Cheibriados

Version 0.14: This article may not be up to date for the latest stable release of Crawl.

"Take it easy."

Cheibriados is a god of deliberation. Those following Cheibriados travel more slowly the further they progress in their faith, and are forbidden from using any means to hasten themselves. In the process of so imitating their god, they attain perfection of mind and body, and the mysteries of time unfold before them. Especially devout followers may even momentarily abandon the flow of time and its needless disturbances. Followers of Cheibriados move more slowly as they gain favour, and are rewarded for killing creatures who are faster than they are. Moving too quickly or using magically hastened weapons is frowned upon. Cheibriados rewards the faithful with a slowed metabolism, the power to slow other creatures, the power to distort the flow of time, the power to harm those who move more quickly than they do, and, finally, the ability to step out of the flow of time entirely. Cheibriados likes it when you kill fast things, relative to your speed. Cheibriados strongly dislikes it when you hasten yourself or others or use unnaturally quick items.

Appreciates

• Killing creatures that are faster than you, with a chance of a large piety increase for much faster creatures and ones with high HD ("Cheibriados (thoroughly) appreciates the change of pace").

Deprecates

• Increasing your speed by any means: this includes Haste, going berserk, Swiftness, melee weapons with the speed brand, quick blades, and boots or bardings with the running ego. You may not haste or frenzy enemies, either. If the item causing haste, berserk, etc. was unidentified, or you were berserked/hasted against your will (moth of wrath, berserk mutation), Cheibriados will block the haste and not punish you for it. The message will say the protection was "just this once," but there is no actual limit on it. Do note that an identified wand of random effects will be punished by Chei if you use it and it produces one of the forbidden effects.

Given Abilities

Piety Level -: "Timekeeper"

• Raises the support of your attributes: Cheibriados increases your Strength, Dexterity, and Intelligence as your piety increases. Each stat increase comes with an incremental decrease in your movement speed. Further stat increases occur at higher ranks of piety. At maximum piety you receive +15 to all stats, and your movement delay is doubled.
• Bend Time: Slows everything adjacent to you. Monsters resist based on their HD rather than their Magic resistance, which means that it can affect magic immune enemies. (Costs 3 MP, 50-100 Food, and 1-2 Piety)

Piety Level *: "Righteous Timekeeper"

• Slows and strengthens your metabolism: All actions have their satiation costs reduced to 75% normal. Also, the duration of sickness is cut in half, as is the rate at which poison damages you. This effectively doubles the duration of poison, but makes it much more survivable, especially in severe cases.

Piety Level **: "Chronographer"

• No new Abilities.

Piety Level ***: "Splendid Chronographer"

• Temporal Distortion: Moves nearby monsters forward through time, relative to you. In effect, this forces ranged opponents to move adjacent to you, but may also place them one spaces away. (Instant, 4 MP, 200-400 Food, 3-5 Piety)

Piety Level ****: "Chronicler"

• Slouch: Damages everything in LOS (including invisible enemies) that's faster than you (Damage = [Speed Difference] × 4d3 / 2). Only monsters that have detected you take damage from Slouch. (Costs 5 MP, 100-200 Food, and 8-12 Piety)

Piety Level *****: "Eternal Chronicler"

• Step From Time: Moves you to nowhere and lets time pass. During that time, monsters wander away and may even go to sleep. Monsters that end up in your LOS must perform a fresh check against your stealth to notice you. (Costs 10 MP, 200-400 Food, and 10-15 Piety)

Piety Level ******: "Ticktocktomancer"

• No new abilities.

In addition, Cheibriados does the following:

• Dramatically reduces the monster spawn rate and map morphing rate in the Abyss. (Passive)
• Prevent the speed bonus from going berserk through the Berserk mutation. (Passive)
• Reduces the Orb run monster spawn rate.

Punishments

• Random miscast effect
• Sleep for 4-8 turns.
• Slow + No berserk for 100 turns.
• Step out of time for 2-5 turns.
• Curse an item.

