Difference between revisions of "Alpha:Dracul"

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Dracul, god of the Undead, is one of the gods available for worshipping in Desktop Dungeon. Dracul may be worshipped by locating his altar in a dungeon (if it appears).

Initial Worship

If an altar of Dracul is found in the dungeon, and the hero is not yet worshipping any other god, it is possible to pray to Dracul.

Immediate effect

When first worshiping Dracul, several effects occur:

• The hero's level is increased by 1, without gaining the usual permanent bonuses for this level-up.
  • This increase occurs regardless of your hero's current level, unless he is already at level 10.
  • No standard stat bonuses are applied when this occurs. That means, your Maximum Health, Attack Strength, or any item-given bonuses related to level-ups will not be acquired. Also, your Health and Mana will not be restored as normal. Earned experience won't decrease.
  • You do gain some of the advantages of leveling up, however. Your health regeneration does increase to match your new level, and the effect of level-dependent glyphs (BURNDAYRAZ and HALPMEH) does increase as well.
• The HALPMEH Glyph is destroyed.
  • This occurs only when the player is holding HALPMEH. If the player picks up the glyph after worshiping, it will be immediately destroyed. If you wish to convert it, you must do so before worship or directly from the ground.
• Dracul will grant you an amount of Piety points equal to the number of blood-stains currently visible in the dungeon.
  • This includes blood-stains from each monster you have killed. Some characters like the Bloodmage may suck up bloodstains during their exploration, and if so those bloodstains are not included in the effect.

Conversion

Followers of Dracul cannot convert their religion to any other god. Followers of other gods cannot convert their religion to Dracul.

The only method to switch to or from Dracul is to first renounce your religion by help of an item.

Religion

Dracul is the god of the Undead. As such, he is the protector of all Undead monsters. He yearns for the blood of the living, and will reward slaying them.

The following actions will only change your Piety while worshiping Dracul. If you have not yet converted to Dracul, or have renounced your religion, you may perform these actions without triggering the listed effects.

Gaining Piety

Dracul will increase your Piety for performing the following actions:

• Kill a living creature: +3 Piety.
  • The only way to appease Dracul other than the initial piety gain is to kill "Living" creatures. This refers to any creature that does not have the Special Ability "Undead".
  • The level of the creature slain or the method in which it was slain do not influence the number of piety points you gain.

Losing Piety

Dracul will decrease your Piety for performing the following actions:

• Kill an Undead creature: -5 Piety.
  • Dracul is the god of Undead creatures. As such, any Undead creature killed while worshiping Dracul will cause a drop of 5 Piety points. Undead creatures are marked by the word "Undead" in their special ability text.
  • The level of the Undead slain or the method in which it was slain do not affect the number of piety points you lose.

Retribution

If killing an Undead creature causes your Piety to drop below 0, Dracul will kill you immediately. There is no way to avoid this death.

Boons

Dracul has 5 boons to offer to his worshipers at the cost of Piety. Acquiring each boon comes with an extra cost of 5 points from your Maximum Health.

Bloodpower

• Increases Maximum Mana by 5 points.
• Reduces Maximum Health by 5 points.
• Costs 10 Piety.
  • On acquiring this boon, your hero will receive 5 extra points to his Maximum Mana, and lose 5 points from his Maximum Health.
  • Mana is not replenished at all during this upgrade. You will need to fill these 5 extra points yourself by whichever means available.
  • If your Current Health is above your new Maximum Health, it will be lowered to this level instantly.

Bloodfury

• Increases Attack Strength by +20%.
• Reduces Maximum Health by 5 points.
• Costs 20 Piety.
  • On acquiring this boon, your hero receives a bonus of +20% to his Attack Strength. This adds up with all previous percentage bonuses to Attack Strength such as those acquired from the Attack Bonuses found lying around the dungeon. This effectively increases the damage caused by your Melee Attack by 20% of its base value, although this isn't always the case depending on circumstances or other effects.
  • Note that only Melee damage is increased, not damage from other sources such as BURNDAYRAZ.
  • If your Current Health is above your new Maximum Health, it will be lowered to this level instantly.

