Corpseless
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:
- e any eye or sphere monster except the floating eye
- i manes and i lemures
- v all vortices
- x grid bugs
- y all lights
- A all angelic beings
- E all elementals except stalkers
- L all liches
- M all mummies
- P all puddings and oozes
- V all vampires
- W barrow wights and W Nazgul
- Z all zombies
- ghosts and shades
- @ Ashikaga Takauji
- @ Dark One
- @ Thoth Amon
- ' all golems except for flesh golems
- & all demons except the Riders
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]
