Summon Horrible Things

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

Summon Horrible Things
Level	8
School1	Summoning
Source(s)	Grand Grimoire
Casting noise	6
Spell noise	0
Power Cap	200
Flags	Chaotic, Mons abjure, Unholy

Opens a gate to the Abyss and calls through one or more hideous abominations from that dreadful place. The opening of the gate may drain a portion of the caster's intellect. The number of abominations summoned increases with spell power.

Summon Horrible Things is a level 8 Summoning spell that summons a horde of large abominations and tentacled monstrosities.

Players colloquially refer to this spell as XXX.

Effect

When cast 2 to 6 large abominations and 0 to 2 tentacled monstrosities are summoned. Higher spell power may increase the number of the creatures. Afterwards, the player has a 20% chance to (temporarily) lose one point of intelligence. There is a summon limit of 8 horrible things.

Number of large abominations summoned is 1 + 1d3, plus a power / 200 chance for an extra one.

There is a 1 - (121 / power) chance for two tentacled monstrosities, and if that fails an independent 1 - (51 / power) chance for one monstrosity. If no monstrosities were created, one extra abomination is created instead.

Duration of the summons is around 27 turns, this does not depend on the spell power.

Strategy

This is one of the most powerful Summonings spells in the game. It has a high summon cap and summons multiple, relatively powerful, monsters at a time. Large abominations hit fairly hard, dealing up to 40 damage per hit. Tentacled monstrosities deal more damage, are resistant to many elements, and constrict foes, drastically reducing their evasion.

The intelligence drain is mostly negligible, as long as you don't use this spell for every single encounter.

Monster Version

The monster version of Summon Horrible Things creates 3 to 5 monsters, each one has 75% chance of being a large abomination and 25% chance of being a tentacled monstrosity.

The duration class of the summons ranges from 2 (around 18 turns) to 6 (around 171 turns), based on the strength of the caster. Monsters do not suffer any ill effects from casting the spell.

The following enemies cast Summon Horrible Things:

• & Mnoleg

The following enemies may be able to cast Summon Horrible Things, depending on their spell set:

• & Pandemonium lord (2.8% chance)

History

• Prior to 0.28, all summons would take a share of XP whenever they did damage. This made it somewhat harder to recover intelligence drain by only using this spell.
• Prior to 0.19, casting this spell could inflict 1-2 points of intelligence drain.
• Prior to 0.15, casting this spell could inflict 1-3 points of intelligence drain.
• Prior to 0.2, the summons created were permanent.