Gremlin

g gremlin
Difficulty	8
Attacks	Claw 1d6, Claw 1d6, Bite 1d4, Claw intrinsic-stealing

g gremlin
Difficulty	8
Attacks	Claw 1d6, Claw 1d6, Bite 1d4, Claw intrinsic-stealing
Base level	5
Base experience	61
Speed	12
Base AC	2
Base MR	25
Alignment	-9 (chaotic)
Frequency (by normal means)	2 (Quite rare)
Genocidable	Yes
Weight	100
Nutritional value	20
Size	Small
Resistances	poison
Resistances conveyed	poison (33%)
A gremlin: can swim. has a head, a couple of arms, and a torso. is poisonous to eat. does not eat. (*) can follow you to other levels. can be seen through infravision.
Reference	monst.c#line394

The gremlin, g, is a monster that appears in NetHack. Its corpse is poisonous to eat, but has a 33% chance of conveying poison resistance. The gremlin monster class, g, is named after them.

Generation

In addition to random generation, a gremlin always appears within the entrance hall in the second variant of Medusa's Island. More gremlins can be created via division if they make contact with water (explained in detail below).

Gremlins may be generated peaceful towards chaotic players.

Description

Gremlins have several unique traits among NetHack monsters:

Gremlins and water

A gremlin that makes any contact with water, i.e. a fountain, moat or even a potion of water hitting them, will divide into two gremlins with half the maximum HP of the original; gremlins will actively seek out moats and fountains for this purpose, which may dry up the fountain in question. Gremlins cannot divide if their max HP is too low for them to do so (i.e., their max HP is 1). This division does not respect extinction.

Intrinsic theft

At night (22:00 - 05:59 server/client time) gremlins have the ability to steal intrinsics. Each successful hit at night with the intrinsic-stealing attack has a 1/10 chance of picking a random intrinsic from the following list to steal. The first intrinsic you have from the chosen one downward will be lost; if you have none of the intrinsics from the chosen one downward, nothing will be lost.

List of vulnerable intrinsics

• Fire resistance
• Teleportitis
• Poison resistance
• Telepathy
• Cold resistance
• Invisibility
• See invisible
• Speed
• Stealth
• Protection
• Aggravate monster

The game tracks intrinsics (from corpses, altar work, potions, wands), extrinsics (from jewelry, armor, artifacts), and role/race properties separately from each other - e.g., if a gremlin steals poison resistance from a high-level monk or a hero in an alchemy smock, the hero will still resist poison as long as they do not drain levels or remove the smock. The only other such source of this quality is the corpse of a disenchanter, which follows the same rules for removing a random intrinsic.

The attack is not affected by magic cancellation, though it can still be prevented by canceling the monster. Players that are polymorphed into clay golems and are hit by this attack are turned back to their original form, even if they have the unchanging property.

When successfully used against other monsters, the special attack cancels them instead of stealing instrinsics; clay golems are instantly destroyed.

Gremlins and light

Gremlins are harmed by bursts of light, as well as light-based weaponry.

• Zapping a wand of light, reading a scroll of light, or casting the light spell will do d5 damage to gremlins in the light radius.
• Breaking a wand of light will do (1 + charges)d4 damage to gremlins in the blast radius.
• Flashing an expensive camera will do d4 damage to gremlins caught in the flash.
• A lit Sunsword does an extra d8 damage to gremlins (on top of the weapon's regular damage).

Strategy

If you find any gremlins in a level with a significant amount of water, kill them quickly before they can flood the level. This is especially bad for chaotics, who may have gremlins generate as peaceful - killing them yourself inflicts a large hit on your alignment record. Pets with multiple attacks (such as a vrock created by polymorph or figurine) can be used to clear out gremlin hordes without too much risk to the pet, especially if you have a magic whistle for levels with islands like Medusa's Island and Juiblex's Swamp. Conflict can also be a useful way to mop up a crowd of peaceful gremlins if there are far stronger monsters around them -though beware if the gremlins manage to score any kills (see the farming section below).

Gremlins are generally unremarkable as pets outside of their ability to cancel other monsters. However, their division can be put to potentially good use in the case of both tame and non-tame gremlins.

