ADOM Guidebook


Alignment and Altars

0.2.1 What is alignment?

Alignment reflects the moral nature of the PC. For example, PCs with lawful alignment generally do not slaughter innocents or steal from shops. Chaotic PCs will do these things and a lot worse besides. Neutral PCs choose from both options, doing nasty things when necessary to further their cause, but also performing good acts to maintain their balanced alignment.

A general and quite complete description of alignment can be found in the ADOM manual. It is assumed that the reader is familiar with that description. The effects alignment have on gameplay are discussed here. The effects are mostly evident to the player in terms of the quests and rewards that are available.

Quests, rewards and alignment restrictions:

Terinyo - quests are available to all PCs regardless of alignment, however Guth'Alak will not reward chaotics with a potion of cure corruption for delivering a chaos creature's corpse
Jharod - will not teach the Healing skill to chaotics, regardless of how Yrrigs is dealt with
Hotzenplotz - quests are available regardless of alignment
Yergius - will not teach the Pick Pockets skill, or anything else, to lawfuls
Old Barbarian - will not give the Courage quest to chaotics
Unicorn quest - Yrruir will not give the quest to kill Riurry to chaotics There is some uncertainty/argument about this
Thrundarr - all quests are available regardless of alignment
Dwarven Mystic - rewards are dependent on alignment; chaotics will receive nothing from him
Kherab - quests are available regardless of alignment
Demented Ratling - assigns a quest only to chaotics
Gaab'Baay - assigns her quests to chaotics only
Assassin Prince - Filk quest is available regardless of alignment
Sharad-Waador - quest to kill Srraxxarrakex is available regardless of alignment
Mad Minstrel - reveals the location of the scintillating cave regardless of alignment
Khelavaster - will not summon the Trident of the Red Rooster for chaotics

0.2.2 Changing alignment

Changing alignment can be done in several ways. It is easy to change from a lawful flavor of alignment to a chaotic one. The PC need only commit chaotic acts, which include attacking non-hostile monsters, reading tracts of chaos, wearing an amulet of chaos, pickpocketing and eating undead corpses. Changing from chaotic towards neutrality and law is more difficult. A blessed amulet of order, available from Tywat Pare, is helpful for this. Completing lawful quests will move the PC's alignment towards law. Examples include the puppy quest, the Yrrigs quest, the Keethrax quest, Tywat Pare's and Thrundarr's quests.

Without question, the fastest and easiest way to change alignment is by making sacrifices on an altar. See the section below about altars for more alignment change strategy.

0.2.3 Altars - How to use altars.

The main thing you do on altars is sacrificing (or 'O'ffering). Things that can be sacrificed include items, monsters and gold. When sacrificing items, you stand on top of the altar and 'O'ffer the item, which will then be accepted or rejected by the deity. When sacrificing monsters, you stand away from the altar, wait for the monster to step onto the altar, and then 'O'ffer it. Note that most humanoid monsters have the ability to speak. This means they can sacrifice the PC. Most, but not all, humanoids are chaotic. So idly standing around on an altar, especially a chaotic one, near humanoid enemies is a very unwise thing to do.

When sacrificing items, one might want to keep in mind the fact that some races' deities specially favor some item types. These can be found in the manual and are listed here for reference:

Humans: tools of all kind
Trolls: rocks, the larger the better
Hurthlings: cooked meals
Gnomes: gems
Dwarves: gold
High Elves and Gray Elves: magical rings
Dark Elves: magical wands and books
Orcs: melee weapons
Drakelings: musical instruments

Sacrificing monsters can be very bountiful, especially on levels with a high monster generation rate. There are a few things to be remembered, though:

Lawful and neutral gods don't like it when you sac "their beings", i.e. neutral beings to a neutral god or lawfuls to a lawful god. Chaotics don't care.

Bred, summoned, undead and unlife beings can not be sacrificed.

