Gehennom

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Gehennom is the underworld of NetHack. The introduction to the game mentions that Moloch hid the Amulet of Yendor in Gehennom.

Gehennom is beneath the Castle, consisting of 20–24 total levels. The Valley of the Dead is, strictly speaking, the top level of Gehennom, although the game provides somewhat conflicting information on this, in that the Valley contains a downstairs that is identified as the gateway to Gehennom. Perhaps it is best to consider the Valley a kind of vestibule or entry-hall to Gehennom proper. Technically Gehennom is a dungeon branch, but there's no other branch to go down to.

Levels

Gehennom is full of mazes; it contains the lairs of several demon lords and princes, Orcus Town, the stairs to Vlad's Tower, the Wizard's Tower, and a couple of Fake Wizard's Towers, containing the portal to the main tower. Other than these, there are no special rooms in Gehennom. The second level of Gehennom from the bottom contains the vibrating square. When the player performs the invocation ritual on the vibrating square it creates a down staircase to Moloch's Sanctum, which is the lowest level of Gehennom and the dungeon as a whole. Performing the ritual is the only way to gain access to the Sanctum level, although it is not necessary to use the stairs to reach it once the ritual has been performed—level teleport is also a viable route.

Specifically, Gehennom contains the following special levels (drawn from Dylan O'Donnell's NetHack Gazetteer):

Each of these levels will be present in every game, although the precise order in which they are encountered can vary. For example, Juiblex's Swamp might appear on DL 29, and Asmodeus' Lair on DL 31. See Mazes of Menace for a schematic illustration of the possibilities.

Additionally, there will be stairs leading up to Vlad's Tower, which is not part of Gehennom, somewhere between levels 9 and 13 of Gehennom (DL 34 to 42). This up stairway can be on any of the special levels which may occur between levels 9 and 13.

All levels of Gehennom that are not special levels in the above list are ordinary maze levels.

Monsters

Certain monsters are never randomly generated in Gehennom:

Other monsters are only randomly generated in Gehennom:

These restrictions only apply to standard random monster creation, not to other methods such as polymorph, growing up, or the summon nasties spell. Special levels which contain monsters of a specific monster class also ignore this restriction, so e.g. the random L in the castle may include a surprise master lich.

Religion

Moloch is the only god with any power in Gehennom - any religious activity requiring interaction with your deity is considered to be directed to Moloch. As such, prayer in Gehennom will only result in negative outcomes - a consequence of this is that if your two-handed weapon is cursed while in Gehennom, you can't count on prayer to uncurse it. Your god still takes note of your actions in Gehennom, so e.g. killing a pet can still decrease alignment record and increase god anger.

Sacrificing at the altar in the Valley of the Dead, Orcus-town, or Moloch's sanctum will anger your god and reduce your alignment record, wisdom, and Luck - oddly, same-race sacrifice on altars in Gehennom works much as normal for chaotic characters, though the altar will remain unaligned and they will still lose Luck.

This also means that Elbereth has no effect, and attempting to use the turn undead command will fail (although the spell still works).

Strategy

Obtaining fire resistance before entering Gehennom is recommended - while not the difference between life and instant death as with its predecessor in Hell, it is all but warranted to prevent Gehennom's fire traps from reducing your maximum HP when triggered. Fire resistance will not protect your inventory, so be sure to bag any potions and scrolls that you might want to keep. Magic resistance is also essential, as the more powerful liches are covetous, and can warp to you an cast a spell before you can react.

Many of the monsters found in Gehennom, including the various demons, are resistant to fire but not to ice - Frost Brand is a popular weapon for this area, as is Demonbane to a lesser extent. Silver sabers are also effective against demons, shades and vampires, with the artifact saber Grayswandir being the most effective for Gehennom by far.

Holy water works as normal, but fire traps make it and the scroll of remove curse risky to carry in open inventory. Furthermore, if your weapon and shield (or two-handed weapon) become cursed, you will not be able to retrieve bagged potions and scrolls reliably or pray to uncurse them. In addition to taking the above risk, you can use the #tip extended command to empty a container and get at your curse-removing items.

Maze levels are tedious and time-consuming to explore manually, and this has given Gehennom a reputation for being a boring phase of the game. See Gehennom mapping for suggested mapping strategies.

Variants

Many variants are based on NetHack 3.4.3, which did not yet have the #tip command. For those variants and earlier versions of NetHack, it is common to leave a cache of holy water or scrolls of remove curse in certain locations to access in the event cursed items leave you without a free hand.

Lethe patch

Main article: Gehennom (Lethe patch)

The Lethe patch includes a restructured Gehennom, including a number of unique levels.

UnNetHack

UnNetHack implements several changes to reduce the tedium of the mazes in Gehennom, mostly from the Heck² patch and portions of the Lethe patch. Certain special levels have been modified or given alternate versions, including the Valley of the Dead, Moloch's Sanctum, and the lairs of the various demon lords. Two new branches can be accessed through stairs throughout Gehennom, (and possibly also through portals in the Valley of the Dead): the Dragon Caves, and Sheol. Additionally, several new monster appear in Gehennom and in Sheol.

SLASH'EM

In SLASH'EM, Gehennom consists of only 17 levels, but this includes lairs for all of the unique demons.

The most infamous fact about Gehennom in SLASH'EM may be how Demogorgon's lair is always above and before Asmodeus's lair, with Demogorgon being the most dangerous opponent by far while Asmodeus is typically the easiest.

The up staircases to Vlad's Tower and to Frankenstein's Lab are somewhere amid the 3rd to 12th levels. The portal to the inside of the Wizard's Tower is in one of the two fake towers.

Reference: dat/dungeon.def

FIQHack

In FIQHack, wearing the Mitre of Holiness allows you to pray in Gehennom (including #turn).

There are additional rooms in Gehennom, including some special rooms from xNetHack.

The Fake Wizard's Towers can still spawn as regular rooms, but will never have a portal. You now enter the real Wizard's Tower from the bottom floor.

History

Gehennom was introduced in NetHack 3.1.0 - in previous versions, the underworld was called Hell.

Origin

Wikipedia
Wikipedia has an article about:

Gehennom or Gehenna is a biblical allegory. Both Hebrew and Arabic have related words. The exact meaning is a bit confused. It can mean purgatory, Hell or a "Hades" (one place, functioning both as a Hell and as a paradise, depending on karma).

External links


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