                           Gods and Religion
                           =================
Adapted from: (1) the WCST 8.00 spoilers, (2) Roy Stead's "Nethack A-Z", 
(3) Boudewijn Wayers's collection of spoilers for NetHack 3.1.3, 
Collected by Jonathan Ellis, for NetHack 3.2.3

A guide to: (1) Praying
            (2) Being "crowned" and other bonuses
            (3) Altars - praying, sacrificing, dropping other items
            (4) Blessings and Curses
            (5) Priests - donating money and talking to them

Part 1: Saying Your Prayers
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

                by Kundi Xue (xkd@soda.csua.berkeley.edu),
          with additions by Boudewijn Wayers (kroisos@win.tue.nl).

Your prayer-timeout is a number greater than or equal to zero, and if 
it is at zero, you can pray successfully. The following describes how
your prayer-timeout is affected by various things you can do. (Note 
that your timeout can never drop below zero: if this would happen,
it is set to zero instead.)

Your prayer-timeout is 300 at the start, and is reduced by one for each
turn until it reaches zero. It is affected by various things. I use the
following notation:

=: set to
+: plus
-: minus

random(x): a random number is generated, averaging at x. This number
can become quite high: it is a Poisson-like distribution.
random(x,y): a random number between x and y.


Your god give you a favourable answer to a prayer		=random(350)
 - when you are the Hand of Elbereth (additional)		+random(1000)
 - when you are the Envoy of Balance (additional)		+random(2000)
 - when you are the Glory of Arioch (additional)		+random(3000)
 - after you killed the Wizard of Yendor (additional)		+random(1000)

Your god gives you an artifact through sacrifice	
                            =random(300+50*(number of artifacts in game))

Your god fixes your trouble(s)                               +random(100)

You change alignment                                                +300

You make your god "displeased" at you                        =random(300)
   (if he gets sufficiently angry, he can only be mollified with a lot of
   sacrifices, and all the waiting in the world won't allow you to pray.)

You are praying without trouble and before prayer timeout
 or with minor trouble and prayer timeout > 100
 or with major trouble and prayer timeout > 200	             +random(250)
  (In all three cases, your god will become displeased and may or may not 
answer your prayers.)

If you make a wish                                       +random(100,150)

If your sacrifice is accepted while your god is not angry, and
your prayer timeout has not reached zero yet, and:
 - you are chaotic                              -(sacrifice value)*500/24
 - you are not chaotic		                  -(sacrifice value)*300/24

You can pray successfully if
 - your god is not angry, and
 - your luck is not below 0, and
 - your alignment is not below 0, and
 - you are not praying without trouble while prayer timeout > 0, and
 - you are not praying with minor troubles while prayer timeout > 100, and
 - you are not praying with major troubles while prayer timeout > 200, and
 - you are not praying on the wrong altar.


You still have a chance of god giving you nothing even though he's
pleased. This may happen when your alignment is 0 and you have a bad
die roll.

Your prayers cannot reach your god in Gehennom: you will be answered only
by Moloch, who will throw everything he has against you - lightning bolts,
wide-angle disintegration beams, and other nasty stuff. And it will make 
your own god angry - something to beware of when you come out of hell.
Likewise, if you pray on another god's altar the prayer is addressed
to that god, and your own god will become angry.


Part 2: Special Bonuses - including Being Crowned
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

If you pray when you are in good standing with your god and are *not* in 
any kind of trouble, good things may happen. You may have your weapon 
blessed, be given information about the combination of musical notes
needed to open the front door of the Castle, be given a spellbook, or gain 
any one of the following intrinsics: telepathy, speed or stealth. (Note 
that being unlucky counts as trouble, and having cursed items in your 
inventory uncursed counts as your god getting you out of trouble. Note 
also that this applies only to praying, not to sacrificing monsters on 
your god's altar.) 

If you are *really* lucky, you may be "crowned". If this happens, you are 
not only granted a title, but some other effects (most of them beneficial) 
happen as well. The title you will gain is the following:

Lawful:  Hand of Elbereth
Neutral: Envoy of Balance
Chaotic: Glory of Arioch

Then, you gain some useful intrinsics (if you didn't have them already,
of course):

- cold resistance
- fire resistance
- poison resistance
- see invisible

Next, you may gain an item:

Lawful:  If you are wielding or carrying a long sword, it is changed into
         Excalibur. 
Neutral: If you don't already have Vorpal Blade, you now do.
Chaotic: If Stormbringer does not exist yet in your game, you gain it,
         else, you gain a good non-artifact broadsword. Note that
         Stormbringer is difficult to control...

