Lugonu

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

"Spread carnage and corruption!"

Banished to the chaotic realm of the Abyss, Lugonu the Unformed seeks followers to spread bloodshed and corruption in the overworld. Those who gain Lugonu's favour will be granted some of the power of the Abyss itself, allowing them to call forth eldritch horrors, and even to travel between the overworld and the Abyss at will. Followers of Lugonu gain powers to depart the Abyss at will, to banish monsters there, and to flee back inside when needed. Lugonu will also banish nearby foes if any other god attempts to interfere with their followers. Later, followers will be able to corrupt the ordered world, opening a gate for creatures of the Abyss to pass through, and to gate themselves directly into this realm of chaos. Lugonu will protect followers who unwield weapons imbued with the distorting energies of the Abyss, and eventually will offer to corrupt a follower's weapon in that way. Lugonu expects followers to spread unceasing chaos in the overworld, and as such does not grant piety to worshippers while they remain in the Abyss itself. Lugonu likes it when you kill living beings, you destroy the undead, you kill demons, you kill holy beings, you banish creatures to the Abyss and you destroy nonliving beings.

Racial Restrictions

Demigods can't worship Lugonu (or any other god).

Appreciates

• Killing or having an ally kill a living, holy, undead, demonic, or non-living creature.
• Banishing any kind of creature.

Lugonu does not grant piety while you are in the Abyss.

Deprecates

• Inactivity: You lose 1 piety per 340 turns, on average (1/17 chance every 20 turns).
• Abandonment. Unlike most gods, you may not rejoin Lugonu during penance.

Altar

Altars to Lugonu are mainly found in the Abyss. Very rarely, a corrupted version of the Ecumenical Temple may be generated, or part of the dungeon may be corrupted.

Joining Lugonu for the first time in the Abyss provides a +40 piety bonus, resulting in 55 piety. Subsequent joins in the Abyss will give +20 piety (to 35 piety). This allows the player to use the first power, Depart the Abyss, immediately. (There's no bonus for worshippers outside the Abyss.)

You can also create your own altars to Lugonu by using the Corrupt ability on a floor with an altar to another god, but this requires you to already be a follower.

Given Abilities

Piety level -: "Abyss-Baptised"

• You may unwield distortion branded weapons without suffering any ill effects. (Passive)

Lugonu will also protect you from other gods' wrath. When a wrath effect is triggered, Lugonu has an 80% chance to banish any durably summoned monsters, and a 30% chance to banish any other monster in your line of sight. This can't trigger for Ashenzari or Hepliaklqana wrath, as these gods have entirely passive effects, but all other gods are eligible.

Piety level *: "Unweaver"

• Depart the Abyss - You can immediately leave the Abyss, returning to the point you initially entered the Abyss from. (1 MP and 10-15 Piety)

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

• Banish - Zap a beam of banishment. Like the monster spell, it checks willpower. If you succeed the willpower check, the monster will be sent to the Abyss (or deeper into the Abyss if inside it), and you'll get full XP as if you killed them. If you fail, the monster will be inflicted with malmutate. Higher Invocations increases the chance to banish. (4 MP and 3-4 Piety)
  • Banished uniques (and some powerful, non-unique monsters) are not technically dead, and can appear while exploring the Abyss. Do not use this on the Royal Jelly unless you have some means of breaking into the stone vaults in its lair.

Piety level ***: "Agent of Entropy"

• No new abilities.

Piety level ****: "Schismatic"

• Corrupt - Corrupts the non-Abyss floor you're on, randomly converting the walls and floors of a large area around you to randomly selected other tiles. Stairs and portals cannot be changed, and harder walls are more likely to resist - unnaturally hard walls are immune. In addition, a pack of neutral abyssal creatures will be summoned. The higher your Invocations, the higher the amount of monsters. You may only corrupt a floor once. (7 MP, 5 HP, and 10-14 Piety)

Piety level *****: "Envoy of Void"

• Enter the Abyss - Instantly sends yourself to the Abyss. (Costs a random non-lethal amount of HP, 10 MP, and 35 Piety)

In addition, Lugonu provides the following:

• Abyssal Rune Attraction - While in the Abyss, the chance of a finding the Abyssal rune is higher, as if you were a floor lower. (Passive)

Piety level ******: "Corrupter of Planes"

• Corrupt Your Weapon - Once per game, Lugonu will corrupt a weapon of your choice. Corrupting a weapon adds +1d3 to its enchantment and adds the distortion brand. You can corrupt any non-artifact melee weapon as long as it isn't already branded with distortion.

