Necromutation

Necromutation
Level	8
School1	Transmutation
School2	Necromancy
Source(s)	Necronomicon
Casting noise	6
Spell noise	0

This spell first transforms the caster into a lich - a powerful skeletal figure. The caster gains some powers of death, and becomes more resistant to cold and hostile enchantments and completely immune to poison, rotting, and negative energy, and requires no food at all for the duration of the spell. The caster also gains some of the more dubious benefits of having an undead body, such as a vulnerability to holy weapons and an inability to consume potions. Contrary to what one would expect, this spell works on octopodes, although what foul necromantic tissue serves as an analogue for bones remains a mystery.

Necromutation is a level 8 Transmutations/Necromancy spell which transforms the caster into a lich. This state is referred to by Crawl players as lichform. For the duration of this spell the caster gains the following:

Pros

• Undead status
• 1 rank of cold resistance
• Complete negative energy immunity
• +50 MR
• +6 AC
• +3 strength
• Draining branded unarmed attacks
• A spell enhancer for Necromancy
• Immunity to poison (even from Poison Arrow)
• Immunity to rotting
• Immunity to sickness
• Immunity to torment
• Mutation immunity
• No hunger clock

Cons

• Cannot quaff potions
• Cannot eat royal jellies to restore lost attributes
• Vulnerability to Dispel Undead, scroll of holy word, holy wrath weapons, and silver ammunition
• Cannot cast spells that require you to be alive (many Necromancy and Transmutations spells)
• Unwields/prevents wielding of holy weapons
• Mutations cause rot instead

Higher spell power boosts the duration of the spell and the size of the AC boost.

Strategy

Having this spell is a game-changer. No hunger means that you can play like a mummy (but with the aptitudes and stats of your race), as long as you recast the spell once in awhile. Spam your big spells, wear rings of regeneration and abuse Sif Muna's channeling; the hunger won't affect your living form as long as you do it all as a lich. Unlike a real mummy, you can just stop recasting this spell and heal your stats and rot as a living person. You can also go back to the world of the living to kill pesky creatures that use Dispel Undead.

If your power with Necromutation is somewhat marginal, recasting it before it has expired is preferable, since the spell will take advantage of its own Necromancy enhancer and last longer. Casting it at a low success rate is usually a bad idea however, as the miscast effects from Transmutations and Necromancy are both fairly nasty, including rotting, large amounts of magic contamination, direct malmutation, and massive stat drain.

One major issue is that becoming undead through Necromutation restricts the use of many useful spells. Borgnjor's Revivification and Death's Door, among others, are both uncastable in lich form, so take care when facing powerful enemies. Additionally, confusion is extremely dangerous: the regular cure, quaffing a potion of curing, is not available, and leaving lich form is impossible during confusion. This makes a source of Clarity invaluable for would-be liches.

Furthermore, Shadow fiends, Gloorx Vloq, and Necromancer ghosts like to switch between Dispel Undead (which deals significant irresistible damage) when you're undead and Bolt of Draining/Symbol of Torment when you're alive. Since the latter is probably easier to defend against, you'll still want to have some negative energy resistance items for backup.

Finally, note that casting this spell while worshiping a good god will cause you to be excommunicated.

Settings

Users of this spell may want to add this to their runrest_messages.txt (in settings directory) file:

stop = Your transformation is almost over.

This will stop autotravel if the spell is nearly over and allow you to recast it before it runs out, preserving nutrition.