Alignment record

Religion in NetHack
aligned priests alignment alignment record altars atheism anger gods sacrifice prayer turn undead

This article is about "alignment" of how well a hero serves their god. For the other moral categories, see alignment.

For limitations that are self-imposed rather than enforced by role, race or alignment, see conduct.

Alignment record is a value that measures the hero's standing with their deity. A hero increases their alignment record by killing hostile monsters and performing actions that their deity approves of, while killing monsters that are not initially hostile and performing actions their deity disapproves of will decrease their alignment record and may carry long-term repurcussions.

Alignment record is distinct from the hero's alignment of lawful, neutral or chaotic: the wiki will sometimes refer to alignment record as simply alignment when discussing actions and events that change the hero's alignment record, e.g. "gaining a point of alignment" or "a +1 alignment bonus" refers to the hero's current alignment record increasing by 1.

The hero's alignment record is set at the start of a game depending on their chosen role:

• A Cave Dweller, Cleric, Tourist, Valkyrie, or Wizard will start with an alignment record of 0.
• An Archeologist, Barbarian, Healer, Knight, Monk, Rogue, Ranger, or Samurai will start with an alignment record of 10.

Alignment record has no lower bound, and will have an initial upper bound of 10 that increases by 1 every 200 game turns, or 10 + turns200. The hero's alignment record can be raised and lowered through numerous means, but will never exceed the current upper bound set by the game.

While the hero's alignment record is not strictly tied to their own personal alignment (e.g., both a lawful and a neutral Valkyrie will start the game with an alignment record of 0), both the alignment of the hero and the monsters they encounter can play a significant part in which of the hero's actions impact their alignment record. Similarly, there are also some methods of changing the hero's personal alignment that are reliant on the hero having an especially poor alignment record.

A user has suggested improving this page or section as follows:

"Although the citations that are present reflect 5.0.0 code, much of the information in the article may not be: expand further and verify information accordingly (including historical info and any necessary further citations)."

Determining alignment record

When a hero gains enlightenment, the player will see one of the following statements corresponding to the hero's current alignment record. Somewhat similar phrases are also applied to the hero's description when they either apply a stethoscope to themselves or zap a wand of probing at themselves.

Alignment statement	Alignment range
"You have transgressed."	-9 or lower
"You have sinned."	-8 to -4
"You have strayed."	-3 to -1
"You are nominally aligned."	0
"You are haltingly aligned."	1 to 2
"You are aligned."	3
"You are stridently aligned."	4 to 8
"You are fervently aligned."	9 to 13
"You are devoutly aligned."	14 to 19
"You are piously aligned."	20 or higher

Phrase	Alignment range
"insufficiently aligned"	-1 or lower
"nominally aligned"	0
"haltingly aligned"	1 to 2
"aligned"	3
"stridently aligned"	4 to 8
"fervently aligned"	9 to 13
"devoutly aligned"	14 to 19
"piously aligned"	20 or higher

In wizard mode, gaining enlightenment or using the base attributes command will display the hero's exact alignment record underneath the statement that describes their alignment record level.

Effects of alignment record

The hero's alignment record factors into various important aspects of a given game, interacting with other elements such as sacrifice, prayer and even the Quest.

Quest

A hero must have an alignment record of 20 or greater when chatting to their quest leader to gain access to the Quest, and must also be at least experience level 14 and not have converted their alignment. The requirement for experience level is always checked first when determining quest access, followed by alignment and then piousess.

If the hero has not converted their alignment and does not meet either the level or alignment record requirement, they will be returned to the main dungeon near the branch's magic portal and can return at a later point to try again. However, if they talk to their quest leader with an insufficient alignment record seven times–or else have they have converted their alignment and talk to their quest leader even once–then the quest leader will become angry and send them back to the dungeon, attacking the hero the next time they enter the Quest. Once the hero is able to enter the rest of the Quest branch, whether by meeting the qualifications or killing the quest leader, no further checks of their alignment record will be required.

This places an absolute lower limit on how fast a hero can become quest-ready: even if they attain all of the other requirements in an incredibly short time, it will not be physically possible to reach an alignment record of 20 before turn 2000. Due to the order of the checks, a hero that is sent back to the main dungeon for an insufficient experience level will not have it counted against them regardless of their alignment record, so there is no risk of expulsion for being too low in level.

