Sceptre of Asmodeus

Version 0.34: This article is up to date for the latest stable release of Dungeon Crawl Stone Soup.

A bright ruby sceptre, carrying some of the powers of the arch-fiend Asmodeus. It may call forth fiery demons from their infernal home to do the wielder's bidding.

the +13 sceptre of Asmodeus

+13 eveningstar

10% chance to summon a fire-themed demon on hit
Evil

Mechanics

The sceptre of Asmodeus may summon the following demons:

• 2 Balrug: 50%
• 2 Hellion: 33.3%
• 1 Brimstone fiend: 16.7%

Note that the demon-summoning melee effect works only for the player. Neither Asmodeus nor your orc friends get the summons when attacking with this weapon.

Desirability

The sceptre of Asmodeus is a special eveningstar that can only be obtained by killing Asmodeus, lord of Gehenna. As an evil item, the good gods frown its use.

It's a moderately good weapon, but there will be many alternate options by the time you kill Asmodeus. An eveningstar of holy wrath or a sacred scourge will be stronger (unless your character can't benefit from holy wrath).

Hellions and Brimstone Fiends will generally avoid hurting you, e.g. they won't fire damnation at an enemy in melee range, and the fiends won't cast torment on you. However, there's no guarantee, so this item can be risky.

History

• Prior to 0.30, the sceptre was a +7 staff that had an Ability to summon demons, with a chance to fail based on Evocations. The demons were durably summoned, and would eventually become hostile.
• Prior to 0.28, the sceptre could be activated from the evoke menu instead of the abilities menu. Also, the player needed slightly more Evocations to pass a skill check when summoning demons.
• Prior to 0.27, the sceptre could summon sun demons and efreets.
• Prior to 0.10, this sceptre would fire random Conjurations and summoned hostile demons when it failed to evoke properly.