Stoning
Stoning is the process of a character turning to stone. This usually happens due to an encounter with a cockatrice but the gaze of Medusa also turns you to stone.
Stoning resistance can not be gained by external means but only by polymorphing into an intrinsically stoning resistant monster. You are only resistant for the duration you are such a monster.
Stoning resistant monsters
The most obviously stoning resistant monsters are cockatrices and monsters already made of stone, such as gargoyles. In addition to those, all elementals, xorns, all but blue jellies, yellow dragons, green molds, wraiths, skeletons, lizards, Juiblex, Death, Famine, Pestilence, all quest nemeses, and all monsters represented by letters v, y and P are stoning resistant. If you try to stone golems, they turn to stone golems instead.
Stiffening vs Instadeath
The gaze of Medusa, and touching a cockatrice or chickatrice is instantly fatal for a character without stoning resistance. Attacking barehanded or barefooted, picking up the corpse barehanded, and kicking barefooted are considered ways of touching. Throwing a cockatrice egg up ([<]) and being hit by it is an instadeath, but being hit by one thrown by a monster starts the stiffening process, as does eating the egg, or hearing the cockatrice's hissing attack. The process technically takes 5 turns, but after 2, your limbs turn to stone and you can't do anything else but proceed to die.
Messages
| Message | Turns to live |
|---|---|
| "You are slowing down" | 2 |
| "Your limbs are stiffening" | 1 |
|
0 |
Stopping stiffening
If you are bitten by a cockatrice and start turning to stone – stiffening – you still have several ways, albeit not several turns, to save yourself. Eating a lizard or any acidic monster stops the process. They are the ones represented by letters :, b, j, D, F, N and P. The standard method of these is to eat a lizard corpse. Since they never rot, you should always carry one along.
However, if you do not have a lizard corpse with you, you may quaff a potion of acid. The stone to flesh spell will also save you if you cast it on yourself, but it will also turn your items made of stone into meat, including rocks, rings and wands, unless they are in a container.
If your god is happy with you and you are not in Gehennom, prayer works as well.
Despite popular belief, being slimed does not save you from petrification, unless it is by eating a green slime corpse (and even then only because the corpse is acidic).
An amulet of unchanging will not protect you from stoning, but an amulet of life saving will save your life. Reflection protects you from turning to stone by the gaze of Medusa, as will being blind.
