Condenser vane

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

Type	Miscellaneous item
Name	Condenser vane
Icon

A magical device that condenses ambient energy into various destructive clouds. When evoked these clouds form around hostile monsters near the user. The quantity and lethality of these clouds increases with Evocations skill. At low power it will create noxious fumes, and as power increases this gives way to roaring flames, freezing vapours, and poisonous gas. At the highest tiers of power storm clouds, acidic fog and clouds of negative energy become available.

A condenser vane is evoked to engulf every monster in sight as well as the 8 squares surrounding it with semi-random clouds.

This item is mutually exclusive with the tin of tremorstones.

Useful Info

Evoking the vane will create dangerous clouds. These include, in ascending order of power:

• Noxious Fumes
• Poisonous Gas
• Flame / Freezing Vapour
• Negative Energy
• Thunder
• Acidic Fog

Your Evocations skill determines not only the type of clouds, but also their number and duration.

For each square adjacent to at least one enemy, or containing an enemy, you have a (25 + 3.5*Evocations) / 1.2% chance to create a cloud on that square (max. 99.6%; min. 1 cloud total). However, the condenser vane will never create a cloud on top of you or your allies.

If you are worshipping a good god and you get clouds of negative energy, your god will suppress these clouds and you will not waste a charge of the vane.

Strategy

Since the condenser vane works very much like the spell Ignition does, it is best used when you are facing a (large) group of enemies with restricted room to maneuver: the density of monsters will create a carpet of clouds, ideally covering your entire line of sight. The entrance to Vaults:5 is an obvious one, as are Ziggurat floors.

Since intelligent enemies will not willingly walk into sufficiently damaging clouds, consider combining a condenser vane carpet with a potion of attraction to pull them in nevertheless. Adding a scroll of silence on top makes the end vault of Elf:3 quite a bit easier.

History

• Prior to 0.30, the condenser vane would always spawn a 3x3 area of clouds around each monster, regardless of Evocations skill. It could spawn negative energy clouds even if you were worshipping a good god. Also, it did not alternate with the tin of tremorstones.
• The condenser vane replaced the wand of clouds in 0.26.