Asmodeus (dNetHack)
& Asmodeus 
| |
|---|---|
| Difficulty | 57 |
| Attacks |
Weapon 9d1 physical, Weapon 9d1 physical, Cast 9d9 clerical spell, Cast 9d9 fireball, Cast 9d9 cone of cold, Passive 0d0 hellblood |
| Base level | 99 |
| Base experience | 12282 |
| Speed | 12 |
| Base AC | -9 to -99 (randomized) |
| Base MR | 99 |
| Alignment | 20 (lawful) |
| Frequency (by normal means) | 0 (Not randomly generated) |
| Genocidable | No |
| Weight | 1500 |
| Nutritional value | 500 |
| Size | medium |
| Resistances | fire, cold, disintegration, poison, petrification, disease
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Asmodeus:
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In dNetHack, notdNetHack and notnotdNetHack, Asmodeus, &, is far stronger than his incarnation in NetHack: he is one of the strongest monsters that the hero will encounter, and the strongest of the devil rulers. Asmodeus has 9 points of natural damage reduction, and similar to other high-level unique monsters such as Pale Night & Baalphegor, his base AC is a flat value at -99—each time this AC is checked, such as for an individual attack against him, the actual value is randomly rolled between -9 and -99 (uniformly random). This means that his AC approximately averages to -54, though the value is still very volatile.
Asmodeus is a lawful devil prince that is medium-sized rather than huge as is NetHack. He can see invisible, is strong, is capable of flight, and can be seen via infravision - like all demon lords and princes, he can follow the hero to other levels if he is adjacent, is covetous and capable of warping, and will pick up weapons and other items he comes across. Asmodeus desires the Amulet of Yendor, the invocation items and the quest artifact of the hero's role. Asmodeus cannot be made tame, and can turn traitor if somehow tamed.
As a lawful demon prince, Asmodeus will attempt to bribe a lawful hero for an amount ranging from 9000-9999 gold regardless of how much gold is in their open inventory. If they are wielding Excalibur or The Lance of Longinus when he is generated, or they are wielding either weapon when he warps to meet them, he will instead be hostile. Having displacement and refusing to tell him your real location will also cause him to become hostile.
Asmodeus has two mundane weapon attacks, along with the ability to cast powerful monster spells clerically, the cone of cold and fireball spells, and a passive ability that generates devils from his blood as he takes damage. The devils generated by this passive attack change with each 1⁄4 of HP that Asmodeus loses, starting with lemures and upgrading to horned devils, barbed devils, and eventually pit fiends—upon death, Asmodeus will unleash several devils of the aforementioned types, as well as Nessian pit fiends. Monsters generated from the blood of Asmodeus are treated as permanent summons, i.e. they will not disappear after a set amount of turns or upon the death of their summoner.
Asmodeus possesses cold resistance, stoning resistance, disintegration resistance, and immunity to sickness, along with fire resistance, poison resistance, drain resistance, and death resistance like all major demons.
Asmodeus is poisonous to consume, which primarily comes up if he is digested or subjected to Ahazu.
Killing Asmodeus will inflict the "Overlord" madness, which has a 1⁄9 chance each turn of checking against the hero's sanity, and if the hero fails this check, they "feel the burning gaze of the Overlord" upon them: this interrupts travel, occupations and other multi-turn actions, inflicts 9 turns of study and burns potions and scrolls in their open inventory, with a 1⁄11 chance of ignoring protection from extrinsic fire resistance. Each of these gazes has a secondary 1⁄11 chance of initiating a second check against sanity, and failing this check inflicts an additional 99 turns of study and burns spellbooks in the hero's open inventory, which always ignores extrinsic fire resistance.
Generation
Asmodeus is peaceful when first generated so that he can attempt to bribe the hero if they are not wielding Excalibur or The Lance of Longinus at the time, and will otherwise become hostile. He is not a valid form for polymorph.
Asmodeus is always generated invisible, and will meditating in the middle square of the central court of Nessus at level creation—he is surrounded by nine named & numbered Nessian pit fiends, who will always be hostile regardless of Asmodeus's inclinations towards the hero.
Asmodeus always generates with a black robe, a black gentleman's suit, a black pair of speed boots, and a scroll of charging. Similarly to the other dNetHack demon and devil princes, Asmodeus generates with a fixed number of hit points, equal to twice his maximum possible rolled HP: As a level 99 medium-sized foe, this leaves him with 1584 hit points in every incarnation.
Asmodeus does not leave a corpse behind upon death.
