Arcadian avenger

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An arcadian avenger, 7, is a type of monster that appears in dNetHack, notdNetHack and notnotdNetHack. The arcadian avenger is a humanoid, female lawful angelic being that is strong, capable of flight and can follow a hero to other levels if she is adjacent. As an angelic being, arcadian avengers sear monsters that are vulnerable to holy damage with their normal attacks, and they are capable of summoning other arcadian avengers when attacking in melee, similar to demons and their gating ability.

The damaged arcadian avenger is a related monster that servers as the quest leader for the Gnomish Ranger quest.

An arcadian avenger has six attacks: a weapon attack and an offhand weapon attack; two claw attacks that are flavored as wing bashes, and are not counted as unarmed attacks for bonuses from worn gloves; a single-target gaze attack that inflicts study; and a passive attack that only triggers on death and raises the level of all living arcadian avengers on the level by 1. Arcadian avengers possess poison resistance and stoning resistance, resist damage from slashing and piercing weapons, and take more damage from cursed and unholy weapons.

Generation

Arcadian avengers are only randomly generated in the Lawful Quest, and are flagged to appear in small groups while also being hard-coded to appear in much larger numbers, potentially creating very dense avenger squads.

Within the Lawful Quest, arcadian avengers are quite rare on the Arcadian Road and become more common inside the Harmonium Garrison: they make up 1100 of monsters randomly generated on the Arcadian Road's first level; 150 of monsters randomly generated on the Arcadian Road's second level; 110 of monsters randomly generated on the Harmonium Garrison's first level; and 15 of monsters randomly generated on the Harmonium Garrison's second level.

Arcadian avengers can appear as prisoners in a throne room ruled by an Aurumach Rilmani, and also serve as minions of Tyr, Odin, Eilistraee, and Garl Glittergold.

Arcadian avengers are always generated with 2 blessed rustproof short swords that have a minimum enchantment of +0.

Arcadian avengers do not leave a corpse upon death.

Strategy

Arcadian avengers are capable of using their studying gaze to weaken the hero while still advancing towards them - this can make them a serious threat in tandem with their typical group sizes, and avenger squads are especially deadly for characters of iron-hating races such as elves.

Origin

The Arcadian avenger (capitalized to reflect their primary realm) is a being that appears in Dungeons & Dragons, and is first introduced in the 2007 Monster Manual V for 3.5e. An Arcadian avenger is a type of militant outsider that acts as a defender of the lawful planes of Arcadia and the House of the Triad. Accordingly, Arcadian avengers are all lawful: most are of a lawful good bent, but several dispassionately value the rule of law over benevolence and are lawful neutral. All Arcadian avengers look remarkably similar, resembling athletic human women whose skin and wings are seemingly made of a silver-like metal; they also wear armor made of a similar metal, and are typically equipped with a pair of masterfully crafted long swords, rather than short swords as in dNetHack and related variants.

Encyclopedia entry

Arcadian avengers appear as angelic females, with angular
features and bright metallic silver skin. They possess
metallic razor-sharp wings, and usually wield two swords
just as sharp. While they are not constructs, arcadian
avengers all resemble each other.

Arcadian avengers fight on the side of order, and see
themselves as a pure force of law. They fight free of
hesitation, doubt, or even remorse, and may even come into
conflict with good creatures that have broken the law.
They approach combat in a methodical, detached way,
weighing each foe's strengths and weaknesses before
attacking.