III. Long versionIxhuachatetl the WeaverIn the beginning, Ixhuachatetl, the Spider-God and Weaver of All Things, spun the earth, and lurked in the center of it, as mortal spiders do in their own webs. Next, Ixhuachatetl desired to create life, and began to weave the perfect form of the spider. But as Ixhuachutetl tried to weave the divine eight-limbed form, it fell apart into two hideous four-limbed creatures -- the first humans, male and female. Ixhuachatetl cast out the human abominations to the surface of the Earth. There, the humans multiplied and diversified and cross-bred, filling the world with the humanoid form that had so displeased the Spider-God. Ixhuachatetl now realizes that humans should not have been cast out, but instead destroyed utterly. The spider followers of Ixhuachatetl are tasked with eradicating their god's mistake, while their god lurks below in the center of the Earth, watching and waiting for spiders to claim their rightful dominion.
PIETY GAINIxhuachatetl hates humanoids, and gives piety for killing them. This includes half-humanoids, such as merfolk, centaurs, and nagas. Demons and angels who are more-or-less humanoid also count. Piety is also gained when a humanoid is scared off by the Arachnophobia passive effect. Mating with other spiders also provides piety.
Arachne, the half-human, half-spider, poses a bit of a strange edge case. A proposed addition to her background: Ixhuachatetl finds her abominable for being half-human, but leaves her alone because she's half-spider and has sworn to serve him. Ixhuachatetl tolerates her, but doesn't really care too much about her. She turns neutral like other spiders and isn't affected by Arachnophobia, but can't be mated with and if you kill her you still get piety. (Ixhuachatetl promised not to kill her but is happy to let the player deal with her.)
JOININGThe only way to join the religion is to worship at one of Ixhuachatetl's altars of living spiders, while in Spider Form. The spider altars do not occur in the Temple, only as random altars. At least one is guaranteed in the Spider's Nest, if it generates. A second is guaranteed between D:6 and D:13, like overflow altars.
15-20 turns after the player first sees a spider altar, if the player doesn't follow Ixhuachatetl by that point, the altar will fall apart into spiders. If the player worships Ixhuachatetl at the time the altar is supposed to fall apart, it will still produce some spiders (one-time, not continuously), but the altar will remain. The type of spiders will be based on dungeon level.
Use the base spider monsters for the immature spiders on early dungeon levels.Many comments here, expressing dislike of needing the spell. Potential modifications:
- The god transforms you into a spider when you first pray at the altar.
- As above, but you get a starting piety bonus if you show up in spider form.
- Altar vaults can have books with (only) the Spider Form spell.
CONDUCTSIxhuachatetl requires all worshippers to be spiders, all the time.
Ixhuachatetl also forbids the eating of permafood, instead preferring followers to eat in the proper spider manner -- by dissolving their prey into fluids.
POWERS AND ABILITIES0 Zero stars:
- (Passive) Upon joining, Ixhuachatetl makes your Spider Form permanent. Your species name, when used in the character display, skill titles, and monster speech, is changed to "Spider" instead of what your original species was. The divine power of Ixhuachatetl makes your form immutable. This makes you immune to Porkolator, but you can't use any form-changing Transmutations, Bat Form, or the Metamorphosis card. (This also serves as a very limited form of mutation resistance, since if you get a mutation suppressed by Spider Form, it won't matter.)
- (Passive) Upon joining, any equipment melded into your body is unmelded and unworn. ("Your equipment is pushed from your body!") This way, the player can drop the now-useless armor and weapons.
- (Passive) All spiders turn neutral. Only spiders, though. Ants, scorpions, moths, centipedes, and so on, remain hostile, even if they're eligible to be generated in Spider's Nest. While these other creatures don't offend Ixhuachatetl the way humanoids do, they're still not spiders. Arachne the half-spider unique does turn neutral.
- (Passive) "You prepare your prey for eating within webs."
You can use your fangs to "butcher" corpses. The chunks are wrapped in webbing along with digestive fluids, and dissolve over time. Eventually, they are ready to be quaffed, like a potion. You can't drink a webbed chunk until it's finished dissolving into a liquid chunk. Spider players can drink these liquid chunks at any hunger level, as long as they're sufficiently dissolved. Liquid chunks never go bad. The nutrition from dissolved chunks, and ability to eat them, aren't affected by being a herbivore, carnivore, or saprovore, so Spriggans in service to Ixhuachatetl can slurp up dissolved flesh just like a Kobold could.
