Piece from Xom's chessboard

Version 0.30: This article may not be up to date for the latest stable release of Crawl.

Type	Miscellaneous item
Name	Piece from Xom's chessboard
Icon

A shimmering multi-coloured chesspiece belonging to Xom, god of chaos. When moved a glimmer of chaos from some cosmic game is imposed upon the battlefield. This glimmer afflicts a random foe with one of the following: haste, invisibility, might, corona, slow, paralyse, confuse, malmutate, petrify, or sleep.

Evoking a piece from Xom's chessboard, in the spirit of Xom, allows you to cause a random effect on a random monster within LOS. You must beat the enemy's willpower in order for it to work. Your Evocations skill will increase the duration of the effect - positive or negative, as well as the chance to defeat the enemy's willpower.

Even though it favors negative effects, you should always stay careful by being far away and having an escape plan.

Effect	Probability
Haste	5%
Invisibility	5%
Might	5%
Corona	10%
Slow	15%
Malmutate	15%
Petrify	15%
Paralyze	10%
Confuse	10%
Sleep	10%

The chesspiece has 15 charges, and will recharge only when you gain experience. Carrying multiples is no more useful than carrying one, since charges are shared between all pieces.

Cheibriados dislikes this item, as it may cause haste. You'll only lose piety if you get the haste effect; 95% of the time, you won't, but you can't control where or when (other than simply not using the chesspiece). Zin dislikes any of the random effects.

King	Queen	Knight	Bishop	Rook	Pawn	Thimble

History

• This item was reintroduced in 0.27, replacing the wand of random effects. Compared to the wand, the chesspiece can not produce any directly damaging effects. It also has a random target.
• Pieces from Xom's chessboard were considered for inclusion in 0.18, with a completely different effect. They would have you swap places with monsters, which had a chance to confuse them. It could backfire and instead cause a random bad Xom action.