Nemelex Xobeh

Version 0.19: This article may not be up to date for the latest stable release of Crawl.

"It's all in the cards!"

Nemelex is a strange and unpredictable trickster god, whose powers are invoked through magical packs of cards painted in the ichor of demons. Followers are expected to explore the world, and will receive decks of cards in return. Followers are encouraged to trust in the cards and use them as much as possible. However, the Trickster can ensure that fortune favours the bold. The Trickster's followers gain various ways to influence fate when playing cards. They will quickly find that the effects of cards will be more powerful for them, increasingly so with higher piety. Later, followers will gain much more powerful abilities to manipulate the cards, allowing them to choose one of three drawn cards, to gain the effects of multiple cards at once, and finally to stack decks and re-order their contents. Nemelex Xobeh likes it when you explore the world. The power of Nemelex Xobeh's abilities and of the cards' effects is governed by Invocations.

Racial restrictions

• Demigods cannot worship Nemelex Xobeh (or any other god).

Appreciates

• Exploring the world.

Deprecates

• Abandonment. You'll lose on average 1 piety every 700 turns.

Gifts

Nemelex gives card decks as gifts as the worshiper increases their piety. Possible gift decks include the deck of destruction, deck of escape, and the deck of war. Each deck has three strengths: plain, ornate, and legendary, which increase in power accordingly.

Probability of types of decks to receive as gifts:

• Destruction: 40%
• Escape: 20%
• War: 40%

The strength of a gift deck is chosen as follows:

• Legendary Deck: 0.18 × Piety%
  • 36% at max Piety
• Ornate Deck: 5 + (0.27 × Piety)%
  • 59% at max Piety
• Plain Deck: 95 - (0.45 × Piety)%
  • 5% at max Piety

Given Abilities

All of Nemelex's abilities deal with manipulating or controlling decks. Nemelex will gift you additional decks as you gain more piety.

Piety level -: "Pannier"

• Card power improvement: The power of any card you draw is increased by (Piety × (Invocations+ 25) / 27) (see card power). This improves your chances to get improved effects from Ornate or Legendary decks. In addition, when drawing the Damnation card, you'll have a slightly improved number of targets (about Piety/5% chance to get one more target). (Passive)

Piety level *: "Jester"

• No new abilities.

Piety level **: "Fortune-Teller"

• No new abilities.

Piety level ***: "Soothsayer"

• Triple Draw: Draw three cards from any deck in your inventory, look at them, and decide which one to use, discarding the other two. If only two cards remain in a deck, then only the remaining two cards will be displayed. If only one card is left, then it will be played as normal while still incurring the regular ability cost. (Costs 2 MP, 150 Food, and 2-3 Piety)
  • Note that even if all viewed cards are undesirable, you must draw one of them; there is no way to back out once you have seen them.

Piety level ****: "Magus"

• Deal Four: Select a non-stacked deck in your inventory and draw four cards from it in a single turn, discarding the rest. If the deck has insufficient cards, you draw the missing cards from a deck of punishment. (Costs 8 MP, 300 Food, and 7-12 Piety)

Piety level *****: "Cardsharp"

• Stack Five: View the first five cards of any deck in your inventory and order them however you want. All other cards are removed from the deck. You can stack a deck only once. (Costs 5 MP, 375 Food, and 10-15 Piety)

Piety level ******: "Hand of Fortune"

• No new abilities.

Punishments

Nemelex Xobeh does not appreciate abandonment, and will call down fearful punishments on disloyal followers! Nemelex Xobeh forces sinners to rely on the luck of the draw. Stacked decks are immediately shuffled, and offenders are regularly forced to draw from the Deck of Punishment, inflicting almost every unpleasant effect imaginable. Further, attempting to draw from other decks may instead lead to drawing from the Deck of Punishment.

If you leave Nemelex Xobeh, your penance counter will be set to 150 (seems quite high, but that's because only 1/3 of the penance is active, so the main part is just as high as for the other gods) and all decks (whether in your inventory or loose) will be shuffled.

