Wizard of Yendor

@ Wizard of Yendor
Difficulty	34
Attacks	Claw 2d12 amulet-stealing, spell-casting

@ Wizard of Yendor
Difficulty	34
Attacks	Claw 2d12 amulet-stealing, spell-casting
Base level	30
Base experience	1386
Speed	12
Base AC	-8
Base MR	100
Alignment	unaligned
Frequency (by normal means)	Unique
Genocidable	No
Weight	1450
Nutritional value	400
Size	Medium
Resistances	Fire, Poison
Resistances conveyed	Fire (25%), Poison (25%), teleport control (25%), causes teleportitis (25%)
Wizard of Yendor: can fly. does not breathe. has a head, a couple of arms, and a torso. regenerates HP quickly. can see invisible creatures. can teleport. has teleport control. is omnivorous. is a human. is an overlord to its kind. is male. is normally generated hostile. is nasty. is strong. can pick up magical items. waits for you to come. wants the Amulet of Yendor, the Bell of Opening, the Book of the Dead, the Candelabrum of Invocation, and your quest artifact. can be seen through infravision.
Reference	monst.c#line2481

The Wizard of Yendor (also informally known as Rodney) is the guardian of the Book of the Dead. He resides in his tower in Gehennom. You must get the Book of the Dead from him before you can descend to Moloch's Sanctum and get the Amulet of Yendor from the high priest of Moloch. Rodney is generated without a weapon.

In addition to the full complement of arcane monster spells, the Wizard has a unique spell, Double Trouble, which creates another incarnation of him, with all his powers. The clone can show up with a different appearance from his normal self; one of water demon, vampire, red dragon, troll, umber hulk, xorn, xan, cockatrice, floating eye, guardian naga or trapper. He will not use this spell if there are already two of him in the world.

The wizard can and will follow you up to the Elemental Planes. However, he will not appear in the Astral Plane, though if he appears on the Plane of Water he can follow you through the portal to the Astral Plane.

Rodney is incapable of harming monsters, e. g. pets or the high priest of Moloch.

Harassment

After the Wizard dies for the first time, or you perform the Invocation (by stealing the Book from him without killing him), he will cause you trouble for the rest of the game. 50-299 turns after you first kill the wizard, 2-12 turns after performing the invocation and every 50-249 turns afterwards, one of the following effects will happen:

Probability	Effect	Message
1/3	No effect	"You feel vaguely nervous."
1/6	Curse items	"You notice a black glow surrounding you." (if not blind)
1/6	Aggravate monsters, as per the monster spell	"You feel that monsters are aware of your presence."
1/6	Summon nasties	No message
1/6	If there is currently no living Wizard, he returns to life near you, one monster level higher than his previous incarnation. If the Wizard is alive on a different dungeon level, and doesn't have the real Amulet, he is brought to you.	"A voice booms out... 'So thou thought thou couldst <kill/elude> me, fool.'"

On the Astral Plane, the Wizard cannot appear, and every other effect has equal probability.

Avoiding harassment

Once you have killed the wizard or performed the invocation ritual, the harassment will begin and will last for the remainder of the game. Thus it is usually a good idea to prepare for the ascension run before killing the wizard to reduce the number of turns - and thus the amount of harassment - needed to finish the game. Finding the vibrating square and creating paths through the Gehennom mazes are always beneficial. Stealing the Book of the Dead without killing the wizard will allow you to continue preparations without risk of harassment; this is especially useful for pacifists trying to raise the dead to obtain a level 49 purple worm.

The wizard will not levelport to meet you if he is carrying the real amulet. If you are being overwhelmed by the wizard, you can throw the amulet away and change levels as the wizard goes to pick up the amulet. You will still need to recover the amulet, but this gives you an opportunity to re-prepare strong pets, hit points, items, etc. The other forms of harassment can still affect you, however.

Leveldraining the wizard will permanently reduce his level, although it is still subject to the usual gains from his revival. If you are able to reduce his level to 0 he will lose all spellcasting abilities, and his melee damage is unremarkable he becomes a mere nuisance and not a threat. Reducing his level without killing him is best done with a negatively enchanted Stormbringer (enchantment can be easily reduced to -3 through engraving). Reducing his level will also make him susceptible to polymorph; polymorphing him will prevent his covetous teleportation and remove most of his abilities. Sliming is also an option.

Teleporting the wizard will always cause him to be teleported to the upstairs, or the down ladder if you are within the wizard's tower. As the wizard is a covetous monster, this is rarely a concern as he can simply teleport himself back to your position, but if you managed to polymorph or slime the wizard first you will not be able to teleport him away from the staircase.

