Vehumet

Version 0.23: This article may not be up to date for the latest stable release of Crawl.

"Let it end in hellfire!"

Vehumet is a god of the destructive powers of magic. Followers will gain divine assistance in commanding the hermetic arts, and the most favoured stand to gain access to some of the fearsome spells in Vehumet's library. One's devotion to Vehumet can be proven by the causing of as much carnage and destruction as possible. Worshippers of Vehumet will quickly be able to recover their magical energy upon killing beings. As they gain favour, they will also gain enhancements to their destructive spells — first assistance in casting such spells and then increased range for conjurations. Vehumet will offer followers the knowledge of increasingly powerful destructive spells as they gain piety. Vehumet likes it when you kill living beings, you destroy the undead, you kill demons, you kill holy beings and you destroy nonliving beings.

Appreciates

• You killing living, demonic, holy and undead monsters.

Deprecates

• Forgetting them. Piety slowly falls over time (about 1 every 340 turns), and you are excommunicated if it falls to 0.
• Abandonment.

Given Abilities

Piety level -: "Sorcerer's Apprentice"

• No new abilities.

Piety level *: "Scholar of Destruction"

• Gain power from killing - When you kill a monster, you have a piety-based chance of gaining 1d(HD/2) in MP, where HD is the hit dice of the monster killed. This chance is (piety-30)/piety. At full piety, 85%. (Passive)

Piety level **: "Caster of Ruination"

• No new abilities.

Piety level ***: "Traumaturge"

• Aid to destructive magic - Your chance of miscasting destructive spells is reduced by 33%. (Passive)

Piety level ****: "Battlemage"

• Range increase for destructive magic - The range of destructive spells is increased by 1 tile. (Exceptions: Static Discharge, Sticky Flame and Freeze.) (Passive)

Piety level *****: "Warlock"

• No new abilities.

Piety level ******: "Luminary of Lethal Lore"

• No new abilities.

What Vehumet considers Destructive magic

Vehumet's "Destructive spells" are all Conjurations spells, plus: Airstrike, Ignite Poison, Olgreb's Toxic Radiance, Inner Flame, Freeze, Ozocubu's Refrigeration, Sandblast, Lee's Rapid Deconstruction, Shatter, Tornado.

Gifts

• Spells. If you are above the first piety breakpoint and eligible for a gift, there is chance that Vehumet will offer you the knowledge of a Destructive spell. As you continue to gain piety, further gifts will be offered (15 gifts can occur in a single game). The first gift will always happen at * piety and it will be a level one spell. The currently available gift can be seen via (M)emorize spell. When a new spell is offered, the previous one will no longer be available. The last three spells are always level 8 or 9 spells, will all be offered at once, and will never be made unavailable (unless you abandon Vehumet).

Your skills can affect the type of spells you get: e.g. if your Fire Magic skill is 10 levels higher than your Ice Magic skill, the chance of receiving fire spells is almost doubled (×1.9), and the chance for ice spells is divided by 10. This is applied only to elemental spells (e.g. not Poison Magic), and it can't go beyond the limits used in the previous example (×1.9 and ÷10, reached when the difference between the opposite skills is 10). In effect this means that you are likely to receive the high-end spells of the spell-schools you are training for, but there is no guarantee.

The gift timeout is 98+2d50 turns for the first four gifts, and 128+2d50+2d15 for the rest.

Punishments

Those that anger Vehumet find destruction amply heaped upon them. Novices are struck by flame and frost; archmages by crystal spears and firestorms. Their own conjurations, too, are wont to misfire at the worst possible moments.

• Conjuration miscast effects. There is also a 5% chance of forced miscasts when trying to cast destructive spells.

Strategy

All of Vehumet's bonuses are passive, making it a good choice for spellcasters who do not want to spend XP on the Invocations skill. Vehumet also awards piety for killing, and usually gifts the most destructive spells in the game, very suitable for spellcasters who prefer a more aggressive play style.

The MP refund on kill, while not terrific early on, really shines in the mid-game and late-game with area of effect spells that can take out multiple enemies at once - not to mention that, as far as their cost is concerned, they are much more efficient (e.g. Fire Storm has a lot more destructive potential than 9 Magic Darts). Freezing Cloud, Fireball, and Fulminant Prism are other spells that can refund a lot of MP. Of course, no one says you have to kill enemies with spells to get MP back; bashing them to death with a staff or using a wand works too. All the same, you will probably end most fights at less than full MP, so consider carrying a staff of energy for channeling between fights.

Miscast reduction may be the power with the largest impact. It will allow you cast spells well in advance of your time: for example, a level 15 character who focused the relevant skills has a good chance of learning one of the "ultimate" level 9 conjuration spells thanks to this! Less focused characters still benefit, allowing for excellent hybrid play; a character with powerful mid-level spells, competent physical combat prowess, and decent defensive skills is very well prepared. The reduced need for wizardry enhancers allows for much more diverse equipment choices as well.

Finally, the range increase enhances a spellcaster's arsenal to be slightly more deadly. In particular, some spells (such as Fireball or Fire Storm) will be able to hit enemies beyond your max line of sight: stationary foes such as statues and oklob plants pose no risk with this method.

Combining all these powers makes Vehumet the god of choice for spellcasters planning on tackling Ziggurats, where you'll be facing large groups of enemies that you need to take down fast, and against whom your MP needs to last as long as possible.

Vehumet is one of the few gods you can abandon while keeping permanent benefits granted via worship (spells learned via direct gift).

Tips & Tricks

• Since Vehumet will try to gift spells which you haven't yet seen (picking up a book will mark all spells therein as "seen"), it may be worth buying early spell books from magic schools you don't want. For example, buying a Book of Ice will ensure that your Fire Elementalist won't receive a useless Bolt of Cold.

History

• Vehumet underwent a complete overhaul in 0.12, dropping summoning support, MP cost reduction, and book gifts, instead gifting destructive spells directly.
• For information about Vehumet prior to 0.12, see this revision.