Dithmenos

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

"Spread the eternal night."

Dithmenos the Shadowed desires all to be darkness. Followers of Dithmenos gain a strange and otherworldly affinity to the shadows of their environment. This god despises the physical world and constantly seeks to encroach on it. Dithmenos therefore rewards those who wield death and destruction while gradually consuming them with darkness. Followers of Dithmenos are constantly surrounded in an aura of shadow, the extent of which is reflective of their level of devotion. Dithmenos grants followers the ability to instantly step into the shadow of nearby creatures, provided the shadow is still enough to do so. Dithmenos protects followers by occasionally shrouding those struck by attacks in dark smoke. Sufficiently pious followers of Dithmenos will find their own shadow will begin to attack on its own, and eventually gain the ability to assume the form of a shadow themself. Dithmenos likes it when you kill living beings, you destroy the undead, you kill demons, you kill holy beings, and you destroy nonliving beings.

Racial Restrictions

Demigods cannot worship Dithmenos (or any other god).

Appreciates

• Killing natural, undead, demonic, holy, or nonliving creatures.

Deprecates

• Inactivity: You lose 1 piety per 340 turns, on average (1/17 chance every 20 turns).
• Abandonment. (Penance)

Given Abilities

Piety level (-): “Gloomy”

• No granted abilities.

Piety level (*): “Darkened”

• Umbra - You are surrounded by an umbra which expands with piety. This aura cancels out halo, increases your stealth, and decreases melee/ranged accuracy of most creatures by 1+1d4. Dithmenos makes you and your allies immune to the accuracy penalty.

Piety level (**): “Extinguished”

• Shadow Step - Blink to a space within your umbra and adjacent to a target creature. The target must not be invisible. (Costs 4 MP, 8% max HP, and 4-6 piety)

Piety level (***): “Caliginous”

• Bleed Smoke - The player occasionally bleeds smoke on taking sufficient damage. The cloud always triggers on a 50% maximum HP attack. The lower bound goes down linearly, to 0 damage at 200 piety.

Piety level (****): “Umbral”

• Shadow Mimic - The player's shadow sometimes mimics melee and ranged attacks (excluding darts and nets) and targeted spells (so long as they're not self-targeted). This happens from 10% of the time at 4*, to 50% at full piety. Its accuracy is based on the average of your Fighting and respective Weapon skill; its spell power is based on the spell level (capped at your XL/3).

Piety level (*****): “Hand of Shadow”

• Shadow Form - Turns you into a mass of shadows. Grants invisibility, immunity to poison, draining, and torment, infinite willpower, and 50% damage reduction, but halves your melee damage and reduces your spell power. Shadow form, unlike shadow enemies, does not fly. While in shadow form, you bleed smoke on every incoming attack, but doing so further drains your max HP. The higher your Invocations skill, the longer this ability will last. This ability works even if you are undead (ghoul, mummy, bloodless vampire), and will suppress the innate glow from a Meteoran. (9 MP, 10-15 piety, Drain)

Piety level (******): “Eternal Night”

• No new abilities.

Punishments

Dithmenos does not appreciate abandonment, and will call down fearful punishments on disloyal followers! When angered, Dithmenos turns the shadows against victims. Monsters emerge from the darkness, both illusions woven from shadow and the very shadow themselves turning against sinners. Dithmenos's subtle punishments are, if anything, more dangerous: victims find the shadows ripped away from them, hunted with nowhere to hide; or find themselves smothered in shadow and sleeping, perhaps forever.

While under penance, Dithmenos will sometimes punish you with one of the following forms of divine retribution:

• 25% chance: Dithmenos summons shadows, shadow demons, or a Tzitzimitl. Note that these will be durably summoned. Tzitzimimeh are possible only if your experience level is greater than 13.
• 25% chance: Dithmenos casts Shadow Creatures near you. The strength of these summons appears to scale with your current XL, and it tends to spawn dragons and trolls. Unlike most summons created by divine retribution, these are not durably summoned, and can be escaped fairly easily through stairs or other means.
• 25% chance: You are put to sleep for 6 turns.
• 25% chance: You are afflicted with a Sentinel's Mark for about 50 turns. This can be removed with a potion of cancellation as normal.

Strategy

Dithmenos is a god of stealth, but not exclusive to "stealthy" species like Spriggans or Vampires. In fact, these species often have a very high Stealth skill aptitude, and don't necessarily need a god to improve that. Conversely, many of Dithmenos' tools are useful even to the loudest of worshippers. The umbra is a minor reduction to enemy accuracy, Shadow Mimic increases your raw damage output, and Shadow Form remains a good escape option. Shadow Mimic in particular makes Dithmenos useful to characters who may rely on stealth early on, but use a louder form of killing later.

Of course, the extra stealth is useful; for a good while, it's all you will get. Dithmenos' more "universal" abilities come later than most gods, and aren't particularly strong. Even if you aren't a stabber per-se, stealth can be useful for avoiding troublesome enemies when exploring or regenerating. Enchanter-style builds appreciate the extra stealth options and Shadow Mimic giving a second, weaker chance to apply a hex.

Dithmenos is also the god of choice for low-XL runs, as stealth helps you grab runes and the Orb without actually killing much.

Tips & Tricks

• Bleeding smoke (with or without shadow form) can create large areas filled with smoke reducing sight to 2 spaces for a short time. This can give you the edge you need to escape from or close in on ranged attackers or casters. (Almost all opponents require sight to cast spells, healing being a notable exception.) The downside is that you have to get hurt for the effect to trigger, but at high piety the effect will trigger reliably on nearly any hit.
• The shadow's actions come without the weapon brand of the player. Therefore, for example, a hydra's head cut off by the shadow will result in the growth of two more heads, even if the player wields a flaming-branded weapon.
• Kobolds have a reduced LOS, but their umbra will only fill their LOS at 6* piety, so the growth of the umbra decreases accordingly. This doesn't mean that Kobolds are bad worshippers, though. Kobolds naturally benefit from stealth; they'll need to walk less in order to initiate a stab.

History

• Prior to 0.22, Dithmenos hated fire and appreciated the killing of fiery things, but was not evil.
• Prior to 0.22, Shadow Step did not cost HP, but could only be used on immobile creatures.
• Prior to 0.16, Dithmenos disapproved use of the Corona spell and the unrandart Mace of Brilliance.
• Dithmenos was added in 0.14.

Trivia

Initially, this god was called "Dithmengos" which is an anagram for "Dsomething", an early placeholder name for the new deity.