This weapon is blessed, uncorroded, made rust-proof and enchanted to +1
(if it was still at 0).

The last thing that is done is that your average prayer time-out (the
time you have to wait between prayers) is greatly increased. So, if you
already have a decent weapon and the above intrinsics, being crowned is
a BAD thing. If you pray often enough, it WILL happen eventually,
though.

Basically, when your god crowns you, it's his way of telling you: "I've
given you quite enough by now... Now bugger off and leave me alone..."


Part 3: Altars
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Altars can be quite mysterious to a beginning player. Yet, they are
very important for finishing the game. Here follows the most important
information on altars in NetHack.

Altars can occur anywhere in the main dungeon, sometimes even more than
one on a level. Altars generally don't appear on special levels (like
the Oracle or Medusa's Island.) In the Gnomish Mines there is only one
altar, which is predefined (it is not generated randomly). In Gehennom,
altars are not generated randomly either: there are always three altars
in Gehennom. The following altars are present in each game (from top to
bottom): three altars on the Astral Plane, an altar on the Mines' Town
level in the Gnomish Mines, an altar in the Valley of the Dead, an
altar in Orcus' Lair (the Ghost Town), and an altar in Moloch's Sanctum
at the bottom of Gehennom. The one in the Mine Town is the only one
that is guaranteed to be useful in every game if you wait long enough, as
it is the only one of the compulsory altars that can be converted to your
own god if it does not belong to him already - none of the altars in 
Gehennom can be converted, nor those on the Astral Plane.

Various quests have their own (predefined) altars in it. See the
quest.map file for more information on these.

When standing on an altar, there are three useful things you can do:
praying, sacrificing and dropping items to find out the blessed/cursed
status. The effect of your actions depends not only on your luck and 
your current standings with your god, but most of all on the altar's 
alignment, compared to your own.

Every altar has an alignment, which determines to what god it belongs.
The alignment of randomly generated altars is, as expected, random, and
so is the altar in the Mines' Town. The altars in Gehennom are
unaligned, since they all belong to Moloch, the renegade god. On the
Astral Plane there is one altar for every alignment. They are called
"High altars" and the Amulet of Yendor should be sacrificed here to
complete the game. (On the altar of your own god, that is: sacrificing it 
on the wrong altar will make your god *VERY* upset.)

