Minion

A minion is a monster serving some god:

• an A for lawful gods
• an elemental for neutral gods
• an & for chaotic gods and the unaligned Moloch

A minion only appears in certain situations, most of which involve you and an altar. The source code in minion.c controls the generation of minions.

A hostile minion can appear in these situations:

• If you try to convert an altar (regardless if you succeed) and your experience level is at least 7 and also your alignment record close to its maximum, then there is a chance that "The voice of (altar's god before conversion) booms: "Thou shalt pay for thy indescretion!"" and a minion appears.
• If the god is annoyed with you (easiest to cause by using #pray too much or with the wrong god), then one of the possible responses is "Thou durst scorn (or call upon) me? Then, die mortal (or creature)!" at which point the god summons one minion against you. The god must be very angry to do this, and this is just short of the most severe penalty of lightning and disintegration.
• At and only at the sanctum or Astral Plane, if the god is so angry as to zap you with lightning, then hit you with the wide-angle disintegration beam, and yet you still live (and are not still swallowed by some monster), then the god will summon three minions against you. One way to trigger this is to attempt to convert a high altar.

The tame guardian angel you can get on the Astral Plane counts as a minion.

SLASH'EM

A user has suggested improving this page or section as follows:

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In SLASH'EM, your god may give you minions as servants, from prayer, if you are lawful, or sacrifice, for any alignment. Lawfuls may receive angelic beings or tengu, neutrals may get elementals or djinn, chaotics may get major or minor demons, and any player may receive a unicorn of his or her alignment. These behave much like pets, except that they do not eat your precious corpses, and cannot pick up items, although they will use any in their initial inventory. As minions, they cannot be re-tamed should they go feral.

Receiving minions does not increase prayer timeout or reduce the odds of getting artifact gifts. High level lawfuls may receive a minion with a guaranteed artifact weapon, which will count only as a generated artifact, not a gifted one. Below is a list of possible minions for each alignment at a given level:

Lawful

The minion you receive is a function of your level and the RNG. The following are the probabilities of obtaining each type of minion at each experience level:

Experience level	Tengu	Couatl	White unicorn	Movanic deva	Monadic deva	Ki-rin	Astral deva	Archon	Planetar	Solar
1	80%	20%	nil	nil	nil	nil	nil	nil	nil	nil
2	60%	40%	nil	nil	nil	nil	nil	nil	nil	nil
3	40%	60%	nil	nil	nil	nil	nil	nil	nil	nil
4	20%	60%	20%	nil	nil	nil	nil	nil	nil	nil
5	nil	60%	40%	nil	nil	nil	nil	nil	nil	nil
6	nil	40%	60%	nil	nil	nil	nil	nil	nil	nil
7	nil	20%	60%	20%	nil	nil	nil	nil	nil	nil
8	nil	nil	60%	40%	nil	nil	nil	nil	nil	nil
9	nil	nil	40%	60%	nil	nil	nil	nil	nil	nil
10	nil	nil	20%	60%	20%	nil	nil	nil	nil	nil
11	nil	nil	nil	60%	40%	nil	nil	nil	nil	nil
12	nil	nil	nil	40%	60%	nil	nil	nil	nil	nil
13	nil	nil	nil	20%	60%	20%	nil	nil	nil	nil
14	nil	nil	nil	nil	60%	40%	nil	nil	nil	nil
15	nil	nil	nil	nil	40%	60%	nil	nil	nil	nil
16	nil	nil	nil	nil	20%	60%	20%	nil	nil	nil
17	nil	nil	nil	nil	nil	60%	40%	nil	nil	nil
18	nil	nil	nil	nil	nil	40%	60%	nil	nil	nil
19	nil	nil	nil	nil	nil	20%	60%	20%	nil	nil
20	nil	nil	nil	nil	nil	nil	60%	40%	nil	nil
21	nil	nil	nil	nil	nil	nil	40%	60%	nil	nil
22	nil	nil	nil	nil	nil	nil	20%	60%	20%	nil
23	nil	nil	nil	nil	nil	nil	nil	60%	40%	nil
24	nil	nil	nil	nil	nil	nil	nil	40%	60%l	nil
25	nil	nil	nil	nil	nil	nil	nil	20%	60%	20%
26	nil	nil	nil	nil	nil	nil	nil	nil	60%	40%
27	nil	nil	nil	nil	nil	nil	nil	nil	40%	60%
28	nil	nil	nil	nil	nil	nil	nil	nil	20%	80%
29-30	nil	nil	nil	nil	nil	nil	nil	nil	nil	100%

Note than minions cannot be ridden, won't wear or use magic items, and won't pick up or equip weapons or armor they are not generated with.

