Hmnyw-Pharaoh
The Hmnyw-Pharaoh, &, is a unique monster that appears in dNetHack, notdNetHack and notnotdNetHack. The Hmnyw-Pharaoh is a powerful and demon-like human entity that is considered a Great Old One and an overlord to his kind: he is strong, humanoid, amphibious, unbreathing, capable of flight, possesses monster detection and omni-sense, can see perfectly regardless of lighting, can be seen via infravision, and will seek out magical items and other objects to collect. The Hmnyw-Pharaoh requires 40 insight to be seen by the hero, and seeing him will also increase the hero's insight.
The Hmnyw-Pharaoh has 10 points of damage reduction from protection, along with 13 points of AC: 6 points are from natural AC, 1 are from dodge AC, and 6 are from protection AC. He is covetous and capable of warping, desires the Book of the Dead, will wait for the hero to enter his sight and get close before moving unless he is attacked, and will recover quickly from being scared. He cannot be made tame.
The Hmnyw-Pharaoh has a powerful weapon attack and offhand weapon attack, will attempt to cast one mage monster spell during each of his turns, and on death inflicts powerful mummy curses: his dying curse will either significantly cut the hero's HP and cause them to scream for 2 (more) rounds, reduce the hero's AC and intrinsic protection, or else stop the hero's heart (killing them if they have less than 100 current HP, and otherwise dealing 10d8 damage).
When casting spells, the Hmnyw-Pharaoh will choose from the following abilities:
- Curse items (1⁄10 chance)
- Geyser (1⁄10 chance)
- Summon insects (3⁄10 chance)
- Plague
- Open wounds
- Ice storm or lightning (1⁄10 chance, with a subsequent equal probability of either spell)
- darkness
- Touch of death
The Hmnyw-Pharaoh also has a set of unique abilities that are tied to Nitocris, which are explained further below.
The Hmnyw-Pharaoh has skilled prowess in martial combat, and he possesses shock resistance, magic resistance, cold resistance, sleep resistance, poison resistance, drain resistance, and death resistance.
Seeing the Hmnyw-Pharaoh die will inflict the "Masks of Nyarlathotep" madness, which causes some monsters to "drop their mask" and transform into a random summoned unknown abomination upon being killed by the hero—the odds are dependent on the hero's sanity, and these "unmasked" monsters will disappear after a few turns.
Generation
The Hmnyw-Pharaoh is always generated hostile. He is not a valid polymorph form or genocide target, and figurines or statues of him cannot be generated or wished for.
The Hmnyw-Pharaoh is generated in the Temples of the Old Gods within the Neutral Quest at level creation, where he occupies the same square as the trapped metal sarcophagus containing Nitocris and the statue of a god known as "the God of the Bloody Tongue".
The Hmnyw-Pharaoh is always generated with a large +9 metal sickle and a small +9 metal quarterstaff, both of which are cursed.
The Hmnyw-Pharaoh does not leave a corpse upon death.
Connection to Nitocris
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.
- If the Hmnyw-Pharaoh is not visible to the hero, then he takes the following actions:
- If the hero has not yet opened the trapped metal sarcophagus containing Nitocris and has not attacked the Hmnyw-Pharaoh, he will remain on the square he is generated on.
- If Nitocris or her corpse is on the level, he will attempt to locate Nitocris, then warp to her location and perform one of the following actions.
- If Nitocris is alive in her base form and is still wearing The Spell-warded Wrappings of Nitocris, she will be able to cast a spell on her next turn.
- If Nitocris is alive in her base form but not wearing her artifact mummy wrapping, the "dark waters" will claim Nitocris and instantly kill her, which causes her to rise as the undead Ghoul-queen Nitocris.
- If 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 corpse of Nitocris is present on the level (which in practice only applies to Ghoul-queen Nitocris, as Nitocris will always be transformed into her undead form if killed), she has a 1⁄2 chance (50%) chance of reviving from her corpse, with a message printed.
- Afterward, if Nitocris was not revived this turn, then there is a 1⁄140 chance of the Hmnyw-Pharaoh summoning two monsters centered on his location, and this will instead be a 1⁄70 chance of summoning one monster if Nitocris was not present in any fashion.
