Girsh Nephilim

Spoiler Warning: This article contains information normally only found in the course of advancing the main quest line.

The Girsh Nephilim are creatures of the 7th plague of the Gyre. There are seven known Nephilim:

• Girsh Agolgot
• Girsh Bethsaida
• Girsh Qas
• Girsh Qon
• Girsh Rermadon
• Girsh Shug'ruith the Burrower
• Starformed Ehalcodon

Lore

Towards the end of What's Eating the Watervine?, Elder Irudad describes the Girsh Nephilim as follows:

... [The Girsh Nephilim] were terrible demons who ate the young of kith and kin. Resheph slew them, but now that girshlings are back, we don't know what to make of the Nephilim.

The Nephilim are also mentioned in the history of Resheph:

In 1 BR, the Gyre widened, and the final plague afflicted the land. The Girsh Nephilim rose from their cradles on the Moon Stair and slouched toward Qud to eat its young. Resheph rose to meet them in battle and cast them back.

Nephilim mechanics

Nephilim lairs

Lair Locations

Each of the Nephilim (with one exception, elaborated upon below) resides within a lair that is placed somewhere in Qud during worldgen (mostly referred to throughout the game as the Nephilims' "cradles"). These lairs are distributed as follows:

• Girsh Agolgot's cradle is beneath Golgotha, somewhere between strata 30 and 35. It can be reached by following the pits starting in The Cloaca.
• Girsh Bethsaida's cradle is beneath Bethesda Susa, somewhere between strata 30 and 35. It can be reached by following the pits starting in the Temple of the Rock.
• The chuppah of Girsh Qas and Girsh Qon is located near the surface, in a random zone of the Moon Stair.
• Girsh Rermadon's cradle is located near the surface in a random zone of the Palladium Reef.
• Girsh Shug'ruith the Burrower's cradle can be located in any zone of the map that does not already include a static encounter. To find Shug'ruith's cradle, the player must first find "the mouth of Shug'ruith" on the surface. They must then descend and follow layers of resin extruded by Shug'ruith to Shug'ruith's cradle.

Of these lairs, the chuppah of Qas and Qon and the cradle of Shug'ruith are the most difficult to find; the player is unlikely to encounter them by traversing the overworld or by exploring random zones. The easiest way to discover the location of these lairs is to trade secrets with legendary Gyre wights, who can be found randomly or whose lairs can be found through the consumption of brain brine by the player or by a dominated follower. Factions that trade Moon Stair secrets, such as Chavvah, can also be helpful in finding the chuppah of Qas and Qon. Alternatively, one can pick up the Trash Divining skill and/or become infected with mumble mouth and hope to reveal the location of these lairs.

Uniquely, Starformed Ehalcodon does not possess a lair; instead, qe descends during the quest Reclamation if every other Nephilim was killed or pacified beforehand.

Lair Generation

Each Nephilim's lair is considered a "holy place" to the Girsh. The first time a player enters the lair, they are awarded 4000 XP for discovery. The depth of these lairs varies; Rermadon's cradle and the chuppah of Qas and Qon are always 10 strata deep, whereas Agolgot and Bethsaida's cradles are 2-3 strata deep. The mouth of Shug'ruith descends 30-35 strata, and then the cradle of Shug'ruith is 2-3 strata deep itself.

Physical Objects

All lairs have a moderate chance to spawn shrines to the associated Girsh Nephilim. These shrines come with a patch of crystal flowers, a torch sconce, a clay pitcher with 0-6 (Avg: 3)1d7-1 drams of cider inside, a chest with zone tier appropriate loot, and a statue of the Girsh Nephilim.

Girsh Agolgot's cradle is filled with many pools of green goo, brown sludge, and black ooze, which mirrors the environment of Golgotha above it. Girsh Bethsaida's cradle also mimics Bethesda Susa with many pools and puddles of convalessence, as well as luminous hoarshrooms and yuckwheat.

The cave pocket where Girsh Rermadon sits, referred to internally as a "cyst", also has a patch of 6-12 aloe volta. Girsh Shug'ruith the Burrower's cyst has many scattered bones across it.

