Stone golem
' stone golem 
| |
|---|---|
| Difficulty | 15 |
| Attacks |
Claw 3d8 |
| Base level | 14 |
| Base experience | 345 |
| Speed | 6 |
| Base AC | 5 |
| Base MR | 50 |
| Alignment | 0 (neutral) |
| Frequency (by normal means) | 1 (Very rare) |
| Genocidable | No |
| Weight | 1900 |
| Nutritional value | 0 |
| Size | Large |
| Resistances | sleep, poison, petrification |
| Resistances conveyed |
None |
|
A stone golem:
| |
| Reference | monst.c#line2252 |
The stone golem is a type of monster that appears in NetHack. It is one of the stronger types of golem.
Contents
Generation
Four stone golems are placed just outside of Medusa's room on the second variant of her island at level creation, and four more appear on the Plane of Earth at level creation.
Stone golems are always generated with 60 hit points.[1][2] In addition to random generation, stone golems are created if you polypile a square full of enough mineral items; this also occurs sometimes if there are enough platinum objects in a pile.
Stoning any other type of golem, e.g. being hit with a cockatrice egg or attacking a live footrice (typically via conflict or polself), turns them into a stone golem.[3][4][5]
When a stone golem is killed, it leaves an inanimate statue of itself behind as its "death drop", and its inventory becomes the contents of the statue (which is usually empty)[6][7] Casting stone to flesh on a statue of a stone golem will create a single meatball, as the golem is not a fleshy monster.
Strategy
Stone golems are have a fairly powerful attack and slightly more AC than most golems, but they move half as fast as an unburdened player and lack most resistances outside of the sleep and poison resistance shared with other golems. Casting stone to flesh on a "live" stone golem will turn it into a flesh golem, which is somewhat faster, more resistant and can hit twice for more damage—a flesh golem also has weaker AC and base HP, and players meeting stone golems through normal generation are well-equipped to handle their fleshy counterparts. This can also be used to try and gain certain intrinsics once you kill the resulting flesh golem.
Of note is that, including the above, performing these actions while you are polymorphed into an appropriate golem will turn you into a stone golem:
- Snatching a wielded footrice corpse from a monster with a bullwhip and catching it.[8]
- Kicking a footrice corpse.[9]
- Throwing a footrice corpse upward, which causes it to fall back down onto your head.[10]
- Eating the meat or egg of a footrice, or eating the meat of Medusa.[11][12]
- Hearing a footrice's hiss after it lands a touch attack on you, or meeting the gaze of Medusa without reflection.[13][14]
- Touching a footrice corpse with your bare hands.[15][16][17]
- Attempting to saddle a live footrice.[18]
- Trying to untrap a live footrice, or falling through a hole or trap door while wielding a footrice corpse.[19][20]
Breaking the statues of stone golems for loot after killing them is usually not worth it, as they are mindless and do not pick up items—finding any items in a stone golem's possession is usually an indicator that it was created via polymorph. Randomly-generated statues of stone golem in the dungeon may still contain one spellbook.
History
The stone golem first appears in NetHack 3.0.0.
Variants
SLASH'EM
In SLASH'EM, stone golems are vulnerable to rays from a wand of digging, which halves their HP.
dNetHack
In dNetHack, sixteen statues of stone golems are placed around the locate level of the Archeologist quest; one of the special levels in Gehennom included from the Heck² patch generates three stone golems and five clay golems. A fifth stone golem is added to the Plane of Earth on level creation, and another is generated on the Plane of Fire on level creation.
SlashTHEM
In addition to SLASH'EM changes, a stone golem is generated asleep in one variant of Mines' End, and two stone golems appear in the throne room closets on Ruggo the Gnome King's special level. SlashTHEM also uses the same special level from the Heck² patch as dNetHack.
Encyclopedia entry
"The original story harks back, so they say, to the sixteenth century. Using long-lost formulas from the Kabbala, a rabbi is said to have made an artificial man -- the so-called Golem -- to help ring the bells in the Synagogue and for all kinds of other menial work.
"But he hadn't made a full man, and it was animated by some sort of vegetable half-life. What life it had, too, so the story runs, was only derived from the magic charm placed behind its teeth each day, that drew down to itself what was known as the `free sidereal strength of the universe.'
"One evening, before evening prayers, the rabbi forgot to take the charm out of the Golem's mouth, and it fell into a frenzy. It raged through the dark streets, smashing everything in its path, until the rabbi caught up with it, removed the charm, and destroyed it. Then the Golem collapsed, lifeless. All that was left of it was a small clay image, which you can still see in the Old Synagogue." ...
References
- ↑ makemon.c in NetHack 3.4.3, line 918
- ↑ makemon.c in NetHack 3.4.3, line 1534
- ↑ dothrow.c in NetHack 3.4.3, line 763
- ↑ mthrowu.c in NetHack 3.4.3, line 414
- ↑ uhitm.c in NetHack 3.4.3, line 2193
- ↑ mon.c in NetHack 3.4.3, line 259
- ↑ mkobj.c in NetHack 3.4.3, line 929: mkcorpstat() calls mksobj_at() which may add spellbooks to the statue. But then mkcorpstat() calls save_mtraits() which will override the contents of the statue and transfer previous killed monster's inventory to the statue.
- ↑ apply.c in NetHack 3.4.3, line 2312
- ↑ dokick.c in NetHack 3.4.3, line 439
- ↑ dothrow.c in NetHack 3.4.3, line 811
- ↑ eat.c in NetHack 3.4.3, line 466
- ↑ eat.c in NetHack 3.4.3, line 1717
- ↑ mhitu.c in NetHack 3.4.3, line 1194
- ↑ mhitu.c in NetHack 3.4.3, line 1940
- ↑ pickup.c in NetHack 3.4.3, line 1310
- ↑ pickup.c in NetHack 3.4.3, line 1824
- ↑ pickup.c in NetHack 3.4.3, line 1947
- ↑ steed.c in NetHack 3.4.3, line 86
- ↑ trap.c in NetHack 3.4.3, line 2169
- ↑ trap.c in NetHack 3.4.3, line 3344
