Prayer
The priest has one prayer, Orison, in the abilities menu. It comes at level 1 and deepens with the priest’s levels. It costs no mana and takes the time of a spell. It answers what ails you most, as far as your prayers reach. Pray too often and nothing answers for a while.
You cannot pray while raging or silenced. A prayer with nothing to answer is refused (“You have nothing to pray for.”) and costs nothing: no time and no strain. A disease still brewing in you does not count yet, so a prayer tells you nothing of one.
The menu names the prayer by its highest tier: Orison, then Prayer, Litany, Benediction, and Miracle, as the table below gives them, with that tier’s description.
What it answers
Each prayer answers the first thing that ails you, in this order, among the uses your prayers have reached. From level 40 it answers the first two, and from 60 all of them at once. A use not yet reached is skipped, even if it ails you.
| Order | Use | What ails you | The holy powers | The dark powers | From |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Disease | a disease that shows (one still brewing is no problem yet) | every disease ends, the brewing ones too: “The sickness leaves you.” | every disease ends, the brewing ones too, and the nearest creature you see catches each (it brews in them, with no check to resist): “The sickness leaves you, and finds another.” | level 12 (Prayer, priest) |
| 2 | Poison | Poisoned | it ends: “The poison leaves you.” | it ends, and the nearest creature you see catches it at the same degrees (one immune or resistant to poison takes less or none): “The poison leaves you, and finds another.” | level 12 (Prayer, priest) |
| 3 | Wounds | Bleeding or lost hit points | the bleeding stops, hit points to full: “Your wounds close.” | the same: “Your wounds close, cold to the touch.” | level 1 (Orison, priest) |
| 4 | Release | any of Hexed, Weakened, Sluggish, Drowsy, Webbed, Held, Engulfed, Swallowed, Latched, Frightened, Transfixed, Ashen | every one ends: “You are released.” | every one ends, and each is laid at its degrees on whoever laid it, if you see them on the level; whoever held you is Webbed instead: “You are released, and it is returned.” | level 18 (Prayer of release, priest) |
| 5 | Mana | less than your full mana | mana to full: “Your mind is filled.” | the same: “Your mind is filled with a cold clarity.” | level 32 (Litany of the mind, priest) |
| 6 | Hunger | Hungry or worse | fed to Satiated: “You feel fed.” | fed to the brim, one short of Bloated: “You feel glutted.” | level 6 (Daily bread, priest) |
| 7 | Restoration | stat damage or drained points | all mended, the drained points given back: “You feel whole again.” | the same: “What was taken is taken back.” | level 25 (Litany, priest) |
A prayer trains nothing: no stat and no caster style. It does not move your alignment.
How it grows
The prayer talents come with the priest’s levels (see Classes). Each adds uses or answers. The prayer’s name changes with each new tier, to the dark name when the dark powers answer you.
The priest
| Level | Talent | Adds | Name (holy) | Name (dark) | Answers a prayer |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Orison | wounds | Orison | Whisper | 1 |
| 6 | Daily bread | hunger | Orison | Whisper | 1 |
| 12 | Prayer | disease, poison | Prayer | Invocation | 1 |
| 18 | Prayer of release | release | Prayer | Invocation | 1 |
| 25 | Litany | restoration | Litany | Rite | 1 |
| 32 | Litany of the mind | mana | Litany | Rite | 1 |
| 40 | Benediction | 2 answers a prayer | Benediction | Pact | 2 |
| 60 | Miracle | everything at once, and every resource pool filled | Miracle | Miracle | all |
At level 60, the Miracle answers everything that ails you in one prayer. It also fills every resource pool you hold (rage, ki, focus, and the rest) to its most.
Strain
Every prayer adds a hidden strain, answered or not, and the strain passes with time. The more strain a prayer finds, the likelier it fizzles (“You pray, but nothing answers.”). A fizzle takes its time and answers nothing. It also locks the prayer: every prayer after it fizzles, with no chance at all, until the strain has passed to nothing.
| Strain a prayer adds | 100, answered or fizzled alike (none in an unholy place for a priest who communes with the dark) |
| Strain that passes | 1 point every minute: one prayer’s is gone after 1 hour and 40 minutes |
| Chance a prayer fizzles | 10 % for every 100 strain it finds (at most 100 %) |
| After a fizzle | every prayer fizzles, with no chance drawn, until the strain has passed to 0 |
| Nothing to answer | refused: no time, no strain |
The chance a prayer fizzles, if you pray again and again with the same time between and none of the earlier prayers has fizzled:
| Praying every | 2nd prayer | 3rd prayer | 5th prayer | 10th prayer |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 minute | 9 % | 19 % | 39 % | 89 % |
| 10 minutes | 9 % | 18 % | 36 % | 81 % |
| 30 minutes | 7 % | 14 % | 28 % | 63 % |
| 1 hour | 4 % | 8 % | 16 % | 36 % |
| 1 hour and 40 minutes | 0 % | 0 % | 0 % | 0 % |
So a prayer now and then is always answered. A priest who prays every few minutes in a long fight starts to fail, and once a prayer has fizzled, the rest of that fight goes without.
The holy and the dark
Who answers depends on your alignment at the moment you pray. If you are Neutral or better, the holy powers answer; if Callous or worse, the dark ones. The game never names them, but the prayer’s words tell you (“You kneel and pray.” or “You whisper to the dark.”). So does its name in the menu: a Whisper, an Invocation, a Rite, a Pact, a Miracle.
The dark powers answer the same things in the same order, with the same strain. But each answer has a twist (the table above gives each):
- The diseases they take from you, the brewing ones too, are caught by the nearest creature you see, as if it had failed to resist them. A creature immune to disease catches none.
- The poison they take is laid on that creature, at the same degrees. A creature immune or resistant to poison takes less or none.
- A hex or hold they release is laid back on whoever laid it on you, if you see them, at the degrees it had. Whoever held you is caught in a web instead.
- They feed you to the brim, one short of Bloated. The holy powers feed you to Satiated.
A creature that dies of a sickness or poison passed on is your kill. A twist that reaches a creature breaks the hallowed ground you stand on, as a blow struck from it would.
Communion and Sanctuary
Besides the prayer, the priest’s table has three rites of holy and unholy ground.
- Consecrate answers only a priest of Neutral or better.
- Its dark twin, Communion with the dark, works only for a priest the dark powers answer. In an unholy place their prayers add no strain at all, and the place’s drain never touches them. The chance of a fizzle and its lock still go by the strain already there.
- Sanctuary works for either. The dark powers’ ground reads “dreaded” instead of “hallowed”, and works the same (see Special rooms).
| Level | Ability | Works for | What it does |
|---|---|---|---|
| 9 | Consecrate | Neutral or better | 15 mana and 1 minute of prayer in an unholy place: its curse lifted for good (see Special rooms) |
| 9 | Communion with the dark | Callous or worse | a passive: standing in a cursed, draining, or haunted room, or on a level such a curse lies over, your prayers add no strain and the place’s Ebbing never touches you; only while the dark powers answer you |
| 50 | Sanctuary | any | 30 mana and 1 minute of kneeling: every cell within 2 of where you knelt (a 5 by 5 square) is hallowed ground for 1 hour; hostile creatures do not step onto it, and whoever stands on it heals and gets mana back 3 times as fast |
See also: the priest, Healing, and Abilities.