God (dNetHack)
| 7 god God dNetHack.png | |
|---|---|
| Difficulty | 44 |
| Attacks |
Weapon 7d7 physical, Weapon 7d7 physical, Wide-angle (passive) gaze 7d7 blinding, Claw 7d7 physical, Cast 7d7 clerical spell |
| Base level | 77 |
| Base experience | 7725 |
| Speed | 7 |
| Base AC | -7 |
| Base MR | 77 |
| Alignment | 77 (lawful) |
| Frequency (by normal means) | 0 (Not randomly generated) |
| Genocidable | No |
| Weight | 4500 |
| Nutritional value | 1000 |
| Size | huge |
| Resistances | fire, cold, sleep, disintegration, shock, poison, acid, petrification, level drain, disease
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A god:
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- This article is about the monster in dNetHack, notdNetHack and notnotdNetHack. For the deities that make up each pantheon and how they behave in those variants, see God#dNetHack.
A god, 7, is a type of unique monster that appears in dNetHack, notdNetHack and notnotdNetHack. Gods are humanoid and primordial angelic beings of law: they are strong and capable of flight, enhanced regeneration, can see invisible, will follow a hero to other levels if they are adjacent, and emit a field of light with a 7-square radius.
A god has a powerful pair of weapon attacks, a wide-angle passive gaze that can blind you, a powerful claw attack, and the ability to cast powerful monster spells clerically without any cooldown - all of their attacks use the same dice for damage (7d7), and they also possesses every form of elemental resistance in the game (including resistance to draining and death magic), but do not have magic resistance or reflection.
Generation
Gods are not randomly generated, and only appear in the form of masks and named statues. They are not a valid form for normal polymorph.
The Mask of Tlaloc is an artifact whose base item is a mask of a god.
The Sunless Sea map of the Sea branch has a statue of a god named Father Time.
The Temples of the Old Gods in the Neutral Quest have five named statues of gods: Mother Hydra, Father Dagon, Shub-Nugganoth, the God of the Bloody Tongue, and "something long since forgotten". Gods may appear among the various monster statues within the first floor of the catacombs in the Mithadir Chaos Quest: these statues of gods will each be named one of "the goat with the thousand young", "the misty mother", or "the wandering dancer" at random - unlike most of the other statues in the branch, statues of gods will not be faceless.
A god never leaves a corpse upon death.
Strategy
As gods are technically unique monsters that do not appear at all, casting stone to flesh on any statue of a god will produce a doppelganger in the form of a god with that statue's name - this is the closest a player will ever get to fighting one, and a doppelganger in the form of a god is not guaranteed to remain in that form for long.
Despite the potential damage output, their high MR score of 77 and assortment of resistances, an actual god would not be much more difficult to face than the likes of demon lords such as Baphomet: their low 7 speed and lack of covetous abilities make kiting a very viable strategy, rendering them potentially easier to face in comparison.
Origin
A god or deity is a supernatural being considered to be divine or sacred. One commonly accepted definition of a god is "a being with powers greater than those of ordinary humans, but who interacts with humans, positively or negatively, in ways that carry humans to new levels of consciousness, beyond the grounded preoccupations of ordinary life".
In addition to the 7 glyph representing lawful angels and similar beings, the numbers 7 and 77 occur repeatedly within the statline of the dNetHack god - this is because 7, 77 and 777 are considered to be of religious significance in Abrahamic religions, as well as within other folklore and spiritual practices: examples include the seven heavens and seven gates of hell in Islam, the Seven Deadly Sins and their variations, and the Seven Lucky Gods in Japanese folklore. In Judaism and Hebrew tradition, the numbers 3 and 7 are both considered "perfect numbers"; 777 (three sevens) is also said to represent the Christian Trinity of the Father (God), the Son (Jesus), and the Holy Spirit. Additionally, groupings of seven occur frequently throughout the Old Testament and New Testament of the Bible, with a few examples listed below:
- God's creation of the world takes place in seven days, with six days spent creating the heavens and the earth and the seventh used as a day of rest; the seventh day is referred to as the Sabbath.
- After the flood that scoured the earth, God promises not to destroy the Earth again with a flood and memorializes this covenant with the rainbow, which is comprised of seven colors.
- Jesus performed seven healing miracles for seven different people on the Sabbath.
- The Book of Revelation often invokes the number seven throughout - seven letters are addressed to seven churches, each with assurances of salvation through repentance. God’s promise to save those whose names are written in the Book of Life and condemn those whose names are not is ushered in by groups of seven: seven seals, seven trumpets sounded by seven angels, and seven bowls of God’s promised wrath carried by seven angels.
