Holy word

Version 0.30: This article may not be up to date for the latest stable release of Crawl.

Holy word is a damaging effect. When used against undead or demonic monsters, it deals 3d15 + 1d20 - 1 damage (ignoring AC) and inflicts the daze status for 10-19 turns. When used against undead or demonspawn players, it halves HP instead. Unlike torment, this can kill you at 1 HP. Otherwise, it does nothing.

Holy word is a divine-only status. It can be invoked from The Shining One's weapon blessing and Zin's Recite. Nemelex will use holy word exclusively on the player as punishment (if you would be affected by it).

History

• In 0.29, the scroll of holy word, the most common source of this effect, was removed.
• Prior to 0.27, Zin's Sanctuary caused a holy word effect.
• Prior to 0.15, holy word also scared targets, and the good gods made these scrolls more powerful for their followers.