Yredelemnul

Version 0.13: This article may not be up to date for the latest stable release of Crawl.

"Carry the black torch! Rouse the idle dead!"

Yredelemnul the Dark is a god worshipped by those who seek powers over death and the undead. Followers, who must oppose all things holy, can raise legions of servile undead, and gain a number of other useful (if unpleasant) powers. Yredelemnul appreciates killing, but has no interest in sacrifices, preferring corpses to be put to use. Destroying artificial beings is also appreciated, as they are neither truly alive nor subject to death or undeath. Yredelemnul gives followers the power to raise skeletons and corpses, to recall undead followers to their vicinity, and to heal by draining the life force of living creatures. With sufficient piety, Yredelemnul can be called upon to mirror a follower's injuries onto attackers. Eventually, followers will gain the power to bind a monster's soul, and make it fight for them instead. Yredelemnul will sporadically gift followers increasingly powerful undead servants. Yredelemnul likes it when you or your undead slaves kill living beings, you or your undead slaves kill artificial beings and your undead slaves kill holy beings. Yredelemnul especially likes it when you kill holy beings. Yredelemnul strongly dislikes it when you use holy magic or items.

Death Knights begin play worshiping Yredelemnul.

Appreciates

Actions that increase your piety are:

• Killing a living creature: About 67% chance (more for creatures with lots of hit dice, less as your experience level increases) of +1 piety.
• Having an undead slave kill a living creature: About 40% chance (more for creatures with lots of hit dice, less as your experience level increases) of +1 piety.
• Killing a holy being: About 83% chance of +1 piety.
• Having an undead slave kill a holy being: About 40% chance of +1 piety.
• Killing or having an undead slave kill an artificial being.

Deprecates

• Forgetting him. (Piety decreases on average by 1 every 340 turns)
• Abandoning him. (Penance)
• Attacking with a weapon of holy wrath. (Penance)
• Voluntarily reading a scroll of holy word. (Penance)
• Casting Statue Form. (Excommunication)

Given Abilities

Piety level -: "Zealot"

• No abilities.

Piety level *: "Exhumer"

• Animate Remains: Creates a zombie slave from a corpse, or a small skeleton or large skeleton slave (depending on size) from a skeleton. Becomes Animate Dead at *** (Costs 2 MP and 100-200 Food)

Piety level **: "Fey [Species Name]"

• Pain Mirror: Any damage you suffer while this ability is active is mirrored upon your attacker. Note that the piety cost per reflected damage is quite high, so use this ability only when you absolutely need the boost. (Free to activate, but costs piety each time it takes effect equal to the square root of the damage done)
• Recall Undead Slaves: Progressively teleports your undead slaves to your current location, similar to a Recall spell. Affects your derived undead on the current floor and the undead servants gifted by Yredelemnul from any floor. Does not function in the Abyss. (Costs 2 MP and 50-100 Food)

Piety level ***: "Soul Tainter"

• Animate Dead: Replaces Animate Remains, functioning the same but affecting all corpses in view. (Costs 2 MP, and 100-200 Food)
• Gift: Undead servants: If you are eligible for a gift and your Piety is >= 75, there's a 25% chance to receive an undead servant from Yredelemnul, which stays with you until it is destroyed. The undead servant is selected among:

Roll	Yredelemnul Gifts
1	Mummy
2	Wight
3	Flying skull (2-5)
4	Wraith
5	Freezing wraith
6	Flaming corpse
7	Phantasmal warrior
8	Skeletal warrior
9	Flayed ghost
10	Death cob
11	Ghoul
12	Bone dragon
13	Profane servitor

Each time you are to receive a minion, the game rolls 1d(min(3+(# of previous gifts)/2, 13)). The result determines which undead servant you are gifted. As such, the faster you acquire piety, the faster the quality of Yredelemnul's gifted servants will improve.

