Simurgh
Simurgh, who roosts on the Tree of Life is a spirit that appears in dNetHack and notdNetHack.
Contents
Ritual, seal and taboo
Simurgh's seal must be drawn on the ground of an outdoors level - certain quest branch levels are considered outdoors, and the ground floor of the Windowless Tower is an outdoors level that is always generated.
To remain bound to Simurgh, the character must not fall through trap doors or holes.
Mark
A character that has Simurgh bound gains iron claws, as well as prismatic feathers that circle their head - both can be seen from a distance. The claws can be hidden with either gloves or a cloak, while the feathers can be hidden with a helm.
Benefits
While bound, Simurgh prevents the character from falling into trap doors, pits, spiked pits, and holes - the character can still deliberately use holes and trap doors with >, which unbinds Simurgh as noted above. Simurgh grants skill in enchantment spells.
Simurgh's active powers are as follows:
- Unite the Earth and Sky: Selects an adjacent square and creates a pool if there is a pit, and otherwise creates a tree.
- Hook in the Sky: The character rises through the ceiling, as with a cursed potion of gain level, but this has no effect if they possess the Amulet of Yendor.
- Enlightenment: The character benefits from enlightenment.
Its passive powers are as follows:
- Lion's Claws/Iron Claws: The character's bare-handed attacks (i.e. without worn gloves) against iron-hating monsters have a 4⁄5 chance of dealing 1d5 dice with a size of ML⁄2, where ML is the defender's level.
- Siræng's Radiance: There is a separate 1⁄5 chance of a radiant feather attack being added to the character's attack chain - the attack deals damage equal to a roll of their spirit die if any of the following applies to the target monster, and stuns that monster if they lack blindness resistance:
- The monster lacks fire resistance; the extra damage is treated as exploiting vulnerability to fire.
- The monster lacks cold resistance; the extra damage is treated as exploiting vulnerability to cold.
- The monster lacks disintegration resistance.
- The monster is invisible.
- The monster lacks shock resistance.
- The monster lacks poison resistance.
- The monster lacks acid resistance.
- The monster lacks stoning resistance.
- The monster lacks drain resistance.
- The monster lacks immunity to sickness.
- The monster is undead.
- The monster is a fungus.
- The monster has infravision.
- The monster is large enough to block light as a boulder.
- The monster is not unbreathing.
- The monster is not incorporeal, insubstantial as a shade, or phasing.
- The monster is whirly.
- The monster is not mindless.
As a monster
| B Simurgh File:SimurghWhoRoosts.png | |
|---|---|
| Difficulty | 42 |
| Attacks |
bite 5d5 physical, claw 5d5 thirty-colored feathers |
| Base level | 38 |
| Base experience | 1978 |
| Speed | 20 |
| Base AC | -4 |
| Base MR | 30 |
| Alignment | 0 (neutral) |
| Frequency (by normal means) | 0 (Not randomly generated) |
| Genocidable | No |
| Weight | 3000 |
| Nutritional value | 400 |
| Size | large |
| Resistances | sleep, petrification
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Simurgh:
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In notdNetHack, Simurgh, B, also appears as a monster that can be summoned by an Illithanachronounbinder. Simurgh is considered female in both dNetHack and notdNetHack, with a comment in the code of dNetHack referring to Simurgh as "her". She is an oviparous bird-like animal that is capable of flight, has a tendency to wander and can be seen via infravision.
Simurgh has a strong bite attack, and a strong claw attack that emulates the effects of her Siræng's Radiance passive power on targets: the spirit die is treated as a d5, and the target is stunned for up to 5 turns. She possesses sleep resistance and stoning resistance.
Like many summoned spirits, Simurgh cannot be tamed.
Generation
Simurgh is first generated when summoned from his seal by an Illithanachronounbinder. She is always created hostile, and is not a valid form for normal polymorph.
Simurgh is generated with Simurgh's Feather, an artifact feather that confers shock resistance and acts as a light source while carried, and can be invoked for the effect of a scroll of remove curse with the same beatitude.
Simurgh does not leave a corpse upon death.
Strategy
Below this point, there are major spoilers for the Illithanachronounbinder role. They can be accessed by selecting the "Role spoiler" tab.
If Simurgh is killed after being summoned, she can be encountered again in the Void, a branch accessed by opening the high altar of Ilsensine the Fallen as an Illithanachronounbinder using the invoke effect of The Elder Cerebral Fluid. Simurgh is generated along with many other spirits of the near void on the first floor of the branch, and is generated with the "whispers" template, which makes her nonliving.
Encyclopedia entry
If I were the rain that binds together the earth and the sky, who in all eternity will never mingle, would I be able to bind the hearts of people together?
The simurgh is depicted in Iranian art as a winged creature in the shape of a bird, gigantic enough to carry off an elephant or a whale. It appears as a peacock with the head of a dog and the claws of a lion - sometimes, however, also with a human face. The simurgh is inherently benevolent and unambiguously female.
"Si-", the first element in the name, has been connected in folk etymology to Modern Persian si ("thirty"). Although this prefix is not historically related to the origin of the name simurgh, "thirty" has nonetheless been the basis for legends incorporating that number - for instance, that the simurgh was as large as thirty birds or had thirty colours (siræng).
Iranian legends consider the bird so old that it had seen the destruction of the world three times over. The simurgh learned so much by living so long that it is thought to possess the knowledge of all the ages.
