Eregestes, God of Will and Self-Discipline

[and into]

(This is my stab at a god based around giving the player a single, permanent ally.)

Eregestes is the god of will, self-discipline, and inner strength. Through Eregestes's divine instruction, devotees learn to project their will as a physical embodiment, in the form of a spirit guardian that will strive to aid and protect them. Eregestes wants his disciples to show their martial prowress by defeating enemies without the help of any allies, aside from their own spirit guardian. Those who worship Eregestes will also enjoy immunity to drain status, rot, and stat drain, so long as their spirit guardian is intact. However, if one's spirit guardian is destroyed, the blow to one's psyche will drain a portion of your MP and put one under the drain status effect, which will have to be removed before one can project his will and re-form the spirit guardian again.

Likes: Killing enemies
Disallows: Having allies other than your spirit guardian

Neutral "alignment" (not considered evil by Zin, Ely, or TSO; accepts worshipers from all species except demigods).

Any time your spirit guardian dies, you get drain status (i.e., skill drain) and your current MP is halved.

Upon Joining:
+ Eregestes removes any drain status, stat drain, and rot that you currently have
+ "You can project a physical embodiment of your will" New ability: Project will. Spawns your spirit guardian. Can only be done when your body is pure—i.e., no rot, no stat drain, and not under drain status.
+ "So long as your spirit guardian is intact, you are immune to stat drain, rot, and the drain status. Negative energy damages you normally."
+ Eregestes protects your spirit guardian from all "friendly fire" damage, and vice versa.

*----- Ability: Spirit Link. Your guardian is immediately recalled to a space adjacent to you.
**---- "You can meditate to alter the manifestation of your will." Ability: Change aspect. Allows you to choose one of three "aspects" for your spirit guardian. This ability takes multiple turns (like eating); you get a warning and Y/N prompt if you try to do it while enemies are present. (This is intended as a strategic, rather than tactical ability.)
***--- "You unlock deeper potentialities within your will." You get a new ability depending on the aspect of your spirit guardian. (See below.) These abilities have a low piety cost, but also cause exhaustion (and cannot be used again until exhaustion wears off).
****-- No new abilities
*****- "You can temporarily merge your whole self—body, mind, and soul—into your spirit guardian." Ability: Transference. Moderate or high piety cost. Your body disappears and player instead gains complete control of the spirit guardian. If the spirit guardian is destroyed the player reappears where spirit guardian was. Eventually times out, and can be ended (with slight delay, like transformation) through the (a)bility menu.
****** "You can call upon Eregestes to purify your body and replenish your will." Ability: Rejuvenate. Large piety cost. Eregestes removes any drain status, rot, and stat drain, and will immediately re-spawn your spirit guardian.


Spirit guardian mechanics

Your spirit guardian has any resistances that you have. Your spirit guardian is immune to all hostile enchantments. Any buff or debuff that affects you, however, will affect spirit guardian. Whenever you are healed, your spirit guardian is automatically healed by the same amount. Whenever you teleport, the spirit guardian will teleport automatically to a spot within LOS of wherever you end up.

The base strength (HP, HD, AC/EV) of your spirit guardian is based on your character level, but gets an additional bonus that scales up with piety. Each aspect has additional characteristics, as well:

Aspect of strength: Spirit guardian gets extra HP, extra AC, and now uses a spectral version of whatever weapon you are currently wielding. Can use a jump attack (identical to ego from boots of jumping). Additional ability at ***: Attract enemies. When activated, this ability will cause enemies to vastly prefer attacking your spirit guardian, rather than you.

Aspect of cunning: Base line values for HP, HD, etc. Does not use a weapon—attacks with its fists. Every turn there is a chance that some enemy in LOS of your spirit guardian will be hit with a confuse effect that checks HD (rather than MR). *** ability: Mass Disorder. Hits every enemy in LOS with a boosted HD-dependent confuse effect.

Aspect of destruction: Spirit guardian gets lower HP, but extra EV. Does not use a weapon. Rather than melee attacks, uses ranged "spirit missile" attacks that can pass through player without harming him or her. *** ability: Spirit Blast. A smite-targeted attack with fireball's AOE (like hellfire). The blast cannot harm the spirit guardian or player. The AI for spirit guardian under aspect of destruction will tend to hang back and avoid letting enemies surround it.

[Tiktacy]

I had an idea for a species that was kind of like this. Maybe I'll throw it together and see how it turns out.

I do think this is a pretty interesting idea though, probably way better than mine. +1

[and into]

Hmm, on second thought having drain status be the way that Eregestes's "ally respawn" is mediated would likely be annoying, as it could encourage going to less dangerous areas to scum enough experience to get your ally back. So maybe just a really long cool down, that only diminishes with piety gain, before you can respawn your ally. The last ability would just be a costly (in terms of piety) way to immediately set the cool down timer to 0. The protection effects would still only work while your guardian is alive though, as I think that's unique and more interesting than just having it be permanent divine protection straight from Eregestes.

