Death Channel
Version 0.28: This article may not be up to date for the latest stable release of Crawl.
 Death Channel
| |
|---|---|
| Level | 6 |
| School1 | Necromancy |
| Source(s) | Book of Decay Book of Unlife |
| Casting noise | 5 |
| Spell noise | 0 |
| Power Cap | 200 |
| Hated By | Elyvilon The Shining One Zin |
| Flags | Helpful, Selfench, Utility |
| Binds the souls of slain living, demonic and holy creatures, forcing their spectres to remain and fight for the caster for as long as the channel lasts. |
Death Channel is a level 6 Necromancy spell that, while active, raises,, or monsters slain by the caster into a state of temporary undead slavery as spectral things. The type of spectral thing depends upon what is killed, but its stats will be similar to that of the creature slain, and it will always have draining-branded attacks. Increasing your spell power will increase the duration of the spell, but has no effect on the duration of the spectral things themselves.
Spectral things are not permanent pets, so will not follow the caster up and down stairs. Creatures affected by this spell still generate corpses as normal.
Strategy
- Death Channel and Animate Dead function similarly, in that they raise up undead allies for you. Zombies tend to have more hitpoints, less AC, and are of zombie intelligence; spectral things retain their original intelligence and have their drain attacks. Animate Dead requires corpses to drop and a turn mid-combat to cast, while DChan automatically and always creates a valid spectre on kill.
- However, there's little reason not to use both at the same time, as Death Channel doesn't disrupt corpses in any way.
- Death Channel does not work with Kikubaquudgha's Corpse Delivery. It also does not stack with Yredelemnul's automatic corpse raising.
History
- Prior to 0.28, Death Channel did not work on holy or demonic creatures, nor creatures that did not leave a corpse.
- Prior to 0.26, Death Channel had a summon duration of 6 (or ~170 turns) instead of 5, and the spectres did not time out once the spell ended.
- Prior to 0.16, the spectral summons would take stairs with you.
- Prior to 0.15, Death Channel had a duration half as long.
