Wereblood

Version 0.16: This article may not be up to date for the latest stable release of Crawl.

Song of Slaying
Level	2
School1	Charms
Source(s)	Book of Battle
Casting noise	2
Spell noise	10

This spell conjures ancient verses of battle within your mind and makes you recite them — quite loudly! Each non-summoned enemy you slay in combat during this recitation temporarily enhances your melee skills. Your effectiveness will only be enhanced for the duration of the song; casting this spell while already singing will start a new song, not extend an existing one.

Song of Slaying is a level 2 Charms spell which gives you a slaying bonus on all melee attacks for its duration. This bonus increases by +1 for every enemy you kill, maxing out once it reaches a certain limit. Unfortunately, to maintain the spell your character must sing, generating significant noise. Also, most kills by allies do not count toward the slay count (those killed by Spectral Weapon are the notable exception), and summoned monsters provide no bonus whatsoever.

Whether or not Song of Slaying will provide you with a slaying bonus depends on the threat level of the monsters you kill:

• Killing trivial monsters cannot increase the slaying bonus beyond +1.
• Killing easy monsters cannot increase the slaying bonus beyond +3.
• Killing tough monsters cannot increase the slaying bonus beyond +5.
• Killing nasty monsters always increases the slaying bonus.

Be aware that Song of Slaying will end immediately if you are affected by silence. Leaving the affected area does not cause it to restart with its former bonus; you'll have to cast it again and build up your slaying bonus from scratch.

Trivia

In late December, online Crawl servers replace this spell with the Song of Sleighing:

This spell conjures ancient Christmas carols within the caster's mind, which the caster then recites — quite loudly! Each non-summoned enemy the caster slays in combat during this recitation temporarily enhances their melee & ranged skills. The bonus only lasts for the duration of the song; casting this spell while already singing will start a new song, not extend an existing one.

This has no impact on actual gameplay.

History

Song of Slaying was added in 0.13.