Genocide strategy

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The scroll of genocide is a powerful item, with many uses.

Reverse genocide

Reading a cursed scroll of genocide will create 4-6 of the specified monster. This is what makes reading a non BUC-identified scroll of genocide dangerous. However, it can work to your advantage if the resulting monsters are useful and can be killed easily. Some useful monsters to reverse genocide are:

• Wraiths - to eat their corpses for a level gain
• Dragons - for their scales, to make dragon scale mail
• Nurses - to Nurse dance
• Tengu - to eat for a possibility of teleport control

Reverse genociding does not break the genocideless conduct.

Emergency genocide

The scroll of genocide is a useful escape item, as it can instantly kill any monster which poses an immediate threat which cannot be dealt with any other way. For example, a sea monster holding you, a single monster about to take your last hit point, or a nymph who is robbing you blind.

Common genocides

Some species are widely considered to be so nasty, or so annoying, that they merit genocide as soon as possible:

• L - Liches
• h - Mind flayers
• ; - Sea monsters
• R - Rust monsters and Disenchanters

It is nearly always best to postpone genocide until you can bless your scroll, as the worst monsters don't appear until later, giving you plenty of time to build up a cache of holy water. Note that if you are a dwarf, genociding h will be instantly fatal! Thus, this is a good use for uncursed scrolls or genocides offered by a throne.

No genocides

It can be argued that all species are a source of useful items and properties, and hence genociding actually makes the game harder. Liches provide athames and can be powerful pets, mind flayer corpses can boost intelligence, sea monsters are trivial for a well equipped player to deal with, etc.

This viewpoint usually advocates genociding only mimics, as this will increase the number of items present in shops, especially in Orcus town.

A player who wishes to maintain genocideless conduct can answer "none" when prompted for which species to genocide.