Beholder (monster)
e beholder 
| |
|---|---|
| Difficulty | 13 |
| Attacks |
Gaze 0d0 slow, Gaze 2d25 sleep, Gaze 0d0 disintegrate, Gaze 0d0 petrification, Gaze 2d4 cancellation, Bite 2d4 physical |
| Base level | 6 |
| Base experience | ? |
| Speed | 3 |
| Base AC | 4 |
| Base MR | 0 |
| Alignment | −10 (chaotic) |
| Frequency (by normal means) | 2 (Quite rare) |
| Genocidable | Yes |
| Weight | 10 |
| Nutritional value | 10 |
| Size | medium |
| Resistances | cold resistance |
| Resistances conveyed | none |
|
A beholder:
| |
| Reference | monst.c#line337 |
- For other implementations of the monster, see Beholder.
A beholder, e, is a deferred monster in the source code of NetHack. The beholder is a monster that is part of the eye or sphere monster class: it is breathless, mindless, capable of flight, and can be seen via infravision.[1]
A beholder has a slowing gaze attack, a sleep-inducing gaze, a disintegration gaze, a gaze that inflicts stoning, a cancellation gaze, and a bite attack. Beholders possess cold resistance.
Contents
Generation
As a deferred monster, beholders are not generated at all, but have rules governing their generation like any other monster.
Randomly generated beholders will always be created hostile, and they are not a valid target for polymorph.
History
The beholder first appears in NetHack-- 3.0.10, and its vanilla data first appears in NetHack 3.2.0.
Origin
The beholder is a well-known creature from Dungeons & Dragons, one of the franchise's most iconic original creations. As described in the SLASH'EM encyclopedia entry (taken from a D&D manual), beholders have spherical bodies with a single large eye, ten smaller eyes on stalks above it, and a mouth full of teeth. The smaller eyes are used for offense or defense; each one has a different magical ability. Beholders are typically hostile to other creatures, and often hostile to one another.
Variants
Several variants of NetHack fully implement the beholder and its gaze attacks, while granting the monster additional traits and abilities depending on the variant.
SLASH'EM
In SLASH'EM and SlashTHEM, the Beholder is the quest nemesis for the Neutral Quest.
GruntHack
In GruntHack, beholders are randomly generated and can appear in the main dungeon, and possess some additional resistances alongside their vanilla NetHack abilities.
dNetHack
In dNetHack, notdNetHack and notnotdNetHack, beholders are much different and more dangerous than their NetHack incarnations. They are only generated in the Chaos Temple Quest and Gehennom, and have two gaze attacks that can select from various damage types, along with a third paralyzing gaze as a passive attack similar to the floating eye. Beholder corpses, tins and blood have some useful applications as well.
SpliceHack
The beholder appears in older versions of SpliceHack, but is not implemented in SpliceHack-Rewrite.
EvilHack
In EvilHack, beholders can appear in the main dungeon as in GruntHack, but are slightly faster and resist stoning, and have a stronger cancellation gaze and a much more powerful bite. Tal'gath is a powerful unique beholder who must be killed in order to genocide beholders.
Hack'EM
In Hack'EM, the Beholder is the quest nemesis for the Neutral Quest as in SLASH'EM, but is much more difficult.
