Glimmer

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This article is a stub. You can help Caves of Qud Wiki by expanding it.

Your psychic glimmer represents how noticeable you are in the vast psychic aether. As your mental mutations increase in level, so does your psychic glimmer and the frequency, strength, and number of those who desire to absorb your mind.

Glimmer is a mechanic that is usually only experienced if the player character has a high level of mental mutations. Glimmer is a quantified measure of how powerful a creature's mental capabilities are. It is calculated by summing up all of the creature's mental mutation levels. 1 point mental mutations that cannot level do not count towards glimmer.

If the player character is currently dominating another creature, the glimmer is based off of the original starter of the domination chain.

Effects of Glimmer

There are two thresholds that glimmer can surpass to have significant effects.

20 Glimmer

You are being watched. It's a familiar feeling. When someone has watched you in the past, when it's light that's betrayed your presence, you made a friend of the darkness. You pulled your hat brim low over your eyes. You stepped behind the cover of a thatched wall. But those who watch you now watch in spite of such simple obstructions. Their sight isn't mediated by the rays of a gleaming star or torch but by something much older. If there are ways to conceal yourself from these seeing eyes, if there are new kinds of darknesses to befriend, you know nothing of them.

Upon surpassing 20 glimmer, the player receive this message. The player character will then start to be pursued by psychic hunters.

In the journal, "You had the feeling of being watched, and learned that there's a sight older than sight." will be noted as an accomplishment.

40 Glimmer

What you understood to be the psychic sea was only a pond. There are other watchers now, countless in number, beyond the gulf of materiality. Points of light glimmer in all directions, but what are directions on a space that cannot be ordered? All you know now is of an aether vaster than the very mathematics that describe it. And you are not nor will you ever be again alone.

Upon surpassing 40 glimmer, the player character can encounter extradimensional hunters as well. They have orange names and come from one of 8 randomly generated dimensions. Entering a screen now has a 40% chance of spawning an extradimensional hunter instead, and 30% chance of spawning multiple extradimensional hunters. If multiple hunters were already supposed to spawn, there is a 50% chance of them being extradimensional. This is noted as "You learned a cosmic truth, early among truths, about the locality of space and time as you knew them and an aether vaster than both." in the journal.

Psychic Hunters

Hunter Type	Glimmer	Description
20 to 34	Osprey	Currently, you are being watched and pursued by ospreys, Ptoh's servants and birds of psychic prey who pluck larval espers from their egg sacs.
35 to 49	Harrier	Currently, you are being watched and pursued by harriers, Ptoh's servants and birds of psychic prey who pluck fledgling espers from the shallows. You are also visible to psychic beings from other dimensions. (if glimmer > 40)
50 to 64	Owl	Currently, you are being watched and pursued by owls, Ptoh's servants and birds of psychic prey who snatch espers from the nighted weald. You are also visible to psychic beings from other dimensions.
65 to 79	Condor	Currently, you are being watched and pursued by condors, Ptoh's servants and birds of psychic prey who snatch thriving espers from the vast wood. You are also visible to psychic beings from other dimensions.
80 to 94	Strix	Currently, you are being watched and pursued by strixes, Ptoh's servants and birds of psychic prey who drink the blood of mature espers. You are also visible to psychic beings from other dimensions.
95 to 109	Eagle	Currently, you are being watched and pursued by eagles, Ptoh's servants and birds of psychic prey who seize powerful espers from their roosts. You are also visible to psychic beings from other dimensions.
≥ 110	Rukh	Currently, you are being watched and pursued by rukhs, Ptoh's most powerful servants and birds of psychic prey who seize masterful espers from their belfries. You are also visible to psychic beings from other dimensions.

Extradimensional Hunters

"At the moment of victory, your swelling ego curves the psychic aether and causes the psyche of (esper hunter), to collide with your own. As the weaker of the two, its binding energy is exceeded and it explodes. Would you like to encode its psionic bits on the holographic boundary of your own psyche? (+1 Ego permanently)

There is a 10% chance upon defeating an extradimensional hunter to have their psyche absorbed by the player character, permanently increasing their ego by 1.

Esper Hunter Generation

This article has information that is missing or not up to par.
Reason: TODO: Finish filling out probabilities of each tier. Also, calculate the chance of each number of esper hunters spawning.

Whenever the player character enters a new zone and their glimmer is between 20 and 49 inclusive, there is a 0.2 * (glimmer - 5)% chance that a hunter will spawn. If their glimmer is greater than or equal to 50, the chance becomes 0.0666*(glimmer + 65).

If glimmer is greater than 34, there is a 0.5*(glimmer-20) % chance that an additional hunter will spawn. If glimmer is greater than 49, this chance is rolled two more times, and then a third roll if glimmer is greater 80 with a chance of 0.5*(glimmer - 50)% to add an additional hunter.

Glimmer	Chance of spawn	Number of possible Hunters
0 to 19	0	0
20 to 34	3-5.8%	1
35 to 49	6-8.8%	1-2
50-64		1-4
65-79		1-4
80+		1-5