Summon Butterflies

Version 0.24: This article may not be up to date for the latest stable release of Crawl.

Summon Butterflies

Summon Butterflies is a level 1 Summoning spell which summons multiple butterflies.

Effect

A kaleidoscope of butterflies is created around the caster. Higher spell power may result in more butterflies.

Number of summons is 2 + 1d3 + (1d<power> - 1) / 10, capped at 8.

Duration of the summons is around 27 turns. It is not affected by spell power.

There is a cap on how many creatures created by this spell you can have at the same time. Summoning more than 8 creatures means that the older ones will time out immediately.

Strategy

• Summon Butterflies is amazing for making escapes, despite the wimpy name. The butterflies can block your enemies' movement and ranged attacks. At low power the spell only summons a few, but at high power it can surround you completely to a considerable radius.
• The butterflies have no attack. They will fly off in random directions at high speed, making them especially good for blocking corridors.

Tips & tricks

• If you know spells like Conjure Flame or Freezing Cloud, you can use Summon Butterflies to keep you enemies on top of the clouds for as long as you want.
• For obvious reasons, this spell is also very useful for characters with smite-targeted spells, like Lee's Rapid Deconstruction, although beware of doing so with gods which punish you hurting allies, like the good gods and Okawaru.

History

• Prior to 0.23, butterflies could be used for detecting hidden traps.
• In 0.14, maximum summons per single cast was lowered from 15 to 8.
• Prior to 0.8 the spell always summoned at least 15 butterflies, regardless of spell power.