The Wizard of Yendor normally cannot be made tame or peaceful, however there are a handful of methods to pacify the wizard if you are able to polymorph him. The wizard will always be made hostile when he next revives, so these methods cannot be used to permanently pacify him.

• Polymorph the wizard into a unicorn and throw a gem. It is not necessary to use a co-aligned unicorn nor a valuable gem.
• Polymorph the wizard into a snake and successfully use a wooden flute.
• Polymorph the wizard into a nymph and successfully use a wooden harp.
• Polymorph the wizard into any undead monster and read the blessed Book of the Dead.
• As a chaotic priest or knight outside of Gehennom, polymorph the wizard into any undead and successfully turn undead.
• Polymorph the wizard into any non-human, non-mindless monster and #untrap it from a pit that you did not create. Failure from the monsters weighing too much and success both have chances of pacifying the wizard, but failure will leave the wizard trapped, allowing you to try again.
• In SLASH'EM, polymorph the wizard into any monster and hit it with a potion of amnesia. This effect can be resisted by the monster's MR.

Strategy

Many players choose to zap a wand of death at the wizard instantly every time he reappears. However, if you are low of charges on your wands, you may want to take him out by conventional means or, for example, stone him. Watch for the Elvenkings the wizard likes to summon — they are represented by the same @ symbol as the wizard. It is annoying to realize that you've squandered a charge of your wand of death on the wrong monster.

One important thing to note is that the Wizard is capable of stealing your own quest artifact if you have it in your main inventory. If you were relying on that artifact for magic resistance--look out! You don't have MR any longer, but Rodney does--so he is now immune to death rays, for instance. Prudent players will arrange to for other items to duplicate the vital powers of their quest artifacts prior to beginning the ascension run, and may even wish to carry their own artifact in a container to avoid Rodney stealing it and making use of it himself. Pity the unprepared Caveman who has the Sceptre of Might stolen with no other source of MR, and no other good melee weapon in inventory.

Luckily, Rodney will only steal the player's own quest artifact--wished-for artifacts from other roles are immune to this kind of theft (so a Neutral Monk can get slotless, theft-proof MR by wishing for The Eye of the Aethiopica).

If you manage to steal the Book of the Dead from the Wizard without killing him, and then escape the level without him following, he will not hassle you until you perform the Invocation ritual.

It is possible to dig into the Wizard's tower without waking him up: standing in a corner of the room, zap a wand of digging diagonally at the tower. This will remove a bit of the tower, but will not wake up the Wizard. If you then shoot a death ray in through this newly created gap you will kill him without giving him the chance to cast spells at you. If you dig in any other way, you will wake him up.

If you kill him over the moat, you can get the Book of the Dead by zapping a wand of cold over the water (the Book is immune to blanking). The book will end up on top of the ice.  Alternately, you can wear an amulet of magical breathing to go into the water and pick up the Book of the Dead.  If you choose to do this, remember to leave your water-damageable items (potions, spellbooks, scrolls, non-rustproof weapons) on the dry land before you jump in.

History

The Wizard of Yendor first appeared in Hack 1.0.2.

Through NetHack 2.3e, he appeared in a 1x2 room in the center of the maze, which also contained a hell hound (that did not have a breath weapon) and the Amulet of Yendor. The room had no doors and was surrounded by a moat. His symbol was 1, rather than @. These versions of NetHack did not have color.

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Fake Wizard rooms had a demon (generic in this version) instead of the Wizard, and a fake Amulet.

From NetHack 3.0.0 through 3.0.10, the Wizard lived in a larger tower, now also accompanied by a vampire lord. NetHack acquired color display in version 3.0.4.

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Fake Wizard rooms had a randomly chosen demon prince, or demon lord if no demon prince was available, or a random demon if demon lords are also gone. (All eight modern named demons existed, and occurred only in fake Wizard rooms or when summoned.)

Starting with NetHack 3.1.0, the Amulet is now given to the high priest of Moloch, and the Wizard instead carries the Book of the Dead. The 3.0.x-style Wizard room still exists as the room in which the Wizard lives, and as the two "fake Wizard" levels.

Encyclopedia entry

No one knows how old this mighty wizard is, or from whence he
came. It is known that, having lived a span far greater than
any normal man's, he grew weary of lesser mortals; and so,
spurning all human company, he forsook the dwellings of men
and went to live in the depths of the Earth. He took with
him a dreadful artifact, the Book of the Dead, which is said
to hold great power indeed. Many have sought to find the
wizard and his treasure, but none have found him and lived to
tell the tale. Woe be to the incautious adventurer who
disturbs this mighty sorcerer!