Basilisk

A basilisk is a monster that appears in SLASH'EM, EvilHack, SlashTHEM and Hack'EM. Its exact traits vary depending on the variant, but it is generally a relative of the cockatrice that shares its deadly stoning abilities - basilisks often possess a bite that causes delayed stoning much like that of cockatrices, and you or any other monster that makes bare skin contact with a live basilisk or its corpse is immediately turns to stone. Basilisk eggs can also cause delayed stoning for players and may instantly stone monsters.

The basilisk is one of many hallucinatory monsters whose name may be randomly used for real monsters while hallucinating in NetHack, and is still retained as such in variants of NetHack, even if it appears normally in that variant.

• SLASH'EM

: basilisk
Difficulty	10
Attacks	Bite 4d2 stoning, Passive stoning

: basilisk
Difficulty	10
Attacks	Bite 4d2 stoning, Passive stoning
Base level	8
Base experience	197
Speed	9
Base AC	5
Base MR	0
Alignment	0 (neutral)
Frequency (by normal means)	1 (Very rare)
Genocidable	Yes
Weight	1450
Nutritional value	400
Size	Large
Resistances	poison, petrification
Resistances conveyed	poison (53%)
A basilisk: has no hands. is an animal. has a thick hide. can lay eggs. is carnivorous. is normally generated hostile. is strong.
Reference	SLASH'EM_0.0.7E7F2/monst.c#line4499

In SLASH'EM, the basilisk, :, is one of two non-unique monsters that share the cockatrice's petrification attacks without being a part of the cockatrice monster class. Like the cockatrice, bare skin contact with a basilisk or its corpse will cause instadeath by stoning, and the basilisk's bite causes delayed stoning as well.

Strategy

While a basilisk is somewhat stronger than a cockatrice, it is still slow-moving at 9 speed and is relatively easy to hit - some form of ranged attack is advisable in order to avoid their stoning passive attack. The corpse of a basilisk can be used as a weapon similar to a cockatrice, but in practice is far too heavy to be realistically effective.

In addition, the presence of the basilisk as well as the asphynx ensure that players cannot solve their stoning problem with a single blessed scroll of genocide targeting c.

As a polyform

As a polyform, the basilisk is the superior monster for travel among monsters capable of stoning: while it is still slower than your base speed unless you have intrinsic speed, it is strong and weighs the same as a human. This grants much higher carrying capacity compared to the faster asphynx, which is much smaller and cannot pick up items.

Female characters can also polymorph into a basilisk to lay eggs, either to let them hatch into tame basilisks or to use as stoning weapons. Basilisks make relatively decent pets, though their lack of speed compared to an asphynx can make keeping them close to you somewhat tedious.

Origin

In European bestiaries and legends, a basilisk from the Greek form βασιλίσκος (basilískos, Latin basiliscus, meaning "little king") is a legendary reptile reputed to be a serpent king who causes death to those who look into its eyes. According to the Naturalis Historia of Pliny the Elder, the basilisk of Cyrene was a small snake that is so venomous, it leaves a wide trail of deadly venom in its wake, and its gaze is likewise lethal. The basilisk is closely related to the cockatrice, to the point that both share very similar descriptions and are sometimes treated as interchangeable.

The basilisk was reputed to have a mitre or crown-shaped crest adorning its head, leading some scholars to believe the description was based off that of various cobras, particularly the spitting cobra and king cobra. Supporting this is the basilisk's reputed weakness being the the odor of the weasel according to Pliny: mongooses (such as the Egyptian mongoose) are natural predators of the king cobra and some other species of Asiatic snakes, and have some level of immunity to snake venoms. There may also be connections to early descriptions of the Nile crocodile and related Egyptian folk tales; ibis eggs were regularly destroyed for fear that their diet of venomous snakes would create a snake-bird mix.

The basilisk was a popular subject in bestiaries circulated within medieval-era Europe: these bestiaries began attributing chicken-like traits to the beast, including the idea that a basilisk was the result of a cockerel hatching the egg of a serpent or toad (the exact inverse of the cockatrice). The late 12th century is generally when the two creatures began to be considered synonymous - bestiaries also posited that the weasel (or "ichneumon") was able to counteract the poisons of both creatures and reliably kill them. Both the basilisk and cockatrice are often still conflated in the modern day - many languages such as Spanish, Portuguese, Dutch, Russian, and Greek still translate the term "cockatrice" as "basilisk" in some form.

Modern incarnations of the basilisk and cockatrice, such as those seen in Dungeons & Dragons and various other fantasy media, portray them as distinct creatures: The basilisk is usually a vicious low-slung reptile that is either lizard-like or serpentine, and the cockatrice is usually a bird-like reptilian monster with a snake's tail, if not an outright snake-bird hybrid.

Encyclopedia entry

Once in a great while, when the positions of the stars are
just right, a seven-year-old rooster will lay an egg. Then,
along will come a snake, to coil around the egg, or a toad,
to squat upon the egg, keeping it warm and helping it to
hatch. When it hatches, out comes a creature called basilisk,
or cockatrice, the most deadly of all creatures. A single
glance from its yellow, piercing toad's eyes will kill both
man and beast. Its power of destruction is said to be so
great that sometimes simply to hear its hiss can prove fatal.
Its breath is so venomous that it causes all vegetation
to wither.

There is, however, one creature which can withstand the
basilisk's deadly gaze, and this is the weasel. No one knows
why this is so, but although the fierce weasel can slay the
basilisk, it will itself be killed in the struggle. Perhaps
the weasel knows the basilisk's fatal weakness: if it ever
sees its own reflection in a mirror it will perish instantly.
But even a dead basilisk is dangerous, for it is said that
merely touching its lifeless body can cause a person to
sicken and die.

[ Mythical Beasts by Deirdre Headon (The Leprechaun Library)
and other sources ]