Myrva the Melodious

[Berder]

Myrva the Melodious loves music and singing. Myrva knows there is a magic to music, and music in magic. Myrva helps followers spread the song of Myrva and gather a choir around them. Myrva hates discordance, and allows followers to silence those who would interfere with the song.

Abilities:
[Passive]: You and your allies, and those lost in song, are immune to silence
[Passive]: You are immune to mesmerize
[Passive]: Myrva demands that you cast spells in song. This amounts to a wizardry penalty which is initially small but increases with piety, amounting to a negative ring of wizardry at full piety.
[Passive]: Myrva boosts your spellpower by a factor of X, which is the loudness of your song. Your spell noise is also multiplied by X. X increases with Invocations.
*: Whenever you sing (cast spells), all creatures in LOS have a chance to be momentarily distracted by the song. This distraction prevents them from acting by resetting their energy. The chance increases with piety and invocations, and decreases with the HD of the monster.
**: Whenever you sing, creatures in LOS have a chance to become lost in song. This chance increases with piety and invocations, and decreases with the HD of the monster. It is a much smaller chance than the chance of distracting enemies. A creature that is lost in song is neutral, and cannot attack or use spells or abilities. Creatures remain lost in song for about 10 turns. Note that they are not allies, and will not follow you. Myrva doesn't mind if you kill them.
***: Song of Myrva: costs 2 mp. Myrva inspires you. You may sing at any time, regardless of whether you are casting spells. This ability creates a status "Singing" which lasts based on your invocations. Noise also depends on invocations.
***: Quietude: costs 2 mp, 3-5 piety. You smite-target a square, and an aura of silence appears centered on that square. Radius and duration depend on Invocations.
****: Choir of Myrva: creatures who are lost in song sing (or croak, roar, etc) along with you. This is loud, and boosts your spellpower. The spellpower boost increases with higher Invocations and for more creatures singing along.

Myrva appreciates when the song of Myrva is heard by many. You gain piety for singing and killing monsters at the same time.

[Pollen_Golem]

Myrva hates discordance, and allows followers to silence those who would interfere with the song.

Myrva doesn't mind if you kill them.

You gain piety for singing and killing monsters at the same time.

Myrva especially appreciates it when you kill monsters who sing along with you.

[bcadren]

[Passive]: You and your allies, and those lost in song, are immune to silence

That by itself is too powerful. Cast Silence with NO COST at all. The other passives are effectively "Wild Magic" mutation, the god ability. Those by themselves are incredibly powerful; without any of the other abilities.

[Berder]

Myrva hates discordance, and allows followers to silence those who would interfere with the song.

Myrva doesn't mind if you kill them.

You gain piety for singing and killing monsters at the same time.

Myrva especially appreciates it when you kill monsters who sing along with you.

The 1812 Overture is played with cannons, you know. The only difference here is you're aiming them at the orchestra!

[Passive]: You and your allies, and those lost in song, are immune to silence

That by itself is too powerful. Cast Silence with NO COST at all.

It's powerful, but only against spellcasting enemies that can be silenced. The game is still plenty dangerous without those.

The other passives are effectively "Wild Magic" mutation, the god ability. Those by themselves are incredibly powerful; without any of the other abilities.

Compare it to Vehumet, who is basically two rings of wizardry plus a range enhancer, plus spell gifts and MP returning, and Vehumet doesn't even require invocations or have any downside at all really. I'd say the disadvantages of this god (-wiz, having to train invocations, lots of noise) balance the advantages (spellpower, silence, disabling enemies).

By the way - the intent is that the song can be heard over the silence. So using silence prevents enemies from spellcasting, but doesn't prevent others from hearing your noisy self and flocking to your position.

[Pollen_Golem]

Myrva strongly dislikes it when you cast Silence.

[Berder]

Myrva strongly dislikes it when you cast Silence.

Being able to use the spell Silence when you have weak melee is the inspiration for Myrva. That's why Myrva has invocable silence.

[bcadren]

Myrva the Melodious loves music and singing. Myrva knows there is a magic to music, and music in magic. Myrva helps followers spread the song of Myrva and gather a choir around them. Myrva hates discordance, and allows followers to silence those who would interfere with the song.