Bloodshield

• Increases Physical and Magic Resistance by +20% each.
• Reduces Maximum Health by 5 points.
• Costs 25 Piety.
  • On acquiring this boon, both your hero's Physical and Magic resistance will go up by +20%. This bonus is cumulative with any existing Resistance your character may have at the time. For example, if your character has 50% Physical Resistance, they will now have 70% Physical Resistance. If your character had negative resistance, for instance -20%, it will be increased appropriately (to 0% in this example).
  • This effectively reduces the attack damage done by any monster by 20% of its original quantity (alongside any other damage-reducing effects your character may have).
  • If your Current Health is above your new Maximum Health, it will be lowered to this level instantly.

Bloodhunger

• Grants you +20% Life steal ability.
• Reduces Maximum Health by 5 points.
• Costs 30 Piety.
  • After acquiring this boon, your life steal ability will increase by +20%. This bonus is cumulative, so if your character already had life steal from any source, it is increased by 20%. For example, if your character had 20% life steal, they will now have 40% life steal.
  • Life steal causes some of a monster's health to transfer to your Health pool after each Melee Attack you perform. The amount of health transferred this way is equal to the ability's percentage out of the total amount of damage you cause with your attack, including temporary benefits like BYSSEPS. Note that you will still need to survive the monster's attack in order to make good on this siphoned health. Attacks that (without life steal) would bring you to 0 Health or below would still kill you with this ability.
  • Life steal works normally on undead.
  • Research info required: does killing monsters with little health left alters the stolen amount?
  • If your Current Health is above your new Maximum Health, it will be lowered to this level instantly.

Bloodswell

• Restores your Health to its maximum.
• Reduces Maximum Health by 5 points.
• Costs 40 Piety.
  • Upon acquiring this boon, your health will be restored to Maximum.
  • Note that your Maximum Health is then reduced by 5 points, and your Current Health will immediately drop 5 points along with it. Therefore, you will still have full health after this boon, but now the "full" amount is 5 points less than what you had before.
  • Your mana will NOT be restored or altered in any way as a result of taking this boon.
  • Research info required: Does this healing cure poison?

NOTE: If acquiring a boon will reduce your max health to 0 or less, you will immediately die.

Strategy

• Worshipping Dracul in the very early game is almost always a mistake. The level-up effect on worship is extremely painful for a low-level character, both increasing the experience required to level up significantly and reducing your ability to get bonus experience for killing higher level enemies. On the other hand, if you've already reached the highest level you're going to get to (8-10, usually, depending on the game), this effect is all upside (better BURNDAYRAZ; better health regeneration).
• Dracul is decent late-game choice for a heavy caster relying on BURNDAYRAZ. Convert in the final stages of the game, get Bloodpower, and enjoy a more-damaging spell and enough mana to cast it more often. His other boons are worthless if you're not engaging in melee though.
• Remember, after conversion each death nets 3 piety instead of 1 that blood pools grant on conversion. The exception for this is undead, so if you kill all the undead enemies before following Dracul, but leave the non-undead ones alone, you can get the maximum possible amount of piety from him.
• Dracul is most useful when there are very few undead around (ideally none); this makes him a particular useful god in the Snake Pit, Library, and Factory special dungeons (and obviously very impractical in the Crypt). If available, use IMAWAL on undead, so you can get some extra score, assuming you can't kill them before worshipping Dracul.
• If you don't plan on using BURNDAYRAZ a lot, consider skipping the Bloodpower boon.
• Bloodshield effectively cancels the handicap of having lower hitpoint maximum. If you have any other source of resistance, it will improve your durability by a lot.
• Monks get a lot of advantage out of the Bloodshield boon.
• Bloodshield + Bloodhunger make the character an effective tank. This is especially useful against bosses like Super Meat Man and The Iron Man. It will help against Jormungandr and Frank the zombie as well.

Specific Races

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