The gods and alignment record

A hero's alignment record determines how receptive their deity will be to any prayer they perform while their prayer timeout is zero. A hero cannot safely pray if their alignment record is negative, even if they meet all other conditions for safe prayer, and doing so will likely cause their deity to respond in anger. The list below covers alignment record and its effects on the hero praying specifically to their own deity:

• If the hero successfully prays with no major troubles and their alignment record is less than 2 in addition to these conditions, they will gain a point of alignment.
• If the hero successfully prays to their deity while they are stridently aligned or better (i.e. 4+ alignment record), they may have at least one trouble addressed and have a chance of more being fixed. This depends on the hero's luck and whether they are standing on a co-aligned altar, and they also have a chance of a favor being granted to them.
• If the hero's alignment record is anywhere from 0 to 3 (i.e., they are less than stridently aligned), they are not standing on an altar and they successfully pray to their deity while their luck is at least 0, they have a luck-based chance of their deity fixing their worst trouble if the hero has any.
• If the hero successfully prays to their deity while they have no troubles and they are at least devoutly aligned (i.e. 14+ alignment record), they are highly likely to be granted a favor. Crowning is a favor that can occur if the hero is piously aligned (i.e. 20+ alignment record) and has at least 10 luck.
• A hero that prays in Gehennom may anger their deity, since the entire branch (including the Valley of the Dead but not Vlad's Tower) is Moloch's domain and all prayers within those levels will go to him—this chance is partly luck-based and the higher the hero's alignment record is, the more likely their deity will be angered.

The hero's alignment record also has an effect on their other interactions with deities:

• A hero that makes their deity angry has a better chance of a less severe smiting effect if they have a higher alignment record, while a hero that angers a deity other than theirs is more likely to receive a worse smiting effect if they have a higher alignment record, with both effects also being contingent on the hero's luck.
• A hero that sacrifices on a cross-aligned altar with negative alignment record will be permanently converted to the alignment of that altar—if the hero's alignment has already been permanently converted when they attempt this sacrifice, the altar's deity will reject the sacrifice and inflict major penalties to the hero's alignment record, luck and wisdom, along with the hero's current deity becoming angry as well.
• If a hero performs a sacrifice on a cross-aligned altar and it has a chance to convert that altar, there is an alignment record-based chance of the altar's god (or former god, if it was converted) sending a hostile minion after them.
• A hero that has a negative alignment record and offers sacrifices on a co-aligned altar while their deity is not dissatisfied with them will raise their alignment record by an amount equal to the lowest of three values, with the associated message listed below them:

1. 24 points
2. The value required to bring their alignment record to zero
3. The value of the sacrifice

You feel partially absolved.

Other effects

The hero's alignment record also affects the following elements of gameplay:

• Co-aligned artifacts will emit artifact blasts that damage a hero with negative alignment record each time they 'touch' the artifact.
• Co-aligned monsters with the minion monster attribute will generate as hostile if the hero's alignment record is negative.
• Co-aligned monsters that are not always guaranteed to be peaceful have a chance of generating as hostile that is dependent on the hero's alignment record and that monster's own alignment value. This means that the chance of hostility will be higher the more negative the hero's alignment record is—a co-aligned monster is also likelier to generate as hostile if they are not as strongly aligned themselves, which is more readily apparent with a lawful or chaotic hero.
• A hero entering a co-aligned temple will be given different messages depending on their alignment record. A hero will also not be able to use such a temple as a sanctuary if they have an alignment record of -4 or lower.

Gaining and losing alignment

Below is a table that details the many conditions and manners in which a hero can increase or decrease their alignment record—this also includes setting the hero's alignment record to a specific value.

In this table, MAX refers to the highest possible value that the hero's alignment record can currently be, which is 10 + turns200 (e.g., 10 + 75 = 85 at turn 15000). For the sake of brevity, the table only covers the effects of the listed actions on the hero's alignment record specifically, with full details covered on the appropriate articles for those subjects. Alignment record gains and losses from killing monsters specifically are covered in a separate table below, and will similarly only cover killing general categories of monsters rather than specific individual monster types.

A user has suggested improving this page or section as follows:

"Update this table to reflect any notable additions from 5.0.0."

