Cursed, haunted, and hallowed rooms

Three kinds of ground deal with the dead. In a cursed room the dead rise again as undead. In a haunted room the undead come for you while you rest. Hallowed ground, which a priest makes, keeps hostile creatures off it. How rooms are found and drawn is on Special rooms.

Cursed rooms

A creature that dies in a cursed room, or anywhere on a cursed level, whoever killed it, rises from its corpse two minutes later as one of the undead (“The giant rat’s corpse rises as a skeleton!”). If you see it die, you see its corpse twitch. A rising you do not see you may hear, as a groan. The undead never rise again, and creatures that leave no corpse never rise at all.

What it rises as is drawn at its death, each kind as likely, among the undead of the dead creature’s own level. When there are none of that level, it is drawn from the nearest level that has some, the lower one on a tie. A risen creature carries nothing (what the dead carried still lies there), and is worth its own experience when you kill it.

The corpse is what rises, so take it, eat it, or destroy it within the two minutes and nothing rises. A corpse carried out of the room and dropped elsewhere is not cursed again. A level you leave stays as it was until you come back, and whatever was due to rise meanwhile rises as you return.

Consecrate. A priest (from level 9) or paladin (from level 12) of Neutral or better can lift the curse. Standing inside a cursed, a draining, or a haunted room, they spend 15 mana and pray for a minute (from the abilities menu). Anything that would stop a rest stops the prayer, and then the mana and the time are lost.

If nothing disturbs the prayer, the room becomes a plain room for good. The dead no longer rise there, mana no longer drains, and nothing comes while you rest. On a level that a curse or a drain covers whole, it lifts the whole level’s instead. It is a good deed (see Alignment). Anywhere else it is refused (“There is nothing here to consecrate.”), costing nothing.

Haunted rooms

Whispers are all you notice from outside (“You hear a whisper, and then nothing.”), and inside it is too quiet (“It is very quiet here. Too quiet to sleep.”). Nothing happens while you walk, fight, or search in it.

But rest in it, and each time the clock strikes a full hour while you rest (1:00, 2:00, and so on, however long or short each of your rests is), one of the undead comes into the room. It is drawn as a cursed room’s dead rise: among the undead of the level’s danger, or of the nearest level that has some, each kind as likely. It appears where you cannot see it if the room has such a place, else anywhere free in the room, and it comes straight for you. Your rest stops as soon as it comes into view, as it would for anyone. It carries nothing and is worth its own experience.

Rest outside the room, even just beside its door, and nothing comes. Consecrate (above) lifts the haunting for good.

Hallowed ground

Hallowed ground is not a room but a place a priest makes. Sanctuary, the priest’s ability at level 50, is a minute’s kneeling for 30 mana. Anything that would stop a rest stops it, and then nothing is hallowed and the mana is spent. When it is done, every cell within 2 of where you knelt (a 5 by 5 square) is hallowed ground for an hour.

• Creatures hostile to you do not step onto it, as with a sanctuary. One already standing on it when it was laid may move about on it and leave, but not come back.
• Nothing new comes to the level there.
• Arrows and spells still cross it.
• Whoever stands on it heals and gets mana back three times as fast. In a sanctuary room the faster of the two counts; they do not add up.

Strike from it, with a blow, a shot, a throw, or a spell that hits someone, and the peace is broken: the ground is ordinary again. The same happens when a dark prayer’s twist reaches a creature. Being struck while on it breaks nothing.

Look at a cell of it and it reads “on hallowed ground”. A priest answered by the dark powers (see Prayer) lays “dreaded ground” instead, which works the same. It gives no light. It cannot be laid on the overworld, in water, in a shop, or on ground already hallowed; trying spends no time or mana.

See also: Special rooms, Altars and forges, and The dead and spirits.