Punishments

Lugonu does not appreciate abandonment, and will call down fearful punishments on disloyal followers! Lugonu's ire renders the barrier between reality and the Abyss weak and permeable. Space warps, hurling victims across the dungeon, or even directly into the Abyss. Lugonu also reaches out and sends the chaotic inhabitants of the Abyss against victims, with veteran adventurers facing the greatest horrors of the Abyss. Lugonu does not forgive easily, and will not allow ex-worshippers to rejoin the fold while Lugonu's wrath still lasts. Lugonu's wrath lasts for a relatively long duration.

If you leave Lugonu, your penance counter will be increased by 50. Lugonu will not accept you again until your penance counter reaches zero.

While under penance, Lugonu will sometimes punish you with one of the following forms of divine retribution:

A punishment from Lugonu has two independent components:

• (1) 50%: You teleport next to monsters
• (1) 25%: Banishment
• (2) 1 + experience level/7 hostile small abominations, large abominations, thrashing horrors, and ancient zymes are summoned to fight you (100% if your experience level is <= 14, less likely as your experience level increases, large abomination rate replacing small abomination rate with experience level, ancient zymes rather unlikely).
• (2) A hostile Tentacled starspawn, Wretched star, or Starcursed mass is summoned to fight you, alongside 1 + (1d[experience level/9] - 1) of the previous set.
  • Any monsters that Lugonu summons to fight you are durably summoned.

Strategy

Worshipping Lugonu is a guaranteed way out of the Abyss. While you'll receive penance from your old god, Lugonu provides strong protection against most gods' wrath. For an XL 9 or so character, Lugonu is likely your best chance at surviving a banishment.

Lugonu itself offers a number of strong abilities:

• Banishment is very powerful: it is a spammable ability that can instantly remove a given monster from the Dungeon. Even if you fail to actually banish, you'll still cripple the monster heavily; the malmutate effect is a better version of corrosion. Malmutate also reduces the targets' HD, thus reducing their willpower, thus making them easier to banish in the future. Note that nonliving and undead monsters are immune to malmutate.

• Corrupt creates a mass of neutral monsters, which can deal with enemies up to Zot:5. These creatures won't go out of their way to attack you. However, they'll attack if you get in their way. In addition, this ability lets you break through stone walls, including Slime Pits:5's loot vault (without killing TRJ).

• Enter the Abyss is incredibly expensive, but powerful, escape tool. While the Abyss isn't exactly safe, it's likely safer than a dangerous situation inside Zot:5, the Tomb, etc., and it only takes 1 turn to activate.
  • Remember that you end up on the lowest floor you've reached. If you went to Abyss:7 in the past, this ability will send you to Abyss:7. Try to avoid delving deeper than you need to.
  • Also remember that, when exiting the Abyss, you'll end up back where you started. Make sure to buff up before exiting!

• Distortion is a powerful melee brand. Before considering the banish chance, it's already stronger than electrocution. It also has a 5% chance to banish, which is effectively an instakill. However, it can blink enemies around, which can be annoying. This brand is best on fast weapons like Short Blades, as distortion deals flat damage and has a flat chance to banish.

In addition, Lugonu makes the Abyssal rune much easier to obtain. Characters who struggle with their 3rd rune may want to pick Lugonu.

History

• Prior to 0.31, Lugonu always banished 1d3 mosnters every time another god's wrath happened. Also, the wrath protection did not activate on Elyvilon or Gozag wrath effects.
• Prior to 0.30,
  • Lugonu did not protect you from other gods' wrath. Lugonu did not provide a special bonus to first-time worshippers. Lugonu altars were less common in the Abyss.
  • Banish was a 3* ability, had a higher failure rate, and did not malmutate if it failed the willpower check.
  • Lugonu had a 2* ability, Bend Space. This ability cost 1d4 HP and would blink you and nearby monsters. Monsters would tend to be blinked away from the player. This ability worked on teleport-immune creatures, including Formicids and Tree Form players.
  • You could worship Lugonu via the Abyssal Knight background.
• Prior to 0.29, Bend Space scaled with Invocations, dealt up to 1d6 to blinked monsters, and would tend to blink monsters away from the origin rather than away from the destination.
• Prior to 0.26, Banish did not provide full experience.
• Prior to 0.20, Enter the Abyss required at least 9 MP and could deplete all your magic.
• Prior to 0.18, Banish was capped at 10.5 Invocations skill, but had a higher base power.
• Prior to 0.17, Lugonu gave piety for corpse sacrifices. Also, Corrupt Weapon required the player to find and pray at an altar of Lugonu, instead of being available at any time.
• Prior to 0.14, Lugonu followers received no protection from distortion weapon unwielding effects.
• Prior to 0.12, Lugonu's wrath would summon demons instead of Abyss natives.
• Prior to 0.10, banishing enemies provided no experience, and Lugonu gave no piety for demon kills.
• Prior to 0.9, followers of Lugonu had better blinking in the Abyss.
• In early versions of Crawl, Lugonu was known as Lucy, but the name was changed to make the god more androgynous.