Ashenzari

Version 0.31: This article is up to date for the latest stable release of Dungeon Crawl Stone Soup.

"Partake of my vision. Partake of my curse."

While it seems inconceivable that the divine could be shackled, Ashenzari is just that: bound to the sky for eternity, the unbudging god is all-knowing, all-seeing. Devoted worshippers are allowed to grasp shreds of this knowledge and foresight, but be warned: to Ashenzari, power and blessing and curse are all the same thing. Ashenzari exhorts followers to curse their possessions, periodically offering these curses to worshipers as they explore. Cursed equipment cannot be enchanted and only be removed by shattering it forever. However, these curses enhance specific skills. They will also please Ashenzari, who will reveal the invisible and grant clarity of mind. The truly devout will gain a fragment of Ashenzari's astral sight, letting them see through walls. Ashenzari likes it when you bind yourself with curses. Ashenzari's powers are not affected by Invocations skill.

Racial restrictions

Demigods cannot worship Ashenzari (or any other god).

Appreciates

Ashenzari likes it when you curse your equipment. Curses are offered periodically during exploration (approximately one curse per ordinary Dungeon floor fully explored, if you have no curses pending).

Piety is entirely dependent on how many equipment slots you have bound. For an unmutated human, each cursed item will provide 17 piety. The usual 15 piety gained by worship is negated (so having 1 cursed item is 17 piety, not 17 + 15). Slot limiting effects, such as two-handed weapons, species-specific equipment restrictions, Ru's Sacrifice Hand, or Lear's hauberk are taken into consideration, and give proportionally more piety per curse. Cursed items that are melded due to transformations still contribute to your piety, but do not provide their associated skill boosts.

Deprecates

• Abandonment.
• Uncursing items (loss of piety given by the cursed slot; will never cause excommunication)
• Piety with Ashenzari does not decrease over time.

Given Abilities

Piety level (0): "Cursed"

• Curse Item: Curse an equipped item, granting you piety and two skill bonuses (see below), but turning the item into an artefact that cannot be altered or removed. Curses are offered periodically as you explore; if you get a new offer but haven't taken the previous one, the new offer will replace the old one.
  • Unrandart weapons that change their own enchantment as part of their mechanics (like Wyrmbane and Maxwell's Thermic Engine) can still do so even after you curse them.
  • Ashenzari will block random mutations that would break a cursed item, such as Horns with a cursed helmet. Note that demonspawn mutations are unaffected.
• Shatter the Chains: Destroys a cursed item, freeing up that slot but reducing your piety accordingly. Also removes the currently offered curse, if one exists. This does not count as an unequip, so weapons of distortion and artefacts with *Contam or *Drain are safe to curse.
• Divine Knowledge: All of these abilities are passive. Many of them start with a radius of 0, but their radius and power increase with piety.
  • Detect Monsters: Shows the location and relative strength, but not the type, of monsters beyond your field of vision.
  • Detect Items: Shows the location, but not the type, of items beyond your field of vision.
  • Detect Terrain: Maps random tiles beyond your field of vision, similar to the Passive Mapping mutation. Functions even in the Abyss.
  • Detect Portals: Reveals the location of portals, including in the Abyss. ("You have a vision of a gate.")

Piety level (*): "Initiated"

• Identify Items: All items you are carrying are immediately identified upon reaching this piety level. Ashenzari will also identify on sight any items you find as you explore, but items you have yet to see will remain unidentified should you lose enough piety or abandon Ashenzari.

Piety level (**): "Soothsayer"

• See invisible: Ashenzari allows you to see invisible creatures.

Piety level (***): "Seer"

• Clarity: Protects you from confusion, mesmerisation, fear, sleep, and unintentionally going berserk (you may still willingly go berserk by using the potion).

Piety level (****): "Oracle"

• Protection from malevolent surprises: Blocks malevolent forces from triggering during exploration.
• Detect Terrain is upgraded - every tile within a radius of (LOS_range + 1) is mapped.

Piety level (*****): "Illuminatus"

• No new abilities.

Piety level (******): "Omniscient"

• No new abilities. Unlike other gods, Ashenzari's piety caps at 170; you must curse every equipment slot possible to achieve this maximum.

Curses

Each curse you make will provide a boost to two distinct groups of skills, then make the item into an unremovable artefact. These groups are listed as follows:

Group	Boosted skills
Beguiling	Hexes, Translocations
Companions	Summonings, Necromancy
Cunning	Dodging, Stealth
Devices	Evocations, Shapeshifting
Elements	Fire Magic, Ice Magic, Air Magic, Earth Magic
Fortitude	Armour, Shields
Introspection	Fighting, Spellcasting
Melee Combat	All melee weapon skills, including Unarmed Combat
Ranged Combat	Ranged Weapons, Throwing
Sorcery	Alchemy, Conjurations

Each skill that is boosted is increased by (curses * (4/3) + 1 ) * (piety_rank + 1) * skill_level * 10 skill points. "Curses" refers to the number of curses in that specific skill.

Melded items won't give their skill bonuses, but will still increase your piety.

Punishments

Ashenzari does not appreciate abandonment, and will call down fearful punishments on disloyal followers! Those who abandon Ashenzari will immediately have their curses shattered, destroying whichever items they imbued with divine wisdom. Thereafter, Ashenzari's wrath is constant and unrelenting for its duration. Victims will find their skills impaired, and their enemies divinely guided – never losing track of them, never ending the hunt. Ashenzari's wrath lasts for a relatively long duration.