Vampires retain the alive-to-bloodless hunger mechanic. However, they can drink dissolved chunks, while retaining the ability to drink from corpses on the ground, and can drink even if those corpses or chunks are from a bloodless creature, like insects.
Probably better to use one of these instead (players stockpiling permafood is bad; players preserving natural monsters for later good use is even worse):
- Fluids are not permanent, but perishable, similar to Vampires' blood potions. As the arachnophobia effect will create spiders at high piety levels (thus providing nutrition), branches without natural monsters are not an obstacle food-wise.
- Keep it as permafood but with a piety cost.
* One star:
- Web-Slinging. "You can throw webs."
You learn the ability to fire webs. Webs are quivered like ammunition, and fired using "f", since you can't fire anything else anyway. Webs regenerate slowly over time, and while the player is at less than full web capacity, their metabolism goes faster, since they're burning energy making webs. The player starts with a maximum of 5 webs. The cap is increased by 5 for each star of piety, so a ****** spider can carry 30 webs. Webs have two uses. First, they can be used to trap enemies, like a throwing net.
Secondly, spider players can use webs to get across water and lava. Combined with clinging, this allows spider players more options in getting past obstacles. A web is supported, and can support the player, if ends on floor and (orthogonally) touches a wall, statue or tree. The silk needed for the bridge-webs is of the supporting type: it does not hinder monsters in any way. If a web over deep water or lava suddenly loses support (if a wall is dug out), then the web falls into the deep water or lava, possibly with the player on it, similar to what happens if you're clinging to a wall that gets dug out. - (Passive) "You are better at using your spider fangs against helpless prey."
You gain stabbing bonuses from attacking with your fangs as if you were wielding a non-blade weapon.
** Two stars:
- Arachnophobia. (Passive) "You terrify humanoid creatures."
When a humanoid sees you, there is a chance that the humanoid will be terrified and flee (pacification style: flee to next exit and leave). Fleeing humanoids will head for the stairs, like with Elyvilon's Pacification ability. When a humanoid is terrified, you gain full XP and piety. If you chase them down and kill them you don't get any extra, though you do get loot and food. The chance of terror is solely based on Invocations and piety, and is about 33% at maximum. This effect applies to any humanoid you get piety for killing, except for Arachne -- it's quite possible for a demon or angel to end up terrified by a tiny spider. (Perhaps deep down, they know who the true creator of the universe is, and what it thinks of them...)
This still seems good to me, I don't think it would be unfun to conquer monsters that way. I am very confident that an active ability would not work (less theme, hard to make useable etc. -- this is quite similar to weapon moves). The 33% maximum chance is probably too large, though.
However, this is related both to food (in foodless branches, from demons turned spiders), and to mating (nutrition would come from consuming those demon-turned-spiders after mating). One suggestion in this context: when arachnophobia kicks in after mating with the god, the deity sends some spiders. (Theme rationale: you are fighting evil in a barren place, and the deity provides support.) - (Passive) "Your natural toxins are more potent."
Your bite is capable of inflicting other status effects besides simply poison. New effects are gained with increasing piety. Each bite has an equal chance to inflict whatever toxins are available at that piety level.
At 2 stars, options are: poison, poison with sickness, confusion
At 3 stars, gain: poison with confusion (like a tarantella), sleep
At 4 stars, gain: strong poison (like a redback, which isn't fully resisted by rPois), poison with sleep, paralysis
At 5 stars, gain: curare, poison with paralysis, strong poison with confusion
*** Three stars:
- Skulk. "You can sneak past unaware enemies."
While Skulk is activated, you can move through any monster that is helpless or unaware of you. Similar to Yred's Injury Mirror, there is a small piety cost for activating it, and another piety cost incurred for every monster you walk through. There is a chance, based on Invocations, that creatures who are already aware of you may suddenly lose your trail when Skulk is activated, though you will still need decent Stealth to keep them from noticing you again immediately. The duration of Skulk increases with Invocations, and maxes out at about 20 turns, but will end prematurely if you do anything to call attention to yourself -- make noise, cast a spell, use an ability, or attack (which you can still do with Ctrl+direction). - (Passive) "You are skilled at using your spider fangs against helpless prey."
Your stabbing bonus when using your fangs is improved, to what it would be if you were wielding a long blade.
**** Four stars:
- Spider Swarm. "You can summon swarms of tiny spiders."
