High cleric

@ high cleric
Difficulty	30
Attacks	weapon 4d10 physical, kick 2d8, 2d8 spellcasting 0d0 clerical, spellcasting 2d8 clerical

@ high cleric
Difficulty	30
Attacks	weapon 4d10 physical, kick 2d8, 2d8 spellcasting 0d0 clerical, spellcasting 2d8 clerical
Base level	25
Base experience	1054
Speed	15
Base AC	7
Base MR	70
Alignment	0 (neutral)
Frequency (by normal means)	Unique
Genocidable	No
Weight	1450
Nutritional value	400
Size	Human
Resistances	fire resistance, sleep resistance, shock resistance, poison resistance
Resistances conveyed	None
A high cleric: has a head, a couple of arms, and a torso. can see invisible creatures. is omnivorous. is not a valid polymorphable form. is a human. is an overlord to its kind. is nasty. can pick up weapons and food. can pick up magical items. can be seen through infravision.
Reference	NetHack 5.0.0 - include/monsters.h, line 2760

A high cleric, @, is a type of monster that appears in NetHack, and is known by a different title depending on their gender: men are high priests, while women are high priestesses. They are human minions that act as the head of all religious activities related to a given deity, and are overlords to their kind. High clerics can see invisible, can be seen via infravision, and hostile ones will collect items and seek out magical items.

High clerics have the same weapon attack as aligned clerics along with a stronger kick attack, and can cast two spells per round from the full list of clerical monster spells. They have fire resistance, shock resistance, sleep resistance, and poison resistance.

Generation

High clerics are not randomly generated, and are not a valid polymorph form or genocide target.

Four high clerics are guaranteed to appear in the game: the high cleric of Moloch that tends to the temple in Moloch's Sanctum, and the three high clerics for each deity of the hero's pantheon, who appear in their High Temples on the Astral Plane. In addition to those four, aligned clerics can grow up into high clerics, though this is a very rare occurrence.

The high clerics on the Astral Plane are always generated as peaceful, while the high cleric of Moloch is initially peaceful but will become hostile once the hero enters the temple they reside in.

Inventory

Like aligned clerics, high clerics are generated with a mace, small shield, 20–29 zorkmids, and one of a robe (⁶⁄₇ chance), cloak of protection (²⁄₂₁ chance), or cloak of magic resistance (¹⁄₂₁ chance). Those generated normally within temples additionally receive 2–4 spellbooks, and their cloaks are uncursed if the temple is co-aligned with you and cursed otherwise. The high cleric of Moloch will also have the Amulet of Yendor in their possession.

Strategy

High clerics are much more difficult to take on compared to regular aligned clerics, due to powerful physical attacks and access to the full list of clerical monster spells, including paralyze, curse items and geyser. Thankfully, outside of possibilities such as grievous errors involving conflict on the Astral Plane or more deliberate actions including dedicated extinctionist play, the high clerics of Moloch is typically the only one you will have to actually fight.

High cleric of Moloch

Players tend to save a wand of death charge for the purpose of killing the high cleric of Moloch, as they present a major obstacle otherwise: Moloch will fire rays of lightning at you each time you attack his high cleric, and the cleric's melee-range attacks and clerical spells may bring an untimely demise to an unfortunate hero, especially if they can stick a paralyze spell that lasts even one turn. They can also generate with a cloak of magic resistance and have an MR score of 70, with the cloak all but forcing a hero to rely on fewer magical methods of handling Moloch's high cleric.

As mentioned above, the high cleric of Moloch only becomes hostile once you step into the temple—in other words, killing them from the outside before they become angry is murder for lawful and neutral heroes. Make sure you are prepared for the fight before opening the door, even if you plan to step back out and/or zap them with a death ray.

For players dealing with a magic-resistant high cleric, a means of stoning them such as a footrice corpse or egg can prove a useful alternative. Otherwise, they should have a source of magic resistance on hand, as well as possibly half spell damage, to blunt or negate the impact of certain spells (e.g. paralyze and curse items). The monsters created by summon insects may appear to be a mild annoyance on paper, but can whittle down your HP if you are not diligently healing; comparatively, the blind spell is trivial to cure at worst, and you should already have shock resistance and fire resistance to negate damage from lightning and fire pillar spells, though they can still destroy inventory unless you have them as extrinsic resistances.

History

High clerics are introduced in NetHack 3.1.0, which also introduces the modern Astral Plane and Moloch's Sanctum. From this version to NetHack 5.0.0, including some based on these versions, high clerics are referred to as high priests or high priestesses depending on their gender, with both monsters having their own separate-but-identical monster data.

From NetHack 3.1.0 to NetHack 3.4.3, including variants based on these versions, the behavior of covetous monsters regarding the Amulet of Yendor can be exploited to obtain it from the high priest of Moloch: by luring a covetous monster such as the Wizard of Yendor or any of the demon lords and princes into the Sanctum, they will teleport to the high priest, engage in combat and possibly kill them, and take the Amulet before warping back to attack you, all without you having to leave the vicinity of the staircase. The Wizard in particular is a reliable monster to use, since he will always appear twelve turns after you perform the Invocation—while he cannot actually damage the high priest, due to how his Amulet theft attack is handled in mhitu.c, he is still capable of stealing the Amulet. This is fixed in NetHack 3.6.0 via commit 9df113a9.

Variants

NetHack variants based on NetHack 3.4.3 and earlier versions may retain the ability to have a covetous monster take the Amulet of Yendor from the high cleric (or priest) of Moloch. Other NetHack variants may replace or supplement the high cleric/priest of Moloch in particular with a much stronger monster.

UnNetHack

In UnNetHack, Cthulhu replaces the high priest of Moloch as the guardian of the Amulet of Yendor.

dNetHack

In dNetHack, notdNetHack and notnotdNetHack, the high priest of Moloch is replaced by the elder priest, who is far more difficult and can steal the invocation artifacts as well as the Amulet (if you obtain it from them). If killed, the elder priest can also quickly revive like a Rider.

EvilHack

In EvilHack, the high priest of Moloch is a racial monster like all other aligned priests and high priests, and may appear as a human, elf, orc, giant, drow, or illithid. They also guard a crystal chest containing a guaranteed magic marker.

Defeating the high priest of Moloch and obtaining the Amulet causes a gate to form in the inner Sanctum's west wall, leading to a previously unreachable part of the map that contains Lucifer and the portal to Purgatory. All other methods of leaving the Sanctum are suppressed and the up stair is removed, meaning that defeating Lucifer is necessary to leave.

For Infidels, the goal is instead to bring the Amulet of Yendor to the Sanctum along with their quest artifact, The Idol of Moloch, and sacrifice the Amulet to Moloch on the unaligned high altar—Moloch will then imbue the Idol with the power of the Amulet so that the player can invoke it on a specific high altar in the Astral Plane. The high priest of Moloch remains peaceful to Infidels that enter the temple unlike other roles, and they also provide one of two hints regarding which altar is the correct one for the Infidel to invoke the Idol upon, providing both hints if the Archbishop of Moloch is dead.