Acolyte (quest guardian)

@ acolyte (quest guardian)
Difficulty	8
Attacks	Weapon 1d6 physical, Spell-casting 0d0 clerical

@ acolyte (quest guardian)
Difficulty	8
Attacks	Weapon 1d6 physical, Spell-casting 0d0 clerical
Base level	5
Base experience	71
Speed	12
Base AC	10
Base MR	20
Alignment	0 (neutral)
Frequency (by normal means)	0 (Not randomly generated)
Genocidable	No
Weight	1450
Nutritional value	400
Size	Medium
Resistances	None
Resistances conveyed	None
An acolyte: has a head, a couple of arms, and a torso. is omnivorous. is not a valid polymorphable form. is a human. is normally generated peaceful. is strong. can pick up weapons and food. can be seen through infravision.
Reference	NetHack 5.0.0 - include/monsters.h, line 3840

This article is about the quest guardian. For the role whose rank title from XL 3-5 is Acolyte, see Cleric.

An acolyte, @, is a Cleric quest guardian. in NetHack. The acolyte is a strong and omnivorous human that is neutral and can be seen via infravision. Like all other quest guardians, acolytes that become hostile if they witness the hero attacking a peaceful monster will not become scared.

A hero that kills a peaceful acolyte incurs an alignment record penalty and alignment abuse equal to -MAX8 (where 'MAX' is the current highest possible value for the hero's alignment record), along with a -4 penalty to luck, murder penalties if they are not chaotic, and as angering their deity for heroes that are not chaotic. Killing the Arch Priest will immediately turn all acolytes on the level hostile, and attacking a peaceful acolyte while within his line of sight will turn the Arch Priest hostile.

Acolytes have a weapon attack and the ability to cast one clerical monster spell during each of their turns, similar to other aligned clerics and player monster clerics.

Generation

Acolytes are not randomly generated, and are always created as peaceful. They are not a valid genocide target and are not a valid polymorph form except for doppelgangers, which have an effective ²⁄₂₁ chance of shapeshifting into the form of acolytes when encountered by heroes of roles other than Cleric. An acolyte can grow up into a cleric player monster.

Acolytes can appear among the quest guardians and player monsters whose corpses are found in "massacre" themed rooms.

Eight acolytes are generated within the desecrated temple on the Cleric quest home level during level creation.

Acolytes may be generated with the following items:

• a ¹⁄₂ chance of a weapon that will either be a dagger (²⁄₃ chance) or a knife (¹⁄₃ chance);
• a ⁴⁄₅ chance of armor that will either be a leather jacket (²⁄₃ chance) or a leather cloak (¹⁄₃ chance);
• a ²⁄₃ chance of boots that will either be low boots (²⁄₃ chance) or high boots (¹⁄₃ chance); and
• a ²⁄₃ chance of a potion of healing

Strategy

Clerics that opt to kill the Arch Priest in order to enter their Quest will have to contend with the clerical spells of the vengeful acolytes, which is likely to hold true even after they successfully kill their quest leader.

History

The acolyte first appears alongside the Priest's quest branch and its other related monsters in NetHack 3.1.0. From this version to NetHack 3.6.7, including some variants based on those versions, killing a quest guardian does not lower luck independently of murder penalties or anger the hero's god, and attacking or killing the quest leader renders the game unwinnable.

NetHack 5.0.0 establishes the current behavior and luck penalties for a hero killing peaceful quest guardians or their quest leader via commit 20cbadcf, commit ee08c05e and commit 3d5b7f1f, including the game no longer being unwinnable. NetHack 5.0.0 also adds the "massacre" themed room via commit 9b74ea0b.

Origin

An acolyte is an assistant or follower assisting the celebrant in a religious service or procession—the word acolyte is derived from the Greek ἀκόλουθος (akolouthos, "attendant" via Late Latin acolythus). In many Christian denominations, an acolyte is anyone performing ceremonial duties such as lighting altar candles; in others, the term is used for one who has been inducted into a particular liturgical ministry, even when not performing those duties.

In the Eastern Orthodox and Byzantine Rite Eastern Catholic Churches, the nearest equivalent of acolyte is the altar server. At one time, there was a rank of minor clergy called the taper-bearer (κηροφόρος) responsible for bearing lights during processions and liturgical entrances; however, it has long ago been subsumed by that of the reader, and the service for the tonsure of a reader begins with the setting-aside of a taper-bearer.

Variants

Some NetHack variants created prior to NetHack 5.0.0 may retain the quest guardian behavior from previous versions. Other variants may generate acolytes in areas outside of the Quest branch.

dNetHack

In dNetHack, notdNetHack and notnotdNetHack, acolytes are the only quest guardians that will not generate on the Binder quest, as Priests do not have their own pantheon.

SpliceHack

In SpliceHack, acolytes may appear among the adventurers generated within the Bar.

Encyclopedia entry

[...] For the two priests were talking exactly like priests, piously, with learning and leisure, about the most aerial enigmas of theology. The little Essex priest spoke the more simply, with his round face turned to the strengthening stars; the other talked with his head bowed, as if he were not even worthy to look at them. But no more innocently clerical conversation could have been heard in any white Italian cloister or black Spanish cathedral. The first he heard was the tail of one of Father Brown's sentences, which ended: "... what they really meant in the Middle Ages by the heavens being incorruptible." The taller priest nodded his bowed head and said: "Ah, yes, these modern infidels appeal to their reason; but who can look at those millions of worlds and not feel that there may well be wonderful universes above us where reason is utterly unreasonable?"

[ The Innocence of Father Brown, by G.K. Chesterton ]