View source for Taurog

{{alphapage|Alpha:Taurog}}
<onlyinclude>{{
{{{tpl|GodInfobox}}}
|Name=Taurog
|ShortHand=TA
|InitialWorship=
* {{Piety|+2}} for each killed enemy.
|Punishment=
* -40% bonus damage.
|RewardedActions=
;Kill an enemy:{{Piety|+4}}.
;Kill an enemy that has {{t|Magical attack}}:{{Piety|+4}} (+8 total).
;Convert a [[glyph]]:{{Piety|+10}}.
|PenalizedActions=
;Use a glyph:{{Piety|-2}} per use.
;Convert Taurog's Equipment:Instant punishment.
|Boons=
;Taurog's Blade
:'''Cost''': 20 Piety, -1 Max Mana, +5% attack bonus
:'''Effect''': Spawn {{i|Taurog's Skullpicker}} (+5 Base Damage) near the altar.
;Taurog's Shield
:'''Cost''': 25 Piety, -1 Max Mana, +5% attack bonus
:'''Effect''': Spawn {{i|Taurog's Wereward}} ({{t|Damage Reduction}}: 5) near the altar.
;Taurog's Helm
:'''Cost''': 25 Piety, -1 Max Mana, +5% attack bonus
:'''Effect''': Spawn {{i|Taurog's Gloat}} ({{t|Magic resist}}: +15%) near the altar.
;Taurog's Armour
:'''Cost''': 25 Piety, -1 Max Mana, +5% attack bonus 
:'''Effect''': Spawn {{i|Taurog's Will}} ({{t|Physical resist}}: +15%) near the altar.
;Unstoppable Fury (Repeat) 
:'''Cost''': 20 + 10n Piety 
:'''Prerequisite''': Must be equipped with all of Taurog's Equipment 
:'''Effect''': Grants {{t|Death Protection}}
}}</onlyinclude>

'''Taurog''' is a deity of warfare, battle, and savagery.  He relishes combat and detests weak and spineless spellcasters.  Taurog is one of the most generous deities in the game when it comes to piety, giving huge amounts of it to followers and barely punishing them at all for infractions.  His simplicity and easy-going nature makes Taurog a favorite deity of beginner players or those looking to abuse Pactmaker.

Taurog's boons come with a trade-off, however; as items they occupy an inventory slot and reduce your maximum mana by 1.  Although there are ways to deal with the loss of mana, the inventory space requirement is quite problematic as Taurog will punish you for destroying one of the items.  

Taurog is obtained in a sub-dungeon in the west.  Inside a massive arena is Taurog's altar.  Stepping on the altar will summon four guardians which you must battle to prove your worth to Taurog.  Ironically, you are not prohibited from using spellcasting against these guardians, and in practice it's difficult to defeat them ''without'' casting spells due to the fact that they gain death protection.  Taurog's subdungeon is by far the largest unexplored subdungeon in the game, but does not become unexplored until you step on the altar to trigger it. 


== Basic Strategy ==
Taurog's boons vary greatly in value depending on your class and how many preparations you used.  As you progress further into Desktop Dungeons, you will unlock more powerful items to purchase from shops, more preparations that use inventory space, and encounter more dangerous dungeons... which will frequently contain gold rewards with which to purchase those powerful items you've unlocked!  Taurog's items don't compare favourably to many of these items, and as a result filling your inventory with his gear will limit your ability to use these very powerful items.  This can frequently be offset by spending gold on other things, such as potions or Tikki-Tooki piety, but sometimes it will just make you weaker in the long-run.  For new players and Purist runs, however, this often isn't a big deal and Taurog works well for most combat-oriented classes and even the occasional magic-oriented class.

The simplest and most common way to use Taurog is to gain piety with him to fuel a pact with the Pactmaker, or else convert to another deity to spend it.  Very few deities can produce as much piety as effortlessly as Taurog does, enabling you to fuel some of the Pactmaker's most expensive boons.  This will also allow you to completely sidestep Taurog's drawbacks, and your maximum MP and inventory space will be unaffected.

== Suggested Classes ==
The best classes for Taurog are the [[Berserker]], [[Monk]], [[Paladin]], [[Gorgon]], and (perhaps surprisingly) the [[Sorcerer]].  The first four classes are strong simply because they can take the Helm (Berserker) or Armour (Monk, Paladin, Gorgon) to stack resists.  In contrast Taurog works well with the Sorcerer, due to the class's casting abilities being biased towards melee combat and having the extra mana to afford his boons.

== Advanced Strategy ==

'''Get In and Get Out'''

Taurog works best as an early game deity, due to Taurog's Blade.  At level 1 or 2, it's an absolutely massive boost to your attack power and can get you quite a lot of bonus experience.  And since you won't have found many glyphs yet, you'll still have a lot of them available for conversion (+10 piety) and not that many in your inventory for the penalty for using them (-2 piety).

To take advantage of this, you can grab an early Taurog's Blade off of one kill, one glyph conversion, and six "sparkles".  Then you slowly work your way up towards 75 piety, grab the more appropriate resist item for your dungeon, and convert out.

Excellent choices to convert to are [[Mystera]] or [[Jehora Jeheyu]] to replace your lost mana or [[Dracul]] to stack resists with Blood Shield and take advantage of the blood pools you've created.  [[Tikki Tooki]] and [[Earthmother]] can also be strong choices to convert to due to their ability to get large amounts of late game piety, but they don't have the same synergy with Taurog's boons.  [[Glowing Guardian]] and [[Binlor]] are not recommended, as like Taurog they are better in the early game.


'''Body Pact'''

Body Pact from [[Pactmaker]] is an amazing boon that provides +1% to both resists when a monster hits you for the first time.  Since each trigger of Body Pact costs 4 piety and each monster kill with Taurog provides 4 piety, this matches up perfectly.  If you use any extra piety (from converting glyphs or killing monsters with magical attack) to buy one or both of Taurog's resist items, you can easily get up to 50% resists.  Throw in a Dragon Shield, Tower Shield, or Elven Boots and you can easily hit the resist cap.


'''Resist Stacking'''

[[Dracul]], [[Binlor]], and [[Glowing Guardian]] all have boons that boost your resists.  And all have them have some nasty piety penalties for common actions like drinking potions or gaining a level.  One Taurog strategy is to use him as a way to escape those restrictive deities while cranking your resists even higher.  And then once you grab the appropriate resist boon(s), converting out to a third deity to get even more boons.  In fact, if the deity you left was Dracul, you may even want to convert back once your drink all your potions!  

This strategy is quite useful in [[Naga City]], if you have the piety to spare in the arena since you're guaranteed a Taurog altar and source of piety to convert in and out.


'''Unstoppable Fury'''

Taurog has one of the most incredibly powerful boons at his disposal: Unstoppable Fury.  This allows you to chain multiple death protections at the end of a boss fight.  Against high-damage bosses this can be extremely powerful, if you can handle the requirement of having all of Taurog's items.  This is a high opportunity cost for most characters, and keeps this boon from being used too often.  But it's something to keep in mind if you're stuck and have access to a lot of piety.  In that case, if converting your entire inventory to have room for the items is necessary to win, it's the way to go.

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