Black naga

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A black naga, N, is a type of monster that appears in NetHack. It is an adult naga that is carnivorous unlike the other adult nagas.

A black naga has a bite attack and the ability to spit acidic venom, and possesses acid resistance, stoning resistance and poison resistance.

A black naga corpse is acidic to eat, but eating a black naga corpse or tin has an 815 chance of conveying poison resistance.

Generation

Randomly generated black nagas may generate as peaceful towards lawful characters. A black naga hatchling can grow up into a black naga.

Black nagas appear among the N that are part of the second quest monster class for Rogues, and make up 6175 of the monsters randomly generated on the the Rogue quest.

Four black nagas are generated on the fourth variant of Medusa's Island at level creation.

History

The black naga first appears in NetHack 3.0.0.

Origin

The Nāga (feminine "Nagi") are a supernatural race of half-human half-serpent beings that can occasionally take human form, and hold cultural significance in the folkloric traditions of many South Asian and Southeast Asian cultures over the past two millennia. Nagas also appear in Dungeons & Dragons.

Their most common depiction is that of a snake with a human head, which the default tileset of NetHack draws from—other iconographic depictions portray them as human from the waist up and snake from the waist down, wholly human with snakes on the heads and necks, or even as common serpents. Various south and southeastern Asian cultures also portray Nāgas as having multiple usually-serpentine heads.

Encyclopedia entry

The naga is a mystical creature with the body of a snake and the head of a man or woman. They will fiercely protect the territory they consider their own. Some nagas can be forced to serve as guardians by a spellcaster of great power.