Teleportation

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

Teleportation is the act of moving from one place to another instantaneously. Teleports differ from blinks in two main ways: teleports can send you to any valid location on the floor, while blinks are limited to visible locations. And blinks are instantaneous, while many teleports take some time to kick in.

Sources

There are several ways to teleport in Crawl:

• Reading a scroll of teleportation.
• Stepping on a teleport trap.
• You occasionally teleport while wandering in the Abyss.

A few methods will try to teleport you next to monsters:

• The teleport effect from sourceless malevolence (i.e an explore-based teleport trap).
• Being randomly teleported by the Teleportitis mutation.
• Unwielding a distortion branded weapon.

You can instead teleport monsters by casting Teleport Other or the Dispersal spell.

Useful Info

Teleport scrolls and Teleport Other have a delay of 3-5 turns between starting the teleport and the teleport taking effect. Because of this, teleportation cannot be completely relied upon to get the player out of trouble. In the Abyss, the delay is 8-19 turns. If you are in the Realm of Zot or have the Orb of Zot, this delay is 8-14 turns. Other sources of teleport happen instantly, though the player does not have as much control with them.

Once a teleport takes effect, the player is instantly teleported to the destination. Like blinks, teleports leave a cloud of translocational energy behind, though this has no game effect (other than stopping other clouds from existing).

Teleports never place the player over in dangerous clouds, over lava without a permanent source of flight, or over deep water if not flying or amphibious. Also, teleports cannot send the player into most runed door and transporter vaults, or into any player ghost vault. A notable exception is the Hall of Blades in Elf:2, which allows teleport inside.

Other than those restrictions, it can bring you to any random tile, including the one you were on originally ("Your surroundings flicker for a moment.").

Preventing Teleport

If the player has the Tele status (most often from the scroll), then they can either use a potion of cancellation or read another scroll of teleport to end it. A Quicksilver Bolt will also end the Tele status.

The -Tele (from Dimension Anchor) and -Move (from miscasting Translocations) statuses both prevent teleportation. These statuses can be removed by quaffing a potion of cancellation. -Tele may also be obtained via certain artefacts or by playing a Formicid; Formicids do not ignore shifts in the Abyss.

History

• Prior to 0.28, monsters could cast Teleport Self, in order to teleport themselves.
• Prior to 0.27, non-player ghost monsters could cast Teleport Other, to teleport another.
• Prior to 0.26, the *Tele intrinsic could be obtained from a ring of teleportation, acting like teleportitis.
• Prior to 0.25, suffering a Translocations miscast effect could teleport the player, and being hit by a distortion weapon could too.
• Prior to 0.17, teleport destination could be controlled with teleport control. Also, 20% of Abyss teleports had a delay of only 3-5 turns.
• Prior to 0.13, the teleport control status effect did not delay teleports.
• Prior to 0.9, players had access to Teleport Self.