On any coaligned altar, you can detect your items' status by simply dropping the stuff on the altar regardless of piety level. Furthermore, when any offering has been accepted, you'll notice your standing with your deity. The effects are:

"MORTAL, YE HAVE PESTERED ME FOR TOO LONG!" - summon solars/spectres/greater daemons
"Mortal, ye art a pest." A bolt of -damage type- hits you!
"*I* hereby punish thee, puny mortal" - equipment turned to dust
"You feel bad... very bad." - same piety level as above, dooming results if no equipment
"Take this for ye impunity!" - inventory cursed
"Mortal, you are a nuisance!"
You hear -deity- grumbling in anger.
For some seconds the ground rumbles.
Nothing else happens.
-deity- seems to be unconcerned.
-deity- seems to be pleased.
-deity- seems to be very pleased with you. - deity will bless water dropped on altar
You feel inner strength lifting you spirits. - same piety level as inner peace, deity grants the Lucky intrinsic, occurs only if the PC didn't have the Lucky intrinsic
You feel inner peace. - see above message about inner strength
You burn with the anticipation of power - chaotic equivalent of inner peace
You feel spiritually invincible.
You feel very close to -deity- - deity removes Cursed/Doomed intrinsics if present ("You feel a terrible gloom being lifted from you"), grants Fate Smiles intrinsic
You feel extremely close to -deity- - (pre/post)crowning possibility

Another message occurs only under the following circumstances: if a PC sacrifices enough to get to the spiritually invincible state in one turn, having neither the Lucky nor Fate Smiles intrinsics, the message "You feel spiritually elated!" is generated and the PC receives the Lucky and Fate Smiles intrinsics simultaneously. This works regardless of alignment. There may be more details to be worked out concerning this regarding possession of the Cursed and/or Doomed intrinsics.

Sacrificing items, gold or monsters on an altar can change the alignment of the PC or the alignment of the altar. In general, small sacrifices move the alignment of the PC towards the alignment of the altar. Note, however, that sacrificing at a lawful altar will not move a PCs alignment all the way to L+. Likewise, sacrificing at a chaotic altar will not move a PCs alignment all the way to C-. To achieve these alignments, the PC has to commit other lawful or chaotic acts, respectively (or wear an amulet corresponding to the desired alignment, preferably blessed). Large sacrifices move the alignment of the altar towards that of the PC. Live sacrifices can fall into either category depending on the experience level of the PC and the level of the monster being sacrificed. Converting the alignment of a PC or an altar with live sacrifices is a somewhat tricky and complicated business and can have dire consequences if the sacrificing is done incorrectly. Using gold is much more straightforward. To move a PC's alignment towards that of an altar, sacrifice small amounts of gold, 10 or 20 pieces, repeatedly. This will eventually result in a message: "*WELCOME BELIEVER*" when the PC's alignment changes to that of the altar. An additional message, "You feel your morals changing." occurs when changing from lawful to neutral on a chaotic altar or from chaotic to neutral on a lawful altar. The exception to this easy alignment conversion is the case of highly experienced chaotic PCs. More about that special case is found in section 4.3, ultra endings. To change the alignment of an altar to match the PC's, sacrifice at least 3000 gold at one time. The 3000 figure is a minimum; more may be required depending on the PC's experience level.

Some observations about sacrificing on nonaligned altars and changing the alignment of altars with live sacrifices:

Druids should be very careful to avoid sacrificing animals at any time.

Lawful gods do not like having lawful creatures sacrificed; neutral gods do not like having neutral creatures sacrificed; chaotic gods are indifferent. This makes the situation simplest for chaotic PCs. They can sacrifice anything on chaotic altars with no fear of alignment change. This also means the situation is at a dead end: chaotic PC + chaotic altar means no alignment change is possible.

Any time a PC sacrifices at a nonaligned altar, *two* gods are involved: the PC's god, who may accept a large enough sacrifice and fight the nonaligned god for control of the altar, and the nonaligned god, who may accept small sacrifices from the PC and move the PCs alignment towards that of the altar. This also means there are two gods who may object to live sacrifices. It is always unwise to sacrifice creatures of the PC's alignment or the altar's alignment. The exception is chaotic PCs sacrificing at chaotic altars as described above.

The fact that two deities are involved when sacrificing on a nonaligned altar means a puzzling phenomenon may occur when sacrificing your race's god's preferred items on a nonaligned altar. The PC's deity may be able to accept the sacrifice and "deeply appreciate" it while simutaneously the nonaligned deity is angered by the fact that a nonaligned PC used the altar. Depending on the PC's piety relationship with the nonaligned god (it is possible to have a piety relationship with more than one god), this may result in a "deeply appreciates" message as well as a negative effect such as inventory cursing or destruction.

