Corpseless

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In NetHack, a corpseless monster is a monster that does not leave behind a corpse when they are killed under normal circumstances: certain monsters designated as corpseless may leave behind another item in place of a standard corpse, while others will not drop anything at all (including death drops) besides the inventory they were carrying. A monster that is corpseless is marked by G_NOCORPSE within their entry in monst.c.

List of corpseless monsters

The following monsters do not leave behind a corpse upon dying, and cannot have corpses of them created in a normal game:

Special death drops

Various monsters, including several types of undead, are special-cased to leave behind particular items instead of regular corpses when killed of destroyed, which can include corpses corresponding to a different monster—for example, a kobold zombie that is destroyed can leave behind an old kobold corpse. A hero that is polymorphed into a monster with a digestion attack and engulfs a corpseless monster will not gain any nutrition or intrinsics;[1] as with any other monster that would otherwise leave a corpse, special death drops will not occur. Digesting a corpseless monster also breaks the foodless conduct, but preserves vegan and vegetarian conducts.[2]

Below is a list of monsters that leave behind special death drops instead of corpses and what those drops are, as well as any additional conditions required for the death drops to occur:

Monster(s) Death drop(s) Special conditions
kobold mummy
kobold zombie
old kobold corpse None
gnome mummy
gnome zombie
old gnome corpse None
orc mummy
orc zombie
old orc corpse None
dwarf mummy
dwarf zombie
old dwarf corpse None
elf mummy
elf zombie
old elf corpse None
human mummy
human zombie
any vampire except Vlad
old human corpse None
ettin mummy
ettin zombie
old ettin corpse None
giant mummy
giant zombie
old giant corpse None
gray ooze glob of gray ooze None
brown pudding glob of brown pudding None
black pudding glob of black pudding None
green slime glob of green slime None
paper golem 1-4 scrolls of blank paper Must not take fire damage
gold golem 99-199 gold pieces None
leather golem 2-8 sets of leather armor None
wood golem 2-8 quarterstaffs None
clay golem 51-69 rocks None
stone golem statue of a stone golem None
glass golem 2-8 worthless pieces of glass None
iron golem 2-12 iron chains None

History

In NetHack 3.4.3 and earlier versions, including some variants based on those versions, puddings, oozes and slimes leave ordinary corpses rather than globs, enabling pudding farming. It is also possible to wish for a corpse of a corpseless monster in wizard mode by using the form "<monstername> corpse"—this no longer works as of NetHack 3.6.6.

In NetHack 3.6.1 and earlier versions, a mimic disguising itself as a corpse can pick a type of monster that is normally corpseless—this is fixed in NetHack 3.6.2 via commit cd6b5ef9.[3]

Prior to NetHack 3.6.2, it was possible to create a corpse of a corpseless monster by setting up a level full of monsters, going up one level, and then making a monster fall into a hole.[4][5]

References