Turn undead
Turn undead spell
Turn undead is a level 6 clerical spell, and the bonus spell of the Knight. It causes undead monsters to take damage and possibly flee, and will resurrect corpses.
A wand of undead turning has the same effects as the spell.
Turn undead command
Knights and Priests have the innate ability to turn undead. This can be invoked with the #turn extended command.
This command is quite different from the spell or the wand. In fact, it's a prayer to your god, not a spell.
Using the #turn command has the following effects[1]:
- Exercises wisdom.
- Turns all hostile undead monsters that you can see with a base range of 5 squares. Range increases by 1 square every 5 levels. If your level is higher than 15, hostile demons are turned as well. Affected monsters have a chance to resist.
- These monsters are woken if they are sleeping.
- If you are lawful or neutral, certain undead monsters may be killed instantly. If you are chaotic, they may become peaceful. These monsters are, in increasing order of difficulty: zombie, mummy, wraith, vampire, ghost, lich.
- Demons and those undead not listed above will flee. Unless you are confused, in which case it removes fleeing and paralysis effects from those monsters instead.
- You become helpless for 5 turns while you are praying. (Ouch!)
Unless one of the following cases are true:
- If you are polymorphed into an undead or a demon, bad stuff will happen. Not recommended.
- Your god isn't accessible in Gehennom, so it won't work there.
Strategy
The turn undead spell can be used to resurrect a dead pet.
The #turn command's helplessness side-effect limits this ability's usefulness, especially since it's only likely to kill undead less powerful than yourself. Use with caution. It would probably clear a graveyard pretty fast if you're high enough level, though.