Racial monster
Racial monsters refers to a feature in some variants of NetHack that allows certain monsters to generate as various races. The feature appears in GruntHack and EvilHack, and is implemented much differently in each one.
GruntHack
In GruntHack, the following monsters are eligible to be created as racial monsters:
- Shopkeepers;
- Aligned priests and the high priests;
- Werecreatures;
- Zombies, replacing the various vanilla zombies;
- Mummies, replacing the various vanilla mummies;
- Shamans and mages, replacing the kobold shaman, orc shaman, and gnomish wizard;
- Lords and ladies, replacing the kobold lord, gnome lord, dwarf lord, Elf-lord, and ogre lord;
- Kings and queens, replacing the gnome king, dwarf king, Elvenking, and ogre king;
- Nurses;
- Members of the Yendorian army;
- The vault guard;
- Watchmen and the watch captain;
- Vampires, vampire lords, and vampire mages; and
- Player monsters, with racial selection mirroring combinations available to the player.
In addition to sharing the intrinsics of their respective base monsters, the various races yield an adjustment to the monster's level and difficulty for the purposes of monster generation. These adjustments are:
| Race | Adjustment |
|---|---|
| Giant | +3 |
| Ettin | +2 |
| Ogre | +1 |
| Human | 0 |
| Dwarf | -1 |
| Elf | |
| Gnome | -2 |
| Orc | |
| Kobold | -3 |
EvilHack
EvilHack's implementation of racial monsters uses a similar system, though it is applied to far fewer monsters:
- Shopkeepers
- Aligned priests and high priests
- Watchmen
- Members of the Yendorian army
- Player monsters
Monster leaders, monster rulers and "racial" undead (i.e. zombies and mummies) all remain as distinct monsters similar to vanilla NetHack.
Some items are changed and several new items are added in order to further flesh out racial monsters alongside many of the other new monsters added, and
- For dwarves, iron shoes are now 'dwarvish boots'; many dwarves can also generate with a dwarvish bearded axe, a type of axe that has damage comparable to a long sword and can also be used to disarm monsters and remove their weapons or shields, similar to bullwhips.
- Elves generate with elven long swords, which has a base material of wood like other elven weapons - regular long swords are made of iron, which is a hated material for elves in EvilHack. The elven long sword is lighter than a normal long sword, with damage closer to that of the katana, but is vulnerable to erosion from burning and rotting.
- Orcs often generate with scimitars in vanilla - in EvilHack they are replaced with orcish scimitars, which deal slightly less damage against small monsters. Orcs can also generate with orcish long swords, which deal slightly less damage against large monsters compared to normal long swords. Finally, the orcish morning star is a significantly weaker form of morning star generated in the hands of goblin outriders and goblin-captains, though they can also generate randomly. Armor made of bone and stone grants MC3 when worn by orcs; additionally, mithril is a hated material for orcs.
