Shrieker
F shrieker 
| |
|---|---|
| Difficulty | 2 |
| Attacks |
None |
| Base level | 3 |
| Base experience | 28 |
| Speed | 1 |
| Base AC | 7 |
| Base MR | 0 |
| Alignment | 0 (neutral) |
| Frequency (by normal means) | 1 (Very rare) |
| Genocidable | Yes |
| Weight | 100 |
| Nutritional value | 100 |
| Size | Small |
| Resistances | Poison |
| Resistances conveyed | Poison (20%) |
|
A shrieker:
| |
| Reference | monst.c#line1327 |
A shrieker, F, is a type of monster that appears in NetHack. The shrieker is a type of fungus that is one of the few monster to lack an attack of any kind, including a passive attack (even those that trigger on death, as with the gas spore).
In lieu of attacking, a shrieker will shriek intermittently when adjacent to the hero or to a monster attacking them, which can aggravate and wake up monsters with an additional 1⁄10 chance to summon a monster in a random location on the level:[1] this summoned monster has a 1⁄13 chance of being a purple worm, and will otherwise be a random monster appropriate for the level.[2][3] Shrieking does not use up a turn.
Eating a shrieker corpse or tin has a 1⁄5 chance (20%) of granting poison resistance.
Chatting with a shrieker will also cause it to shriek, which aggravates monsters but cannot summon any.[4]
Purple worms will attack any shriekers they encounter, and a hero in the form of a purple worm is warned of shriekers.[5]
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.
Baby purple worms now appear in place of adult purple worms if a shrieker would summon the latter in an area where it is out of depth. Baby purple worms will also attack shriekers, and a hero in the form of a baby purple worm is also warned of shriekers.Contents
Generation
Randomly generated shriekers are always created hostile.
Three shriekers are generated on the goal level of the Caveman quest at level creation.
Strategy
Shriekers are not an active threat on their own, though their shrieking can be inconvenient and wake up monsters that a hero wants to leave undisturbed, and introduces the low-but-possible chance that an out-of-depth purple worm will generate and cause YASD. Fortunately, shriekers are weak and move at minimum speed, so they are generally easy to take out before the possibility can come up. Ranged attacks of any kind can help remove the possibility of a shriek summoning or awakening an unwanted monster, and shrieker corpses are a decent source of poison resistance for early heroes.
The following information pertains to an upcoming version (3.7.0). If this version is now released, please verify that it is still accurate, then update the page to incorporate this information.
Monsters can gain intrinsics from eating corpses, so a shrieker can be useful for giving poison resistance to a pet pony (e.g. as a Knight).
Baby purple worms are much slower and less dangerous than their adult forms, and a cunning hero can take advantage of one being summoned to gain a lot of experience early on, or even tame and raise the baby worm into an adult.History
The shrieker first appears in NetHack 3.1.0.
Origin
The shrieker originates from Dungeons & Dragons, where they debut in the 1st Edition Monster Manual. Shriekers are large and human-sized mushrooms that resemble violet fungi, but lack their poisons and tentacles, though they are immune to the fungi's poisons themselves; the 1st Edition material describes them as ambulatory, though later editions make them sessile. Shriekers are poisonous to most creatures as food, though they can be eaten by purple worms, hook horrors, shambling mounds, and medusae - this is the basis for the ability of shriekers in NetHack to summon purple worms, as well as the worm's ability to attack shriekers.
Shriekers live in dark underground environments such as the Underdark (the dwelling of the drow) and the homeworld of the illithids, and react to nearby motion or light with their namesake shriek. The sounds last between 5 and 15 seconds, and is meant to attract other beings to the area as prey: shriekers gain nourishment from breaking down nearby organic matter, and cannot attack on their own, so they are reliant on violet fungi to fatally poison the prey they attract. Inhabitants of the Underdark sometimes intentionally use shriekers as a form of intruder alarm.
Messages
- <The shrieker> shrieks.
- You chatted to a shrieker, or else the shrieker got a turn while in melee range of you. This has gained a reputation as being one of the most memorable lines in NetHack.
Variants
SLASH'EM
In SLASH'EM, shriekers are given death resistance and have a 9⁄10 chance of reviving from their corpses like other non-lichen fungi and molds.[6] A shrieker has an overall 1.85% chance of generating from a corpse that reach 51 turns of age, is not acidic, and is not located within or on top of a square of water, ice or lava.[7][8][9][10]
Shriekers can be generated in fungus farms.
The shrieker shares its shrieking ability with the squealer and mobat: it can no longer summon purple worms, but has a 1⁄8 chance of summoning a random monster.[11]
SlashTHEM
In SlashTHEM, shriekers are slightly less likely to generate from old corpses due to the addition of some new fungi and molds. All other SLASH'EM details apply.
Encyclopedia entry
With a single, savage thrust of her spear, the warrior-woman impaled the fungus, silencing it. However, it was too late: the alarm had been raised [...]
Suddenly, a large, dark shape rose from the abyss before them, its fetid bulk looming overhead...The monster was some kind of great dark worm, but that was about all they were sure of.
References
- ↑ src/mon.c in NetHack 3.6.0, line 2432
- ↑ src/mon.c in NetHack 3.6.0, line 2433
- ↑ src/mon.c in NetHack 3.6.0, line 1391
- ↑ src/sounds.c in NetHack 3.6.0, line 710
- ↑ src/mon.c in NetHack 3.6.7, line 1560
- ↑ mkobj.c in SLASH'EM 0.0.7E7F2, line 764
- ↑ mkobj.c in SLASH'EM 0.0.7E7F2, line 765
- ↑ do.c in SLASH'EM 0.0.7E7F2, line 1685
- ↑ mkobj.c in SLASH'EM 0.0.7E7F2, line 811
- ↑ do.c in SLASH'EM 0.0.7E7F2, line 1680
- ↑ mon.c in SLASH'EM 0.0.7E7F2, line 2357
This page may need to be updated for the current version of NetHack.
It may contain text specific to NetHack 3.6.0. Information on this page may be out of date.
Editors: After reviewing this page and making necessary edits, please change the {{nethack-360}} tag to the current version's tag or {{noversion}} as appropriate.
