Nitocris
| M Nitocris (No tile) | |
|---|---|
| Difficulty | 34 |
| Attacks |
Weapon 4d4 physical, offhand weapon 4d4 physical, cast 0d0 mage spell |
| Base level | 30 |
| Base experience | 1301 |
| Speed | 12 |
| Base AC | -9 |
| Base MR | 99 |
| Alignment | 0 (neutral) |
| Frequency (by normal means) | 0 (Not randomly generated) |
| Genocidable | No |
| Weight | 1350 |
| Nutritional value | 400 |
| Size | medium
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Nitocris:
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Nitocris, M, is a unique monster that appears in dNetHack, notdNetHack and notnotdNetHack. Nitocris is a powerful and mummy-like human that is considered a princess to her kind: she is humanoid, amphibious, can see invisible, has enhanced regeneration, possesses normal vision, infravision and omni-sense, and will seek out magical items to pick up. Nitocris is covetous and capable of warping, and desires the Book of the Dead.
Nitocris is the figure for whom the Spell-warded Wrappings of Nitocris are named, and she will always appear wearing them: should she die with this artifact mummy wrapping on, a life saving effect will occur that first has a 2⁄3 chance of attempting to "fray" the artifact wrapping if she is still wearing it, and maximizes its erosion level if it succeeds—if this fraying occurs while wrappings are already eroded, the life saving will fail and Nitocris will die. Upon dying (regardless of whether her wrappings are present or not), Nitocris will be resurrected as the undead Ghoul-queen Nitocris, M: in this form, she causes the hero to lose sanity upon first seeing her, and additionally becomes strong and unbreathing in addition to her previous traits. Nitocris in both forms also has a set of unique abilities that are tied to the Hmnyw-Pharaoh, which are explained further below.
Nitocris has 6 points of damage reduction from protection, along with 19 points of protection AC, while in her Ghoul-queen form she has 2 points of natural DR and AC. As Nitocris, she has a weapon attack and offhand weapon attack, and is coded to attempt to cast one mage monster spell during each of her turns—if she is wearing the Spell-warded Wrappings of Nitocris when she attempts to cast, the spell will be changed to a clerical spell due to the aforementioned abilities of the Hmnyw-Pharaoh. Upon becoming Ghoul-queen Nitocris, her second weapon attack is replaced by a claw attack that causes paralysis.
In both forms, Nitocris has skilled prowess in martial combat. As the Ghoul-queen, she gains resistance to blunt and piercing weapons that halves the damage they deal, and she also possesses shock resistance, cold resistance, sleep resistance, poison resistance, drain resistance, and death resistance.
Generation
Nitocris is always generated hostile. She is not a valid polymorph form or genocide target, and figurines or statues of her cannot be generated or wished for.
Nitocris is contained within a cursed and trapped metal sarcophagus that is placed within the Temples of the Old Gods in the Neutral Quest during level creation, where the sarcophagus occupies the same square as the statue of a god known as "the God of the Bloody Tongue"—the Hmnyw-Pharaoh also occupies the same square, although he will not be visible unless the hero has at least 40 insight. While this sarcophagus is unopened, once every global turn there is a 1⁄70 chance of the game generating one of the following monsters with the given probabilities:
- S pit viper (1⁄5 chance)
- S cobra (1⁄5 chance)
- Z ghoul (1⁄5 chance)
- : crocodile (1⁄5 chance)
- f serpent-necked lioness (1⁄10 chance)
- z ammit (1⁄10 chance)
Opening the sarcophagus, e.g. by looting, or by picking up the sarcophagus and then either applying it or tipping it, will cause Nitocris to appear from within it and stop the above monster generation—this is not tied to the container trap in any way, and in fact if the trap on the sarcophagus causes it to explode, Nitocris will not generate as a result.
Nitocris is always generated with the cursed and fireproof +7 Spell-warded Wrappings of Nitocris, as well as the following gold equipment: +9 scale mail, a +9 pair of shoes, a +9 pair of gloves, a +9 sickle, a +9 small spear, a +9 circlet (which will be converted to a helm of brilliance if the circlet is the appearance for a helm of opposite alignment), a cursed mask of a cobra, and a cursed random amulet that will never be an amulet of restful sleep, an amulet of change or an amulet versus sickness.
Nitocris does not leave a corpse upon death, as she will always be transformed into the Ghoul-queen Nitocris under normal circumstances—this will also transform the material of any gold items within her inventory into lead.
Ghoul-queen Nitocris always leaves behind her aged corpse upon death.
Connection to the Hmnyw-Pharaoh
The Hmnyw-Pharaoh has several abilities that interact with Nitocris, depending on whether she is alive or has taken on her Ghoul-queen form, and these abilities will be used once during each global turn—he will not use any of these abilities if the hero has not attacked him and Nitocris is not yet freed from her sarcophagus. See his article for details on these abilities specific to the Hmnyw-Pharaoh.
