Uvuudaum
U uvuudaum 
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|---|---|
| Difficulty | 28 |
| Attacks |
Reach 3d12 uvuudaum brainspike, Weapon 2d6 physical, Offhand Weapon 2d6 physical, Claw 6d4 physical, Magic 0d6 clerical spell, passive wide-angle gaze 0d0 confusion |
| Base level | 38 |
| Base experience | 778 |
| Speed | 16 |
| Base AC | −20 |
| Base MR | 80 |
| Alignment | 0 (neutral) |
| Frequency (by normal means) | 1 (Very rare) |
| Genocidable | No |
| Weight | 1450 |
| Nutritional value | 400 |
| Size | medium |
| Resistances | sleep, petrification, magic |
| Resistances conveyed | |
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An uvuudaum:
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An uvuudaum, U, is a type of monster that appears in dNetHack. The uvuudaum is an unknown abomination that is capable of flight and phasing, and possesses sleep resistance, stoning resistance, and magic resistance as well as displacement. An uvuudaum has six attacks - the most lethal by far is its polearm-ranged, vorpal brain-spike attack. It also has two weapon attacks, a claw attack, casts clerical monster spells, and has a passive wide-angled gaze that induces confusion in those who can see them even while peaceful.
An uvuudaum has various other intrinsic abilities as well: it gains +20 to-hit due to its pre-cognitive abilities, has a passive 25 HP-per-turn regeneration, 10-point damage reduction, and an intrinsic life saving property that revives the uvuudaum when it dies, though it will activate no more than once every 34 turns. Uvuudaums also possess a unique aura that qualifies as both holy and unholy: direct contact with an uvuudaum deals +4d9 damage to holy-hating monsters such as demons and undead, and deals +3d7 to unholy-hating monsters such as Angels and similar angelic beings.
Contents
Generation
Randomly generated uvuudaums in the main dungeon will be created hostile, but will not always remain so - see below for details - while uvuudaums in the Anachrononaut quest will always be hostile. Uvuudaums do not generate in Gehennom. Upon killing the Wizard of Yendor or else performing the Invocation while the Wizard is still alive, all existing uvuudaums and any subsequently generated ones will be permanently hostile.
Uvuudaums are an ineligible form for polymorph, and will never leave a corpse upon death.
Strategy
Hostile uvuudaums are easily among the most dangerous members of their monster class and one of the most deadly to encounter on the ascension run - the best course of action is usually to simply avoid uvuudaums or else teleport them away.
Those seeking to fight kill uvuudaums must have significant amounts of persistence and preparation: high damage output and accuracy is required to counteract the uvuudaum's high regeneration rate and intrinsic life saving - their intrinsic displacement also means you will have to attempt to pummel one repeatedly to get through. As their passive confusion makes them perilous to even perceive, they are especially dangerous for any spellcasting builds.
Meditation
Fortunately for you, hostile uvuudaums that are encountered outside of the Anachrononaut's Quest branch will lapse into a meditating state and become peaceful towards you - even if you disturb or anger them, they will eventually revert to a meditative state and become peaceful again (provided you survive that mistake long enough). Once you have become a "demigod" by killing the Wizard of Yendor or performing the Invocation as above, uvuudaums will cease their meditation and become permanently hostile.
Brainspike
The uvuudaum's brainspike attack can be used in melee range and reaches up to the same range as a polearm, dealing physical damage and draining constitution, wisdom and energy while inducing amnesia and hallucination. The severity of stat reduction and amnesia as well as the duration of hallucination are both scaled by 1⁄6 of the physical damage dealt, and can be further halved by poison resistance. The amount of energy drained by the brain spike attack is equal to half the physical damage dealt.
The brainspike attack is also a vorpal attack that has the standard 1⁄20 chance of causing instadeath. The brainspike's vorpal effect is unique in that it can only be blocked by wearing any kind of helm, which causes it to have no effect: if the target is instead unsolid or headless, the attack deals double damage.
Spellcasting
Uvuudaums can cast the following spells with a base damage of 19d6:
- Psi bolt: Direct damage (capped at 50)
- Spacewarp: Direct damage (capped at 100)
- Stun: Causes stunning
- Paralyze: Causes paralysis
- Time stop: A healing spell that restores 50-125 HP to all uvuudaums on the floor, including the caster
- Temporal duplicate: Creates a clone with timed life
- Nail to the sky: Applies cursed levitation
- Prismatic spray: Multiple large elemental explosions (6d6 each)
Deafeating the uvuudauum
A player planning to kill any uvuudaum should be prepared with the following items:
- A means of high damage output, which you will usually have by the point uvuudaums become actively hostile.
