Piety

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

Piety is a measure of your standing with your chosen god and a resource used to activate divine abilities.

Useful Info

Piety is measured on a scale from 1-200; most characters start at 15 piety when first worshipping a god. If piety drops below 1, you are excommunicated and incur penance. Piety is gained by doing what your god likes, and lost for doing what it hates (see below for details).

At certain piety thresholds, your god will grant abilities. Active abilities can be invoked with the a command; most cost piety to use. Passive abilities work automatically, and usually don't have a cost. Piety is also used, passively, for obtaining gifts and for resolving penance.

Estimating Piety

You cannot see your exact piety number in-game, but you can estimate it from the number of stars shown by your god's name on your HUD:

Ability Level	Piety	Description
	1-29	Noncommital
*	30-49	Aware of your devotion
**	50-74	Pleased with you
***	75-99	Rising star
****	100-119	Shining star
*****	120-159	Favored servant
******	160-200	Prized avatar

Not coincidentally, these stars are the levels of piety required for you to receive new abilities. You don't always get a new ability for each star. For example, Okawaru gives the ability to invoke Heroism at *, and then nothing until Finesse at ****.

Note that many gods grant powers that improve with your exact piety, not just your star level. Also, 'excess' piety can be used to invoke abilities more often. Therefore, gaining piety remains helpful until you reach the maximum.

Piety Gain

Usually, you'll start with 15 piety on worship, though Monks start at 50 piety. Worshipping from a faded altars gives a +20 bonus, even for Monks.

You can gain piety by following your god's conduct. A majority of gods reward you for one of two things:

• Killing creatures, or having an ally kill a creature. Some gods don't give piety for specific kills, e.g. Lugonu won't reward you for killing monsters in the Abyss.
• Exploring the dungeon, i.e., revealing new tiles. You are not rewarded for exploring the Temple or deep water in the Shoals.

Different gods may have different means of gaining piety. For example, Zin appreciates gold donations (and killing evil/chaotic creatures), while Yredelemnul's piety is solely determined by the number of friendly undead in sight. Gozag does not use piety at all - this god only cares for gold.

For all gods but Ru, piety gain slows down by x2/3 at 4*, and slows down by another x2/3 (to x4/9) at 6*.

Piety Loss

Using most types of abilities will cost a set amount of piety. This can bring you below a piety threshold, so watch out.

You can lose piety by doing things your god dislikes - Trog hates it when you cast spells; The Shining One hates when you do evil. Specifically, doing anything your god dislikes will reduce your piety directly, then inflict penance. While you're under penance, you don't gain piety - instead, any piety you would've gained is used to decrease penance.

Piety Decay

Most gods have a piety decay. When worshipping these gods, your piety will naturally decrease over time. Every 10-30 decaAut (i.e. turns), the game makes a roll to deplete 1 piety. Depending on your god, there is a 1/17 or 1/35 chance to do so. Therefore, on average, you'll lose 1 piety every 340 or 700 turns, respectively.

Gods with fast piety decay (lose 1 piety roughly every 340 turns):

• Beogh
• Dithmenos
• Jiyva
• Kikubaaqudgha
• Lugonu
• Makhleb
• Okawaru
• Qazlal
• Sif Muna
• Trog
• Vehumet
• The Wu Jian Council
• Zin

Gods with slow piety decay (lose 1 piety roughly every 700 turns):

• Cheibriados
• Elyvilon
• Fedhas
• Hepliaklqana
• Nemelex Xobeh
• The Shining One

Uskayaw has extremely fast piety gain and decay, while Ignis has none. Ashenzari, Ru, Xom, and Yredelemnul have their own unique piety systems, which do not use the normal decay function. Gozag doesn't use piety at all.

Strategy

Piety is a "semi-renewable" resource. It is much easier to obtain than scrolls or potions, but still finite for most of the game (since there are only so many monsters to kill, tiles to explore, etc.). Still, you'll constantly gain piety, so don't be too stingy with divine abilities.

Some gods have different piety systems, so you should treat their piety differently. See each god's page for more specific advice.

History

• Prior to 0.19, there were five possible piety decay speeds.
• Prior to 0.16, gods didn't treat followers' kills the same as the player's for purposes of piety gain.