the Forgotten, God of Preservation

[bcadren]

Sorry dpeg. I got impatient.
This proposal has several purposes; serving as a good god accessible to the undead and a gateway for the undead to gain the ability to worship the original good gods. Additionally it's an attempt to be an undead-accessible god that's better in extended and a source of lichform that doesn't require necromancy investment to reach. There is synchronicity between following this god and training Necromancy, but it is in no way required and the god will still be quite helpful to meleeists.

Initial: (4)

Theme:
“Through me nothing has to die.”

“The forgotten is an older good god, related to, but shunned by the other good gods for accepting the worship and helping the undead. He does his best to preserve all life and unlife and directly fights against the rot. To follow the forgotten is to believe that unlife is as important as original life and that through it natural creatures may exist forever; to express appropriate disdain at the destruction of flesh that could have been preserved and to fight the influences of demons, which only wish to sew seeds of destruction among the natural and use the undead as slaves.”

Being with this god, you are a 'good necromancer' trying to bring back the dead, not as slaves, but to live their lives anew and you uniquely offer healing to the damage done to zombies.

Altar: "A golden embalming table lined with lines of indecipherable writing and stores of various potions and vials of essence."

Piety Gained:

• Creating zombies.
• Pacifying undead.
• Killing Demons.
• Killing most other necromancers. (Thematically, you are trying to help the undead, but they merely press them into service.)
• Killing worshipers of 'evil' gods.

Piety Lost/Penance:

• Butchering/eating humanoids
• Attacking any non-hostile creature.
• Allowing allied zombies to be destroyed.
• Attacking 'harmless' undead. [You must walk away from or pacify mindless zombies; but are free to attack intelligent undeads.]
• 'Evil' Spells:
  
  • Dispel Undead
  • Bolt of Draining
  • Any Demon Summon
  • All Poison accept Cure Poison
  • Any spell that would destroy a corpse, when affecting an intelligent being's corpse. (Corpse Rot, Cigotuvi's Embrace, Ignite Poison, Inner Flame, LRD on the Petrified)
• 'Evil' Items:
  
  • Venom, Draining and Disruption brands.
  • Demon Weapons
  • Black Knight's Horse Barding

Powers:

• 0: Preservation (passive): Slows the rot of corpses and chunks, coagulation of blood, the natural rot on a ghoul and the hunger rate of the living. [How much it is slowed depends on piety being very closed to stopped at 200.]
• 0: Rot resistance: Passive resistance to rotting and miasma; comes in the form of mutation resistance for the undead [since mutations rot them.] Strength of the resistance varies with piety; up to 100% at 200.
• *: Zombify (active, 2 MP, 2-3 Piety): Turns target natural enemy directly into a zombie without it going through the 'corpse' stage. Subject to an MR check.
• **: Greater Preservation (passive): More things are now preserved. All zombies you create and now classed as 'Greater Zombies'. This allows them to retain their intelligence, allowing them to continue to use magic and ranged weapons and follow you up and down stairs. They also get a (Piety/2) HP boost compared to normal zombies (as a percentage of their normal HP). Also, beings such as Orc Warlords maintain the Warlord stats, rather than becoming a simple Orc Zombie. However, after 5d(Piety/4) turns; greater zombies become neutral. Simulacra also follow this pattern (increased intelligence; permanent; but become neutral and leave the dungeon). All zombies and simulacra show health bars (to indicate how close to destroyed they are; but do not heal naturally). All corporeal undead do not expire via any timeouts.
• ***: Reconstruction (active, 5 MP, 0 or 2-3 Piety): “Attempts to physical rebuild the target, restoring intelligence of the undead and mindless as well as physical healing.” Works like lesser healing on living targets and greater healing on undead and most mindless targets (Bugs and slimes, but not plants). Small chance of making undead/mindless targets allied; larger chance of making them neutral (pacifying them); cannot pacify the living. If neutralized or pacified, 'mindless' intelligence will be boosted to normal or animal. Chance varies with invocations. When used on self; cures 2d4 rot. Costs no piety when used on hostile target; 2-3 when used on self or a friendly.
• ****: Life Saving (Passive, Living Worshipers): Guaranteed life saving, once. Player dies and returns in permanent Lichform. 0-20% of HP is permanently lost; 1-2 XLs are lost; Some skill XP is lost (Piety and Invo Dependent). Felids take this only when out of lives.
• ****: Soul Flare (Active, 12 MP, 8-12 Piety): Blast of Soul Fire centered on the player radiates out; leaving clouds of soul flame. This is irresistible (by AC); resisted by rN on the living, rF on demons and not resisted by undead as the flames heal them. Chance of pacifying hostile undeads. Living worshipers are immune to this and normal Ghostly Flames. May summon spectral things or allied lost souls. Lost souls offer life saving to all undeads (except the player); hostile undeads saved by a lost soul become allied temporarily. Radius of 1-4 depending on Invocations. Increases MP regen depending on piety.
• *****: Reaping Brand (Altar Prayer): Pray at an altar to brand your current weapon as “Reaping”.
• ******: Mummification (Living races): Player is willingly mummified alive. This prevents the HP loss and experience loss of being mummified after death; but removes the chance of life saving. It does; however, boost the player's HP and MP, permanently by an amount dependent on the player's Invocations. [All bonuses, and maluses of lichform are conveyed, rTorm, no potions, Necro boost, etc.]
• ******: Restoration (Dead races): Brings a player undead closer to their natural state before death. All rot is removed. HP is boosted by an amount dependent on Invocations. Player chooses a stat STR/INT/DEX, the chosen stat is boosted +6, the other two are boosted +2. The undead character becomes permanently half dead; this is a give and take. This means:
  • rTorm is lost; but rN+++ is maintained.
  • rPois+ drops to rPois.
  • You may use Holy Wrath weapons and join a good god.
  • Dispel Undead is partially resisted. (Approx. half damage).
  • The undead stealth boost is dropped. [Base stealth of 15, instead of 18.]
  • You mutate normally; though have a chance to rot instead from hostile Malmutation spell.
  • You may use all transmutations, except necromut.
  • Mummies may drink potions and have slow metabolism 2 (eat normally).
  • Ghoul rot rate drops.
  • Vampires always have Regen I and Batform.

