Elbereth

Parts of this entry were adapted from the NetHack Elbereth FAQ by Kate Nepveu

Elbereth (also called the E-word) is, in the writings of J.R.R. Tolkien, the name of a goddess worshipped by elves. Engraving her name on a square prevents most monsters from attacking you while you are on that square. Use of Elbereth is a key survival strategy for new players and/or characters, the difference between death and survival in many games. It is therefore worthwhile to study this entry and learn all the ins and outs of the use of Elbereth.

Effects

A monster that respects Elbereth will not attack you in melee combat (hand to hand) while you are standing on it, and will not generally move onto a square that contains an active engraving of Elbereth. This is therefore a popular way to protect stashes. Note that there must be something, like you or any dropped object, in the same square with Elbereth for it to be active and have effect--an engraving on an otherwise bare square will not deter monsters.

Most monsters in the game respect Elbereth; the exceptions are generally human or human-like, and are noted below.

No monster represented by an @ will respect the word, neither do any A, minotaurs or the Riders. Keystone Kops and their officers, while human for many game purposes, will respect Elbereth. Shapechangers will respect it while they are in a form that otherwise would, and will not respect it while in a form that otherwise would not (such as a werecreature in human form). Certain monsters--shopkeepers, guards, lawful high priests, and The Wizard of Yendor will never respect it, even if they are polymorphed into a form that otherwise would.

No peaceful monster will respect Elbereth. This is obviously not a problem in terms of avoiding attacks, as peaceful monsters generally won't attack you. But it does complicate using Elbereth to protect a stash, as peaceful monsters will freely move onto your stash square, and possibly erode the engraving.

Additionally, engraving Elbereth on the up staircase and dropping an item on it will not prevent teleporting monsters from escaping to the up staircase square. This is a partial exception to the rules, to keep it from being too easy to defeat these monsters.

Take special care to note what Elbereth will not do. It will not protect you from any missile or spell attacks, or anything else that allows a monster to inflict damage from a distance, such as a dragon's breath attack. It will not make monsters peaceful, or protect anything on another square (such as your pet). Hostile monsters will still want to kill you, and will do anything they will ordinarily do to harm you, except attack you hand-to-hand.

Elbereth will not stop working if you attack monsters while standing on it, although your actions may cause the engraving to erode (see below). It is thus popular for missile-wielders and spellcasters to fire away at their opponents while protected by Elbereth.

Elbereth is case-insensitive, and will work even if it is surrounded by other writing, so "Aelberethgilthoniel" would be effective. Engraving "Elbereth" as written, with capital "E," however, will exercise wisdom, so it is most beneficial to do it this way. You can use Elbereth while engrave-testing wands for this added bonus.

Elbereth stops working when it degrades into a different word. If you are writing in the dust ([E] [-]), you might want to write it several times. (Copy-paste: "E-y Elbereth") The immediate result of one test was "ElberLth ElbereGh ElVereth Ylbereth Elbeheth Elb;reth Elbereth Elbereth tlbere#h".

Chances of Engraving

As with any engraving, you are not guaranteed to engrave perfectly if you are impaired or writing in the dust. For each letter, you have a chance of messing up the engraving if you are blind (1/9), confused (1/12), stunned (1/4), or hallucinating (1/1). If you are writing in the dust (with fingers, a wand, a soft gem, etc.), you have a 1/25 chance of messing up each letter. Note that this equals a (0.96 ^ 8) or approximately 72% chance of engraving correctly on each attempt, as each of the eight letters in Elbereth must be engraved correctly for the word to have power. It is entirely possible to require three, four, or even more attempts to get a correct "Elbereth" written in the dust, so you must not wait until you are one turn from death to get this done! If you can see, you can inspect your work with the "look" command, ':'. You will also know it is working if you receive the message, "The (monster) turns to flee!"

Speed and Quality

Engraving techniques may be classed as fast (fingers, wand, athame) or slow (other weapons, hard gems). A fast method engraves up to ten characters a turn, while a slow method requires one turn per character. No monster will respect Elbereth until your entire engraving is finished (you're presumably obscuring it as you engrave), so if you wish to engrave multiple Elbereths as a precaution against erosion, engrave them one at a time, adding to the current engraving each time.

A fast method is almost always preferable over a slow one. Thus it is normally better to write with your fingers, which is fast, but in the dust, than with a hard gem or with a ring with a hard gem (such as a ruby ring), which is slow.

This is because the slow methods give monsters time to kill you. This is a problem both when you need "Elbereth" quickly or if a monster surprises you. Note that characters reading a spellbook or eating a food ration will stop when approached by hostile monsters, but characters busy engraving will insist on continuing the job. Thus any character engraving with a hard gem or other slow method is vulnerable to attacks from monsters.

Engravings may be classified as permanent (will not degrade), semi-permanent (will degrade slowly), or temporary (will degrade very quickly).

