If you haven't played before and you want to avoid spoilers, then you should exit this thread now.

I've been inspired by another thread, and I'm going to do another run of UW1. This run will involve collecting and using as little stuff as possible. With a few exceptions, if I don't need it, then I leave it where I found it. Reading scrolls and dropping them again will be okay as long as it isn't a magic scroll.

Required items:
-8 talismans
-3 part key
-Bones
-imp head key to access level 8
-the (two?) Key(s) to courage, to open the massive door(s) to the key of courage
-20 gold
-Flute
-Picture
-Crown of Maze Navigation (or the crystal shard, or a scroll of Reveal, or runebag to cast Reveal)
-A key to reach the crown?

Quality of Life Exceptions. I could technically do without these items, but I'm not a masochist.
-Light source. First a torch, then a lantern. I could stumble through the dark the entire game, but screw that.
-Map.
-Bags to hold things. I'm not going to leave necessary items somewhere just because I only have 12 slots by default. The talismans, runebag, and map already account for 10 slots.
-I might grab a fishing pole so I don't have to scrounge for fish.

Possible necessity items:
-Runebag and all runes. These will be collected, but I'll try to minimize use (hopefully avoiding use completely).
--4 emeralds will be used for Vas rune.
-Dragonskin boots. I'm going to collect them in case I need them, but I plan to see how far I can get without using them. They might be necessary on levels 7 and 8.
--I'll need rotworm stew (rotworm, port, mushroom, recipe) for scales, then scales, thread, and food for boots.
-Treasure to bribe the prison guards on level 7. I don't think the portcullises can be bashed, I won't have a lockpick, and I won't be skipping the guards and going straight for Tyball without using magic. On further consideration, I won't have the Medallion of Passage so all the guards might be dead. I don't know; I'll figure it out when I get there.
-Clammy key to unlock the portcullis with the dire ghost and grave. Leave key behind once the gate is open.
-Dragontooth key? Lava chamber map?
-Orb rock
-Food for eating in case I get hungry. Healing will come primarily from sleeping or healing fountains.
-I might need the bone key for the massive door on Level 8.

Some questions to answer:
-Can I light incense from a campfire?
-Can I light incense from the Taper? A candle isn't sufficient, a lamp isn't an open flame, but a torch works.
-Do I actually need to repair the sword, or can I just throw in the two pieces?
-Can I use a mandolin instead of a flute? I seem to recall trying this once, and the answer was 'no'.

Activities denied:
-No using weapons or armor, not even the talismans. I don't look forward to Fire Elementals or the Gazers on level 8.
-Locked doors must be bashed. Massive doors are effectively walls.
-I can't become a knight.
-I can't rescue Murgo (this only works because I know where to go).
-I can't get the Mine Dispatch code, but I know that one. I'll probably skip the mines entirely since I don't need the experience and I can't carry the physical rewards.
-No clearing the dwarf mines. No rock hammer means I can't get in, and I'm not allowed to carry the gem cutter anyway. I'll look up the order from another save.
-No rings of Leap or Levitate (uh oh).
-No pole, which cuts off several optional rooms (doh!).
-Can't use Roderick's equipment (doh!).
-No water walk.
-No flying. Ironwit will have to get his own blueprints.
-No wand of magic arrow to convince fleeing monsters to come back (stupid lurkers and mongbats).
-I can't report on Ossilik.
-I can't get the Water Walk scroll from the Lizardman.
-No book for Morlock.
-No free Casting skill for retrieving Vilius' book.
-No food or drink to offer the various people who request such.
-Can't open the backdoor to the dwarf realm (doh!). The door is massive and locked.
-No gate travel.

Character Build:
-I rolled a Fighter with 30 str and 36 Vit. One shotting several monsters on Level 1 with my fist, when they usually require several hits, was satisfying.
-Attack, Defense, and Unarmed will be maxed. I chose Acrobat as my other starting skill.
-I'm debating whether to add points to Swimming. I'll probably give this a pass since water isn't a major barrier.
-I'll likely invest in Mana and Casting. I want to avoid using the runebag, but I want to finish the run more.
-I think I'll invest extra points in Search, just to see how that works in practice.
-On the bright side, no equipment means no need for Lore.

i hope your challenge run goes well

I'm looking forward to hearing how this turns out.

The very first green goblin in the game turned around just in time to get a fist to the face, and he went down. The first level has been basically cleared, though I didn't bother with areas that require swimming to reach.

About half of the second level has been cleared. I haven't cleared the path to Shak yet, nor have I ventured into the main hall to the north of the center round-about. I'm exploring the dwarf halls. I had to skip the side room that requires a pole to flip the switch, and I'm debating using a pole just to get the runestones in the chest beyond that portcullis; I don't think there are any 'new' runes there, but I don't remember.