Gaining/Losing the Forgotten:
In addition to Demigods; the Forgotten does not accept worship from Demonspawn.

As the Forgotten is in a tenuous position with the other good gods; no penance is given for leaving him unless you take on worship of a god he doesn't like. This list is slightly different than other good gods:

• Lugonu
• Beogh
• Yredelemnul
• Makhleb
• Fedas Madash

[In short, the Forgotten doesn't consider Kikubaaqudha evil; but considers Fedhas Madash evil (due to being against rot).]

Some piety may be maintained when transferring from the Forgotten to another good god and vice versa; but transferring from a good god to the Forgotten DOES result in some penance. [The Forgotten recognizes your dedication to helping others and/or fighting against demons, but the god you came from doesn't like you working with a god supportive of the undead.]

Forgotten is a temple god (guaranteed altar by D:7); but is not a (T)emple god (altar is never in the Ecumenical Temple; but always in D:2-7 overflow). Additional altars may spawn anywhere in the dungeon, with increased likelihood in Crypt and guaranteed altar in Tomb.

Penance:
(Passive) :

• Everything rots at an increased rate and your hunger rate doubles. [Rot rate doubles on Ghouls].
• Chance of any undead you create to spawn “Greater” and hostile.
• All enemy undead normally spawned are “Greater”.
• Anything you kill may spawn a hostile zombie.

(Active) :

• 50% chance: Summon 2d5 branch/level appropriate hostile greater zombies.
• 25% chance: Immediately rot 2d4 HP. Red level rot-status on living.
• 25% chance: Greater god-specific penance:
  
  • Fedhas Madash: Chance of turning all your plants hostile. If this works on a walking mushroom; it is upgraded to a death cap.
  • Yredelemnul: Chance of turning your slaves to hostile or neutral.
  • Beogh: Chance of turning your Orc Brethren into hostile greater zombies.
  • Lugonu/Makhleb: Necromancy miscast.

