Cheibriados

"Take it easy."

Cheibriados the Contemplative is a god who meditates on the mystery of time. Those who choose to follow this god's path will learn to eschew unnecessary haste, slow down both themselves and others, and hurt those who refuse to slow down. Especially devoted followers may even temporarily abandon the flow of time and its needless disturbances. Cheibriados rewards worshipers who slay creatures who are faster than they are.

Appreciates

• Killing creatures that are faster than you, with a chance of a large piety increase for much faster creatures and ones with high HD ("Cheibriados thoroughly appreciates the change of pace").

Deprecates

• Increasing your speed by any means: this includes Haste, going berserk, Swiftness, weapons with the speed brand, quick blades, and boots of running. You may not haste enemies, either. Be careful when using unidentified potions, wands, and decks! If the item was unidentified, or you were berserked/hasted against your will (moth of wrath, berserk mutation), Cheibriados will block the haste and not punish you for it. The message will say the protection was "just this once", but there is no actual limit on it.

Given Abilities

Piety Level -: "Timekeeper"

• Raises the support of your attributes: Cheibriados increases your Strength, Dexterity, and Intelligence as your piety increases. Each stat increase comes with an incremental decrease in your movement speed. Further stat increases occur at higher ranks of piety. At maximum piety you receive +15 to all stats, and your movement delay is doubled.

Piety Level *: "Righteous Timekeeper"

• Slows and strengthens your metabolism: Reduces food cost by 1 per action (identical to Slow Metabolism 1), halves the effect of poison and sickness. This also doubles its duration. (Passive)
• Bend Time: Slows everything adjacent to you. Monsters resist based on their HD rather than their Magic resistance, which means that it can affect magic immune enemies. (Costs 3 MP, 50-100 Food, and 1-2 Piety)

Piety Level **: "Chronographer"

• No new Abilities.

Piety Level ***: "Splendid Chronographer"

• Temporal Distortion: Moves nearby monsters forward through time, relative to you. (Instant, 4MP, 200-400 Food, 3-5 Piety)

Piety Level ****: "Chronicler"

• Slouch: Damages everything in LOS (including invisible enemies) that's faster than you (Damage = [Speed Difference] * 4d3 / 2). Only monsters that have detected you take damage from Slouch. (Costs 5 MP, 100-200 Food, and 8-12 Piety)

Piety Level *****: "Eternal Chronicler"

• Step From Time: Moves you to nowhere and lets time pass. During that time, monsters wander away and may even go to sleep. Monsters that end up in your LOS must perform a fresh check against your stealth to notice you. (Costs 10 MP, 200-400 Food, and 10-15 Piety)

Piety Level ******: "Ticktocktomancer"

• No new abilities.

In addition, Cheibriados does the following:

• Dramatically reduces the monster spawn rate and map morphing rate in the Abyss. (Passive)
• Prevent the Speed bonus from going berserk through the Berserk mutation. (Passive)
• Reduces the Orb run monster spawn rate.

Punishments

• 80%: Sleep for 4-8 turns. (Irresistible)
• 20%: Slow + No berserk for 100 turns. (Irresistible)

Strategy

*Some species are better suited for Cheibriados than others. Spriggan and centaur characters have difficulty raising piety and lose a lot of the impact of Cheibriados' abilities due to their fast movement speed. Nagas, however, "benefit" from a slower-than-average base movement speed.

• Casters benefit from Cheibriados much more than non-casters, as the boost to intelligence would otherwise go to waste. In addition, being able to cast allows you to use spells to escape from deadly situations, which come up often when running is no longer an option. Transmuters who use Unarmed Combat in particular benefit greatly from the boost in stats, as the Unarmed Combat damage from Blade Hands is greatly improved by the boost to dexterity and strength.
• Remember to always use shift-direction key or auto-explore while exploring, as that will automatically stop you when you spot an enemy. One careless step while worshiping Cheibriados could translate to two or three needless enemy attacks, which could very well be lethal.
• You can use Transmutations spells that increase your movement speed (such as Spider Form) without offending Cheibriados. However, you will still be slower than the average monster, so this is no longer useful for escapes.
• Translocation spells can help you get around quickly, as can Passwall.
• Training your Invocations skill is important as well, as Cheibriados offers several excellent abilities:
  • Bend Time can reliably slow even the strongest enemies for very little piety, reducing their attack speed while yours remains the same.
  • Temporal Distortion works well with poison; apply a few levels of poison, then warp time forward to when your foes are dead or weakened.
  • Slouch is a pricey-but-incredibly effective irresistible attack against everything in sight, once you have maxed piety. Melee fighters with low MP can fire one off to soften up or thin out a crowd, while casters can spam it to clear the screen. The body count you create should help recoup the piety cost somewhat. It's also an excellent way to take out annoying unseen horrors. Bear in mind that both Slouch's damage and your chance of gaining piety for a kill is based on the difference between your speed and the target's, so areas filled with fast enemies such as the Elven Halls are especially vulnerable and profitable. Finally, while slowing yourself will provide a slight increase to Slouch damage, hasted enemies, especially already fast ones, will take drastically increased damage.
  • Don't forget you have Step From Time. It can spare you from certain-death situations; by the time you return, most enemies will have wandered off and summoned enemies will have run out of time. Enemies that haven't wandered off might not even notice your return if you have a high Stealth skill as well.
  • Step From Time is much more effective in open levels with lots of space for monsters to redistribute themselves. In constrained areas like Shoals or small portal levels, more monsters will end up near you.

History

Prior to 0.10, Cheibriados would only give you bonus stats if you wore equipment with the ponderousness ego (and he offered an ability which allowed you to convert your gear into ponderous artifacts). He would also offer various resistances as well. These benefits increased with each equipment slot you made ponderous.

Prior to 0.9, species with equipment restrictions were unable to get the full ponderous benefits from Cheibriados, and each new ponderous item gave a larger benefit than the last.