All skill mantras have gone toward Unarmed, which is around 27 now. Next will be Defense as my sole source of defense (excluding manual evasion), then probably a combination of Search and Attack. My most durable foe by far has been locked doors.

Finished up level 2. Tried bashing down the portcullis to the extra room, but it is fist-proof.

I elected to take the sewer pipe down to level 3, thinking there was a small pouch I could check along that route (nope, just a wand). Level 3 mostly went fine so far.

Highlights:
-Going Saitama on at least two lurkers, getting a 1 hit KO.
-Jump punching a fleeing mongbat out of the air. Rawr!
-One lurker has learned fear and won't get close even when I'm swimming.
-Zak's thievery has been punished with death, since I can't carry anything to pay him off.
-Had a bad moment when I turned a corner and ran right into a dread spider, but it didn't manage to poison me.
-There are two sturdy doors that can't be unlocked with my fist. One seals off the head bandit's room, so I guess I can't nose around in the guild. The other would have made a nice short cut between sections of lizardman tunnel.
-A massive door cuts the lizardman domain in half, which is inconvenient. I'm looking for the way to swim around it.
-The gazer guarding the cup sniped my swimming butt, sending me back to the silver sapling. Ow. Going to need more than 24 hp when I try again.

I hit level 10 already. I didn't think I'd get there until level 5 or so. I'm pretty sure bad acrobatics have caused me more damage than monsters so far. Except for that Gazer.

One amusing moment from level 2: when assaulting the small grey tribe, the ones not in melee were using slings, as goblins do. Apparently the one in back didn't like his buddies much. I punched one, and the one in back slung another stone my direction. The goblin in front of me went down while I was still charging my next strike.

Oh right, swimming is fast, easy, and very safe if you click the arrows under the compass. I'm not wasting any points in Swimming.

-I swam up that ramp to the cup so fast. It took a little bumping to nudge the Gazer over land, then I swiftly punched it to death.
-Finished level 3. If you ever want a really good door, don't call the Mountain Men, call the Lizard Men. They make unpunchably sturdy doors. Wow.
-Roderick went down like a chump. Just to see how it would go, I didn't even manually evade. He got punched to death in a straight, no movement fight and I didn't even get hit. Color me surprised; I recall him being a significantly better fighter. Granted, I also don't remember being like level 11 or 12 by this stage, so what do I know?
-The Maze of Silas is locked. So close, and yet so far...
-After feeding Sether, I made a quick run down to level 5 to drop off the scales and thread. I also grabbed the other sword half and liberated Cabirus' cheat for the treasure trap while down here.
-I let Biden know he was a pansy for losing to Roderick, showed Trisch the Taper, and collected the Standard from Dorna. Good bye, Knights.
-Covered most of level 4. Just need to clean up the rooms off the big hall on the troll side of Roderick's hall.

Edit: You can't use a mandolin instead of a flute. Shame.

Finished levels 5 and 6.

-I cleared the mines because they are fun. The guy is free to collect his own samples.
-I punched out the Stone Golem without manual evasion or taking damage. Apparently the Roderick fight wasn't a fluke.
-I punched out a Fire Elemental in close combat without taking a hit or manual evasion. Something is bonkers here.
-A Gazer nailed me with an electric ball for around 30 damage. Ranged attacks are my weakness.
-No boots, so I suddenly have to care about walking across the lava rivulets. Ow!!
-The terrain continues to be my biggest adversary. Walls and ramps are bad, but lava is pretty much a death sentence if I accidentally land on it.
-The Taper cannot be used to light incense. Looks like torches or nothing.
-When talking to Dr. Owl (who is really, really grumpy), make sure not to ask him about his work or anything even vaguely related to his servant, or you won't be able to ask about the runestone before you rescue Murgo. Definite reload there.

I am level 15, 29 Attack, 29 Defense, 30 Unarmed, about to tackle level 7, and I'm both Very Hungry and Drowsy, having neither eaten nor slept since I was thrown in here. Tyball won't know what hit him, at this rate.

Edit: Also, runestones have some sort of variation in their placement for sure. While checking my runebag, I realized I was missing Uus, so I can't cast Leap even if I had the mana and casting ability. Just for curiosity sake, I checked out that side room on Level 2, and one of the runestones in the chest was Hur! I usually think of Uus as an early one (Jump) while Hur is definitely a late game rune (Flame Wind).

Also, I spent mantra chants to advance the Search skill to around 17. Thus far, this has been a complete waste. This skill only has a few more chances to prove itself useful before I write it off entirely. It didn't reveal the secret door to the tombs on level 5.

