Zin

Version 0.29: This article may not be up to date for the latest stable release of Crawl.

"Spread the light, my child."

Zin is a god of discipline. Followers must remain pure of body and soul, refraining from dark magic and chaotic acts. They must also tithe a fraction of all gold gained, preferably followed by donations of more. In exchange, worshippers may invoke Zin's wrath upon sinners, and eventually gain various divine protections. Zin's followers can convert to Elyvilon or the Shining One while keeping some piety. Zin grants followers the ability to preach to the unenlightened masses, and powers to vitalise their bodies and gain divine stamina, protecting them from various afflictions. Later, followers gain the ability to imprison their foes temporarily. Followers can eventually find temporary safety in a divine refuge. As piety grows, followers will be protected from mutation, and Zin may even occasionally directly intervene to save a follower's life. Zin likes it when you donate money (by praying at an altar) and you or your allies kill unclean or chaotic beings. Zin dislikes it when you attack monsters in a sanctuary. Zin strongly dislikes it when you use evil magic or items, you attack non-hostile holy beings, you attack allies, you transform yourself, you or your allies kill non-hostile holy beings, you deliberately mutate or transform yourself, you use unclean or chaotic magic or items or you polymorph monsters.

Racial Restrictions

• Zin does not accept demonspawn or undead species (ghouls, vampires, or mummies) as followers.
• Demigods may not worship Zin (or any other god).

Appreciates

• Zin appreciates donations of gold.
  • Upon conversion, Zin takes some gold. This provides more piety than a regular donation.
  • Zin takes a 10% tithe every time you pick up gold, unless you are at max piety. This tithe counts remainders; if you pick up two piles of 15 gold one after the other, Zin will take 1 gold piece from the first and 2 from the second. Paying a tithe has a chance to increase piety based on its size.
    • Zin knows if you try to save gold piles before beginning worship ("Zin ignores your late donation.").
    • The tithe has a reduced effect in the Orcish Mines and on gold acquired.
  • You may donate half your gold, which grants a chunk of piety, distributed as time passes. You'll also receive an indication of what Zin's opinion towards you will be once the piety is fully distributed.
    • Late-game converts can buy their way to maximum piety for circa 2500 gold (depending on the amount taken at conversion).
• Killing evil or chaotic creatures has a chance to grant piety.

Deprecates

Your piety will decay by 1 every 340 turns, on average (1/17 chance every 20 turns).

Zin dislikes it (i.e. piety loss) when:

• You attack neutral monsters.
• You deliberately mutate yourself. This includes deliberately making yourself glow and drinking potions of mutation when not at 6*.
• You or your allies attack monsters in a sanctuary.

Zin strongly dislikes it (i.e. penance) when:

• You use Necromancy. Casting Necromutation instead causes excommunication.
• You use unholy magic or items.
• You attack non-hostile holy beings.
• You or your allies kill non-hostile holy beings.
• You attack allies.
• You polymorph monsters.
• You use unclean or chaotic magic or items.

Zin will forgive accidental transgressions, i.e. performing a forbidden action via an unidentified item.

Given Abilities

Piety level -: "Anchorite"

• Zin may protect you from a fatal instance of damage. The chance increases with piety. Passive. No piety cost.
• Zin may protect you from the effects of Hell's mystical force. The chance also increases with piety, up to 50% at maximum. Passive. No piety cost.
• Zin may protect you from mutation at a (piety/1.6)% chance, increasing up to 100% at 160 piety (******). Passive. No piety cost.
• Donate Gold. You may donate half your gold for additional piety.