The floor is covered with tiny spiderlets, which crawl onto enemies. (The spiderlets crawling all over the floor are not actually monsters, they're a visual effect to indicate to console players what's going on -- little "s" in the god's color, a color unused by real spiders.
Mechanics-wise, it's more of a debuff which effects everyone in your LoS.) The spiderlets do damage over time, with a chance to poison the target. This damage ignores AC, since the spiderlets can crawl under armor or into weak spots like eyes. They spread from enemy to enemy, like how sticky flame spreads between sheep. Spiderlets can't live inside a damaging cloud (flame, freezing cloud, miasma, poison, etc.) and will not jump onto enemies standing in such clouds, and they will die if the enemy they're on moves into one. Enemies afflicted with spiderlets will be distracted, and can be stabbed or Skulked through. (Ideally, Spider Swarm followed by Skulk would be a useful method for getting out of a clump of enemies.) After a few turns, the swarm ends and the spiderlets disappear.
Invocations increases the duration and damage of the spiderlets. Spider Swarm starts with limited uses, only 5-10. The only way to replenish your supply of spiderlets is to mate with spiders, so get to six stars as soon as possible. Performing the mating ritual with Ixhuachatetl will provide a large number of uses (10 or so), and mating with other spiders afterward will provide 1d3.
***** Five stars:
- Descent. "You can instantly descend closer to Ixhuachatetl."
[This presumes that Ixhuachatetl resides deep down, deeper than Zot.]
Functions like an instant escape hatch. High piety cost. You're dropped down to the first unexplored level in your current branch. The player will be told what level they will be dropped to, and asked if they really want to continue. If there are no more unexplored levels in the current branch, this ability can't be used, but you don't use up the cost. - (Passive) "You are a master at using your spider fangs against helpless prey."
Your stabbing bonus with your fangs is improved more, to what it would be if you were wielding a non-dagger short blade.
****** Six stars:
- Mate. "You can perform a mating ritual."
Many spiders have bizarre mating rituals. Many gods have tales of strange couplings with mortals. Ixhuachatatl, being both a god and a spider, has both. At six stars, you can visit an altar to Ixhuachatetl and (p)ray. The player symbolically mates with Ixhuachatetl -- there's no need to consider the details.
"You perform the ancient spider mating ritual with Ixhuachatetl. Fortunately, neither of you is devoured."
This will greatly replenish the player's uses of Spider Swarm, but there are two other main effects to mating with Ixhuachatetl.
The first is that, afterwards, you can mate with other spiders you encounter, by walking into a neutral spider. You are prompted if you really want to mate (and if you don't, prompted if you really want to attack, as usual when moving onto neutral monsters.) It costs some food and also takes three turns, like Recite, and there is also a cooldown before you can use it again, and you are Exhausted. When the act is finished, you eat the other spider black-widow style, killing it and gaining some nutrition, and get a good chunk of piety. An altar is created where the spider died. This altar will eventually produce spiders, like the pre-existing ones do, though altars created by mating will only produce immature spiders. In addition, you gain 1d3 more uses of the Spider Swarm ability. You can't mate with immature spiders, nor can you mate with spiders in the Spider's Nest -- that branch is sacred to Ixhuachatetl, like a temple, and like the vestal virgins of ancient Rome, they must remain pure for their god.
The second effect is that Ixhuachatetl will occasionally provide spiders for the player: When a humanoid is scared by the Arachnophobia effect, Ixhuachatetl may step in and decide that the humanoid needs a new form, and change the humanoid into a spider. Since some demons still count as humanoid, this means the player can still access spiders in demon-filled branches. Note that the player-spider can mate with the humanoid-turned-spider, an unpleasant end for an arachnophobe.
Once the player has mated with Ixhuachatetl, these two effects persist even if the player's piety drops below six stars.
The idea of mating caused a controversy. I have been thinking about this for a while, and talked to people. Potential modifications:
- Do nothing. (Serious proposal, not for mocking.) I accept the fact that some players will giggle over "spider-banging Margery" and post their achievement in ##crawl. However, I consider that as actual role-playing. Would you do that with a terrified humanoid? Would you do it with Margery? Would you brag about it? If yes to all, what does it say about you?
- Keep the concept but simply prevent uniques from being turned into spiders. So you could still arachnophobic Rupert and Louise, but they would never become spiders. (Uniques are the only monsters with a gender and where gender matters, because of the "a wolf spider named Sigmund", so that should remove the moral tension.)