Abilities:
[Passive]: You and your allies, and those lost in song, are immune to silence
[Passive]: You are immune to mesmerize
[Passive]: Myrva demands that you cast spells in song. This amounts to a wizardry penalty which is initially small but increases with piety, amounting to a negative ring of wizardry at full piety.
[Passive]: Myrva boosts your spellpower by a factor of X, which is the loudness of your song. Your spell noise is also multiplied by X. X increases with Invocations.
*: Whenever you sing (cast spells), all creatures in LOS have a chance to be momentarily distracted by the song. This distraction prevents them from acting by resetting their energy. The chance increases with piety and invocations, and decreases with the HD of the monster.
**: Whenever you sing, creatures in LOS have a chance to become lost in song. This chance increases with piety and invocations, and decreases with the HD of the monster. It is a much smaller chance than the chance of distracting enemies. A creature that is lost in song is neutral, and cannot attack or use spells or abilities. Creatures remain lost in song for about 10 turns. Note that they are not allies, and will not follow you. Myrva doesn't mind if you kill them.
***: Song of Myrva: costs 2 mp. Myrva inspires you. You may sing at any time, regardless of whether you are casting spells. This ability creates a status "Singing" which lasts based on your invocations. Noise also depends on invocations.
***: Quietude: costs 2 mp, 3-5 piety. You smite-target a square, and an aura of silence appears centered on that square. Radius and duration depend on Invocations.
****: Choir of Myrva: creatures who are lost in song sing (or croak, roar, etc) along with you. This is loud, and boosts your spellpower. The spellpower boost increases with higher Invocations and for more creatures singing along.

Myrva appreciates when the song of Myrva is heard by many. You gain piety for singing and killing monsters at the same time.

I'll pick all of this apart then.

• Immune to Silence means you can cast silence as much as you want and still cast. This makes some of the worst threats in the game trivial [Ancient Liches, Greater Mummies, etc.] Yes; Tomb will probably be easier with Myrma than it would with Kiku.
• Immunity to Mesmerize affects exactly one enemy. I have no opinion because it's such a tiny effect.
• Spellpower boosted by X, which is your Invocations; basically is the same as if one spell school (invocations) added to all your spells. This could be extremely powerful to the point of broken in the ease it would give to getting maximum spellpower on things; the -Wizardry would make it harder to get spells castable in the first place; but most players would be able to get around this with "Wizardry or a +Int artifact. Effectively with good Invo; you could have most the spellschools at max power and be much more fluid than normal characters.
• Multiplying noise; you do just mean Casting noise, right? Multiplying casting noise (which is between 1 and 5) is reasonable. Multiplying spell noise (like the 50 noise of a crack of thunder after a lightning bolt) would easily overtake Shield of the Gong as loudest thing in the game.
• Noise as your primary cost to be very powerful steps on Qazlal's toes.
• Distracted by Song and Lost and Song both step on Ru's toes. [Similar to Aura of Power].
• Choir seems unnecessarily complicated and advocates bad behavior (keep weaker creatures following you for free +Spellpower).
• Immune to silence on it's own is powerful; with the god also having a source of silence...ehh; remove quietude and require the player to find a book with Silence to use it, at least.

As for who would use it; Skalds would benefit the most actually; as would Enchanters, ironically enough. In both cases, they have spells that are easy to cast (low level) and very reliant on spellpower. IE: Ozo's Armour with a huge Spellpower boost means A LOT more AC; while since it's only 3 spell levels, the -Wiz is almost 0 cost to getting it online. Similar note for getting Confuse or Tukima's to pierce MR. Conjurers could use it; but the -Wiz would actually hurt their ability to get later spells online and they would actually have to train the individual schools more than Invo because of this. If this god ever came to existence; I'd recommend an IE to try it; rely on melee and boosted Ozo's Armour early; use a Staff of Wiz to get Cone of Coldness online late. Branch into Air for Freezing Cloud, Repel Missiles and Silence.

[Berder]

• Immune to Silence means you can cast silence as much as you want and still cast. This makes some of the worst threats in the game trivial [Ancient Liches, Greater Mummies, etc.] Yes; Tomb will probably be easier with Myrma than it would with Kiku.

