Kikubaaqudgha

Version 0.29: This article may not be up to date for the latest stable release of Crawl.

"Spread unending torment and darkness!"

Kikubaaqudgha is a terrible Demon-God, served by those who wish to indulge in the powers of death. An evil god, Kikubaaqudgha requires worshippers to cause the death and destruction of as many creatures as possible. In exchange, Kikubaaqudgha offers great assistance to the aspiring necromancer: a supply of useful corpses, knowledge of dark magic, protection against necromantic backlash, and multiplication of the newly undead. Kikubaaqudgha will enhance servants' necromantic prowess with gifts of Necromancy spells, and may cause their spells which raise undead servants to create more minions. Kikubaaqudgha will protect followers from the effects of necromantic miscasts, death curses, and may even shield them from unholy torment. Followers can unearth dying wretches as necromantic fodder, and may invoke torment. Kikubaaqudgha will eventually allow followers to either receive knowledge of the most forbidden necromantic magic, or to have their weapon imbued with pain. Kikubaaqudgha likes it when you kill living beings, you destroy the undead, you kill demons, you kill holy beings and you destroy nonliving beings. Kikubaaqudgha's powers are based on Necromancy instead of Invocations skill.

Restrictions

• Djinn's unusual approach to magic renders them unable to worship Kikubaaqudgha.
• Demigods may not worship Kikubaaqudgha (or any other deity).

Appreciates

• You or your undead slaves killing living, nonliving, holy, undead, or demonic creatures. (Chance of +1 Piety, chance increases with the victim's HD, but decreases with your level.)

Deprecates

• Inactivity: You lose 1 piety per 340 turns, on average (1/17 chance every 20 turns).
• Abandonment. (Penance)

Given Abilities

Piety level -: "Purveyor of Pain"

• No abilities.

Piety level *: "Scholar of Death"

• Unearth Wretches: Creates 2 + Necromancy/5 (2-8) wretches, random Necromancy- and branch- dependent monsters. They are considered hostile, but are unable to act, have 1 HP, 0 willpower, do not give XP, and will die in 2-3 turns. These monsters can be used to raise the dead. (3 MP, 2-3 piety)
  • When these monsters die "wretchedly", they will activate Necromancy effects, even those which require you to kill (Animate Dead, Death Channel).

Piety level **: "Merchant of Misery"

• You may resist Necromancy miscast effects from spell miscasts. Your resistance rises with piety and miscasts are averted with a piety in 160 chance. Spells that qualify for protection will have "Kikubaaqudgha supports the use of this spell." in the description.
• Kikubaaqudgha will either completely protect you from mummy death curses or reduce their severity by 50%. Complete protection or 50% reduction are equally likely.

Piety level ***: "Artisan of Death"

• No new abilities.

Piety level ****: "Dealer of Despair"

• Protection From Torment: You sometimes take reduced damage from torment and agony; there is a piety/600 chance of taking no damage, and failing that, a piety/250 chance to reduce a random amount of damage (at least 1). The average damage is shown below.

Piety	Unprotected	HP lost w/ Kiku Protection	HP lost w/ Kiku Protection & rN+++
80	50%	36.4%	34.3%
100	50%	33.35%	30.85%
120	50%	30.4%	27.5%
150	50%	26.25%	23.9%
200	50%	20%	16%

Piety level *****: "Black Sun"

• Torment - Torment everything in your LOS, including yourself. (4 MP, 8-12 piety)

Piety level ******: "Lord of Darkness"

• Once per game, you may choose to either:
  • Receive Forbidden Knowledge: Kikubaaqudgha will grant you Haunt, Borgnjor's Revivification, Infestation, Necromutation, and Death's Door.
  • Brand Weapon With Pain: Give a non-artefact melee or ranged weapon of your choice a permanent Pain brand and increase its enchantment level by 2. This splatters blood over the area, invokes torment, and overwrites the current brand on the weapon.

Gifts

Kikubaaqudgha grants a semi-random assortment of spells upon reaching 1* and 3* piety. Kikubaaqudgha will never grant spells your species cannot cast. Each set guarantees the player at least one spell to complement the Unearth Wrenches ability.

At 1* piety, Kiku will gift Necrotise and three randomly selected low-level Necromancy spells:

• Sublimation of Blood
• Vampiric Draining
• Anguish
• Animate Dead

At 3* piety, Kiku will gift five randomly selected mid-level Necromancy spells:

• Dispel Undead
• Corpse Rot
• Agony
• Borgnjor's Vile Clutch
• Death Channel
• Simulacrum

Punishments

Kikubaaqudgha does not appreciate abandonment, and will call down fearful punishments on disloyal followers! Kikubaaqudgha's wrath brings forth all the dread powers of necromancy. Victims are wracked with torment, assailed by the undead, smothered in miasma, and afflicted with a host of other necromantic ailments. Further, Kikubaaqudgha's gifts become tainted; those that attempt to use necromantic magic to fend off wrath will find it backfiring on them when least expected. Kikubaaqudgha's wrath lasts for a relatively short duration.

When you abandon Kikubaaqudgha, all currently existing corpses will decay into skeletons in a few turns. While under penance, Kikubaaqudgha will occasionally inflict you with Torment, as well perform other forms of divine retribution. Kikubaaqudgha will often combine these punishments:

• Hostile zombies from Unearth Wretches' pool are created (using your XL in place of Necromancy skill).
• Clouds of miasma at your location and around you.
• Death curses.

Kiku may also punish you for casting Necromancy spells (5% probability).