Farming

If you find yourself with a tame gremlin, but don't particularly want one and have a means of polymorphing handy (e.g., a polymorph trap), consider allowing it to split a few times so you can polymorph the resulting gremlins into more powerful pets. If you let them divide as much as possible, you will end up with a legion of 1 HP pets that die once anything lands a damaging hit on them - however, there will be more than enough left over to ensure that you can turn at least some of them into useful allies.

While gremlins normally stop dividing once their it maximum falls to 1, you can cause them to divide indefinitely by using a source of conflict. A gremlin that kills something has its hit point maximum increased, which allows it to divide again; provided that the gremlins are given enough time to heal and divide, they can be farmed somewhat like puddings. While cloned monsters do not leave death drops at all and give diminishing experience returns, gremlin corpses can still be used for sacrifice. See the farming section on gremlins for more detailed information.

Origin

Originally, gremlins were mischievous creatures blamed for mechanical failures in aircraft in the RAF in the 1920s; they were popularized by children's author Roald Dahl and a related Disney animated short. The concept of gremlins that multiply in water and have a vulnerability to light comes from the 1984 movie Gremlins.

Messages

The gremlin chuckles.

It is night, and the gremlin may have stolen an intrinsic from you, or you were a clay golem and your clay golem form has been destroyed, or the gremlin has used its intrinsic stealing attacking on another monster, potentially destroying a clay golem. You still hear a chuckle if the attack chose intrinsics you didn't have.

You hear laughter.

It is night, and the gremlin has stolen an intrinsic from you or destroyed your clay golem form while you were blind. Also produced if a gremlin uses its intrinsic stealing attack on another monster outside your vision.

Some writing vanishes from your head!

You were polymorphed into a clay golem. This will return you to your original form, even with unchanging.

Some writing vanishes from <its> head!

A gremlin just destroyed a clay golem with its intrinsic stealing attack.

You feel warmer.

You lost intrinsic fire resistance.

You feel less jumpy.

You lost intrinsic teleportitis.

You feel a little sick!

You lost intrinsic poison resistance.

Your senses fail!

You lost intrinsic telepathy.

You feel cooler.

You lost intrinsic cold resistance.

You feel paranoid.

You lost intrinsic invisibility.

You thought you saw something!

You lost the see invisible intrinsic while not hallucinating.

You tawt you taw a puttie tat!

You lost the see invisible intrinsic while hallucinating.

You feel slower.

You lost intrinsic speed.

You feel clumsy.

You lost intrinsic stealth.

You feel vulnerable.

You lost intrinsic protection.

You feel less attractive.

You lost the aggravate monster intrinsic.

The gremlin cries out in pain!

A gremlin was hit by light and took damage.

The gremlin wails in agony!

A gremlin was hit by light and took damage greater than half its current HP.

Variants

In games and variants with the Lethe patch applied, gremlins multiply normally in lethe water.

SLASH'EM

In SLASH'EM, a chaotic character that is XL 3 or lower may receive a gremlin as a gifted minion from their god. The galltrit, a deferred monster, is a type of gremlin that has a similar intrinsic-stealing attack.

Slash'EM Extended

In Slash'EM Extended, gremlins are always capable of stealing intrinsics, but at night the chance is much higher, and they can generally steal just about any intrinsic, including hard-to-regain ones like magic resistance or polymorph control. Gremlins are also one of the many playable races.

FIQHack

In FIQHack, gremlins can always steal intrinsics, regardless of the time of day; instead of simply removing the intrinsic from your character, they also acquire the intrinsic for themselves.

Encyclopedia entry

The gremlin is a highly intelligent and completely evil
creature. It lives to torment other creatures and will go
to great lengths to inflict pain or cause injury.
 
Suddenly, Wilson thought about war, about the newspaper
stories which recounted the alleged existence of creatures in
the sky who plagued the Allied pilots in their duties. They
called them gremlins, he remembered. Were there, actually,
such beings? Did they, truly, exist up here, never falling,
riding on the wind, apparently of bulk and weight, yet
impervious to gravity?
He was thinking that when the man appeared again.

[ Nightmare at 20,000 Feet, by Richard Matheson ]