Cannibalism

In NetHack, cannibalism is the act of eating a monster of your own race.

Description

A hero that eats a corpse, tin or egg of the same species as them - including their current form if polymorphed - will gain the aggravate monster intrinsic and lose 2–5 points of Luck. This includes eating brains as a mind flayer. Contracting lycanthropy will further extend the cannibalism restriction to monsters that the hero or a werecreature of the same type can summon–even if they are currently in normal form–but not to lycanthropes of their type.

A hero that is an orc or a Caveperson is exempt from penalties altogether. A hero that polymorphs into a monster with a digestion attack does not incur cannibalism penalties when using that attack.

Strategy

Cannibalism is generally a bad idea - while the aggravate monster intrinsic can be dealt with, the Luck penalty will take significant time to recover from, and eating corpses from your own race is avoidable enough that it is mostly not worth considering. Dwarves and gnomes can readily identify members of their race via glyph and/or monster name, as can elves; human characters will have some slight difficulty due to sharing a glyph (@) with elves. Anything represented by an @ that isn't obviously an elf is human—this includes werecreatures and doppelgangers, but not Medusa (who should not be eaten regardless, lest you turn to stone). The Keystone Kops (represented by a K) are also humans, and are the only non-undead monsters that use a different glyph.

Human characters who are not Cavemen should only use blessed tins of nurse meat to fully restore their HP in emergencies, where being a live cannibal is preferable and easier to recover from than dying with a "clean" conscience.

Pets

Humanoid pets will generally avoid cannibalism unless they are starving. Undead pets that are capable of eating will not avoid cannibalism, nor will orcs, kobolds, and ogres—tame elves will not commit cannibalism even if they are starving. Pets that do commit cannibalism suffer no ill effects, even if they would normally avoid it.

Variants

SLASH'EM

In SLASH'EM, Cavemen gain alignment bonuses for eating tins and corpses of the same races as them, while orcish, vampiric and lycanthrope heroes take much lesser penalties to alignment record for committing cannibalism. This does not extend to any form that the hero is currently polymorphed into.

Pets in SLASH'EM will refuse to eat the corpses of monsters represented by the same letter as themselves, unless they are starving. This can lead to some amusing results, e.g. a tamed human monster gladly eating a Keystone Kop corpse.

Of the new monsters added in SLASH'EM, drow are a race of elves and considered to be the same race, while the extremely rare duergar is a type of dwarf, and gibberlings and grimlocks are considered human. Oddly, none of the additions to the gnome monster class that are explicitly not gnolls are considered to be gnomes themselves: this means that gnomish heroes can eat the corpses and tins of gnome thieves, deep gnomes, gnome warriors, and Ruggo the Gnome King without penalty (though tamed gnomes will not do so).

Messages

You honour the dead.

You ate a monster of your race as a Caveperson.

You feel evil and fiendish!

You ate a monster of your race as a vampire, lycanthrope, or orc.

dNetHack

In dNetHack, notdNetHack and notnotdNetHack, a hero of a non-cannibalistic race or role that has a high alignment record, will have a wisdom-based chance of being warned if they are about to eat a corpse or tin of the same race as them.

Messages

You feel a deep sense of kinship to <foo>! Eat anyway?

This prompt may appear if you are non-cannibalistic and about to eat the corpse or tin of a monster of your race.