Summoning God

2112345 by lemuel, eronarn and dpeg, inspired by 2014006. The title is a misnomer. The crucial property of the god is constant piety, paid with permanent health. The god was supposed to replace Kikubaaqudgha but that deity got fresh blood after 0.5, so may survive in his old incarnation. So the new god is now proposed as a separate entity. However, this proposal is still focused on the Necromancy, so before adding it, we need to think about Kikubaaqudgha's role again (or attempt a merger).

Theme

”[god] commands vast armies of beings either summoned or enslaved or undead. This god is always looking for capable commanders, who are willing to devote themselves thoroughly and gain powers for leading the enslaved masses in return.”

It's me or could this god be reflavoured into a deity which demands more and more followers to worship her blindly ? the necromantic issue would be rather secondary but the pact idea still persists. The player would become a slaver or a brainwasher to convert the mass. There's a proposal in the tavern about a god which treats slaves carelessly (i.e no penance for let allies be killed) https://crawl.develz.org/tavern/viewtopic.php?f=8&t=3016 that can be merged with some of the mechanics of this one. — roderic 2011-11-14 16:44

Implications:

  • The player takes on a 'career' under Kiku, with (irrevocable) 'pact' being the measure of progress.
  • Work is done by slaves =⇒ Nec/Sum playing styles supported. (This god is supposed to get the Summonings from Vehumet; there is some overlap with Kikubaaqudgha, but not too much, I hope.)
  • Purely personal powers (those not dealing with slaves) should be seen as 'promotions' and restricted. E.g. by having them scale with Pact so that the player is interested in getting many powers.
  • Since the powers are constant and have, even if active, only renewable costs (Health, Magic, Food), they must be focused on Nec/Sum enough. Else, turning late game to this god could be too good.

Pact

Piety is replaced by Pact, which is a value between 0 and 200, but not fluctuating. Players can turn maxhp into Pact, at a 1:1 ratio. Upon taking on the god, get 15 Pact at no maxhp cost. Your innate healing stops at your current maxhp (as it should be) but healing powers can extend to your 'old' maxhp. The current pact should be listed as Pact: 127/200. [Notes: more elaborate ratios (depending on species etc.) are conceivable. The above is a good start. It is intended that worshippers sacrifice more and more hp over time. It is not intended that they reach full pact. Also, while going with Fighting+Armour is best for high maxhp, this is a playing style having no synergy with the god's powers.]

Powers

Followers can choose powers from a set. There should be at most 20 powers but it is okay to start with much less. Many of the powers could be passive, some could be extendable. Need full database entries for all powers, so that players can plan their Kiku career fully in advance. Changing powers is possible, but should come with a (pact) cost. Strategical resetting the abilities is okay, tuning powers before every battle (i.e. tactical use) is not. Either each change has a pact cost of one (or two), or changes cost 0,1,2 etc.
Some examles for abilities which I think would work well:

