#1713 [gods] On Lugonu
Theme:
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Lugonu is the fallen god of Crawl. Banished by the Temple gods, she bides her time and tries to destroy it all, having no qualms to bite it herself as long as the others go down as well.
Piety:
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Is no more obtained for killing and sacrificing corpses.
Piety does decay very slowly. In the Abyss, decay is a bit faster.
Gained for destroying foreign altars (pray on them). Adds substantial piety, say 5-10. Causes retribution from the offended god (much as if a follower got excommunicated). Further altar destructions to the same
god increase retribution each time. Needless to say, gods whose altars were destroyed will not accept the player anymore. (Note: we can expect a number of about 20 altars in the game.)
Gained for banishment (any source -- makes distortion more attractive!)
Banishing monsters will also yield xp/2. Of course, killing them later will only give the other half.
Gameplay: you skip on part of the xp (you can get that back later) in favour of piety. Of course, banishing nasty monsters is better than banishing puny ones. (I suggest to scale chance for piety gain on monster xp and player XL.)
Flavour: Lugonu gains strength by her realm being populated, so she needs agents to bring on the masses.
Mechanic: Banishment should cost no piety. It could cost randomised amounts of food and magic (not health!).
Powers:
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Permanent: Can give Corona on the monster ("glow"), causing additional damage as long as it lasts.
Prayer: Your unbranded weapon becomes temporarily distortional. Even if you unwield it, you won't get effects. In essence, you can fall back on distortion any time you like. (This is only available at some piety.)
Works on launchers.
You can fix the distortion brand via EW III.
Active: Contract/Expand Space: like now, but moves you and tries to move monsters closer/farther to you. Damages moved monsters.
(Costs for CS: 0.5 piety, 3 MP, 1 HP.
Costs for ES: 0.5 piety, 1 MP, 3 HP.
These need a small piety cost.
The damage is irresistable 1d12 in 33% of cases.
Invocations makes these power more reliable: more distance for ES, getting enemies closer for CS. Player stays fixed.
Fun: in order to make the behaviour more 'realistic', we could also move items.
Shift Planes: always possible when at home (in the Abyss). Only much later possible in the normal dungeon. Needs full piety to work in Pan.
Basically a slowed down Dungeon-Abyss (or vice versa travel). A region of the source is planted onto the destination (only monster and colours, no features), and fades out (the colours, that is).
Gameplay: this makes leaving the Abyss just as possible (but a bit more flavourful). It deals with emergency-escaping into the Abyss in a much nicer way than the maxhp cost (everything can be balanced with maxhp -- it is the ultimate currency, so I am happy to get rid of it here).
Banish Other: As now. Is a pretty strong ability. Still ignores MR (divine!), in contrast to the spell.
Corruption: as now. Ideally, it would take longer. Hope we can get this at some time. Colours alone would help a lot. Perhaps add power if features are destroyed (fountains, statues, altars (?)).
Penance:
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* Translocations work not so well (teleports need longer to kick in,
blinks are not controlled etc.) Also used as a retribution effect
when abandoning Lugonu: upon trying to use Translocations, she can
interfere in the above ways.
* Banishment
* Sending Abyssical creatures to punish.
* Sending weapons of distortion.
Flavour effects:
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* set up temporary Abyss portal (which can be used), and which 'leaks'
indifferent Abyssical creatures or draws hostile ones in [tension]
* banish (perhaps the mass banish version) [high tension]
* send dancing weapons of distortion [tension]
* call for destruction of altar in LOS [no tension]
* demand more banished monsters
* teleport control [high tension]
* mini corruption [no tension]
* playing with hostile altars (changing colours of nearby squares etc.)
[no tension]
Demigods:
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Demigods can take on Lugonu, even as Chaos Knights. Those that do share with Lugonu the ambition to overthrow the traditional divine order. If a DG tries to take on Lugonu, the standard prompt is replaced by:
"Are you sure you want to collaborate with Lugonu? Your divine ancestor will be not amused!"
If the DG carries on, choose one standard god as ancestor. Flavour messages about the gods not liking perversions such as this until piety 30, retribution effects from then on (even if piety goes below again).
The parent god's effects occur with higher frequency and strength.
[This is for fun. It is not the important bit! :]
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1. Why faster piety decay in Abyss ? To deter Abyss farming ?
2. Could you elaborate on this Corona ? If it's permanent and "can" give corona (whatever it means), doesn't it mean a lot of micromanagement and having to put coronas on monsters, using macros etc ?
