Lava gremlin
| g lava gremlin (No tile) | |
|---|---|
| Difficulty | 8 |
| Attacks |
Claw 1d6 fire, Claw 1d6 fire, Bite 1d4 physical, Claw 0d0 intrinsic theft |
| Base level | 5 |
| Base experience | 56 |
| Speed | 12 |
| Base AC | 2 |
| Base MR | 25 |
| Alignment | -9 (chaotic) |
| Frequency (by normal means) | 2 (Quite rare) |
| Genocidable | Yes |
| Weight | 100 |
| Nutritional value | 20 |
| Size | Small |
| Resistances | poison, fire |
| Resistances conveyed | poison (+5%), fire (+5%) |
|
A lava gremlin:
| |
| Reference | EvilHack 0.8.4 - monst.c, line 549 |
A lava gremlin, g, is a type of monster that appears in EvilHack and Hack'EM. The lava gremlin is a small humanoid monster that is a fiery variant of the standard gremlin: they can be seen via infravision, and can follow the hero to other levels if they are adjacent.
In contrast to normal gremlins, lava gremlins cannot swim, but can freely cross lava squares: they will duplicate into two identical clones with half the maximum HP via division if they make contact with lava of any kind, including forges, and will actively seek out lava to divide themselves; a lava gremlin cannot divide if their max HP is 1. Cloned lava gremlins retain the properties of the original (including being a shape changer if they were cloned from one in lava gremlin form), and a hero that clones themselves this way while polymorphed into a gremlin will create a tame lava gremlin.
Lava gremlins have two claw attacks that deal fire damage and can burn vulnerable items in open inventory, a bite attack, and a third claw attack that deals no damage, but has a 1⁄10 chance of intrinsic theft during the daytime if the lava gremlin is not cancelled–the attack cancels monsters it hits with the same chance, instantly destroying clay golems, and a hero polymorphed into a clay golem is forced back to normal form if an intrinsic would be stolen, even with unchanging. Lava gremlins possess poison resistance and fire resistance, and unlike normal gremlins lack any weakness to light, though they have a vulnerability to cold.
A lava gremlin corpse is poisonous to eat, and eating a lava gremlin corpse or tin grants 1⁄20 each (+5%) of additional fire and poison resistance.
Chatting to a lava gremlin causes it to laugh, with one of four different messages - of note is that one of them is the same as the message for a successful intrinsic theft attack.
Generation
Lava gremlins are only randomly generated in Gehennom, and normally-created ones may be peaceful towards chaotic heroes.
A lava gremlin that makes contact with a square of lava or a forge, or else is splashed by lava, will divide into two gremlins with half the maximum HP of the original—this can cause any forges used to explode with a 1⁄3 chance, and does not respect extinction.
Orcus-town has a 1⁄5 chance of generating a lava gremlin in the lava to the west of the "town" at level creation.
Origin
Gremlins are mischievous creatures that originate in myths among airmen, and became popularized during World War II among airmen of the Royal Air Force (RAF) units, who blamed gremlins for otherwise inexplicable accidents which sometimes occurred during their flights. Gremlins were also thought at one point to have enemy sympathies, but investigations revealed that enemy aircraft had similar and equally inexplicable mechanical problems. As such, gremlins were portrayed as equal opportunity tricksters, taking no sides in the conflict, but acting out their mischief from their own self-interest. The concept of gremlins as scapegoats eventually became important to pilot morale.
The aviator Pauline Gower's 1938 novel The ATA: Women with Wings has one of the earliest post-WWII references to gremlins: in the novel, Scotland is described as "gremlin country", a mystical and rugged territory where scissor-wielding gremlins cut the wires of biplanes when unsuspecting pilots were about. An article by Hubert Griffith in the servicemen's fortnightly Royal Air Force Journal, dated 18 April 1942, also chronicles the appearance of gremlins and states that such stories had been in existence for several years, with later recollections of it having been told by Battle of Britain Spitfire pilots as early as 1940. Folklorist John W. Hazen states that some people derive the name from the Old English word gremian, "to vex", while Paul Quinion suggested that the term is a blend of the word "goblin" with Fremlin, the manufacturer of the most common beer available in the Royal Air Force of the 1920s.
British author Roald Dahl is credited with popularizing the concept of gremlins, having himself served in 80 Squadron of the Royal Air Force in the Middle East. In January 1942, he was transferred to Washington, D.C. as Assistant Air attaché at the British Embassy, where he wrote his first children's novel, The Gremlins, featuring the titular characters as tiny men who lived on RAF fighters. Though plans to create a live-action or animated full-length feature film (and then an animated short) fell through, Disney managed to have the story published in the December 1942 issue of Cosmopolitan magazine. At Dahl's urging, Random House published a revised version of the story as a picture book in early 1943, which was considered an international success.
Encyclopedia entry
The gremlin is a highly intelligent and completely evil
creature. It lives to torment other creatures and will go
to great lengths to inflict pain or cause injury.
[]
Suddenly, Wilson thought about war, about the newspaper
stories which recounted the alleged existence of creatures in
the sky who plagued the Allied pilots in their duties. They
called them gremlins, he remembered. Were there, actually,
such beings? Did they, truly, exist up here, never falling,
riding on the wind, apparently of bulk and weight, yet
impervious to gravity?
He was thinking that when the man appeared again.
[ Nightmare at 20,000 Feet, by Richard Matheson ]
