Ru

Version 0.22: 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.

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).

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 - Ru gives you no powers initially, but as you explore will periodically offer you a batch of three sacrifice options to make. These will be available from the Abilities screen. Making a sacrifice will permanently handicap your character in a dramatic way, but will grant you piety, which unlocks new abilities and makes them more powerful. 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.

The exact amount of piety received varies depending on how serious the effect is on your character. See Sacrifices below for more details. Note that Monks do not get their initial starting piety with Ru as they would with other gods, but do get offered an immediate choice of sacrifices upon joining if Ru is their first god.

Once you've made sufficient sacrifices to reach full piety, Ru will stop offering new ones. If you abandon and return to the god, however, new sacrifices will be made available.

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.

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 33% 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. Cost: exhaustion, moderate draining.

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. Cost: 5 MP, exhaustion.

Piety level *****: "Transcendent"

• Apocalypse - Deals heavy damage and random status effects to every enemy within your line of sight. Cost: 8 MP, exhaustion, heavy draining.

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

• No new abilities. Please note that unlike other gods, Ru's piety caps at 160. That means that as soon as you reach ****** piety, you are maxed out.

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. Wearing an amulet of faith does not increase the piety gained per sacrifice -- instead, it simply hastens the rate at which new sacrifices are offered. Unlike with most other gods, removing an amulet of faith does not damage piety. One simply gains an extra delay before the next set of sacrifices is offered. As such, a max piety Ru-worshiper gains nothing from wearing an amulet of faith and loses nothing for removing it.

Be aware that any sacrifices you take up are permanent. You will never get back that hand, or your dodging skill, or the ability to have allies. Thus, it is rarely a good idea to switch to another god from Ru.

Try to sacrifice such that it does not interfere heavily with your strategy. For example, in a 3 rune game, where you wouldn't expect a lot of torment or hellfire, Sacrifice Drink would be more doable than for a 15 rune game where both are commonplace and will frequently deny you your potions. Sacrifice Arcana would be fine for 3 rune games where you could do without some spells, but may be regrettable should you wish to go for 15 and find yourself unable to cast Statue Form, Controlled Blink, or Regeneration. Contrariwise, Sacrifice Essence may be dangerous and difficult to cope with in a 3 rune game, but can be easily made up for in equipment by the extended game.

That said, Ru does offer many useful powers. 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 Aura of Power to distract an enemy occurs on any action taken by that enemy (including walking towards you); characters of average speed may eventually outrun enemies that lose turns to Aura of Power without the need for haste or Swiftness. 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.

All of Ru's abilities exhaust the user for a short while. Choose when to use your abilities wisely.

If you aren't a monk, have not yet decided on a god, and find an altar to Ru, consider joining Ru at least until you see the first set of offered sacrifices. Because leaving Ru carries no penalty if you have yet to sacrifice anything, you can freely choose a different god if your first set of sacrifices are either unpalatable or give minuscule amounts of piety.

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.

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: Charms/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, blink, flight, etc. from rings, cloaks, or artefacts. Boots and barding of flying no longer permit ending flight at will with this sacrifice.	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 + [15 if sacrificed Experience]
Drink	Inability to drink while threatened	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). Any attack that reduces you below 30% of max HP will trigger this, as can heavy attacks regardless of your current HP; such attacks must deal damage equal to at least 4% of your max HP for a chance of triggering the ability loss, and the chance rises with higher damage, guaranteed at 20% max HP.	30
Durability	Inability to train armour	Permanently lose the Armour skill. Any experience you've invested in it will be converted to additional piety. Worth bonus piety if you've also used Sacrifice Nimbleness.	30 + piety from Armour skill + [20 if sacrificed Nimbleness]
Essence (50% chance)	Magic vulnerability	Permanently reduce your MR by 40 (the equivalent of an artefact with the MR- property).	28
Essence (25% chance)	Low MP	Permanently lose 10% of your maximum MP. Repeatable.	10 + half the value of maximum skill out of Spellcasting, Invocations and Evocations
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 lose two experience levels and reduce your maximum level to 25.	50 + [15 if sacrificed Courage] + [28 if you are a demonspawn]
Eye	Missing an eye	Reduces your to-hit of melee and ranged weapons, and spells, as if you were wearing an amulet of inaccuracy.	20
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 also lose access to the Shields skill and (unless you are a Formicid) the Bows skill, and any experience invested in them will be converted to additional piety. Small races (Halflings, Kobolds, and Spriggans) also lose access to, and gain additional piety for, the Staves skill.	65 + piety from Shields skill + [piety from Bows skill if you are not a formicid] + [piety from Staves skill if you are a small race]
Health (33% chance)	Frail	Permanently lose 10% of your maximum HP.	45
Health (33% chance)	Reduced AC	Permanently lose 5 AC (as if wearing a -5 ring of protection).	30
Health (33% chance)	Reduced EV	Permanently lose 5 EV (as if wearing a -5 ring of evasion).	25
Love	Hated by all	Permanently make almost all monsters you encounter hostile to you. This includes any derived undead that you create and temporary monsters which you summon or create through evocable items. The only unaffected monsters are orbs of destruction, ball lightning, battlespheres, spectral weapons, and fulminant prisms. All Summonings spells except Aura of Abjuration, as well as Animate Skeleton, Animate Dead, Simulacrum, Death Channel and Infestation can no longer be cast after this sacrifice. Sticks to Snakes and Tukima's Dance can still be cast but the snakes/weapons created will be hostile. Similarly, Fire Storm will create hostile fire vortices. Also, wands of charming, boxes of beasts, sacks of spiders and phantom mirrors will no longer function. Phials of floods are still usable but any water elementals created will be hostile.	35, 17 if sacrificed Summonings magic or Artifice, 1 if sacrificed both Summonings and Artifice
Nimbleness	Inability to train dodging	Permanently lose the Dodging skill. Any experience you've invested in it will be converted to additional piety. Worth bonus piety if you've also used Sacrifice Durability.	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 3 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-).	60
Skill	Unskilled	Reduce all skill aptitudes by 1, retroactively decreasing your skill level in all skills you have already trained.	40
Stealth	No stealth	Set your stealth score to 0, making 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. You also permanently lose the Stealth skill, and any experience you've invested in it will be converted to additional piety.	15 + piety from Stealth skill
Words	Inability to read while threatened	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). Any attack that reduces you below 30% of max HP will trigger this, as can heavy attacks regardless of your current HP; such attacks must deal damage equal to at least 4% of your max HP for a chance of triggering the ability loss, and the chance rises with higher damage, guaranteed at 20% max HP.	30

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

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.

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.

History

• In 0.28, Ru's Aura of Power will trigger less often.
• In 0.27, Ru's sacrifices will be rebalanced.
• Ru was added in 0.16.
• For a time during development, Ru was named Iashol.