A live sacrifice at a nonaligned altar behaves similarly to non-live sacrifices in that small sacrifices move the PC toward the alignment of the altar while large ones move the altar to the PC's alignment, but it is much more difficult to predict exactly what will happen. There are many factors involved: the PC's experience level, crowned vs uncrowned status, piety relationship with both the PC's god and the nonaligned god as well as the experience level of the monster being sacrificed. A goblin is considered a large sacrifice for a level one PC but small for a level ten PC. It is very difficult to predict exactly what will happen in borderline cases. After reaching experience level five or so, it becomes very risky to attempt an altar conversion using a low level live sacrifice such as an orc or goblin. The god's standards are higher than that by this point.

If the PC angers a god by sacrificing one of his creatures, several negative consequences may result. For example, if a PC sacrifices a creature of his own alignment his god responds with: "*BE WARNED! SACRIFICING MY OWN CREATURES IS NOT SOMETHING I WELCOME WITH JOY!*" Repeating this act results in: "*YOU DARE TO SACRIFICE ONE OF MY CREATURES?* *DEFILER*" This may be followed by: "-deity- luckily seems unconcerned." depending on the PC's piety level. Repeating again results in the same two messages followed by conversion of a neutral altar to chaotic. This example was done with a neutral PC, exp lvl 5, sacrificing neutrals on a neutral altar which became chaotic. The PC did not gain the cursed or doomed intrinsics, nor did his alignment change.

A second example: a chaotic PC sacrificing neutral creatures on a neutral altar: First: "*YOU DARE TO SACRIFICE ONE OF MY CREATURES?* *DEFILER* You suddenly hear a thundering voice. *I* hereby punish thee, puny mortal. Your equipment turns to dust." Next: "*I* hereby punish thee, puny mortal! You barely notice some thoughts: I can't believe it!" The second message here is because the PC was wearing artifacts and artifacts only. The PC did not gain the cursed or doomed intrinsics. If the PC had been wearing any non-artifact equipment, it would have been destroyed. If the PC wore nothing, he gained the doomed, and not the cursed, intrinsic.

The implication of the above paragraph should be obvious: Wear ARTIFACTS AND ARTIFACTS ONLY when attempting to convert an altar. Wield a si if necessary. This completely avoids the equipment destruction and dooming penalties.

It is not clear exactly what the criteria are for inventory cursing versus equipment destruction (turned to dust) versus dooming versus bolts versus summoning. Dooming should only occur when the offended god wants to destroy the PC's equipment when the PC is wearing no equipment. Once again, it seems to depend on the PC's experience level, crowned vs uncrowned status, general piety level with respect to his god and possibly the nonaligned god as well. There has been a report of immediately being blasted with a bolt of True Matter when unsuccessfully attempting to convert a neutral altar with a Champion of Law on D: 45, for instance.

The chart below shows all of the possible combinations for PCs sacrificing live monsters on aligned and nonaligned altars. The "altar moves to" field *assumes the sacrifice is successful*. A dash means there is no change in the altar; these are the "proper" sacrifices a PC makes in order to gain piety and move towards the extreme of his alignment. The "god irritated" field is as follows: Yes means the PC's god is irritated - a lawful PC tried to sacrifice a lawful creature or a neutral PC tried to sacrifice a neutral creature. No means the sacrifice was proper, the god accepted the sacrifice, the PC gains piety and moves closer to the extreme of his alignment. Fight means the original god who owned the altar fights, and loses every time, to the god taking possession of it. Note that the changes are stepwise: a lawful PC first changes a chaotic altar to neutral then to lawful.

How the PC's alignment or piety level changes when converting altars is not proven for all cases. Note the case of a neutral sacrificing neutrals on a neutral altar. It is correct as written. The altar moves to chaotic with no (or a very, very small) alignment change or other negative consequences to the PC. Also note the remarkable case of neutral PCs sacrificing neutral monsters on a chaotic altar. This converts the altar to neutral with no noticeable alignment change. Lawfuls sacrificing lawfuls on a lawful altar may convert the altar to neutral, but not always. The PC always receives a noticeable alignment drop.

This chart will be updated as research progresses.

