Doctor Frankenstein
Q Doctor Frankenstein 
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|---|---|
| Difficulty | 23 |
| Attacks |
Weapon 4d4, Claw teleport 1d4 |
| Base level | 20 |
| Base experience | 610 |
| Speed | 12 |
| Base AC | -10 |
| Base MR | 75 |
| Alignment | 0 (neutral) |
| Frequency (by normal means) | Unique |
| Genocidable | No |
| Weight | 1450 |
| Nutritional value | 20 |
| Size | Medium |
| Resistances | poison, shock, sleep |
| Resistances conveyed | causes teleportitis (100%) |
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Doctor Frankenstein:
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| Reference | SLASH'EM 0.0.7E7F2/monst.c#line3027 |
Doctor Frankenstein, Q, is a unique monster that appears in SLASH'EM and SlashTHEM. He is a quantum mechanic-like humanoid monster that teleports at random, and possesses a weapon attack along with a claw attack that can teleport you, similar to other quantum mechanics. Doctor Frankenstein has poison resistance, shock resistance and sleep resistance, and cannot be tamed.
Doctor Frankenstein's corpse is poisonous to eat, and eating his corpse or tin is guaranteed to convey teleportitis. Like other quantum mechanics, he is not considered human for the purposes of cannibalism or sacrifice.
Generation
Doctor Frankenstein is guaranteed to appear in his eponymous lab, where he is found in the small innermost room behind a secret door. He will always be generated hostile, and cannot be selected as a form for polymorph.
Doctor Frankenstein is always generated with a lab coat, a spellbook of polymorph and a wand of polymorph.
Strategy
Doctor Frankenstein is not especially difficult to face for a player capable of making it to Gehennom and finding his laboratory. Though his -10 base AC is far superior to any other monster within the laboratory - including his own creation - any player that can find the branch from within Gehennom should be capable of hitting through his defenses with ease. Doctor Frankenstein's biggest threat for a prepared player is the teleportation from his second attack, which at worst can prolong the fight by several turns; MC3 or teleport control nullifies the impact of the attack altogether.
The genetic engineers he shares a room with and the A that may generate in the branch (which is considered outside of Gehennom) are a more pressing threat in comparison; properties like magic resistance or unchanging can prevent the engineers' polymorphing attacks.
Doctor Frankenstein may be worth defeating for his guaranteed lab coat, which is a valuable source of acid resistance and MC3 for a player that either lacks the resistance or wants to adjust their build for it: acid resistance is a rare property, and is highly useful for late game threats such as giant shoggoths.
Origin
Doctor Victor Frankenstein is a Swiss scientist and the titular main protagonist of 1818 Mary Shelley novel Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus. The title directly likens him to Prometheus, a figure of classical folklore who fashioned humans out of clay and gave them fire.
The story itself begins with Captain Robert Walton finding the nearly-frozen-and-emaciated Victor during an exploration of the North Pole: Walton comes to the area in pursuit of scientific knowledge, and during the voyage his crew spots a dog sled driven by a gigantic figure, rescuing Victor a few hours later. As Frankenstein starts to recover, he reveals that he has been in pursuit of the gigantic figure and recounts his life story to Walton as a warning, seeing in Walton the same obsession that led him to ruin.
Born in Naples, Italy, the young Victor took interest in the works of alchemists such as Cornelius Agrippa and Paracelsus and longed to discover the fabled elixir of life; he temporarily loses interest at 15, after witnessing a lightning strike that destroys a tree and having the theory of electricity explained to him. However, while at the University of Ingolstadt in Bavaria, Frankenstein develops a fondness for chemistry and rediscovers his passion for the sciences and curiosity about the nature of life - his studies eventually lead him to a miraculous discovery that enables him to give life to non-living matter. Over the course of two years, Victor undertakes the creation of a humanoid being in the attic of his boarding house.
Due to the difficulty of replicating the minute parts of the human body, Victor makes his "Creature" about 8 feet (2.4 m) in height and proportionally large, and selects for features commonly considered beautiful during the process. Using an ambiguous means involving electricity, Victor finally brings his creation to life; the Creature's ugliness horrifies Frankenstein into fleeing from his creation. As the Creature struggles to discover his own identity and fails to fit into human society, his shunning leads him to seek revenge against Frankenstein, who in turn devotes his life to destroying the Creature after he takes the lives of several family members and his future wife.
Some aspects of Victor's character are believed to have been inspired by Percy Shelley, Mary's husband. Victor's desire to understand and create life through the Creature, followed by his struggles with guilt, despair and regret as Victor eventually seeks to destroy the monster, is one of the major themes of the book; another major theme is the question of Frankenstein's responsibility to the creature and its parallels to a parent's responsibility for their child. Though the novel portrays him as a tragic figure whose life is defined by his obsessions, many film adaptations - including the 1931 film Frankenstein and the Hammer Films series starring Peter Cushing - have portrayed Frankenstein as the prototypical "mad scientist".
Encyclopedia entry
With an anxiety that almost amounted to agony, I collected
the instruments of life around me, that I might infuse a spark
of being into the lifeless thing that lay at my feet. It was
already one in the morning; the rain pattered dismally against
the panes, and my candle was nearly burnt out, when, by the
glimmer of the half-extinguished light, I saw the dull yellow
eye of the creature open; it breathed hard, and a convulsive
motion agitated its limbs.
How can I describe my emotions at this catastrophe, or how
delineate the wretch whom with such infinite pains and care I
had endeavoured to form? His limbs were in proportion, and I
had selected his features as beautiful. Beautiful!--Great God!
His yellow skin scarcely covered the work of muscles and
arteries beneath; his hair was of a lustrous black, and
flowing; his teeth of a pearly whiteness; but these luxuriances
only formed a more horrid contrast with his watery eyes, that
seemed almost of the same colour as the dun white sockets in
which they were set, his shrivelled complexion and straight
black lips.