Piety level *: "Apologist"

• Recite - Preaches a verse from one of the four books of the Axioms of Law: Abominations, Ablutions, Anathema, and Apostates. The book you are told you are reciting from is selected at random and has no bearing on the effects. Each monster which can be affected at all has an effect selected from the following, in order of priority (eg a demon will never be rotted, because it will always get an effect from "demons and non-corporeal undead", even if it is also an unclean monster).
  • Demons and non-corporeal undead can be dazed, confused, illuminated, affected by holy word, or turned into pillars of salt.
  • Unclean monsters (corporeal undead; mutagenic monsters which are not chaotic; ancient zymes; monsters with attacks that steal, have vampiric effects, or cause draining; Crazy Yiuf, Psyche, Louise, and Gastronok; monsters with unclean spell effects, and monsters that cast chaotic spells) can be rotted, smitten, illuminated, affected by holy word, or turned into pillars of salt.
  • Chaotic monsters (all shapeshifters, ugly things, abominations, wretched stars, Killer Klowns, Tiamat, Bai Suzhen; monsters with chaotic spell effects or melee attacks; monsters with mutating melee attacks (ie, Mnoleg); followers of chaotic gods) can be rotted, smitten, illuminated, have their flesh melted away (which deals damage but inflicts no status effects), or turned into pillars of salt.
  • Intelligent monsters which are not holy can be dazed, confused, or paralysed; if they were followers of evil or chaotic gods, they can also be smitten, blinded, affected by antimagic, illuminated, struck mute, sent mad, or rendered permanently stupid.

You Recite for three turns, during which you can move, fight, and evoke; anything that interrupts your speaking (potions, scrolls, spells, shouting, using other Zin abilities, or using a breath weapon) will cancel the Recite status. The effect of Recite is more powerful with higher piety and Invocations, but still has potential even at very low Invocation levels. Even so, there is always a chance of weaker effects (or even no effect at all). Costs Breath.

Piety level **: "Pious"

• Vitalisation - Temporarily gives you the Vit status, which, while active, protects you from sickness, poisoning, confusion, petrification, and stat drain, and boosts all your stats by Invocations/3. Also grants full poison immunity while active. (1-2 Piety)

Piety level ***: "Devout"

• Imprison - Temporarily creates a silver-walled prison around an enemy, pushing away monsters adjacent to the target (if applicable). Duration depends on Invocations skill. Strong monsters may break themselves out before the effect ends on its own (chance of doing so depends on monster's HD). (5 MP, 4-6 Piety)

Piety level ****: "Orthodox"

• No new abilities.

Piety level *****: "Immaculate"

• Sanctuary - Creates a stationary Sanctuary with a radius and duration dependent on your Invocations skill, centered on yourself. Its radius will decrease as its duration runs out. So long as you remain within the radius of Sanctuary, no enemies can attack you (this protection extends to your allies, as well). If you or one of your allies attacks, Sanctuary is instantly dispelled and Zin considers it an evil act. (7 MP, 15-23 Piety)

In addition to preventing enemy attacks, you enjoy the following effects from Sanctuary:

• Clouds dissipate.
• Your allies are recalled and protected against Abjuration.
• Monsters may be scared away.
• Magical contamination discharges are greatly reduced.
• Blood is cleaned from tiles.

Piety level ******: "Bringer of Law"

• Zin will cleanse potions of mutation. This means you will no longer lose piety from quaffing potions of mutation, and potions of mutation will only remove mutations, not add them.

Punishments

Zin does not punish followers who leave Zin's service; however, those who take up the worship of evil or chaotic gods will be scourged. (Kikubaaqudgha, Yredelemnul, Makhleb, Lugonu, and Beogh are evil, and Xom and Jiyva are chaotic.) Those under Zin's wrath will find their beneficial mutations stripped away, their bellies empty, their enemies alerted, and their senses confounded by the axioms of Law; confusion, fainting and complete paralysis will be their lot.

Zin will only dispense punishments to those who enter the service of an evil or chaotic god. Switching to Elyvilon or The Shining One will transfer half of your piety to them.