Praying
~~~~~~~
Praying on an altar is in two ways different from praying somewhere
else. First, if any potions of water are on the altar, the prayer is
also a water prayer. A water prayer on an altar of your own alignment
converts any number of potions of water or unholy water into holy
water. A water prayer on another god's altar makes all water unholy.
Note that a prayer on another god's altar is addressed to that god:
your god is not going to like that, so your luck is decreased by 3, and
your god will become angry and might punish you in several ways.

The second difference with normal prayers is that if you pray on your
own altar, the chance that something nice will happen (from the "bonuses"
section above) is significantly higher.

Sacrificing corpses (except humans, elves and unicorns)
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
When you sacrifice corpses on an altar of your own alignment, various
nice things can happen. The corpse shouldn't be too old, though: if
your sacrifice is older than 50 moves, nothing will happen. One
exception to this are acid blob corpses, which are never too old. (But 
acid blobs are of course not very big, so there is little point in 
sacrificing them.)

How much the sacrifice means to your god is based on its value, which
in turn depends on the toughness of the monster. An exception is made
for human bodies if you are human, elven corpses if you are an elf, and
unicorn corpses. These are explained in detail below.

If your god is angry with you, his anger becomes less if you sacrifice
on one of his altars, depending on the corpse's value. Some corpses are 
not big enough to affect your god's anger, in which case you get the 
message "You have a feeling of inadequacy": chaotic gods demand bigger
sacrifices than lawful ones. If the corpse is big enough to interest 
your god, he will be "slightly mollified" if he is still angry, or 
"mollified" if the sacrifice was great enough to cause him to forgive you.

If you are already in good standing with your god, your luck increases, 
the amount depending on the sacrifice's value, and you get a hint about 
your prayer timeout: if you should not pray yet, you "have a hopeful 
feeling", if it is exactly time, you "have a feeling of reconciliation."
If you get no such message, you were already eligible to pray (and see 
below).

If you sacrifice when you are already eligible to pray, you might gain an
artifact, depending on your experience level. If you don't gain an
artifact, your luck will increase some more if possible, the increase
depending on the corpse's value. If you *do* gain an artifact, your prayer 
timeout increases.

If you sacrifice corpses on an altar of a different alignment, there is
a chance that you will convert the altar to your alignment. This does
not work for the High altars on the astral level; these can never be
converted. If you try anyway, the god owning the altar throws
everything he has at you. You cannot convert altars in Gehennom either, 
because your god cannot hear you to combat the altar's owner (Moloch) - 
you will get the same effects as from a prayer in hell, i.e. that only
Moloch will hear it, and will get extremely angry and try to blast you
out of existence.

If your god is angry with you when you try to convert an altar, _you_
may be converted to the altar's god instead. The altar's god accepts
your allegiance, and you have a sudden sense of a new direction.
Conversion is costly, however: your luck is decreased by 3 and your
prayer timeout increased by 300. You cannot convert to Moloch, or 
convert his altars in Gehennom to your own god at any time: if you 
sacrifice on his altars, he rejects your sacrifice, and your alignment
and luck decrease by 5, your wisdom by 2. And apart from that, your own 
god will become angry.

If your god is pleased, the altar might be converted to your god,
depending on your experience level. Your wisdom is exercised, and your
luck is increased by one. If there was a priest(ess) around with the
same alignment as the altar, he or she will become angry. Exactly the
reverse happens if you don't succeed in converting the altar: your
wisdom is abused and your luck is decreased by one. You god won't
become angry as a result of this, though.

Finally, if you engrave on an altar, the god of that altar will get angry
and you will lose luck and wisdom points.

Sacrificing your own race
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

If you, as a human, sacrifice a human corpse, or, as an elf, sacrifice
an elven corpse, on an altar of your own alignment, your god will
become very angry if you're not chaotic. Your wisdom will be abused,
your wisdom will go down by one point immediately as well, and your
luck and alignment will be decreased by 5. If you are chaotic, though,
your luck goes up by 2, your alignment by 5 and a demon lord is
summoned. This demon lord will be peaceful, but in no way useful, since
it cannot be tamed. (There is a use for peaceful demon lords, though: to 
make sure that the demon lords in question cannot turn up later as hostile
demon lords... if, for instance, you get Juiblex, then he will not appear 
to attack you as you try to pass through his level later on.

If a lawful or neutral character sacrifices a human on a chaotic altar,
the altar will disappear and a hostile demon lord will be summoned.
Again, your god will not like this and punish you as above. If a
chaotic character sacrifices a human at a non-chaotic altar, this altar
will be turned chaotic immediately (such altars are called "cursed").

Human (or elven) sacrifices on an unaligned altar are, strangely
enough, handled exactly the same as on a chaotic altar. An altar cannot
be converted by human or elven sacrifices.

If you are polymorphed into a demon, you find the idea of sacrificing a
human or elf very satisfying. Your wisdom will be exercised, regardless
of your or the altar's alignment, and regardless of what happens next.

After the human or elven effects are accounted for, nothing else
happens. This means you can never please a god by sacrificing humans or
elves - unless you are a human sacrificing elves, or an elf sacrificing 
humans.

Sacrificing unicorns
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

If you sacrifice a unicorn corpse on an altar of the unicorn's
alignment, your wisdom goes down by one point, regardless of which god
the altar belongs to. If you sacrifice a unicorn of a different