  Code:

REMOVED STUFF:

[*]***: Entombment (Active, 6-8 Piety): Similar to the retired spell “Tomb of Doroklohe”; but also petrifies you (living) or puts you in a sarcophagus (undead) during the length of the spell. [Surrounds you in diggable rock in order to hide you from enemies for a period of time; the length of time you are paralyzed and hidden from enemies varies with piety].
[*]******: Mummification (Living Worshipers) (Altar Prayer): You are turned into a mummy of your race. All apts. except Necro are permanently lowered '-2', you gain a Necro spell booster and you are undead for all game purposes. Non-physical mutations are removed. Unlike spawned-in mummies you now have multiple lives. Every time you die:
[list][*]You receive the message [i]“It took decades, but I think I've got most your body back together.”[/i]
[*]You lose 2d6 HP (permanently).
[*]You are advanced 250k aut into the future. (This give you a hard limit of 8 lives because of 'the Apocalypse' at the 2 million aut; and give players that use this significantly lower scores than those that don't.)
[*]You lose two XP levels.
[*]You experience Skill XP loss (permanent) equivalent to red level draining.
[*]You lose 75 piety.[/list]
[*]******: Purification (Undead Worshipers) (Active, 50 Piety): You are cured of being undead as well as the god can manage; leaving you in a half undead state.[list][*]Mummies: [i]“I've done what I can to restore you to who you were before you died. Go forth and live your life anew.”[/i][list][*]Dispel undead does half damage.[*]Torment and pain do half damage.[*]Mutation causes both a mutation and some rot.[*]You may use Holy Wrath weapons.[*]All current rot is removed.[*]You may drink potions.[*]You have a normal hunger clock (Slow Metabolism 2).[*]As you have tried to reform from your unnatural ways you may now transfer to any good god with some piety retained.[*]You are now branded as a [i]'holy mummy'[/i]. [Race change when checking stats.][/list][*]Ghouls:[i]“Your rotting form is too damaged to cure completely; but I've done what I can."[/i] [list][*]Dispel undead does half damage.[*]Torment and pain do half damage.[*]Mutation causes both a mutation and some rot.[*]You may use Holy Wrath weapons.[*]All current rot is removed.[*]Your rot rate is halved permanently.[*]Eating no longer cures rot; but remaining Satiated or better stops it.[*]Normal hunger clock shows.[*]Saprovore mutation dropped to level 1.[*]As you have tried to reform from your unnatural ways you may now transfer to any good god with some piety retained.[*]You are now branded as a [i]'Partially Deceased'[/i]. [Race change when checking stats.][/list][*]Vampires [i]“You are completely returned to life; though some of your vampiric ancestry remains.”[/i][list][*]You are considered living for all in game purposes.[*]You may both drink blood and eat food at your discretion.[*]Your vampiric ability set is permanently locked to 'Full' level.[*]Except 'Bat Form' which is permanently unlocked.[*]As you have tried to reform from your unnatural ways you may now transfer to any good god with some piety retained.[*]You are now branded [i]“Former Vampire”[/i]. [Race change when checking stats.][/list][/list]

Characters who have been mummified (but not racial mummies) cannot leave the Forgotten. Situations that would result in excommunication cause instant permanent death.

[TeshiAlair]

Greater Preservation is likely going to have to get kiboshed due to the zombie-management issues which are the reasons zombies don't follow you down stairs. What if, to work this in with the oft-desired "perma-ally god", you could use greater zombification to elevate a current zombie to greater zombie status, with the number of these zombies you can have equal to your piety stars.

I also don't think the multiple-lives mummy thing really works for me- it steps on Felids, and is crazy strong. Remember that people take kiku sometimes JUST to guarantee Necromutation. Instead, I think it would work better as a "if you die past a certain piety point, you are mummified and get to keep going," which allows people to take their own life to become mummies, which is super neat IMO.

I also think that this overlaps a bit with Yred, but I'm actually ok with that. Currently, Kiku is "so you wanna be a necromancer" and Yred is "but you don't wanna learn magic." I like the idea of the Forgotten being the "Want to zombies, don't want to need magic" god, and Yred focusing more on drain life/pain mirror style abilities and moving in more of an Evil Okuwaru direction.

Overall, like this god WAAAAY more than I was expecting to. There are a lot of moving pieces, but I like the way they synergize (particularly reaping into mummification into purification) and I think it would be a LOT of fun to play. It takes a lot of points from more one-note gods, and combines them into something more interesting I'd say.

[dpeg]

bcadren: No need to apologise, I can fully relate to that. (My Crawl hours were suddenly required somewhere else, don't worry.)

I think the flavour is really good. Some comments: the god becomes useful quite late in the piety clock (compare with Yredelemnul).
The list of prohibit things is still long, but now probably okay.

