Poison cloud

Poison clouds, sometimes known as stinking clouds, are a dungeon feature that appear in NetHack. Like normal clouds, they block line of sight while allowing you, other monsters, projectiles and spells to pass through them unobstructed. However, poison clouds are much more dangerous to actually walk into.

The area covered by a poison cloud is represented by #, which is the symbol also used for normal clouds - however, clouds remain visible on-screen even while you are blind, while poison clouds are only displayed when actually in your line of sight.

Generation

Poison clouds occur naturally in the Plane of Fire, where the lava produces plumes of poison gas intermittently.

Poison clouds can also be created through the following methods:

• The breath weapon of a green dragon or an iron golem
• A scroll of stinking cloud

The following information pertains to an upcoming version (NetHack 3.7.0). If this version is now released, please verify that it is still accurate, then update the page to incorporate this information.

Hezrous now leave poisonous clouds as they move.

Description

Poison clouds obstruct vision from the outside, and being caught within one is much worse - being caught in a poison cloud renders you blind and inflicts steady damage each turn you remain in there, eventually killing you unless you can make you way out. Monsters are subjected to those same effects, taking damage unless they are nonliving or unbreathing - monsters with eyes are blinded, while poison resistant monsters (including you if you have the intrinsic) do not take damage, but will still be blinded and cough from the gas.

Strategy

While you will generally encounter a source of poison resistance far before you have to deal with poison clouds, they can still leave you blinded, which can be a hassle unless you have a means to cure it and/or telepathy of some sort to maintain sight of hostile monsters.

The following information pertains to an upcoming version (NetHack 3.7.0). If this version is now released, please verify that it is still accurate, then update the page to incorporate this information.

Wearing a wet towel halves damage from poison gas clouds and breath.