PC    altar    live sac    altar moves to    PC moves towards    god irritated

L       L          L          - or N                N                 Yes
L       L          N             -                  L+                No
L       L          C             -                  L+                No
L       N          L             ?                  ?                 Yes
L       N          N             L                  ?                 Fight
L       N          C             L                  ?                 Fight
L       C          L             ?                  ?                 Yes
L       C          N             N                  ?                 Fight
L       C          C             N                  ?                 Fight

N       L          L             N                  ?                 Fight
N       L          N             ?                  ?                 Yes
N       L          C             N                  ?                 Fight
N       N          L             -                  N=                No
N       N          N             C                  -                 Yes
N       N          C             -                  N=                No
N       C          L             N                  ?                 Fight
N       C          N             N (?!)             -                 Fight (?!)
N       C          C             N                  ?                 No

C       L          L             N                  ?                 Fight
C       L          N             N                  ?                 Fight
C       L          C             N                  ?                 Fight
C       N          L             C                  ?                 No
C       N          N             C                  ?                 No
C       N          C             C                  ?                 No
C       C          L             -                  C-                No
C       C          N             -                  C-                No
C       C          C             -                  C-                No
Note that only champions of Neutrality or Order can convert the altars in the elemental temples.

If all of this has confused more than it has helped, here are some rules of thumb:

1) DO NOT sacrifice a creature whose alignment is the same as the PC's or the altar's. If you need to take advantage of live sacrifices to increase piety, only sacrifice nonaligned monsters on an aligned altar.

2) If you must convert an altar, do it with gold. It is much, much safer.

0.2.4 Recovering from errors.

Precautions:

When converting an altar, remove all gear except for artifacts. Also, remember that the bigger your sacrifice, the more likely it is that the altar converts - but remember, this sacrifice probably has minimal effect on piety, so don't make it ridiculously huge.

Dropping items on a nonaligned altar will make the deity that owns the altar angry. This causes some warning messages along the lines of "GET YOUR JUNK OFF MY ALTAR." Ordinarily this should be enough warning. If an extended drop command is used, however, there seems to be a bug present that allows the dropping to continue until the angry deity curses the inventory of the PC. Watch out for this.

If things go wrong:

1) Inventory cursed

By the time you have enough valuable stuff to sacrifice, you should be able to uncurse a cursed inventory with little trouble. Get to an aligned altar immediately. Bless your potions of water by dropping them on the altar if you are in sufficient standing with your deity. If not, sacrifice gold until you are. Dip a scroll of uncursing into your new holy water, read it, and voila, all of your stuff is back to uncursed status. Obviously, previously blessed status of inventory items has been lost.

2) Equipment turned to dust

This is why it's always recommended to remove non-artifacts before converting altars - you don't want to lose those seven league boots or that nifty sword of sharpness, do you?

3) Doomed

If the PC had no equipment, dooming rather than equipment turned to dust will occur. This is why the PC should have *some* equipment worn, even a si. It will be necessary to sacrifice enough to get your piety all the way up to very close, at which time the dooming will be removed. It is handy to know how to remove dooming and cursing in any case, since these intrinsics can be caused by things other than mistakes with altars - robbing shops with lawfuls, attacking karmics in melee and pools spring to mind.

4) The worst two - bolt and summoning

Ordinarily these never occur when mistakes with altars are made. It takes dooming then repeated additional prayers for a deity to get this mad. However, there are two situations where this will happen *immediately* - falling from champion status and sacrificing a gift from your deity. The deity casts an energy bolt at the PC, which, strangely enough, the PC seems to be immune to more often than not. The deity is further incensed by this and says "DAMN, YOU'LL SUFFER FOR THIS HUMILIATION TOO!" and summons creatures dependent on the deity: lawful deity - solars, neutral deity - spectres, chaotic diety - greater daemons. The exact sequence of events is dependent upon what the PC is doing, praying repeatedly while doomed or falling from champion staus. In the former case there may be additional monsters summoned prior to those listed above.

Another case which causes summoning is to get as far as possible from a particular god then sacrifice on that god's altar. For instance, if an initially chaotic PC sacrifices repeatedly on a neutral altar to achieve very good standing with the neutral god then sacrifices on a lawful altar, creatures may be summoned.

0.2.5 Crowning, precrowning and postcrowning

Pre- and postcrowning gives you a random artifact, which will be one of the non-guaranteed artifacts. The requirements for pre- and postcrowning are:

* precrowning occurs only if the PC is not of extreme alignment (not L+, N= or C-)
* extremely close
* character level >= 8 + 3 * artifacts generated.

Crowning can occur at any experience level.

Postcrowning doesn't include the non-extreme alignment restriction.

Note that PCs who achieve precrowning or crowning may never again see the "extremely close" status message. In this case, determining whether the PC has sufficient piety for further precrownings, crowning or postcrowning is a matter of trial and error. This is not as bad as it might seem, since praying uses up very little piety if prayers "remain unheard" - that is, the deity does nothing.