For clarity: ** Zombify does not change monster allegiance/status, only type?

TeshiAlair: I think the proposal contains provisions to make zombies not unwieldy to play (they become neutral).
The mummy mechanic is indeed a source of concern. But the flavour is so good, I would like to spend time to try to keep it rather than dismiss it. Perhaps I should read another book about ancient Egypt.

[DracheReborn]

The flavour is nice, sure. Some points that I think don't work too well though:

1. Piety loss for losing zombie allies seems problematic since zombies aren't the strongest allies and then you'll have a bunch of weak allies to shepherd. This is compounded by the fact that you gain piety for creating zombies, so there's incentive to create a zombie army and then stash it somewhere safe (especially if the zombies can follow you up stairs). That sounds pretty tedious.

2. Essentially creating new species variants ("mummy of your race" and "holy undead") seems like a lot of complication for little gain. Especially since Necromut is already a better "mummy of your race". Having a way for undead to worship the good gods is cool, but doesn't seem particularly interesting (other than Ely + food clock abuse, but you took care to remove that). And yes, copying the felid mechanic doesn't seem like a good idea.

3. Minor point - since the god has a diet conduct (no eating humanoids), it should compensate with some kind of nutrition replacement, like Vitalisation does for Zin.

Greater zombies are a neat idea, but may be a little too similar to Enslave Soul? Flavour suggestion: what if greater zombies (needs a new name btw: the "Restored"?) become convinced that they are truly alive, and thus regain their agency, which accounts for them becoming neutral eventually (and maybe a chance for some to become hostile?). Btw, Reconstruction should turn target undead into greater zombies.

[and into]

Needs an early useful ability. Also a problem in how you are going to gain piety, if you only get zombify at **, and your main way to gain piety is by making zombies?

The other problems were brought up well in other folks' posts, but I'd just suggest trying to find a way to simplify the god somewhat. All "reformed undead" could probably become one new type, perhaps just with vampires keeping bat form, for instance.

I also liked TeshiAlair's idea of having mummification simply happen if a living devotee dies above, say, **** piety. How well they are mummified could depend on piety; in either case I don't think aptitudes should change. So if you die at ****, you lose a good amount of max HP, lose two XP levels, and lose a lot of skill levels; at max piety you lose smaller amount of max HP, one (or slightly less than one) char XP level, and lose just a little skill level. In any case you only get one extra life from the Forgotten, which doesn't step on the toes of Felids so much. (Presumably Felids of the Forgotten would normally respawn first, but if you die once all your extra cat lives are used up, Forgotten steps in if you have sufficient piety. Mummified Cats don't get any further extra lives, though—that's how I'd see that play out.)

Still seems that the Forgotten's "extra life" ability is much stronger than what he offers undead. Maybe the Reconstruction ability, when used on self, should heal rot and repair stat damage on undead and living, but additionally restores some life for the undead? Don't have to worry about overlap with Ely on undead characters.

[rchandra]

One particular problem with the 250k turn penalty for deaths: apocalypse is at 200 million turns (2 billion aut to avoid the 2^31 aut overflow, I think), not 2 million, unless that was changed.

[bcadren]

All "reformed undead" could probably become one new type, perhaps just with vampires keeping bat form, for instance.

One obvious problem with that is Vampires, Mummies and Ghouls have radically different apts. If they became one base type...you'd wreck that. That said, as far as being very similar; I'd be fine with Mummy/Ghoul being the same half undead base-type (Mummies with Slow Metabolism 2 and Ghouls with a Mutation that causes the slower rot and Saprovore 1) [maintaining original Apts.] and Vampires basically returning to Human basetype [maintaining apts. and having Bat Form; Ability to Drink Blood and Fangs as racial Muts]. (Basically the problem I'm seeing is problems caused by changing Apts.)

I also don't think the multiple-lives mummy thing really works for me- it steps on Felids, and is crazy strong. Remember that people take kiku sometimes JUST to guarantee Necromutation. Instead, I think it would work better as a "if you die past a certain piety point, you are mummified and get to keep going," which allows people to take their own life to become mummies, which is super neat IMO.

