Girsh Nephilim

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Spoiler Warning: This article contains information normally only found in the course of advancing the main quest line.
This article has information that is missing or not up to par.
Reason: Update for 7th Plague content

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

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

Each of the Nephilim resides within a lair that is placed somewhere in Qud during worldgen (mostly[1] referred to throughout the game as the Nephilims' "cradles"). These lairs are distributed as follows:

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. 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 hope to reveal the location of these lairs.

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?

If selected, the player's reputation with the Girsh will decrease by 200, and they will receive the appropriate chord of light from the pacified Nephilim. Other Nephilim will not receive a bonus from the pacified Nephilim (unlike as occurs after killing one of the Nephilim).

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 six 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.

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...

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.)

Trivia

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

References

  1. The lair of Girsh Qas and Girsh Qon is called the "chuppah of Qas and Qon", rather than their cradle.