These seem to be the most important requirements in g16p2 - for instance, the PC may be wearing cursed items and the pre- or postcrowning will still occur.

For crowning, the PC must be at extreme alignment and extremely close (or have enough piety at very close). The PC must not be intrinsically Cursed or Doomed for any type of crowning. Ordinarily, this will never be a problem, since achieving very close status removes these intrinsics. However, if the PC is wearing or wielding an item that causes Cursing or Dooming (the Crown of Science, Executor, etc.), crowning will not occur. Upon crowning, the PC receives an immunity, an artifact crowning gift which is preselected from a list of appropriate items for the PC's race and class (see section 0.2.4.1 below), a blessed amulet matching the PC's alignment, a permanent blessing, the ability to convert elemental altars for champions of Balance and Order, to wear artifacts and other food consumption adding items with less burden on metabolism and to pray more often.

Note that the immunity received will not be one the PC already has, whether through eating appropriate corpses or worn items. For instance, if the PC is wearing the Ring of Immunity at crowning time, he will receive no immunity at all - take it off! Likewise, the Ancient Mummy Wrapping can be worn or the scorched spear wielded at crowning time to ensure the PC does not receive the rather undesirable immunity to cold.

The immunity the PC receives can be figured out by the message that it gives:

Acid: "You look forward to be digested by Chaos Lords / Lords of Order themselves."
Cold: "You feel prepared for the most chilling tasks."
Fire: "You no longer fear the heat of all hells combined."
Shock: "You feel that neither thunder nor lightning will be able to prevent the success of your mission."

Getting pre- or post-crowned increases the piety required for further pre- or post-crownings.

As an example to show how this works quantitatively, Malte Helmert did the following research using gold as the sole sacrificial item:

> I made some experiments with a human druid (neutral), got WADOMF and hacked
> a copy of my binary especially for that guy. Went straight to dwarftown,
> don't remember the PC's level. Anyway, I made a series of checks to find out
> the lower bounds on money required. When a certain amount seemed sufficient
> to get to extremely close, I reloaded and tried again with 10,000 less to
> check if it is really minimal.
>
> Results:
> First crowning took 100,000 gp
> First postcrowning took only 40,000 gp (!)
> Second postcrowning took 180,000 gp
> Third postcrowning took 500,000 gp
> Fourth postcrowning took 970,000 gp
> Fifth postcrowning took 1,600,000 gp.
> Didn't check further, what's the point anyway.
>
> All postcrownings took place at extremely close, so I wondered if it is
> possible to be crowned/postcrowned at very close. It turned out that this
> was only the case for the second postcrowning, for which then 160,000 gp
> seemed sufficient.
>
> I also wondered whether there as a difference between saccing 100,000 in one
> go or in ten parts of 10,000 gp. It did not make any difference.
>
> I then tried to measure the negative impact of praying before being able to
> get crowned (something you occasionally do when you think you should be able
> to get (pre-) crowned though still at very close). It was quite small: If
> I sacced 10,000, then prayed, sacced 10,000, then prayed, and so on, it took
> me 110,000 rather than 100,000 to get crowned. I suppose the cost of praying
> might be higher if your god actually does something, though. In my case the
> prayers simply remained unheard, since I was fully healed etc.
>
> Last check was with "overflow". If I sac 200,000 rather than 100,000, do the
> extra 100,000 do me any good or is the piety reset to some fixed value after
> crowning? It turned out that you can safely sac more: It gets carried over.
>
> I did not make quantitative checks, but saccing about 4,000,000 gp (don't
> remember exactly), then praying six times in a row gave me a crowning gift
> and five postcrowning gifts.
>
> Don't really know if this matters, since by the time you have that money
> (casino and so on), you're normally no longer able to be pre/postcrowned,
> but maybe it's interesting to know all the same.

0.2.5.1 Possible crowning gifts for each class

Note that Dwarves of any class can receive Hammerhead as a crowning gift. Likewise, High Elves and Gray elves can receive Sun's Messenger as a crowning gift. This research was last verified in gamma 14 by Lee Morgan. In general, there are six possible gifts. There are exceptions: see Barbarian, Beastfighter, Mindcrafter, Paladin, Thief and Wizard.