I also liked TeshiAlair's idea of having mummification simply happen if a living devotee dies above, say, **** piety. How well they are mummified could depend on piety; in either case I don't think aptitudes should change. So if you die at ****, you lose a good amount of max HP, lose two XP levels, and lose a lot of skill levels; at max piety you lose smaller amount of max HP, one (or slightly less than one) char XP level, and lose just a little skill level. In any case you only get one extra life from the Forgotten, which doesn't step on the toes of Felids so much. (Presumably Felids of the Forgotten would normally respawn first, but if you die once all your extra cat lives are used up, Forgotten steps in if you have sufficient piety. Mummified Cats don't get any further extra lives, though—that's how I'd see that play out.)

Part of the idea that spawned this was the ability to have a god that helped you fight death better than Ely's Protection or Kiku's boost to Death's Door...and a god source of the Felid-ability...I mostly put in the long amount of time/turns it takes in there in order to make wins that had several mini-deaths with a good race have lower scores for if this god was acceptable in Tourney.

I do think the idea of it only working once is acceptable and perhaps would even break the 'the god has your phylactery, you permadie if you leave him' sort of feel. Letting someone that dies and comes back as a permamummy of their race switch if they need to. To me there's some give and take on both sides; but bother versions are acceptable. (Single death, return as a mummy and choose to become a mummy; take an apt. hit in order to have multiple lives after). I will say if keeping the 8 full lives, Felids are going to have to be blocked because 17 lives is just ridiculous; specific reasoning could be like the god of permanent death that the zombies fight looks like a felid (which is actually true of Egyptian myth).

For clarity: ** Zombify does not change monster allegiance/status, only type?

What I can say is...the ability is intended for things like nuking a smiter (it's basically a smite-targeted powerful hex); but I actually didn't consider that. If it doesn't change allegiance, it's less likely to make a further piety hit (from an allied death); if it does you could use this for more semi-permanent allies idk.

Needs an early useful ability. Also a problem in how you are going to gain piety, if you only get zombify at **, and your main way to gain piety is by making zombies?

Perhaps at -; the (p)rayer causes all corpses in LoS to become (neutral) zombies? It has some tactical use, but far less so than Allied zombies. [Noting that you only get piety loss from the death of allied, not neutral zombies.]

Maybe the Reconstruction ability, when used on self, should heal rot and repair stat damage on undead and living, but additionally restores some life for the undead? Don't have to worry about overlap with Ely on undead characters.

I'm fine with that...and to combine it with the dietary comment; perhaps give some nutrition on the living?

1. Piety loss for losing zombie allies seems problematic since zombies aren't the strongest allies and then you'll have a bunch of weak allies to shepherd. This is compounded by the fact that you gain piety for creating zombies, so there's incentive to create a zombie army and then stash it somewhere safe (especially if the zombies can follow you up stairs). That sounds pretty tedious.

Actually that is why I had zombies become neutral after a time. The idea was with this god, they are more powerful than normal (maintain their intelligence; etc.) but only fight with you for a little bit, before completely regaining agency and going neutral. You only have the piety loss if they are destroyed while they are allied, which is a relatively brief period of time.

But the flavour is so good, I would like to spend time to try to keep it rather than dismiss it. Perhaps I should read another book about ancient Egypt.

Thanks. (And to all the other positive comments.) I pulled this out for this comment though: In ancient Egypt, mummification had to do with preparing the body for the trip to the afterlife. The idea of mummies as improved ghouls is very much modern. See "The Mummy" (starring Boris Karloff, 1932) for an early example that defined the idea in modern culture.

[DracheReborn]

1. Piety loss for losing zombie allies seems problematic since zombies aren't the strongest allies and then you'll have a bunch of weak allies to shepherd. This is compounded by the fact that you gain piety for creating zombies, so there's incentive to create a zombie army and then stash it somewhere safe (especially if the zombies can follow you up stairs). That sounds pretty tedious.

Actually that is why I had zombies become neutral after a time. The idea was with this god, they are more powerful than normal (maintain their intelligence; etc.) but only fight with you for a little bit, before completely regaining agency and going neutral. You only have the piety loss if they are destroyed while they are allied, which is a relatively brief period of time.

Oops, can't believe I missed that.

One more comment. There seems to be a thematic disconnect here. This god lets you create greater zombies, but then turns you into a ... mummy? To be consistent, shouldn't he either 1) let you create mummies instead, or 2) bring you back as a greater zombie instead of a mummy?