Creature Spawning

All Nephilim lairs are guaranteed to spawn many of their associated girshlings, and are likely to spawn their associated Gyre Wights as well.

Within each Nephilim's lair, 75% of creatures generated within the lair are granted unique mechanics, dependent on whose lair it is. These alterations are as follows:

• Girsh Agolgot's cradle contains rank creatures. Their icons display as dark green. These creatures' natural attacks are modified to have an independent 50% chance to poison, disease, or rust on hit. In addition, on death, they will drop a large rank pool of equal parts green goo, brown sludge, and black ooze instead of any corpse.
• Girsh Bethsaida's cradle contains conjoined creatures whose icons are recolored gold. Conjoined creatures will split into two upon taking deadly damage, removing the conjoined version and creating two new creatures of the same species.
• The chuppah of Girsh Qas and Girsh Qon can contain 3 kinds of altered creatures: cryptic, polarized, and dazzling. All altered creatures have an equal chance of being one of these three types.
  • Cryptic creatures have a 100% chance to confuse on hit and emit a cloud of confusion gas on death.
  • Polarized creatures can create forcefields that link between creatures of their type. See polarized girshling for more detailed information on how this ability functions.
  • Dazzling creatures have both of the abilities of cryptic and polarized.
• Girsh Rermadon's cradle contains plasmatic creatures. They drop large clouds of plasma on death instead of a corpse.
• Girsh Shug'ruith the Burrower's cradles contains burrowing creatures. They have the Burrowing mutation at level 5, and leave behind layers of resin extruded by Shug'ruith spawn.

Water ritual

It is possible to perform the water ritual with the Nephilim, using one dram of cloning draught. A unique dialogue option appears after performing the water ritual with one of the Nephilim:

Will you resign your charge and swear to unvex the beings of this world?

This costs the player 200 reputation with the Girsh and will award the appropriate chord of light from the pacified Nephil. Other Nephilim will not receive a bonus from the pacified Nephil (unlike as occurs after killing one of the Nephilim).

This is also the only option available when performing a water ritual with a Nephil, as they are unconcerned with the petty secrets of a world they intend to destroy. This means you cannot boost your reputation during the ritual to help afford the cost of pacification: You need to initiate the ritual with at least 100 reputation, or 75 with the Tactful skill. If you intend to pacify all seven Nephilim, you will need a net +700 reputation (+525 with Tactful) to pull it off.

Combat

This section is opinion-based. Your mileage may vary.

This article has information that is missing or not up to par.
Reason: Needs Irisdual Beam information, especially if it's omniphase

All seven Nephilim are difficult opponents, serving as a sort of "super boss" for Caves of Qud. By default, each one has 4000 health, 38 in each stat, and 60 of each resistance, and possess "reflective shielding", a status which gives a 75% chance of reflecting any incoming projectile (including bullets, missiles, and lasers). Each one will periodically create girshling creshes - nests that spawn girshlings of the appropriate type - and are swarm alphas, making their spawn more threatening.

Each one also possesses Irisdual Beam - a deadly, three-directional laser attack, which becomes six-directional once they drop below 50% health. Before firing, the beams are marked with a red highlight, similar to the Decarbonizer's attack, and will fire on the Nephilim's next turn. The beams deal multiple hits of extreme damage to everything in their paths, and should be avoided at all costs. This attack cannot be interrupted by any means other than killing the Nephilim - stunning, freezing, knocking them prone, sleep, and all other effects will not interrupt the attack.

Finally, each Nephilim will have a unique effect based on their lore. This effect will boost the Nephilim's capabilities, and will affect the various creatures in their lair, changing their color, aligning them with the Girsh, and adding a similar effect to the creature in question.

