Faded altar

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

An ancient altar, stripped of all identifying characteristics by the passage of aeons. Praying at it will convert you to an unknown god, and the altar's deity will greatly appreciate conversion at so ancient a site of worship.

Praying at a faded altar allows the player to convert to one of 3 displayed gods, chosen randomly. You will see the 3 possible gods when inspecting the altar (< or >). If there are multiple faded altars, each one will have a separate list of gods. Any god that your species can worship can be a possibility for the faded altar.

When worshipping at a faded altar, you will gain a bonus of +20 piety. Gods that don't use the usual piety system will get a special effect (see below). If you're already worshipping a god, you will convert to the new god. If you're worshipping a god, and the god from the altar is the same as the current god, then you receive the bonus +20 piety (with no other effect).

Faded altars have a 25% to spawn on each floor, from D:1 to D:3. After use, the altar will become a normal altar of the given god.

Special

The following gods have unique behaviors with the faded altar bonus:

• Ashenzari: The first set of curses are provided much sooner.
• Gozag: Worshippers skip the entry fee.
• Ru: A set of sacrifice options is immediately given upon conversion.
• Xom: Xom finds this hilarious (and amusement is set to 200).
• Yredelemnul: Create multiple allied derived undead.

Monks get both the bonus from a faded altar and their initial piety bonus.

Strategy

Faded altars can be incredibly powerful. Not only do you get +20 piety from the faded altar, but you get all the piety from D:1, D:2, etc. By the time you reach the Temple, a faded altar worshipper can be at 2* or even 3*. This is an amazing early game boon.

Of course, some gods will be better than others. If you have 3 great gods, such as {Makhleb, Okawaru, Trog} on a Minotaur Fighter, then it's a no brainer. But there are at least a few gods that will hurt your prospects of winning. That same Minotaur won't get much benefit from Sif Muna, for instance. Most characters will suffer from Cheibriados and Xom. In these cases, its up to you if you want to take the risk.

Even "bad" or "suboptimal" gods can help you survive the early game, if you get 2* or 3* with them. For streak play, the early game is usually considered to be the hardest part of the game. In this case, faded altars are usually the optimal choice if Chei or Xom (gods that hurt the earlygame) aren't a possibility.

History

• Prior to 0.30, faded altars would pick from every possible god that your species could worship, instead of being limited to 3 per altar. Also, faded altars had a 1/2 chance to spawn per floor (on D:1 - D:3).
• Prior to 0.27, faded altars had a 1/6 chance to spawn per floor (on D:1 - D3).
• Faded altars were added in 0.17. They were called "ecumenical" altars during development.