Piety is, in practice, a measure of how (dis)pleased the PC's deity is with him/her. Whilst it does in fact represent the PC's standing with all his/her gods — pleasing one will displease the others, and vice versa — usually the PC will only worship one god and thus should only worry about how pleased that god is. The player should still bear in mind that since the deities that the PC rejects will become angrier the more pleased their chosen deity is, attempting to convert an altar can be risky business, as the sacrifice may end up being accepted by a very angry and vengeful deity.
Piety levels (in ascending order)
When the PC sacrifices to a deity, one of the message below will be generated as feedback on the PC's piety. PCs start out with the deity of their starting alignment being 'pleased', and both others being 'unconcerned'.
| Message | Notes |
| "You hear -deity- grumbling in anger" | Piety levels below this exist, which results in the deity immediately punishing the PC, even for sacrifices. The PC should certainly avoid interacting with gods that are angrier than this. |
| "For some seconds the ground rumbles" | |
| "-deity- seems unconcerned" | Tends to be the PC's piety if they convert near the start of the game |
| "-deity- seems to be pleased" | Starting piety for all PCs. |
| "-deity- seems to be very pleased with you" | This is the minimum piety required for Paladins and Priests and to use their class powers. Potions of Water dropped on co-aligned altars at this stage will be blessed. |
| "You feel inner peace" (non-chaotics) / "You burn with the anticipation of power" (chaotics) |
Upon the first time the PC reaches this piety level, the message "You feel your spirits rise!" or "You feel an inner strength lifting your spirits!" is generated; this is a once-off effect that grants the Lucky intrinsic. If the PC loses the intrinsic, they can gain it again by this effect. |
| "You feel spiritually invincible" | If the PC reaches this level for the first time, bypassing the previous level, the message "You feel spiritually elated!" is generated; this has the same effect as "You feel your spirits rise!" above. |
| "-deity- seems to be very close to you" | Whenever the PC sacrifices at this level or above, they will lose the Cursed and Doomed intrinsics (if they have them) and gain Lucky and Fate Smiles (if they don't have these). The message "You feel that a sinister curse is lifted from you" means cursing was removed. "You feel a terrible gloom being lifted from you" indicates either the Doomed status or both were removed. |
| "-deity- favors you" | Added as a progress indicator[1]. Doesn't exist prior to v. 1.2.0 |
| "-deity- favors you greatly" | Added as a progress indicator. Doesn't exist prior to v. 1.2.0 |
| "-deity seems to be extremely close to you" (PC not of extreme alignment) / "-deity seems to be absolutely close to you" (PC of extreme alignment) |
PCs that have reached "absolutely close" can pray for a crowning. PCs that have reached "extremely close" can pray for a precrowning/post-crowning if they have satisfied the level requirement for either. |
Increasing piety
The most obvious way to raise the PC's standing with their chosen god is to sacrifice at an altar dedicated to that god. Sacrificing gold in large amounts is often an easy way to do this, as is sacrificing live creatures (done by pressing 'O' when another character is on an altar rather than the PC). Artifacts can be sacrificed to greatly increase piety (sis can be sacrificed, but don't increase piety as much as other artifacts). Blessed stomafillia herbs and valuable gems can also be used to quickly increase the PC's piety; though as of v. 1.2.0, deities will start to refuse stomafillia herbs after they are offered a certain amount.
Also, annoying a deity (see 'Decreasing piety' below) is believed to make the PC's other deities slightly more pleased. This could cause more trouble than it's worth, though.
Using piety
The most obvious 'use' for piety is prayer — each time the PC prays for a favor, their piety will decrease by an amount depending on the service requested and how many times they have previously prayed for that service. Since gods dislike repetitive favors, the piety cost for a particular favor will increase each time it is granted; PCs that pray, e.g., for healing for the tenth time might see their god go from being very happy to angry.
Besides praying, there are other ways to seek divine help which decrease the PC's standing with their god. One of these is using a holy symbol to turn undead.
Decreasing piety
As well as being bothered by the PC's constant requests for favors, there are other ways of simply annoying a deity without any reward. Some ways to do this include:
- Destroying an altar, which greatly angers the corresponding deity. Kicking the altar may immediately result in divine retribution if the deity was already angry. Destroying the altar greatly reduces piety; this can be enough to bring the PC's deity from being very close to unconcerned.
- Sacrificing a gift granted by a deity, as part of crowning, back to them. Greatly displeasing the deity that just crowned the PC is not a good idea under any circumstances.
- Converting an altar will reduce the PC's standing with the deity previously associated with the altar. This can occur unintentionally if the PC repeatedly sacrifices lawful creatures to lawful deities or neutral creatures to neutral deities, or if the PC sacrifices a companion on a non-chaotic altar (this seems to count as a sacrifice to the PC's chaotic deity).
- Reading a tract of chaos while non-chaotic gives a massive drop in piety (same with a tract of order for non-lawful PCs, and a tract of balance for non-neutral ones). Thankfully all of them have unusual weight and can be easily spotted amongst other books.