For a permanent Elbereth, use a wand of fire or wand of lightning to burn it. The wand of lightning can blind you, but that is an acceptable risk during an emergency. (Note that the blindness takes effect after the engraving is completed--you will not increase your risk of misengraving through blindness.) Otherwise, unless you can easily cure blindness or protect your eyes, avoid any engraving with the wand of lightning. Permanent Elbereths are ideally suited for protecting stashes, since a stash needs to last a long time. Permanent Elbereths are also useful in combat situations, but because they always require a wand charge, it is best to save them for difficult situations instead of using them routinely. Permanent Elbereths will not erode from being stood on or walked over, but can be eliminated through techniques such as engraving over them or engraving with a wand of polymorph.

You can engrave a fast semi-permanent Elbereth using a non-cursed athame, a wand of digging or a charged magic marker (consuming four charges). Athames are the best way to engrave Elbereth in routine combat as they engrave semi-permanently and are not reliant on charges. Unfortunately, athames are difficult to find. They are never randomly generated, so you need to pick one up from a Master lich's inventory, get gifted Magicbane from your god or wish for one. Wizards first sacrifice gift is Magicbane so they have the easiest time getting hold of an athame.

Hard gemstones, any ring with a hard gemstone set in it, and bladed weapons (other than athames), can be used to engrave semi-permanent Elbereths, but these techniques are slow and will make weapons dull. A funny wrinkle in the engraving rules means that a ordinary +0 weapon will not be able to engrave the entire word "Elbereth" at one go--you will only get as far as "Elberet" before the weapon reaches -3 and is too dull for engraving. It will work, however, if you engrave first "Elb," (for minus one to the weapon) then add "ereth" to the current engraving (for an additional minus two). This will, regrettably, forgo the advantage of exercising wisdom.

For what it's worth, if you are polymorphed into a vampire, you can scrawl on the floor in blood by engraving with your fingers. The Dev Team thinks of a great number of things.

Semi-permanent Elbereths will erode over time as they are walked over or stood upon, but not nearly as quickly as will temporary (finger) engravings.

You can make a temporary "engraving" (actually just drawing in the dust on the floor) with your fingers by responding "-" when asked what to engrave with, or you can use a soft gemstone, or any wand other than fire, lightning, or digging (certain wands may have undesirable effects on the engraving itself, such as polymorphing it). This is fast, but subject to the 1/25 chance of mis-engraving per letter, and any movement, such as fighting or throwing missiles, will damage the engraving. Even standing still on the engraving will eventually degrade it, as no one stands perfectly still. However, one can levitate after engraving to keep the engraving from being eroded (if it is not already).

Elbereth and levitation

If you levitate over an Elbereth, the word will never degrade as long as you are levitating over the square, no matter what you do while levitating over it. Characters who can levitate may want to take advantage of this by engraving Elbereth and then levitating over it while fighting off large numbers of monsters. Note, however, that during an emergency, it is usually preferable to burn a permanent Elbereth using a wand, assuming that you have enough wand charges to spare.

Don't blind monsters!

A blinded monster that can ordinarily see will not respect Elbereth while it is blind. Don't use a camera, for instance, while you are hiding behind the power of Elbereth. Blind monsters can not read the word anymore and will attack you. Note that unseeing monsters, such as Gelatinous cubes, which do not have sight in the first place, will respect Elbereth. Go figure.

Encyclopedia entry

... Even as they stepped over the threshold a single clear
voice rose in song.

       A Elbereth Gilthoniel,
       silivren penna miriel
       o menel aglar elenath!
       Na-chaered palan-diriel
       o galadhremmin ennorath,
       Fanuilos, le linnathon
       nef aear, si nef aearon!

Frodo halted for a moment, looking back.  Elrond was in his
chair and the fire was on his face like summer-light upon the
trees.  Near him sat the Lady Arwen.  [...]
He stood still enchanted, while the sweet syllables of the
elvish song fell like clear jewels of blended word and melody.
"It is a song to Elbereth," said Bilbo.  "They will sing that,
and other songs of the Blessed Realm, many times tonight.
Come on!"
   [ The Fellowship of the Ring, by J.R.R. Tolkien ]

Versioning

Elbereth may not be present in every installation of NetHack, because it can be compiled out of the game. You can use the #version command to check for this.

NetHack brass

A warning to players of the NetHack brass variant: Avoid engraving Elbereth with wands. While vanilla uses 1 wand charge per engraving, NetHack brass can consume extra charges. An engraving with a wand of fire, for example, costs the usual 1 charge engraving with a wand, an extra 1 charge because the wand is a wand of fire, plus 1 charge for each letter engraved. To burn Elbereth successfully, you would need 10 charges in your wand of fire; you probably do not have them.

See also:

• Scroll of scare monster
• Elbereth FAQ by Kate Nepveu