Faded altar

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

An ancient altar, stripped of all identifying characteristics by the passage of aeons. Praying at it will convert you to an unknown god, and the altar's deity will greatly appreciate conversion at so ancient a site of worship.

Praying at a faded altar allows the player to convert to one of 3 displayed gods, chosen randomly. You will see the 3 possible gods when inspecting the altar (< or >). If there are multiple faded altars, each one will have a separate list of gods. Any god that your species can worship can be a possible choice from the faded altar.

When worshipping at a faded altar, you will gain a bonus of +20 piety. Gods that don't use the usual piety system will get a special effect (see below). If you're already worshipping a god, you will convert to the new god. If you're worshipping a god, and the god from the altar is the same as the current god, then you receive the bonus +20 piety (with no other effect).

Faded altars have a 25% to spawn on each floor, from D:1 to D:3. After use, the altar will become a normal altar of the given god.

Special

The following gods have unique behaviors with the faded altar bonus:

• Ashenzari: The first set of curses are provided much sooner.
• Gozag: Worshippers skip the entry fee.
• Ru: A set of sacrifice options is immediately given upon conversion.
• Xom: Xom finds this hilarious (and amusement is set to 200).
• Yredelemnul: Create multiple allied derived undead.

Monks get both the bonus from a faded altar and their initial piety bonus.

Strategy

If you want a good chance of winning your game, praying at a faded altar is nearly always a bad idea. For any given character, there are usually two or three gods that will make life very difficult. A caster will not do well worshipping Trog, a Spriggan would suffer from Cheibriados, and almost any character does not like Xom.

However, if you're playing for fun and not too worried about the possibility of dying or being severely inconvenienced, faded altars can provide you with an early power boost or at least create a very interesting situation to deal with. The inital piety boost also gives species/backgrounds with a tough early game some leverage; and most gods remain beneficial to a player.

History

• Prior to 0.30, faded altars would pick from every possible god that your species could worship, instead of being limited to 3 per altar. Also, faded altars had a 1/2 chance to spawn per floor (on D:1 - D:3).
• Prior to 0.27, faded altars had a 1/6 chance to spawn per floor (on D:1 - D3).
• Faded altars were added in 0.17. They were called "ecumenical" altars during development.