If Nitocris is on the level and the Hmnyw-Pharaoh is not yet visible to the hero (which requires 40 insight as mentioned previously), he will attempt to locate Nitocris, then warp to her location and perform one of the following actions: if she is alive and still wearing the Spell-warded Wrappings of Nitocris, she will be able to cast a clerical monster spell on her next turn; if she is not wearing the Spell-warded Wrappings, the "dark waters" will claim Nitocris and instantly kill her, which causes her to rise as Ghoul-queen Nitocris. If the Hmnyw-Pharaoh is currently visible to the hero, he will attempt to locate Nitocris and then perform one of those actions without warping to her location.
If the Ghoul-queen Nitocris is present on the level and has less than half her maximum HP, she will be instantly healed to full HP with a message printed, and otherwise she will regain 9 HP and have any ailments (e.g. stun, confusion, fear, etc.) and cancellation cured. If the Ghoul-queen's corpse is present on the level, she has a 1⁄2 chance (50%) chance of reviving from that corpse, with a message printed.
The Hmnyw-Pharaoh has a chance of summoning one or more monsters each global turn if neither form of Nitocris was revived or had her life saved this turn, or else if Nitocris is not present on the level in any fashion—the odds vary depending on whether or not he is visible to the hero.
Strategy
A hero that wants to preserve the Spell-warded Wrappings of Nitocris for themselves will have to find a way to steal them off Nitocris before killing her, since they will be destroyed if her transformation into Ghoul-queen Nitocris occurs while she is still wearing them.
An especially daring player that is able to pick up and carry the sarcophagus containing Nitocris without any major difficulty can relocate it to another level in order to make use of the monsters generated from it as fodder for sacrifice, e.g. the mouth of the goat on the level below the one that Nitocris's prison is generated on.
Origin
Nitocris, or Nitokris, is a legendary figure in the Cthulhu Mythos that is based on the account of a possibly-historical queen of Ancient Egypt, who may have ruled at the end of the 6th Dynasty from 2184–2181 BC. Her name is found in writings long considered as relatively accurate resources: a major chronological documentation of the reigns of the kings of ancient Egypt that was composed in the third-century BC by Manetho, an Ancient Egyptian priest, and the Histories of the ancient Greek historian Herodotus, written in 430 BC.
Nitocris is thought to be the daughter of Pepi II and Neith and to be the sister of Merenre Nemtyemsaf II. Her historicity has been questioned by some with speculation that, if she was a historical ruler, she may have been a regent. Another view, by the Egyptologist Kim Ryholt, argues that Nitocris is legendary and derives from the historical king Neitiqerty Siptah who succeeded Nitocris's brother, Merenre Nemtyemsaf II, at the transition between the Old Kingdom and First Intermediate Period. Manetho claimed she built the "third pyramid" at Giza, while modern historians and archaeologists attribute that pyramid to a king of the Fourth Dynasty, Menkaure. According to Herodotus, Nitocris invited the murderers of her brother, the "king of Egypt", to a banquet, then killed them by flooding the sealed room with the waters of the Nile—to avoid the other conspirators, she then committed suicide, possibly by running into a burning room.
H. P. Lovecraft incorporated the legend of Nitocris into his works, first mentioning her in his story "The Outsider" (written in 1921 and first published in 1926). The piece refers to "the unnamed feasts of Nitokris beneath the Great Pyramid," in a passage that also evokes the "catacombs of Nephren-Ka" and "the mocking and friendly ghouls on the night-wind." Nitokris also comes up repeatedly in "Under the Pyramids", a story which was ghostwritten for Harry Houdini in 1924 and published that same year, and invokes both the legend of her drowning her enemies and her connection to the Third Pyramid—this story also links Nitokris to the Pharaoh Khephren, telling of rumors that he "lives far underground wedded to the ghoul-queen Nitokris and ruling over the mummies that are neither of man nor of beast." Toward the end of the story, the narrator Houdini actually sees the "beautiful Queen Nitokris," and notices that "the right half of her face was eaten away by rats or other ghouls."
The presence of Nitokris in the Cthulhu Mythos is part of the basis for the depiction of Nitocris and the Hmnyw-Pharaoh in dNetHack and its derivatives—in the Mythos, Nitocris had a son whom she named Nephren-Ka, and Nephren-Ka was rumored to be the reincarnation of the original (also known as Nophru-Ka and the "Black Pharaoh") after his death and merging with the Outer God Nyarlathotep to become one of his human avatars. Additionally, according to the 6th Edition of the Call of Cthulhu game, Nyarlathotep himself can be physically slain by normal means in human form, and any such avatar that is slain this way will have their body quake and swell before it bursts to release a huge clawed monster; the monster rises from the split corpse and then disappears into the sky without attacking the killer.
In dNetHack, these are incorporated into the mechanics of both monsters: Nitocris has bound an avatar of Nyarlathotep inside her as a method of attaining immortality, and the Hmnyw-Pharaoh–himself an avatar of Nyarlathotep–seeks to free this trapped aspect from within her. If The Spell-warded Wrappings of Nitocris that bind the avatar either fray too significantly and fail to revive Nitocris, or else they are stolen off her, Hmnyw-Pharaoh will then murder Nitocris to free the avatar and cause her to take on Ghoul-queen form.
