Barkeep
Posts: 4435
Joined: Tuesday, 11th January 2011, 12:28
Tuesday, 10th May 2011, 19:03
God of Mutation and Glow
Hi all. Apologies if this seems a bit stream-of-consciousness, or if it's been suggested before; couldn't find anything matching in the wiki or Tavern.
Two things in crawl -- glow and mutation -- strike me as things it'd be fun to have a little more control over. Right now, the only thing you can do with glow is avoid it, and it's purely bad. And while there are a few ways to encourage good mutations (being a DS, worshipping Xom/Jiyva), for most characters, mutations are *purely* random -- even if you play mut roulette, you'll generally wind up with a smattering of low levels of unrelated mutations. It'd be sweet to be able to guide mutations and have some utility for glow, and both of these things seem like divine powers.
Basic idea: A god who supports followers mutating and mutagenic glow, eventually allowing followers to influence the course of their changes, as well as use their glow to cause damage to enemies.
More concretely, I'd think that there'd be some way that a player could choose an area of focus, gaining some good mutations, but being forced to take some bad mutations as well. I imagine the mutation selection process being broadly Nemelex-y, by item sacrifice. For example, you might sacrifice something that offers fire resistance to encourage getting rF mutations (eg, "You feel momentarily cold"). Every time you do this, however, it makes things you sacrificed longer ago weighted less. Some things (potions of resistance, resistance armor, artefacts) could have multiple effects; however, that'll push more things out of your mutation weight queue. As piety increases, the number of things in that queue would increase.
Players would need to prepare for some bad mutations as well -- maybe sac'ing that ring of fire resistance without also sac'ing a +rC item would tend to cause -rC mutations.
It's also worth noting that you'd never need to sacrifice an item, and you'd get a gradually increasing mutation set, quite biased towards good.
As to glow -- it could be used for piety gain (exploring while glowing), as well as a resource you could spend to irradiate monsters (maybe a beam? Maybe a magical explosion targeted somewhere other than you? Maybe an Ozo's Refrigeration-style AoE spell, with damage declining as the square of the distance from you?) -- damage based on invoc, and reducing your glow.
If you don't spend glow, I imagine it'd still cause magical explosions on you, though you'd have some divine shielding from direct damage. It'd definitely be the main driver of muations, though !Mut would obviously be useful too.
To get more glow, miscasts and Zot traps would work as now, and this god might provide a "Make Radioactive" ability like Chei's "Make Ponderous." And to prevent a license to stay hasted and invisible all the damn time, this god would punish you for intentionally doing "useful things that incidentally cause glow"... though controlled translocations might be something of a sticking point as there's a mutation for it. Maybe, if you want the effects of (!Haste, !Resistance, cTloc) things, you should sacrifice the item and hope for the mutation?
This god would also be angered by intentionally preventing or curing mutations -- no cMut or rMut. Won't accept worship by Mu or Gh, maybe would by Vp, but be angered if they started to go bloodless?
Anyhow... I know this is still a bit vague and there'd be a huge amount of detail to hammer out, but does this sound interesting? Possible?
Two things in crawl -- glow and mutation -- strike me as things it'd be fun to have a little more control over. Right now, the only thing you can do with glow is avoid it, and it's purely bad. And while there are a few ways to encourage good mutations (being a DS, worshipping Xom/Jiyva), for most characters, mutations are *purely* random -- even if you play mut roulette, you'll generally wind up with a smattering of low levels of unrelated mutations. It'd be sweet to be able to guide mutations and have some utility for glow, and both of these things seem like divine powers.
Basic idea: A god who supports followers mutating and mutagenic glow, eventually allowing followers to influence the course of their changes, as well as use their glow to cause damage to enemies.
More concretely, I'd think that there'd be some way that a player could choose an area of focus, gaining some good mutations, but being forced to take some bad mutations as well. I imagine the mutation selection process being broadly Nemelex-y, by item sacrifice. For example, you might sacrifice something that offers fire resistance to encourage getting rF mutations (eg, "You feel momentarily cold"). Every time you do this, however, it makes things you sacrificed longer ago weighted less. Some things (potions of resistance, resistance armor, artefacts) could have multiple effects; however, that'll push more things out of your mutation weight queue. As piety increases, the number of things in that queue would increase.
Players would need to prepare for some bad mutations as well -- maybe sac'ing that ring of fire resistance without also sac'ing a +rC item would tend to cause -rC mutations.
It's also worth noting that you'd never need to sacrifice an item, and you'd get a gradually increasing mutation set, quite biased towards good.
As to glow -- it could be used for piety gain (exploring while glowing), as well as a resource you could spend to irradiate monsters (maybe a beam? Maybe a magical explosion targeted somewhere other than you? Maybe an Ozo's Refrigeration-style AoE spell, with damage declining as the square of the distance from you?) -- damage based on invoc, and reducing your glow.
If you don't spend glow, I imagine it'd still cause magical explosions on you, though you'd have some divine shielding from direct damage. It'd definitely be the main driver of muations, though !Mut would obviously be useful too.
To get more glow, miscasts and Zot traps would work as now, and this god might provide a "Make Radioactive" ability like Chei's "Make Ponderous." And to prevent a license to stay hasted and invisible all the damn time, this god would punish you for intentionally doing "useful things that incidentally cause glow"... though controlled translocations might be something of a sticking point as there's a mutation for it. Maybe, if you want the effects of (!Haste, !Resistance, cTloc) things, you should sacrifice the item and hope for the mutation?
This god would also be angered by intentionally preventing or curing mutations -- no cMut or rMut. Won't accept worship by Mu or Gh, maybe would by Vp, but be angered if they started to go bloodless?
Anyhow... I know this is still a bit vague and there'd be a huge amount of detail to hammer out, but does this sound interesting? Possible?
I am not a very good player. My mouth is a foul pit of LIES. KNOW THIS.