And how is that so different from a melee-focused character who picks up Silence on the side? He can still do what he does best (hit things) while silenced, and it does trivialize aliches and greater mummies. Allowing a mage to do the same thing is not that different.

• Immunity to Mesmerize affects exactly one enemy. I have no opinion because it's such a tiny effect.

Fair enough.

• Spellpower boosted by X, which is your Invocations

I'll cut you off right there because X is not your invocations. I said X increases with your invocations, in a manner unspecified. For example, X = 1.5 at invocations 20 seems reasonable to me. That's a 50% boost to pre-stepdown spellpower, same as archmagi, but requires 20 invo. If that turns out to be excessive, some other scaling could be devised. I don't think it is excessive by comparison to the gobs of MP Veh gives you. On one "tank" of MP, a Veh character could usually dish out more damage.

• Multiplying noise; you do just mean Casting noise, right? Multiplying casting noise (which is between 1 and 5) is reasonable. Multiplying spell noise (like the 50 noise of a crack of thunder after a lightning bolt) would easily overtake Shield of the Gong as loudest thing in the game.

I mean multiplying all spell noise. It wouldn't be a meaningful downside if it only applied to quiet noises. The god is powerful, and that is in part balanced by being loud.

• Noise as your primary cost to be very powerful steps on Qazlal's toes.
• Distracted by Song and Lost and Song both step on Ru's toes. [Similar to Aura of Power].

First, noise is not the only downside. Having to invest XP in invocations is another, and -wiz is the third, all of them very major.

The list of gods that have similar powers to each other is very long. Ru's aura of power is similar to Zin's Recite. Recite, in turn, is noisy and used constantly, similar to Qazlal. Beogh grants permanent allies - so does Yred. Yred helps with the undead - so does Kiku. Sif grants MP - so does Vehumet. TSO grants temporary allies - so does Trog. Jiyva grants good mutations - so does Xom. Qazlal gives you direct damage invocations - so does Makhleb. etc. etc.

• Choir seems unnecessarily complicated and advocates bad behavior (keep weaker creatures following you for free +Spellpower).

They are neutral and don't attack, and thus it's difficult to make them follow you. I think it could be an interesting mechanic, as it effectively boosts your spellpower if you fight in the same place for a while - something which, due to the noise, will happen a lot.

This is a less essential part of the god, so perhaps it could be replaced with something else. Why don't you come up with something?

• Immune to silence on it's own is powerful; with the god also having a source of silence...ehh; remove quietude and require the player to find a book with Silence to use it, at least.

And have one of the god's main advantages tied to something that doesn't even appear in many games? That would be too much of a risk for players.

As for who would use it; Skalds would benefit the most actually; as would Enchanters, ironically enough. In both cases, they have spells that are easy to cast (low level) and very reliant on spellpower. IE: Ozo's Armour with a huge Spellpower boost means A LOT more AC; while since it's only 3 spell levels, the -Wiz is almost 0 cost to getting it online. Similar note for getting Confuse or Tukima's to pierce MR. Conjurers could use it; but the -Wiz would actually hurt their ability to get later spells online and they would actually have to train the individual schools more than Invo because of this. If this god ever came to existence; I'd recommend an IE to try it; rely on melee and boosted Ozo's Armour early; use a Staff of Wiz to get Cone of Coldness online late. Branch into Air for Freezing Cloud, Repel Missiles and Silence.

It's aimed at blaster casters, since they are the ones who care most about spellpower. They also have weaker melee which means they also care about the silence immunity. Blaster casters of Myrva would have to satisfy themselves with somewhat lower level spells, which is often a good idea even for Vehumet followers. Wild magic is generally good for conjurers.

But yes, anyone who relies on spells a lot and cares more about their spellpower than their castability could benefit.

[celem]

Hah, quite like this one actually. Just a shame it slightly steps on Qaz's toes since he is the resident noisemaker. Can totally see me running a skald with song of slaying under this god.

Could be fun to have the idea of 'singing a spell' be a multi-turn action for increased spellpower or similar. (think chant of entropy/word of recall) Would allow you to choose between slinging off the attack or doing it properly for the glory of your god and increased destruction.

Love the choir concept.

