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Sanctuaries and boons
Beside every delve gate there is a hall that was standing long before the gate was cut: a sanctuary. It has a healing font, a counter of wares and a boon altar, and its altar gives boons: gifts that change how you play, and that last until you fall. Go deep in one life and you carry a lot of them. Fall, and every one goes out with the life.
Where they are
A sanctuary stands beside every delve gate, halfway between two towns: at 2,560, 5,120 and 7,680 rows down in the Upper Deep, and just below the seal of every band, from the Bone Gardens to the Last Dark. Its hall opens through an arch into the gate's chamber, so you come into it past the gate stone. Your minimap marks it before you have seen it, and pointing at it tells you its name: The sanctuary of the Drowned Halls, The sanctuary at 5,120 rows.
A quiet place
- Nothing in it can be dug, built or burnt, as in every place older than the Flame.
- It is lit, always.
- No Grown is born in it, and a Grown that wanders in is turned back out (one that is stuck there is set down outside, or fades away). The Grown do not hunt anyone inside, and their shots fizzle at the door.
- Nothing of the Grown or of the Deep harms you inside: the bands' hazards (the rattle, drowning, the steam and crushers, the crystals' ringing, the heat, the fade, the dark) stop at its door, as they do in a town.
- Nobody fights in it, or from it. No player's blow lands on anyone inside, and your blows do nothing to a Grown outside while you stand in it. A wand fizzles in your hand there, and a spell that flies in fizzles at the door. Step out to fight.
The healing font
Walk up to the font (or press F at it) and it heals you whole, and takes away the hazards' marks: the want of breath, the heat, the fade, the noise of your fights, poison, the chill, and (where the world has living matter) the fire on you, oil and a spark's shock.
- It heals only one who came down to it by their own way (below).
- Once a visit: a visit lasts while you are in the sanctuary, and ends a few seconds after you leave it.
- And at most once every 10 minutes, whichever font it is. When you are already whole, it keeps itself for when you are not.
The keepers' counter
Press F at the counter. It puts out four to six wares, different at every sanctuary and every day: the band's own things at the band's own gate (breath draughts and a gill charm in the Drowned Halls, cooling draughts and dawn loaves in the Hollow Sun, nightflares and starlight draughts in the Last Dark, and so on) and the things every delver runs short of (draughts, mana potions, recall scrolls, tonics, torches, ladders, a Delver's stake). Each has a few for you a day.
It is dear, and dearer the deeper you go: a quarter more at every gate down. You leave the gold in the bowl, and the gold goes to nobody you will ever meet. Nobody has seen who fills the shelves.
The boon altar
Press F at the altar. Its three lights wake for you, and each is a boon: its picture, its name, the keepers' words, what it does. Take one.
- Once a life at each depth. Each depth's altars give you one gift in a life: the three at 2,560, 5,120 and 7,680 rows and one in every band, ten in all. Another region's altar at the same depth shows you the gift you already took there.
- Only by your own way. The altar gives to one who came down to it by their own way: on your own trail (see The Delvers), and since you last travelled (a waystone, a gate, your stake, travel to your group, a lift, waking after a fall...) you came down at least 512 rows to it by walking, climbing, falling, swimming or digging. Once you have come down to an altar that way, it knows you for the rest of that life, even if you leave and come back by the gate.
- The three are the same every time you look, at any altar of that depth, until you ask for others: Show me three others costs gold (more the deeper you are, twice as much each time you ask).
- It never offers a boon you hold, and you may hold any number.
- A page of the Stillkeepers' book is carved into the wall by every font, a different one in each depth's sanctuary: read them in your boon book.
Boons last until you fall
Every boon you hold goes out with your life when you fall: you wake up in town, but the gifts were given to the one who walked down. The death says which ones you lost, and every altar will offer you a gift again in your new life. A fall that a dungeon's revive catches, a duel you yield, the arena, a guest's fall on another's land: those are not a death, and you keep your boons.
Your boon book is in your character window (I): the boons of this life, where each came from, the Stillkeepers' pages you found, and every boon the altars give. A chip in your buff row shows how many you hold.