I considered just making respawn take piety and avoid a cool down timer, but I kind of wanted to avoid giving a piety hit to your ally dying, as I feel that's annoying in a different way. I think it is more interesting to make it so that, when your ally dies, you are punished by having to play a little while without one (which is basically like playing without a god for a little while). You only get the ability to trade piety for instant respawn at max piety—that makes a nice final ability I think.

A lot of details here can be tweaked, however. What I'd really like feedback about the basic idea. I could see myself going for a god like this on a lot of characters—I intentionally tried to give Eregestes broad appeal, basically any non-Demigod, non-summoner could get a lot out of him—but I am curious to hear what others think.

[archaeo]

Without getting too much into the weeds here, why can't the ally thing just be HP/MP based? You have your choice between aspects as before, but you can only make one at full HP/MP. If it's a melee bro, you lose 30% HP, hybrid 15% HP/15% MP, and magic 30% MP, or whatever percentages are chosen.

The point being that I think the only way Pet God will be fun is if it fosters a way more pet-centric playstyle than what we already have with the multitudinous ways to summon bros in Crawl. It should make your player character weaker so that you can fit in a very strong pet.

Also, the Transference ability sounds like a real interface screw. Can your bro pick up items? Can he grab runes? Can I sit on Z:5 upstairs and just spam Transferred bros until it fetches the Orb for me, at no risk other than drain that I can now restab away?

[siprus]

Without getting too much into the weeds here, why can't the ally thing just be HP/MP based? You have your choice between aspects as before, but you can only make one at full HP/MP. If it's a melee bro, you lose 30% HP, hybrid 15% HP/15% MP, and magic 30% MP, or whatever percentages are chosen.

The point being that I think the only way Pet God will be fun is if it fosters a way more pet-centric playstyle than what we already have with the multitudinous ways to summon bros in Crawl. It should make your player character weaker so that you can fit in a very strong pet.

Also, the Transference ability sounds like a real interface screw. Can your bro pick up items? Can he grab runes? Can I sit on Z:5 upstairs and just spam Transferred bros until it fetches the Orb for me, at no risk other than drain that I can now restab away?

-30% HP is price i would never pay for summon.

[and into]

Without getting too much into the weeds here, why can't the ally thing just be HP/MP based? You have your choice between aspects as before, but you can only make one at full HP/MP. If it's a melee bro, you lose 30% HP, hybrid 15% HP/15% MP, and magic 30% MP, or whatever percentages are chosen.

The point being that I think the only way Pet God will be fun is if it fosters a way more pet-centric playstyle than what we already have with the multitudinous ways to summon bros in Crawl. It should make your player character weaker so that you can fit in a very strong pet.

Also, the Transference ability sounds like a real interface screw. Can your bro pick up items? Can he grab runes? Can I sit on Z:5 upstairs and just spam Transferred bros until it fetches the Orb for me, at no risk other than drain that I can now restab away?

Giving up your "god slot" is a pretty big price and could, in and of itself, enable a strong ally. Plus Eregestes disallows other summons / allies aside from the single powerful one that he supports.

The problem is, how do you make a pet-centric play style that doesn't get into too much micromanaging, or that isn't too niche (I would want this god to have fairly broad appeal)? So instead of suggesting a bunch of new menus and interface stuff to equip your ally, I went with, you get one of three strategic choices, some special abilities that revolve around your perma-ally, and in certain (but not all) respects your pet "shares" your equipment. (Which actually leads to decisions that are more interesting, I think.)

As for the other point, you wouldn't be able to continuously spam transference because a.) piety cost is large; b.) there is a considerable, experience-mediated cool down if your guardian dies while it is being used. Yeah I didn't flesh it out too much but I was thinking one would retain all consumables and could still use them, and anything you pick up will still go into your inventory. Putting aside flavor, it basically is just a fancy form. No interface screw necessary. (To be clearer, the idea is that your character disappears and you take control of the guardian. When it runs out your character comes back exactly where the guardian is.) In terms of power I don't think it is stronger than, say, step from time or enter abyss, either of which (if you could spam them continuously) would allow for degenerate behavior. Which is why they are balanced such that you can't spam them continuously.

[tasonir]

Your spirit guardian has any resistances that you have. Your spirit guardian is immune to all hostile enchantments. Any buff or debuff that affects you, however, will affect spirit guardian. Whenever you are healed, your spirit guardian is automatically healed by the same amount. Whenever you teleport, the spirit guardian will teleport automatically to a spot within LOS of wherever you end up.

Time to read a tomb card, then controlled teleport into it and crash crawl when it tries to place my ally! I guess I'd have to teleport the monster first, but that should be possible with the delay

[Grimm]

Maybe it's not widely known but god names must begin with one of the letters of the alphabet that have not already been used for a god name. So E is already taken.

[Velikolepni]

Maybe it's not widely known but god names must begin with one of the letters of the alphabet that have not already been used for a god name. So E is already taken.

What about The Shining One? That name overlaps with Trog, Sif Muna and Okawaru.

[Sar]

He's 1.

[galehar]

No. He is The 1.