Secret-keeper god

[Berder]

Haldane the Caretaker - once a trusted and powerful servant of the wizard Zot, Haldane was privy to many secrets of the dungeon's bizarre architecture. With Zot gone, Haldane's ghostly voice now speaks from within the walls. It is a mystery who or what Haldane is now. The voice of Haldane can lead his followers to secret treasures and hidden passageways.

Appreciates: killing mindless, plant, or animal-intelligence servants of the dungeon. Haldane despises these lesser beings who once served Zot alongside him.
Dislikes: the use of mindless, plant, or animal-intelligence allies. These will be hostile to you, and cause piety loss if you summon them.

Most of Haldane's abilities are passive; it's up to him how much to tell you.


detect traps (passive). All traps are revealed to you.

warn of danger (passive). Haldane will warn you when you approach a door or stairs, if there will be many dangerous monsters in LOS after using that door/stairs.


The chance of the next two abilities triggering on a given turn depends on your piety. They only trigger when exploring new terrain.

Reveal hidden passageway (passive). Haldane shows you a hidden runed door in a wall in LOS. Behind this door is a corridor. The corridor may lead straight through the wall to another runed door at the other side, or it may twist around within the wall for a while before exiting far away (at another runed door). It may also be a dead end. There is a small chance, increasing with piety, that there will be treasure or even a small treasure room within the corridor. For this ability to work, the wall must be thick enough for a secret passageway (minimum width 3). Passageways may be found in metal, stone, rock, and even trees. If the walls are acid, the walls of the passageway will be stone or rock.

Reveal lever (passive). Haldane shows you a hidden switch, panel, or lever on a square in LOS. Squares beside walls are preferred but any floor square may contain a lever. When you are standing over the square, you gain the ability to pull the lever. The effect is random but is described to you before you pull the lever. Possible effects:
- cage: A cage falls from the ceiling. You are surrounded by grates. This damages and pushes away any adjacent creatures.
- passage: pulling the lever reveals a hidden passageway (as above). The door on your end of the passage will be open.
- bomb: explosions fill LOS, similar to Qazlal's Disaster Area. The strength of this explosion depends on your piety.
- activate traps: many traps fill LOS. These may be mechanical traps, teleport traps, or shafts.
- hatch: creates an escape hatch on your current square

*****: Appeal to Haldane. Costs 5-10 piety. In a desperate situation, you may call out to Haldane, and he may answer by showing you one or more levers or passageways in LOS. The chance of this succeeding, and the number of features revealed, depends on piety. It's not guaranteed that Haldane will answer but you always must pay the piety cost.


wrath: Haldane creates and activates numerous traps. Haldane hides traps from your view. Your trap detection chance is set to 0%.

[bcadren]

[Berder]

I should point out that this "hidden doors" god actually creates the passages and levers, and then they are not hidden - it's just thematically framed as him telling you about secrets that were already there. There's no gameplay element of searching for hidden doors. It's not anything like the hidden doors that the game used to have.

[dowan]

It's interesting, but overall seems rather lackluster. Plus the lever thing seems to encourage dragging enemies to it in case of the traps or bombs. Also, does the cage trap end after some time, or are you just depending on the player to have some method of escape?

I think if the stair/door warning was changed to allow you to peek down a set of stairs, or through a door, it'd be a lot more useful, although I understand that doesn't go with the passive theme you have going.

I suppose the strength of the treasure that you might find kinda determines the power level of this god. I don't know how you can strategize around this god, as his acts seem pretty random. It'd be nice to have the lever that summons explosions appear when you went down to V:5, but it's nothing you could depend on or plan around, and it seems it'd be a bad idea to use the Appeal to Haldane ability in that situation. In fact, it seems like the only real use for appeal would be gambling for treasure rooms.

The more I think about it, the more this sounds like Xom-lite.

[Greyr]

The only secret is why this hasn't been implemented yet

[XuaXua]

Little too much stepping on Ashenzari territory for me.

[twelwe]

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