Of the 2 options, 1) seems more problematic because mummies already exist in crawl and are different from what you're going for. 2) seems more appropriate - basically you're creating a new undead type which is actually based on Egyptian mummies and not horror movie mummies, which seems to be what this god is all about.

So this god lets you give monsters a second life as greater zombies (needs a new name). For living species, this means you yourself can get a second life as a greater zombie. For the 3 undead species, I think giving them a strong benefit like piety-based healing like and_into suggests is probably enough (I'd rather go in that direction than in figuring out what half undead should be). But of course this benefit won't work on you when you're already a greater zombie, otherwise your god would just indefinitely reconstruct you.

[dpeg]

But the flavour is so good, I would like to spend time to try to keep it rather than dismiss it. Perhaps I should read another book about ancient Egypt.

Thanks. (And to all the other positive comments.) I pulled this out for this comment though: In ancient Egypt, mummification had to do with preparing the body for the trip to the afterlife. The idea of mummies as improved ghouls is very much modern. See "The Mummy" (starring Boris Karloff, 1932) for an early example that defined the idea in modern culture.

I know. And they mummifed everything (including domestic animals). Still, I would always turn to the oldest sources, that's so much more interesting than later revisions More comments later.

[khalil]

I'd like to throw in that this makes most mummified races better than starting as a mummy.
The biggest example is deep elves.
DE has 3 in spellcasting, 2 in necromancy, and 1 to 4 in all other spellcasting aptitudes. When mummified, it becomes 1 in spellcasting, 0 in necromancy, and -1 to 2 in all other spellcasting aptitudes. (They also get -4 in most fighting skills, but if you're playing Deep Elf you probably don't care about your polearms skill.)
Mu has -1 in spellcasting, 0 in necromancy, and -2 in everything else.
Furthermore, purification actually makes mummies worse, as they loose the only thing that made them unique, but still have subpar attributes.

[TeshiAlair]

That's the point. It lets you play a mummy without playing a mummy. If it was worse than playing a mummy, why would you follow this god. Unless I'm misinterpreting?

[TheArcanist]

That's the point. It lets you play a mummy without playing a mummy. If it was worse than playing a mummy, why would you follow this god. Unless I'm misinterpreting?

Well, then the question becomes 'why would I ever play a Mummy, when I can just be a Deep Elf and worship the Forgotten?'

[Hirsch I]

well, what is the point of playing a mummy anyways?

[khalil]

well, what is the point of playing a mummy anyways?

Don't have to deal with the food clock.

[Hirsch I]

oh, right. yeah, this would make mummy absolutely useless, then.

[Leafsnail]

Well no, with a mummy you can worship another god. But I still find the last power baffling. There's already a way to basically become a mummy, and for the most part a mummy isn't even something you'd want to be in the first place.

[khalil]

Well no, with a mummy you can worship another god. But I still find the last power baffling. There's already a way to basically become a mummy, and for the most part a mummy isn't even something you'd want to be in the first place.

I'll be honest, even though I like mummies a lot, I feel they're the race equivalent of wanderer: they can be good in theory, but you would be better off with anything else.

[bcadren]

I cast Raise Dead on this thread. [Seriously I just updated the proposal so...bump.]

Edit: This is my personal favorite and probably the most developed god proposal I ever wrote. I just updated it to be more reasonable, while sticking to the theme. Semi-unlimited lives would be cute, but it goes against the rest of crawl and steps on felid's toes. Just one life with permanent lichform after the death...might be interesting. Providing an interesting choice for a meleeist to get their rTorm on.

[kuniqs]

Theme:
“Through me nothing has to die.”

“The forgotten was banished from the pantheon of good gods for the idea that making living things undead is the best gift to bestow upon them, since a life that ends is ultimately a life wasted. He's most concerned about preservation and existence, no matter the cost, but he prefers to encourage self-sacrifice rather than force it. Even through, the forgotten doesn't abstain from using less worthy beings for the greater good. The forgotten hates most the senseless destruction inherent in demons and aggresive undead, and expects that his followers take responsibility for their unliving friends.”

What it gives: to give undead some benefits of the living, and the living some benefits of the dead. Get some necromancy without necromancy.

Altar: "A bronze skull with a dried-up fruit inside"

Piety Gained:

Pacifying undead.
Killing demons and hostile undead. (allies)
Killing stat draining and malmutating monsters. (allies)
Killing monsters with undead-creating powers. (The undead they create are pressed into destruction!). (allies)


Piety Lost (no piety decay):

Butchering intelligent, non-evil corpses.
Allowing allied, intelligent undead to be destroyed.
Attacking intelligent, neutral undead.

