Scroll of immolation

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

Type	Scroll
Name	Scroll of immolation
Icon

A scroll that fills the creatures around the reader with an unstable and powerful inner flame. This fire is released any time the victims are hit, and explosively released upon their death. Giant creatures cause bigger explosions.

Reading a scroll of immolation will affect all creatures in your line of sight as though they were the victim of an Inner Flame spell. Damaging them will create flame clouds, and if the monster dies, it will create a large fiery explosion. The size and damage of the explosion varies based on the size of the monster slain, usually 3x3, and is powerful enough to severely injure or even kill careless characters.

This scroll has no effect on monsters with infinite willpower, though the scroll does not otherwise check willpower.

Strategy

Used wisely, these scrolls can be very useful. You can use a decent ranged attack (or means of generating allies), kill a single weak monster, and have the chain reaction kill everything else. The scroll excels particularly:

• In monster packed areas. Vaults:5 is a prime example - read it on descending, kill 2-3 vault guards, and the rest will be cleared.
• Against summoned monsters, such as The Royal Jelly, Dissolution, or Mnoleg. The explosions will clear the summons and damage their master.
• When using your own allies. Whether your ally or the monster wins, you'll get an explosion. Summons, undead (except spectral things), and Hepliaklqana ancestor work equally well.

The main risks of the scroll are the explosions hitting you, and the noise they create. Explosions can be avoided with careful play. Or, if you have rF++ or better with high AC, you can generally tank a few explosions to the face. Meanwhile, noise will attract monsters. For example, you may not want to immolate the guards on Vaults:5, since this'll bring out the scarier monsters just outside.

Tips & Tricks

• Even if you're fighting a lone monster, you can use the flame clouds (created on any hit) for some extra damage. For instance, immolation can help you take out an ogre before it gets to melee range.
  • The flame cloud effect works very well with poison, since each tick of poison will trigger a new cloud.
• The actual Inner Flame explosions can hurt enemies outside line of sight.
• Beogh worshippers should watch out: Beogh can gift friendly orcs in-between explosions, and if an explosion hits an orc, you'll be put under penance.

History

• Prior to 0.25, the scroll had no effect on summons (except for durably summoned monsters).
• Prior to 0.13, these scrolls were significantly less useful; they would unleash a single moderately-powerful explosion centered on the reader, though thankfully this explosion could only destroy scrolls in very early versions of the game.