Leather golem

From NetHackWiki
(Redirected from Leather golems)
Jump to navigation Jump to search

A leather golem, ', is a type of monster that appears in NetHack. The leather golem is a type of golem that is slower and stronger than some of the other golems.

Leather golems have two claw attacks, and possess sleep resistance and poison resistance like all golems. A leather golem that is subjected to stoning will become a stone golem.[1] Leather golems that take damage from fire traps, the fire effect of magic traps and the fire effect of container traps can lose maximum HP up to 18 of that maximum plus one;[2] a leather golem that is hit by a decay attack (i.e. from a brown pudding) will instantly rot away and be destroyed.[3][4] A hero polymorphed into a leather golem can lose the same amount of maximum HP from the aforementioned traps, and dying from a decay attack returns them to normal form, even if they are wearing an amulet of unchanging.[5][6]

Generation

Randomly-generated leather golems are always created hostile. Leather golems are always generated with 40 HP.[7]

Leather golems can generate as a result of polypiling if there are enough leather objects in a pile of items.[8]

Leather golems leave behind 2-8 sets of leather armor upon death instead of a corpse.[9] They are not a valid target for genocide.

Strategy

Leather golems have slightly better AC than most of the golems encountered before them, but are not too difficult for a prepared hero.

History

The leather golem first appears in NetHack 3.0.0. From this version to NetHack 3.4.3, including some variants based on those versions, casting stone to flesh at a figurine of a leather golem produces a live leather golem despite the item being made of stone, while animating a statue this way produces a flesh golem as intended - this is fixed in NetHack 3.6.0 via commit d8a0f734 so that animating a leather golem figurine with the spell also produces a live flesh golem.

Origin

The gōlem is an animate, anthropomorphic being that originates from Jewish folklore, and is created entirely from inanimate matter, usually clay or mud. The most famous golem narrative is "The Golem of Prague", which tells of the late 16th century rabbi Judah Loew ben Bezalel and his creation of a golem using clay from the Vltava River, which he brought to life to defend the Prague ghetto from anti-Semitic attacks and pogroms. In modern popular culture, the word became generalized to refer to any crude anthropomorphic construct that is made of inanimate material and brought to life by some means, with the method of animation and the resulting creation's sapience and/or sentience varying wildly.

Messages

<The leather golem> falls to pieces!
A leather golem was hit by a rotting attack and killed instantly.[3]
May <pet> rot in peace.
A pet leather golem was killed as above, while out of your range of sight.[10]

Variants

In variants with object materials systems, leather golems may drop additional leather items upon death alongside or instead of a pile of leather armor.

SLASH'EM

In SLASH'EM, leather golems generate with 80 HP, possess death resistance and hit as a +1 weapon.[11] This also applies to SlashTHEM.

xNetHack

In xNetHack, leather golems can drop various items with an object material of leather upon death, with leather armor acting as a fallback to replace invalid items generated this way.

EvilHack

In EvilHack, leather golems can drop various items with an object material of leather upon death, with leather armor acting as a fallback to replace invalid items generated this way.

Hack'EM

In Hack'EM, leather golems can drop various items with an object material of leather upon death, with leather armor acting as a fallback to replace invalid items generated this way.

Encyclopedia entry

Leather golems share the following encyclopedia entry with other golems that lack their own entry:

"The original story harks back, so they say, to the sixteenth
century. Using long-lost formulas from the Kabbala, a rabbi is
said to have made an artificial man -- the so-called Golem -- to
help ring the bells in the Synagogue and for all kinds of other
menial work.
"But he hadn't made a full man, and it was animated by some sort
of vegetable half-life. What life it had, too, so the story
runs, was only derived from the magic charm placed behind its
teeth each day, that drew down to itself what was known as the
`free sidereal strength of the universe.'
"One evening, before evening prayers, the rabbi forgot to take
the charm out of the Golem's mouth, and it fell into a frenzy.
It raged through the dark streets, smashing everything in its
path, until the rabbi caught up with it, removed the charm, and
destroyed it. Then the Golem collapsed, lifeless. All that was
left of it was a small clay image, which you can still see in
the Old Synagogue." ...

[ The Golem, by Gustav Meyrink ]

References