Yellow light

From NetHackWiki
Jump to navigation Jump to search

A yellow light, y, is a type of monster that appears in NetHack. It is the only other member of the light monster class along with the black light. A yellow light is amorphous, can fly and flow under doors, and possesses every resistance property minus magic resistance.

Yellow lights illuminate their surroundings in a 3x3 area centered on themselves. Their sole attack directs an explosion at the square of its target that destroys the yellow light - any target that is hit is blinded for 10d20 turns. The attack is much less effective on you if you cannot see the yellow light - if a yellow light is invisible and you cannot see invisible, there is an experience level-based chance that its explosion will not affect you.[1] A yellow light's explosion will wake nearby sleeping monsters.

Generation

Yellow lights are always generated hostile, and never leave a corpse upon death.

In addition to normal random generation, reading a non-cursed scroll of light while confused has a 15 chance of generating a black light unless they are genocided.

The second variant of Medusa's Island has a yellow light in the back room of the hall Medusa inhabits, and three yellow lights are generated on the Plane of Air.

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.

Reading a non-cursed scroll of light while confused will instead summon multiple tame cancelled yellow lights if they are not genocided. An uncursed scroll will summon 3–4 yellow lights, while a blessed scroll will summon 5–6 yellow lights. This was adapted from UnNetHack.

Strategy

Blinding yourself, e.g. by wearing a blindfold or towel, will render the explosion harmless; various cures such as a unicorn horn or curative spell (e.g., extra healing and cure blindness) also make them trivial to deal with. Yellow lights also cannot see invisible - if you are invisible or have displacement, they may explode at an empty square with no effect.

While it is possible to kill yellow lights normally if you can deal with their 0 AC and fast, erratic movement, it is usually preferable to let them explode while already blinded as above in most scenarios. Be careful of dealing with yellow lights in or around rooms such as treasure zoos or throne rooms - a light that explodes close to the room will wake many (if not all) of the inhabitants.

History

Yellow lights have been present since Hack121, a variant of Jay Fenlason's Hack.

Messages

You get the impression it was not terribly bright.
An invisible yellow light exploded, and you were unaffected by it.
You have a melancholy feeling for a moment, then it passes.
A tame yellow light exploded.

Variants

UnNetHack

In UnNetHack, yellow lights are subject to special generation on the Oracle level, where only 93% of monsters are generated through normal means; of the remaining 7%, yellow lights have a 110 chance of being generated.

Reading a non-cursed scroll of light while confused will instead summon multiple tame cancelled yellow lights if they are not genocided. An uncursed scroll will summon 3–4 yellow lights, while a blessed scroll will summon 5–6 yellow lights.

xNetHack

In xNetHack, yellow lights emit a 2-square radius of light around themselves, and their explosion attack affects all monsters adjacent to it.

Encyclopedia entry

Strange creatures formed from energy rather than matter,
lights are given to self-destructive behavior when battling
foes.

References