God Proposal: Uru Lai Kah, the Sturdy

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Uru Lai Kah, the Sturdy

The sightless, subterranean god of earth and ore, Uru Lai Kah grants worshipers stone-like resilience and dominion over rock. Uru Lai Kah will protect adventurers from hostile polymorph and translocation effects (though not banishment), but frowns upon intentional use of teleportation or blinking, preferring that you use a secret network of sacred ley stones for the purposes of quick travel. Although Uru Lai Kah does not actively punish flying, devotees who are not in contact with the earth will be deprived of Uru Lai Kah’s divine abilities until they reconnect with terra firma.

Rationale:
Versatile, defense-oriented god who 1.) devalues common maneuvering and escape options (teleport, blinking, and flight); 2.) alters how you explore the dungeon and think about your surroundings; and 3.) provides several abilities that involve interesting trade-offs, producing powerful effects but exposing you at the same time in various ways, via creating lots of noise, removing cover, and taking extra time (some of Uru’s abilities take longer than 10 aut).

Appreciates:
+ Returning enemies to the bosom of the earth (Killing dudes)
+ Bonus piety for killing flying dudes

Depreciates:
+ Intentional teleportation or blinking (penance). Intentionally using teleportation or blinking while under penance will result in wrath and further piety loss.

Wrath:
Any of Uru’s wrath effects may be accompanied by an extremely loud noise at your location. All ley stones are closed while under penance/wrath. All walls are indestructible while under penance/wrath.
+ Earthquake: Only happens when you haven’t been on level for very long. High chance to wake enemies, level-wide.
+ Uru may remove, shift, or place walls around you.
+ Uru may permanently increase regeneration rate and/or the AC of an enemy or set of enemies you are fighting.
+ Uru may shaft you up to 1d3 levels, but will not drop you into a new branch (you won’t go from dungeon 16 to depths), nor will Uru shaft you down into a branch end. (Even the god of stone has a heart!)
+ Uru may sic denizens of the earth against you; strength of the enemies is determined based on your character level.

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Explanation:

“Pebble of Uru Lai Kah”
+ Stalwart. Passive. +2 AC. You are immune to hostile polymorph. You are immune to unintentional teleport, blinking, etc. (but you are *not* immune to banishment).
+ Remove Wall. Active ability. Small hunger cost, no piety cost, 2 MP. Touch range. Silently erodes one adjacent rock wall.
+ Ley Stone: 1d4 pairs of ley stones spawn randomly on all levels; these are enchanted, marked segments of wall on the interior “lining” of the level. Uru protects ley stones from destruction of any kind. Exactly one of these pairs of ley stones, per level, is guaranteed to be “open” at 1 piety or higher (i.e., not under penance). The others have random piety values between 20 and 120. If you have more than the required piety, the ley stone is open. If you are next to an open ley stone, you may use the “Sacred Tunnel” ability. This requires merging with the stone, which takes 30 aut, after which you are moved to a viable space near the sister ley stone. After use, the ley stone loses its magic and becomes an ordinary wall (and is no longer under Uru’s protection). Locations of ley stones are permanently pre-mapped (like portal vaults), whether they are open or closed, their open/closed status based on current piety is indicated. Which ley stone is paired with which is indicated via color coding or some such.

* “Rock”
+ Spirit of Stone. Toggle on-off passive. Entering Spirit of Stone takes 30 aut; exiting is instantaneous. You enjoy enhanced regen and an earthen barrier that provides bonus AC that scales up with piety, however your earthen barrier can be damaged when it takes hits, lowering the AC bonus until the barrier regenerates (which happens automatically). While regenerating health and/or repairing your earthen barrier in Spirit of Stone, random rock walls adjacent to you may erode, creating moderate noise in the process. If no viable rock walls are in LOS your barrier cannot self-repair and you get no bonus to health regeneration.

Note: Flying or transmuting to a form will immediately end Spirit of Stone. Upon activation, spirit of stone overrides Stone Skin or Ozocubu’s Armour, and prevents the casting of those spells while active. Spirit of Stone breaks icy envelope Demonspawn mutation and prevents its re-reformation while active. Gargoyles do not get extra AC from Spirit of Stone, but do benefit from the increased regeneration. 