Alignment	Role	Adjustment	Cause
Any	Any	-MAX8	Killing a peaceful quest guardian: That was probably a bad idea... You killed a peaceful quest guardian. Whoopsie-daisy! As above while hallucinating
Any	Any	-99	Offering the Amulet of Yendor on the high altar of another deity on the Astral Plane
Any	Any	-15	Killing a peaceful monster of a type which is "always peaceful" (see § Killing monsters)
Any	Any	-15	Killing the hero's pet (stacks with -3 for displacing into trap)
Any	Any	-5	Killing a peaceful monster without angering it: normally, killing a peaceful monster in melee usually angers it before it dies, even if they are killed in one attack—killing a peaceful monster with a beam attack (such as force bolt) or crushing them in a drawbridge will prevent them from becoming angry first, thus applying this penalty.
Any	Any	-5	Angering a co-aligned cleric
Non-chaotic	Any	-5	As a non-chaotic, sacrificing a member of the hero's own race
Any	Any	-5	Attempting to convert the hero's alignment a second time at an altar
Any	Any	-5	Attacking while standing on an Elbereth engraving, unless that attack scuffs the engraving: this also causes the engraving to disappear, and the penalty may additionally be lowered if the hero is already at less than 5 alignment.
Non-chaotic	Archeologist	-3	As a non-chaotic Archeologist, digging up a grave: You feel like a despicable grave-robber!
Any	Any	-3	Displacing a pet into a damaging trap (stacks with the 3⁄4 chance of -15 alignment if this kills the pet)
Any	Any	-3	Sacrificing the corpse of a pet that died while still tame
Any	Any	-2	Killing a co-aligned cleric
Any	Any	-1	Praying on a cross-aligned altar, at a time when praying does not annoy your deity
Lawful	Any	-1	As a lawful non-Archeologist hero, digging up a grave with an alignment of -9 or better: You have violated the sanctity of this grave!
Any	Knight	-1	As a lawful Knight, attacking a fleeing or sleeping monsters: You caitiff!
Any	Knight	-1	As a lawful Knight, eating while satiated: You feel like a glutton!
Any	Knight	-1	As a Knight, digging down in a shop: You feel like a common thief.
Any	Samurai	-1	As a Samurai, attacking a peaceful creature: You dishonorably attack the innocent!
Lawful	Samurai	-1	As a lawful hero with an alignment record of -9 or better or as a Samurai of any alignment, attacking with a poisoned weapon: You dishonorably use a poisoned weapon! As a Samurai. You feel like an evil coward for using a poisoned weapon. As a lawful hero of another role.
Any	Monk	-1	As a Monk, eating meat: You feel guilty.
Any	Archeologist	-1	As an Archeologist, breaking a historic statue: You feel guilty about damaging such a historic statue.
Any	Any	-1	Sacrificing an identified cheap plastic imitation of the Amulet of Yendor
Lawful	Any	-1	As a lawful hero, genocide a single human species
Any	Any	-1	While riding, having the hero's steed drown in water or lava
Any	Any	-1	Angering a peaceful creature
Any	Any	-1	Contributing 0 gold to a co-aligned cleric: Thou shalt regret thine action!
Any	Any	-1	Sitting on, engraving on, or kicking a co-aligned altar while the hero's alignment record is more than a value randomly chosen from 0 to -3
Lawful	Any	-1	As a lawful hero, stealing from a shop—this is reversed if the shopkeeper is later made peaceful
Lawful	Any	-1	As a lawful hero, choosing not to pay for damage to a shop
Lawful	Any	-1	As a lawful hero, lying when asked for their name by a vault guard
Chaotic	Non-healer	-1	As a chaotic non-Healer hero, casting a healing spell on a pet or peaceful creature, per creature.
Chaotic	Any	+1	As a chaotic hero, being seduced by a foocubus
Chaotic	Any	+1	As a chaotic hero, genocide a single human species
Any	Any	+1	Praying successfully, with an alignment record of 1 or less and no major troubles
Any	Any	+1	With an alignment record below -5, gaining clairvoyance from a cleric by contributing more than twice the suggested amount of gold but less than three times that amount
Chaotic	Non-rogue	+1	As a chaotic non-Rogue hero, stealing from a shopmdash;this is reversed if the shopkeeper is later made peaceful
Chaotic	Any	+1	As a chaotic hero, choosing not to pay for damage to a shop
Lawful	Any	+1	As a lawful hero, untrapping a monster with a probability of about 5–15% depending on luck: You feel like you did the right thing.
Lawful	Healer	+1	As a lawful hero or a Healer, casting a healing spell on a pet or peaceful creature, per creature
Any	Any	+2	Angering a cross-aligned cleric
Any	Any	+2	Killing a cross-aligned cleric
Any	Any	+2	With non-negative alignment, contributing four times the suggested amount of gold to a cleric if this is more than half the hero's visible gold
Chaotic	Archeologist	+3	As a chaotic Archeologist, digging up a grave
Any	Wizard or Tourist (in practice)	+3	Freeing a prisoner within the hero's quest
Chaotic	Any	+5	As a chaotic, sacrificing a member of your own race
Any	Any	+5	Sacrificing a cross-aligned unicorn on a co-aligned altar
Any	Any	+10	Offering the Amulet of Yendor on the high altar of the hero's deity and ascending
Any	Any	up to +15	Killing a hostile monster of a type which is "always peaceful" (see § Killing monsters)
Any	Any	+MAX4	Killing the hero's quest nemesis
Any	Any	+MAX4	Killing a cleric of Moloch
Any	Any	set to -99	Offering the Amulet of Yendor on Moloch's high altar in the Sanctum with an alignment record higher than -99
Any	Any	set to -MAX2	Killing the hero's quest leader
Any	Any	set to -1	Sacrificing a co-aligned unicorn on a cross-aligned altar (a conversion is likely to follow)
Any	Any	set to 0	With a negative alignment record, donating at least 600 times your experience level to a co-aligned cleric, if this is more than half your visible gold and this hasn't happened in the past 5000 turns
Any	Any	set to 0	Changing alignment by conversion, or by wearing or taking off a helm of opposite alignment or converting

