Anyone have this guy's Guide to Luck? Feel free to send me any further suggestions for "guides". --Robert DeLoura deloura@noaapmel.gov -------- An Adventurer's Guide to Alignment by Robert DeLoura deloura@noaapmel.gov This guide covers how to get it, not how it affects you. No warrantees are expressed or implied. :-) [Caveat Hacker] Here's a chart that shows what terms are used to describe each 'level' of alignment: Alignment Description ------------------------------------- > 19 piously aligned (needed for Quest) > 13 devoutly aligned > 8 fervently aligned > 3 stridently aligned = 3 aligned > 0 haltingly aligned = 0 nominally aligned > -4 strayed > -9 sinned <= -9 transgressed Of course, the game doesn't usually give you this information unless you find a potion of enlightenment. They seem to be fairly uncommon (I just had a character ascend, who never once found a potion of enlightenment.), but there is another way of determining your alignment, though it's a bit less specific. (It's described in the RELIGION section, so read onwards....) /* A stethascope a)pplied at '.' will tell alignement information. A result of "insuffeciently XXX", means one is strayed or lower. DD */ The game keeps track of a variable called MAXALIGN, which starts at a value of 5, and goes up by one for every 200 moves you make. This is the highest (and, I believe, the lowest) that your alignment can go. Thus, transgressing at an early point in your game is fairly easy to fix, but transgressing late in your game can be almost hopeless to atone for. FIGHTING -------- Attacking/Killing things is the most common way of changing your alignment. Good general advice would be, "Don't attack peaceful or tame monsters. Also, don't aggravate them to the point that they decide to attack *you*." Killing a monster will modify your alignment in a fairly complicated way that depends on the precise stats of the monster in question. Rather than try to work out a list for all possible monsters, here are some good general guidelines. (I believe 'Quest Guardians' are the peaceful '@' monsters on the 'Home 1' level that will talk to you if you #chat to them. The Quest Leader and Quest Enemy should be obvious.) Align Mod Action -------------------------------------------------------------- becomes -MAXALIGN/2 Killing your Quest Leader. (very very bad) -MAXALIGN/8 Killing a Quest Guardian. (just very bad) -15 Killing any tame creature. -5 Killing any peaceful creature. -2 Killing a co-aligned priest. +2 Killing a non-co-aligned priest. +MAXALIGN/4 Killing a priest of Moloch. (very good) +MAXALIGN/4 Killing your Quest Enemy. (very good) Generally, killing non-peaceful and non-tame monsters will improve your alignment. A Knight who attacks an immobile, sleeping, or fleeing monster has his alignment reduced by 1. A Samurai who attacks a peaceful monster takes an additional -1 penalty. RELIGION -------- #Praying, #offering, and #chatting with aligned priests (and then donating money to their cause) can also modify your alignment. If you #pray and are told how your god feels about you, this is what it means: Reaction Your Alignment is... ------------------------------------------- well-pleased devout or higher pleased strident or higher satisfied at least nominally aligned angry strayed or lower Praying on a co-aligned altar gives you +1 if you have less than 2. Praying on a non-co-aligned altar gives you a -1. If you change alignment by sacrificing your color of unicorn on an altar of the alignment you want to change to, your alignment seems to get set to -1. (white=lawful, grey=neutral, black=chaotic) If you *try* to change alignment via sacrifice on an enemy altar, but fail, -5 to your alignment. Sacrificing on a co-aligned altar will improve your alignment, depending on the quality of the creature you sacrifice. If you sacrifice a non-co-aligned unicorn on a co-aligned altar, "You feel appropriately lawful/neutral/chaotic" and gain +5 alignment if you aren't already at MAXALIGN. If you're already at maximum, "You feel you are thoroughly on the right path." Human sacrifice is +5 to alignment if you are Chaotic, and -5 to alignment if you are not. Offering an identified 'cheap plastic imitation of the Amulet of Yendor' in the Endgame will lower your alignment by -1. (big deal) Offering the real Amulet of Yendor to your own deity in the Endgame gives you +10 to your alignment. (again, big deal.) Offering the real Amulet of Yendor to the WRONG deity in the Endgame gives you -99 to your alignment. (Ow, but again, big deal. Your game is already over.) Chatting with a co-aligned priest and then failing to give them a donation will result in -1 to your alignment. (No penalty if not co-aligned.) * If you donate less than (200*YourLevel), your alignment does not change. * If you donate at least (200*YourLevel), but less than (400*YourLevel), and are carrying less than twice the amount you donate, then if you are co-aligned, your alignment increases by one IF it is already less than -5. * If you donate at least (400*YourLevel), but less than (600*YourLevel), there is no change to your alignment. * If you donate at least (600*YourLevel), and are co-aligned with the priest, then your alignment becomes 0 if it was negative (and it has been at least 5000 time units since the last time you received this particular boon), otherwise it just increases your alignment by +2. GENERAL ------- Irritating a co-aligned priest to the point where it attacks you (or you attack it) costs you -5 to alignment. If you do this to a non-co-aligned priest, you gain +2 to your alignment. Doing it to any other creature that would not normally have attacked you costs you -1 to alignment. Sleeping with a succubus or incubus is +1 to alignment if you're Chaotic. Choking on your food is -1 to alignment if you're a Lawful Knight (big deal, if you choke on your food you're likely to be dead.) Forcing your pet onto a trapped space by displacing him gives you the "You'll pay!" message and costs you -5 alignment. If the pet *dies*, it costs you -15 alignment. Genociding any humanoid creature is -1 for Lawfuls, +1 for Chaotics. Genociding any demonoid creature is +1 for Lawfuls, -1 for Chaotics. Stealing from a shop when you aren't a Rogue is -1 if you're Lawful, +1 if you're Chaotic. Pacifying an angry shopkeeper by paying him for his losses is +1 if you're Lawful, and -1 if you're Chaotic. No modifiers for Rogues. If you're a Knight and dig while inside a shop, -1 if Lawful, +1 if Chaotic. If you refuse to pay for damage to a shop, -1 if Lawful and +1 if Chaotic. MISCELLANEOUS INFO ------------------ The worse your alignment is, the less likely it is that an enemy god will be angry if you pray on his altar. If you have no current troubles and are devoutly aligned or better, your god will usually do you a gratuitous favor. You must be piously aligned to become the Hand of Elbereth, Envoy of Balance, or be asked to steal souls for Arioch. (lawful/neutral/chaotic) If you are at least stridently aligned, you'll receive a pet Guardian Angel when you reach the Astral Plane. If your alignment is worse than -5, co-aligned shrines will give you a "forbidding feeling" (shrines are altars that have a priest). If you chat with a priest that you are co-aligned with, and you have strayed (or worse), he won't want anything to do with you, and might attack you. If you have strayed, co-aligned artifacts won't like you (you'll get the 'blast of power' and take damage when you pick them up). Minions of your god are hostile if you have strayed. Co-aligned monsters will be hostile if you have strayed sufficiently far. -- -Dan DuBois dmd39855@uxa.cso.uiuc.edu "Gravity is a myth. The Earth sucks"