Neutral

The following are the probabilities of each type of minion by experience level:

Experience level	Gray unicorn	Random elemental	Djinni
1-2	100%	nil	nil
3	89%	11%	nil
4	78%	22%	nil
5	67%	33%	nil
6	56%	44%	nil
7	44%	56%	nil
8	33%	67%	nil
9	22%	78%	nil
10	11%	89%	nil
11	nil	89%	11%
12	78%	78%	22%
13	78%	67%	33%
14	78%	56%	44%
15	78%	44%	56%
16	78%	33%	67%
17	nil	22%	78%
18	nil	11%	89%
19-30	nil	nil	100%

A Djinni will not grant a wish, but will increase the djinni count,^{[citation needed]} lowering the chance of a djinni appearing from a smoky potion. Djinn are capable of using weapons but are not created with weapons,^{[citation needed]} and cannot pick up weapons themselves.

Chaotic

A chaotic minion will be chosen according to the probabilities given below:

Experience level	Minions and probability
0	Gremlin (60%) or random i* (40%)
1	Gremlin (40%) or random i* (60%)
2	Gremlin (20%), random i* (60%), or black unicorn (20%)
4	random i* (60%), black unicorn (20%) or blood imp (20%)
5	random i* (40%), black unicorn (20%), or blood imp (40%)
6	random i* (20%), black unicorn (20%), blood imp (40%), or spined devil (20%)
7	black unicorn (20%), blood imp (40%), spined devil (20%), or shadow wolf (20%)
8	blood imp (40%), spined devil (20%), or shadow wolf (40%)
9	blood imp (20%), spined devil (20%), or shadow wolf (40%), hell hound (20%)
10	spined devil (20%), shadow wolf (40%), hell hound (20%), or horned devil (20%)
11	shadow wolf (40%), hell hound (20%), or horned devil (40%)
12	shadow wolf (20%), hell hound (20%), horned devil (40%), or bearded devil (20%)
13	hell hound (20%), horned devil (40%), bearded devil (20%), or bar-igura (20%)
14	horned devil (40%), bearded devil (20%), or bar-igura (40%)
15	horned devil (20%), bearded devil (20%), bar-igura (40%), or chasme (20%)
16	bearded devil (20%), bar-igura (40%), chasme (20%), or barbed devil (20%)
17	bar-igura (40%), chasme (20%), or barbed devil (40%)
18	bar-igura (20%), chasme (20%), barbed devil (40%), or vrock (20%)
19	chasme (20%), barbed devil (40%), vrock (20%), or babau (20%)
20	barbed devil (40%), vrock (20%), or babau (40%)
21	barbed devil (20%), vrock (20%), babau (40%), or nalfeshnee (20%)
22	vrock (20%), babau (40%), nalfeshnee (20%), or marilith (20%)
23	babau (40%), nalfeshnee (20%), or marilith (40%)
24	babau (20%), nalfeshnee (20%), marilith (40%), or nabassu (20%)
25	nalfeshnee (20%), marilith (40%), nabassu (20%), or bone devil (20%)
26	marilith (40%), nabassu (20%), or bone devil (40%)
27	marilith (20%), nabassu (20%), bone devil (40%), or ice devil (20%)
28	nabassu (20%), bone devil (40%), ice devil (20%), or pit fiend (20%)
29	bone devil (40%), ice devil (20%), or pit fiend (40%)
30	bone devil (20%), ice devil (20%), or pit fiend (60%)

Note: random i gives an equal probability of: Dretch, Imp, Lemure, Quasit, rutterkin

Most of the demons can be obtained through demon gating instead. The only advantage to having a minion is that it will not turn traitor, as almost all of the chaotic minions could potentially do (especially as most are inediate). They're available sooner this way; a pet marilith can be obtained by a doppelganger by level 7 using demon gating and #youpoly. It'll also be able to pick up and wield weapons. Most of the chaotic minions are not useful by the time you are high enough level to obtain them as a gift.

Lawfuls clearly have an overwhelming advantage in terms of minions, as they have much easier access to minions (through prayer) and gain significantly stronger minions. A level 1 lawful character can deliberately wound himself by throwing a weapon up, praying after turn 300, and have a 13% chance of getting a tame couatl - a monster with a poisonous bite and +1 enchantment resistance. At level 11 there is a 100% chance of getting a Deva, with a 1 in 4 chance of carrying a shield of reflection (The Deva can be easily killed by bringing it near the Oracle. Movanic devas are nearly useless against fire resistant enemies, so killing them for the shield may be the best use for them if you don't have reflection.) Playing as a lawful is thus surprisingly useful for a potential pacifist game, as you have easy access to tame tengu (which are about as damaging as dogs) and possibly a couatl. By the time you encounter gypsies, you may use the Lovers card to get a large number of foocubi to gain levels, which is good as the prayer reward of hitting level 29 (66% chance of receiving a Solar if below 1/7 hp) is extremely useful for clearing out hostiles - just raise hp past 700 through alchemy (being level 29/30 will certainly help) and dance with a minotaur. A minotaur does up to 76 damage per turn, so it should always be safe to drop below 100.

References

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