Sif Muna
Sif Muna the Loreminder is a contemplative but powerful deity, served by those who seek magical knowledge. Sif Muna appreciates the casting of spells as often as possible. Sif Muna will not accept worshipers who don't know any spells.
No background starts with this religion.
Contents
Appreciates
- Training your magic skills. The exact amount of XP required to gain piety is variable (increases as your level increases) and hard to evaluate precisely. Note that Evocations and Invocations don't count.
Deprecates
- Forgetting her. Piety falls slowly over time (about 1 every 2,000 turns) and you are excommunicated if it falls to 0.
- Abandoning her.
- Destroying books.
Given Abilities
Piety level -: "Disciple"
- No abilities.
Piety level *: "Student"
- Channel energy: You immediately gain d(2+[Invocations/4]) MP. Success: (60+INT+Invocations)%. (Costs 100-200 hunger)
Piety level **: "Adept"
- Forget spells at will: Works as a scroll of amnesia. (Costs 5 MP, 8-12 piety)
Piety level ***: "Scribe"
- No new abilities.
Piety level ****: "Scholar"
- Protection from miscast effects: You gain a (Piety/1.5)% chance to negate miscast effects due to spells you cast. Miscast effects from other sources ignore Sif's protection.
Piety level *****: "Sage"
- No new abilities.
Piety level ******: "Genius of the Arcane"
- No new abilities.
Gifts
Piety 160+ (just before reaching ******):
- Spell books. Each spell book is either an ordinary spell book (24%), a Theme artifact spell book (73%) or a Level artifact spell book (2%).
Ordinary spell books are the kind you find lying around the dungeon, and are weighted toward ones with spells you don't have in your other spell books. Theme artifact spell books will contain several spells on a given theme (not necessarily a magic school). Level artifact spell books will contain several spells with a given level (up to your experience level). A high Spellcasting skill will grant better artifact spellbooks. Note that Sif Muna will not give you any manuals, the Tome of Destruction, the Necronomicon (Kikubaaqudgha's special), a Book of Annihilations or a Book of Demonology (Vehumet's specials), although it's possible to get some of the spells they contain in artifact spell books.
Sif Muna's gift timeout is between 41 and 59.
Punishments
If you leave Sif Muna (voluntarily or not), your penance counter will be set to 50 (quite high!), but no immediate negative events will happen. While under penance, Sif Muna will punish you about once every 2,000 turns. Possible punishments are:
- 20%: Temporary decrease in Intelligence by up to 20%
- 30%: Confusion for 1d10+2 turns
- 20%: A random divination miscast effect
- 20%: All MP drained
- 10%: Reduction of the remaining duration of all magic enchantments affecting you to 1 turn (2 turns for Levitation).
Every time you cast a spell, there's a 5% chance that the failure rate will be increased by a percentage equal to your current penance. This is in addition to normal punishments, and will not reduce your penance.
Strategy
Sif Muna is the default "magic god", favored by characters who want to pursue that path without focusing on the destructive (Vehumet) or necromantic (Kikubaaqudgha) sides of magic. Instead, Sif Muna is much more versatile. Her protection from miscasts covers more magical realms than Kiku's protection, and her spell book gifts are weighted to contain spells you don't already have, allowing you to eventually gain access to every spell in the game. The Channel Energy and Selective Amnesia abilities also come early, and are very useful for any caster.
Channel Energy is of particular interest to undead players who don't have a food clock (Mummies, bloodless Vampires, casters in lich form). For them, it's essentially free MP. This is also true for other races with versatile diets, such as kobolds, ghouls, or anyone with an amulet of the gourmand.
Channel Energy is also of particular interest to Deep Dwarves, who can combine it with an amulet of guardian spirit to effectively provide a way to trade food for healing, as most characters do with simple rest.
Tips & Tricks
When Sif Muna's altar is missing from the Ecumenical Temple, keep a look out for wide hallways with blue floor tiles; when Sif's altar is not in Temple, it often has such a hallway preceding the altar proper.