ELF Invocation

From LSWiki

The power of the ELF is derived from the invocation of various gods who are, in one way or another, associated with the forces of chaos. As the favor of Eris is with ELF members, these entities will often provide beneficial effects when invoked, rather than simply devouring your soul as they would normally. Feeding them a bit of spiritual energy helps out, as well.

The list of beings which you may invoke is in the help file 'chaos gods'. Sometimes various bits of information on them are available; sometimes you have to figure it out yourself.

The basic command to invoke an entity is 'invoke <name>'. If you wish to sacrifice an item to the being -- an activity that often has definite positive effects on one's lifespan -- the command is 'offer <item> to <name>'.

In order to be able to call on a given deity at all, you first must have the requisite knowledge of the deity and his, her, or its proper invocation. This is always the case if you worship a particular deity, and often having been in the deity's presence is sufficient; otherwise, it usually depends on some combination of your skills in theology, elder lore, and arcane lore, and usually another skill or two significant to the deity, depending on the particular nature of the being. A deity will not be shown in your help files until you know how to invoke hir.

Your effectiveness at invocation depends on a number of basic factors. Perhaps the most important is simple time: the more time has passed since you last invoked a being, the more amenable to your requests it will be, and invoking someone with great frequency is often a good way to convince a supernatural power that your spiritual essence would make a tasty appetizer. Willpower and charisma are essential to the activity; being lucky will help you out, but is far from dependable. There are four magickal skills relevant to your task: conjuring, the techniques of creating and translocating objects and energies; invocation, the skill of correctly contacting and appeasing entities of power; symbology, knowledge of the subtleties of magickal metaphor, association, and sympathetic reaction; and xotimancy, the skill of working magick using chaos energies. Training in these, by the way, can be acquired from Malaclypse the Younger. Relatively minor aids to your power as an invoker are the inherent power of the language you use, how pleasing said language is to the deity being invoked, and the number of divine beings which you have been in the presence of. You can select the language you invoke in for a particular invocation with the usual syntax, e.g. 'invoke <name> in <language>', or you can set your preferred language or languages more permanently; see 'help set invocation language' for more information.

It is also important to note that invocation is an activity that requires constant expenditures of spiritual energy to keep the beings in question happy; if your mana reserves fall too far, you are in severe danger if you attempt to perform an invocation. Generally, the more hostile an entity the more energy it will require, though the best way of gauging the amounts required is to carefully experiment while one has strong reserves.