Steam vortex

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A steam vortex, v, is a type of monster that appears in NetHack. The steam vortex is a type of vortex that can be seen via infravision, and is the weaker of two vortices with an affinity to fire, with the other being the fire vortex.

A steam vortex has an engulfing attack that deals fire damage, which is replaced with a "claw" attack that deals fire damage and can destroy scrolls, spellbooks and potions in the target's inventory if the attack hits the hero during the grace period where they were expelled and cannot be re-engulfed.[1] Steam vortices possess fire resistance, sleep resistance, poison resistance, and stoning resistance.

The following information pertains to an upcoming version (NetHack 3.7.0). If this version is now released, please verify that the information below is still accurate, then update the page to incorporate it.

Steam clouds trail temporary clouds of steam as they move, and dissipate into a somewhat larger group of temporary clouds when they are destroyed.

Generation

Randomly generated steam vortices are always created hostile, and are only created in Gehennom.

Five steam vortices are generated on the Plane of Air at level creation.[2] Two steam vortices are generated on the Plane of Fire at level creation.

Steam vortices do not leave a corpse upon death.

Strategy

Despite being somewhat stronger than an ice vortex and even faster than the dreaded energy vortex at 22 speed, steam vortices are not too threatening: most heroes will have obtained fire resistance by the time they encounter one normally, and even heroes lacking fire resistance will be able to handle the relatively low damage.

History

The steam vortex first appears in NetHack 3.0.0.

Messages

You are burning to a crisp!
You were engulfed by a steam vortex or fire vortex.
You feel mildly hot.
As above, but you have fire resistance.
<Foo> is burning to a crisp!
You engulfed a monster while in the form of a steam vortex or fire vortex.
<Foo> seems mildly hot.
As above, but the monster has fire resistance.
You smell steam.
A monster polymorphed into a steam vortex outside of your sight.

Variants

SLASH'EM

In SLASH'EM, steam vortices require a +1 weapon or better to be hit and implicitly hit as +1 weapons.

dNetHack

In dNetHack, notdNetHack and notnotdNetHack, the steam vortex and almost all other vortices (except for the yochlol's stinking cloud form) take halved damage from blunt, piercing and slashing weapons.

Encyclopedia entry

See the encyclopedia entry for vortex.

References