Yredelemnul

Version 0.31: This article may not be up to date for the latest stable release of Crawl.

"Carry the black torch! Rouse the idle dead!"

Yredelemnul the Dark is a god worshipped by those who seek powers over death and the soul. Followers can reap legions of servile undead, and gain a number of other useful powers with which to make better use of the souls of the living. Yredelemnul especially favours those who would surround themselves with a bounty of collected souls. Yredelemnul gives followers the power to raise slain foes from the dead and bind them into service. Followers also can recall undead followers to them, heal by draining life from the living, and exchange members of their undead army for Yredelemnul's more powerful servants. With a large and powerful enough mass of the dead, followers can fully bind a foe's soul and make it fight for them in death with the full capacities it held in life. Yredelemnul strongly dislikes it when you use holy magic or items.

Racial Restrictions

• Demigods cannot worship Yredelemnul (or any other god).

Appreciates

• Rousing the idle dead. Having more and stronger derived undead in your line of sight; each thrall adds 2 * hit_dice + 2 piety, from a base of 15.
  • As Yredelemnul's piety system is unusual, monks will receive several derived undead allies upon converting.

Deprecates

• Having your derived undead leave your line of sight.
• Abandonment. (Penance)
• Attacking with a weapon of holy wrath. (Penance)

Given Abilities

Piety level -: "Tainted"

• Reap souls: When killing living and demonic creatures, there is a 50% chance that their souls will rise as derived undead: in most cases, you'll get zombies, but corpseless monsters or monsters who had their bodies destroyed will rise as spectral things instead. Reaped monsters will drop whatever items they were carrying, but not corpses or their associated death drops. These thralls are used for Yred's other abilities and will rot if you leave your current floor.
  • As their souls are already being harvested, the reaping weapon brand, as well as ally-creating Necromancy spells, are incompatible. Infestation will override the zombies, but all other spells, even Death Channel, are non functional.
• Recall Undead Harvest: Progressively teleports your undead servants to your current location. (2 MP)
• In addition, Yredelemnul makes you immune to Spectral Clouds and the negative effects of umbra, so allied revenants and profane servitors won't impede you.

Piety level *: "Torchbearer"

• No new abilities.

Piety level **: "Fey [Species Name]"

• Dark Bargain: Summon a temporary servant of Yredelemnul. (2 Souls, 4 MP)
  • In order of ascending power, eligible servants include:

z Wight	n Necrophage	W Shadow	W Phantom
W Wraith	z Flying skull	W Freezing wraith	V Vampire
W Shadow wraith	W Phantasmal warrior	n Bog body	z Skeletal warrior
V Jiangshi	W Flayed ghost	V Vampire knight	W Eidolon
z Death cob	z Ancient champion	n Ghoul	z Revenant
n Searing wretch	A Profane servitor	D Bone dragon

Piety level ***: "Black Crusader"

• No new abilities.

Piety level ****: "Sculptor of Flesh"

• Drain Life: You can drain life from all living (non- demonic, undead, holy or life-protected) beings in sight. You drain 1 + 1d7 + 1d(Invocations) HP from each creature, and gain half of that damage back as healing, up to a maximum of Invocations*2. (3 Souls, 6 MP)

Piety level *****: "Harbinger of Death"

• Bind Soul: You can convert a single enemy into a permanent undead slave upon its death. Eligible monsters include Natural, Demonic, or Holy enemies of at least normal (animal) intelligence, which must have more than 80% of their health remaining. Once cast, you have 2 + (Invocations * 0.75) turns to kill the victim. If the victim is successfully killed in time, it becomes a permanent soul version of its former self, allied to you and still capable of casting its spells and equipped with all of its gear. You may only have one enslaved soul at a time; binding a new one will destroy the old. These souls contribute towards piety, but won't be sacrificed. (4 Souls, 8 MP)

Piety level ******: "Grim Reaper"

• No new abilities.

Punishments

Yredelemnul strongly dislikes it when you use holy magic or items. Yredelemnul does not appreciate abandonment, and will call down fearful punishments on disloyal followers! Those who anger Yredelemnul find themselves beset by legions of the dead. Novice adventurers will be assaulted by zombies and skeletons; veterans by the strongest of Yredelemnul's undead servants. The victims' own undead servants desert them and crumble into dust. Yredelemnul's ire may instead drain the lives of the unfaithful. Yredelemnul's wrath lasts for a relatively short duration.

If you leave or are excommunicated from Yredelemnul's service, all your undead allies immediately vanish.

While under penance, Yredelemnul will sometimes punish you (about once every 2000 turns). Possible punishments include:

• Bolt of Draining (100% if your experience level is <= 4, less likely as your experience level increases)
• Hostile branch- and XL-dependent zombies are summoned against you.
• Hostile undead are summoned against you from the following list: mummy, wight, flying skull, wraith, freezing wraith, phantasmal warrior, flayed ghost, skeletal warrior, ghoul, death cob, bone dragon, or profane servitor.

On average, it will take 25 such punishments to burn through the 50 penance you have incurred.

Strategy

Yredelemnul is the god of choice for melee characters who want backup, and a powerful emergency option in Drain Life. This applies most to "monstrous" species, who lack the magical aptitudes to easily learn Necromancy. Yred tends to snowball; once you have a few zombies, the rest of the floor tends to succumb to your swarm (all the while, creating more zombies). This will eventually get big enough where you can bind souls -- to get a single, permanent, extremely powerful enslaved version of a single living monster. This requires a fairly high Invocations skill, but it can even enslave Tiamat! Then, the process begins anew on another floor.

