Zombie (monster class)
- For the type of monster, see Zombie.
The zombie is a monster class that appears in NetHack, and is represented by an uppercase Z glyph (Z). Zombies are designated internally by the macro S_ZOMBIE.[1]
The monster class contains the following monsters:[2]
- Z kobold zombie
- Z gnome zombie
- Z orc zombie
- Z dwarf zombie
- Z elf zombie
- Z human zombie
- Z ettin zombie
- Z ghoul
- Z giant zombie
- Z skeleton
Contents
Common traits
All monsters in the zombie monster class are chaotic, mindless humanoid undead that possess unbreathing and infravision. Not all monsters in the monster class are zombies (i.e. ghouls and skeletons), though all zombies are a part of this monster class.
Generation
All randomly generated monsters of the zombie monster class will always be hostile.
The zombie monster class is the first quest monster class for the Priest quest, and makes up 14% of the monsters randomly generated there.
Though all monsters in this class are designated as corpseless in monst.c, zombies are special cased to leave an aged corpse of their living counterpart upon "death" (e.g. a gnome zombie leaves an old gnome corpse when "killed"). This means that listed nutritional values for zombies are only relevant to pets or polymorphed player characters that digest zombies - corpses left behind by zombies use their normal nutritional values, though they are usually too old to be eaten safely without a tinning kit.
The following information pertains to an upcoming version (NetHack 3.7.0). If this version is now released, please verify that it is still accurate, then update the page to incorporate this information.
Liches and other zombies can now raise monsters killed by them without a weapon as zombies, unless they are cancelled - the corpse will rise 5-20 turns after death if it has a corresponding zombie type. You can also do this if polymorphed into a zombie or lich. Zombies and liches will now grudge living monsters that can be turned into zombies.History
The zombie first appears in Hack 1.21, a variant of Jay Fenlason's Hack, as well as Hack for PDP-11. It is included in the initial bestiary for Hack 1.0, and appears in the game from that version to NetHack 2.3e. In NetHack 3.0.0, most of the zombie monster class is introduced and differentiated, with the skeleton being added in NetHack 3.1.0 and the ghoul and dwarf zombie being added in NetHack 3.3.0.
Origin
The zombie is a mindless animated corpse that originates from Haitian folklore. The etymology comes from African or Caribbean creole of related concepts.
Encyclopedia entry
The zombi ... is a soulless human corpse, still dead, but taken from the grave and endowed by sorcery with a mechanical semblance of life, -- it is a dead body which is made to walk and act and move as if it were alive.
