Scroll of holy word

Version 0.28: This article may not be up to date for the latest stable release of Crawl.

Type	Scroll
Name	scroll of holy word
Icon

A scroll that calls on the good gods to cause great damage to any nearby undead or demonic creature — possibly including the reader! It will briefly daze monsters that are affected.

Reading a scroll of holy word will daze for 10-19 turns and deal 3d15 + 1d20 - 1 damage to all undead and demonic targets in your line of sight. If you read this scroll and you are Undead or Demonspawn, your hit points will be halved, as if you read a scroll of torment.

Deliberately reading this scroll will anger Yredelemnul (but not Kikubaaqudgha).

Strategy

• Similar to a scroll of torment, reading this scroll as a Demonspawn or while undead will halve your hit points, but unlike its effect upon undead or demonic monsters, it will never kill the player outright.
• Much like scrolls of torment, scrolls of holy word are largely situational. They can be useful in undead/demon-heavy branches like Crypt, Tomb, the Hells, or Pandemonium, but are otherwise more likely to be taking up space in your inventory.
  • Regardless of how many runes you'll be getting, the fact that demons and pandemonium lords spawn in the orb run always gives some value to holy word.
• While their damage output is somewhat mediocre in said late-game areas, the fact that scrolls of holy word can daze opponents and (unlike scrolls of torment) cause no backlash damage to most species help make up for that lack.

History

• Prior to 0.15, these scrolls also scared targets, and the good gods made these scrolls more powerful for their followers.