Trog

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

"Kill them all!"

Trog is an ancient god of anger and violence. Followers are expected to kill in Trog's name, and especially to slay wizards. In return, worshippers of Trog gain the ability to go berserk at will in combat, and will be granted assistance in the form of powerful weapons and mighty allies. Followers are absolutely forbidden the use of spell magic. Trog offers various powers to help followers in battle. Followers will gain the ability to go berserk at will, and to rapidly heal their wounds while fortifying their willpower. Later, followers may call in powerful raging allies. Eventually, Trog will gift followers with weapons, often with antimagic effects. Trog likes it when you kill living beings, you destroy the undead, you kill demons, you kill holy beings and you destroy nonliving beings. Trog especially likes it when you kill wizards and other users of magic. Trog's powers are based on piety instead of Invocations skill.

Berserkers begin play worshiping Trog.

Racial Restrictions

Demigods cannot worship Trog (or any other deity).

The undead are not banned from worship, but do suffer certain limitations. Mummies and ghouls, along with Formicids, cannot go berserk and thus lose much of the benefit of this religion. Vampires also cannot go berserk while in their bloodless state.

Appreciates

• You or your allies killing living, demonic, holy, undead, or nonliving monsters, especially spellcasters.

Deprecates

• Inactivity: You lose 1 piety per 340 turns, on average (1/17 chance every 20 turns).
• Memorizing or casting spells.
• Devoting skill points to magic skills, including Spellcasting (be careful with auto-training enabled!).
• Using weapons that rely on magical skill, such as magical staves, or weapons of pain.
• Abandonment.

Trog does not mind other "magical" items, such as wands or rings.

Given Abilities

Piety level -: "Troglodyte"

• Protection From Abjuration - Abjurations cast against your servants are 20% less effective. (Passive)
• Extend Rage - If you kill a monster while berserk, you have a Piety/10% chance of adding 4-13 more turns to your rage.(Passive)

Piety level *: "Angry Troglodyte"

• Berserk - Go berserk. You cannot go berserk if you are still recovering from a previous rage. (0-1 Piety)

Piety level **: "Frenzied"

• Trog's Hand - Provides +1 HP/turn regeneration and +80 willpower for a number of turns depending on piety. (2-3 Piety)

Piety level ***: "[Species Name] of Prey"

• No new abilities.

Piety level ****: "Rampant"

• Brothers In Arms - Summons a powerful berserk ally, the species of which depends on piety. At low piety levels (****), you get ogres, two-headed ogres, black bears, and polar bears, while at high levels (***** or ******) you get trolls, iron trolls, deep trolls, ettins and stone giants. They are always friendly. Their rage can expire, although this generally occurs shortly before they time out. Brothers In Arms has a high chance of failure, but this falls as piety rises. (5-8 Piety)

Piety level *****: "Wild [Species Name]"

• No new abilities.

Piety level ******: "Bane of Scribes"

• No new abilities.

Unlike most other gods, Trog's powers do not require the Invocations skill. Their chance of success is determined solely by your piety.

Gifts

Piety 120+

• Weapons - The weapon created will be enchanted, similar to using a scroll of acquirement, and possibly an artefact. Trog will only gift weapons with the antimagic, flaming, vorpal, or speed brands. The weapon chosen is weighted based on your weapon skills, though there is always a chance of receiving a weapon for which you have no skill. The gift timeout for each weapon ranges from 31 to 49.

Punishments

Trog strongly dislikes it when you memorise spells, you attempt to cast spells, you train magic skills or you use magical staves or pain-branded weapons. Trog does not appreciate abandonment, and will call down fearful punishments on disloyal followers! Trog's wrath is incandescent. Offenders find themselves swarmed by berserkers — from packs of bears to, for the most powerful, mobs of giants and trolls. The bodies of those who anger Trog begin to decay, slow, and collapse, and Trog may simply smite them directly with fiery rage. Trog's wrath lasts for a relatively long duration.

