Vampire mage (SLASH'EM)

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This article is about monster as it appears in SLASH'EM and SlashTHEM. For the monster in the original code or other variants, see vampire mage.

A vampire mage, V, is a monster that appears in SLASH'EM and SlashTHEM, and is implemented from the deferred monster in the code of NetHack. Among vampires, the vampire mage is considerably stronger than a vampire lord - he shares the same traits as his undead vampire kin, will seek out and pick up magical items, and is a lord to his kind.

A vampire mage possesses a claw attack and bite attack that can drain life, and will attempt to cast one mage monster spell for each round of combat. Vampire mages can only be hit by +3 or better weapons, and implicitly hits as a +3 weapon themmselves. Vampire mages also possess sleep resistance, poison resistance and drain resistance. A tame vampire mage may turn traitor.

Generation

Randomly generated vampire mages are always hostile. A vampire lord can grow up into a vampire mage.

Vampire mages appear among the random V that make up the second quest monster class for Undead Slayers, and makes up 6175 of the monsters randomly generated on the Undead Slayer quest.

Vampire mages also appear among the random V generated in the Chaotic Quest at level creation.

A vampire mage is always generated with an opera cloak and either a potion of blood or a potion of vampire blood.[1]

A vampire mage leaves an old human corpse behind upon death.[2][3][4]

Strategy

Vampire mages are excellent at wreaking havoc in the later stages of the game: in addition to their draining abilities, they wield a suite of especially dangerous monster spells. Additionally, the opera cloaks they generate with can potentially be a cloak of magic resistance, making it difficult to damage them with non-elemental magic - thankfully, they are still vulnerable to fireball and cone of cold.

A fleeing vampire mage will often continue to cast spells at you, which often results in repeated castings of summon nasties that fills the nearby area with monsters and make them incredibly difficult to reach - this is all the more pronounced on open, no-teleport levels such as Juiblex's Swamp or Moloch's Sanctum. Vampire mages are usually priority targets to eliminate with prejudice, and it is not uncommon for players to target vampire mages for uncursed genocide.

As pets

Vampire mages are stellar pets: they possess regeneration, healing spells, low base AC combined with the ability to wear all armor, and immunity to weapons that are not +3 or better, including monsters that hit as +3 weapons. A basic vampire can be tamed and quickly raised to a vampire mage in a few levels.

A vampire mage can easily be kept fed and high in tameness since they can drain blood from corpses, which also leaves them edible for characters that are not observing conducts such as atheist, foodless or vegan, or else are feeding other carnivorous pets. Unfortunately, vampire mages may turn traitor, particularly if you are much weaker than them or else abuse them.

When outfitting a vampire mage, remember that he cannot wear blessed armor - vampires in SLASH'EM and SlashTHEM avoid blessed items as most pets do cursed items.

References

  1. makemon.c in SLASH'EM 0.0.7E7F2, line 1148
  2. mon.c in SLASH'EM 0.0.7E7F2, line 63: Converting monster index of undead to corpses of their living counterparts
  3. mon.c in SLASH'EM 0.0.7E7F2, line 77: undead_to_corpse case for vampires
  4. mon.c in SLASH'EM 0.0.7E7F2, line 228: Undead corpses and their ages are handled with other "special" death drops