3. Distortion without side effects is VERY POWERFUL. Defanged distortion from Lugonu is already powerful, as I'm hoping to prove today with my kobold. So far, it's not bad. But distortion on ranged weapons could be devastating. It can deal devastating damage, you know. But then I'm the one who argues missile weapons need a buff.
No time to read the rest, I'm at work.
b0rsuk
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1. Yes. Abyss farming is pretty trivial for Lugonites. Flavour-wise, Lugonu wants followers to corrupt the overworld, not mess in the Abyss forever.
2. We're trying to make distortion more interesting (also visually) for Lugonites. This could be done in many other ways as well, and is not really urgent.
3. Yes. Distortion on missiles may go out again.
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1. Yes. Abyss farming is pretty trivial for Lugonites. Flavour-wise, Lugonu wants followers to corrupt the overworld, not mess in the Abyss forever.
2. We're trying to make distortion more interesting (also visually) for Lugonites. This could be done in many other ways as well, and is not really urgent.
3. Yes. Distortion on missiles may go out again.
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Distortion on missiles should consume the ammunition, of course (it self-banishes after being fired).
-Ero
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I do not see how you can keep piety up.
If you do not gain enough experience points as you descend, you'll have tougher time against the mobs. So you pop into the Abyss (using Piety) and go get the other half that you missed out on. Except by fighting in the abyss, you lose piety even faster. Then you need piety again to return to the dungeon.
If you do gain full piety before entering the abyss, upon entering, you'll need to use all of the god given abilities to fight the huge accumulated crowd, thus reducing piety by huge amounts.
I believe an additional source of piety gain is needed, not necessarily from killing.
In my opinion, Demigods with a god is just too powerful.
By the way, I already consider Lugonu as the *best* god at the moment. Corruption + abyss access makes rune runs quite easy.
-Banei
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It's possible to win with 1/2 exp from _everything_ (doy's meleeless conjless GESu run); and distortion deprives you of far less than that. -sorear
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Banei:
what you're saying is simply not true. Abyss is like a walk in the park for a Lugonu worshipper. There's no huge accumulated crowd at the entrance either.
At the moment I have a kobold summoner/melee, a worshipper of Lugonu. 4 runes, clevel 26, before Vault:8. There's no shortage of xp, even if you use distortion for the entire game, use Corruption on Slime:6 and Elf:7, like I did.
I agree that Corruption is very powerful. You're only missing some xp, possibly items (walls can be placed in loot vaults), but it basically clears Elf:7 and tougher vaults.
I don't like the idea of demigods worshipping a god. If it's even allowed, their god powers should be capped at half of the max. One of the points of a demigod is that you're on your own.
Right now we have "want to worship Lugonu ? Play a CK, never, ever go to the Abyss instead" no-brainer. Looks like dpeg wants to expand it into "Want to worship Lugonu ? Start as a demigod, never any other race, and completely forget about Abyss trips."
b0rsuk
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Distortion while praying will have a peculiar side effect: it will discourage using real weapons of Distortion. The end situation may be that Lugonites use plain weapons, while weapons of distortion are used almost exclusively by other characters. If distortion while praying is implemented, I can't see many characters using weapons branded with distoriton. Why not just choose Lugonu from the start and use this very powerful brand with almost no side effects ?
b0rsuk
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b0rsuk: I am not married to DG of Lugonu. It was just a proposal which possibly could fit the philosophy. No sweat on this one.
I think your main point is that Lugonu is strong, on the verge of being game-breaking strong. I believe that is true, and is caused by two points (largely). First, you can get piety in the most simple way. In other words, piety will not be a problem for a Lugonu player. Second, banish self is life saving in a strong form.
Please note how the proposal addresses both of these.
Put another way: I don't mind if Lugonu is a strong god (other gods are as well). If Lugonu is way too strong, then the problem is not the starting option, but the god itself (for Abyss diving and hoping for an altar would be a natural scum).
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dploog:
That's more less what I meant. I haven't even really used the 'enter the abyss' much. I think the last time I died because I forgot to use it.
I think that in some ways Lugonu already is overpowerd. Let's even forget self-banish. Corruption is the only ability I can think of that clears Elf:7 and Slime:6 from a single casting. I haven't tried using it in Vaults:8, but I suspect it would clear it just as well. You don't gain xp for enemies killed by the demons, and you may lose some items (walls can appear on squares with items), but otherwise it's pretty safe for a level 10 or so character. Corruption isn't really dangerous, you just sacrifice some xp gain and possibly items(unconfirmed).
