Sif Muna

Version 0.31: This article may not be up to date for the latest stable release of Crawl.

"I know many secrets..."

Sif Muna the Loreminder is a contemplative but powerful deity, served by those who seek magical knowledge. Followers who triumph over their foes can call upon the Loreminder for magical power and the ability to cast spells beyond their magical training. The devout are rewarded with a supply of spellbooks taken directly from Sif Muna's legendary library. Sif Muna grants followers the ability to rapidly restore their magical energy, and to forget spells at will, so as to learn new ones. Worshippers can call upon the Loreminder to help cast any spell they've discovered, even if it's well beyond their current magical training. Over time, devout followers will receive spellbooks containing a vast range of spells. Sif Muna likes it when you kill living beings, you destroy the undead, you kill demons, you kill holy beings and you destroy nonliving beings.

Sif Muna the Loreminder is a contemplative but powerful deity, served by those who seek magical knowledge.

Restrictions

• Djinn, unable to learn spells from books, are unable to worship Sif Muna.
• Demigods may not worship Sif Muna (or any other deity).

Appreciates

• Killing living, undead, demonic, holy, and nonliving creatures.

Deprecates

• Inactivity: You lose 1 piety per 340 turns, on average (1/17 chance every 20 turns).
• Abandonment.

Given Abilities

Piety level -: "Disciple"

• No new abilities.

Piety level *: "Student"

• Channel magic: 3-5 MP restored per turn for 3 + 2d(2/3 * Invocations)/2 turns (avg. 3 + Invocations/3 turns). (2-3 piety)

Piety level **: "Adept"

• No new abilities.

Piety level ***: "Scribe"

• Forget spells at will: Works as a scroll of amnesia. (8-12 piety)

Piety level ****: "Scholar"

• Divine Exegesis: Will cast any spell in your library. The spellpower for this cast uses the usual spell skills, enhancers, etc. but also receives a bonus of 1.5 * the spellpower as if Invocations were the spell's only school. (12-18 piety)
  • Note that even though Exegesis itself doesn't cost MP, you still need to have enough magic points to cast the selected spell.

Piety level *****: "Sage"

• No new abilities.

Piety level ******: "Genius of the Arcane"

• No new abilities.

Gifts

Piety level *****:

• Spell books. Whenever you gain piety, if your gift timeout equals 0, you have a 75% * (piety - 122) / piety chance to gain a spellbook.

Each spell book is either an ordinary spell book (24%), a Theme randart spell book (73%) or a Level randart spell book (2%).

• Ordinary spell books are the kind you find lying around the dungeon, and are weighted toward ones with spells you don't have in your other spell books.
• Theme randart spell books will contain several spells on a given theme (not necessarily a magic school).
• Level randart spell books will contain several spells with a given level (up to your XL). A high Spellcasting skill will grant better artefact spellbooks.

Sif Muna's randart books (both Theme and Level) will be larger than those found in the dungeon - they will be around 6 spells in size.

Sif Muna's gift timeout between books is dependent on the number of spells it has: the timeout equals 9 + (spell_count * 6) + (2d19)/2 piety, where gaining piety will decrement this timeout. Note that when you have a gift timeout with Sif Muna, piety gain for all purposes except gifts is reduced.

Punishments

Sif Muna does not appreciate abandonment, and will call down fearful punishments on disloyal followers! Those in Sif Muna's ill graces find the very forces of magic rebelling against them. They are confused and stupefied, their magical reserves drained, their enchantments unravelled. Casting spells, too, becomes unreliable - and even dangerous.

If you leave Sif Muna (voluntarily or not), your penance counter will be set to 50 (quite high!), but no immediate negative events will happen. Possible punishments include:

• 30%: Temporary decrease in Intelligence by up to 20%
• 30%: Confusion for 5-7 turns
• 20%: All MP drained
• 10%: Reduction of the remaining duration of all magic enchantments affecting you to 0 or 10 auts (11 for Flight). This is identical to the effects of a potion of cancellation.

Every time you cast a spell, there's a 5% chance that the failure rate will be increased by a percentage equal to your current penance. This is in addition to normal punishments, and will not reduce your penance.

Strategy

Sif Muna is the plain "magic god", without the focus on destructive (Vehumet) or necromantic (Kikubaaqudgha) sides of magic. Sif's spell gifts are weighted to contain spells you don't already have, so you'll eventually gain access to every spell.

