Twisted Resurrection (player spell)

Version 0.10: This article may not be up to date for the latest stable release of Crawl.

Twisted Resurrection
Level	5
School1	Necromancy
Source(s)	Book of Unlife
Casting noise	4
Spell noise	0

This spell allows its caster to imbue a mass of deceased flesh with a magical life force. Casting this spell involves the assembling of several corpses together; the greater the combined mass of flesh available, the greater the chances of success.

Twisted Resurrection is a level 5 Necromancy spell which converts all corpses in your LOS into friendly crawling corpses or macabre masses (depending on their size). These beings cannot attack, but they will combine into small abominations and eventually large abominations once you've created enough of them. They can also merge with any small abomination already created until it is upgraded into a large abomination. If a corpse is not large enough to create a crawling corpse, it is reduced to a pulpy mess (i.e. destroyed).

For those interested in game mechanics, this spell creates 1 HD worth of creatures per 20-60 aum, depending on spell power (and with half efficiency past 15 HD). Small abominations require 6 HD and two corpses, large abominations need 11 HD and three corpses.

This spell offers an option for necromancers who want minions able to travel between floors. The book of Unlife which contains Twisted Resurrection fortunately also comes with Recall, making it easy to keep track of your abominations from floor to floor.

Unlike hostile abominations, the ones you create with this spell are undead, not demonic.

Tips & Tricks

Unlike Yredelemnul's undead servants, abominations won't follow you on stairs if they're blocked by zombies or the like, but they will push past the "mindless thralls" if you give them a few turns. They block each other too, so at most eight will follow you on any one stair climb.

If you need to herd an army of abominations from one floor to another, try 't'elling the ones on the destination floor to 'w'ait. They'll wander a bit, but they won't follow you back up the stairs. (Don't forget to 't'ell them to 'f'ollow you again afterward!)

Places like the Orcish Mines or the Snake Pit are great for abominations, as they contain many enemies to convert, and nagas are conveniently heavy. This spell also combines well with Kiku's corpse delivery. In contrast, the Shoals are quite hostile for abominations; they tend to wander off and get swarmed, blunder repeatedly over blade traps, and possibly get trapped by tides and drowned.

Abominations are your basic bruisers, but their defense is poor, and their stupidity can be a liability. They don't avoid clouds of flame or frost, so vaults producing these can wipe out your army. Similarly, before you leave them in a room, check for traps (especially teleport, blade, or Zot traps, none of which run out of ammo).

They will happily die in the effort to overwhelm some armoured hulk which ought to be weakened first with poison or debilitating spells while preventing you from doing that, by blocking your line of fire! Happily, they're immune to Mephitic Cloud, so you can often confuse their opponents. But watch out for monsters with area blasts such as Fire crabs!

History

Prior to 0.10 Twisted Resurrection did not produce crawling corpses and macabre masses which then combine to form abominations. Instead, you would have to place several corpses on a single tile, cast it while standing over them, and there was a chance that a small or large abomination would form.