In the right hands, a dagger of distortion is a VERY powerful weapon. It adds so much damage you can kill stone giants and dragons with it. It either deals very high damage, or pushes the enemy away. Great weapon for a summoner or reaver ! With a real distortion brand, it had downsides, of course - no weapon switching and it can be bad against ranged creatures. Distortion is amazing on a fast weapon, not so good on a big one.
I'll look forward to future Lugonu changes. The god may or may not end up overpowered, but it certainly encourages new playing styles. It's nice for reavers, summoners, even thieves. If 'distortion while praying' is implemented, hunters will love it too.
b0rsuk
Well, let's bring it here...
>>Lugonu says: Spread carnage and corruption !
Carnage ? Well, it's kinda easy... But corruption ? As for now, only real
way to spread corruption is ability Corrupt... Which costs Piety ! So,
Lungou dislikes me for doing waht it directluy says ? Strange... May be,
these should be fixed, and people should gain Piety for corrupting stages ?
I have been thinking about a better piety system for Lugonu. Here it is in a nutshell (this also addresses the last question).
Piety gain:
* destroying altars
* banishing monsters [1]
* killing minions of other gods
[1] The Banish power of Lugonu still costs piety. It is strong (as it ignores MR) but it will be a net piety loss in most cases.
Piety decays over time, but killing has a chance of halting that temporarily. (That's the standard piety clock of battle gods with a twist.)
Occasionally, Lugonu demands corruption. This is announced (and corruptions on your own are taken into account). Corruption still costs piety as now! (This is another, much slower clock.) Ideally, you'd rarely be forced to do this as you're corrupting levels on your own. The proper time scale will be one corruption per 7000-14000 turns. Warning time of the order of hundreds of turns. Punishment for failing to corrupt is severe, up to excommunication.
Other changes/notes:
Banishment does not give half xp.
Piety gain for banishments must be 'picky', ie. depend on the maximal piety you ever had. (To prevent banishing tons of puny monsters. Something similar will be used for TSO, so it's nothing unique.)
Corruption also sends queued monsters (i.e. those banished by you).
Piety gain per destroyed altar is constant, but retribution for repeated altar destructions to the same god increases.
If you destroy an altar to one good god, you cannot take on any good god.
Special effects (at least messages) if you destroy an altar to a god formerly worshiped.
Note that several gods retaliate with monsters, so you can try to gain piety from there. (But hopefully not farm it, as piety decays on its own.)
This proposal makes self-banish less problematic (it is still strong), as piety is much more of an issue.
Update on theme: Lugonu is the fallen god, driven by a desire to remove any traces of the gods and of the overworld. She has been banished and needs agents to act outside of the Abyss. She grows stronger by collecting all sorts monsters in her zoo, the Abyss.(She isn't picky: the stronger, the better. This also explains why abyssical monsters aren't neutral or friendly to each other or the player.) Agents can (a) help her cause by sending more monsters, storing up potential and (b) release the monsters through gates they create ('corruption').
Gameplay considerations: currently, Lugonu plays like a normal blood god (i.e. gives piety for killing), with an abyssical flavour and very strong powers (banish, corrupt and self banish). The change would make Lugonu play much different. First, there's the choice of which altars to destroy. (This may depend on which altars you have found.) Secondly, you will want to use Corruption sensibly, so you'll try to have enough piety to use it for branch ends. You will want to banish monsters for piety (note that you can get rid of them via corruption), leaving you with less xp than other blood gods would. It is not clear at this stage how Lugonu fares with extended endgames (like full runers). Once all altars are corrupted, you have to rely on banishing tough enough monsters for keeping up with the corruptions. However, I wouldn't mind if Lugonu + full rune was a serious challenge.
On the old proposal:
Snip the permanent corona idea.
Snip the DG of Lugonu, that was a bad idea.
Snip the prayer=>distortion brand idea. Banishing monsters w/o the power (=piety gain) should not be trivial like this. If you have to rely on weapons of distortion to be found, there are many more choices involved.
The Shifting planes would still be cooler than instant porting but are less needed.
I still think that Contract and Expand Space (as two powers) add tactically, and make Lugonu a bit more attractive for rangers or conjurers. (Rangers should be able to bless a launcher with distortion for making this feasible.)
Feedback highly welcome, as usual.
Some more comments: Piety gain for non-Temple gods should be smaller (this fits the story and helps reduce lucky piety from Beogh).
