The Tavern

Imagine you're playing a MuAr. You won your last game so there's a chance for a streak here.

No particularly special equipment has been found so far (you have a +0 dagger of draining and a +1 short sword of speed). You don't have any remove curse scrolls, unidentified scrolls, cursed equipment or spells.

Would you choose one of those gods, and if yes, which one? Or would you continue forward to D:3 without a god? I already made my decision, but I would be interested in hearing other opinions.

What I did:

If I had some wand charges left, I'd just wait for other altars, since none of those gods increases my immediate survival prospects who am I kidding I'd pick xom in a heartbeat.

Fun fact: I have more Ar streak-breakers (3) than CK streak-brakers (2). Neither has been a part of a streak. Somehow I don't think I would do well with an Ar of Xom :)

I might pick Vehumet since Vehumet, while bad, is extremely convenient, and Ar is not really a background that has trouble streaking. But if I'm trying to play optimally then I'm going on without a god because all of those gods are complete ass.

Vehumet is guaranteed to provide you with something usable by lair. Ash is a crap shoot. The other two actively decrease your chances of winning.

I'd probably skip, but if I was taking one it would be veh.

When I read the scroll of magic mapping and found four more altars, I was sure there would be at least one remotely good god, but no. It's just very hard for me to refuse a (non-Xom/Chei/Qaz) god on D:2. What if the next suitable altars are in a D:7 Temple? The earlier I get even some help from the god, the better. In a 3-rune game it doesn't matter so much what god I have in the late game.

Yeah, I guess Veh would have been better. I refused it because I thought it's painful to build a caster from scratch with such low int but then again, for example elementalists only have 3 more int...

Well, I'm about to enter Lair and I think things are not too bad regarding equipment and curses. I have a +2 scimitar and a +3 great sword of freezing for melee.

No streak for me and I'm stupid...

Should have gone Chei. But honestly, I'd probably have gone to d:3 without a god. I'm horrible with ash, don't take veh if I don't have spells, and wouldn't take Xom. Qaz could be an option, but it'd be tough to pair that with a mummy early on. I'd be looking for a simple power boost god with no downsides, like an okawaru or makhleb probably.

I don't think Ash is that bad for a mummy.

- You insta-id the remove curse scrolls, so you can get those going and get bound bonuses pretty fast.
- Similar to Vehumet, you don't need to train invocations...which is good because mummies have bad aptitude at that too. Less bad than others, but still bad.
- If you roll spider as an S branch, this is one of the few gods other than Gozag where you have counterplay against tarentellas/confuse in general, and this also keeps you more out of trouble for those "0 MR items before depths" games if you get shoals.
- The extra training early from being bound helps mummy get stuff going in time for lair.

It's not going to just carry you, but an artificer with this should make it out of the early game no problem.

Getting rekt by Sojobo is unfortunate. I usually use a silence scroll of some variety vs Sojobo when encountered that early. Much less scary with no magic + getting whaled on by evoked items/summons.

I'd look for Gozag on a mummy artificer.