Kikubaaqudgha

Version 0.33: This article is up to date for the latest stable release of Dungeon Crawl Stone Soup.

"Spread unending torment and darkness!"

Kikubaaqudgha is a terrible Demon-God, served by those who wish to indulge in the powers of death. An evil god, Kikubaaqudgha requires worshippers to cause the death and destruction of as many creatures as possible. In exchange, Kikubaaqudgha offers great assistance to the aspiring necromancer: a supply of useful bodies, knowledge of dark magic, and protection against necromantic backlash. Kikubaaqudgha will enhance servants' necromantic prowess with gifts of Necromancy spells. Kikubaaqudgha will protect followers from the effects of necromantic miscasts, death curses, and may even shield them from unholy torment. Followers can unearth dying wretches as necromantic fodder, and may invoke the sign of ruin to harm their enemies. Kikubaaqudgha will eventually allow followers to either receive knowledge of the most forbidden necromantic magic, or to have their weapon imbued with pain. Kikubaaqudgha likes it when you kill living beings, you destroy the undead, you kill demons, you kill holy beings and you destroy nonliving beings. Kikubaaqudgha's powers are based on Necromancy instead of Invocations skill.

Restrictions

• Djinn's unusual approach to magic renders them unable to worship Kikubaaqudgha.
• Demigods may not worship Kikubaaqudgha (or any other deity).

Appreciates

• You or your undead slaves killing living, nonliving, holy, undead, or demonic creatures. (Chance of +1 Piety, chance increases with the victim's HD, but decreases with your level.)

Deprecates

• Inactivity: You lose 1 piety per 340 turns, on average (1/17 chance every 20 turns).
• Abandonment. (Penance)

Given Abilities

Piety level -: "Purveyor of Pain"

• No abilities.

Piety level *: "Pupil of Sorrows"

• Unearth Wretches: Creates 1d(2 + Necromancy * 5/27) (1-7) wretches, random Necromancy- and branch- dependent monsters. They are considered hostile, but are unable to act, have 1 HP, 0 willpower, do not give XP, and will die in 2-3 turns. These monsters can be used to raise the dead. (3 MP, 5 piety)
  • When these monsters die "wretchedly", they will activate passive Necromancy effects (those of Fugue of the Fallen, Animate Dead and Death Channel) even if you didn't attack them.

Piety level **: "Merchant of Misery"

• You have a piety/160 chance to block Necromancy miscast effects. Spells that qualify for protection will have "Kikubaaqudgha supports the use of this spell." in the description.
• Kikubaaqudgha will either completely protect you from mummy death curses or reduce their severity by 50%. Complete protection or 50% reduction are equally likely.

Piety level ***: "Scholar of Souls"

• No new abilities.

Piety level ****: "Artisan of Death"

• Protection From Torment: You sometimes take reduced damage from torment and agony; there is a piety/480 chance of taking no damage, and failing that, a piety/200 chance to reduce a random amount of damage (at least 1). The average damage is shown below.

Piety	Unprotected	Kiku Protection	Kiku Protection & rN+++
80	50%	35%	24.5%
100		32.3%	22.6%
160		20%	16%

Piety level *****: "Demagogue of Despair"

• Sign of Ruin - Mark a 5x5 square of monsters with Sign of Ruin. Whenever anything bearing this sign receives damage from a melee attack, they will suffer heavy draining and may additionally become either slow, weak, or blind. (5 MP, 4 piety)

Piety level ******: "Lord of Darkness"

• Once per game, you may choose to either:
  • Receive Forbidden Knowledge: Kikubaaqudgha will grant you Haunt, Borgnjor's Revivification, Infestation, and Death's Door.
  • Brand Weapon With Pain: Give a non-artefact melee or ranged weapon of your choice a permanent Pain brand and increase its enchantment level by 2. This splatters blood over the area, invokes torment, and overwrites the current brand on the weapon.

Gifts

Kikubaaqudgha grants a semi-random assortment of spells upon reaching 1* and 3* piety. Kikubaaqudgha will never grant spells your species cannot cast. The first set guarantees the player at least one spell to complement the Unearth Wretches ability.