Strategy

• Unlike the other gods, successfully worshiping Cheibriados greatly magnifies the deadliness of your mistakes. Remember to always use shift-direction key or auto-explore while exploring, as that will automatically stop you when you spot an enemy. One careless step while worshiping Cheibriados could translate to two or three needless enemy attacks, which could very well be lethal.
• Those who worship Cheibriados should try to take advantage of their stat boosts as much as possible. Ranged combat gets a large boost from high stats; a well-enchanted longbow or crossbow in particular will deal high damage to your enemies. Devotees of Cheibriados should cast spells, can wear protective heavy armor (the penalty of which will be reduced by their high strength), and get high EV by training dodging thanks to their dexterity. If you are using Unarmed Combat and Transmutations, the damage output of many forms (particularly Blade Hands) will be increased greatly from the boost in stats.
• All the above notwithstanding, it is worth noting that a character without Chei's stat boosts, but with access to Haste, would in many cases get greater damage output per turn than a character that forgoes haste in order to worship Chei.
• You can use Transmutations spells that increase your movement speed (such as Spider Form) without offending Cheibriados. However, you will still be slower than the average monster, so this is not particularly useful for escapes.
• Translocations spells can help you get around quickly, as can Passwall.
• Training your Invocations skill is important as well, as Cheibriados offers several excellent abilities:
  • Bend Time can reliably slow even the strongest enemies for very little piety, reducing their attack speed while yours remains the same. Skill level 7.0 in Invocations will give 4% or lower failure for Bend Time at all relevant piety levels.
  • Temporal distortion is an instantaneous ability that "jumps forward" in time. It has a number of powerful tactical uses which may not be obvious at first. Skill level 7.0 in Invocations will give 4% or lower failure for Temporal Distortion at all relevant piety levels.
    • The most direct use of temporal distortion is to pull in ranged attackers so that melee characters can fight without having to walk towards monsters or take damage while waiting for an approach. It can also be used for the opposite effect: if you are resting on stairs and monsters are in melee range, distortion can be used to possibly move them away from you so that you can escape up the stairs without being followed.
    • Temporal distortion can be used to dodge enemy orbs of destruction, which will pass through you; this is particularly helpful against orb spiders. You can use it to dissipate clouds (especially low duration clouds, such as the flames produced by fire crabs) and split up slime creatures that have merged.
    • Temporal Distortion also works well with poison; apply a few levels of poison, then warp time forward to when your foes are more damaged. Sticky flame can also be used in this manner.
  • Slouch's piety cost is not cheap, but it is an effective irresistible attack against everything in sight, even invisible enemies (this is a quick way to take out unseen horrors, among other things). Slouch's damage is based on the difference between your speed and the target's, so particularly fast or hasted enemies will take a high damage. Areas filled with fast enemies such as Spider's Nest are especially ripe for Slouching. Note that Invocations does not affect Slouch's damage, only its success. Around 9.0 skill in Invocations will give you 4% or less failure with Slouch at all relevant piety levels. Assuming your movement delay is 20, Slouch will deal on average 60 damage to opponents of speed 20 (killer bees) and 40 damage to opponents of speed 10 (most monsters).
  • Don't forget you have Step From Time. It can spare you from certain-death situations; by the time you return, most enemies will have wandered off and summoned enemies will have run out of time. Enemies that haven't wandered off might not even notice your return if you have a high Stealth skill as well.
  • Step From Time is much more effective in open levels with lots of space for monsters to redistribute themselves. In constrained areas like the Shoals or small portal levels, it is less effective, so beware. Unlike Slouch the strength of Step From Time, and not just the success chance, depends on Invocations skill. Skill level 14.0 in Invocations will give less than 4% failure in Step From Time at all relevant piety levels.

History

Prior to 0.14, Bend Time only became available at 1* piety.

Prior to 0.10, Cheibriados would only give you bonus stats if you wore equipment with the ponderousness ego (and he offered an ability which allowed you to convert your gear into ponderous artifacts). He would also offer various resistances as well. These benefits increased with each equipment slot you made ponderous.

Prior to 0.9, species with equipment restrictions were unable to get the full ponderous benefits from Cheibriados, and each new ponderous item gave a larger benefit than the last.