"He was religious"

[William]

Hi. I've been role-playing an "anti-theist" character who acknowledges the existence of the gods within the fiction, but refuses to worship them, request their aid, or otherwise interact with them in a cooperative manner. As such, my character has never taken any action which might be interpreted as religious.

However, despite this, on my longer-lived playthrough attempts, where I get to level 10 or so before dying (I'm new to the game, so I don't get farther than this, at present), the death screen says of my character, "He was religious. He did not ask for divine assistance." Only on my characters which die at extremely low levels (e.g. 5) does the game say "he was not particularly religious."

What is causing the game to inaccurately assess my character as religious? I've never used (or even found) holy water, I've never used an altar (on two of my "he was religious" games, I never even found an altar), and I didn't ask the healer for either instruction or healing. I've done lots of searching on this site & the wiki, and the latter says that reading certain texts is interpreted by the game as a religious action; however, my characters have mostly been too illiterate to identify any of the scrolls I've found, and I've never been able to identify the books.

So, what is it that my character is doing that might cause the game to register a "religious" action? Is it killing zombies? Attacking chaos NPCs? Simply refraining from chaotic acts?

[blunk]

Hi. I've been role-playing an "anti-theist" character who acknowledges the existence of the gods within the fiction, but refuses to worship them, request their aid, or otherwise interact with them in a cooperative manner. As such, my character has never taken any action which might be interpreted as religious.

However, despite this, on my longer-lived playthrough attempts, where I get to level 10 or so before dying (I'm new to the game, so I don't get farther than this, at present), the death screen says of my character, "He was religious. He did not ask for divine assistance." Only on my characters which die at extremely low levels (e.g. 5) does the game say "he was not particularly religious."

What is causing the game to inaccurately assess my character as religious? I've never used (or even found) holy water, I've never used an altar (on two of my "he was religious" games, I never even found an altar), and I didn't ask the healer for either instruction or healing. I've done lots of searching on this site & the wiki, and the latter says that reading certain texts is interpreted by the game as a religious action; however, my characters have mostly been too illiterate to identify any of the scrolls I've found, and I've never been able to identify the books.

So, what is it that my character is doing that might cause the game to register a "religious" action? Is it killing zombies? Attacking chaos NPCs? Simply refraining from chaotic acts?

It's probably tied to the amount of Piety your character have, as you start with some and never used any you're considered religious ...
I strongly suggest you put any religious RL conceptions on the side when playing this game, the use of piety and especially altars is VERY important.
Try a game w/o altars when you've beat it a few times, it's difficult enough already.

[Blasphemous]

A concept of piety exists in the game, which indicates your stance towards various deities.
I believe some characters start with somewhat higher piety than others (priests, paladins) and this may result in the game interpreting it as religiousness.
All other classes also start with enough piety to have 2-3 prayers, which may likewise be treated as being religious.
I suppose you'd have to perform one of the several actions that lower piety, aside from praying - converting or destroying altars are the two things that come to mind, though the former might fall under the interaction clause while the latter is dangerous.

Changing your original alignment to either of the remaining two via chaotic or lawful actions (the former being significantly harder to achieve) would likely cause a drop of piety and the game summary would probably say "not particularly religious".
I suppose I could be wrong about this but I always make use of altars and piety.
Refusing to use altars and deities in this game has a great impact on difficulty and not maintaining at least reasonable piety takes away the option of praying for help in life-threatening situations but also a great number of other bonuses.

Role playing is nice and fine but if you don't know the game well at this point (as you mentioned), I strongly suggest to ditch this particular challenge and just play normally.
Once you complete the game, you can set up any challenge or role-playing restriction you wish as at that point you will have at least some understanding of the consequences.
The game is extremely difficult for new players even with all the tools at their disposal; no point taking it further without having a good look at the mechanics first.

[sweetnothing]

PC did not worship, be he still believed...

[JellySlayer]

You gain piety with your chosen deity at levels up.

[William]

I see; thanks.

Is it wholly impossible, then, for a non-magical character to complete the game without seeking the favor/assistance of the gods? Or merely very difficult?

What about a mage character? I imagine that these are generally more self-sufficient than someone like a fighter.

[pjsb1]

You can complete the game without using assistance of the gods, it's just very hard as they provide a lot of help like detecting item status, making holy water and removing cursing/dooming as well as crowning. And of course prayers.

[blunk]

I see; thanks.

Is it wholly impossible, then, for a non-magical character to complete the game without seeking the favor/assistance of the gods? Or merely very difficult?

What about a mage character? I imagine that these are generally more self-sufficient than someone like a fighter.

So the main issue if you don't care about gods is you won't have enough holy water and you won't get a crowning.
Is it doable? or course but it's a LOT more difficult and as I said above, try win a couple of times and then consider that effort w/o using altars/piety, you will definitely see the game from a different perspective.

Spoiler alert, this is how/what piety is for it's not very intuitive to understand with just the game manual but understanding piety is I would say game breaking, you need to get a grip on it:

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Altar:
You want altar to be same align as your align white=L, grey/gray=N, black=C.

Wrong altar:
If the altar is wrong align, you can sacrify one gold at a time to change your own alignment to that of the altar.
Beware, any monsters nearby with same align as the altar will sacrify you standing on that altar.

Status:
Drop all your items on altar and you'll get to know if they are blessed/neutral/cursed, this is huge in early game because you can id a lot of non cursed items w/o identify scrolls, there is a risk of autocursing items but you'll learn about that ....

Water:
Sacrify food or money to get piety to "very pleased", now you can drop water/watery potions on the altar and they will be blessed to holy water.
Holy water can be used to bless items (this includes cursed items you may have eqiupped).
In the midgame you want to dip scrolls/potions/books and other stuff in holy water to get better effect so this is very important for success.
For example blessed identify scroll or blessed uncursing scroll affects you entire inventory!

Prayer/precrown/crown:
Sacrify living monsters that you lure to step on the altar, this increases piety a LOT for each monster.
(lawful and neutral altars/gods dont appreciate when you sacrify monsters of same align, for example don't sacrify barbarians on a neutral altar because barbarians are neutral)
With more piety you can pray and get FULLY healed (until grumbles or god says your annoying).
If you grind enough monsters to get sacrified you can pray for a pre/crowning (see wiki for more info) which will gain you an artifact, artifacts are VERY powerful.
Also in mid/late game you will have enough gold to sacrify that you don't need to lure monsters for this.

[JellySlayer]

I see; thanks.

Is it wholly impossible, then, for a non-magical character to complete the game without seeking the favor/assistance of the gods? Or merely very difficult?

What about a mage character? I imagine that these are generally more self-sufficient than someone like a fighter.

It's definitely possible. You may still get the "he was religious" message, though, but that will just be from your starting/level up piety. You could probably get around that by changing alignment frequently, though you might get "he was hated by $deity" instead, I suppose.

Ironically, an atheist priest would be a pretty good start for this. Caster, detect item status, good starting gear. You can start with holy water even and use that to create more. But an archer or something should be fine too, I think, you just need to be a bit more careful.

So the main issue if you don't care about gods is you won't have enough holy water and you won't get a crowning.

If you get holy water as a random drop, you can dip other waters into it (4 at a time) to get more. This is a pretty common strategy in Ironman type games.

[TheCableGuy]

There are no Atheists in the Drakalor Chain (foxholes.)

You can't acknowledge the existence of gods and call yourself an atheist.
The two concepts are diametrically opposed.

The word you're thinking of is Heathen, not Atheist.