Clay golem
' clay golem 
| |
|---|---|
| Difficulty | 12 |
| Attacks |
Claw 3d10 |
| Base level | 11 |
| Base experience | 249 |
| Speed | 7 |
| Base AC | 7 |
| Base MR | 40 |
| Alignment | 0 (neutral) |
| Frequency (by normal means) | 1 (Very rare) |
| Genocidable | No |
| Weight | 1550 |
| Nutritional value | 0 |
| Size | Large |
| Resistances | sleep, poison |
| Resistances conveyed |
None |
|
A clay golem:
| |
| Reference | monst.c#line2245 |
A clay golem, ', is a type of monster that appears in NetHack. It is one of the stronger golems encountered in the dungeon, but is slightly weaker than the stone golem. A clay golem that is subjected to cancellation - e.g., from the wand of cancellation or a gremlin attacking it - will be instantly destroyed.
Generation
In addition to random generation, clay golems can generate as a result of polypiling if there are enough objects made of copper, silver, platinum, gemstone, or mineral in a given pile of items.[1] Clay golems are always generated with 50 hit points.[2]
Clay golems leave behind several rocks upon death.[3]
Strategy
Clay golems hit decently hard, but are very slow like many golems and not too difficult to defeat if you can maintain your distance.
History
The clay golem first appears in NetHack 3.0.0.
Origin
The original gōlem of Jewish folklore is an animate, anthropomorphic being usually created entirely from clay (or mud). The most famous golem narrative, the The Golem of Prague, is generally believed to be a product of early 19th-century German literature: in the late 16th century, the rabbi Judah Loew ben Bezalel reportedly created a golem from clay gathered at the banks of the Vltava River, and brought it to life through rituals and Hebrew incantations to defend the Prague ghetto from anti-Semitic attacks and pogroms. Golems in these and various other tales are inscribed with Hebrew words that animate them; one particular example is the word emét (אמת, "truth" in Hebrew), which could be used to deactivate the golem by removing the aleph (א) from the word, changing the inscription to mét (מת, "dead") - cancellation has this same effect on the clay golems of NetHack, destroying them instantly.
Clay golems also appear in the early monster manuals of Dungeons & Dragons. In the 1st Edition, a clay golem can be created by a lawful good cleric of 17th or higher level through the use of several spells on a man-shaped clay statue; lower-level clerics additionally required a magical tome to do so. The clay golem is under the command of that cleric while animated - these golems were only vulnerable to blunt magical weapons and very specific (usually earth-based) spells. However, similar to some classic golem tales that inspired it, there is a 1% cumulative chance each round that the golem is imbued by a chaotic evil spirit, causing it to attack any and every living thing until it is destroyed.
Messages
- Some writing vanishes from the clay golem's head!
- A clay golem was hit with a cancellation spell, wand beam or attack.
Encyclopedia entry
It was a warm spring night when a fist knocked at the door so
hard that the hinges bent.
A man opened it and peered out into the street. There was
mist coming off the river and it was a cloudy night. He might
as well have tried to see through white velvet.
But he thought afterwards that there had been shapes out
there, just beyond the light spilling out into the road. A
lot of shapes, watching him carefully. He thought maybe
there'd been very faint points of light...
There was no mistaking the shape right in front of him,
though. It was big and dark red and looked like a child's
clay model of a man. Its eyes were two embers.
