#2232 Caries, God of Decay
From ye olde Zauren!
Caries is a dark necromantic god, the counterpoint to Ely. They revel in spreading disease, poison, decay, and other such unsurly things. People are less followers and more harbingers, although they get strength in the afflictions... if they survive. They are rather invocation based in abilities, fitting people who don't want to branch into spell schools but still wish to use certain utilities.
Piety is increased over time, and by using her abilities. However, the requirements for her abilities can be rather steep. Similarly, she gives the ability 'Defile'. Potions of healing, heal wounds, restore ability, wands of healing, amulets of clarity, and rings of sustain ability/regeneration all will be corrupted (Degeneration, decay, poison, confusion, yadda... maybe a transmuter would like this. Rings become hunger, amulets inaccuracy, yay for bad IDs!) and give some piety. Using a healing ability or wearing something that does such or evades such has the standard warning if you ID it (Caries does not appreciate that!) otherwise penance.
It's impossible to die of statdeath under Caries (1 is minimum.) As piety increases, you gain a raising resistance to outside corruption. At max piety, same as two rings of sustain ability, and clarity, and 50 MR. This does nothing for her invoked bad effects, though. Similarly, rot slowly fades away over time instead of being permanent. (One point as often as abilities heal.)
Invocation power is increased wielding a rotted chunk, which consumes it. The type influences the enhancer (Normal is least, mutation is most.) Similarly, this reduces the potential downside in some cases.
Level 1: Corrupting Touch. Melee range, 1 HP, 1 MP. Chance to lose 1 random stat, unless wielding a rotting chunk. Power dependent on invo + chunk. Inflicts a random bad effect on the enemy. Based on HD instead of MR, like confusing touch. Higher power can include multiple effects at once. Confusion, slow, poison, paralyze are possible. Piety gain from use stops at **.
Level 2: Decay. Ranged beam attack. 2 HP, 2 MP. Chance to lose 1-2 random stat, or 1 rot. Chunk removes effect. Fires off a necromatic blast. Can damage max HP, poison, or confuse. Respectable damage, high accuracy. Piety gain from use stops at ***.
Level 3: Dark Miasma. 3 HP, 3 MP. Always lose 2 random stat, or 2 rot. Chunk cuts the loss in half, outside boosting power. Fires off a decently lasting mephitic cloud. Being in it tries to apply confuse, slow and poison each turn within. User is immune. (Caries staves off the unholy sickness!) Piety gain from use stops at ****.
Level 4: Create Abomination. 4 HP, 4 MP. Same as the necromancy spell that creates X's. Can't use chunks to reduce effect. Lose 1 stat from strength, dex, and int. Dependent on power, corpses, and if said corpses are rotting, will create a small or large abomination. Fun addition is they create a mephitic cloud on death. (User isn't immune, though.) Always has a chance of giving piety.
Level 5: Greater Decay. A bolt attack. 5 HP, 5 MP. Chance to lose 1-2 from each stat and a few points of rot. Chunk just helps power. Hits everything in a line with necromancy damage. Also tries to apply slow, strong poison, and confusion based on HD instead of MR. Always gives piety.
Level 6: Blessing of Corruption. A smite targeted attack, and the main reason to invest a lot. It will cut your stat loss and rot in half, indirectly healing the negative effects caused by using her abilities. Then it inflicts heavy damage, slow, paralyze, confuse, and strong poison if possible on the target, with a resistable agony effect that can cut HP in half to boot. Power is based on invocation and how bad your rot/stat loss is. (So if you are at -10 across the board and -20 health, you could, say, wreck a titan or quicksilver dragon with enough invo.) Costs a lot of piety. A lot. The point of being at ****** is to use this, so at maximum piety you might be able to fire it 3 times in short order before hitting *****.
Penance: 50 points.
Stat loss: A chance to lose 1d3 in a random stat. Another check to get rotted.
Bad effects: A long duration slow and poison, with a chance of strong poison, and chance of confusion. Long as in 10-20 turns, bad if done in combat.
Summon Abomination: Dependent on experience level, throws some small and large abominations around you, while centering mephitic cloud on you.
Decay: Every item normally sacrificed to her has a chance of being turned into something bad without telling you.
What's to stop a mummy player from taking advantage of the increasing piety by just sitting in the Ecumenical Temple until they hit maximum? There's a reason none of the gods with increasing piety can be worshiped by mummies and vampires.
I don't like the name, but other than that, it looks like a well thought-out proposal. If someone makes a patch, I'd be happy to test!
Re Mummy scumming: If this turns out to be a problem, I'm sure it's possible to justify why mummies shouldn't be able to follow this god. She wouldn't want something she can't decay any further, right? But as I understand it, you only gain piety by using the abilities. I'm not sure how exactly rotting and stat loss affect mummies, but it should just be a matter of the loss through ability use of high-level abilities is greater than the natural regeneration. In particular, I don't think mummies will be able to cure rot cheaply.
Cheers
Robert
I didn't consider the mummy/vampire stuff. Just make it so you don't lose piety over time. That'd work just as well. A bigger issue is that ghouls and vampires can cure rot by eating. Maybe just make godly rot different and only heal over time? Normal ghoul rot they could fix normally by eating; that's different in my opinion.
Mummies rot and stat loss normally, if from different things (Mutation et all.) It might actually be a perk for them, since the only way they can fix rot otherwise is through a costly ability or wands of healing.
And the name I just pulled out of my butt. It's latin for decay, and sounds female, so that was my 10 seconds of intense brainstorming.
This god is not distinctive enough from Kiku and Yredelemnul. We don't need a third god of death and decay, the two we have are already problematic to design. Most notably anytihng that works on living creatures only becomes less and less useful as the game progresses (Crypt, lifeless creatures, magically animated stuff, more and more undead). I think Yredelemnul is going to be pretty much ok in 0.5.x, but Kiku needs a major overhaul.
b0rsuk
Moved to http://crawl.develz.org/wiki/doku.php?id=dcss:brainstorm:god:other
closing this one.