Okawaru

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

"Bring me glory in combat!"

Okawaru is a dangerous and powerful god of battle. Followers are expected to constantly prove themselves in combat, and may channel Okawaru's might to enhance their prowess. Okawaru demands that followers prove themselves by their own strength alone, and so worshippers are forbidden from gaining allies by any means. Okawaru pays little heed to easy victories, but will reward worshippers for heroic feats against mighty foes. Followers of Okawaru will gain the ability to temporarily increase their skills in combat, and, much later, to deal much faster blows. Okawaru will eventually gift followers with throwing weapons, weapons and armour. The most favoured of Okawaru may challenge their foes to honourable single combat.

Racial Restrictions

Demigods cannot worship Okawaru (or any other god).

Appreciates

• Killing powerful monsters. Monsters with a higher XP value, relative to your XL, give higher amounts of piety. Consequently, weak monsters give almost none.

Prevents

Okawaru prevents the creation of allied monsters. You are unable to use any magic or items to create allies, and reactive abilities (such as from the ratskin cloak) simply will not work. Fire Storm creates hostile fire vortices. Entities that are proxies of magical effects: orbs of destruction, ball lightning, battlespheres, spectral weapons, foxfires, and fulminant prisms, are unaffected. (For example, Orb of Destruction is like a larger Magic Dart, and Okawaru doesn't block Magic Dart).

Deprecates

• Inactivity: You lose 1 piety per 340 turns, on average (1/17 chance every 20 turns).

Given Abilities

Piety level (0): "Struggler"

• No granted abilities.

Piety level (*): "Combatant"

• Heroism - Increases all non-magic skills by 5. Evocations, Invocations, and Shapeshifting are not boosted. No skill is increased past 27. You don't get any extra HP from the Fighting skill. Invocations increases the duration: 9 + 2d(Invocations * 6) / 2 turns, up to 100 turns. (2 MP, 3-4 Piety)

Piety level (**): "Warrior"

• No new abilities.

Piety level (***): "Knight"

• No new abilities.

Piety level (****): "Myrmidon"

• Finesse - Halves the action delay of melee and ranged attacks, doubling your attack speed. This does not stack with haste or berserk. Invocations increases the duration: 9 + 2d(Invocations * 6) / 2 turns, up to 100 turns. (5 MP, 5-7 Piety)

Piety level (*****): "Warmonger"

• Duel - Transports you and a single sufficiently worthy (considered "high" or "lethal" threat on examination; dependent on your XL and monster XP value) monster into Okawaru's arena. Dueling will not prevent your opponent from creating more monsters in the arena, so watch out! However, it does prevent Banishment.

If and when you kill the monster, you will have a short (15-25 turn) grace period to heal and prepare for what's still outside. Okawaru will bid you farewell about 5 turns before actually kicking you out. Note that monsters outside the arena may get a turn to attack when you exit. (7 MP, 7-15 Piety)

• Abandoning Okawaru while in the arena will immediately kick you (and the monster) out.

Piety level (******): "Victor of a Thousand Battles"

• Receive Armour and Weapon - Okawaru offers a choice of one of four weapons, and separately, a choice of one of four armour pieces (including shields). Like a scroll of acquirement, you can use these abilities, see the options, then press Esc to cancel and pick at a later time.

Each one of the available items is of scroll of acquirement quality. They are influenced by your skills upon using each ability. For the Armour gift, body armour is much more common than with a regular scroll of acquirement. (No cost, but you can only receive one armour and one weapon per game.)

Gifts

Piety level (*****): Throwing ammunition

• Whenever you gain piety, if your gift timeout equals 0, you have a 40% * (piety - 121) / piety chance to receive some Throwing ammunition. This includes boomerangs, javelins, large rocks (if usable), and darts; notably excluding throwing nets.

After receiving a gift, the gift timeout increases to 25 + (2d19)/2 (26 - 44) piety. Gaining piety will lower the gift timeout. Note that when you have a gift timeout with Okawaru, piety gain for all purposes except gifts is reduced.

Punishments

Okawaru's most vicious warriors are sent against rebellious servants. Novices find themselves swarmed by packs of ogres and gnolls, while champions are surrounded by titans and elvish blademasters.

While under penance, Okawaru will sometimes punish you by sending 1d(experience level/5) hostile, durably summoned monsters to fight you. These monsters can range from packs of orcs to titans, reflecting your experience level.

In general, if you can survive Vaults:5, you can survive Okawaru's wrath. The monsters Okawaru summons are no worse than those encountered there, although there is always the possibility that they will be summoned at a particularly inopportune moment.

If there is nowhere within your line of sight for these monsters to be summoned to, the message, "Okawaru's forces are busy with other wars," will appear instead.

Strategy

Okawaru is a simple, straightforward god that boosts all forms of physical combat. In return, you are unable to use any form of allies. Unlike Trog, most forms of magic are fair game.

• You'll often rely on Okawaru's 2 buffs: an invoked Heroism effect at * and a Finesse effect at ****. Both abilities offer strong boosts to both melee and ranged combat. Their only costs are piety (and a small amount of MP).

Previously, it was recommended to "use Heroism on any remotely threatening fight". As Heroism's piety cost was increased greatly, this no longer applies. Still, you shouldn't hesitate to buff in dangerous situations - dying with max piety won't help a bit.

• Duel is expensive, but it can save you from tricky situations. More than anything, it's an escape tool, and a powerful one at that. Specifically, it teleports you (and one monster) to Okawaru's arena. When you're around a lot of monsters, the Arena is usually safer than where you were before. After you defeat the monster, you'll have some downtime to drink potions, heal up, buff up, and prepare for what's outside. For example, you can read a scroll of teleport, wait 1 turns, exit, and teleport away with less attacks.

• Okawaru's 6* gifts can very strong; a +6 broad axe of electrocution by Lair (or so) is a major power boost. But, like a regular scroll of acquirement, RNG could give you nothing but trash.
  • Since your gifts are influenced by your current skill, a possible strategy is to delay a bit before getting the Armour gift. If you only have 5 Armour skill, for instance, you're likely to get trash robes and acid dragon scales instead of heavy armour. However, this is often dubious, since it sacrifices the immediate gain that Receive Armour could give you.

In the extended game, Okawaru remains a decent god. While Heroism will be useless (due to an abundance of XP), Finesse is helpful for the entire game, and Duel is a strong panic button. Nevertheless, a good god (namely TSO) may be preferable. If you do plan on abandoning Okawaru, be sure to have a safe place to explore whilst facing retribution. The Crypt is usually a good area to do so. Having good escape potential (like with Blink) is also helpful.

History

• Prior to 0.31, Okawaru gifted weapons and armour over time, instead of having one-time use abilities at 6*. Also, Throwing gifts were available at 3*, had a much lower gift timeout, and were more likely if you had more Throwing skill. In addition, there was a minimum of 0.2 attack delay, so Finesse was weaker if your attack delay was lower than 0.4.
• Prior to 0.30, Okawaru abilities were cheaper: Heroism cost 1-2 piety, and Finesse cost 3-5.
• Prior to 0.29, Okawaru would gift ammo for ranged weapons, but only if you trained their respective skill. Throwing ammunition was also twice as plentiful.
• Prior to 0.28, Okawaru did not forbid the use of allies. Thus, Oka's 5* title was Commander, with the 4* title being Warmonger. Finesse was a 5* ability, as Duel was not introduced.
• Prior to 0.27, Okawaru would get angry if you attacked your own allies.
• Prior to 0.18, Finesse could be blocked by stasis; both of Okawaru's abilities cost more piety, but lasted longer even at low Invocations skill.
• Prior to 0.17, Finesse caused magic contamination.
• Prior to 0.16, Okawaru would only give ammo for skills of level 8 and higher, and would grant piety for praying over enemy corpses (the stronger, the better).
• Prior to 0.14, allowing your allies to die incurred piety loss and the Demonspawn Demonic Guardian mutation was suppressed.
• Prior to 0.13, Okawaru didn't care about the death of elementals.
• Prior to 0.8, Okawaru's granted powers were Might and Haste instead of the current Heroism and Finesse.