Leprechaun
l leprechaun 
| |
|---|---|
| Difficulty | 4 |
| Attacks |
Claw 1d2 steal gold |
| Base level | 5 |
| Base experience | 59 |
| Speed | 15 |
| Base AC | 8 |
| Base MR | 20 |
| Alignment | 0 (neutral) |
| Frequency (by normal means) | 4 (Uncommon) |
| Genocidable | Yes |
| Weight | 60 |
| Nutritional value | 30 |
| Size | Tiny |
| Resistances | None |
| Resistances conveyed |
Causes teleportitis (50%) |
|
A leprechaun:
| |
| Reference | monst.c#line553 |
A leprechaun, l, is a monster that appears in NetHack. It is the only member of the leprechaun monster class.
Leprechauns have intrinsic teleportitis, and approach you to try and steal any gold they see in your open inventory - they will otherwise keep their distance from you where possible. When you attack a leprechaun that is not frozen, asleep, confused, or blind, it has a 1⁄7 chance of moving one square away instead of being hit - this will cause you to "miss wildly and stumble forward" into that square.[1]
Eating a leprechaun's corpse has a 50% chance of conveying teleportitis, the highest of any corpse in the game.
Contents
Generation
Leprechauns are normally generated sleeping, and will always carry LDd30 pieces of gold.[2][3] Leprechaun halls are special rooms filled with sleeping leprechauns, with each one on top of a pile of gold in a similar manner to a treasure zoo.
Strategy
When a leprechaun makes a successful gold-stealing attack, it teleports away. This can be avoided by using ranged attacks or making a melee attack while carrying no gold, though they can steal gold directly at your feet, so it is best to keep it elsewhere.
While they are often harmless, they can use offensive wands against you, and can generate with defensive items like a wand of digging that can make it difficult for you to recover your gold.
Amusingly, using a ring of conflict in a leprechaun hall will cause them to steal from each other—but it will soon prove annoying, as this scatters them across the level.
Credit cloning
Leprechauns can be exploited for credit cloning: Drop all but one of your gold coins in a shop, then lure a leprechaun inside - once it picks up the pile of gold, then let it either steal your last gold piece or teleport out. Once you kill it to retrieve your gold back, you'll still have your credit - since you can only do this once per leprechaun, you should do it with as much gold as possible. Using leprechauns this way is difficult since they won't follow you, but it does mean you can credit clone even without a pet or a sack.
Messages
- You miss wildly and stumble forward.
- A leprechaun dodged one of your attacks.
Origin
The leprechaun (Irish leipreachán or luchorpán) is a diminutive supernatural being in Irish folklore, and is often classified as a type of solitary fairy; leprechaun-like creatures only became prominent in later folklore. They are usually depicted as little coat-and-hat-clad bearded folk with a tendency towards mischief, and were later portrayed as shoe-makers who have a hidden pot of gold at the end of a rainbow.
History
The leprechaun is among the many monsters present in the very first version of Hack by Andries Brouwer, along with "Hack for PDP-11" (which was based on an early draft). In early versions such as this and NetHack 1.3d, leprechuans used the L glyph and had slightly different behavior: they would still attempt to attack players that closed in as they attempted to keep their distance.
Variants
In variants featuring an object materials system, leprechauns are commonly given the additional ability to steal gold items.
xNetHack
In xNetHack version 3.0, leprechauns were previously merged into the i imp or minor demon class, with xNetHack changing the glyph for the lizard monster class to lowercase l (l) instead to avoid using a punctuation glyph; this was reverted as of version 6.0.[4]
Like other minor demons and fey creatures, leprechauns are subject to bonus damage from iron and silver weapons. Leprechauns are also capable of stealing gold items as well as gold pieces.
Encyclopedia entry
The Irish Leprechaun is the Faeries' shoemaker and is known
under various names in different parts of Ireland:
Cluricaune in Cork, Lurican in Kerry, Lurikeen in Kildare
and Lurigadaun in Tipperary. Although he works for the
Faeries, the Leprechaun is not of the same species. He is
small, has dark skin and wears strange clothes. His nature
has something of the manic-depressive about it: first he
is quite happy, whistling merrily as he nails a sole on to a
shoe; a few minutes later, he is sullen and morose, drunk
on his home-made heather ale. The Leprechaun's two great
loves are tobacco and whiskey, and he is a first-rate con-man,
impossible to out-fox. No one, no matter how clever, has ever
managed to cheat him out of his hidden pot of gold or his
magic shilling. At the last minute he always thinks of some
way to divert his captor's attention and vanishes in the
twinkling of an eye.
by Nancy Arrowsmith & George Moorse ]
