Race

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Your starting race can be one of: human, dwarf, elf, gnome or orc. All roles can choose to be human, whereas the other races are restricted to only some of the roles. Your race affects your starting and maximum attributes, the belligerency of co-racial monsters, and the safety of sacrificing particular races. Your starting race will also affect what constitutes cannibalism, as well as what creatures can be safely genocided.

Polymorphing into an elven, dwarvish, etc. monster will not affect the above. However, your god will never gift you an artifact that attacks your current form.

Humans can be any alignment (subject to your chosen role allowing that alignment), but for the others, your race indirectly determines your alignment: dwarves are always lawful, gnomes are always neutral, and elves and orcs are always chaotic.

In general, dwarves are strong, elves and gnomes are smart, orcs are poison resistant, and humans are good all-rounders.

Racial intrinsics

Race	intrinsics	Notes
Dwarves	none	Double digging speed
Elves	sleep resistance at level 4	Multishot bonus for elven arrows from elven bows
Gnomes	none	Can use uncursed touchstones as blessed
Humans	none	No infravision
Orcs	poison resistance at level 1	Cannibalism is ok. Multishot bonus for orcish arrows from orcish bows

Maximum attributes

Your race limits your inherent attributes. Equipped magic items (such as gauntlets of dexterity) ignore these limits.

Race	Strength	Dexterity	Constitution	Intelligence	Wisdom	Charisma
Human	18/**	18	18	18	18	18
Elf	18	18	16	20	20	18
Dwarf	18/**	20	20	16	16	16
Gnome	18/50	18	18	19	18	18
Orc	18/50	18	18	16	16	16

Reference: role.c, line 405.

Description

The guidebook offers the following advice about the starting races:

Dwarves are smaller than humans or elves, but are stocky and solid individuals. Dwarves' most notable trait is their great expertise in mining and metalwork. Dwarvish armor is said to be second in quality not even to the mithril armor of the Elves.

Elves are agile, quick, and perceptive; very little of what goes on will escape an Elf. The quality of Elven craftsmanship often gives them an advantage in arms and armor.

Gnomes are smaller than but generally similar to dwarves. Gnomes are known to be expert miners, and it is known that a secret underground mine complex built by this race exists within the Mazes of Menace, filled with both riches and danger.

Humans are by far the most common race of the surface world, and are thus the norm by which other races are often compared. Although they have no special abilities, they can succeed in any role.

Orcs are a cruel and barbaric race that hate every living thing (including other orcs). Above all others, Orcs hate Elves with a passion unequalled, and will go out of their way to kill one at any opportunity. The armor and weapons fashioned by the Orcs are typically of inferior quality.

SLASH'EM

SLASH'EM has new races, as well as changes to allowed alignments and statistics of original races. New races are:

• Drow - Can put monsters to sleep with bare handed attack
• Doppelganger - Has natural protection, very high stats, and the #youpoly ability
• Hobbit - fast
• Lycanthrope - regeneration and lycanthropy
• Vampire - regeneration, very high stats, level-drain resistance, moves by flying, but can only eat fresh blood

Slash'EM Extended

Slash'EM Extended has all of SLASH'EM's races, as well as added ones not present in other variants. In this variant, every race has maximum stats of 25 for every stat, and every combination of role, race, alignment and gender is possible. The new races are:

• Alien - Similar to human, but with worse stats, negative starting alignment record and luck and an annoying loadstone that's hard to get rid off. Basically a harder-than-hard race.
• Argonian - Can swim and is unbreathing, as well as use the healing hands technique. Lizards are usually peaceful to them.
• Gastly - Starts with many intrinsic resistances, but can only eat old corpses (no fruits, rations or other types of food).
• Gigant - Can pick up and throw boulders. Hungers rapidly. Giants are usually peaceful to them.
• Insectoid - Can summon insects, starts with poison resistance and flying, and uses a poisonous sting in melee. Their lack of hands is a huge disadvantage though. Insects are usually peaceful to them.
• Khajiit - Their unarmed melee attack does extra damage.
• Kobolt - Poison resistant, starts with some stacks of throwing weapons. They will fall asleep every so often though, which can be very bad if they stand next to Demogorgon.
• Maia - Starts with uncurable and uncontrollable teleportitis. They also cannot teleport at will, but their starting inventory contains a wand of teleportation (10 charges).
• Mould - Starts with uncurable and uncontrollable polymorphitis. No risk of system shock or a polymorph level draining them below experience level 1 though. They have some crippling weaknesses while not polymorphed, but they can #youpoly at will.
• Navi - Does extra damage with spears, and their kick does extra damage if they wear wedge sandals (which they start with).
• Ogro - Does extra damage with clubs. They aggravate monsters though. Ogres are usually peaceful to them.
• Snakeman - They can swim and wrap enemies, possibly drowning them or preventing them from moving away. Lack of feet prevents them from kicking. Snakes are usually peaceful to them.
• Trollor - They get very little HP and mana boosts from leveling up, but start out with sickness resistance and regeneration. A trollor has a 75% chance of auto-reviving on death if they're at least XL 3, which makes them a great choice for beginner players.
• Ungenomold - Starts with uncurable and uncontrollable polymorphitis, instantly polymorphs into a random monster upon starting the game, and permanently dies (as opposed to reverting back to ungenomoldic form) upon running out of hit points with no chance of life saving. No risk of system shock or feeling like a new ungenomold, and their polymorphs can't time out either. They can use #youpoly at will. Also starts with warning, searching and lots of techniques as well as a wand of death.
• Asgardian - They get random intrinsics from leveling up, meaning they can get lucky and receive resistances, slow digestion or other good things early. However, Asgardians may also get unlucky and receive intrinsic hunger, polymorphitis or other bad things. Also, they have a 5% chance each turn to move at half speed. Still, they are a good choice for beginner players.

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