Minion
Overview
A minion is a monster serving some god:
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 when:
- 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[1][2].
- 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[3].
- 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[4]. One way to trigger this is to attempt to convert a high altar[5].
The tame guardian angel you can get on the Astral Plane counts as a minion.
SLASH'EM
In SLASH'EM, your god may give you minions as servants, from prayer, if you are lawful,[6] 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 or 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 lookup number is your level plus a random number between -4 and +4. Again, it is capped between 0 and 30.
| Lookup number | Levels available | Minion |
|---|---|---|
| 0-6 | 1-10 | Gray unicorn |
| 7-14 | 3-20 | A random elemental; equal probability of Air elemental Fire elemental Earth elemental Water elemental |
| 15+ | 11-30 | Djinni |
A Djinni will not grant a wish, but will (should; haven't absolutely verified) increase the djinni count, lowering the chance of a djinni appearing from a smoky potion. Djinni are capable of using weapons but are not created with weapons (again, haven't strictly verified), and cannot pick up weapons themselves.
Chaotic
The lookup number is your level plus a random number between -2 and +2. This is capped at 0-30 and multiplied by 2/3 (rounding down).
| Lookup number | Levels available | Minion |
|---|---|---|
| 0 | 1-3 | Gremlin |
| 1-2 | 1-6 | Equal probability of: Dretch Imp Lemure Quasit rutterkin |
| 3 | 3-7 | Black unicorn |
| 4 | 4-9 | Blood imp |
| 5 | 6-10 | Spined devil |
| 6 | 7-12 | Shadow wolf |
| 7 | 9-13 | Hell hound |
| 8 | 10-15 | Horned devil |
| 9 | 12-16 | Bearded devil |
| 10 | 13-18 | Bar-lgura |
| 11 | 15-19 | Chasme |
| 12 | 17-21 | Barbed Devil |
| 13 | 18-22 | Vrock |
| 14 | 19-24 | Babau |
| 15 | 21-25 | Nalfeshnee |
| 16 | 22-27 | Marilith |
| 17 | 24-28 | Nabassu |
| 18 | 25-30 | Bone devil |
| 19 | 27-30 | Ice devil |
| 20 | 28-30 | Pit fiend |
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 must 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 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 character can deliberately wound themself 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 near useless against fire resistant enemies, so I personally consider killing them for the shield the most use you can get from them). 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. The Lovers card from a gypsy can be useful 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
- This page is a stub. Should you wish to do so, you can contribute by expanding this page.
A user has suggested improving this page or section as follows:
"A grep -n minion src/*.c shows that there is much more to know about minions."
