Monster sound

In the source code of NetHack, every monster is flagged as making some type of monster sound. While the primary use of this flag is to determine the results of chatting with a monster, it is also internally used for numerous other purposes, most notably to distinguish quest leaders, quest guardians, and quest nemeses from other monsters.

Monster sounds with special effects

MS_SILENT

As this flag is used to denote monsters that make no sound, it has a few other effects:

• If you are polymorphed into such a monster, you cannot use the #chat command ("As a <monster>, you cannot speak.")
• If a vault guard enters a vault while you are polymorphed into such a form, they will immediately leave ("I'll come back when you're ready to talk to me!")
• Characters in such a form can still read scrolls, but if blind, will "cogitate" the words rather than "pronounce" them. If confused, they will "misunderstand" rather than "mispronounce" the words.
• Monsters injured by a potion of acid or holy water will "writhe" instead of "shriek" in pain. Similarly, silent players electing to commit suicide by controlled levelport to level 0 will "writhe in agony" rather than "scream in agony".
• Shopkeepers polymorphed into a silent form will not warn you if you start trying to dig through the floor of their shop. Strangely, they otherwise communicate normally.

MS_SHRIEK

This flag is only possessed by shriekers in vanilla; some of the unique characteristics of shriekers are implemented through it:

• It lets its possessor "shriek" every time it moves and is aware of the player. In addition to aggravating monsters, this shriek has a ¹⁄₁₀ chance of summoning a monster, with a further ¹⁄₁₃ chance that said monster will be a purple worm.
• Chatting to such a monster will also aggravate nearby monsters, but will not summon any.
• Players polymorphed into such a form can shriek with the #monster extended command. This aggravates monsters, but has no chance of summoning any.

MS_PRIEST

This flag is used by aligned priests and high priests, but not player monster priests. It has several effects:

• Chatting with such a monster initiates the usual priest dialog.
• It is used to distinguish aligned priests when creating monster starting inventory.

Notably, most of the distinguishing features of aligned priests (ability to buy protection, divine retribution when attacked, tending shrines, etc) are defined by the epri struct attached to them, rather than their monster sound.

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