The Orisha deities are an old divine family encountered by Carl and his companions during the eighth-floor crisis at Pueblo de los Olvidados. Most have lost their former standing in the Celestial Halls, and seven ruined shrines in the town's temple offer a single chance to restore one of them. The choice pits a cure for the town's afflicted ghommids against rewards from other gods, the safety of two crawlers devoted to Ogun, and Katia Grim's urgent need to bring Yemaya back. Only Yemaya's shrine is restored. The other offers reveal what the gods might have granted; they are not benefits the party receives.
A diminished pantheon in Pueblo de los Olvidados
The party's first direct encounter with an Orisha in the town is Asojano, the Lord of Smallpox. Carl's examination identifies him as a level-130, noncorporeal city boss. Its account describes a former god whose worshippers dwindled, whose temples collapsed, and whose power faded until he could visit the physical world only intermittently. Asojano has returned to a settlement he once knew, but even his weakened presence has disastrous effects. The ghommids who inhabit the town become infected and violent, and he cannot leave because he has spent the last power of his shrine to enter it.
Asojano approaches the crawlers through Paz Lo, whom he addresses as a santero. He asks Paz to rebuild his shrine in the central temple, promising that the repair will free the town and allow him to leave. The quest description also presents killing Asojano as a possible way to remove the infection. At this stage, neither course has been tested. Asojano's health declines while he is separated from the afflicted townspeople and rises when he returns outside, giving Carl evidence that the god and the ghommids are bound together. Asojano can open a path through the crowd at night, but says the infection will then make the ghommids stronger as well.
The group enters an octagonal temple with seven broken monuments, one along each wall except the entrance. Asojano begins a rite beside his own shrine while a fiery, skull-shaped gem called the Sun of Reawakening forms in the middle of the room. He warns the others to wait until the santero has rebuilt his monument before touching it. The apparently straightforward rescue changes when Paz and his cousin Anton Lopez receive a quest from their god, Ogun. Only one shrine can be completed, and Ogun orders them to repair his anvil instead. They expect a smite if they disobey. Sister Ines, who travels with the cousins but rejects their worship of Ogun, recognizes how the demand threatens both them and the town.
Ogun's place among the Orishas is exceptional. He has already ascended to the Halls and gained new followers, whereas the ruined shrines belong largely to figures trying to recover their lost status. His old monument would not restore a power he lacks. The room's announcement nevertheless says he opposes the return of his former family and will punish his two worshippers if another shrine is chosen. This makes the single repair a decision about divine rivalry as well as immediate survival.
The seven shrines
When combat begins, the temple is revealed as a Celestial Thorn Room. The party is frozen while the dungeon announces the terms of all seven choices. It specifies one Sun of Reawakening and permits the restoration of only one shrine. Each monument therefore excludes the other six, even when its offer addresses a different danger. The announcement describes rewards and penalties before the crawlers know which promises will be fulfilled in practice.
Ogun's shrine is a broken blacksmith's anvil. Rebuilding it would spare Paz and Anton the announced smite but provide no additional benefit to the wider party. Paz hopes Ogun might help against Asojano, yet cannot assure Carl that the repair would summon him or aid the town. The eventual appearance of Ogun occurs after the party chooses another shrine; it cannot be treated as proof that rebuilding the anvil would have brought him to their defense.
Legba's apparition stands by the second monument wearing a fedora and accompanied by a rooster. His offer would give each participant a fifty-percent chance to avoid future smites and teach the level-15 Confusing Fog spell. The announcement says Legba would ascend. His protection is probabilistic in the formal offer, although he later assures Paz personally that he can shield him from Ogun's anger. The party never repairs his shrine, so that assurance is not tested.
Shango has no visible apparition beside his rubble when the offers are introduced. Repairing his shrine would teach a level-15 Lightning spell that could be trained to level 20, and Shango would ascend. The announcement hints that the spell could prove useful later, without giving the crawlers a specific future encounter against which to weigh it. Shango remains an unchosen possibility in the temple rather than an active combatant in the fight that follows.
Oshun appears as a luminous woman in yellow. Before the formal choice, she asks the group to repair her shrine and promises protection from hostile gods and great wealth. Her effect on Carl and Anton is immediate: Carl feels compelled to protect her, and Anton moves toward her shrine. Carl's Wisp Armor does not stop the attraction, because he recognizes it as charm rather than the kind of mind control the spell guards against. The announced reward is more precise than Oshun's personal appeal: protection from the next five fatal blows, a fifty-percent increase to charisma, and level-10 Heal Party for all, followed by Oshun's ascension. Her influence complicates the group's ability to choose freely, but none of those stated rewards is actually obtained.