Killing monsters

Most individual monster types have a value in monst.c that determines their own alignment: this value is independent of their monster difficulty, and is used when determining the amount of alignment record that a hero gains or loses by killing the monster under certain circumstances—these alignment bonuses and penalties from killing monsters are applied after the modifiers listed in the above table. For example, a hero that kills their quest leader will have their alignment set to (-MAX2 - 20), regardless of their own alignment or current alignment record.

A monster's alignment value is checked during monster generation, and the absolute value of their alignment (i.e. a number's distance from zero) is then used to calculate the alignment gain or loss from the hero killing that monster. This including monsters created as part of a group, monsters cloned via division, monsters created successfully from the activation of a figurine, and monsters that are animated from statues (or statue traps, which will always produce a hostile monster).

Alignment record gain (or loss) for an already-generated monster is recalculated whenever it is tamed or becomes peaceful, such as freeing the monster from a trap the hero did not set, or the hero trying and failing to lift them out of a regular pit or spiked pit: this recalculation does not occur if a tame or peaceful monster becomes hostile unless that monster is the high cleric of Moloch, who generates peaceful like other temple clerics and high clerics but is set to become hostile upon the hero entering their temple in Moloch's Sanctum. Alignment gain and loss will not be recalculated for a monster if the hero changes alignment after they were generated (e.g. by wearing a helm of opposite alignment).

The table below details the expected alignment bonuses and penalties for killing particular monsters:

who	peaceful	hostile, co-aligned	hostile, cross-aligned
quest leader	-20	n/a	n/a
unaligned monsters (Wizard of Yendor, clerics of Moloch)	0 (the Valley of the Dead cleric)	n/a	+20
"always peaceful" (shopkeepers, aligned clerics)	-3 * max(5, malign)	+3 * max(5, malign) (e.g., hostile aligned clerics on the Astral Plane)
"always hostile" monsters (a very large list)	same as if hostile	0	max(5, malign)
"sometimes peaceful" monsters	-3 * max(3, malign) if co-aligned, else same as hostile	max(3, malign)	malign

The following examples further detail how much alignment a hero gains from attacking and then killing particular monsters, with no other modifiers applied other than the one for attacking an initially-peaceful monster (e.g., there are no adjustments for role-specific penalties to Knights and Samurai).