Strategy

Kikubaaqudgha offers three main features: a massive supply of undead allies, protection from torment and mummy death curses, and knowledge of Necromancy. Kiku's quick spell gifts are useful to Necromancers and characters learning Necromancy from scratch alike. Torment Protection and the potential for Necromutation make Kiku good for the extended game, too.

The nature of spell Necromancy means that when you find Kiku, from a lucky faded altar to a deep overflow vault, doesn't matter as much. Spells tend to be granted much earlier than when they can actually be used reliably, while Unearth Wretches only starts to become impressive when relevant spells like Animate Dead come online. By correlary, this makes Kiku quite weak for the first few levels, especially for non-Necromancers (but for comparison, many other gods also don't have the best 1* abilities).

At 6*, you get the choice between a pain-branded weapon and the capstone Necromancy spells. This typically happens around the mid-game, and it can be a tricky decision.

• The Pain brand deals absolutely devastating, flat damage; faster weapons like Short Blades and demon whips work great, even with little weapon skill. But pain only works on the living. This is not a concern immediately, but iffy in Zot and useless in the demon and undead-infested extended game. Also note that blessing increases enchantment by 2.
• The spells, on the other hand, are the inverse. Those spells are great for the endgame, but they won't help you one bit when you can't cast them. It's also entirely possible to luck across the Necronomicon or other books as you explore. Also, Haunt isn't terribly hard to cast, with a little Summonings training.

In the end, the decision comes down to "Would I rather have something that will help me much later, or something that will help me survive right now?"

Tips and Tricks

• Unearth Wretches' ability to create swarms of allies is incredibly powerful, though it requires quite a bit of MP and at least 2 turns of prep time.This ability costs little piety, so use it early and often.
  • Death Channel's spectres will work along with any other Necromancy spell, but Infestation, Simulacrum and Animate Dead cannot stack. Simulacrum is more useful if you didn't generate that many monsters, while the others are effective with a full house.
  • Wretches will activate any Necromancy effect when they die; Animate Dead and Death Channel can be pre-cast, but also cast after Wretches just fine.
  • Spamming Unearth Wretches will generate a spectacular quantity of fodder, capable of tackling even the deadliest of encounters. It works best with Infestation cast on yourself (all monsters are in a 5x5 from you), combined with a Death Channel buff. Use it twice before casting spells, lest the first set of wretches just die.
  • Wretches are seen as hostile monsters, so other hostile monsters will usually avoid harming them; they can used as a (short-lived) blocker. Be wary of dangerous interactions, however, such as a necromancer using your own Wretches against you with their Bind Souls spell.
• Undead and tree form characters benefit the most from invoked torment, though that doesn't mean that living characters can't use it at all! Kiku's protection will often reduce and even prevent damage, but living monsters take the full 50%. Plus, your torment-immune undead can mop up what remains.
• Kiku has no objection to you wielding weapons of holy wrath.
• Undead minions turn hostile if they are attacked directly by you (this does not include Summon Guardian Golem's explosion), and will permanently disappear if you leave the floor they were created on.

Branch Strategy

Worshippers are equipped with particularly effective tools for clearing a few branches in the game. The sole fact of worshipping Kikubaaqudgha is no reason to venture into these places without the proper resistances or XL, but it certainly helps.

• Slime Pits: While Borgnjor's Vile Clutch is ineffective against its gooey horrors, slime zombies, simulacra, and spectres are very easily produced and devastating in melee. Using a scroll of immolation when combined with the sheer mass of your non-spectre allies and The Royal Jelly's allies (potentially after Torment) is strikingly effective.

• Crypt and Tomb: Kikubaaqudgha followers will find the torment and death curse protection to be immensely helpful, and they might just get Necromutation from their god. Monster death scarabs may themselves turn into zombies, which make for excellent allies. Haunt and Infestation still work against undead enemies, while Dispel Undead is effective against single undead targets in the Crypt.

History

• In 0.30, Kiku's Undead Wretches will be weaker (1d2 + Necro/6) and cost more piety. Torment will cost less piety.
• In 0.29, Kiku was changed to accommodate the Necromancy overhaul and removal of useful corpses. Prior to this version:
  • Recieve Corpses was the 1* ability instead of Unearth Wrenches, which created 1-9 corpses rather than "live" monsters.
  • The Torment ability required a corpse to use.
  • Kiku gifted Animate Skeleton instead of Necrotise at 1*, and could gift Pain (1*) and Excruciating Wounds (3*). Gifting logic was changed overall. Most notably, Animate Dead was guaranteed at 3* to make use of Recieve Corpses.
  • The pain (brand) gift did not work with ranged weapons.
  • If you recieved partial torment protection, the minimum reduction was 0 instead of 1.
• Prior to 0.28, Kiku's 1* and 3* spell gifts guaranteed a corpse using spell instead of Animate Skeleton and Animate Dead; book logic was also different.
• Prior to 0.27, Kiku would gift randart spellbooks and the Necronomicon, instead of gifting spells directly.
• Prior to 0.25, Kiku's wrath included Necromancy miscast effects instead of death curses.
• Prior to 0.20, Kiku's 1* spellbook gift had a guaranteed Corpse Rot rather than a guaranteed Pain spell.
• Prior to 0.19, Kiku gave a piety-dependent bonus to final HP when casting Death's Door. Also, Kiku did not grant piety for killing undead creatures, and the torment protection did not reduce damage from agony. In addition, Kiku worshippers had to pray over a corpse to invoke the Torment ability.
• Prior to 0.17, Kiku helped at Piety level **** to resist the Haunt inflicted sickness on the caster (resist rate rose with piety). Kiku worshippers also had to pray at an altar to receive the Necronomicon/Pain brand gifts.
• Prior to 0.8, Kiku used Invocations instead of Necromancy; victory dancing was required to train the former.