Andrew Skalski has recently (June 27th, 2001) provided the explanation for this. By examining the g16p2 executable, he determined that there are indeed less than six possible crowning gifts for these classes. However, the blank spots are filled in with a duplicate of one of the possibilities. This means that these classes are twice as likely to receive one of the doubled possibilities. The updated table below now reflects these observations. The order the artifacts are listed in is alphabetical and has no significance.

ARCHER

1. Boots of the Divine Messenger
2. Farslayer
3. Sun's Messenger
4. Thunderstroke
5. True Aim
6. Whirlwind

ASSASSIN

1. Cloak of Oman
2. Death's Blade
3. Emerald Dagger
4. Executor
5. Farslayer
6. Kinslayer

BARBARIAN

1. Death's Blade
2. Grod
3. Skullcrusher
4. Skullcrusher
5. Vanquisher
6. Vanquisher

BARD

1. Boots of the Divine Messenger
2. Cat's Claw
3. Cloak of Oman
4. Staff of the Wanderer
5. Trusted One
6. Whirlwind

BEASTFIGHTER

1. Boots of the Divine Messenger
2. Bracers of War
3. Cloak of Oman
4. Nature's Companion
5. Nature's Companion
6. Preserver

DRUID

1. Black Thumb
2. Nature's Companion
3. Nature's Friend
4. Purifier
5. Staff of the Wanderer
6. Whirlwind

ELEMENTALIST

1. Brannalbin's Cloak of Defense
2. Iron Crown of Havlor
3. Nature's Friend
4. Ring of Immunity
5. Staff of the Archmagi
6. Staff of the Wanderer

FARMER

1. Hammer of the Gods
2. Long Sting
3. Nature's Friend
4. Shirt of the Saints
5. Skullcrusher
6. Whirlwind

FIGHTER

1. Bracers of War
2. Death's Blade
3. Grod
4. Long Sting
5. Protector
6. Vanquisher

HEALER

1. Brannalbin's Cloak of Defense
2. Preserver
3. Robes of Resistance
4. Shezestriakis
5. Shirt of the Saints
6. Staff of the Wanderer

MERCHANT

1. Boots of the Divine Messenger
2. Crown of Leadership
3. Iron Crown of Havlor
4. Shezestriakis
5. Staff of the Wanderer
6. Trusted One

MINDCRAFTER

1. Brannalbin's Cloak of Defense
2. Iron Crown of Havlor
3. Ring of Immunity
4. Robes of Resistance
5. Robes of Resistance
6. Staff of The Wanderer

MONK

1. Boots of the Divine Messenger
2. Iron Crown of Havlor
3. Ring of Immunity
4. Robes of Resistance
5. Shezestriakis
6. Shirt of the Saints

NECROMANCER

1. Kinslayer
2. Preserver
3. Ring of Immunity
4. Robes of Resistance
5. Staff of the Archmagi
6. Vanquisher

PALADIN

1. Aylas Holy Scarf
2. Hammer of the Gods
3. Justifier
4. Justifier
5. Perion's Plate Mail
6. Trusted One

PRIEST

1. Aylas Holy Scarf
2. Hammer of the Gods
3. Justifier
4. Purifier
5. Shirt of the Saints
6. Skullcrusher

RANGER

1. Boots of the Divine Messenger
2. Bugbiter
3. Nature's Companion
4. Nature's Friend
5. Sun's Messenger
6. True Aim

THIEF

1. Cat's Claw
2. Cloak of Oman
3. Silver Key
4. True Aim
5. Whirlwind
6. Whirlwind

WEAPONSMITH

1. Bracers of War
2. Hammer of the Gods
3. Perion's Plate Mail
4. Protector
5. Ring of Immunity
6. Skullcrusher

WIZARD

1. Brannalbin's Cloak of Defense
2. Ring of Immunity
3. Robes of Resistance
4. Staff of the Archmagi
5. Staff of the Archmagi
6. Staff of the Wanderer

0.2.6 Piety loss

As referred to in the manual, a PC's piety level is determined by the sacrifices made to the PC's god. Remember that the value of sacrifices is dependent on a PC's race. Piety level constantly decreases with time, so sacrifices made in the early game will have little effect after many game turns have passed. In practice, this means that a PC who wants to keep his god happy should sacrifice items throughout the game. If a PC wants to be (pre- post- or normally) crowned, he should have a very large cache of valuable material to sacrifice. This can include live sacrifices, of course, which are always valuable.


Updated July 21st, 2001
© Copyright Andrew Williams 2000-2001