• Girsh Agolgot's unique effect is rank which has a Poison, Disease, and Rust on to-hit at 50%
• Girsh Bethsaida's unique effect is conjoined which causes it to duplicate itself after it's taken a thousand damage, as well as the creatures in the lair having a similar behavior.
• Girsh Qas's unique effect is polarized, which means its girshlings have ForcePylon Walls 2 Range 5
• Girsh Qon's unique effect is cryptic, which means its girshlings have a 200 confusion gas burst on dying, and have zigzag fangs that confuse on hit 100% of the time.
• Girsh Rermadon's unique effect is plasmatic, which has an electric bite (displayed as incandescent fangs) and drops the 1000 Plasma Blueprint when it dies
• Girsh Shug'ruith the Burrower's unique effect is burrowing, which means they have the Burrowing mutation at 5, and they themselves live on walls.
• Starformed Ehalcodon's unique effect is prismatic, which grants its girshlings a resistance to Irisdual Beam and the ability to refract it in multiple directions. Additionally, qe is the unique possessor of the Quantum Fugue mutation.

Death

Whenever one of the Nephilim die, they leave behind a circle of light, a special Floating Nearby-slot item which glows, adds one rank to all mutations and 6 credit tiers, and gives a bonus unique to each Nephilim, noted by the following message appearing in the message log, for example:

A sphere of light in the chord of Agolgot radiates away. You feel it absorbed elsewhere.

The remaining Nephilim subsequently become more powerful, absorbing some of the powers of the fallen Nephilim and giving them stronger versions of the effects granted by their circles (in parentheses):

This creature burns bright in the chord of...

• ... Agolgot: +4 arms with spotted claws. (+2 arms with spotted claws)
• ... Bethsaida: +50% hitpoints (+15% hitpoints)
• ... Qas: +25 quickness (+10 Quickness)
• ... Qon: +25 quickness (+10 Quickness)
• ... Rermadon: +80 all resists (+40 all resists)
• ... Shug'ruith: +10 AV; +10 DV; omniphase (+3 AV; +3 DV)

These powers will be granted to any clones of the Girsh Nephilim, but not the powers of their progenitor should they be dead (e.g. a clone of Girsh Bethsaida will not receive +50% hitpoints if the original Girsh Bethsaida dies.) Note that Starformed Ehalcodon will always receive the benefits granted by the prior six Nephilim as if they were slain, even if they were pacified.

Progression

This section is opinion-based. Your mileage may vary.

Builds

As Nephilim have high elemental resistances and a 75% chance to reflect ranged attacks due to their Reflective Shielding, missile weapons or even Light Manipulation will be less reliable in battle. Thus, melee and careful movement is key; if ranged attacks are preferred, utilize EMP grenades to disable the reflective shielding for a brief period. In some cradles, things such as the Disintegration mutation or resonance grenades can be of use in opening crowded areas such as Girsh Agolgot's and Girsh Shug'ruith the Burrower's cradles.

Builds that specialize around making multiple attacks, such as with the Beak mutation or girshling fangs, Horns, Multiple Arms, any stinger mutation such as Stinger (Paralyzing Venom) paired with dueling stance from the long blade tree, and Burrowing Claws and eventually those added with the circle of light in the chord of Agolgot can make the most out of opportunities as a Nephilim's Irisdual Beam cools down.

Method A

Slaying Girsh Rermadon first (combined with their proximity to the surface) means that the remaining will only receive their elemental resistances. One can more easily progress by then battling Girsh Shug'ruith the Burrower and Girsh Agolgot. Battling Girsh Qas and Girsh Qon next means that Girsh Bethsaida gains the quickness bonuses, but also meaning they will be the only and last Nephilim to battle during Reclamation.

This can be considered the more steady means of progression.

Method B

Slaying Girsh Bethsaida first due to them splitting for each quarter of HP loss means one will have to prioritize one iteration over the others until they've all fallen. Trying to battle all iterations at once will further complicate the battle. Battling Girsh Qas and Girsh Qon next is already difficult, as being within line of sight of Qon confuses the player character and any companions present. If Qon is handled before Qas, the battle becomes more manageable, but their deaths grant the remaining Nephilim a combined +50 quickness boost. Slaying Girsh Agolgot grants each Nephilim their long blade class natural weapons, and Girsh Shug'ruith the Burrower its omniphase status.

As a result, Girsh Rermadon now has the combined strengths of those that have fallen before, and whilst their cradle is open, they are much more of a challenge than before.

Trivia

If a Nephilim has a hate reason from a faction, it will always be for eating one of their young.