- The monsters that can be summoned this way are:
- S cobra (2⁄7 chance)
- f serpent-necked lioness (2⁄21 chance)
- w hunting horror (2⁄21 chance)
- M human mummy (1⁄7 chance)
- M giant mummy (1⁄21 chance)
- M pharaoh (1⁄21 chance)
- v energy vortex (1⁄7 chance)
- E lightning paraelemental (1⁄21 chance)
- D blue dragon (1⁄21 chance)
- S daughter of Naunet (1⁄21 chance)
- The monsters that can be summoned this way are:
- If the Hmnyw-Pharaoh is currently visible to the hero, then he takes the following actions:
- If Nitocris or her corpse is on the level, he will attempt to locate Nitocris, then perform one of the above actions for her without warping to her location. All of those actions will have messages associated with them.
- Afterward, if Nitocris was not revived this turn, there is a 1⁄7 chance of the Hmnyw-Pharaoh summoning a monster centered on his location.
- The monsters that can be summoned this way, with a 1⁄8 chance for each, are cobras, serpent-necked lionesses, hunting horrors, giant mummies, pharaohs, lightning paraelementals, blue dragons, and daughters of Naunet.
Monsters summoned by the Hmnyw-Pharaoh are not treated like most other summoned monsters, i.e. they are not temporary and ignore extinction when being generated.
Origin
The Hmnyw-Pharaoh is named for the Ogdoad (Ancient Greek: ὀγδοάς "the Eightfold"; Ancient Egyptian: ḫmnyw, a plural nisba of ḫmnw "eight"), the Greek name for eight primordial deities worshiped in Hermopolis. The earliest certain reference to the Ogdoad is from the Eighteenth Dynasty, in a dedicatory inscription by Hatshepsut at the Speos Artemidos. Texts of the Late Period describe the male deities as having the heads of frogs and the female deities as having the heads of serpents, and they are often depicted in this way in reliefs of the last dynasty, the Ptolemaic Kingdom.
The Hmnyw-Pharaoh is also based on Nephren-Ka, also known as Nophru-Ka and the "The Black Pharaoh", who is a fictional pharaoh of Ancient Egypt that appears in the works of H.P. Lovecraft. He is supposedly the last pharaoh of the Third Dynasty of Egypt and the one who introduced the cult of the animal-headed gods to that nation, and always stood out as a sorcerer, to the point that the Outer God Nyarlathotep took an interest in him soon after and made a pact with the pharaoh. After his death, he is asserted by later versions of the Cthulhu Mythos to have merged with Nyarlathotep and become an avatar of the Outer God himself. First mentioned in the short story "The Outsider", then alluded to briefly in "The Case of Charles Dexter Ward", the most extensive appearance of the character comes in the 1935 story "The Haunter of the Dark": according to Lin Carter, his mention here is a reference by Lovecraft to one of Robert Bloch's best stories, "Fane of the Black Pharaoh" (whose manuscript he read before its publishing in 1938).
Nephren-Ka is said to have come across an ancient stone artifact known as the "Shining Trapezohedron" and "built around it a temple with a windowless crypt, and did that which caused his name to be stricken from all monuments and records"—this latter act is revealed in other tales to be mass human sacrifice consisting of thousands of victims. Then long after his death, Nephren-Ka once appeared to Pharaoh Akhenaten to propose that he resume the cult of Nyarlathotep, but Akhenaten refused and had Nephren-Ka's name struck out from all records and monuments, causing Nyarlathotep to curse Akhenaten and cause the collapse of his empire. The Shining Trapezohedron then remained in the ruins of the temple until it was re-discovered by Enoch Bowen in 1843, then was later found by Robert Blake, kicking off the events of "The Haunter of the Dark".
Part of the basis for the depiction of the Hmnyw-Pharaoh in dNetHack and its derivatives is also tied to the depiction of Nitocris (or Nitokris), a character in the Cthulhu Mythos who is based on the possibly-historical last queen of the 6th Dynasty of Ancient Egypt. In the Mythos, Nitokris had a son whom she named Nephren-Ka, rumored to be the reincarnation of the original "Black Pharaoh" and thus an incarnation of Nyarlathotep. 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 and cause her to take on the Ghoul-queen form.
