Fedhas Madash

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"Spread life and death"

Fedhas Madash is the god of plant and fungal life. Fedhas encourages followers to promote the growth of plant life, especially through the decomposition of corpses. However, Fedhas forbids harming any species under his/her protection, or using necromantic effects on corpses. In return, Fedhas grants followers the power to promote the growth of fungal life - and cultivate it as an ally or weapon.

No backgrounds start with this religion.

Racial restrictions

Fedhas does not accept undead worshipers (ghouls, mummies, or vampires), most likely because they violate the natural cycle of life.

Appreciates

• Using Decomposition via praying on corpses and certain undead.

Deprecates

• You or your allies destroying plants. (Piety loss)
• Attacking allied flora. (Piety loss)
• Using corpse-violating spells. These include Sublimation of Blood, Animate Dead, and other spells that affect corpses or chunks, as well as Necromutation (which violates your own corpse). Necromancy spells that don't affect corpses, such as Regeneration, Pain, and Bolt of Draining, are allowed. (Penance)

Given abilities

Piety level -: "Green [Species Name]"

• All plants are friendly towards you. (Passive)
• You can walk through plants, though it takes 50% longer than normal to do so. (Passive)
• You can fire through all allied plant-type creatures without harming them. (Passive)
• Decomposition - By praying, causes all corpses in your field of vision to rapidly decay. Corpses with a monster on top of them will not be affected. It turns corpses into skeletons, zombies into skeletons (or destroys them), destroys ghoul genus monsters for piety gain, and causes friendly toadstools to grow. Any monsters defeated this way grant no XP. (Free)

Piety level *: "Inciter"

• Evolution - Uses fruit or piety to turn one targeted plant in your line of sight into a stronger species under your control. (Costs 2 MP plus the following additional costs):
  • Plant, Bush -> Oklob plant (Costs 1 fruit)
  • Oklob sapling -> Oklob plant (Costs 4 piety)
  • Toadstool -> Wandering mushroom (Costs 2 piety)
  • Fungus -> Wandering mushroom (Costs 1 piety)
  • Ballistomycete -> Hyperactive ballistomycete (Costs 4 piety).

Piety level **: "Photosynthesist"

• Sunshine - Targeted ability with a small area of effect, inflicts back lit status (same as Corona), and evaporates water (deep water turns to shallow water and shallow water turns to dry land). (2 MP, 50-100 Food)

Piety level ***: "Cultivator"

• Growth - Creates plants in a circle around you and costs 1 fruit per plant. If a complete circle can't be placed, then the plants are placed on open squares closest to monsters. Lets you choose how many plants to spawn. (2 MP, Fruit)

Piety level ****: "Green Death"

• Reproduction - Creates giant spores from corpses in your field of vision to attack your enemies. (4 MP, 100-200 Food)

Piety level *****: "Nimbus"

• Rain - Creates a circle of water around you. The floor becomes shallow water, shallow water becomes deep water. Tiles with monsters in them cannot be turned to deep water. This ability also spawns random plants and fungus, and removes Sticky Flame and Mislead. (4 MP, 150-300 Food, 4-6 Piety)

Piety level ******: "Force of Nature"

• No new abilities.

Punishments

• The elements will be invoked against you, the equivalent of an Ice Magic, Earth Magic, Fire Magic, or Air Magic miscast.
• Hostile plants (biased towards oklobs) will grow around you. This effect will only happen when abandoning Fedhas, never when simply under penance.
• Corpses in line of sight will produce hostile spores.
• All previously neutral or allied plants will also turn hostile upon abandonment or excommunication.

Strategy

• Fedhas' abilities may are less directly powerful than those of many other gods, but they are still capable of proving devastating in combat. Creating a wall of plants, oklobs, or wandering mushrooms between you and approaching enemies will slow them down, giving you several turns to attack at range in safety. A ring of shallow water will hamper attacking enemies, while a ring of deep water will stop them in their tracks (though unless you're playing an aquatic species or are capable of flight or blinking, escaping the ring yourself may be tricky). Merfolk especially benefit here, as fighting from water grants them a significant bonus to evasion, while large species (trolls, ogres, centaurs, and nagas) and octopodes are not penalized for fighting in shallow water. The explosions from giant spores may be unlikely to kill any major threat outright, but the confusion they induce allows opportunities for stabbing, and can insta-kill opponents that wander into deep water. Even Fedhas' granted allies are unusual; oklob plants are devastating, and can fire through each other's tiles, but can only attack things within their range, and wandering mushrooms can injure and confuse opponents without poison resistance, but run out of HD after enough attacks.