Asojano's own shrine offers the most direct cure. Its repair would complete the Pueblo de los Olvidados quest and return the ghommids to normal, but would not allow him to ascend. The announcement describes him as too dangerous to admit to the Halls. If the group refuses him, he will attack and the temple's protection against the ghommids will fail. Killing him is presented as an alternative that may cure the townspeople; the announcement does not guarantee that outcome when it is first made. The threat matters because the party must handle a city boss and a crowd of infected townspeople while attempting any other restoration.
Inle's apparition is associated with a translucent sea serpent. The announcement calls him a former healing god who has spent time in the Nothing and describes him as deaf and mute. His shrine would grant immunity from most conditions that drain health and increase Constitution by fifty percent. It would not bring him into the Halls: he would be returned to the Nothing. During the fight, Carl nevertheless experiences Inle addressing him privately and offering help. That contact makes the earlier description of him as mute an incomplete account of what Carl experiences; it does not show that Inle's promised protection is delivered.
The last shrine belongs to Yemaya, called the River Mother. The announcement says she nearly reached the Halls before losing her power and that Eileithyia misses her. Rebuilding the monument would let Yemaya ascend, grant a special card to each squad, and prompt Eileithyia to give each participant a boon. Unlike the other six choices, this is the restoration Carl eventually orders. Yemaya's connection to Eileithyia makes the shrine significant beyond the room, because Katia has already warned Carl that bringing Yemaya back is a step toward resolving a danger involving herself and Donut.
A choice made under pressure
Katia's message reaches Carl while Oshun is drawing his attention. Katia says she has acquired the Crown of the Sepsis Whore and that restoring Yemaya is their chance on this floor to avoid its consequences for her and Donut. She cannot explain the full plan before the Thorn Room interrupts. Carl must therefore decide whether to trust her request while Paz and Anton face Ogun's threatened punishment and Asojano remains in the room. The alternatives offer strong personal protections, spells, a cure, or relief from a rival god, but the room permits no combination of them.
Oshun's charm drives Anton toward her monument despite his allegiance to Ogun. He throws a piece of Ogun's shrine out through the damaged doorway, making completion of the anvil impractical while ghommids gather outside. Sister Ines injures Anton's hand to break his fixation, and Paz tries to recover the lost piece. Legba then urges Paz to rebuild his shrine instead and offers protection from Ogun. Paz and Anton begin assembling Legba's monument, but Asojano's attack disrupts them. Their movements from Ogun to Oshun to Legba are responses to distinct pressures, not a settled agreement to reject their god.
Carl directs Bomo to assemble Yemaya's blue, obelisk-like shrine while Donut's animated armor attacks Asojano. Inle and Oshun each appeal to Carl during the fight. Asojano's health falls as he is cut off from the ghommids, but he manages to spread an affliction to Paz and Anton, and Carl becomes infected with SlugPox when he captures the dying boss as a card. Donut's remaining animated daggers carry the Sun of Reawakening to the shrine Bomo has completed. The gem's contact with Yemaya's monument ends the encounter before the group can make any second selection.
Restoration and its consequences
The temple transforms into a place of fountains and blue waterways. The other shrines and apparitions disappear. The dungeon announces the liberation of Pueblo de los Olvidados, the cure of the surviving ghommids, and Yemaya's re-ascension. These results establish that the town is freed even though Asojano's shrine was not repaired. They also leave the promises made by Legba, Shango, Oshun, and Inle untested.
The cost to Ogun's worshippers is immediate. Paz and Anton suffer a continuing loss of health marked by a flaming anvil. Sister Ines can replenish their health but cannot end the decline. Ogun then appears in the restored temple, calls Yemaya his sister, and condemns the men for allowing her return. He immobilizes Sister Ines when she attempts to defend them. He burns Paz's face and removes his ability to heal the remaining fatal condition. Carl tries to shield Anton with Black Nimbus, but Ogun kills him. The god's punishment falls on the followers to whom he gave orders, although Carl and Bomo made the decisive repair.
Yemaya subsequently appears from a fountain, followed by Eileithyia. Carl's examination identifies Yemaya as a goddess of rivers and Eileithyia's retainer. Yemaya objects to Ogun shedding blood in her new temple and acknowledges Bomo as the one who rebuilt her shrine. Donut receives a powerful card called The Thief, while Yemaya grants Bomo's request to be reunited with his friend by sending him to Larracos. Eileithyia provides the group with a floor boon and approaches Carl with a further quest. The actual gifts thus extend beyond the shrine announcement, while some of them, particularly Bomo's sudden departure, create new problems for the party.
Katia later tells Donut that she asked Carl to repair Yemaya's shrine as part of a plan to escape the Crown's threat. Her explanation confirms why Carl chose that deity, but it does not make Ogun's retaliation incidental. Yemaya's return frees the settlement and opens Katia's proposed route; at the same time, it ends Anton's life and leaves Paz under a punishment that the group's healers cannot lift. The Orishas' shared shrine room binds those outcomes to a single, irreversible choice.