Ecumenical Temple

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

A Temple of the Gods, a place of peace and refuge from the insanity of the dungeon. It usually contains altars to most of the known gods. Gods that value exploration grant no piety for exploring the Temple. The entrance to this branch can be found between levels 4 and 7 of the Dungeon.

The Ecumenical Temple, also known as the Temple of Gods, is the first branch of the Dungeon that most players will encounter. Located somewhere on Dungeon:4-7, it contains altars to multiple gods, but nothing else.

Entering the Ecumenical Temple is entirely optional, but if you started without a religion, it's a good place for choosing a god. You can learn more about each god's religion by standing on their altar and praying (command < or >).

Layout

The Temple has a single floor randomly picked from a predetermined pool of layouts. Whichever layout is picked, you'll typically find altars to at least six gods, but usually more. Rarely, one or even no altars will spawn. When entering the Temple, its entire map is revealed automatically. This lets you see every altar immediately, but gods won't grant exploration piety for this branch, and Humans' exploration regen doesn't work either.

The Temple will never contain altars to Beogh. It can very rarely contain altars to Jiyva, Lugonu, or Ignis, but each has a special layout for the temple that is "corrupted" by the god in question, which replaces most of the other altars. You can find the three former gods in certain branches (Beogh in the Orcish Mines, Jiyva in or near the Slime Pits, and Lugonu in the Abyss) or in rare dungeon vaults.

The Temple is always safe. Some layouts may have monsters locked behind transparent walls. Note that monsters can follow you to the Temple, or be created (whether by divine retribution or a spell).

If the Temple's entrance appears to be unreachable, try to get in via an unused set of stairs on another floor.

Altar Generation

First, the game runs a 1% check for "rare" temples. These include temples with 1 or even 0 gods, but also corrupted temples to the three special gods. Then, it rolls a 50/50.

• If heads, 13 + 1d9 is run twice, taking the lower result (with max = 21).
• If tails, 4 + 1d9 is run twice, taking the higher result (with min = 6).

If a rare temple isn't generated, the mean number of altars will be 13.5.

Overflow Altars

Most gods are guaranteed to have an altar present here or in the Dungeon. If an altar to a deity other than Lugonu, Jiyva, Ignis, or Beogh is not found in the Temple, it will be found somewhere between D:2-10. Such altars are called overflow altars. Note that not every altar you see in that range is necessarily an overflow altar, although most are.

Even though they might not have altars, certain non-Temple gods are easy to worship. Hill Orcs can convert to Beogh upon encountering an orc priest. Any eligible race can start with Ignis by playing as a Cinder Acolyte. Thus, only Jiyva and Lugonu are difficult to find early.

History

• Prior to 0.31, the Temple was not mapped on entry, so you had to explore it to find altars, and it could be used for Meteoran explore regen.
• In 0.29, new temple vaults with 0-1 gods were added with a rare chance. Also, god generation odds were changed, which added more weight to smaller temples.
• In 0.18, the Temple can, in rare cases, be overtaken by Jiyva, creating a Jiyva-themed temple and replacing most of the altars with its own.
• Prior to 0.14, the Ecumenical Temple could be a good place to wait out a god's wrath without interference from other threats.