Echidna (dNetHack)
- For the zouthern animal in SLASH'EM and related variants, see echidna (SLASH'EM).
Echidna, Mother of Monsters is a spirit that appears in dNetHack, notdNetHack and notnotdNetHack.
Ritual, seal and taboo
Echidna's seal must be drawn and addressed via chatting in a cave area, such as the Gnomish Mines or the Lost Cities.
To remain bound to Echidna, the hero must not throw or eat eggs.
Mark
A hero that has Echidna bound will have serpents' tails for legs, which can be seen from a distance. The hero can disguise them by wearing boots and either a suit of armor or a cloak.
Benefits
While Echidna is bound, she grants acid resistance and skill in unicorn horns, and the hero becomes thick-skinned.
Echidna's active powers are as follows:
- Echidna's Venom: The hero spits acid in the chosen direction, which rolls for to-hit and deals five spirit dice of damage upon hitting a target.
- Lullaby: The hero will attempt to tame a selected adjacent monster, succeeding if the roll of an experience level-based die is greater than the monster's level (i.e. dXL - 1 > ML). The monster must not be mindless, and must be one of an animal, slithy or lacking hands.
Her passive powers are as follows:
- Squamous: The hero gains a CON-102 bonus to AC and a 2+(CON-9)4 bonus to DR. These bonuses cannot be negative.
- Acid Blood: Monsters that attack the hero in melee take 1 spirit die's worth of acid damage.
- Mother of Monsters: Pets follow the hero more closely.
- Monstrous Claws: Doubles the size of the hero's unarmed damage dice when they make unarmed attacks without wearing gloves—bare-handed combat deals d4 damage, while martial arts deals d8 damage. This ability is superseded by half-dragon claws and does not stack.
As a monster
n Echidna 
| |
|---|---|
| Difficulty | 25 |
| Attacks |
Weapon 1d8 physical, breath 4d10 acid, claw 0d0 seduction theft, claw 0d0 seduction theft |
| Base level | 20 |
| Base experience | 699 |
| Speed | 12 |
| Base AC | 3 |
| Base MR | 30 |
| Alignment | 0 (neutral) |
| Frequency (by normal means) | 0 (Not randomly generated) |
| Genocidable | No |
| Weight | 4500 |
| Nutritional value | 1500 |
| Size | gigantic |
| Resistances | acid resistance, stoning resistance |
| Resistances conveyed | acid resistance |
|
Echidna:
| |
In notdNetHack and notnotdNetHack, Echidna, n, also appears as a monster that can be summoned by an Illithanachronounbinder. She is a strong, omnivorous and partly-human nymph that has flight, is thick-skinned, can be seen via infravision, and will seek out objects to collect. Like many summoned spirits, Echidna cannot be tamed, and she will turn traitor if somehow made tame.
Echidna has a weapon attack, an acidic breath weapon, and two claw attacks that can charm targets and steal multiple items from them. She possesses acid resistance and stoning resistance.
Echidna is acidic to consume, which primarily comes up if she is subjected to Ahazu (which ignores harmful effects from consuming monsters via its "Abduction" ability).
Generation
Echidna is first generated when summoned from her seal by an Illithanachronounbinder. She is always created hostile, and is not a valid polymorph form or genocide target.
Echidna does not leave a corpse upon death.
Strategy
Below this point, there are major spoilers for the Illithanachronounbinder role. They can be accessed by selecting the "Role spoiler" tab.
If Echidna is killed after being summoned, she can be encountered again in the Void, a branch accessed by opening the high altar of Ilsensine the Fallen as an Illithanachronounbinder using the invoke effect of The Elder Cerebral Fluid. Echidna is generated along with many other spirits of the near void on the first floor of the branch, and is created with the "whispers" template, which makes her nonliving.
Encyclopedia entry
The goddess fierce Echidna who is half a nymph with glancing eyes and fair cheeks, and half again a huge snake,[1] great and awful, with speckled skin, eating raw flesh beneath the secret parts of the holy earth. And there she has a cave deep down under a hollow rock far from the deathless gods and mortal men. There, then, did the gods appoint her a glorious house to dwell in: and she keeps guard in Arima beneath the earth, grim Echidna, a nymph who dies not nor grows old all her days.