- A towel or a high drunkenness level to deal with the uvuudaum's confusing gaze.
- Several potions of full healing.
- A ring of sustain ability to prevent your stats from being compromised.
- A source of fast or better speed: uvuuadaums like to retreat to and through far walls as you chase them, making them difficult to kill outside of open levels - they will often try to remain a knight's move away, meaning that you can chase one to the edge of an open level map and stand vertically or horizontally next to them to force a confrontation. Standing at a diagonal while doing so will often cause them to continue to flee.
- Above all else, wear a helmet to avoid instakill brain spike attacks.
- Avoid using a wage of sloth or the Garnet Rod's time stop effect - uvuudaums are effectively immune to any form of time-stopping, gaining the same bonus movement points that you would.
For Anachrononauts encountering hostile uvuudaums on their quest as well as during the ascension run, there are additional or altered requirements:
- A hypospray with ampules will be preferable to potions, as they cannot be diluted and are much lighter - though you cannot use them if stunned.
- One or more lightsabers, particularly including the Annulus (their quest artifact), can generate high enough damage output to sear through an uvuudaum's defenses in melee.
- The Djem So form can further increase your damage-per-round through copious counter attacks.
- Uvuudaums are not immune to disintegration, which makes ray guns a viable weapon - however, the uvuudaum's very low AC will make actually hitting quite difficult.
Players will also need to be able to weather any of the uvuudaum's multitude of monster spells, and should be prepared to withstand and ignore any temporarily summoned uvuudaums in favor of focusing on the summoner themselves. However, if you are overwhelmed by summoned uvuudaums, you may need to retreat until the summons time out - multiple uvuudaums casting the time stop spell will causes healing spikes that can out-recover even the highest damage setups.
While not strictly necessary, spirits with damaging abilities and extra attacks may be somewhat beneficial if you have any bound, particularly ones that do not rely on beating the uvuudaum's high MR score of 80. Certain spirits such as Ahazu, Eden and Tenebrous also have active powers that can potentially remove an uvuudaum from the game.
Origin
The uvuudaum originates from the 3rd edition Epic Level Handbook of Dungeons & Dragons, where they are a race of malevolent creatures from an alien plane of madness known as Far Realm. Uvuudaums are rumored to be lords of the Far Realm, and their appearances were just as chaotic and bizarre in nature as their home plane: an uvuudaum hsd a humanoid torso with two largely-normal humanoid arms, and their lower body consists of six arachnid-like limbs with loose clothing worn over it - in place of the head on a humanoid, the uvuudaum had a long tail-like appendage tipped at the end with an iron-hard spike.
Uvuudaums are strange and malevolent creatures that delight in revealing the existence of their horrifying, madness-inducing homeplace to more structured realities; their mere appearance could instill insanity and confusion in observers within 30 feet (9.1 m) of them. Uvuudaums were capable of detecting other beings through a form of blindsight, and could telepathically communicate with anyone capable of language from a range of up to 500 feet (150 m). They were highly resistant to electricity and healed very quickly from most injuries outside of those caused by fire, severe cold or holy weapons.
Uvuudaums could attack with their head-spikes to drain away vital senses and stability of the mind from a victim to heal themselves - those not driven insane by their mere presence, or else not killed by the headspike, would be further subjected to the uvuudaum's spell-casting abilities (or replication thereof, given their alien nature). Among various other spells, uvuudaums could make use of contingent resurrection, nailed to the sky, time duplicate, and time stop once per day each, and also utilized their displacement and stoneskin talents when possible.
Encyclopedia entry
Strange creatures with long, claw-tipped tentacles in place
of heads, Uvuudaums hail from a far realm beyond the known
planes. It is said that they are the lords of those realms,
although evidence for this is thin at best. As with all
supposed facts about that place, that claim is more likely
a gross anthropomorphism, if not an outright falsehood.
The merest glimpse of their form drives men mad, and they
are capable of crushing a man's head with a single flick
of their headspikes. Even if the victim escapes this fate,
their long spikes run with strange venoms.
