Beogh

Version 0.32: This article is up to date for the latest stable release of Dungeon Crawl Stone Soup.

"Show the world what it means to be an orc!"

A god of outcasts, pariahs, and the dispossessed, Beogh's altars are rarely found among those of other faiths, but their missionaries may always be sought by those looking for a place to belong. Worshippers will find many friends within the dungeon, and those who prove their strength to Beogh may gain lifelong companions the equal of any adventurer. To worship Beogh is to believe there is strength that transcends species and bloodline. To worship Beogh is to be an orc. Worshippers will gain the power to call down Beogh's wrath upon their oppressors, and other orcs will start to see you as one of their own. Especially promising adherents will find themselves beset by rivals for Beogh's favour, but overcoming these trials without fleeing will gain you loyal companions whom Beogh will resurrect time and time again - just so long as you continue to fight and avenge in their name. A true chosen one may even rally an entire orcish army to avenge a wrongful death. Beogh likes it when you kill living beings, you destroy the undead, you kill demons, you kill holy beings, and you destroy nonliving beings. Beogh especially likes it when you kill the priests of other religions. Beogh strongly dislikes it when you attack allied orcs.

Beogh the Outcast is the god of the orcs and is considered an evil god.

Appreciates

• You or your allies killing a living, holy, undead, demonic, or nonliving creature.
• You killing a hostile priest.

Deprecates

• Inactivity: You lose 1 piety per 340 turns, on average (1/17 chance every 20 turns).
• You will also lose piety (or incur penance) for the following:
  • Attacking allied orcs. (Be careful if you are confused!)

Altar

Beogh altars are most often found in the Orcish Mines, rarely appearing in the Dungeon itself. However, the primary way to worship Beogh is to find a conscious orc priest (or high priest / Saint Roka), who, if you are sufficiently injured and not currently worshipping another god, may give you an active ability to convert. If you have not abandoned Beogh before, all orcs within line of sight will be turned neutral upon your conversion.

Like most gods, Beogh vaults can also be found in the Abyss, or worshipped through a faded altar.

Given Abilities

Piety level -: "Convert"

• No new abilities.

Piety level *: "Proselytiser"

• Chance to turn orcs neutral - Orcs encountered in the dungeon may turn neutral on sight or upon dealing sufficient damage, with chance increasing with piety. Neutral orcs will head for the nearest staircase and exit the Dungeon, leaving their equipment behind for you to use as you see fit.
• Recall Apostles - You can instantly recall your orc apostles to your side. This ability is only available once you recruit an apostle, which can only be done at 3*, but will then subsequently remain available as long as you remain above 1*. (2 MP)

Piety level **: "Priest"

• Smiting - You can smite any monster in view. Damage at 0 Invocation ranges from 9-12 (avg 10), and linearly scales to 9-72 (avg 40) at 27 Invocation. This is unavoidable, and cannot be reduced by any means. (3 MP, 2-3 piety)

Piety level ***: "Missionary"

• Apostle challenges - As you gain experience, Beogh will send apostles to challenge you in battle, which can be either a warrior, wizard, or priest, with HP, equipment and spells scaling with your XL. Upon defeat, you may recruit them into your service as a permanent ally.
  • You may recruit up to three apostles at any one time. You may dismiss apostles at any time.
  • If one of your apostles dies, Beogh will revive them as you gain piety. The time to revival is reduced if you kill the monster that killed your apostle, indicated by the Vengeance status; monsters you have sworn Vengeance against will tend to hang around the corpse of your fallen apostle. All apostles are revived simultaneously as a unit -- if another apostle dies before the first is revived, the time until both will be revived will be extended.
• Apostle healing - Every time you deal damage to a monster, there is a chance Beogh will heal one of your apostles in sight.

Piety level ****: "Evangelist"

• No new abilities.

Piety level *****: "Unifier"

• Walk on water - You can cross deep water as if it was normal floor. Water walking will never end before reaching land, so you won't drown even if your piety falls too low.
• Blood for Blood: Beogh will grant you a number of summoned orcish allies to surround you, over several turns. The summons will expire quickly once there are no more enemies in sight of the player. This ability can only be used while standing over the corpse of one of your apostles. (8 MP, 20-30 piety)

Piety level ******: "Messiah"

• No new abilities

Apostles

When a challenge is issued, the challenger and any followers they may have will be placed nearby out of your line of sight. Challengers can track you similar to being Marked, are empowered by the Touch of Beogh (which grants them extra HP, damage, and spellpower), and are immune to your own Smite ability -- Beogh prefers you defeat challengers using your natural skills and leadership.

Should a challenger be too powerful for you to defeat, you may refuse their challenge by leaving the current floor. This will dismiss the challenger, but place you under moderate penance.

Challenges will not be issued before you reach D:6, in portal vaults, on Zot:5, during the orb run, or if you are currently under penance.

There are three types of apostle that may challenge you and be recruited.

• Warriors are the toughest and most physically powerful apostles. They are most likely to get high-quality equipment.
• Priests have moderate durability and power, and get support and/or summoning spells.
• Wizards are the most fragile apostles, but make up for it with increased evasion and multiple powerful offensive spells. They are also naturally cautious, and will attempt to hang back and blast enemies from afar.

Regardless of type, all apostles can walk on water and are immune to being polymorphed.

Apostle spells

Your orcish allies can have different spells, depending on their class.

Warriors are the least likely to have any spells. If they do have spells, they may know Battlecry, and possibly one other spell useful in physical combat:

• Haste, Might, Harpoon Shot, Electrolunge, Manifold Assault, Injury Bond.

