Elyvilon
"Go forth and aid the weak!"
| Elyvilon the Healer welcomes all kind souls prepared to help others. Those individuals can expect to gain powerful healing abilities, by which they can avoid bloodshed. Elyvilon appreciates the destruction of weapons, though more pious worshippers must find and destroy unholy or evil weapons to gain piety in this way. Elyvilon's followers can convert to the Shining One or Zin while keeping some piety.
The Healer offers followers means to heal themselves from damage and other ill effects. Elyvilon also allows healing of hostile monsters, trying to turn them neutral. Elyvilon may directly intervene to save a follower's life, especially when called upon; highly pious followers can be sure of such aid. Elyvilon likes it when you explore the world. Healing hostile monsters may pacify them, turning them neutral. Pacification works best on natural beasts, worse on monsters of your species, worse on other species, worst of all on demons and undead, and not at all on asleeping or mindless monsters. If it succeeds, you gain half of the monster's experience value. Pacified monsters try to leave the level. Elyvilon dislikes it when you drink blood or you allow allies to die. Elyvilon strongly dislikes it when you perform cannibalism, you desecrate holy remains, you use necromancy, you use unholy magic or items, you attack non-hostile holy beings, you or your allies kill non-hostile holy beings, you attack neutral beings, you attack allies or you kill living things while asking for your life to be spared. |
Appreciates
- Exploring the world.
Deprecates
- Casting any Necromancy or unholy spell. (Penance)
- Knowingly using an evil item. (Penance)
- Attacking or killing a non-hostile holy being. (Penance)
- Attacking a neutral being. (Penance)
- Letting your allies kill a non-hostile holy being. (Penance)
- Killing your allies. (Penance)
- Drinking a potion of blood. (Penance)
- Performing Cannibalism.
- Killing living monsters while Divine Protection is active. (Penance)
- Casting Necromutation. (Excommunication)
- Inactivity (-1 piety every 1,000 turns)
Given Abilities
Piety level -: "Comforter"
- Evil weapons will be identified on sight.
- Destroy Weapons - You can sacrifice weapons and ammunition to Elyvilon through prayer, much like more militant gods accept blood sacrifices. In exchange, you may receive piety. The lower your current piety and the more valuable the weapon offered, the better the odds of gaining piety. Artifacts almost always grant piety, and evil weapons always do. Weapons you've inscribed with {!D} will not be affected. Note that no piety will be granted for non-evil weapons after passing ***, even if you drop below it later!
- Protection from Harm - Elyvilon may negate an attack that would otherwise kill you. This activates 10+(Piety/10)% of the time and costs 20+1d20 piety. This can activate even if you're under penance.
- Lesser Healing - The target monster gains 2d((Invocation/6)+3)+(Invocation/6)+1 HP. (Costs 1 MP and 100-200 Food)
Using this ability on a hostile monster may pacify it, earning you piety and half the XP you'd gain for killing it. Every time you attempt this, the game compares your healing factor against the creature's max HP; if you beat this test, the creature is pacified and leaves via the nearest staircase up. Note that not all monsters can be pacified.
Healing Factor = A random number between 0 and ((Invocations+1)×(HP healed))/3
Piety Earned = 1d(Monster's HD/(2+(Your Piety/20)). If this results in zero, there is a 50% chance of still gaining 1 piety.
| Monster | Factor Multiplier |
|---|---|
| Animals | ×3 |
| Same Species | ×2 |
| Holy | ×1.5 |
| Other Humanoids | ×1 |
| Undead | ×0.75 |
| Demon | ×0.6 |
| Mindless & Insects | ×0 (Impossible) |
The following chart shows the max HP of monsters you can conceivably pacify, based on your Invocations skill:
| Invocations | Max HP: Other Humanoids | Max HP: Your Species | Max HP: Animals |
| 0 | 1 | 2 | 3 |
| 6 | 8 | 16 | 24 |
| 12 | 19 | 39 | 58 |
| 18 | 35 | 70 | 104 |
| 27 | 65 | 131 | 196 |
Piety level *: "Caregiver"
- Lesser Self-Healing - You gain 2d((Invocation/6)+3)+(Invocation/6)+1 HP. (Costs 1 MP, 100-200 Food, and 0-1 Piety)
- Divine Protection - For a brief time after using this ability, if you receive damage that should kill you, you cancel all damage and your Piety is reduced by 20 + 1d20. This is possible even if you're under penance. (No cost, perfect success rate)
Piety level **: "Practitioner"
- Purification - The following conditions are removed: Sickness, Rotting, Poison, Confusion, Slow, and Petrify. Cures all rot, restores all stats to maximum. (Costs 3 MP, 300-600 Food, and 3-5 Piety)
Piety level ***: "Pacifier"
- Greater Self-Healing - You gain 2d((Invocations/3)+10) + (Invocations/3)+8 HP. (Costs 2 MP, 250-500 Food, and 2-3 Piety)
- Greater Healing - The target monster gains 2d((Invocations/3)+10)+((Invocations)/3)+8 HP. (Costs 2 MP, 250-500 Food, and 2-3 Piety)
As with Lesser Healing, this ability may pacify monsters:
| Invocations | Max HP: Other Humanoids | Max HP: Your Species | Max HP: Animals |
| 0 | 3 | 6 | 9 |
| 6 | 27 | 54 | 81 |
| 12 | 58 | 117 | 175 |
| 18 | 98 | 196 | 294 |
| 27 | 173 | 345 | 518 |
Piety level ****: "Purifying [Species Name]"
- No new abilities.
