Ru

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

"Cut away your false body!"

Of all the gods, only Ru opposed creation. Not as folly, but as distraction. Initiates of Ru can open channels to the powers underlying the visible world by renouncing the fetters that bind them here. These sacrifices are not made to Ru, but rather given up freely and permanently. Initiates can redirect would-be attackers and retaliate against their enemies, replenish their health and magic, perform a mighty leap, and unleash a massive wave of power against foes. Ru leads you to gain immense power which initially will cause foes to falter and become stricken with maladies if they harm you. As you make further sacrifices, you will be able to draw on this power to restore your health and magic and make a lightning-fast explosive leap. Exceptional sacrificiants can unleash their power in a massive strike against all their foes. Once you begin worship, Ru will monitor your progress as you explore the dungeon and defeat its inhabitants. Ru will, on judging you ready, offer you three sacrifices which you can make in order to achieve greater power. Ru likes it when you make personal sacrifices.

Racial Restrictions

Demigods are prohibited from worshiping Ru (or any other god).

Appreciates

• Making sacrifices. The amount of piety granted per sacrifice varies depending on the significance of the sacrifice (sacrificing a hand grants much more piety than sacrificing purity by gaining dopiness).
  • As Ru's piety system is unusual, monks are offered a near immediate choice of sacrifices upon converting.

Deprecates

• Nothing. You can't offend Ru, Ru has no penance, and inflicts no wrath for leaving. However, you lose the benefits of worshiping Ru while retaining all the drawbacks of your sacrifices (they are not undone).

• Piety with Ru does not decrease.

Given Abilities

Piety level -: "Questioner"

• Make Sacrifice - As you explore and kill, Ru will periodically offer you a batch of 3 sacrifice options, available as in the Abilities menu. Sacrifices will permanently handicap your character, but grant you piety. The exact amount of piety received varies depending on how serious the effect is on your character. See the Sacrifices section below for more details.
  • New sacrifices will be offered periodically, and will refresh faster after you accept one than if you simply let a set of three sit unused. You can reject offered sacrifices, which will result in a new set being offered after a similar delay to accepting one.

Piety level *: "Initiate"

• Aura of Power - Any enemy that attacks you may instead falter or redirect its attack to itself or another target. The chance of this rises linearly with piety, reaching a 10% chance of faltering and 5% chance of redirecting at max piety. (Passive)

Piety level **: "Seeker of Truth"

• Your Aura of Power is strengthened. Enemies that inflict damage upon you receive various detrimental status effects. The chance of this rises linearly with piety, reaching 20% at max piety. The specific status effect applied is randomly chosen from the following list: Corona, Silence, Blind, Slow, or Paralysis. The chance of inflicting a more severe status effect rises with damage sustained and falls based on the attacker's HD.

Piety level ***: "Walker of the Path"

• Draw Out Power - When used, you regain HP and MP, free yourself from nets, webs and constriction, and cure petrification, slow, and confusion. (Exhaustion, moderate draining: roughly 4% max HP)

Piety level ****: "Lifter of the Veil"

• Power Leap - Allows you to leap three tiles and creates a damaging 3x3 explosion wherever you land. Explosion damage scales with piety and experience level. (5 MP, exhaustion)

Piety level *****: "Transcendent"

• Apocalypse - Deals heavy damage and random status effects to every enemy within your line of sight. (8 MP, exhaustion, heavy draining: roughly 13.3% max HP)

Piety level ******: "Drop of Water"

• No new abilities. Unlike other gods, Ru's piety caps at 160. That means that as soon as you reach ****** piety, you are maxed out. Ru will stop offering sacrifices, though if you leave and rejoin, you'll have to sacrifice again.

Punishments

Ru does not punish followers who leave Ru's service; however, their piety will be lost even upon rejoining, and their sacrifices remain forever.

Ru cannot be offended in any way, and will never deliver punishments upon your character. However, all sacrifices made while worshiping Ru are permanent, and the abilities Ru grants are lost upon abandonment.

Strategy

Ru encourages focused characters by rewarding the 'sacrifice' of anything that lies outside one's planned build, granting extremely powerful abilities and buffs in return. There are two main modes of sacrifice: taking sacrifices that won't interfere with your build, and taking big sacrifices to quickly ramp up piety. For example, a melee bruiser in heavy armour won't mind losing Stealth or Arcana. Meanwhile, losing a hand will impact almost every character, but quickly gives access to Ru's powers.

These strategies should be adjusted according to your build, your previous sacrifices, and the amount of runes you're going for. Sacrifice Drink is a much bigger penalty when torment and damnation, common in the extended game, are bound to activate it. Meanwhile, you can take smaller sacs if you already have some of Ru's important abilities. Regardless, it's best to not lose your main killing skill, regardless of how much piety it'd give.