The forgotten doesn't care about the stupid and evil, 'cause he's an asshole

'Evil' Spells:
Any Demon Summon
Any spell that would destroy a corpse, when affecting an intelligent being's corpse. (Corpse Rot, Cigotuvi's Embrace, Ignite Poison, Inner Flame, LRD on the Petrified)
Borngjor's revification (you're permamently weakening your own permamence!)
'Evil' Items:
Demon Weapons
Wands of disintegration and random effects (there is disintegration in there IIRC)
Scrolls of immolation (when applying the effect to chunk-making mobs)
Any item that drains stats (piety loss WHEN draining occurs): Crystal ball of energy, staff of wucad mu


Powers:

0: Preservation (passive):
- Slows the rot of corpses and chunks, coagulation of blood, the natural rot on a ghoul. [How much it is slowed depends on piety being very closed to stopped at 200.]
- Gives a chance to block 1 point of stat draining, from being affected by temporary mutations, and from rotting (or from mutation rotting for undead) [maxes out at 180 piety]
0: Neutral to undead: has a chance to turn neutral any undead you see for the first time. %(piety*2/HD) chance. Gives HD-based piety for that.

*: Befriend undead (active, 2 MP, HD/2 piety): turn any neutral undead to friendly.
*: Reward undead (passive): whenether your undead ally scores a kill, there's a chance of something happening:
33%: ally healed for 2d10 hp.
5%: ally blessed with new life. Applies only to zombies/skeletons. Ally is turned into one of the 'themed' undead: flayed ghosts, ghouls, death cobs, liches... What you get is based on your xp level. The new ally also (maybe) gains the ability to use stairs.
Undead and lichformed worshippers are also subjected to this.

**: Necromancy (active, at least 1 mp, 1-2 piety): you can invoke one of those effects, chance to get the better ones depends on piety, power depends on invocations: Pain (1mp), Agony (5mp), Bolt of draining (5mp), Ghostly fireball (7mp). If you don't have enough mp to invoke the selected effect, the effect 1 step weaker is selected, recursive. Mobs killed with this ability have piety/230 %chance to be subjected to the death channel effect.

***: Reconstruction (active, 5 MP, 4-5 piety): heal invocation-based amount of hp of any undead creature. Applies also to undead and lichformed worshippers.

****: Life Saving (passive, Living Worshipers, 10-11 piety): piety/230 chance - any damage that would kill a living worshipper is nullified.
****: Reaping (active, 2-3 piety): Gain a temporary 'Reaping' status effect, which makes your weapons/spells raise living mobsters as neutral zombies.

*****: Go to the grave (active, 9-10 piety): You create a grave for yourself in 1-2 auts, and spend the next 10-15 auts in it. This works like chei's pass time ability: mobs wander off and go to sleep, you regain your mp at normal rate (alive, undead & lichform) and hp at normal rate + 2d10 bonus (undead & lichform only). When you emerge from the grave, you get a short-lived darkness effect.

******: Ultimate reward: you get a one choice of:
1) Memorizing the Necromutation spell.
2) Infusing your necromancy with some of the forgotten's still active holy power (you get 66% chance to affect demons with any necromancy effect you make. This includes spells, scrolls of torment, abilities, weapons of pain/draining etc.).
3) Becoming an avatar of the forgotten by spending 100auts in the grave under the god's care. This brings living worshippers closer to death, and undead ones closer to life. Whenether undead or alive, you now:
- take half damage from dispel undead and holy effects.
- gain partial torment resistance (only affected 1 in 2 times). Undead LOSE their torment immunity.
- lose the food clock. You still get hungry, but you can't starve to death, and mummies can eat now. (you still can't cast spells when starving, though). Ghouls stop rotting naturally but retain the benefits.
- can drink if mummy.
- your innate negative resistance is set to 1 pip. Undead lose here again.
- innate cold resistance set to 1 pip.
- any divine abilities above that affected undead & lichformed worshippers now affect you too.
- you are NOT counted as undead if you want to switch to a good god.
- undead lose rotting resistance.
******: Spawn a lost soul (9mp, 7-8 piety): Summon the soul of one of the forgotten's less useful worshippers. It fully restores only your undead allies, and only prevents death-dealing damage if you are undead/lichformed.
******: Living dead (9mp, 7-8 piety): you start channeling the powers of the dead - every turn you drain a random monster in LOS and summon the spectral version of him, which automatically attacks him. Every time this happens, you lose HD/3 mp.