• 1/3 chance: If possible, remove 1-7 random good mutations. Otherwise, reroll from the remaining options.
• 1/2 chance: Recites the Axioms of Law at you, inflicting confusion, sleep, or paralysis (equal chance of each).
• 1/6 chance: Makes an extremely loud noise at your current position.

Strategy

Zin works through a somewhat more subtle means than most other gods. Rather than directly killing, Zin empowers you with a wide variety of defensive tools and buffs. Whenever you're disabling monsters with Imprison or boosting yourself with Recite, Zin is best for strong characters (or players!) who sacrifice raw power for tools that can handle the toughest of situations.

Zin is also useful in the extended game. Piety is plentiful with so many evil monsters around, and defensive tools are very useful where torment can suddenly make things very scary. Zin also blocks Hell's mystical force frequently, which make the Hells quite a bit easier.

In terms of overall god strategy, remember that you can switch amongst Zin, Elyvilon, and the Shining One without incurring wrath, and you even get some starting piety with your new god choice. All three of these gods use Invocations skill. Also, so long as you do not worship an evil or chaotic god at any point later on in the game, you will not incur wrath if you leave any of these three gods.

Ability Strategy

• In spite of the fact that Zin abhors chaos, Recite produces a variety of random effects. While weak effects are always possible, it checks for hit dice, which is often more reliable. Regardless, Recite is a practically free ability, only costing a turn to use (and canceled by various actions, including spellcasting).

• Vitalisation has a fairly cheap piety cost for a decent stat boost and immunity to various status effects. But it won't cure these ailments if you already have them. Therefore, you should be acutely aware of these statuses and pre-empt Vitalisation when needed. The poison immunity blocks the effects of curare or a hornet's stinger.

• Imprison is a strong ability whenever you need to get away from a scary monster. Whenever it'd be a unique or just an out of depth monster, the silver walls will allow you to avoid them. Then, you can skip the floor, explore a different area, or even swap branches. Keep in mind that Imprison won't work if you or other monsters are adjacent to your target.

• Sanctuary is one of the most powerful emergency abilities in the game. Use it when you're surrounded and the situation is quickly going pear-shaped, though make sure you have an escape route too, lest Sanctuary only delay rather than prevent your death. Note that you can't recast Sanctuary while you already have one still active, and that it costs a hefty 15 piety to invoke.

History

• Prior to 0.27, Sanctuary provided a holy word effect inside it.
• Prior to the removal of the food system in 0.26, Zin forbid eating the flesh of monsters with human intelligence, holy beings, and cannibalism. Species with high hunger costs, namely Trolls, were more difficult to play as a result.
• Prior to 0.21, Zin had a one-time ability at 6* which would remove all mutations, instead of cleansing mutation potions. Also, Zin's mutation protection was 100% at max piety instead of 6* (200 piety instead of 160).
• Prior to 0.20, potions of cure mutation existed, which Zin allowed the use of.
• Prior to 0.17, Vitalisation also gave a small amount of nutrition, though never enough to go past Full.
• Prior to 0.16, Zin would completely protect followers from Hell's effects at maximum piety. This was reduced to a maximum of 50% in 0.16.
• Prior to 0.15, followers of Zin would on occasion be seen as allies by holy monsters. The chance of this occurring rose with piety. Also, Recite prompted you to choose a book if multiple could be applied.
• Prior to 0.14, Vitalisation simply blocked the poison status effect without granting poison resistance. This led to players still taking heavy damage from poison-elemental spells. Also, Zin was displeased when your sentient allies were allowed to die.
• Prior to 0.13, Recite had a 3-turn delay instead of a 3-turn duration, essentially paralyzing the player while they hoped Zin did something. Also, the priest background was removed, making it impossible to begin play worshiping Zin.
• Prior to 0.12, Vitalisation did not protect from the paralysing attacks of yellow wasps and red wasps.
• Prior to 0.6, Zin's wrath could summon insect plagues and eyes.
• In older versions, Zin's wrath could summon several hostile angels.