alignment on an altar of your god, it's a very good action. Your
alignment goes up by 5.

If you sacrifice a unicorn of your alignment on another god's altar,
you are converted immediately. Again, this will not work on Moloch's
altars, since you can never become unaligned yourself. If you try
nevertheless, your god will become angry again.

After the added effects of the unicorn, the sacrifice is handled as any
other sacrifice. However, the unicorn corpse' value as a sacrifice will
be increased by 3 if your action was good, but set to one if you
converted yourself. If you sacrificed a unicorn corpse on an altar of
the same alignment, its value is decreased by 5.

Dropping items on altars
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

If you drop an item on an altar, you will receive some knowledge of the 
status of the item: a blessed item will give off an amber flash, and a 
cursed one will give off a black flash. So there *is* some use for those
altars in hell that can't be converted...


Part 4: Blessings and Curses

Blessed items tend to work better than usual, cursed items tend to 
work worse than usual - or not at all. Cursed items, when worn, also 
tend to weld themselves in place, making them immovable until the 
curse is removed. (Some items you don't need to worry about - such as, 
if your suit of armor is +5 gray dragon scale mail and you have all the 
other resistances you really don't need to worry if it gets cursed. 
Others - such as bags of holding - are literally twice as good when 
blessed, and twice as bad when cursed.)
 
The blessed or cursed status of an object can be determined by reading 
an identify scroll or - if possible - dropping the object on an altar. 
The blessed or cursed status of all objects is intrinsically known at 
all times by priests and priestesses. 

The most general method of removing curses is to read a scroll of 
remove curse or cast a spell of remove curse. A blessed scroll of this 
kind will uncurse all items in your main inventory and remove the iron 
ball and chain of punishment: an uncursed scroll will remove curses on 
any worn or wielded items, plus loadstones, and remove punishment: a 
cursed scroll will only remove punishment, not uncurse any items at all.
However, other methods also exist...

Stepping onto a magic trap with no magic resistance may act like an 
uncursed scroll of remove curse: removing the curse on all wielded and 
worn items, all carried loadstones, and getting rid of the iron ball 
and chain of punishment. This is a chance of one in twenty (if you do 
not get the original 1/30 chance of it exploding, therefore a total 
chance of 29/600 each time you step on the trap.)

Dipping an object into holy water will bless an uncursed one and 
uncurse a cursed object: dipping it into unholy water will curse an 
uncursed object and remove the blessing from a blessed one. 

If a long sword is dipped into a fountain by a Lawful character of 
level 5 or greater, there is a one in six chance that it will be 
blessed, made rustproof and named Excalibur by the Lady of the Lake. 
She will not favour non-lawful characters, whose long swords will be 
cursed and their rustproofing removed instead.

Dipping a non-cursed item into a fountain carries a one in thirty chance 
that the item will be cursed. Dipping a cursed item into a fountain 
carries a four in thirty chance that the item will become uncursed. 

Reading a blessed scroll of enchant armor or weapon will uncurse a 
cursed armor or weapon, and bless an uncursed one. A cursed scroll 
will unbless a blessed weapon and curse an uncursed one. 

If all else fails, praying to your deity may remove the curse from any 
worn cursed items which are welded to you - provided, of course, that 
you can safely pray and are not in Gehennom. (It may also remove 
punishment and loadstones.) This, however, may not necessarily work: 
you are more likely to get these problems removed if they are your 
only problems.


Part 5: Priests
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

If you chat with a priest, various things can happen.

If you - have no money
       - are coaligned and
       - have not strayed from your alignment,
you actually get one or two gold pieces (if the priest has that much). You 
will not get any money from non-coaligned priests.

Else, the priest will ask you for a contribution.

If you - are coaligned and give him nothing,
your alignment will suffer (this may not be the case for non-coaligned 
priests.)

If you give him - less than 200 times your level in gold and
                - less than half your money,
you are a "Cheapskate". Nothing happens.

If you give him - less than 200 times your level in gold but
                - more than half your money,
you are thanked, and your wisdom is excercised.

If you - give him 200 or more times your level in gold but
       - give him less than 400 times your level in gold,
you are "indeed a pious individual", and if that amount was more than
half your gold, you are coaligned, and your alignment is not below -5,
you get clairvoyance for 500-1000 turns.

If you - give him 400 or more times your level in gold but
       - give him less than 600 times your level in gold,
your "devotion has been rewarded", and you may gain a better AC. A 
starting character's intrinsic AC is 10: this can be improved to 0 
without fail, by donating over 400 times your level and gaining 1 point 
of AC each time. If you have an intrinisic (without any armor or other 
AC boost) AC of better than 0, you have only a small chance of getting 
better AC: 1 in 10 if you have an AC of exactly 0, 1 in 11 if you have 
an AC of -1, and so on until you have only a 1 in 19 chance of improving 
your AC if your intrinsic AC is already -9. You cannot improve your 
intrinsic AC beyond -10 by this means. Any and all of this protection is 
lost if you make your own god angry with you - even though you can gain protection even from non-coaligned priests. 

If you give him 600 or more times your level in gold,
and - you gave more than half your money and
    - you were coaligned and
    - you had "strayed" with your alignment,
you will be cleansed: your "selfless generosity is deeply appreciated".

If you give him 600 or more times your level in gold, and any of the above
extra conditions are not fulfilled, your alignment will be increased by
two: your "selfless generosity is deeply appreciated".