Rather than silence immunity whilst singing I'd be more inclined to have the god buff you if you get silenced (discounting self-imposed). The god is so outraged at the interruption that it rewards you (something like a powered-by-pain thing maybe).

Greatly appreciates killing monsters who know the spell silence.
Punishes on: Reading ?noise, equipping 'noisy' items.
Excommunicates on: Equipping Shield of the Gong/Singing Sword (Myrva hates the screaming), casting Discord.

[treerex5]

Small boost to "singing" abilities, also no wizcost on "singing spells" (see skald starting book)

[Pollen_Golem]

Hitting singing monsters makes them come to their senses, right?

You gotta consider how singing works on summons.
I can imagine necromancers parading through Orc with a marching band of screeching zombies in the rear.

Wrath must be a bitch for this god.
You dice the sleeping naga like an onion!
Myerva moves you! You break into song!
The naga warrior shouts! x3
You can't read scrolls while you're singing.
The naga warrior joins you in song, drawing power from your voice! x2

Bender's inspiration: www.youtube.com/watch?v=GJej6kCgxVM

If there's one mechanic left for Crawl to implement, it's conga lines.

[Berder]

Hitting singing monsters makes them come to their senses, right?

Yeah, I think that would be fair.

[Pollen_Golem]

LeEn^Myerva, confuse and enslave: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mlufxatPxnA

[Sivar]

FR: casting Death's Door at max piety makes you yell the chorus to Crawling

[Curio]

God of Music and Singing in CrawL? Like it!
Like it more because of new possible caster god. Sif has active mp regen and spells, Veh has passive mp regen and spells, Myr have nothing of it BUT it protects from silence - one giant weakness of spellcasters, and i think that's not overpowered at all. My proposals:
replace * ability because it very similar to Ru and overlaps with ** ability. What if 1st ability was *Inspiration? You have a chance to cast ("sing") a spell without spending MP/at a half price, scaling with Invo. Higher chance for lowlevel spells, lower chance for highlevel spells. Compliments spellcaster backgrounds even more.
** ability - like it!
*** Song of Myrva - i don't really get what it does.
*** Quietude - like it!
**** Choir of Myrva may be reworked into LOS damage dealing ability. The more creatures in LOS could scream/croak/etc. - the more resonance ( damage ) everything in LOS receives.

Remove mesmeresation passive and just make player tt command "a melodic shout of great magnitude"(a bit more louder than scroll of noise). Therefore you would be able to break mesmeresation at will but also can gather monsters in your LOS for Choir. Also it's thematic

I don't have any problem with Qazlals overlapping. We have two different Death gods for fuck's sake. Quazlal is a loud god of storms and elemental powers, Myrva is a loud god of Song and Music. They share one aspect, nothing more.

As for overpoweredness - it's better to make god strong at first and nerf the excess. Otherwise we get something like Gozag

[Pollen_Golem]

You have a chance to cast ("sing") a spell without spending MP/at a half price

I'd like MP cost shaving better. E.G. passive (20+piety/3)% chance of -1MP.

**** Choir of Myrva may be reworked into LOS damage dealing ability. The more creatures in LOS could scream/croak/etc. - the more resonance ( damage ) everything in LOS receives.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tA3dzBrXYtc

[tasonir]

This may be getting ahead of myself, but if choir was a full LOS damage ability, I'd love to have it work this way:

Caster deals damage based on invocations, and it scales up strongly to high damage. Something like 15 + invo * 2.

Monsters and allies deal damage based on HD, and it's relatively low damage, even for high HD monsters. Maybe something like HD/3 or even HD/5.

All targets are immune to their own damage - you don't take your own damage, monsters don't take damage they produce themselves, but you take damage from every other singer, allied or not.

So if you're against a small number of targets you can do decent damage to them and take small damage back, but if there is a large swarm you will know you can instantly kill everything - the whole swarm will be taking something like 80 damage. But in exchange, you're also taking 40 damage yourself. It is, of course, a loud action, and you may have more monsters nearby soon.

Numbers approximate, but I think they give an idea of what's intended. 80 damage may be too low even, the idea is with a swarm of ~10 monsters, you should be able to fully clear the screen in exchange for the self-damage you're taking.