Other than the spell books, the main draw of Sif is Channel Magic: a cheap ability that replenishes your MP. At 9 Invocations - a modest investment at mid game - Channel Magic recovers an average of 26 MP, 3-5 MP/turn. It continues to function even when retreating, attacking, or otherwise delaying your opponent (Hexes, Mephitic Cloud, etc.), making it a versatile effect. Channel Magic has a low piety cost, so don't be afraid to spam it. Divine Exegesis is also useful for accessing high-level utility spells, such as Death's Door and Dragon's Call.

However, Sif faces stiff competition with other gods. Sif's book gifts come at 5* piety - which is very late - and each book comes slowly. In contrast, Vehumet's and Kiku's offer predictable, focused, and useful spells from 1*. Also, both gods offer more direct support in the art of killing. So magical backgrounds, who already have spells, have the greatest reason to pick Sif.

Tips & Tricks

• Divine Exegesis will seem very weak and very expensive when you use it with an attack spell - their spellpower is likely too weak to matter. But Exegesis really shines with those with special effects:
  • Summon Horrible Things and Dragon's Call, which are easily on the level of Trog's Brothers in Arms for the early- to mid- game. Unlike most divine summons, these spells create multiple monsters per cast.
  • Shatter allows you to break stone walls. Other abilities that break stone walls, like Fedhas' Overgrowth, have similarly high piety costs.
  • Death's Door and Borgnjor's Revivification are excellent last resorts, giving you time or giving you a costly max heal, respectively.
  • Maxwell's Capacitive Coupling can take down the most lethal uniques and solo threats to your character in a few turns of channeling.
• Exegesis is still quite the expensive ability, but remember that Sif doesn't have many abilities to use piety on, and that Channeling can be activated long after you lose access to Exegesis. If you've gotten all the spells you need, there's little actual cost to the high piety cost.
• An amulet of faith early on will allow you to receive spellbooks much faster. Sif worshippers often struggle to get to 6* of piety, anyway. Meanwhile, an amulet of guardian spirit can make use of the 3-5 MP regeneration per turn, and channeling insures you won't run out of MP for actual casting.
• Sif can still be useful for heavy melee fighters, as Divine Exegesis offers some of the strongest panic buttons in the game. However, it's far from an ideal choice. Unless you have guardian spirit, Sif only starts benefiting you at 4* piety... if you have some Invocations investment and happen to get a relevant spell.

When Sif Muna's altar is missing from the Ecumenical Temple, keep a look out for wide hallways with blue floor tiles; when Sif's altar is not in Temple, it often has such a hallway preceding the altar proper. Regardless, like other altars, it is guaranteed to appear at least once between floors 2-10 of the main dungeon.

History

• Prior to 0.31, book gifts were less frequent at 6* piety, and more frequent at 5* piety.
• In 0.27, Sif's gifting speed was made generally slower. Previous gift timeout was 39 + (2d19)/2; it is now reliant on spells given. In addition, the chance to receive a gift after timeout=0 was reduced. This change was intended to increase Sif worshipper's piety (since gifts lower piety gain). Also, spellbooks themselves were adjusted: while Sif randarts remained the same size, regular books became smaller.
• Prior to 0.27, Sif could not gift the Book of Annihilations, Grand Grimoire, or Necronomicon.
• Prior to 0.24, Channel Energy was a 3* ability. Divine Energy was a 1* ability, allowing users to cast without sufficient MP in exchange for a temporary -Cast status. Sif Muna granted protection from miscast effects, and offered less piety for kills, but gave piety for training magic skills.
• Prior to 0.20, Divinations miscast effects were directly used in Sif Muna's wrath; those replicated already existing wrath effects.
• Prior to 0.19, Divine Energy did not exist. Channel Energy was a 1* ability that instantly granted 1d(2+[Invocations/4]) MP at a 0 - piety/20 - floor(2 * Invocations) failure rate, costing 100-200 hunger. Spellbook gifts began at 6*. Followers gained piety solely from training magic skills, and Sif disapproved destroying spellbooks, which was the only way to get under Sif's penance.
• Prior to 0.15, Sif Muna's wrath was able to force you to forget a spell.