At 1* piety, Kiku will gift one of Animate Dead or Fugue of the Fallen, then three randomly selected low-level Necromancy spells:

• Soul Splinter
• Kiss of Death
• Sublimation of Blood
• Grave Claw
• Vampiric Draining

At 3* piety, Kiku will gift four randomly selected mid-level Necromancy spells:

• Anguish
• Martyr's Knell
• Dispel Undead
• Cigotuvi's Putrefaction
• Curse of Agony
• Borgnjor's Vile Clutch
• Death Channel
• Rimeblight

Punishments

Kikubaaqudgha does not appreciate abandonment, and will call down fearful punishments on disloyal followers! Kikubaaqudgha's wrath brings forth all the dread powers of necromancy. Victims are wracked with screams of torment, and find their health and powers drained. Further, Kikubaaqudgha's gifts become tainted: the dead rise again as foes, and those that attempt to use necromantic magic to fend off wrath will find it backfiring on them when least expected. Kikubaaqudgha's wrath lasts for a relatively short duration.

When you abandon Kikubaaqudgha, all living, demonic or holy foes you slay will occasionally be reanimated as a zombie, spectre or simulacrum. This does not increment the penance counter. Additionally, the following actions will occasionally be taken:

• Symbol of Torment is cast at your location, tormenting both you and susceptible foes around you.
• Drain the player for a significant portion of their max HP (resisted by negative energy resistance).
  • This can be extremely dangerous. Characters with no rN+ who are unfortunate enough to receive HP drain a few times in a row can reach even a single remaining HP point, which is a death sentence for any ex-worshipper.

Kiku may also punish you for casting Necromancy spells (5% probability). The spell succeeds, but you'll get a miscast effect anyways. This does not increment the penance counter.

Strategy

Kikubaaqudgha offers three main features: a massive supply of undead allies, protection from torment and mummy death curses, and knowledge of Necromancy. Kiku's quick spell gifts are useful to Necromancers and characters learning Necromancy from scratch alike. Torment Protection and the potential for Death's Door make Kiku good for the extended game, too.

Because you'll need skill levels in order to use Necromancy, and since Kiku tends to grant spells before they can be used reliably, the location of Kiku's altar doesn't matter as much. A lucky D:1 faded altar isn't as good, and waiting for a deep overflow altar is less punishing. By corollary, this makes Kiku less immediately helpful than other gods, especially if you didn't start out as a Necromancer.

Final Gift

At 6*, you get the choice between a pain-branded weapon and the capstone Necromancy spells. This typically happens around the mid-game, and it can be a tricky decision. Pain deals devastating flat damage that ignores AC, with fast weapons like quick blades and demon whips benefiting the most. The spells offer a way to kill enemies that are negative immune and powerful escape tools.

The first consideration when deciding between the gifts should be "is the gift actually useful to me?":

• The pain brand is redundant if you already have a good weapon of pain or a strong artefact weapon. In addition, using a pain weapon requires using weapon combat, with melee combat being more dangerous, and ranged combat requiring more skill (and with many ranged weapons excluding use of a shield).
• The spell gift is redundant if you already have access to most/all of the spells.

Assuming both are sufficiently useful, the next consideration should be "Would I rather have something that will help me much later, or something that will help me survive right now?":

• The pain brand is useful immediately. However, it only works on creatures without rN+, making it iffy in Zot and useless in the demon and undead-infested extended game.
• The spells won't help one bit if you can't cast them, but they are great once you can. Haunt and Infestation can affect every enemy in the game, ignoring rN and holiness. Revivification and Death's Door are very strong emergency spells, though they can be a bit difficult to train in a 3 rune game.

There are other things to consider, depending on the character. For example, a character who primarily focuses on melee combat or Earth Magic may not want the spells, as they can rely on those to take out nonliving foes.