Gaining/Losing the Forgotten:
No demigods.

Penance counter is set when you leave him. Forgotten is a libertarian cookie and never takes action against you unless you actively break his code of conduct. Penance doesn't decay with time if you don't worship him anymore, only after he does something bad to you.

Whenether you do something from the forgotten's laundry list, you get a chance of:
Anything you kill may spawn a neutral zombie.
Summon 2d5 branch/level appropriate hostile zombies OR hostile XP level dependand undead (wraiths & phantoms at low level, ghouls and liches at high).
Heal somewhat every undead in LOS.
You get forced in the grave, but you lose some hp/mp while there.
Spawn a hostile lost soul.
Stat drain.
Completely restore any undead you killed this turn.
Necromancy miscast, duh.

[bcadren]

Minor updates. Now noted that Zombies don't time out at ** and higher (now that they normally do). Also changed the weakest wrath tick.

[celem]

Some really fun ideas in here!

I like the chunk conduct, its interesting because most characters eat primarily chunks, so this leaves you looking for alternates. Im not quite sure about the two passives scaling all the way up to 100%. Hunger reduction I note you do not propose fully stopping, fair enough. I'd likewise cap the rot/mut resist, nothing is really ever completely immune to something in crawl, just look at a Halfling with rMut amulet, it still never sums up to near 100%, theres always a chance for the dice.

The various powers making your undead permanent gave me cause for worry, the game is steering away from permanent undead, what with Trunk derived now expiring. But to be honest this gives the god even more of a niche, we might remove the mechanic from general play, but that doesnt mean by default its so unbalanced it wouldnt work as a god power. Feels quite Beogh, love your minions, nurture, protect and equip them...

The top end powers feel a little less filtered. You have some great ideas again but appear to be trying to squeeze them all in. The various irreversible form-shifts are all intriguing, but pray at altar for a Reaping brand is also very strong (with this god's other powers). I assume that if Lifesaving is triggered it would block you from using either of the 6-star shifts, being a permanant Lich and all.

Cool stuff, thanks.

[Pollen_Golem]

I will say if keeping the 8 full lives, Felids are going to have to be blocked because 17 lives is just ridiculous; specific reasoning could be like the god of permanent death that the zombies fight looks like a felid (which is actually true of Egyptian myth).

Sure, you can block Felids from worshiping on those grounds, plus Felids overturn normal mechanics of preservation in their mysterious, supernatural ways: "Forgotten rejects any creature whose corporeal destruction is not forever and always, as they will never truly understand death nor appreciate life." Ironic and appropriate.

It's fine to have the death of allied zombies incur pity loss - just enough to offset the piety you gain from creating them in the first place. Then it's rather stress free unlike Okawaru.

Here's a unique take on the mummification and life saving debate going on here: instead of mummifying or restoring yourself depending on your holiness status, you can instead become (don't make fun of me now) a Golem. The Forgotten's altar is "the undying cast of Forgotten" that you can pray at once per game at maximum piety. Your spirit inhabits the cast, leaving behind [name]'s corpse. You keep your old aptitudes and skills or get an across-the-board -1 or -2 aptitude modifier. Any equipment inappropriate for medium races, like giant clubs, is unwielded. You lose all your old innate/gained mutations, and they are replaced by undeady/gargoyly intrinsics. As for stats and HP/MP modifiers, I guess you keep your old ones. You can now worship any god other than Yred. Forgotten ought to accept even Demonspawn, in expectation that they will change their nature - which is especially good if you get crappy demonspawn mutations. Anybody seen Avatar? It's better to have a power be the same for living and undead characters, IMO, since otherwise there are too many rules and exceptions for ordinary players to keep track of - at least there would be too many for me to follow. The worst part of this proposal is that some races will take several minutes to Ctrl+F "armor" and comb over their options, especially octopodes and draconians.

As for life saving, why not just have Forgotten guaranteed to bring you back as a Greater Zombie with no natural healing? He can already do that with monsters. That would be a good cue to run back to the altar and pray.