Upon abandoning Ashenzari, all cursed items immediately shatter. Your skills are temporarily halved until you've gained an amount of XP equivalent to two experience levels.

Additionally, monster AI gets a boost:

• They track you better.
• They never forget about you.
• They are more likely to know your position while you are invisible.

Strategy

Ashenzari provides a significant power boost throughout the game, as soon as you've gotten a few curses. But since Ash offers no active abilities for combat or escape, players must take advantage of knowledge and skill enhancements to fill these roles themselves.

Due to how the skill bonuses work, if you have minimal investment in a skill, it'll get almost no boost from cursed equipment. But if you invest just a few levels in said skill, the bonuses will really start to kick in. They'll allow melee combatants to go toe-to-toe with tough enemies; mages will see spells become castable quickly. The divinations Ashenzari's divinations are also helpful: identifying every item is a huge boon for the early game. You'll also get to see enemies before they enter your line of sight, allowing you to avoid encounters more easily.

Early on, equipment and spellbooks should be given special attention. There are two types of items that you would want to curse:

• Common or replaceable items, such as an unbranded robe or plate armour, or anything you find multiples of. These can allow you to take immediate advantage of Ashenzari's knowledge, even if curses don't give relevant boosts.
• Items that you would want to use for an entire game, such as a well-enchanted artefact or even just a good amulet. You can wait until you get especially advantageous curses with your most valuable items.

If a curse doesn't match your background/gameplan, you can consider changing your character build. A melee fighter with a single Beguiling curse shouldn't think too much about it, but 3 Beguiling curses and a great spellbook can change your mind. Of course, you can skip ineffective curses, too.

As the extended game has an excess of XP, skill boosts become rather moot. Instead, Ashenzari's divinations become more useful. They are helpful in Slime Pits, Hell, the Abyss, and Pandemonium. Seeing the map, stairs, and/or exits can help you avoid danger by escaping faster. You can see tiles and walls indicative of a vault (rune, exit, etc...), giving another speed advantage. If you do decide to abandon Ash, be aware that all your cursed items will be shattered.

Tips & Tricks

• Remember that Ashenzari does not directly punish you for having uncursed equipment. If a strategy or dungeon branch requires a swappable slot (e.g. switching between rings for resistances, or switching between multiple weapons), go ahead and leave that slot unbound as needed. Maximum piety is helpful, but not entirely necessary.
• The Passwall spell is particularly useful to those who can see through the walls they wish to traverse.
• Ashenzari worshippers may discover occasional disconnected vaults that are normally only found via magic mapping or the Passive Mapping mutation. A wand of digging, Passwall, or (in extreme cases) Shatter can get you into such areas.
• Worshippers with equipment restrictions (such as Spriggans and Oni) can gain piety very quickly with Ashenzari, but cannot gain as many skill boosts. Felids gain ** of piety per cursed piece of jewellery worn, but they'll receive exceedingly few skill bonuses and lose the ability to swap resistances on the fly.
  • Conversely, Octopodes are somewhat worse with Ash, as they have 11 equipment slots instead of the usual 10.
• An amulet of faith is entirely useless for followers of Ashenzari, apart from the benefits gained by cursing it.

History

• Prior to 0.31, curse groups were different. There was no curse of Sorcery. The curse of Beguiling boosted {Conjurations, Hexes, Translocations}, the curse of Alchemy boosted {Poison Magic, Transmutations}. The curse of Devices was named Evocations, which only boosted that skill. Also, Detect Terrain worked from further away, but it did not fully map out the area near you at 4*.
• Prior to 0.30, protection from sourceless malevolence was available at 1*. Ashenzari had a 4* passive ability, Astral Sight, which would let you see through walls (scry) - up to 4 tiles at max piety. Also, it gave more ((curses * 1.5 + 1) * (piety_rank + 1) * skill_level) skill points by cursing.
• Prior to 0.29, Ashenzari did not block mutations which would shatter cursed items.
• Prior to 0.28, Ashenzari gave more ((curses * 2 + 1) * (piety_rank + 1) * skill_level) skill points by cursing, provided trap avoidance and item identification on worship, and stripped followers of all items (even if uncursed) on abandonment.
• In 0.27, Ashenzari and curses were reworked. In previous versions, Ashenzari had a regular piety system, boosted drastically by wearing cursed items. Cursed items did not shatter on uncurse, boosted skills directly related to the item in question, scrying was an active ability, and Ashenzari offered the ability to transfer skill points between skills. To see more details on Ashenzari prior to 0.27, see this revision.
• Prior 0.23, Ashenzari provided the only source of full monster equipment identification. It also provided a passive boost to finding traps rather than immunity to exploration traps.
• Prior to 0.18, players would have to pray over scrolls of remove curse to convert them into the now-obsolete scrolls of curse armour, curse weapon, and curse jewellery.
• Prior to 0.14, scrolls of curse item could be randomly generated, but Ashenzari gave fewer of them for sacrificing scrolls of remove curse.
• Prior to 0.12, Ashenzari's altars often had an artefact spell book next to them with only one spell: Animate Skeleton. This was to assist in butchering corpses while wielding cursed blunt weapons.
• Prior to 0.9, worshippers of Ashenzari would receive a bonus to experience gain instead of a boost to skills, and shields were not considered a separate equipment category in regards to being bound.
• Ashenzari was added in 0.8, giving players access to abilities from the now-removed Divinations school of magic.