Though it may not feel substantial, Aura of Power will give you a decent edge in fights. It also has the added benefit of aiding in kiting enemies, as the chance for the Aura to distract an enemy occurs on any action taken by that enemy (including walking towards you). Draw Out Power is straightforward - instantly regain HP and MP and cure certain debilitating statuses at the cost of slight draining. Power Leap is a highly versatile tool for both positioning yourself and damaging enemies. Finally, Apocalypse will incapacitate all foes within your line of sight while dealing considerable damage; it can wipe out most ordinary monsters while the more dangerous ones will be significantly weakened.

Tips and Tricks

• Wearing an amulet of faith does not increase the piety gained per sacrifice. Wearing one hastens the rate at which new sacrifices are offered, while removing one slows down that rate. A max piety Ru worshipper gains nothing from wearing an amulet of faith and loses nothing for removing it.
• All of Ru's abilities exhaust the user for a short while. Choose when to use your abilities wisely.
• Any sacrifices you take up are permanent. You will never get back that hand, or your dodging skill. Thus, it is rarely a good idea to switch to another god from Ru.
  • Leaving Ru carries no penalty if you have yet to sacrifice anything. If you are not a monk, you can worship an early Ru altar until the first set of sacrifices show up (or until you find a desirable god).

Sacrifices

Ru will offer you a randomly selected batch of three sacrifices every so often. Choosing a sacrifice will permanently handicap your character as described, and you will not be able to make a new sacrifice until a new batch is offered. Unlike other gods, Ru's piety maxes at 160 rather than 200, so as soon as you hit ******, you have maximum piety and Ru will no longer offer sacrifices. Note that you start with 15 piety on first worshipping Ru, like most other gods.

Where a given sacrifice (eg Essence) has more than one row in the table, you will be told before making the sacrifice which specific effect you will receive. Each row in this table can only be taken once, except where indicated otherwise. The list of sacrifices are as follows:

Sacrifice	Mutation(s)	Description	Piety*
Arcana	3 x No [magic school] magic	Permanently lose three randomly selected magic skills and access to all spells in those schools. One school is chosen from each of the following groups: Conjurations/Summonings/Translocations Transmutations/Necromancy/Hexes Air Magic/Earth Magic/Fire Magic/Ice Magic/Poison Magic.	25 + piety from skill in affected magic schools
Artifice	Inability to use devices	Permanently lose the Evocations skill. Your character can no longer activate any wands or other evocable items, except the figurine of a ziggurat. This includes evocable invisibility and blink from scarves or artefacts.	55 + piety from Evocations skill - [10 if sacrificed Love]
Courage	Cowardly	Suffer a slaying and spellpower penalty which scales with the number and strength of opponents in your line of sight. The severity of this penalty is indicated on the status bar by the Horr(-X) status, where X is the slaying penalty. Penalties begin when more than one tough monster or a single nasty monster is visible, and becomes more pronounced as more opponents appear.	25 + [6 per level of Sacrifice Experience]
Drink	Inability to drink after injury	Gain No Unsafe Potions 2. Any time you are severely injured or suffer a significantly strong attack, you lose the ability to quaff potions for 1d(damage) turns (maximum 30 turns). Attacks that deal at least 4% max HP may activate this; stronger attacks have greater chances, being guaranteed at 20% max HP. In addition, any attack that reduces you below 30% of max HP will trigger this.	30 + [10 if sacrificed Scroll]
Durability	Inability to train armour	Permanently lose the Armour skill.	30 + piety from Armour skill + [20 if sacrificed Nimbleness]
Essence (50% chance)	Weak-willed	Permanently reduce your willpower by 40 (equivalent to Will-).	35
Essence (25% chance)	Low MP	Permanently lose 10% of your maximum MP. Repeatable.	10 + half the value of maximum skill out of Spellcasting and Invocations/2
Essence (25% chance)	Disrupted magic	Permanently suffer a penalty to spellcasting success chance equivalent to 1 negative rank of wizardry. Repeatable.	20 - 6 * number of stats greater than your Intelligence
Experience	Inexperienced	Immediately reduces your level by 1, also reducing your max level. You level up as quickly as if you had never sacrificed (This sacrifice can be taken up to 3 times).	35 + 7 per rank of the mutation you already have + [6 if sacrificed Courage] + [10 if you are a Demonspawn] + [10 if 1st/3rd level and Djinni]
Eye	Missing an eye	Reduces your to-hit of melee, ranged weapons, and spells by 5.	25
Hand	Missing a hand	Permanently lose one hand (or set of hands in the case of formicids) and all associated benefits of two-handedness. You can only wield weapons which are one-handed for your species, lose the ability to deliver offhand punches, can never wear shields, and lose one ring slot. You'll lose access to the Shields skill. Small races (Kobolds and Spriggans) also lose access to the Staves skill.	65 + piety from Shields skill + [piety from Staves skill if you are a small race]
Health (33% chance)	Frail	Permanently lose 10% of your maximum HP.	35
Health (33% chance)	Reduced AC	Permanently lose 5 AC.	30
Health (33% chance)	Reduced EV	Permanently lose 5 EV.	25
Love	Hated by all	Permanently make (almost) all neutral, peaceful or allied monsters hostile to you. Entities that are proxies for purely magical effects are unaffected: orbs of destruction, ball lightning, battlespheres, spectral weapons, foxfires, and fulminant prisms. All Summonings spells, as well as Animate Dead, Simulacrum, Death Channel and Infestation can no longer be cast after this sacrifice. Necrotise and reactive abilities (like the ratskin cloak) won't create anything. Fire Storm will create hostile fire vortices. Wands of charming and other ally-creating evocables will no longer function. You will lose the Summonings skill, and won't be able to worship Beogh, Fedhas, Jiyva, Hepliaklqana, or Yredelemnul after this sacrifice.	40 + piety from Summonings skill, 17 if sacrificed Summonings magic or Artifice, 1 if sacrificed both Summonings and Artifice
Nimbleness	Inability to train dodging	Permanently lose the Dodging skill.	30 + piety from Dodging skill + [20 if sacrificed Durability] + [28 if your species cannot train Armour]
Purity (50% chance)	Reduced Attributes	Permanently reduce your strength, intelligence or dexterity by 2. (This sacrifice can be taken up to 2 times per stat.)	16 - 4 * number of stats greater than the chosen stat
Purity (17% chance)	Scream	Gain one rank of the Scream mutation, causing you to occasionally shout when meeting monsters. (This sacrifice can be taken up to 3 times.)	7, 10 if you already have Scream 1, 14 if you already have Scream 2
Purity (17% chance)	No potion heal	Gain one rank of the No Potion Heal mutation, reducing the benefit of healing potions. (This sacrifice can be taken up to 2 times.)	14 + 7 per rank of the mutation you already have
Purity (17% chance)	Inhibited regeneration	Gain the Inhibited Regeneration mutation, stopping you from regenerating when in line of sight of enemies.	14
Resistance	Temperature sensitive	Permanently acquire fire and cold vulnerability (rF- rC-).	50
Skill	Unskilled	Reduce all skill aptitudes by 1, retroactively decreasing your skill level in all skills you have already trained. (This sacrifice can be taken up to 3 times.)	30 + 7 per rank of the mutation you already have
Stealth	No stealth	Permanently lose the Stealth skill, and set your stealth score to 0. This makes all monsters notice you on the first turn they spend in your line of sight. This does not mean you produce additional noise, however, so you will not be waking up things beyond your line of sight any more than normal.	15 + piety from Stealth skill
Words	Inability to read after injury	Gain No Unsafe Scrolls 2. Any time you are severely injured or suffer a significantly strong attack, you lose the ability to read scrolls for 1d(damage) turns (maximum 30 turns). Attacks that deal at least 4% max HP may activate this; stronger attacks have greater chances, being guaranteed at 20% max HP. In addition, any attack that reduces you below 30% of max HP will trigger this.	30 + [10 if sacrificed Drink] + [15 if you are a Mummy]

*The piety count contains square brackets [] where a preset amount of piety is added (or subtracted) when a condition is true.

The piety granted by sacrifice in this table is the raw piety. This is then fuzzed by a random amount up to the smaller value of plus or minus 10% of the piety value and plus or minus 5 piety, to prevent players from accurately counting piety.

Some sacrifices are worth additional piety based on the amount of skill levels you have in the skill being lost; this accounts for fractional skill levels. The amount of additional piety is (raw experience points to reach your skill level)/500. For reference, 500 skill points (1 additional piety) equals 4 ranks in a skill with an aptitude of 0; see the Skill article for more details on skill points in regards to skill level.

Some sacrifices may conflict with your current mutation set (e.g. Sacrifice Health (HP) gives Frail, which is incompatible with Robust) or species (Vine Stalkers already have maximum No Potion Heal), and will not be given.

History

• In 0.29, Sacrifice Experience was reduced to 1 XL (from 2). Some other sacrifices were rebalanced.
• Prior to 0.28, Ru's Aura of Power triggered statuses more often (25% at max piety).
• In 0.27, Ru's sacrifices were rebalanced.
• Prior to 0.26, the drain status lowered skill XP instead of max HP.
• Prior to 0.19, Ru's Aura of Power triggered statuses more often (33% at max piety).
• Ru was added in 0.16.
• For a time during development, Ru was named Iashol.