Instadeath

Instadeath stands for instant death. An instadeath causes death in zero time and allows no intervention.

Causes of instadeaths are:

• Cockatrices
  • Touching a cockatrice or chickatrice corpse without gloves.
  • Eating a cockatrice or chickatrice corpse, or eating the corpse of Medusa.
  • Kicking a cockatrice or chickatrice corpse without shoes.
  • Trying to sacrifice or tin a cockatrice corpse without gloves, even if it is already lying on the altar.
  • Falling into a pit while wielding a cockatrice corpse.
  • Falling down stairs due to being burdened while wielding a cockatrice corpse.
• Being hit by a death ray while not having magic resistance. This can be achieved by:
  • Zapping yourself with a wand of death or a finger of death — this will kill you even if you do have magic resistance. ("You irradiate yourself with pure energy!")
  • Zapping a wand of death or finger of death at a monster, and being hit by the ray reflecting off a wall, or the monster's reflection.
  • Having a monster with a wand of death zap you, typically the Gnome With The Wand Of Death.
  • Being touched by the touch of death. The Wizard of Yendor and high level liches can use this against you.
• Being fatally poisoned, unless you have poison resistance.
• Standing near a collapsing drawbridge.
• Being drowned by a sea monster, although this technically takes at least 2 turns.
• Stepping into lava without fire resistance.
• Intentionally level teleporting yourself to level 0 or any "higher" level - level 0 is nowhere, -1 to -8 is "above the clouds", -9 is Cloud Nine and -10 and above is Heaven.
• Being hit by a black dragon's disintegration breath without reflection or disintegration resistance.
• Being hit by a lightning bolt from an angry god without reflection or shock resistance.
• Being hit by a wide-angle disintegration beam from an angry god without disintegration resistance.
• Being hit by Vorpal Blade or The Tsurugi of Muramasa (5% chance).
• Cheating by modifying the save file ("death by trickery").

Dying on turn one generates the message "Do not pass go. Do not collect 200 zorkmids." It is a reference to Monopoly.

Dealing instadeath unto other monsters

In many situations, it is very helpful for your player to have a way to instantly kill other monsters. Here are some methods of instantly killing monsters, listed roughly in order from most common to most obscure. Note that not all methods work on all monsters; for example, undead monsters resist death rays, etc.

• Zap a monster with a wand of death or finger of death
• Hit a monster with a wielded cockatrice corpse or cockatrice egg
• Disintegrate a monster with a black dragon's disintegration breath
• Open, close, or destroy a drawbridge on top of a monster (see dig for victory)
• Attack a monster with Vorpal Blade or The Tsurugi of Muramasa (5% chance)
• Displace a pet into water or lava
• Cause a monster engulfing you to be struck by a lightning bolt from an angry god
• Cause a monster engulfing you to be struck by a wide-angle disintegration beam from an angry god

See also

Delayed instadeath, which also results in sudden death but allows for emergency intervention.

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