So I was playing today in Exploration mode in the passage to the lake quest (to imbue rings/amulets with gems, in the East). I got a few messages from the Dark God (the developer, I presume) fairly quickly, back-to-back. They unlocked some goofy stuff, like a passive that has a chance to turn your sprite into a rabbit for a few turns after a kill, granting +10% crit chance.

Is this triggered by something? Or is the developer patching this stuff in for the lulz and that's just something you get to experience in Online mode? Pretty flipping weird.

Badassery - Not sure if it affects gameplay, but it makes a big spinning anime light-rune effect that grants the status "awed by badassery" or something like that, in a radius around the caster. Affected enemies make various comments on death if they die with this effect. There's also an achievement for doing this 100 times, but I'm only halfway there.

Pirate - Free sustain. Sprite swap, random comments from character. Occasional bonus gold (+2 is all I've ever gotten)

The dev occasionally adds temporary special events/abilities/goofy crap to the game that you can experience if you are logged in. He's cool like that.

I haven't touched the game in months (and I don't think I ever entered any of the special 'themed' areas), but from what I gather, many of them are for somewhat higher-level characters -- as in, if you blithely pop in to the special "Fluffy Bunny Meadow" (or whatever) area with a tenth-level character, you will get ripped apart. Quickly. To be fair, though, there is usually an in-game warning mentioning the minimum recommended level, so it'd be your own fault. :)

Ah, ok. I was in the East with an Exploration character, which makes sense. My Adventure characters tend to die near 20.