Human (monster)

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Revision as of 17:46, 3 November 2023 by Ion frigate (talk | contribs) (murder weirdness, as much putting this here because it *would* be relevant if someone decided to implement a neutral, human, sometimes peaceful monster)
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A human is a very rare monster — it is never randomly generated or placed in a normal game.[1] They can be created by zapping a wand of undead turning at human corpses found in graveyards and by casting stone to flesh on human statues. Human corpses left by human zombies will not create human monsters when zapped by the wand, returning rather to their zombie form. A human monster can also be created by reverse genocide, if the player is human.

Curiously, the plain human is one of the twelve forms that the Wizard of Yendor's clone may mimic when it is created through Double Trouble. This is the only way a player will (even fleetingly) see this monster without deliberately attempting to create one.

Murder

For an act to be considered murder, the following conditions must be met:

  • The player must not be chaotic
  • The monster killed must a of human type
  • The monster killed must not always be generated hostile
  • Killing the monster must produce a non-positive change in alignment for the player

For a non-chaotic player, the first three conditions are always met: humans are not always generated hostile. However, they are also not guaranteed to be peaceful: they will always be hostile to lawfuls (and chaotics), and have a 50% chance of being peaceful to neutrals. Thus, for a neutral or lawful character, killing a human can be considered murder if the alignment gain from killing them is non-positive. Because of [[the way alignment gain works, killing a hostile human will be considered murder for lawfuls, as killing a cross-aligned "sometimes peaceful" monster adjusts the player's alignment record by the malign or the monster's alignment, which in the case of the neutral human is zero. For a neutral character, killing a hostile human will not be considered murder, as the alignment gain from killing a co-aligned "sometimes peaceful" monster is max(3, malign), or 3. Killing a peaceful human will still be considered murder, however, as that gives an alignment penalty.

Encyclopedia entry

These strange creatures live mostly on the surface of the earth, gathering together in societies of various forms, but occasionally a stray will descend into the depths and commit mayhem among the dungeon residents who, naturally, often resent the intrusion of such beasts. They are capable of using weapons and magic, and it is even rumored that the Wizard of Yendor is a member of this species.


References


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