I am not sure anymore than the Banish Other ability should cost piety. While a similar mechanic works for Elyvilon (if your Minor Healing Other succeeds, you have a net piety gain; if you need several of them, or Greater Healer Other, then it will be a net piety loss), it should work differently for Lugonu. Especially, as there is no xp/2 compensation for banishment. Still need to make piety gain from banishment picky, so as to avoid the banished rats scum.
It might be possible to go with constant piety over time. (Your regular corruptions will reduce piety anyway.) This depends on how much piety you gain from altars and banishments and what the other powers cost.
Since monsters now can have gods and this should include monsters send by a god for retributional purposes, we can replace "piety for killing minions of other gods" by "piety for killing anything with a god different to Lugonu". Ie. you'd also get piety for killing Beogh priests etc.
Still another remark I forgot: once doing this, we should remove altars to other gods from the Abyss. First reason is gameplay: want to avoid having Lugonites grind for altar-destruction piety in the Abyss. Second reason is flavour: you would expect that Lugonu did at least clean up her home, i.e. destroyed all other altars in the Abyss.
I believe that the random (non-Lugonu) abyssical altars are almost pure flavour. Removing them would lose that bit of flavour, but the proposed change adds much more, in my opinion.
Note: it would be possible to address the first reason by having Lugonu piety decay in the Abyss (which is thematic). This would not address the thematic point, though -- unless we think that the whole story goes both ways and the other gods are interested in keeping Lugonu at bay, too (which they'd do by planting altars in the Abyss). If going with this, some additional bits for these abyssical altars could help (e.g. if they come with coloured area around them so as to demonstrate they were built by non-Abyssicans).
I always found Lugonu to be an excellent idea, if difficult to get on anything not a Chaos Knight. Being able to pick and choose battles is the main reason I used it, and banishing all those hill giants and spiny frogs on my Kenku allowed them to get far enough to die instead to my idiocy. I propose that dropping a distortion weapon on any altar outside the temple and praying will turn it into a Lugonu altar with a mini corruption. Hard, but you could go godless and hope to get it sometime before having to banish yourself and nose around.
Speaking of corruption, that was one of the best moments of playing Crawl, when I was completely out of options and used it. I had no idea what it actually did, and it was pretty amazing. But corrupting doesn't have to mean putting in a chunk of abyss and removing obstacles. It could just warp things a lot, or change the color scheme and portal in neutral monsters, or something. Maybe you get a combative effect fighting on corrupted ground; like mermen get fighting in shallow water.
I was going to agree with the piety questions, but banishing to get piety and zero exp is an interesting idea. As for wandering around on the Abyss, Lugonu likely wouldn't want a valuable agent to be looting her own world and potentially dying to wayward demons, so I understand piety decreasing. But there is her rune. Why not just have a possibility at maximum piety of a massive corruption effect appearing (dependent on total time with Lugonu) and the rune appears? Then you would just get it 'eventually' and not have to factor in wandering the Abyss at all, making a selling point of Lugonu being that you don't have to worry about being banished. Niche, but I know I hate it to heck.
zauren: The abyssical rune is taken care of: agents of Lugonu find it _much_ faster than anyone else.
An interesting idea from FR 2776814:
"How about an area effect made for groups that makes all creatures that are similar to the target hostile towards one another. Basically, you could turn that band of orcs on one another, but this would not really work on lone creatures or mixed groups."
This would be thematic and interesting until the end, although the specific mechanics are not fully clear (probably need a new monster flag, 'insane').
Idea: corporeal monsters caught in a corruptive blast acquire some (purely cosmetic) mutation which shows up in their description, have the modified name "a corrupted <foo>", and start losing health at a slow rate. If the monster dies from its condition (but not from any other source), its corpse hatches into a friendly ugly blob of protoplasmic flesh (there are a number of candidate monsters, I think). Lugonu thinks this is hilarious.
Could be added to Corruption as a possible effect, or made a standalone ability if desired.
I'm going to second the 'convert regular non-temple altars to lugonu' comment below. Distortion is rare enough that you would not be able to do it every time, but this would make it much easier to become a lugonu worshiper if you should want to. In fact, if you have a distortion weapon, any time you encounter an altar, you should get a message: "A strange and evil voice in the back of your mind compels you to place your weapon on the altar and sacrifice it."
There is a new, slim Lugonu FR. This FR contains many good ideas, so it will be open for a while. Still lowering priority.
Closing. See http://crawl.develz.org/wiki/doku.php?id=dcss:brainstorm:god:lugonu