Kali Altar (Classic)

Oh, great Kali, please accept my humble offering of... this Bigfoot.

Bloodstained altars to Kali are scattered throughout the caves. So long as Kali isn't too unhappy with you, you can earn favor by stunning or killing an offering and leaving it on the altar. However, allowing one to be destroyed can lead to dire punishments.

Favor

The amount of favor won from sacrificing something depends on whether the offering is alive or dead, and also on exactly what you offer:

Favor gained from sacrifices

Enemy	Stunned	Dead
Vampire	1	No corpse
ManTrap	2	No corpse
Caveman	2	1
Yeti	4	2
Hawkman	6	3
Damsel	12	8
Shopkeeper	12	6

• Usually, the stun time is too short on a shopkeeper to allow him to be sacrificed alive.
  • It's possible, albeit dangerous, to lure him to the altar and jump-stun him so he lands on the altar.
• If a Man-trap eats the shopkeeper, and is stunned, you can place the man-trap on the altar, and if you're lucky, both will be sacrificed, giving you 14 Favor. This is rare, and is usually very dangerous.
• You will gain no favor at all if Kali is already very angry at you, which occurs when your favor with her is -8 or less.

Gifts

Whoo, high favor.

As you gain favor, Kali will give you rewards in return. These occur at particular levels of favor:

• At 8 Favor, you gain a random piece of equipment out of the following: Cape, Climbing Gloves, Spectacles, Pitcher's Mitt, Spring Shoes, Spike Shoes, Sticky Bombs, Compass. If you already have the item it picks, it moves on to the next random item in the list until it has checked for the existence of all eight. Having a Jetpack will also prevent the Cape from appearing, but having the Udjat Eye will not prevent the Spectacles from appearing. If none of the eight items are given to you, then you are instead rewarded with a Jetpack if you do not have one, or otherwise a box of 12 Bombs.
• At 16 Favor, you receive a Kapala, which allows you to collect drops of blood from enemies and convert every 8 you collect into an extra point of HP.
• At 32 Favor, if you have fewer than 80 Bombs, then Kali will fill your bag up to 99 Bombs. If you have 80 or more though, you will be given an extra 4 to 8 HP instead.
• Finally, for every 16 Favor above that, you gain an extra 4 to 8 HP.

Each gift can only be received once per game.

Punishments

Well, this is annoying.

If a sacrificial altar is destroyed in any manner, then Kali will blame you for it and you will lose 16 Favor. On top of this, you also receive a punishment:

• The first time an altar is destroyed, the head of Kali's statue will open and let loose 6 spiders.
• The second time an altar is destroyed, Kali will attach a ball and chain to your leg. Unless you carry the ball yourself, it is very slow to drag around and can cause you to hang suspended in mid-air if you jump off a ledge (it will slide off eventually though). You can also use it as a makeshift projectile, but it is limited by the length of the chain. If you are falling, the ball will soften your landing thus acting like a parachute, but only if you are not carrying it (you may throw it while falling). The ball can be dropped in magma and destroyed, freeing you for the remainder of the level. (It will come back upon starting the next level.)
• Any time an altar is destroyed after that, Kali will make the entire level dark and summon the ghost. If you're already in a dark level and the ghost has appeared, then the spider punishment will be used instead.

Trivia

Altars feature in many roguelikes such as Nethack and ADOM (in which any enemy over the altar could be sacrificed, dead or alive; as such, Spelunky's altars are most related to ADOM's).

Additionally, the ball and chain punishment is seen in Nethack, with similar implications (such as the need to carry it, and its potential as a projectile).