Shoals Surfer
Posts: 295
Joined: Sunday, 3rd June 2012, 20:05
Lovecraftian Horror God
Ctho-N'gthan is the Ancient God who came before all the other gods. In his full strength, he is far more powerful than all the other gods. However, at the beginning of time, Zin rallied all the other gods together to fight him. They couldn't kill him, but they managed to put him to sleep for eternity. Alas, even in his slumber he is considered as powerful as any of the other gods.
Ctho-N'gthan seeks to awaken from his slumber and remake reality to his image. To this end he seeks followers who provide him with power. He appreciates when followers sacrifice items of power, and also enjoys the souls of powerful magic users, which he uses to grow his power in order to eventually wake up.
You gain piety by sacrificing: magical potions (ie. all except water, porridge, poisons, blood), wands, magical staves, scrolls, spellbooks, rods, and evokable items (orbs of energy, air elemental fan, disc of storms etc.)
You also gain piety by sacrificing corpses of magic users - the more powerful, the more piety you gain. Orc wizards give very little piety, while highlevel uniques give lots.
You lose piety every time you use a consumable item of power (ie. potion or scroll) yourself instead of sacrificing it, or eat a corpse of a magic user instead of sacrificing it. Ctho-N'gthan is disappointed in you!
If your piety falls too low, Ctho-N'gthan may punish you by inflicting you with confusion at random intervals. This could happen if your piety has been at *** and afterwards falls to -.
Abilities given:
** - strike fear: Ctho-N'gthan sends horrible images to the minds of your enemies.
- targets all enemies in your LOS and attempts to inflict them with fear. Basically the same as scroll of fear, power may vary according to your piety and/or invocation skill. Cost: 2 MP, Piety
*** - touch of madness: Ctho-N'gthan whispers with his maddening voice to the minds of your enemies.
- targets one enemy with smite-targeting (ie. any visible enemy) and inflicts confusion. Can be resisted with MR, harder to resist if you have more piety. Cost: 3 MP, Piety
**** - Ctho's abominable touch: Ctho-N'gthan makes you into his image.
- gives you a temporary mutation: horns, beastly appendige, claws, or talons. Duration is longer with higher invocation skill. Cost: Piety
***** - call horrors: Ctho-N'gthan sends horrible abominations to your aid.
- summons one of: small abomination, large abomination, ugly thing, very ugly thing. Higher piety gives chance of more powerful summons. Cost: 4 MP, Piety, Food
But there's a catch! If your piety grows over a certain treshold (which is somewhere above *****), Ctho-N'gthan gains so much power that one of his thousand eyelids starts to slowly open. This causes his horrible presence to leak towards your location, which causes madness, chaos and horror to ensue.
As long as the piety is over the treshold level, and for some 100-300 turns after it drops below it (because there's a residual effect), following effects may occur randomly:
- You may get confused
- An enemy in your sight may get confused
- A corpse in your sight may be transformed into a small or large abomination, which may or may not be friendly
- An ugly thing may appear which may or may not be friendly (maybe a very ugly thing)
- (small chance) you may receive a random mutation
- (very small chance) an enemy in your sight may be polymorphed
If you abandon Ctho-N'gthan, you get a random bad mutation (this happens always, and immediately after you renounce, but only happens once). Additionally, for a period of time you get the following effects:
- hostile small/large abominations appear randomly
- hostile (very)ugly things appear randomly
- you may get confused at random times