Strategy
Despite having weapon attacks, Asmodeus is not naturally generated with any weapons, leading his melee attacks to be more dangerous for their ability to gate demonic allies than their raw damage output. His speed boots increase his effective speed from 12 to 16.
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Origin
Asmodeus, or Ashmedai, is a very powerful demon that is described in various Abrahamic religions—Asmodeus's name has also been spelled as Asmoday, Asmodai, Asmodee (also Asmodée), Osmodeus, and Osmodai. Asmodeus is a major figure in the legends of Solomon and the constructing of Solomon's Temple: his story features variously in Talmudic stories, where he is the king of the shedim, and the Quran refers to a "puppet" in the Story of Solomon in Surah Ṣād verses 30-40, which the mufassirūn (authorized exegetes of the Quran) asserts as referring to the demon-king Asmodeus (Sakhr). In Christianity, Asmodeus is mostly known from the deuterocanonical Book of Tobit, where he is the primary antagonist and disrupts the marriages of Sarah. German theologian Peter Binsfeld classifies Asmodeus as the "demon of lust".
The name Asmodai is believed to derive from the Avestan *aēšma-daēva, the Zoroastrian demon of wrath; while the daēva Aēšma is well-attested as such, the compound aēšma-daēva is not attested in scripture. The Jewish Encyclopedia of 1906 rejects the otherwise-accepted etymological relation between the Persian "Æshma-dæva" and Judaism's "Ashmodai", but proposes that the "Asmodeus" from the Apocrypha and the Testament of Solomon are not only related somewhat to Aeshma but have similar behaviour, appearance and roles; as concluded in another article under the entry "Aeshma", Persian Zoroastrian beliefs could have heavily influenced Judaism's theology in the long term. A fallen angel by the name of Asmodeus also appears in Paradise Lost by John Milton.
Asmodeus appears in Dungeons & Dragons, with his traits derived from some of his descriptions in demonology and folklore like the information presented above. His exact nature varies from publication to publication, though he is generally presented as either an evil god or a powerful devil; he is the Lord of Hell (Baator) and the Overlord of the lesser Dukes of Hell, and from his position he oversees the Blood War against the chaotic demons and their demon prince leaders. Befitting the nature of the embodiment of lawful evil, Asmodeus constantly schemes against all the arch-devils, though he has a special hatred for Levistus.
More often than not, the avatar of Asmodeus appears as a slim, red-skinned humanoid over 13 feet (4 meters) tall with a horned head, glowing red eyes and a perfectly trimmed beard, and dons red-and-black clothing valuable enough to cover the annual spending of any nation. Asmodeus is handsome, charismatic and captivating on the surface, but despite his manners, intellectual capabilities and competence befitting of the Lord of Hell, Asmodeus is still capable of being surprised—though they are very few, there are figures whose powers and influence give him pause; additionally, he is very capable of fury, and can burst into rage if he forgets himself, causing his mask of civility to slip and unveil the evil that lurked below.
Encyclopedia entry
The Serpent's Throne filled the mirror, a great hooded viper
of lustrous ruby that slithered about its own coils. Darkness
unfathomable surrounded this throne. Yet, a deeper darkness
was hidden within. Then, I saw him. Or rather, I saw Him.
Seated upon the Serpent's Throne He looked at me. He looked
at me as I sat in what I thought was safety!
The small amount of exposed flesh was flawless, like the
purest marble. His attire was like the robes and cloaks of
a holy high priest, both regal yet simple in its austerity.
It did not seem woven from any fabric in this or any other
world, but spun from the blackness of the Cosmos itself. In
the long fingers that rested in his lap He held a ruby
scepter, its head an onyx pentagram. For all of this, what
I remember more than anything were the eyes. They were large
under the heavy brow. Completely red, like blood, those
glowing eyes gazed at me. Through me. Into and beyond my soul.
They devoured everything I ever was and could be. Despite the
pleasant smile on His face, those eyes told me I was less than
nothing, an object to be used and discarded as necessary.
[ Dicefreaks: The Gates of Hell ]
Asmodeus is the overlord over all of hell.
His appearance, unlike many other demons and devils, is
human apart from his horns and tail. He can freeze flesh
with a touch, or boil it, and is a master of diverse
magicks besides. It is said that the ancestors of
devilkind arose from his blood.
SO, THOU HAST PEERED BEYOND THE GATES OF HELL. His lips
did not move. Or perhaps they did. To this day, I cannot
tell.
WAS IT WORTH IT?
[ Dicefreaks: The Gates of Hell ]
