Difference between revisions of "Glowing Guardian"

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The Glowing Guardian is a deity of justice, heroism, and an inordinate number of rules. He is undergoing a developmental change, and in the current version there is no reliable way to gain piety with him, necessitating players either convert into his religion at the very end of the game or else promptly convert out after purchasing the boons of interest. The fact that he's at all viable is testiment to just how powerful this deity is.

The Glowing Guardian is unlocked in a subdungeon to the East that will put you through several trials.


Strategy

The Glowing Guardian punishes both drinking potions and killing higher-level monsters, and the piety loss is quite substantial in both cases. Being unable to use your potions and attack higher-level monsters altogether is a huge liability for the player, so converting into and out of the Glowing Guardian's religion is not optional. The two general approaches with the Glowing Guardian are the early-worshipper and the late-worshipper.

The early worshipper joins his religion around level 3 and immediately purchases the absolution and humility boon (in that order). These boons cost a miniscule 5 piety each and are two of the most powerful boons in the game. If you leave enough 1st and 2nd level monsters alive, you'll get a huge amount of extra hit points, and because your level has been artificially lowered you'll earn extra bonus XP from future kills. However, staying with the Glowing Guardian after doing this is completely impossible since any monster you attack will cause the Glowing Guardian to punish you severely. You need to immediately convert to another religion. This usually requires desecrating an altar or requesting the "consensus" pact from the Pactmaker, though occasionally it can be achieved by converting a sufficient number of items and glyphs.

The late worshipper uses the Glowing Guardian in the last moments of the boss fighter after having used all his healing and mana potions. He converts into the Glowing Guardian's religion and requests the protection boon to allow him to get a few extra attacks on the boss. Because he is already a high-level character and has expended all his potions, he no longer needs to fear the Glowing Guardian's punishments. Because the Glowing Guardian offers no starting piety, directly worshipping him is impossible and you must convert in from another deity.

The cleansing boon is largely irrelevant. If you're already worshipping the Glowing Guardian and you need this boon, it's passable at its 5 piety cost, but not worth using a second time at the higher cost. The Enlightenment boon is so horrifically overpriced as to be completely worthless. It's only attainable by desecrating other altars, and not worth the huge amount of effort to acquire it. Either use your piety on protection, or use your piety to convert to another religion, Enlightenment is (ironically) a false path.