Hellfire Mortar

Version 0.32: This article is up to date for the latest stable release of Dungeon Crawl Stone Soup.

Hellfire Mortar
Level	7
School1	Earth
School2	Fire
Source(s)	Book of Armaments Compendium of Siegecraft
Casting noise	7
Spell noise	20
Power Cap	200
Range	8

Splits apart the ground in front of the caster and sculpts a terrifying weapon out of molten rock. This mortar will move slowly along the lava-filled chasm, autonomously launching gouts of magma at the caster's enemies as it does so. When it reaches the end of its path, or is obstructed in its movement by another creature, it will sink back into the lava, and the chasm will seal itself shut shortly thereafter.

Hellfire Mortar is a level 7 Fire/Earth spell that creates a creates a line of temporary lava in a chosen direction. Afterwards, it immediately spawns a hellfire mortar that moves along that line of lava, firing autonomously at nearby targets while it does so. The mortar's HD is 3 + pow / 28.

Useful Info

The initial lava river digs through rock walls, replacing all other walkable features and water, and overlapping normally with other lava. Every 10 aut after the mortar dies, the temporary lava river will recede back a tile from its end back to its start, bringing back whatever terrain it temporarily replaced with lava.

The mortar fires Bolts of Magma at up to 2 different random enemy targets each turn, then moves 1 tile further along the path that was carved out for it. When it reaches the end of this path, or if a monster blocks its attempt to move, it will disappear. The mortar itself is fairly sturdy and has rF+++, so other fire spells can be cast alongside it. As with nearly all allies, it can only fire when in sight of the caster.

Strategy

• The lava river can block off a lot of monsters from following through doorways and chokepoints, leaving them sitting ducks for both you (via e.g. Fireball, Lee's Rapid Deconstruction, and Starburst) and the mortar. The capacity for the spell to do this differs per branch- salamanders in the Snake Pit, dragons and shrikes in the Depths, demons and elemental beasts in Pandemonium and the Hells, plus all sorts of foes in Zot will be capable of blocking its path if it's between the caster and said monsters- when monsters who can travel through or over lava are likely to block it off, one should fire off to the side of them instead.
• In straight corridors, it's fairly less useful for dealing damage unless it's used near a corner or entrance to widen the corridor, but it's even more likely to hold back monsters that can't fly from approaching.
• Player allies can also block off the path of the mortar and cause it to sink without getting to fire for its full duration, so be cautious of planning to cast it alongside flying allies like Animate Armour, Animate Dead, Martyr's Knell, Death Channel, Haunt, and Dragon's Call.
• While it does fairly less upfront damage than most comparable high-level Fire or Earth spells, it saves a large amount of MP when used alongside kiting, provides a distinct defense against landbound melee-centric foes, and gives partially-irresistable damage to Fire Magic as well as AOE to Earth Magic.
• If the player is Marked and is far away from stairs to escape to, or needs to escape monsters who can't cross lava, they can dig out a safe closet by using Hellfire Mortar, flight, and a wand of digging to create and seal up a corridor to hide in. This will need teleport or more flight to escape, however.

Monster Version

Monster Hellfire Mortar casts will always be to the side of the character and only be cast if you'll be in the range of multiple points of the beam. Like player mortars, they can be prematurely sunk if a flying player or ally gets in its path. Unlike player mortars, it can fire out of sight of the caster.

The following enemies cast Hellfire Mortar:

• g Wiglaf (3d15 damage)
• o Orc wizard apostles (varies)

History

• Added in 0.32.