** “Wall”
+ Shard of Earth. Active ability. Moderate hunger cost, small piety cost, 3 MP. Must be adjacent to at least one rock wall to use. Randomly destroys one adjacent rock wall. Sends a concussive blast of stony debris as a projectile at a target. Power and range scales up with piety. (Max range 6 squares, max damage a bit less than throw icicle, both max out around 140 piety.)

*** “Rampart”
+ Remove Wall ability can now affect stone. However, removing stone walls takes 20 aut and produces an extremely loud noise.
+ Echolocation. Active ability. Moderate hunger cost, moderate piety cost, 5 MP. Creates an extremely loud noise and gives limited, piety-dependent magic mapping centered on your location.

**** “Tower”
+ Earthwork. Active ability. Moderate hunger cost, considerable piety cost, 6 MP. Smite targeted, range 4. Raises a temporary wall out of the earth. Extremely loud.

***** “Battlement”
+ Remove Wall ability can destroy any wall that is not on the outermost bounds of a level, however non-diggable walls take 20 auts and produce an extremely loud noise.

****** “Fortress”
+ Earth Snare. Active ability. High hunger cost, high piety cost, 8 MP. Affects all non-flying enemies in LOS. Destroys many rock walls in LOS at random. If not sufficient walls in LOS, will have much weakened effect. Ensnares enemies; each turn enemy makes check against HD to escape. Ensnared enemies can still attack and cast spells, but cannot move.

[TeshiAlair]

Sooooooooo is this for people who want to play an FoEE without playing an FoEE?

[dpeg]

Interesting stuff going on here, but I just don't have the time to scrutinise all the god proposals. About ten on the first page right now, it is too much for me. I really like the of piety gain for features.

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Sooooooooo is this for people who want to play an FoEE without playing an FoEE?

-Tele is distinct from stasis on many different levels, and nearly all of Uru's abilities don't actually overlap with EE. I am on the fence about Earth Shard, sure, that ability could be dropped, but I added it mainly to increase survivability early on for folks who worship this god. The fact that you need to be adjacent to at least one diggable wall to use it, and the fact it randomly destroys one adjacent wall upon use, probably makes it distinct enough though. Other than that, I think you are equating FoEE and Uru based on thematic similarities rather than on how they'd actually play, which would be quite different.

[TeshiAlair]

Fair enough. Still, I think this proposal is one that causes optimal play to be slower than it currently is, which bothers me somewhat personally. A lot of cool ideas there.

[tompliss]

I am on the fence about Earth Shard, sure, that ability could be dropped, but I added it mainly to increase survivability early on for folks who worship this god. The fact that you need to be adjacent to at least one diggable wall to use it, and the fact it randomly destroys one adjacent wall upon use, probably makes it distinct enough though.

I think that the thing I like the most about your god proposal.
Giving a ranged damage-oriented ability early on is really nice and give a great utility (as a more reliable Makhleb's minor destruction, but with a really themed and original requirement). About it, I think the range at low piety should not be really low (going from 4 squres to 6 at 120 piety for example would give it a nice punch) as it may be nearly useless in melee, as I understand it (because spellcasters would cast their spells except against a element-resistant enemy, and other guys would simply hit harder).

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Yeah, I like earth shard, though it is the thing with the most overlap. I hope the condition and cost redeem it. Starting at 4, extending to 6 range at around 100 or 120 piety, sounds good to me. Both Remove Wall and Earth Shard are there to give something early on; Remove Wall is also needed because having a god that randomly removes walls from around you as a cost to his abilities, but doesn't give you a way to manually do it, could encourage tedious behaviors. Note however that both of those early abilities get upgraded as you gain piety, so they (hopefully) would retain some situational use later on, even if the main point for them is to help in early game when you have -Tele, but not yet enough piety to get really good defensive boost from, e.g., Spirit of Stone.

EDIT: Revised version of the god up on the dev wiki under god proposals:
https://crawl.develz.org/wiki/doku.php?id=dcss:brainstorm:god:propose:earth_god