• Attacking and then killing the hostile Vlad the Impaler grants no bonus to alignment record for a chaotic hero since he is co-aligned and always hostile, and grants +10 alignment to the hero otherwise since Vlad's alignment is -10.
• Attacking and then killing a lichen or newt that is generated hostile similarly grants no alignment bonus for a neutral hero, and grants +5 alignment otherwise.
• Attacking and then killing a gnome or an air elemental grants +3 alignment if the hero is neutral and it was generated hostile (from max(3, malign)), -9 if the hero is neutral and it was generated peaceful (-3 * 3, from max(3, malign)), and no alignment bonus if it generated was hostile and the hero was not neutral.
• Attacking and then killing the peaceful Minetown cleric always causes a -16 alignment penalty, as they lose 1 alignment for attacking a peaceful monster, and aligned clerics are an "always peaceful" monster type whose possible alignment values are 5, 0 and -5 (which always gives a value of -15 via max(3, malign)).
• Attacking and then killing a golden naga, which has an alignment of 5, has varying effects on alignment depending on if the hero is co-aligned and whether or not it was generated peaceful:
  • A peaceful golden naga that is attacked and then killed by a lawful hero causes a -16 alignment penalty—they lose 1 alignment for attacking a peaceful monster, then 15 for the monster type (the naga's alignment multiplied by -3).
  • A hostile golden naga that is attacked and then killed by a lawful hero grants +5 alignment, matching the absolute value of the monster's alignment.
  • A peaceful golden naga killed by a non-lawful hero causes an initial -1 penalty for attacking peaceful monsters, but grants +5 alignment upon killing the monster due to it being cross-aligned.
  • A hostile golden naga that is attacked and then killed by a non-lawful hero grants +5 alignment, matching the monster's alignment.

Alignment record abuse

A hero that commits certain types of transgression will not only face a loss of alignment record, but will also increment a value known as "alignment abuse": alignment abuse represents how much the hero has gone against the moral path outlined by their role, alignment and/or other moral codes over time, rather than whether or not they have currently strayed from that path.

The erinyes are a trio of monsters that actively become more hostile and powerful the more that a hero has abused their alignment: an erinys can be summoned with an abuse-dependent chance if the hero shifts alignment as well, such as when they put on a helm of opposite alignment (which increments the hero's alignment abuse prior to the hero's record being cleared). See the monster's linked article for further details on what traits and qualities an erinys can gain.

Strategy

Maintaining the hero's alignment record is one of the most critical aspects of gameplay in NetHack: while alignment record gain tends to be fairly easy overall, avoiding any needless penalties (most particularly in the early game) is paramount to a character's long-term survival.

For roles that start with an alignment record of zero, killing hostile and non-neutral monsters is often a primary goal in order to begin building up said alignment record and gain access to safe prayer as soon as turn 301 comes—this prayer may be made even sooner if the hero is in significant enough trouble, they happen to find a coaligned altar, or they make one by converting another altar.

As long as you are killing monsters and commit no major violations (e.g., killing you quest leader, you pet or a peaceful priest), you can safely assume that your alignment is positive. If you need to raise your alignment quickly, killing always-hostile monsters such as fungi, insects, or non-domestic canines and felines can provide relatively easy boosts.

Conducts

Many conduct runs will be reliant on keeping their alignment record reasonably high early on in order to maintain access to prayer. This is especially true for foodless conduct play as well as certain types of vegan or even vegetarian play, since they will be more reliant on prayer to maintain nutrition in the absence of diet-friendly food (or any food consumption at all for foodless heroes, naturally).

Pacifist conduct in particular presents many notable hurdles, since a pacifist hero cannot directly kill monsters in order to gain experience or alignment record and must rely on performing other actions that raise their alignment—this means that any alignment penalties become all the more devastating as well.

History

From the introduction of the Quest branch in NetHack 3.1.0 to NetHack 3.6.7, including some variants based on those versions, a hero failing the alignment record check for the Quest seven times will be expelled permanently from the quest—this results in the magic portal disappearing upon their return to the dungeon.

This largely renders the game unwinnable, and the hero can only regain entrance by performing very specific actions:

1. First, they must have a means of safely obtaining The Eye of the Aethiopica, which allows them to branchport back into the Quest—this requires the hero to be both neutral in alignment and not a Wizard (since Wizards cannot wish for their quest artifact or find it in bones).
2. The hero must also be capable of taming their quest leader in order to be able to speak to them again without being expelled.

NetHack 5.0.0 introduces alignment record abuse to the vanilla NetHack games, and also changes the Quest entrance mechanics in order to prevent unwinnable games and make it possible for a hero to enter the Quest after killing their leader. These changes also include making quest leaders much stronger, so that they can provide suitably difficult fights should a player opt to enter the quest this way.

Variants

Several NetHack variants make significant changes to how alignment record functions. Many of these variants also add a sub-system for alignment abuse, or else track the hero's transgressions in some other manner.

FIQHack

Alignment penalties are calculated slightly differently in FIQHack. If you receive a penalty, your alignment is first set to 0, and then the penalty is subtracted.

External links

• steelypips.org Prayer Spoiler by Matthew Lahut for NetHack 3.3.1