Kali

Verified against the spelunky.ai port v0.1.10 on 28 October 2026.

Kali never moves. Her statue stands over an altar in a side room of some levels: a stone body behind the altar and a head above it, one of three faces drawn at random ^{[1] [2]}. She speaks in the messages at the foot of the screen, after each sacrifice and when an altar is destroyed. The altar itself, where it's made and what it's made of, is Kali's Altar's page; this one is about the goddess, and Kali's favour and Sacrifice have the rules of her favour and of sacrificing in full.

Kali keeps a favour for the player, a count the game never shows, which a new game sets to 0 ^[3]. Sacrifices raise it (Sacrificing), a destroyed altar takes 16 off it, and nothing else changes it ^[4]. After each sacrifice her message says how she feels, from "SHE SEEMS VERY ANGRY WITH YOU!" at -8 or less to "SHE SEEMS ECSTATIC WITH YOU!" at 32 or more ^[5]. Kali's favour has the count, every message and the marks.

The first time a sacrifice brings the favour to each of three marks, she gives a gift, which appears on the altar's right half, free to take ^[6]:

• At 8, a piece of equipment the player hasn't got, with two puffs of smoke.
• At 16, the Kapala, the only way to get one ^[7].
• At 32, 99 bombs, or 4–8 hearts for a player with 80 or more, and hearts again for every 16 more after it.

Each is given once a game, and a mark a sacrifice jumps past is skipped for good. Which equipment, and the rest, is on Kali's favour. In the clip, a Damsel thrown down on the altar brings the favour from 0 to 8, and Kali gives a Compass ^[8].

Destroying her altar angers her. Either half of it destroyed, by anything (a Bomb's blast, a UFO's laser, or the floor under it taken away, which makes it crumble once it's on screen), defiles it: "YOU DARE DEFILE MY ALTAR?" and "I WILL PUNISH YOU!", the screen shakes, the favour falls by 16, and both halves go ^{[9] [10] [7]}. What she does depends on how many altars the player has defiled in the game ^[11]:

In the first clip, Kali has just given the Kapala when a UFO's laser destroys her altar, and six Spiders come out of her head; the player whips them, and their blood fills the Kapala ^[16].

In the second, a Bomb destroys an altar for the second time, and the ball is chained to the player; the screen between levels and the next level chain him to it again ^{[17] [18]}.

In the third, the player throws a Bomb at a third altar. The level goes dark, and, as there's no ghost yet, one comes in from the screen's left, the side of the room the player is in ^{[19] [20]}.

In the last, on a level that's dark with a ghost already, a Bomb takes the floor from under a fourth altar, which crumbles; six Spiders come out of Kali's head, and one kills the player ^{[21] [22]}.

A stunned or dead monster, or a thrown or dead Damsel, left lying still on either half of an altar for 20 steps is sacrificed: it bursts into flame and is gone, and Kali's message is "KALI ACCEPTS THE SACRIFICE!" ("YOUR SACRIFICE" for a Damsel) ^{[23] [24]}. A Damsel is worth 8; of the monsters, a stunned Shopkeeper is worth the most, 12, and a dead one half what it's worth stunned. At a favour of -8 or less, "KALI DEVOURS THE SACRIFICE!", and it adds nothing. The player's own body is never a sacrifice. Sacrifice has the rite step by step, what can be sacrificed and what each is worth.

The altar's page has the ways an altar is destroyed. A defiled altar is gone for the level, and a level has one altar at most ^[25]. A favour below 0 recovers a sacrifice at a time, as long as it's above -8. At -8 or below it never does: only a sacrifice raises it, and she devours every one ^[26]. So a single defiled altar shuts her off for the rest of the game unless the favour was above 8 before it.

The Sacrifice Pit, a Temple level, is named for her: arriving, the player says "I CAN HEAR PRAYERS TO KALI!" ^[30].

• A sacrifice at a favour below 0 has a branch of its own, which adds the body's value as the other does and then sets that value to 0. The body is destroyed a moment later, so the line changes nothing, and an angry Kali takes a sacrifice as gladly as a pleased one ^{[31] [32] [7]}. In the replay, a defiled altar leaves her favour at −4, and a dead Yeti on the next level's altar raises it by 2, to −2 ^[33]:

            else if (global.favor < 0)
            {
                if (status == 98) global.favor += favor;
                else global.favor += favor/2;
                if (favor > 0) favor = 0;
            }

• A Damsel's sacrifice has a branch that would make a stunned one worth half as much again, 12, but she's never in the state it tests for, so she's worth the same alive or dead ^{[34] [7]}.
• A dead Vampire is worth half a favour, so the favour needn't be a whole number, and "SHE HAS FORGIVEN YOU!", which needs it to be exactly 0, can be missed ^{[35] [36]}.
• With two altars or more defiled, the ending's walking figure drags a ball and chain too ^[37].