging staircases.
Going for a bigger victory would be harder. The ultimate victory requires dealing with all seven of the Girsh Nephilim, which can be done without killing them but requires a special (somewhat spoilery) trick. I should save more explanation for that eventual article series on Qud….
