Nemelex Xobeh

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"It's all in the cards!"

Nemelex is a strange and unpredictable trickster god, whose powers are invoked through magical packs of cards painted in the ichor of demons. Followers will be granted decks of cards as they traverse the dungeon, and are encouraged to trust in the cards to provide them with divine assistance. However, the Trickster can also ensure that fortune favours the bold. The Trickster's followers gain various ways to influence fate when playing their cards. The effects of the cards will be more powerful with higher piety and with greater Invocations skill. Later, followers will gain powerful abilities to manipulate the cards, allowing them to choose one of three drawn cards, to gain the effects of multiple cards at once, and finally to stack decks and re-order their contents. Nemelex Xobeh likes it when you explore the world. The power of Nemelex Xobeh's abilities and of the cards' effects is governed by Invocations.

Racial restrictions

• Demigods cannot worship Nemelex Xobeh (or any other god).

Appreciates

• Exploring the world.

Deprecates

• Abandonment. You'll lose on average 1 piety every 700 turns.

Gifts

Nemelex frequently gives worshipers access to cards with powerful effects as their piety increases. The cards belong to the deck of destruction, deck of escape, and the deck of summoning.

Probability of types of cards to receive as gifts:

• Destruction: 60% (max 26)
• Escape: 20% (max 13)
• Summoning: 20% (max 13)

Between 4 and 13 cards will be gifted at once, and any cards exceeding a deck's capacity are lost.

Given Abilities

All of Nemelex's abilities deal with manipulating or controlling cards. Nemelex will gift you additional cards as you gain more piety.

Piety level -: "Pannier"

• Pick a card, any card: You can draw from decks of power. The card effect is selected at random based on the deck type, with a power of (Piety × (Invocations + 25) / 27) + (9 × Invocations) + (1.5 × Piety) (see card power). This improves your chances to get improved effects from the card. Drawing a card takes one turn, removes that card from the deck, and has no other cost.

Piety level *: "Jester"

• No new abilities.

Piety level **: "Fortune-Teller"

• No new abilities.

Piety level ***: "Soothsayer"

• Triple Draw: Draw three cards from any deck, look at them, and decide which one to use, discarding the other two. If only two cards remain in a deck, then only the remaining two cards will be displayed. If only one card is left, then it will be played as normal while still incurring the regular ability cost. (Costs 2 MP, 6-9 Piety)
  • Note that even if all viewed cards are undesirable, you must draw one of them; there is no way to back out once you have seen them.

Piety level ****: "Magus"

• Deal Four: Select a deck and draw four cards from it in a single turn. (Costs 8 MP, 4-6 Piety)

Piety level *****: "Cardsharp"

• Stack Five: Draw any five cards from the available decks and order them however you like. These cards will be kept in a separate deck which can be drawn from as normal. You can only have one stacked deck at a time. (Costs 5 MP, 10-15 Piety)

Piety level ******: "Hand of Fortune"

• No new abilities.

Punishments

Nemelex Xobeh does not appreciate abandonment, and will call down fearful punishments on disloyal followers! Nemelex Xobeh forces sinners to rely on the luck of the draw. Stacked decks are immediately shuffled, and offenders are regularly forced to draw from the Deck of Punishment, inflicting almost every unpleasant effect imaginable. Further, attempting to draw from other decks may instead lead to drawing from the Deck of Punishment.

If you leave Nemelex Xobeh, your penance counter will be set to 50 and you immediately lose access to all decks. If you later return, the decks will be empty again.

While your penance counter is above 100, Nemelex Xobeh will occasionally punish you by drawing a card from the deck of punishments, which can include one of the following (equal chances):

• Famine: Your hunger state is set to 500 (starving).
• Swine: You are temporarily polymorphed into a hog.
• Torment: Symbol of Torment is cast at your location.
• Wraith: Inflicts heavy drain on you. This is reduced by negative energy resistance and negated by full resistance (rN+++).
• Wrath: You suffer the divine retribution from a random god other than Nemelex.

Strategy

• Nemelex will gift you many cards. Don't be too stingy with them, as any gifted cards over the deck limit are wasted. Used correctly and carefully, Nemelex's decks can make the early game quite easy for worshipers. Be sure to get your Invocations up quickly to maximize its effectiveness, and learn the effects of each card as quickly as possible.
  • You can also press ? while using Triple Draw or Stack Five to quickly view each potential card's effect.
• Some of the summons that may appear in the deck of summoning may spawn hostile, as well as friendly. The chance of this decreases as your skill in Invocations increases. Even then, the friendly summons are usually more than capable of dealing with the hostiles.
• Triple Draw is very useful for getting a card that is best suited for a situation. A poorly timed Degeneration card from the deck of destruction can polymorph a moderately dangerous group of monsters into something much, much worse. Remember that you must choose one of the three cards if using this ability; you cannot cancel a Triple Draw.
  • However, you can still cancel the effect of a targeted spell, such as one from the deck of destruction. You will still use the piety and hunger cost from the ability as normal.
• Stack Five costs a fair amount of piety, but it is very valuable to go into a tough fight knowing exactly what to expect.

See Also

• Deck of destruction
• Deck of escape
• Deck of summoning
• Nemelex guide (pre 0.15)

History

• Prior to 0.23, decks were evocable items rather than an exclusive god ability.
• Prior to 0.19, drawing from decks and using Nemelex Xobeh powers used Evocations instead of Invocations. You could identify decks via identify scrolls. 0.19 changed Nemelex Xobeh to gift decks of escape, destruction and summoning.
• Prior to 0.16, Nemelex granted two additional abilities: Draw One and Peek at Two.
• Prior to 0.15, piety was gained by sacrificing different kinds of items, which would cause Nemelex to gift you specific types of decks based on the number of items gifted of a certain type.
• Prior to 0.14, the type of decks provided were dependent on the type of items you were sacrificing. Also, deck of dungeons was available as a possible gift type.
• Prior to 0.11, Deal Four was known as Mark Four, which allowed you to peek at a few cards in a deck and identify them.
• Prior to 0.10, letting time pass used to reduce the gift timeout.