Every boon
Immunities
| Boon | What it does |
|---|---|
| Fireproof | Burning tiles and flame jets never burn you, steam never scalds you, the Hollow Sun's heat never builds in you, and lava burns you a quarter as much. With living matter in the world, you never catch fire. |
| Breathless | Your breath never runs out under water: the Drowned Halls cannot drown you. |
| Unpoisoned | Poison never takes hold of you: venomous blows, a bad fish, and (with living matter in the world) sludge and toxic gas. |
| Grounded | You are never shocked: sparks through water and metal pass you by. (Only where the world has living matter.) |
| Blastproof | Your own blast charges (and kegs and bombs) never hurt you. They burst for everyone else as ever. |
| Well-drawn | The fade never takes you in the Wane's Root, and an unmade patch cannot unmake you. |
| Soft-footed | Your fights wake no bone heaps in the Bone Gardens, and the crystals of the Cathedrals do not hear them. |
Strength
| Boon | What it does |
|---|---|
| Hardy | +25% life. |
| Swift | +12% speed. |
| Deep well | +50% mana, and the mana of your wands. |
| Quick hands | Your wands cast and recharge a quarter faster. (Only where the world has spellcraft.) |
| Stonebreaker | +40% digging speed. |
| Hawk-eyed | +10% chance of a critical blow. |
| Stoneskin | The Grown's blows and shots hurt you 20% less. |
| Mending | Your life comes back three times as fast once nothing has hurt you for 5 seconds. |
Oddities
| Boon | What it does |
|---|---|
| Glass cannon | Your blows do double damage, and you have half your life. |
| Vampire | Each Grown you kill gives back 5% of your life (a great one 30%, a swarm's small one 1%). |
| Second wind | Once: when you fall, you rise again where you fell, with half your life, and the boon is spent. What clung to you (fire, poison, oil, the hazards' marks) is gone, and if you fell in acid, lava or fire you get up just out of it. Not against another player's blow. |
| Corpse burst | The Grown you kill burst: the Grown within 2.5 tiles take half the dead one's life (at most 60% of their own, and 3% of a great one's). One a burst kills bursts too, six bursts in a chain at most. A burst never hurts a player. |
| Embered blows | Your blows set the Grown alight: they burn for 3 seconds, a tenth of the blow every second. Water puts it out, and the Grown of fire never burn. |
| Gold rush | +40% gold from the Grown you kill. |
| Lucky find | One Grown in five you kill drops something more (never a swarm's small ones). |
| Feather fall | Falls never hurt you. |
| Repulsion | The Grown's shots that come within 3 tiles of you turn aside. |
| Thorns | The Grown that hurt you take half of it back. |
| Springheel | One more jump in the air. |
| Unwearing | Your gear does not wear. |
| Long arms | What falls comes to you from two and a half times as far. |
| Lantern-eyed | Your own light carries much further. |
| Bloodlust | Each kill within 4 seconds of the last adds 6% damage on the Grown, up to 30%, until 4 seconds pass without one. |
| Unmoved | Blows never knock you back. |
| Wandwright's hands | You may change the spells in your wands anywhere. (Only where the world has spellcraft.) |
| Stormskin | The Grown that strike you are shocked: they take back a quarter of their blow (half of it when they are wet) and are slowed a moment. (Only where the world has living matter.) |
Boons between players
A boon's numbers are set aside between players: a Glass cannon's blow on another player is no harder than it would be without it, and Hardy's or Glass cannon's life is no more and no less to cut through (a blow takes the share of your life it would take without them). The boons that work on the Grown (Vampire, Corpse burst, Embered blows, Thorns, Repulsion, Stoneskin, Bloodlust, Gold rush, Lucky find) only ever work on the Grown. Second wind never lifts you from another player's blow. The rest (the immunities, Swift, Springheel, Feather fall, the light, the mana, the digging) work as they always do.
Titles
- the Pilgrim: take the gift of five altars in one life.
- the Unbroken: take the gift of all ten altars in one life, from the Upper Deep to the Last Dark.