Martyr's Knell

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Version 0.32: This article is up to date for the latest stable release of Dungeon Crawl Stone Soup.
Martyr's knell.png Martyr's Knell
Level 4
School1 Necromancy
School2 Summoning
Source(s) Book of Decay
Book of Necromancy
Casting noise 4
Spell noise 0
Power Cap 100
Hated By Elyvilon
The Shining One
Zin
Beckons forth the soul of a long-dead martyr to shield your allies for a time. This soul suffers a portion of the damage your allies would otherwise receive.

If it is slain (again!), it will transform into a flayed ghost, inflicting illusory wounds on foes. Such wounds are fleeting, and will disappear when the ghost departs - unless you kill its victims first.

Martyr's Knell is a level 4 Summonings/Necromancy spell which summons a martyred shade, who will protect your allies.

Useful Info

Summons a single martyred shade. Martyred shades do not attack, but have Injury Bond: half of all damage done to its allies (except the player) will redirect to itself. If the martyred shade dies, it turns into a flayed ghost, who will immediately cast Flay on transformation.

Spell power increases the summon's hit dice, which increases its HP. The shade's HD is equal to 6 + pow/11.[1]

Duration of the summon is around 18 turns. It is not affected by spell power. If the shade dies, the resulting flayed ghost has its duration renewed to ~18 turns.

There is a summon limit of 1 martyred shade; casting the spell again will cause the old summon to very quickly time out. Flayed ghosts don't count towards this limit.

Strategy

  • This spell is extremely useful to Summoners, heavily increasing the survivability of all your other minions. Paired with the healing abilities of Call Canine Familiar, it provides a stable and powerful companion with high damage and HP.
  • While the shades themselves do not deal any damage, the flayed ghost that spawn on their death provides a very powerful attack. Lowering the enemy's HP by 25% (even if temporary) can be life changing against High HP/Low AC enemies such as hydras.
  • The flayed ghosts spawned after the martyr's death do not count towards your summon limit. As such, you can recast Martyr's Knell to get another shade without desummoning your other ghosts and increase their survivability even more.

History

References