Okawaru

"Bring me glory in combat!"

Warmaster Okawaru is a dangerous and powerful God of battle. Followers can gain a number of powers useful in combat as well as various gifts of equipment, but must constantly prove themselves through battle and the sacrifice of their fallen enemies. Okawaru despises those who harm their allies.

No backgrounds start with this religion.

Racial Restrictions

Demigods cannot worship Okawaru (or any other god). Demonspawn can, but they may get the "demonic guardian" mutation, which supplies vulnerable allies (see below) whether you like it or not.

Appreciates

• Killing living, undead or demonic beings. 67% (more for creatures with high HD, less as your experience level increases) chance of +1 Piety.
• Sacrificing corpses by standing over them and praying. Okawaru only accepts fresh corpses - they cannot be rotting, skeletons, or chunks. 40% chance (more for creatures with high HD) of +1 Piety

Deprecates

• You'll lose on average one Piety point every 280 turns, so kill often!
• Attacking your allies. (Penance)
  • You must avoid using any ranged attacks in your allies' direction (thankfully there is a warning any time you attempt this).
  • When confused and adjacent to allies, you should not attempt to attack anything or even move if you are not in immediate danger.
• Allowing your allies to die (except nonliving allies). (Piety loss)

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. (Costs 2 MP, 50-100 Food, and 1-2 Piety)

Piety level (**): "Warrior"

• No new abilities.

Piety level (***): "Knight"

• No new abilities.

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

• No new abilities.

Piety level (*****): "Commander"

• Finesse - Halves the action delay of melee and ranged attacks. (Costs 5 MP, 100-200 Food, and 4-6 Piety)

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

• No new abilities.

Gifts

Piety 81+

• Ammunition. If you are eligible for a gift and 1d(Piety) >= 72, there's a 13% chance that you will receive ammunition on a given turn. This only happens if your best missile skill (Slings, Bows, Crossbows, or Throwing) is >= 8 and you have the launcher for your best missile skill (sling, (long)bow, crossbow, or blowgun respectively) in your inventory. You may receive ammo for a different skill than this best skill (but always a skill you have), though. These missiles will often be "good quality" (ego properties, better accuracy, etc.). The gift timeout for each gift is 2d4 + 4.

Piety 130+

• 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. In addition, Okawaru's weapon gifts are heavily biased towards having a high to-hit enchantment and a low to-damage enchantment. The gift timeout for each gift is between 31 and 49 for weapons, and between 62 and 94 for armour.

Punishments

• While under penance, Okawaru will sometimes punish you (about once every 2000 turns) by sending 1d(experience level/5) hostile monsters to fight you. The monsters are picked among:
  • Orc warrior (15%)
  • Orc knight (15%)
  • Naga warrior (10%)
  • Centaur warrior (10%)
  • Stone giant (10%)
  • Fire giant(10%)
  • Frost giant (10%)
  • Cyclops (10%)
  • Hill giant (5%)
  • Titan (5%)

In general, if you can survive Vaults:8, you can survive Okawaru's wrath. The monsters he summons are no worse than those encountered there, although there is always the possibility he will summon them 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 the most popular god for melee characters.

His/her simple, straightforward effectiveness has made him/her one of the most popular yet criticized gods in the Crawl pantheon. Okawaru grants only two abilities - a Heroism effect that can be invoked at * and a Finesse effect at *****. Used in conjunction, this will allow twice as many attacks with greater offense and defense. These enhancements come with no downsides except for some minor glow, so you can also use magic and abilities if you wish.

Later on come gifts of weapons, armour, shields, and ammo biased towards usefulness. Since these behave like scrolls of acquirement, many of them will be of little permanent use, but by the end game you will likely find yourself using mostly god-given equipment. Okawaru is also a less restrictive means of getting this equipment than Trog (the only other god who gifts weapons).

Despite Okawaru's restriction on letting allies die, Okawaru does not grant any himself/herself, so this is rarely an issue for melee characters, except those who make heavy use of wands of enslavement or other means of evoking servants. Even then, the penalty is a simple piety hit, rather than true penance. Okawaru doesn't care about allies with nonliving holiness, so spells like Summon Elemental or Tukima's Dance are safe to use.

Players going for an all-rune win can often benefit from abandoning Okawaru in favor of The Shining One before the Crypt.

History

Prior to 0.8, Okawaru's granted powers were Might and Haste instead of the current Heroism and Finesse.