During penance or following desertion, you'll occasionally experience one of the following forms of divine retribution:

• 50% - Summons multiple hostile, berserked Brothers In Arms against you. Note that these are durably summoned, so you cannot escape them by using stairs, and they will not disappear over time. However, their berserk rage will eventually expire, and they will briefly slow down as normal. They do not re-berserk unless they are already capable of doing so (e.g. black bears or polar bears).
  • If there is no room for Trog's minions to spawn, a message will appear saying "Trog has no time to punish you...now."
• 33% - Gives you a weakening effect, which can take the form of drain, stat decay, slowing, or paralysis.
• 16% - Trog casts Fireball on you.

Strategy

Trog is one of the best gods for pure melee warriors, like Minotaurs, Trolls, and other monstrous species who won't miss their pathetic spellcasting abilities. It's even stronger when considering that Berserkers start with Trog from D:1, along with the incredibly potent Berserk ability. Berserk's damage, HP, and speed boosts are extremely handy for pulverizing enemies. Berserk is such a powerful ability that most species (with the possible exception of Deep Elves) shouldn't really mind getting Trog from a faded altar, even if they started with magic.

Trog remains great throughout the game, largely thanks to Brothers in Arms. Its summons are very easy to underestimate, but a berserk deep troll or two are enough to handle most threats up to the Realm of Zot, including the dreaded orb of fire. Like other summons, Brothers in Arms will not follow you up or down stairs, so be sure to use them when enemies are in sight. Unlike Makhleb's demons, brothers will never spawn hostile.

Trog's Hand is less impressive, but the willpower is very useful against dangerous enchantments (such as Banishment, Sentinel's Mark, or Petrify), and increased regeneration is always useful.

Trog's wrath is particularly dangerous; characters that only plan to obtain 3 runes before going after the Orb of Zot have minimal reason to switch to a different god. Only the extended endgame -- areas such as Pandemonium or the Hells -- is challenging enough that the inability to cast magic is a true liability; wait to switch to a different god until you feel yourself ready to handle such dangerous locations. You still keep Trog's weapons after abandonment.

Tips & Tricks

• Remember that even Trog's abilities are unusable while berserk! Should you need Trog's Hand or Brothers in Arms, make sure to use them before entering a rage. Berserk also cuts off a lot of options, such as all potions and scrolls.
• Berserk runs out very quickly if you are not attacking. However, the haste it provdes can still help get away from trouble. If a stair is close by (3-4 tiles), you can run up and escape before it runs out.
• One of Trog's altar vaults contains a spellbook, but it will always be an artefact spellbook containing only the Apportation spell. As Apportation is the only way to obtain this spellbook (Trog ignites the book if you approach physically), there's no point in trying to grab it.
• Trog's Hand can be used to counteract a lethal dose of poisoning in a pinch.
• If you plan to leave Trog, a way to gain invisibility can make the hostile summons a lot less threatening: only deep trolls have see invisible.

History

• Prior to 0.28, Trog's Berserk did not have a piety cost, and Brothers in Arms was cheaper.
• Prior to 0.27, Trog's Berserk did not have any failure rate. Instead, berserking would have chance to paralyze you after it ends, with Trog lowering and eventually eliminating that (scaling with piety).
• Prior to 0.26, troglodytes would often have to watch out for their food early on, due to the high hunger cost of going berserk. Wrath could also inflict rot instead of the mostly equivalent drain.
• Prior to 0.25, Trog could gift weapons of any brand and would also gift ammunition. Trog would also inflict fire miscast effects as part of wrath and did not object to using magical staves or the pain brand.
• Prior to 0.22, Trog granted the ability to burn books for piety and to create clouds of flames.
• Prior to 0.17, Trog allowed followers to gain piety by sacrificing corpses (by standing over them and praying).
• Prior to 0.16, Trog's wrath summons weren't durable summons.
• Prior to 0.15, Trog's weapon gifts tended to have higher damage enchantments than accuracy.
• Prior to 0.12, burning unidentified books gave more piety, and rock trolls were in the list of possible Brothers in Arms.