Wizards may know up to three spells -- up to two primary spells and one secondary. Their primary spells will often share a spell school (other than Conjurations):

• Primary spells:
  • Throw Flame, Throw Frost, Soul Splinter, Shock, Sting, Foxfire, Sandblast, Scorch, Grave Claw, Stone Arrow, Searing Ray, Lee's Rapid Deconstruction, Borgnjor's Vile Clutch, Fireball, Iceblast, Airstrike, Venom Bolt, Bolt of Draining, Force Lance, Lightning Bolt, Bolt of Magma, Throw Icicle, Poison Arrow, Bolt of Cold, Bolt of Fire, Bombard, Permafrost Eruption, Plasma Beam, Hellfire Mortar, Lehudib's Crystal Spear.
• Secondary spells:
  • Haste, Confuse, Slow, Blink, Blink Range, Vitrify, Paralyse, Petrify, Battlesphere.

Priests will always know Smiting, and may know one or two other spells, only one of which may be a summoning spell:

• Main spells:
  • Minor Healing, Injury Bond, Might Other, Haste Other, Regenerate Other, Mass Regeneration, Agony, Stunning Burst, Prayer of Brilliance, Call Down Lightning, Conjure Living Spells.
• Summoning spells:
  • Call Imp, Summon Scorpions, Sticks to Snakes, Divine Armament, Vanquished Vanguard, Summon Demon, Summon Vermin, Summon Greater Demon.

Punishments

Beogh does not appreciate abandonment, and will call down fearful punishments on disloyal followers! Blasphemers against the word of Beogh find themselves assaulted by waves of orcish warriors, or by dancing electric weapons. Beogh may also simply smite such blasphemers – and when smiting true sinners, Beogh has a heavy hand indeed! Those who still worship Beogh will also find their followers regularly deserting them.

During penance or following desertion, you'll occasionally experience one of the following forms of divine retribution:

• 25%: Beogh smites you, potentially dealing very significant damage. If you are worshiping another god at this point, there is a piety/4 % chance that the new god will protect you from this.
• 13%: Durably summons 1-2 hostile dancing weapons. These summoned weapon will be enchanted up to +2 and branded with electrocution.
• 25%: Followers around you have a chance to turn hostile (only if you're still a follower of Beogh).
• 37% (62% if you changed religion): Sends forth an army of durably summoned orcs, led by a stronger, occasionally named orc, whose type depends on your experience level.

Strategy

Your apostles do not grow in strength. As you grow stronger and defeat mightier challengers, you may need to dismiss previous apostles to make room for more powerful ones.

Unlike some other ally-centric gods, Beogh does not protect your apostles from your own attacks. Be careful about using area-of-effect magic or ranged attacks around your apostles.

Trivia

• In very ancient versions of Crawl, comments in the code referring to orc priest smiting stated that they were channeling the wrath of B.O.G. (Brian's Orc God). This eventually evolved into the name, "Beogh."
• Very rarely, an orc follower can be given the name "Judas".

History

• Beogh was overhauled in 0.32. Previously, they could only be worshipped by Hill Orcs, and rather than gaining permanent allies through apostle challenges, worshippers of Beogh would have a chance to turn orcs they encounter in the dungeon into permanent allies on sight, or upon bringing them near to death. Beogh would improve the equipment of these orcs over time above 4*, and the player could gift one piece of equipment of their own to each named orc from 5*. Blood for Blood did not exist---instead, Beogh's 6* ability allowed the player to resurrect an orc for a large piety cost if they left a corpse.
• Prior to 0.28, orcs that were near-death received less HP on conversion.
• Prior to 0.27, conversion occurred the turn after an Orc entered LOS.

Also, monsters would attack slower with almost any weapon, (1.0 + base delay) / 2, though orcs had higher base damage. For orc warlords, this meant that demon tridents and even spears were stronger (per turn) than bardiches. For example, a warlord would have stats of (32 + 6 dmg, 1.05 delay, 36.2 dmg/turn) with a +0 spear, but (32 + 18 dmg, 1.5 delay, 33.3 dmg/turn) with a +0 bardiche.

• Prior to 0.19, Beogh increased the benefits of armour and shields. Also, Water Walking would end immediately if piety dropped below 120, killing the character if over deep water or lava at the time the effect ended. Destroying an orcish idol could anger Beogh.
• Prior to 0.18, Beogh did not have the ability to resurrect orcs. Instead, Beogh rewarded the player for "blessing" (i.e. sacrificing) the corpses of fallen orcs. Also, the Orcish Mines had four easier levels with more low-level orcs but fewer strong orcs like orc knights or orc warriors.

In addition, Beogh had a 10 + (Piety/10)% chance to prevent a hit that would've killed the player. This protection would reduce piety by 20 + 1d20 and did not function while under penance. The protection was disabled in this version due to a bug, though the in-game description of Beogh's powers still mentions this passive effect, even in 0.31.

• Prior to 0.17, Smiting dealt approximately 40 max damage with 27 invocations; the approximate formula was 6 + 1d(5 + Invocation Skill).
• Prior to 0.15, players could not gift equipment to followers, and Beogh did not gift random gear to followers with empty equipment slots.
• Prior to 0.14, orcish versions of gear existed, and Beogh only granted bonuses for wearing orcish armour (as well as wielding orcish melee weapons).
• Prior to 0.13, hill orc priests started with this religion.
• Prior to 0.12, recalling orcish followers did not have any delay, but it was not able to recall orcish followers from other levels. Shared experience was added in 0.12.