Edderkop
h edderkop 
| |
|---|---|
| Difficulty | 14 |
| Attacks |
Magic blades 4d8 shadow, Arrow 1d1 shadow, Passive 1d8 shadow |
| Base level | 8 |
| Base experience | 220 |
| Speed | 8 |
| Base AC | 2 |
| Base MR | 8 |
| Alignment | 8 (lawful) |
| Frequency (by normal means) | 1 (Very rare) |
| Genocidable | Yes |
| Weight | 1450 |
| Nutritional value | 400 |
| Size | medium |
| Resistances | poison resistance, stoning resistance |
| Resistances conveyed | poison resistance |
|
An edderkop:
| |
| Reference | dNAO - src/monst.c, line 973 |
- Not to be confused with Keystone Kops.
An edderkop, h, is a type of monster that appears in dNetHack, notdNetHack and notnotdNetHack. The edderkop is a deceptively dangerous humanoid minion that is both demihuman and insectoid, and serves the Black Web entity—they are carnivores that can see invisible, possess darksight and emit a large 8-square field of darkness around them. Seeing an edderkop can lower a hero's sanity and increase their insight. Edderkops have a grudge against drow monsters, and tame edderkops may turn traitor.
An edderkop has a strong magical blade attack, an "arrow" projectile attack that fires spikes, and a passive attack that all deal shadow damage which ignores most forms of AC. The spikes fired by edderkops are +8, made of shadowsteel, coated in regular poison and blinding poison, and given the faded object property—they are teleported directly to the target when fired and always mulch, leaving behind a web upon hitting a target or square. Edderkops possess poison resistance and stoning resistance, and are vulnerable to silver.
An edderkop is poisonous to consume, and eating an edderkop tin or corpse or quaffing its blood can grant poison resistance. Edderkops can be warded by the Elder Sign at any level of reinforcement, and their spike attacks cannot target warded squares.
Chatting to an edderkop will cause it to "mumble incomprehensibly".
Generation
Randomly generated edderkops are always hostile.
Edderkops make up 99⁄1400 (~7%) of the monsters randomly generated on the Anachrononaut quest and Android quest. Five edderkops are generated on the locate level of the Anachrononaut quest during level creation, while four are generated on the home level of the Android quest during level creation.
Strategy
Edderkops are somewhat slow, but can easily cut through even the most high-AC builds due to their shadow attacks, allowing them to hit heroes often and usually for high damage—their shadow spike attack only requires them to have line-of-sight and prevents other monsters from blocking the attack. This enables them to not only overwhelm any drow they fight, but easily remain at a distance and blast the hero to death while leaving them trapped in webbing.
With this in mind, fighting edderkops at a distance is the best approach by far to keep out of their line of sight and avoid their melee attacks. Wielding Sting can cut the webbing left by the spikes and restore your freedom of movement, and a scroll of earth can be read in a pinch to break line of sight.
Origin
Edderkop is the Danish word for "spider", and literally means "poison head"—atterkoppe is a close cognate that existed in Middle English, and is likely the origin of the word cobweb. A modern derivative (atterkop) survives in a few dialects spoken in Northern England, where in addition to meaning "spider" it can also mean "misanthrope".
