Ru

Version 0.16: This article may not be up to date for the latest stable release of Crawl.

"Sacrifice that you might gain great power!"

Of all the gods, only Ru opposed creation. Not as folly, but as distraction. Initiates of Ru can open channels to the powers underlying the visible world by renouncing the fetters that bind them here. These sacrifices are not made to Ru, but rather given up freely and permanently. Initiates can redirect would-be attackers and retaliate against their enemies, replenish their health and magic, perform a mighty leap, and unleash a massive wave of power against foes. Ru leads you to gain immense power which initially will cause foes to falter and become stricken with maladies if they harm you. As you make further sacrifices, you will be able to draw on this power to restore your health and magic and make a lightning-fast explosive leap. Exceptional sacrificiants can unleash their power in a massive strike against all their foes. Once you begin worship, Ru will monitor your progress as you explore the dungeon and defeat its inhabitants. Ru will, on judging you ready, offer you three sacrifices which you can make in order to achieve greater power. Ru likes it when you make personal sacrifices.

Racial Restrictions

Demigods are prohibited from worshiping Ru.

Appreciates

• Making sacrifices. The amount of piety granted per sacrifice varies depending on the significance of the sacrifice (sacrificing a hand grants much more piety than sacrificing purity by gaining dopiness).

Deprecates

• Nothing. You can't offend Ru, Ru has no penance, and inflicts no wrath for leaving. However, you lose the benefits of worshiping Ru while retaining all the drawbacks of your sacrifices (they are not undone).

• Piety with Ru does not decrease.

Given Abilities

Piety level -: "Questioner"

• Make Sacrifice - Ru gives you no powers initially, but as you explore will periodically offer you a batch of three sacrifice options to make. These will be available from the Abilities screen. Making a sacrifice will permanently handicap your character in a dramatic way, but will grant you piety, which unlocks new abilities and makes them more powerful. New sacrifices will be offered periodically, and will refresh faster after you accept one than if you simply let a set of three sit unused. The exact amount of piety received varies depending on how crippling the effect is on your character. See Sacrifices below for more details. Note that Monks do not get their initial starting piety with Ru as they would with other gods, but do get offered an immediate choice of sacrifices upon joining if Ru is their first god.

Once you've made sufficient sacrifices to reach full piety, Ru will stop offering new ones. If you abandon and return to the god, however, new sacrifices will be made available.

Piety level *: "Initiate"

• Aura of Power - Any enemy that attacks you may instead falter or redirect its attack to itself or another target. The chance of this rises linearly with piety, reaching a 10% chance of faltering and 5% chance of redirecting at max piety.

Piety level **: "Seeker of Truth"

• Your Aura of Power is strengthened. Enemies that inflict damage upon you receive various detrimental status effects. The chance of this rises linearly with piety, reaching 33% at max piety. The specific status effect applied is randomly chosen from the following list: Corona, Silence, Blind, Slow, or Paralysis. The chance of inflicting a more severe status effect rises with damage sustained and falls based on the attacker's HD.

Piety level ***: "Walker of the Path"

• Draw Out Power - When used, you regain HP and MP, free yourself from nets, webs and constriction, and cure petrification, slow, and confusion. Cost: exhaustion, moderate draining.

Piety level ****: "Lifter of the Veil"

• Power Leap - Allows you to leap three tiles and creates a damaging 3x3 explosion wherever you land. Explosion damage scales with piety and experience level. Cost: 5 MP, exhaustion.

Piety level *****: "Transcendent"

• Apocalypse - Deals heavy damage and random status effects to every enemy within your line of sight. Cost: 8 MP, exhaustion, heavy draining.

Piety level ******: "Drop of Water"

• No new abilities. Please note that unlike other gods, Ru's piety caps at 160. That means that as soon as you reach ****** piety, you are maxed out.

Punishments

Ru does not punish followers who leave Ru's service; however, their piety will be lost even upon rejoining, and their sacrifices remain forever.

Ru cannot be offended in any way, and will never deliver punishments upon your character. However, all sacrifices made while worshiping Ru are permanent, and the abilities Ru grants are lost upon abandonment.

Strategy

Ru encourages focused characters by rewarding the sacrifice of anything that lies outside one's planned build, granting extremely powerful abilities and buffs in return. Wearing an amulet of faith does not increase the piety gained per sacrifice, nor does Forlorn reduce it; instead, they simply hasten or slow down the rate at which new sacrifices are offered. Unlike with most other gods, removing an amulet of faith does not damage piety. One simply gains an extra delay before the next set of sacrifices is offered. As such, a max piety Ru-worshiper gains nothing from wearing an amulet of faith and loses nothing for removing it.

Be aware that any sacrifices you take up are permanent. You will never get back that arm, or your dodging skill, or the ability to have allies. Thus, it is rarely a good idea to switch to another god from Ru.

Try to sacrifice such that it does not interfere heavily with your strategy. For example, in a 3 rune game, where you wouldn't expect a lot of torment or hellfire, Sacrifice Drink would be more doable than for a 15 rune game where both are commonplace and will frequently deny you your potions. Sacrifice Arcana would be fine for 3 rune games where you could do without some spells, but may be regrettable should you wish to go for 15 and find yourself unable to cast Haste, Controlled Blink, or Regeneration. Contrariwise, Sacrifice Essence may be dangerous and difficult to cope with in a 3 rune game, but can be easily made up for in equipment by the extended game.