Piety level *****: "Faith Healer"
- Divine Vigour - Increases your max HP and MP by (Invocations/6)+1 for 40+(2.5×Invocations) turns. (Costs 600-1200 Food and 6-9 Piety)
Piety level ******: "Bringer of Life"
- No new abilities.
Punishments
| Elyvilon forgives followers who leave Elyvilon's service; however, those who take up the worship of evil gods will be punished. (Kikubaaqudgha, Yredelemnul, Makhleb, Lugonu, and Beogh are evil gods.)
Elyvilon is not a god known for wrath. Still, those earning Elyvilon's ire will find themselves irritated in various ways; their weapons will be blunted, their blows blocked, their thoughts confused, and, occasionally, they'll be lightly poisoned, to cap it all off. |
Elyvilon will punish you if you convert to an evil god (Beogh, Yredelemnul, Lugonu, Kikubaaqugdgha, or Makhleb). Switching to other gods will not result in any wrath, and converting to Zin or The Shining One will transfer half of your [[[piety]] to them.
The possible punishments include:
- 40%: Confusion for 3-12 turns.
- 20%: Suffer a random Poison Magic miscast.
- 40%: Each non-artifact weapon in your inventory has a 33% chance of getting a -1 enchantment (this will never reduce an enchantment past -1). If anything is successfully penalized, your penance score may be reduced by 1 (Chance = 50+(0.02×Gold Cost of Items Penalized)%).
- Elyvilon will occasionally heal or block attacks against enemies as a punishment.
Strategy
Pacification is a great way to deal with troublesome monsters. Elyvilon's healing abilities are smite-targeting and can affect anything in LOS that isn't asleep, so you can pacify monsters with annoying breath weapons or dangerous irresistible attacks before they even notice you. Also, pacified enemies will fight against hostile monsters, so you can pacify half of a band of orcs and let the two sides wipe each other out. You can pacify uniques.
However, pacified enemies are not "friendly". You can't swap places with them, and if you stand where they're trying to walk they'll attack you, so keep your distance when you can. Also, keep in mind that you cannot pacify mindless enemies or insects.
A disadvantage of pacification is that it gives less experience than killing. It may be desirable to kill monsters normally when you can, and try pacification when you cannot. For example, hydras usually succumb to a few shots of greater healing even if your Invocations skill is low. You can still build up piety pacifying monsters that give negligible XP anyway, and then spend it on self-healing, purification, greater healing, or vitalisation when you're in a tight spot.
Pacification does not work on mindless or non-living creatures, notably orbs of fire. You must come up with alternate means of defeating or avoiding these creatures.
If you plan to pick Elyvilon as your god but don't want to start as a healer, collect all weapons and missiles as you encounter them, and then sacrifice them all (except for the ones you plan to use later of course) in a giant pile once you find an altar. If they get too heavy, leave them in stashes on cleared levels, and then go back to them once you join the religion (you can find them quickly using Ctrl+f and typing "weapon" or "missile"). This should unlock lesser healing and maybe even purification right away.
As Elyvilon offers a number of powerful panic buttons for sticky situations, she can be a good god for newer players who wish to try out a slightly different play style.
History
Prior to 0.16, players could select the Healer class to begin the game worshiping Elyvilon. Also, she offered two pacification abilities, and piety grew through pacifying foes and destroying weapons.
Prior to 0.13, Elyvilon could also pacify insects.
Prior to 0.10, she offered an ability called Restoration, which only restored rot damage. This was merged into Purification.
Prior to 0.9, used to grant piety over time (+1 every 240 turns, up to 150), and switching to Zin or TSO incurred no wrath.
