Draft:Mendicant priest

Omega 0.90.4

@ Mendicant priest
Form	Ordinary creature
Attacks	No ordinary attacks; 1 defense
Special abilities	Depth-based alms; alignment and conditional healing; retaliatory curse
Base level	0
HP	30
Hit	0
Defense	0
Action interval	5 ticks; lower is faster
Kill experience	15, on normal death in sight
Generation	Generation and encounters
Carried items	No fixed item; 0–1 random possessions
Immunities	None innate
Remains	Dead mendicant priest; 50% on normal death
Remains use	Cannibalism; no alchemy
Traits Initially peaceful and needy follows the player
Reference	minit.h in Omega 0.90.4, line 8

A mendicant priest is a peaceful wandering petitioner who asks for treasure. Satisfying the request can improve alignment and heal a sufficiently lawful player, while attacking the priest risks a curse.

Generation

Mendicant priests can appear in ordinary random pools and at random main-temple sites. They follow the player, begin needy and peaceful, and carry zero or one random possession. They have no innate immunities or ordinary attacks, and one defensive action.

Giving alms

The priest accepts a single noncursed item or a cash gift. Each accepted gift adds one alignment point. To satisfy the request, that particular gift must be worth at least the square of the current dungeon depth; gifts do not accumulate toward the threshold. For example, depth 3 requires value 9, while depth 10 requires 100. This is the needy-creature rule, distinct from a greedy monster's level-based price.

Once satisfied, a subsequent nearby special action adds five more alignment points. If alignment is then greater than 20, current HP is raised to at least maximum HP. The priest vanishes after this response, without normal death experience or drops. At depth zero the value threshold is zero, and the cash-gift input accepts zero Au.

Once the player has initiated a melee attack against the priest, each special action first has a one-in-three chance to inflict ten unstoppable damage and vanish. This curse check takes priority over the satisfied-petitioner reward. Giving alms after that aggression therefore does not guarantee the favorable outcome; unrelated damage alone does not set this particular melee-aggression marker.

Remains and strategy

Normal death has a 50% chance to leave a corpse. Eating it lowers alignment by ten and adds eight food; a previously lawful player first has food set to 25, ending at 33. Ordinary overeating can still matter for other starting alignments. The corpse has no alchemical use.

Alms can provide a modest lawful-alignment gain and conditional healing without combat. Check the current depth before choosing a gift, since a cheap offering that works on a shallow level may fail deeper down. Avoid attacking first if the healing response is the goal.