  • Eternal Slaves: killed not-undead slaves (sometimes?) get up again (as zombies, skeletons, abominations, shadows).
  • Countless Slaves: more minions from Nec/Sum spells.
  • Faster Slaves: higher movement speed.
  • Beefier Slaves: more HP.
  • Stronger Slaves: they hit harder. [For faster/beefier/stronger, one could use either absolute (speed+2) or relative (speed+20%) improvements.]
  • Contagious Plague: slaves may turn appropriate enemies into being of the same state (temporary summon, zombie etc.); this turns the enemy into an ally.
  • Unreal Power: maxmp += pact/4, after rings/staff/mutation and cap. (cost 30)
  • Used to the Pain: pain damage reduced (Pain, Agony, Torment): damage = damage - damage/(1+d3), at least one damage survives (Cost 10)
  • There should be a power that helps with Nec/Sum casting (both at once). I suggest Warlock's Insurance: protection from Nec/Sum miscasts.
  • Pestilence and Decay: active ability, that rots all corpses in LOS at a great speed and adds miasma on them.
  • Eternal Darkness: reduce LOS (for everyone!) Comes with extensions.
  • Sense Undead: all undead (friendly or hostile) within a certain radius are visible, regardless of LoS. Cost 5.
  • Consume Unlife: a targeted undead is destroyed, and you gain its MP in HD. Hostile undead may resist. [This allows you to use your zombies as mana batteries — should have a food cost at least equal to Sif Muna's channel energy.] Cost 10.
  • Lobotomise: an enslaved creature becomes permanently friendly, but also becomes mindless (can no longer use equipment or spells.) Cost 5.
  • Cloak of Fear: a resistable fear effect on any living creature that enters LoS. (Always on.) Cost 5.
  • Wasting Rage: all friendly living creatures in LoS go berserk but also begin to rot. Cost 5.
  • Possession: the @ temporarily becomes immobile and the player takes control of a tame creature instead. [A lot of specifics to work out here.] Cost 25.
  • Undeath Mastery: the first time any undead creature enters LoS, it has a chance of becoming permanently friendly, subject to resistance. Cost 20.
  • Deathwatch: anytime an attack reduces you to less than 25% HP, there is a chance = (25 -current_hp_%)/50 of several friendly greater undead appearing near you. (This power is permement but won't activate more than once within ~100 turns.) Cost 30.
  • Knowledge Mortals Were Not Meant to Know: when activated, you gain a random Necromancy/Summoning spell you don't already know, with greater weight to a school you have skill in and to spells you haven't seen, at the cost of a level-3 Div miscast and/or a big Int loss. [Note that you are now stuck with the spell if you don't have Selective Amnesia available; probably this should not be available to Mummies.] Cost 10.
  • Shadow Step: blinks you to the location of a friendly undead in LoS and destroys the undead. Cost 10.
  • Infernal Bargain: a targeted friendly demon becomes permanent, at the cost of 1-2 points drained from a random stat. (To avoid abuse like the old Summon Horrible Things, the demon should still be somewhat subject to abjuration.) Cost 10.
  • Graverot: friendly undead sometimes poison on a succcessful attack. Cost 5.
  • Vampiric Hunger: you gain 50% more HP from the Vampiric Draining spell and vampiric weapons, but also one (additional) level of fast metabolism. (Not available to vampires.) Cost 5. [Should cost 15 if vampiric attacks count as a healing power.]
  • Slave Shield: when hit in melee, your slaves are hit instead if adjacent to both you and attack; chance depends on piety and relative EV. Lower EV slaves work better (not sure about the last bit).
  • Raging Slaves: allows undead to go berserk.
  • Sinister protection: evil magic miscast protection, death curse protection, hell effects protection.
  • Library of Blood: the god offers to show you one necro and one summon spell for the cost of 90% of your current HP and you can to try to learn one of them. They level of the offered spells depends on pact and spellcasting.Learning one spell costs 5 pact and pushes the library of blood offering far to the back.

Taking on and abandonment

Perhaps give a starting book 'Evil Command' or 'Dark Secrets', containing both Nec and Sum spells. This god will not use Invocations anywhere. This fits (dedication is shown by increasing Pact) and helps to circumvent late game scams (can't get Inv up to 27 with another god, then switch). As piety with the new god inreases, Pact is removed. This restores the lost maxhp. Retributions can occur each time this happens. Granted and heavy retributions occur upon switching to another god, and losing the last point of Pact.
Some retribution ideas:

  • If you had the LOS reduction power, then the god may do that on (only!) you for a limited time.
  • Send undead after you.
  • If you used (enough) slave powers, then the god may zombiefy the level: apart from a small (empty) disc around the player, every empty spot is populated by a zombie (this is actually not possible, so we have to fake it). In order to give players a chance, there should be enough small zombies so that players can hack their way to a stair.
There are many possible ways how the god could hand out (and possibly take back) powers. Please read the FR for this. Just one comment by lemuel: Again, I think a much wider variety of powers will be used — and the decisions about taking powers will be more interesting — if specific bargains are offered periodically, rather than allowing any power to be chosen freely. This would also let us randomize the costs a bit, which could lead to players taking a power they wouldn't normally want because it was unusually cheap.
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dcss/brainstorm/god/propose/summons.txt · Last modified: 2011-12-21 18:25 by XuaXua
 
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