Okawaru

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

"Bring me glory in combat!"

Okawaru is a dangerous and powerful god of battle. Followers are expected to constantly prove themselves in combat, and may channel Okawaru's might to enhance their prowess. Okawaru demands that followers prove themselves by their own strength alone, and so worshippers are forbidden from gaining allies by any means. Okawaru pays little heed to easy victories, but will reward worshippers for heroic feats against mighty foes. Followers of Okawaru will gain the ability to temporarily increase their skills in combat, and, much later, to deal much faster blows. Okawaru will eventually gift followers with throwing weapons, weapons and armour. The most favoured of Okawaru may challenge their foes to honourable single combat.

Racial Restrictions

Demigods cannot worship Okawaru (or any other god).

Appreciates

• Killing powerful monsters. Monsters with a higher XP value, relative to your XL, give higher amounts of piety. Consequently, weak monsters give almost none.

Prevents

Okawaru prevents the creation of allied monsters. You are unable to use any magic or items to create allies, and reactive abilities (such as from the ratskin cloak) simply will not work. Fire Storm creates hostile fire vortices. Entities that are proxies of magical effects: orbs of destruction, ball lightning, battlespheres, spectral weapons, foxfires, and fulminant prisms, are unaffected. (For example, Orb of Destruction is like a larger Magic Dart, and Okawaru doesn't block Magic Dart).

Deprecates

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

Given Abilities

Piety level (0): "Struggler"

• No granted abilities.

Piety level (*): "Combatant"

• Heroism - Increases all non-magic skills by 5. Evocations and Invocations count as magic. No skill is increased past 27. HP bonus from Fighting is not affected. (2 MP, 1-2 Piety)

Piety level (**): "Warrior"

• No new abilities.

Piety level (***): "Knight"

• No new abilities.

Piety level (****): "Myrmidon"

• Finesse - Halves the action delay of melee and ranged attacks, doubling your attack speed. This does not stack with haste or berserk. Bear in mind this bonus is reduced if your action delay is already less than 0.4. (5 MP, 3-5 Piety)

Piety level (*****): "Warmonger"

• Duel - Transports you and a single sufficiently worthy (considered "dangerous" or "very dangerous" on examination; dependent on your XL and monster XP value) monster into Okawaru's arena. If and when you kill the monster, you will have a short (15-25 turn) grace period to heal and prepare for what's still outside. Okawaru will bid you farewell about 5 turns before actually kicking you out. Dueling will not prevent your opponent from creating more monsters in the arena, so watch out! However, it does prevent Banishment. (7 MP, 7-15 Piety)
  • Abandoning Okawaru while in the arena will immediately kick you (and the monster) out.

Piety level (******): "Victor of a Thousand Battles"

• No new abilities.

The duration and success rate of all three abilities are improved with Invocations skill.

Gifts

Piety level (***): Throwing Weapons:

• If you are eligible for a gift and 1d(Piety) >= 72, there's a 13% chance that you will receive Throwing weapons (including darts), which will often be branded. The gift timeout for each gift is 2d4 + 4.

Piety level (*****): Weapons and armour:

• If you are eligible for a gift and 1d(Piety) >= 120, there's a 25% chance that you will receive a weapon or piece of armour. The item given will always be wearable by your species and can be of any quality level. It is similar to a scroll of acquirement, but the results are somewhat worse on average. The gift timeout for each gift is between 31 and 49 for weapons, and between 62 and 94 for armour.

Punishments

Okawaru's most vicious warriors are sent against rebellious servants. Novices find themselves swarmed by packs of ogres and gnolls, while champions are surrounded by titans and elvish blademasters.

While under penance, Okawaru will sometimes punish you by sending 1d(experience level/5) hostile, durably summoned monsters to fight you. These monsters can range from packs of orcs to titans, reflecting your experience level.

In general, if you can survive Vaults:5, you can survive Okawaru's wrath. The monsters Okawaru summons are no worse than those encountered there, although there is always the possibility that they will be summoned at a particularly inopportune moment.

If there is nowhere within your line of sight for these monsters to be summoned to, the message, "Okawaru's forces are busy with other wars," will appear instead.

Strategy

Okawaru is a simple, straightforward god that boosts all forms of physical combat. In return, you are unable to use any form of allies. Unlike Trog, most forms of magic are fair game.

You will often rely on Okawaru's 2 buffs: an invoked Heroism effect at * and a Finesse effect at ****. Both abilities offer strong boosts to both melee and ranged combat. Their only costs are piety (and a small amount of MP). Heroism is especially cheap. In difficult battles, you can expect to gain its piety back immediately.

Duel is expensive, but can save you from tricky situations. In addition to killing troublesome monsters, Duel is a powerful escape tool. It teleports you (and one monster) to Okawaru's arena. If your current situation is dangerous, then the arena is usually much safer. After you defeat the monster, you'll have some downtime to drink potions, heal up, buff up, and prepare for what's outside. For example, you can read a scroll of teleport, wait 2 turns, exit, and teleport away before you get attacked by the remaining monsters.

Okawaru is also the only god that gifts throwing weapons, armour, or shields, and one of two gods to gift weapons. While many gifts will be trash, by the endgame you'll likely be using at least a few pieces of god-gifted equipment. Okawaru is one of the few gods you can abandon while keeping permanent benefits granted via worship (gifted items).

The value of Okawaru decreases in the extended game, due to an abundance of loot and XP. Players may want to switch to a more favorable god, like The Shining One. If you do plan on abandoning Okawaru, be sure to have a safe place to explore whilst facing retribution. The Crypt is usually a good area to do so. Having good escape potential (like with Blink) is also helpful.

History

• In 0.30, Heroism (0-1 to 3-4) and Finesse (3-4 to 5-7) will cost more piety.
• Prior to 0.29, Okawaru would gift ammo for ranged weapons, but only if you trained their respective skill. Throwing ammunition was also twice as plentiful.
• Prior to 0.28, Okawaru did not forbid the use of allies. Thus, Oka's 5* title was Commander, with the 4* title being Warmonger. Finesse was a 5* ability, as Duel was not introduced.
• Prior to 0.27, Okawaru would get angry if you attacked your own allies.
• Prior to 0.18, Finesse could be blocked by stasis; both of Okawaru's abilities cost more piety, but lasted longer even at low Invocations skill.
• Prior to 0.17, Finesse caused magic contamination.
• Prior to 0.16, Okawaru would only give ammo for skills of level 8 and higher, and would grant piety for praying over enemy corpses (the stronger, the better).
• Prior to 0.14, allowing your allies to die incurred piety loss and the Demonspawn Demonic Guardian mutation was suppressed.
• Prior to 0.13, Okawaru didn't care about the death of elementals.
• Prior to 0.8, Okawaru's granted powers were Might and Haste instead of the current Heroism and Finesse.