- Keep mating with the god and with spiders, and keep arachnophobia (each of these are good for theme and gameplay) but do not occasionally turn terrified humans into spiders. (This is the "correct" solution. It avoids the contentious point, but weakens the theme a little bit, at least in my eyes.)
I don't believe a number of claims made: the "ASCII sex" would be a single message line "You mate with the [wolf|trapdoor|whatever] spider." Nobody would turn to Crawl for the sexual content and I don't think anyone can call that "explicit". Themewise, I am fond of the triage among mating, gods and spiders. There's content between any two of the three, and having it in a roguelike (as a mechanic! -- no pictures, almost no words) looks interesting to me.
I understand that some (perhaps many) players feel bad about the moral implications of the concept, and I take that serious.
WRATHIxhuachatetl will send swarms of spiders after you, poison you, and drag you down closer to itself (i.e. involuntary instahatch). Also, even after renouncing Ixhuachatetl, you remain permanently in Spider Form, but you lose all the divine benefits -- including webs, enhanced poisons, stabbing bonuses, neutral spiders, and the ability to butcher corpses (though you are once again allowed to eat permafood). This is what happens when you mess around with spider gods. While in perma-Spider Form, the good gods will not accept you, nor will Beogh, even if you used to be a Hill Orc. Fedhas will not accept spider followers who used to be Vampires.
The proposed concept has its merits, but a milder version would also work: go back to original species once wrath runs out.HOW BEING A SPIDER FOREVER EFFECTS DIFFERENT SPECIESGenerally: Because of the unique way spider players feed, species distinctions involving herbivore, carnivore, saprovore, and gourmand mutations become irrelevant. Mutations which are suppressed in Spider Form remain suppressed, so claws, scales, hooves, constricting body parts, resistances, and so on remain unusable.
Spider Form replaces innate stealth bonuses, size, and speed. Healing rates, metabolism, see invisible, innate magic resistance, and other intrinsics are retained in Spider Form. Aptitudes remain the same, though weapons, armour, and shield aptitudes become irrelevant. Since Ixhuachatetl does nothing to mitigate the +10% failure rate of Spider Form, spellcasting is a less attractive, but still usable, option.
For specific species: Merfolk and Octopodes lose the ability to swim. However, Tengu can still fly. Vampires and Demonspawn still count as unholy creatures when attacked by holy wrath effects. (These effects are consistent with existing Spider Form.) Octopode rings beyond the first two will meld in Spider Form, and will be forced out with other equipment upon joining the religion. Felids still retain the extra-life mechanic.
Vampires still retain their unique feeding system, shifting back and forth between a living spider and an undead one. When Thirsty or below, Vampire spiders still gain the HP and nutrition bonus when stabbing an enemy they can drain (which includes insects, now). Sufficiently dead vampire-spiders (Thirsty or more) replace Spider Form's innate poison vulnerability with poison resistance -- however, when this happens, their bodies can no longer produce poisons, and their bites inflict no toxic effects. Vampire-spiders who are thirsty or below also cannot mate with other spiders (though they can still mate with Ixhuachatetl -- gods have more versatility in such matters.) A Vampire-spider who is completely bloodless will no longer regenerate new webs.
Minotaurs normally lose their retaliatory headbutt in Spider Form. However, under Ixhuachatetl's guidance, they learn to use their new spider bodies to channel their innate rage. Minotaur-spiders who worship Ixhuachatetl reflexively bite those who attack them in melee. This bite will only inflict standard poison, even if the player has improved venom from two stars of piety. This ability is lost if Ixhuachatetl is renounced, however.
Comments I lack energy to put elsewhere:- evilmike: Turning arachnophobic monsters into spiders is too close to Jiyva's slimify.
- evilmike: Spiders should not be neutral (rather, they should be hostile as with Beogh): unfun exploration in Spider.
blackcustard: simply changing the spider player vs spider monster combat messages could allow to get away with hostile spiders and keep the theme. - evilmike: Players should not be able to detect altars to the spider god in advance (assuming that spider god altars stay temporary and you have to be in spider form for joining the cult).
- galehar: Spider swarm problematic (irresistible, AC ignoring, LOS affecting damage over time, hence hard to balance). Suggested replacement:
Spider Call: Fill the level with neutral monsters, effective and dangerous. Spiders would crawl out of the ground and walls, coming from everywhere. That's seem more fun the a LOS damage-over-time debuff. And can also be used to replenish food stocks in corpseless branches.
Tuesday, 14th August 2012, 18:37 
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, as are certain developers), so there will be an audience who's very happy to read the following lines on ##crawl:
