When sacrificing items, one might want to keep in mind the fact that some races' deities specially favor some item types. These can be found in the manual and are listed here for reference.
| Race | Preferred sacrifices |
|---|---|
| Human | tools of all kind |
| Troll | rocks, the larger the better |
| Hurthling | cooked meals |
| Gnome | gems |
| Dwarf | gold |
| High Elf | magical rings |
| Gray Elf | magical rings |
| Dark Elf | magical wands and books |
| Orc | melee weapons |
| Drakeling | musical instruments |
Sacrificing monsters can be very bountiful, especially on levels with a high monster generation rate. There are a few things to be remembered, though:
Lawful and neutral gods don't like it when you sac "their beings", i.e. neutral beings to a neutral god or lawfuls to a lawful god. Chaotics don't care.
Bred, summoned, undead and unlife beings can not be sacrificed.
On any coaligned altar, you can detect your items' status by simply dropping the stuff on the altar regardless of piety level. Furthermore, when any offering has been accepted, you'll notice your standing with your deity. The effects are:
| Piety | Message | Effect |
|---|---|---|
| -20000- | "MORTAL, YE HAVE PESTERED ME FOR TOO LONG!" | summons solars/holy slayers/greater daemons; spectres if fallen champion |
| -15000- | "Mortal, ye art a pest." | A bolt of -damage type- hits you! (67-79 points of damage) |
| -8000- | "*I* hereby punish thee, puny mortal" | equipment turned to dust |
| "You feel bad... very bad." | same piety level as above, dooming results if no equipment | |
| -3000- | "Take this for ye impunity!" | inventory cursed |
| -1000- | "Mortal, you are a nuisance!" | nothing |
| You hear -deity- grumbling in anger. | nothing | |
| -50- | For some seconds the ground rumbles. | nothing |
| -50..50 | -deity- seems to be unconcerned. | nothing |
| 50+ | -deity- seems to be pleased. | nothing |
| 1000+ | -deity- seems to be very pleased with you. | deity will bless water dropped on altar |
| 3000+ | You feel inner strength lifting you spirits. | same piety level as inner peace, deity grants the Lucky intrinsic, occurs only if the PC didn't have the Lucky intrinsic |
| You feel inner peace. | see above message about inner strength | |
| You burn with the anticipation of power | chaotic equivalent of inner peace | |
| 8000+ | You feel spiritually invincible. | nothing |
| 15000+ | You feel very close to -deity- | deity removes Cursed/Doomed intrinsics if present |
| "You feel a terrible gloom being lifted from you" | grants Fate Smiles intrinsic | |
| 30000+ | You feel extremely close to -deity- | (pre/post)crowning possibility |
| -deity- seems to be absolutely close to you | the PC is eligible for crowning: correct alignment and the highest level of piety |
It's quite possible to have a prayer answered and the cost pulls you down to low enough to recieve a warning, or penalty, but there are some safeguards against this happening and it's unlikely unless you have been doing a lot of praying. Here's a funny example:
You pray to Istaria. Your cursed broadsword (+1, 1d7+3) glows in a silvery light. You suddenly hear a thundering voice. "*I* hereby punish thee, puny mortal!" Your equipment turns to dust.The main safeguard is that you cannot drop more than 3 levels of piety in answering a prayer if you start off at least "Inner peace". Instead you will be at the bottom of the level three below where you started from. For example if you start at 3000 piety and your prayer costs 15000 piety you will end up at -50 piety. That applies to unanswered prayers too - which also cost piety. I don't know but I don't think it applies to non-prayer piety penalties but the only one big enough to matter would be destroying an altar I think...
A second safeguard is that if your prayer is NOT answered and you had at least "Unconcerned" then, if you drop to one of the low levels, you will NOT receive a penalty due to low piety (or a warning message) until the next time you pray.
Prices for praying
In general the cost of a prayer or unanswered prayer is the base cost multiplied by a factor that increases incredibly fast according to how many OF THAT KIND OF PRAYER (or how many unanswered prayers) you have had with that character. The count increases even if you switch deities. The multiplier is 'triangular n' or n(n+1)/2.
For example the first unanswered prayer costs 20 piety. The second will cost 60, then 120, 200, 300, 420 and so on. The formula for the total piety cost of n prayers of the same kind is n(n+1)(2n+1)/6 multiplied by the base cost.
After all that there is a final deduction to the cost of 50% if you are a champion and paladins seem to get prayer at 2/3rds cost (not priests though), or 1/3rd if crowned. Those do NOT apply to the cost of pre-post crownings.
In the table below, if not mentioned otherwise, at least 50 piety is required in addition to the requirement mentioned. In elemental temples, this requirement is 2 levels higher (3000 piety for standard rewards)
| Reward | Requirement | Cost |
|---|---|---|
| pre/post-crowning | piety at least 30000 | 50000 |
| removal of doom | doomed | 10000 |
| removal of curse | cursed | 3000 |
| prevent breeding | at least 40 breeders on level | 2500 |
| granting of pickaxe | certain location, at least 15000 piety | 2000 |
| uncurse 1 equiped item | cursed item equipped | 1000 |
| food | at least Hungry | 500(*) |
| remove mute | Mute | 350 |
| cure sickness | Sick, at least 3000 piety | 250 |
| cure blindness | Blind | 150 |
| full heal | less than 75% health | 150 |
| remove darkness | being at dark | 120 |
| remove slowed | Slowed | 100 |
| cure poison | Poisoned | 100 |
| full mana | not at full PP | 80 |
| remove confused | Confused | 50 |
| remove stun | Stunned | 25 |
| nothing happens | nothing of the above, or piety below 50 | 20 |
(*) The BASE cost of divine mana is between 450 and about 520 depending upon how starved you are. The cost of 450 is if you have just become hungry, the cost of 500 is for when you are just about to start reducing ability levels. Remember to multiply by the triangular n penalty.
Crowning
Crowning itself requires "Extremely close" (30000 piety) and costs 40000 piety but does not reduce you to below 20000 piety. So effectively the cost is 10000. Very odd behaviour. In practise then the crowning costs only 10000. Pre or post crownings cost the same. Although I have listed their base cost as 50000 (meaning that the first one costs 50000, 2nd costs 150000, then 300000 etc) there are a couple of oddities. Sometimes (usually) there is a special pre/post crowning that costs only 10000 piety. The rest use the formula above but all cost an extra 10000 more than the formula would suggest. However it looks like you may need to have 20000 piety more than the cost of the pre/post crowning to get it.
| Min piety | Cost | Crowning |
|---|---|---|
| 30000 | 10000 | crowning |
| 30000 | 10000 | 1st post-crowning (usually) |
| 80000 | 60000 | 2nd post-crowning |
| 180000 | 160000 | 3rd post-crowning |
| 330000 | 310000 | 4th post-crowning |
| 530000 | 510000 | 5th post-crowning |
| 780000 | 760000 | 6th post-crowning |
| 1080000 | 1060000 | 7th post-crowning |
| Action | Piety cost |
|---|---|
| Start game with | 200 |
| Attempt to turn undead | -200 |
| Destroy altar | -10000 (and alignment shift) |
| Kick altar | -100 |
| Destroy others altar | +1000 if opposite alignment, +100 if it was neutral |
| Use of holy symbol | +0.5 (yes, a half point!) |
| Convert using altar | piety set to -850 for new deity |
| Gain a level | +10 x level in piety for aligned deity |
| 220 actions | -1% |
| Convert altar | -2000 for former owner, +1000 for new owner |
| Change deity (alignment) | -10000 for old deity |
For the usual ways of altering piety (prayer and sacrificing) the two rival deities gain or lose 1/30th the amount of piety (rounded down) that the aligned deity loses or gains. That doesn't apply to crownings or to any of the miscellaneous changes above.
Gold coin gives about 0.32 piety per gold coin, except for dwarves who get about 0.48 piety (because their deities likes cash especially). Or roughly triple (double) the amount of piety needed and there's your gold cost. Tentatively it looks like live sacrifices score 448 piety and food scores 120.
Order of precedence:
| Message | Meaning |
|---|---|
| "You feel spiritually elated!" | the PC receives the Lucky and Fate Smiles intrinsics simultaneously. This works regardless of alignment. |
| "*MORTAL, I AM NOT BUILDING A BLOODY GARDEN UP HERE! NO MORE TREES! }*" | the PC tried to sacrifice an animated tree; there is a typo, apparently, the } |
| A voice in your mind lectures you. "*WHAT A MEDIOCRE SIGN OF DEVOTION. IMPROVE!*" | the PC tried to sacrifice a summoned creature |
| A voice in your mind lectures you. "*THOU SHALT TAKE PAINS TO PROVE THY DEVOTION!*" | the PC tried to sacrifice a spawned creature |
| You hear a booming voice in your mind... "*BE WARNED! SACRIFICING MY OWN CREATURES IS NOT SOMETHING I WELCOME WITH JOY!*" | the PC tried to sacrifice a creature coaligned with the altar |
| -deity- booms: "*YOU DARE TO SACRIFICE MY GIFTS AT MY HOLY PLACE?!?* "*FOOL!*" The -foo- is consumed by a -bar- light and disappears. | the PC sacrificed a divine gift |
| Suddenly -deity- speaks to you. *YOU DARE TO OFFER THE CRAP SOLD BY RATLING TRADERS?* *FORGET IT!* The -ratling fodder- disappears. | sacrificing ratling wares |
| Message | Meaning |
|---|---|
| "You feel a warm aura." | lawful altar |
| "The air is suddenly very moist." | neutral altar |
| "You suddenly feel a chilling cold." | chaotic altar |
These messages are generated regardless of piety. The piety messages follow these. Note that creatures cannot be sacrificed in the dark.