Piety level ****: "Sculptor of Flesh"

• Drain Life: You can drain life from all living (non-demonic, undead, holy or life-protected) beings in sight. You drain 1 + 1d7 + 1d(Invocation) HP from each creature, and gain half of that damage back as healing, up to a maximum of Invocations*2. (Costs 6 MP, 200-400 Food, and 2-3 Piety)

Piety level *****: "Harbinger of Death"

• Enslave Soul: This ability allows you to convert a single enemy into a permanent undead slave upon its death. First, you must use the ability on a natural holiness monster of at least normal intelligence, which must have 75% or more of its health remaining. The target must also be able to leave a zombifiable corpse. Using the ability requires an unobstructed path between the caster and the target. Once this is done, the caster will have (2 + (Invocations * 0.75) turns to kill the victim. If the victim is successfully killed in time, it becomes a permanent spectral thing of its former self, allied to you and still capable of casting its spells and equipped with all of its gear. You may only have one enslaved soul at a time; enslaving a new one will destroy the old. (Costs 8 MP, 150-300 Food, and 4-6 Piety)

Piety level ******: "Grim Reaper"

• No new abilities.

Punishments

If you leave or are excommunicated from Yredelemnul, all of your slaves leave you and become hostile, though none of them are worth any experience to kill.

While under penance, Yredelemnul will sometimes punish you (about once every 2000 turns).

Possible punishments are:

• Random necromancy miscast (100% if your experience level is <= 4, less likely as your experience level increases)
• Cast (hostile) Animate Dead
• Some of your undead slaves leave you
• Hostile undead are summoned against you from the following list: mummy, wight, flying skull, wraith, freezing wraith, phantasmal warrior, flaming corpse, flayed ghost, skeletal warrior, ghoul, death cob, bone dragon, or profane servitor.

On average, it will take 25 such punishments to burn through the 50 penance you have incurred.

Strategy

Yredelemnul is the god of choice for melee characters who want backup, as well as powerful panic buttons in terms of draining life force and mirror damage prayers. Characters capable of casting Haste work well with this god, as powerful minions can become considerably deadlier with hastened. Yredelemnul is also viable for "monstrous" species who might want access to undead slaves, but lack the magical aptitudes to easily learn Necromancy.

• Yredelemnul's ability to permanently Enslave Souls enables you to get a singular, decently powerful undead version of a single living humanoid. This requires a very high Invocations skill, but it can even enslave Tiamat! Also note that when used properly, the resulting spectral horror keeps its old gear on it.

• Consider leaving behind powerful uniques alive if your Enslave Soul isn't reliable yet for later enslavement. Good candidates include Tiamat, Wiglaf, Norris, Frederick, Margery, Saint Roka, Rupert, Aizul and other powerful uniques. Nikola can be a dangerous ally, though, due to his usage of Chain Lightning. Good generic monsters to enslave include titans, fire giants, frost giants, high level deep elves (demonologists, master archers, blademasters), and orc warlords.

• Yredelemnul is perhaps the worst god to worship while tackling the extended end game content such as the Hells, Pandemonium, and the Tomb. In those areas, even bone dragons are outmatched, there are no corpses to raise, and enemies are immune to Drain Life. Also, there is no way to gain piety as Yredelemnul does not award piety for demon and undead deaths while it constantly decays over time. In addition, Yredelemnul prohibits the usage of Holy Wrath weapons which are often the best type available for those areas. On the other hand, Yredelemnul's wrath is one of the easiest to deal with, so switching late game is an option.

• You may wish to carry a powerful corpse down to the next floor to reanimate, so you are not completely without zombie minions on a new floor.

History

In 0.14 the combined number of bone dragons and profane servitors the player can have at the same time will be capped at 3, freezing wraiths will be replaced with vampires, and desecrating holy remains won't give any piety.

Prior to 0.13, you could be gifted rotting hulks and plague shamblers.

Prior to 0.12, recalling undead slaves did not have any delay, but it was not able to recall any undead servants from other levels.

Prior to 0.10, the undead servant gift roll's results were based on piety.

Prior to 0.6.0, Yredelemnul's random undead gifts could not follow you between floors.