Unfortunately my knowledge of the intricacies of the game is not high enough for me to presume to add any constructive advice, but I am very much enjoying reading your reports :).

Most of the short hand is geared toward veterans, but I'm happy to expand if you're curious about something.

I'm good, I can follow at least 95% of what's going on. I played the game a lot back in the day, and I replayed it once again in 2015 and it was as excellent (if not better) than I remembered. It's on my list to replay again sometime too.

Cleared enough of level 7. Ended up skipping several areas due to lack of items.

Notes:
-There are a number of critically injured deep lurkers floating around because they'd just run away when they got hurt, and there wasn't anything I could really do about it. I tried jump punching a few with no success; I'd land in the water without managing to line up the hit, or I'd land on top of one and not be able to look down far enough. Just not worth the effort.

-Reapers seem to be one of the only enemies that can hurt me in melee. They don't usually hit, but several of them have managed to clip me at least once in a straight fight.

-Search is freaking useless. Even with 17 points, I couldn't spot any of the secret doors I wouldn't normally be able to spot.

-Ranged attacks are indeed my bane. I flattened the various Troll + Grey Goblin outposts, and it was the Grey Goblins that actually worried me. Trolls were fine. I liked having trolls in my face. They block sling stones. Sling stones can actually hurt me.
-The prison guards get wiped out, but I do take their key to pop open the two locked portcullis to the prison before ditching key and bribes. I could route around the prison, except I have to be able to get in there later and trying to backtrack from the Chasm of Fire looks like more trouble than it is worth (assuming it is even possible).
-No Crystal Shard, so no viewing the Black Sword for me. It is a pretty terrible weapon anyway.

-The Chasm of Fire (the long lava floor corridor with all the Fire Elementals) is completely out of the question without either Flame Proof or the boots. The Fire Elementals aren't a threat in melee range, but they will happily pelt me with fireballs even if I try to jump on the raised ledges (insult to injury, at least one of those ledges has lava rivulets!). I decided to try avoiding it.
-Remember how I said "Search = Useless"? Yeah, no using the backdoor to reach the imp with the Crown of Maze Navigation. The Chasm of Fire is the front door to that area. No Crown without using other items. Bah!

-After some thinking, I decided to brute force the death maze (with some memory to help) as the purest solution to reaching Tyball. Looks like damage floors are spread around the maze, but not every non-crown space is a damage space. There is one unmarked tile right at the end that looks like a straight up death tile; make sure you curve around that last pillar like the crown shows you. Theoretically I could have repeatedly died and marked my path through here, but that's more effort than it was worth.
-I popped open Tyball's door and immediately dove for those side alcoves just inside. Good thing too, since I turned around to see a fireball fly through the door I just vacated, followed right after by a crackling of lightning. I ran across to the other side and turned around, and sure enough, another fireball flew past.
-Tyball is over an upper floor of the room, so I just press him against a wall and punch him to death. He isn't nearly so dangerous when all he can use is a knife.
-Interestingly, Tyball drops several important/useful items (imp key, prison key, thread for boots, incense), and a now-useless Medallion of Passage for nice flavor.
-I leave an orb rock next to the orb, in case using magic on level 7 becomes important. I don't think it will.
-Ariel will have to open her cage herself. In the spirit of "No Items", I'm only using this imp key 4 times.

-I pop open the secret back door of Tyball's quarters (curse you, useless Search skill!) to give me a much nicer route from Level 6 to Level 8 proper.

-The Key of Truth was easy, of course. I finally collected it.

-Acquiring the Key of Courage was surprisingly easy and surprisingly hard. The most dangerous room was a section with 3 grey goblins and a gazer, since all of them had ranged attacks. I charged the lot of them and disabled their ranged attacks by getting right in the middle of the group, with my back to a goblin. They died from severe punching shortly after. The next most nervous room was the one with two mages, especially when one of them got low on HP and started to flee. A fireball would have been my death.
-I get to the end of the line and clear the last room. Punch open one door, punch my way flawlessly through 2 Shadow Beasts and a Dire Ghost (without taking a hit or manually evading, the pansies), and use the key to claim my prize.
-On the way back out, I meet my truest nemesis: I only had 3 hp after several ranged attacks and one or two Reaper swats, and I die because I fall into a wall at an angle. Looks like Acrobat saves you from fall distance damage and damage from slamming into walls face first, but you're on your own for angles. My pride forced a reload of that embarrasment.

-I head over to grab the Key of Love. More like the Key of Mockery (screenshot attached). Well, I was planning to minimize my "game time" by running upstairs to visit a healing fountain anyway. Dying costs XP after all (which only matters to my pride, since I'm level 16).