Tips & Tricks

• Unearth Wretches is incredibly powerful: it can create a swarm of allies after a few turns. There's no limit (beyond MP), so don't be afraid to use Wretches multiple times in a fight. And since it costs little piety, use it early and often. Note that UW requires quite a bit of MP and at least 2 turns of prep time, so it isn't great as an emergency button.
  • Death Channel's spectres can be used with any other spell; however Animate Dead and Infestation do not stack.
  • Wretches spawn within a 5x5 area of yourself, last for min. 2 turns, and activate any of your Necromancy effects on death.
    • If using Animate Dead, you can cast the spell before or after you summon Wretches.
    • If using Infestation, you can do the following: have Death Channel up, use Wretches twice, cast Infestation on your tile (covering the 5x5 area), then repeat if desired. You don't want to cast Wretches more than twice in a row, or the 1st set can die before you can infest them.
    • Their deaths will also count towards Fugue of the Fallen's slaying bonus.
  • Wretches are seen as hostile monsters, so other hostile monsters will usually avoid harming them. They can used as a (short-lived) blocker. Be wary of dangerous interactions, however, such as a necromancer using your own Wretches against you with their Bind Souls spell.
• Kiku has no objection towards weapons of holy wrath.
• Undead minions do not turn hostile when you attack or immolate them.

Branch Strategy

Worshippers are equipped with particularly effective tools for clearing a few branches in the game. The sole fact of worshipping Kikubaaqudgha is no reason to venture into these places without the proper resistances or XL, but it certainly helps.

• Slime Pits: While Borgnjor's Vile Clutch is ineffective against its gooey horrors, it's easy to create undead due to how many slimes there are. Using a scroll of immolation when combined with the sheer mass of your non-spectre allies and The Royal Jelly's allies (potentially after a scroll of torment) is strikingly effective.

• Crypt and Tomb: Kikubaaqudgha followers will find the torment and death curse protection to be immensely helpful. Haunt and Infestation still work against undead enemies, while Dispel Undead is effective against single undead targets in the Crypt.

History

• In 0.34, Kiku's wrath will replace Torment with Sign of Ruin. Also, the drain effect will be weaker, but it will no longer check rN.
• Prior to 0.33, stat drain was a possible effect of Kiku's wrath. Also, the chance of torment protection was maxed out at 200 piety instead of 160, and scaled slower.
• Prior to 0.32, Kiku gave Torment instead of Sign of Ruin at 5*, with the same effect as a scroll of torment.
• Prior to 0.31, Kiku's wrath had death curses instead of draining the player. Also, the gift list was different.
• Prior to 0.30, Kiku's Undead Wretches was stronger (2 + (Necro * 6/27) wretches) and cost less piety, while Torment cost more piety. Also, spell gifts were different; most notably, the second spell gift had 5 spells.
• In 0.29, Kiku was changed to accommodate the Necromancy overhaul and removal of useful corpses. Prior to this version:
  • Receive Corpses was the 1* ability instead of Unearth Wretches, which created 1-9 corpses rather than "live" monsters.
  • The Torment ability required a corpse to use.
  • Kiku gifted Animate Skeleton instead of Necrotise at 1*, and could gift Pain (1*) and Excruciating Wounds (3*). Gifting logic was changed overall. Most notably, Animate Dead was guaranteed at 3* to make use of Receive Corpses.
  • The pain (brand) gift did not work with ranged weapons.
  • If you received partial torment protection, the minimum reduction was 0 instead of 1.
• Prior to 0.28, Kiku's 1* and 3* spell gifts guaranteed a corpse using spell instead of Animate Skeleton and Animate Dead; book logic was also different.
• Prior to 0.27, Kiku would gift randart spellbooks and the Necronomicon, instead of gifting spells directly.
• Prior to 0.25, Kiku's wrath included Necromancy miscast effects instead of death curses.
• Prior to 0.20, Kiku's 1* spellbook gift had a guaranteed Corpse Rot rather than a guaranteed Pain spell.
• Prior to 0.19, Kiku gave a piety-dependent bonus to final HP when casting Death's Door. Also, Kiku did not grant piety for killing undead creatures, and the torment protection did not reduce damage from agony. In addition, Kiku worshippers had to pray over a corpse to invoke the Torment ability.
• Prior to 0.17, Kiku helped at Piety level **** to resist the Haunt inflicted sickness on the caster (resist rate rose with piety). Kiku worshippers also had to pray at an altar to receive the Necronomicon/Pain brand gifts.
• Prior to 0.8, Kiku used Invocations instead of Necromancy; victory dancing was required to train the former.