Giant zombie

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A giant zombie, Z, is a type of monster that appears in NetHack. It is the strongest of the zombies, but not the strongest monster of the zombie monster class. Giant zombies can follow you to other levels if they are adjacent.

A giant zombie has two claw attacks. The giant zombie is one of only two zombies to leave a potentially beneficial corpse: eating the giant corpse it leaves behind has a 12 chance of increasing strength, but the corpse's age may cause food poisoning.

Generation

Randomly generated giant zombies are always hostile.

Giant zombies may appear among the zombies and other monsters that are part of the first quest monster class for Priests, and make up 24175 of the monsters that are randomly generated on the Priest quest. The branch also has several undead-filled graveyards that include giant zombies among their ranks.

Three giant zombies are randomly generated within the main section of Orcus-town at level creation.

A giant zombie will leave an aged giant corpse upon death.[1][2]

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.

A giant zombie may appear as the monster guarding the chests in the water-surrounded vault themed room.

Strategy

Despite being slower than even a burdened hero, giant zombies are among the fastest zombies along with the ettin zombie, and their claw attacks are decently strong. A character prepared to advance into the mid-game should be able to handle them with some caution, and can even eat the corpses they leave behind if they are prepared to handle damage or even food illness from the old corpse. A tinning kit is most preferable for dealing with giant zombies after felling them, since they sitll grant strength increases without being as filling.

History

The giant zombie first appears in NetHack 3.0.0, where most of the various zombies are first distinguished from each other.

Variants

SLASH'EM

In SLASH'EM, giant zombies can be created by using the raise zombies technique while adjacent to the corpse of any giant.

GruntHack

In GruntHack, giant zombies are replaced with the zombie racial monster, which kobolds are eligible to generate as. Any non-undead giant killed by a zombie will rise as a giant zombie.

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.

[ W. B. Seabrook ]

References

  1. src/mon.c in NetHack 3.6.7, line 147: Converting monster index of undead to corpses of their living counterparts
  2. src/mon.c in NetHack 3.6.7, line 372: Undead corpses and their ages are handled with other "special" death drops