While your penance counter is above 100, Nemelex Xobeh will occasionally punish you by drawing a card from the deck of punishments, which can include one of the following (equal chances):

• Curse: Can curse several items in your inventory.
• Damnation: Random monsters in your LOS are banished to the Abyss. If there are no monsters, you are banished instead.
• Famine: Your hunger state is set to 500 (starving).
• Swine: You are temporarily polymorphed into a hog.
• Torment: Symbol of Torment is cast at your location.
• Wraith: Inflicts heavy drain on you. This is reduced by negative energy resistance and negated by full resistance (rN+++).
• Wrath: You suffer the divine retribution from a random god other than Nemelex.
• Xom: Nemelex asks Xom for help in punishing you, causing you to suffer from a random bad Xom action.

Also during penance, the power of cards from any other decks will be reduced by your penance, and there is a (penance/30)% chance that any card drawn from a deck (or [penance/10]% if it's a marked or seen card) that the card will be replaced by one from the deck of punishments.

Strategy

• Nemelex will gift you many decks. Don't be too stingy with them, but be sure to save ornate and legendary decks for difficult fights. Used correctly and carefully, Nemelex's decks can make the early game quite easy for worshipers. Be sure to get your Invocations up quickly to maximize its effectiveness, and learn the effects of each card as quickly as possible.
  • You can also press ? while using Triple Draw or Stack Five to quickly view each potential card's effect.
• There is always a 1% chance to draw from the deck of oddities, regardless of deck or skill. These are usually more annoying rather than dangerous, but an untimely Famine card can still create problems for a player in a heated battle.
• Some of the summons that may appear in the deck of war may spawn hostile, as well as friendly. The chance of this decreases as your skill in Invocations increases. Even then, the friendly summons are usually more than capable of dealing with the hostiles.
• Triple Draw is very useful for getting a card that is best suited for a situation. A poorly timed Degeneration card from the deck of destruction can polymorph a moderately dangerous group of monsters into something much, much worse. Remember that you must choose one of the three cards if using this ability; you cannot cancel a Triple Draw.
  • However, you can still cancel the effect of a targeted spell, such as one from the deck of destruction. You will still use the piety and hunger cost from the ability as normal.
  • Cards from the deck of oddities will appear when using Triple Draw, further mitigating an untimely draw.
• It is best to use Deal Four on a brand new deck, rather than one from which you've already drawn multiple times. If a deck has fewer than four cards, Nemelex will draw one card from the deck of punishments to make up for it. This will only occur once per short deck—not once for each missing card. A deck with three cards and a deck with one card will still only draw one deck of punishment card.
• Stack Five costs a fair amount of piety, but it is good for setting up decks of escape so that you know exactly what to expect. In addition to letting you order the five cards as you see fit, using this ability on a deck will identify the next card to be used in that deck for you later.
• Nemelex is considered a chaotic god. Followers of Zin who convert to Nemelex will suffer Zin's wrath, although Elyvilon and The Shining One do not mind if you convert.

See Also

• Deck of destruction
• Deck of escape
• Deck of war
• Nemelex guide (pre 0.15)

History

• Prior to 0.19, drawing from decks and using Nemelex Xobeh powers used Evocations instead of Invocations. You could identify decks via identify scrolls. 0.19 changed Nemelex Xobeh to gift decks of escape, destruction and summoning.
• Prior to 0.16, Nemelex granted two additional abilities: Draw One and Peek at Two.
• Prior to 0.15, piety was gained by sacrificing different kinds of items, which would cause Nemelex to gift you specific types of decks based on the number of items gifted of a certain type.
• Prior to 0.14, the type of decks provided were dependent on the type of items you were sacrificing. Also, deck of dungeons was available as a possible gift type.
• Prior to 0.11, Deal Four was known as Mark Four, which allowed you to peek at a few cards in a deck and identify them.
• Prior to 0.10, letting time pass used to reduce the gift timeout.