Weaker characters tend to have a rougher time with Yred.

• When you enter a new floor, your piety resets. In other words: until you kill things on a new floor, Yred doesn't help much. For characters who struggle to kill regular enemies, this can be a problem. The entrance to a new floor can be dangerous, so not having any god abilities there is a notable downside. This fact makes shafts a bigger problem than with most other gods.
• When you go back upstairs, your piety resets. If a strong enemy forces you to retreat upwards, you'll lose the undead you had before. This also punishes you for stair dancing.

These problems are mitigated once you have a bound soul in your possession. But note that, unlike Hepliaklqana's ancestor, your bound soul won't respawn. If you have to teleport away, your bound soul might die, forcing you to start from scratch.

Regardless of the drawbacks, many characters can appreciate and use the roused undead to their advantage. At the very worst, Yred is equivalent to being atheist with a permanent (slightly weaker) Animate Dead buff. You can swap places with your zombies to avoid attacks of opportunity, and you get that buff as soon as you worship Yred.

Tips & Tricks

• In the early game, most zombified monsters will be weak. The best use for weak zombies is to help you retreat. Zombies can block the way from monsters, and if you swap places with a zombie, you can prevent attacks of opportunity.
• Note that when used properly, bound souls will keep their old gear.
• Monsters that summon allies, like Mlioglotl and Mara, tend to be strong as bound souls.
• Trolls and other oddly sized species might not want to worship Yred; you can't skin zombies, limiting you access to various dragon scales.
• A scroll of immolation can turn even the weakest zombies into ticking time bombs. When something dies, it explodes. Of course, don't let yourself be hit by the explosions.
  • Also, don't let your bound soul get hit. If the bound soul is currently on your level, strongly consider not using immolation.
• Your allies can be attacked in fights you don't know about. Consider Recalling them from time to time.
• The amulet of faith will increase the reap chance from 50% to 67%,, but will take away zombies (if any) when removed. If you have no zombies/spectres, removing the amulet has no consequences.

History

• Yredelemnul will be reworked in 0.32:
  • Followers will gain an umbra.
  • Piety will no longer depend on how many derived undead are in sight. Instead, piety gain will work as normal but with a quirk. Players will have to Light the Black Torch, an ability which enables piety gain for the floor and creates a few undead allies. This can only be used once per floor; leaving the floor will cause the effect to end and disable any further piety gain on that floor.
  • The formula for zombie creation is changed: The first kill on a viable enemy will guarantee a zombie is created, and the chance of reaping monsters decreases as the total HD of your zombies increases.
  • New ability: Hurl Torchlight, which does heavy invocations-based irresistible damage to anything not undead or non-living. 5 charges of torch are given per floor, but more can be gained by slaying uniques.
  • New ability: Fathomless Shackles, which creates a shrinking damage field on the ground. Enemies not adjacent to each-other are constricted and take more damage. Damage returns HP to the user.
  • Bind soul will be reworked: Binding a soul will take away a third of the user's health upon usage, but the status is now permanent until the monster leaves your sight, and the lost HP will be returned upon slaying the foe. Invocations now determines the HP of the bound soul.
  • Drain Life and Dark Bargain are removed.
• Prior to 0.29, Yredelemnul zombies could attack from outside line of sight. Also, reading the now removed scroll of holy word would incur penance.
• In 0.28, Yredelemnul was overhauled. Prior to this change:
  • Yred had a regular piety system, which increased when you killed natural, holy, and nonliving (not demonic!) monsters.
  • You had to invoke necromancy; available at 1* and acting like Animate Dead at 3*. (This means that Yred did not limit death drops).
  • As you gained piety, you got permanent ally gifts, maxing out at profane servitors and bone dragons. Gifts, along with umbra immunity, came at 3*.
  • Bind Soul was called Enslave Soul, which only worked on intelligent monsters, and souls were generally weaker.
  • Injury Mirror, unlocked at 2*, mirrored damage to attackers in exchange for piety. Replaced by Dark Bargain.
• Prior to 0.27, Yredelemnul forbid Gargoyles and the use of Statue Form.
• Prior to 0.25, Yredelemnul would inflict Necromancy miscasts instead of Bolts of Draining as a punishment.
• In 0.22, Enslave Soul became smite-targeted.
• Prior to 0.18, Yredelemnul's Enslave Soul could not affect demons & holy beings. Abandoning Yredelemnul now destroys your zombie minions.
• Prior to 0.16, players could start the game worshipping Yredelemnul as a death knight.
• Prior to 0.14, there was no cap on the number of bone dragons and profane servitors you could have at once. Also, you would receive freezing wraiths in place of vampires, and desecrating holy remains gave piety. Also, read-IDing a scroll of holy word would have angered Yredelemnul's servants.
• Prior to 0.13, you could be gifted rotting hulks and plague shamblers.
• Prior to 0.12, recalling undead slaves did not have any delay, but it was not able to recall any undead servants from other levels.
• Prior to 0.10, the undead servant gift roll's results were based on piety.
• Prior to 0.6.0, Yredelemnul's random undead gifts could not follow you between floors.