• When using abilities that have a fruit cost, the game will expend the fruit with the least quantity first. You may want to burn through your stack of 30 sultanas before touching your 1 lemon, but that's not how it works. Don't carry fruit you may decide to actually eat!

• Try to use Fedhas' abilities creatively to prepare traps for enemies to blunder into. Creating a large oklob plant farm just outside of a branch end will allow you to lure powerful enemies to an acidic doom (bear in mind that as piety is plentiful and fruit is not, it's cheaper to use Rain to generate plants than Growth). You can use a combination of Rain and Sunshine to create single tile pathways with deep water on both sides; confuse enemies halfway across to drown them with ease. You can even use Sunshine afterwards to dry up the water and claim the loot and corpses. Generated water tiles can also be used to create interesting cloud effects; cast Bolt of Cold on enemies in a watery hallway to fill it with freezing clouds, dealing extra cold damage each turn, or Bolt of Fire/Conjure Flame to generate billowing clouds of line of sight-blocking steam.

• Bear in mind that Rain can also be used to permanently seal off areas you don't want monsters getting out of. A couple uses can block off a dangerous jelly vault, for instance, or keep overly dangerous uniques trapped in a section of the floor you're willing to abandon.

• Apart from Sunshine's obvious uses (increasing your accuracy against nimble enemies and drying up deep water), bear in mind that it can also reveal invisible monsters, and that stranding aquatic opponents on dry land is an effective way to defeat them from a safe range (though they may manage to flop back into water if any is nearby).

• The Reproduction ability can be devastating if used correctly, but requires caution. Spore explosions automatically confuse anything that is of natural holiness and which lacks magic immunity, regardless of poison or magic resistance. This includes you, so never cast it at nearby corpses. Ranged fighters can "create" a single corpse in a group of enemies, while Translocations casters can drop a corpse there with Portal Projectile. Usting Reproduction will then hit the group several times over.

• Kills from oklob plants and wandering mushrooms count as kills by summons, granting reduced XP. Kills from spores grant full.

• Don't worry too much about letting allied plants die, as the penalty is only 1 piety, or about 1 corpse's worth.

• Along with improving your ability success rate, improving Invocations also improves the power of your abilities: your oklob plants will fire more often and for more damage, your wandering mushrooms will generate with additional HD, your plants will be more durable, and your Rain will generate more rain clouds.

• Be aware that your ability to fire through allied plants does not apply to every spell in the game; some will inflict friendly fire and cost you piety.
  • The following spells can pass through allied plants without harming them: Flame Tongue, Magic Dart, Shock, Sting, Throw Flame, Throw Frost, Mephitic Cloud, Stone Arrow, Iskenderun's Mystic Blast (even if it explodes), Bolt of Magma, Lightning Bolt, Venom Bolt, Bolt of Cold, Bolt of Draining, Bolt of Fire, Iron Shot, Poison Arrow, Lehudib's Crystal Spear, Bolt of Inaccuracy, and Thunderbolt (lightning rod).
  • The following spells will affect allied plants as described:
    • Orbs of Destruction cannot pass through.
    • Battlespheres' beams cannot pass through.
    • Fireball and Ice Storm can pass through, but the resulting explosion will harm allied plants.
    • Enchantments like Agony, Dispel Undead, Pain, Confuse, etc. can not pass through, though they will not affect the plant.
    • Fedhas protects allied plants from the clouds produced by Freezing Cloud, Ring of Flames, Poisonous Cloud, and Ignite Poison, but not from Tornado.
    • Fedhas protects allied plants from the explosions of Lee's Rapid Deconstruction, but not from Fulminant Prism.
  • Static Discharge, Ozocubu's Refrigeration, Conjure Ball Lightning, Chain Lightning, Shatter, and Fire Storm will harm allied plants.

• Winning a 3-rune ascension with Fedhas is perfectly reasonable, but getting a 15-rune victory is significantly harder. Fedhas is one of the least effective gods in the extended end-game; his abilities burn through piety quickly, and the near absence of corpses in the Abyss, the Hells, and Pandemonium will leave you with very little ammunition to work with. On top of that, many of his abilities are ineffective against demons: spores can't confuse them, and most demons fly right over deep water.

History

Prior to 0.8, Decomposition was accomplished as an ability, not through prayer.