Skills are Attack 29, Defense 29, Unarmed 30, Mana 25 (capped), Casting 25 (capped), Search 17, and Acrobat 9. I suspect that is all the skill points I'm going to get, but that's fine.

To Do:
-Visit a healing fountain, grab the key of love, and make my way down to Level 8.
-It just occurred to me that reaching the bones may be an issue. I seem to recall needing to fly or something. I wonder how I'll resolve it; maybe I'm just remembering how I bother to get over there nowadays.
-Once I've buried the bones and "learned" the answers, it will be easy to reach the Door of Infinity by jumping down somewhere and hot footing it (ha!) across the lava. I think I'll save first, since the sword is still broken.

Also, I need to remember to grab the huge stack of port from level 6. I want to know if you can pass out drunk in front of hostiles.

Tested passing out from alcohol.
If you pass out while on lava or in the water, you get the expected result: a trip to the silver tree. However, it appears monsters are nice enough to wait for you to wake up, or else nudge you awake, before continuing the fight. Regardless, all three of these stupors cause less game time to pass than passing out in a safe place does.

Other notes:
-You can throw a sling stone by hand at someone to cause a little damage and tick them off, but throwing large boulders doesn't do anything on collision.

-I'm not sure if a metal golem can reasonably hit me. There was one in the room with the Key of Courage, but I reflexively tried to manually evade its first two swings when it surprised me by being in what I thought was a monsterless room. It didn't land a single hit even after I stopped evading, but it was already in red hp values. I plan to stand and fight the other metal golem to see whether that one is any better than a reaper in a fight.

Aaaand done!

-One fountain and 60 hp sacrificed to lava, and the Key of Love was mine. Another fountain trip was in order before going back down to level 8.

-Level 8 was very dangerous simply because there were lots of wide open areas and lots of lava floor, so all the fire elementals camped on the lava could hurl fireballs while I couldn't punch them. Also, a Gazer had space to hover out of reach (over lava, naturally) and pelt me with lightning.

-The Metal Golem was no problem. There was a Gazer pelting him in the back during our battle, but I wasn't entirely sure the golem was doing damage to me at all, so I don't think that mattered. I'm not sure whether he managed to hit me a few times, or if I was getting winged by fireballs to my back from fire elemental(s). Damage seemed low to be a fireball, but low damage fireballs do occasionally happen.

-It turns out you require neither the boots nor the runebag! There are enough ledge spaces to get up to the area with the bones, and there is a low point that can be reached to get back to the stairs from the lava floor. You don't need to death warp.

-I never did find runes for R, U, or W. I only found a T rune because it was laying beside the bones.

-Sadly, you must repair the sword. Simply throwing in both halves is not sufficient. "I've had a long day filled with lava, Garamon. I'm going to have a nap while the sword is repaired, then I'll meet up with you."

-Just for kicks, I decided to punch the Slasher of Veils to see how that went. My two or three attacks did not manage to damage him at all, and then he took his turn. While I am M.C. Hammer to everything else, HE could touch me. For 40 damage on one hit. So I threw the last talisman (the Sword, unplanned and amusingly) at his head and ran for my miserable, naked life.

Final item count:
-Map
-2 packs (to reduce pack clutter)
-1 torch
-1 lantern
-1 flask of oil (but I was getting close to needing a 2nd flask)
-A few pieces of meat to eat (could probably have gotten away with going hungry and using a fountain for healing)
-8 talismans
-20 gold pieces
-3 part key
-bones
-Imp key (used 4 times, could have gotten away with only 3 if I knew the prisoner's specific cells)
-Crude Rune key (prison key) (used twice)
-Two keys to access Key of Courage
-Picture
-Flute
-Technically I picked up and used the Silver Seed a few times, but I'm filing that with the Map and Lamp under Quality of Life Exceptions.
-Quite a bit of save scumming to avoid real time spent running back after dying or missing a jump because of wonky terrain.
-If you enter the little gated grave, then you'll need to use the clammy key, a lockpick, or a death warp to escape.

And I think that's it.

The biggest issue on this run was dealing with the Maze on level 7. You can't reasonably deal with the Chasm of Fire without the boots or Flameproof. You can't reasonably circumvent the Chasm or Maze without Reveal. The Maze itself really wants either the crown or save scumming to make it through (having the route already memorized would also work).

Pretty much everything else has a work around, though lava can make the paths exceedingly hazardous. My feel my belief in "Get the boots, put them on, and never ever take them off again" is validated.

Congrats! I felt pretty hardcore back in the day when I did a "no magic runes" run, but you really took it up a notch!