That said, Ru does offer many useful powers. Though it may not feel substantial, Aura of Power will give you a decent edge in fights, it also has the added benefit of aiding in kiting enemies, as the chance for Aura of Power to distract an enemy occurs on any action taken by that enemy, including walking towards you, meaning characters of average speed may eventually out run enemies that lose turns to Aura of Power without the need for haste or swiftness. Draw out Power is straightforward - instantly regain HP and MP at the cost of slight draining. Power Leap is a highly versatile tool for both positioning yourself and damaging enemies. Finally, Apocalypse will incapacitate foes everywhere while dealing considerable damage. It can wipe out most of your ordinary foes and tough ones will be significantly weakened.

All of Ru's abilities exhaust the user for a short while, as though you'd cast Death's Door or gone berserk. Choose when to use your abilities wisely.

Sacrifices

Ru will offer you a randomly selected batch of three sacrifices every so often. Choosing a sacrifice will permanently handicap your character as described, and you will not be able to make a new sacrifice until a new batch is offered. Each sacrifice can be selected only once, though you'll only have to make a fraction of them over the course of the game. Unlike other gods, Ru's piety maxes at 160 (the start of six stars) rather than 200, so as soon as you hit ******, you are have maximum piety and Ru will no longer offer sacrifices.

Sacrifice Arcana - Permanently lose three randomly selected magic skills and access to all spells in those schools. Any experience you've invested in the associated skills will be converted to additional piety, and any spells you already know that use those skills will be forgotten. One school is chosen from each of the following groups:

• Charms/Conjurations/Summonings/Translocations
• Transmutations/Necromancy/Hexes
• Air Magic/Earth Magic/Fire Magic/Ice Magic/Poison Magic.

Sacrifice Artifice - Permanently lose the Evocations skill. Any experience you've invested in it will be converted to additional piety. Your character can no longer activate any wands, rods, or abilities which rely upon the Evocations skill. Brands, egos, and the lantern of shadows still function as normal though.

Sacrifice Courage - Suffer a slaying and spellpower malus which scales with the number and strength of opponents in your line of sight. Penalties begin when more than one tough monster or a single nasty monster is visible, and becomes more pronounced as more opponents appear.

Sacrifice Drink - Any time you are severely injured or suffer a significantly strong attack, you lose the ability to quaff potions for ??? turns. Any attack that reduces you below 30% of max HP will trigger this, as can heavy attacks regardless of your current HP; such attacks must deal damage equal to at least 4% of your max HP for a chance of triggering the ability loss, and the chance rises with higher damage, guaranteed at 20% max HP.

Sacrifice Durability - Permanently lose the Armour skill. Any experience you've invested in it will be converted to additional piety. Worth bonus piety if you've also used Sacrifice Nimbleness.

Sacrifice Essence - Permanently suffer one of the following randomly selected negatives: a negative rank of wizardry, -40 magic resistance, or -10% MP. When you select this sacrifice, you will get to see which option has been chosen for you, and may accept or decline at that point.

Sacrifice Experience - Immediately lose two levels of experience and reduces your maximum level to 25.

Sacrifice Eye - Causes inaccuracy as if you were wearing two amulets of inaccuracy at once, which, like those, affects both melee, ranged and spells. Stacks with amulets of inaccuracy.

Sacrifice Hand - Permanently lose one hand (or set of hands in the case of formicids) and all associated benefits of two-handedness. You can only wield weapons which are one-handed for your species, lose the ability to deliver offhand punches, can never wear shields, and lose one ring slot. You also lose access to the Shields skill and (unless you are a Formicid) the Bows skill, and any experience invested in them will be converted to additional piety. Small races (Halflings, Kobolds, and Spriggans) also lose access to, and gain additional piety for, the Staves skill.

Sacrifice Health - Permanently suffer one of the following randomly selected negatives: -5 AC, -3 EV, or -10% HP. When you select this sacrifice, you will get to see which option has been chosen for you, and may accept or decline at that point.

Sacrifice Love - Permanently make almost all monsters you encounter hostile to you. This includes derived undead which you generate and temporary monsters which you summon or create through evokable items. The only unaffected monsters are orbs of destruction, ball lightning, battlespheres, spectral weapons, and fulminant prisms. Notably, the fire vortices created by Fire Storm will be hostile. Also, the spell Enslave and all wands of enslavement will no longer function.

Sacrifice Nimbleness - Permanently lose the Dodging skill. Any experience you've invested in it will be converted to additional piety. Worth bonus piety if you've also used Sacrifice Durability.

Sacrifice Purity - Permanently acquire one rank of one of the following bad mutations: Scream, Deterioration, Slow Healing, No Device Heal, or Reduced Attributes. The mutation is randomly selected when you choose this sacrifice, and you may decide whether or not to accept the selected mutation at that time.

Sacrifice Resistance - Provides rF- rC-.

Sacrifice Skill - Permanently reduce all skill aptitudes by 1. The effect is retroactive, so will make you lose ranks in skills you have already trained.

Sacrifice Stealth - Permanently have your stealth value set to 0, as though you were constantly berserking. Any opponent in your line of sight will immediately notice you. This does not mean you produce additional noise, however, so you will not be waking up things beyond your line of sight any more than normal. You also permanently lose the Stealth skill, and any experience you've invested in it will be converted to additional piety.

Sacrifice Words - Any time you are severely injured or suffer a significantly strong attack, you lose the ability to read scrolls for ??? turns. Any attack that reduces you below 30% of max HP will trigger this, as can heavy attacks regardless of your current HP; such attacks must deal damage equal to at least 4% of your max HP for a chance of triggering the ability loss, and the chance rises with higher damage, guaranteed at 20% max HP.

History

Ru was added in 0.16.

For a time during development, Ru was named Iashol.