Banishment

Version 0.30: This article may not be up to date for the latest stable release of Crawl.

Banishes a creature into the Abyss.

Banishment is a spell, ability, and general effect that sends a creature to the Abyss. Although it deals no damage, the Abyss is dangerous for underleveled characters.

Useful Info

Player

Sends you to the Abyss. The destination floor is determined by your XL and monster HD (the higher your XL, the deeper you go). Note that if you have visited the Abyss before, you will always be sent (at least) to the furthest floor you've visited before. If you are already in the Abyss, you'll be sent a floor deeper.

When leaving the Abyss after being banished, you will return to the Dungeon level, floor of Pandemonium, or Ziggurat level that you were formerly on. This is different from entering an Abyss portal, as a portal lets you escape Pandemonium (but Banishment does not).

After escaping the Abyss via a gate out, you are immune to banishment (from distortion or spell) for the next 9 + 1d10 decaAut. This does not render immunity to Xom, unwielding distortion, or voluntary entry.

Monster

Sends a monster and its items into the Abyss, or deeper into it. Normal enemies are gone forever, but banished uniques and monsters with high HD will be found wandering the Abyss. Any artefacts lost to the Abyss will eventually generate there.

Sources

The player can be banished by the following ways:

• The Banishment spell
• Being hit by a distortion attack (5%) chance
• Unwielding a weapon of distortion (25% chance)
• Chaos, chaotic effects, and Xom
• The wrath of Lugonu

Lugonu gives worshippers the Banishment ability, which works like the monster spell, except it inflicts the malmutate status if it fails the willpower check. Also, Lugonu will banish nearby monsters whenever another god's wrath occurs.

A full list of monsters which banish can be seen below.

Strategy

Banishment is very dangerous to low level characters. You could be face-to-face with an ancient lich at XL 1. Still, hope is not lost. Around XL 15 - 20 is where the Abyss becomes survivable; an XL 27 character should have no problems in Abyss:3.

If you get banished early, you can worship Lugonu (if an altar is found) for an immediate way out. You will likely receive penance from other gods, but Lugonu provides some protection from your previous god. Otherwise, getting XP will eventually force a way out, and you can also find an exit by walking around.

The methods to avoid banishment depend on the source of banishment:

• Distortion/chaos attacks can be avoided by avoiding melee encounters. Ranged attacks are obvious - just about any character can use wands. If it is a weapon, you can use Tukima's Dance to disarm the enemy.
• The spell "Banishment" can be resisted by willpower. Having Will+++ is usually sufficient (gives a ~1% chance to banish); Will++++ gives full immunity. You can also block its line of fire (e.g. stand behind other monsters), block its line of sight, or silence/waterlog the caster.

Monsters

Spell

Banishment is a monster-only spell. It must have a line of fire to the target to pass, and must overcome the target's willpower. It be used from any distance within LOS.

The following enemies cast Banishment:

• e Deep elf demonologist
• e Deep elf sorcerer
• O Erolcha
• @ Louise
• p Occultist
• p Wizard (monster)

Distortion

These monsters generate with distortion or chaos weapons, or have innate attacks with these traits. A hit by a distortion weapon has a 5% chance of banishment; chaos has a 0.135% chance. Note that these brands do work with the reaching of Polearms.

g Crazy Yiuf (quarterstaff of chaos, 100% chance of possession)
@ Psyche (dagger of distortion, 25%; dagger of chaos, 75%)
K Sonja (dagger or short sword of distortion, 50%)
@ Donald (distortion, 4%)
@ Frederick (distortion, 4%)
@ Margery (distortion, 4%)
p Hell knight (distortion, 4%)
i Spriggan defender (distortion, 10%)
i The Enchantress (distortion, 25%)

These monsters have innate distortion or chaotic melee attacks: v Spatial vortex
v Spatial maelstrom
4 Chaos spawn (also trails clouds of chaos)
t Apocalypse crab (can breathe clouds of chaos)
w Eldritch tentacle

Note that any other monster capable of wielding weapons can pick up a distortion weapon and use it. This can result in even lowly monsters such as goblins banishing you, albeit very rarely. Also, pandemonium lords and player ghosts may come with distortion/chaos weapons.

History

• Prior to 0.29, banished monsters appeared only on Abyss:1 instead of following the player into deeper levels.
• Prior to 0.27, more monsters, such as liches, had Banishment in one of their spellbooks.
• Prior to 0.26, banishment didn't give full XP. Also, weapons of distortion had a 10% chance to banish the target, instead of 5%. Followers of Nemelex had a chance to banish themselves by drawing the Exile card.
• Prior to 0.25, the player could be banished via Zot traps or a severe Translocations or Summoning miscast effect.
• Prior to 0.19, all ogre magi could cast Banishment. Also, the Xom card existed, which had a chance of banishing the player.
• Prior to 0.18, banishment could send the player only to Abyss:1. The depth of the banishment didn't depend on the banisher's HD.
• Prior to 0.13, draconian shifters were able to banish you. Also, attempting to use a scroll of vorpalise weapon to make a temporary distortion brand permanent could also result in banishment.
• Prior to 0.12, being banished while in the Abyss had no effect.
• Prior to 0.11, self-banishment would cause you to leave a Ziggurat (once you got out of the Abyss).
• Prior to 0.9, one of the possible outcomes of Hell's mystical force was banishment.
• Prior to 0.8, there was a resistible player version of this spell which sent one target to the Abyss. It was a level 4 Translocations spell. Renouncing Lugonu, Makhleb or Vehumet could result in immediate banishment.