Kali's favour

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

This page describes a secret.

The favour is how Kali, the goddess whose altars stand in side rooms of the Mines, the Jungle, the Ice Caves and the Temple, keeps score of the player. It's the only reason to leave a body on her altar: it decides her gifts, the Kapala among them, which nothing else gives. It carries over from level to level, so the gifts come from sacrifices on several levels' altars. The other side of it is her anger: every altar destroyed costs favour and brings a punishment that grows each time.

A new game sets the favour to 0, and with it the count of gifts she has given and of altars the player has defiled ^[1]. Only two things change it:

• A sacrifice adds the body's worth: a Damsel's 8, a stunned monster's own value, a dead one's half of it (Sacrifice has the rules and the values) ^{[2] [3]}.
• A defiled altar takes 16 off it ^[4].

At -8 or less, a sacrifice adds nothing: "KALI DEVOURS THE SACRIFICE!" ^[5]. Since only a sacrifice raises it, a favour that low stays there for the rest of the game. Between that and 0, a sacrifice adds its worth as usual, though by a branch of its own (Quirks) ^{[6] [7] [8]}. A dead Vampire is worth half of 1, so the favour needn't be a whole number ^[9].

The favour is never shown. After each sacrifice, a second line under "KALI ACCEPTS THE SACRIFICE!" ("YOUR SACRIFICE" for a Damsel, and "DEVOURS" for one that adds nothing) says where it stands, and her gifts come with it ^[10]:

A gift is given the first time a sacrifice brings the favour into its band, and appears on the altar's right half, free for the player to take ^{[18] [19]}. Which gifts have been given is kept as a count, so each is given once a game, and one whose band a sacrifice jumps over is never given: going from 7 to 19 with a stunned Shopkeeper's 12 gives the Kapala, and the equipment never comes ^[20].

1. At 8, a piece of equipment the player hasn't got, with two puffs of smoke. A roll of 1 to 8 picks the Cape, the Climbing Gloves, the Spectacles, the Pitcher's Mitt, the Spring Shoes, the Spike Shoes, the Paste or the Compass; one he has passes the gift to the next in that list, and the Cape counts as had with a Jetpack. With all of them, it's a Jetpack, or, with that too, a Bomb Box ^[21].
2. At 16, the Kapala ^[22].
3. At 32, the player's bombs are set to 99, if he has fewer than 80; otherwise he gets 4–8 hearts ^[23].
4. After that, at 48, 64 and every 16 more, 4–8 hearts again ^[24].

No sacrifice is worth more than 12, so none reaches 32 from below 16 in one go.

Destroying either half of an altar, by anything, defiles it: a Bomb's explosion, a UFO's laser, or the floor under it taken away, which makes it crumble once it's in view. "YOU DARE DEFILE MY ALTAR?" and "I WILL PUNISH YOU!" show, the screen shakes, the favour falls by 16, and both halves go ^{[25] [26] [8]}. The punishment depends on how many altars the player has defiled before in the game ^[27]:

Kali's page shows each punishment in a clip (Kali).

• A Damsel, then two Yetis. On an Ice Caves level the player throws a Damsel down on the altar: the favour goes from 0 to 8 and Kali gives a Compass ^[40]. A stunned Yeti on the same altar brings it to 12, and one on the next level's to 16, the Kapala. A UFO's laser then destroys that altar, the favour falls to 0, and six Spiders come out of the statue: the main clip shows the second Yeti's sacrifice and the laser ^{[41] [42]}.
• The punishments in turn. A second defiled altar locks the ball and chain on the player, who carries it through the next levels ^[43]; a third makes the level dark and sends a Ghost ^[44]; a fourth, on a level dark with a Ghost already, lets six more Spiders out ^[45].

• Anything that destroys an altar defiles it, not only the player: a UFO's laser does, and the player is punished for it all the same ^{[8] [42]}.
• An angry Kali's sacrifice has a branch of its own that changes nothing. Below 0 but above -8, a sacrifice adds the body's worth as above 0, then sets the body's own worth to 0 just before the body is destroyed, so a sacrifice is worth the same either way ^{[6] [7] [8]}. In the replay, a defiled altar leaves the favour at −4, and a dead Yeti on the next level's altar adds its 2 ^[46].