Dwarf (monster)
h dwarf 
| |
|---|---|
| Difficulty | 4 |
| Attacks | |
| Base level | 2 |
| Base experience | 22 |
| Speed | 6 |
| Base AC | 10 |
| Base MR | 10 |
| Alignment | 4 (lawful) |
| Frequency (by normal means) | 3 (Rare) |
| Genocidable | Yes |
| Weight | 900 |
| Nutritional value | 300 |
| Size | Medium |
| Resistances | None |
| Resistances conveyed | None |
|
A dwarf:
| |
| Reference | NetHack 5.0.0 - include/monsters.h, line 485 |
A dwarf, h, is a type of monster that appears in NetHack. They are the most basic type of dwarf among the humanoids, and act as the "base" monster for a dwarven hero. Dwarves are strong, omnivorous humanoid monsters with infravision that can tunnel around the current dungeon level if they have a digging tool—some dwarves will also collect items such as armor, weapons, food, gold, and gems.
A dwarf has a single weapon attack.
Generation
Randomly-generated dwarves are always created as peaceful towards dwarven and gnomish heroes, and will mostly be peaceful towards other lawful heroes. Dwarves do not appear in Gehennom due to being lawful. A dwarf can grow up into a dwarf leader of the matching gender.[1]
Many dwarves are generated within the Gnomish Mines during level creation, not counting those placed when generating random humanoids:
- Two dwarves are generated on each of the filler levels for the Mines.[2]
- At least one dwarf is generated on all maps of Minetown other than Orcish Town.
- One dwarf is placed in a room outside of the main area on the maps for Town Square, Alley Town, College Town, and Bazaar Town during level creation.[3][4][5][6]
- Three dwarves are randomly placed across Grotto Town during level creation.[7]
- Five dwarves are randomly placed across Bustling Town during level creation, with two always being peaceful.[8]
- The Mimic of the Mines map for Mines' End places three dwarves randomly across the floor during level creation.[9]
- The Gnome King's Wine Cellar map for Mines' End places three dwarves randomly across the floor during level creation.[10]
- For a dwarvish or gnomish hero, two-thirds of the dwarves and other peaceful monsters will instead be replaced with random monsters.[11]
Dwarves can appear among the random h that are part of the first quest monster class for Cave Dwellers and make up 24⁄175 of monsters that are randomly generated on the Cave Dweller quest.
A dwarf zombie or dwarf mummy will leave an aged gnome corpse behind upon death.[12][13][14][15] Dwarven heroes that are killed and leave bones will have a dwarf corpse placed on the square where they died unless they were stoned, disintegrated or otherwise killed by certain monsters. Liches and zombies that kill regular dwarves will cause their corpses to animate as dwarf zombies, and dwarven heroes killed by either monster type will similarly arise as zombies if they leave bones.[16]
Dwarves can be generated by zapping a wand of undead turning at a gnome corpse not left by a mummy or zombie, or selecting dwarves when reading a cursed scroll of genocide.
Monster starting inventory
Dwarves are eligible for offensive items, defensive items, and miscellaneous items.
A dwarf can be generated with each of the following items:[17]
- A 6⁄7 chance of a pair of iron shoes and an independent 6⁄7 chance of a dwarvish cloak.
- A 1⁄4 chance of a dwarvish short sword and dwarvish iron helm, combined with an equal probability of either of the following:
- A dwarvish mattock, or
- A dwarvish roundshield paired with either a dwarvish spear or an axe, with an equal probability for each weapon.
- Dwarves that receive a dwarvish short sword and dwarvish iron helm also have a further 1⁄3 chance of receiving a dwarvish mithril-coat.
- Dwarves that are not given a dwarvish short sword and dwarvish iron helm will instead receive either a pick-axe (1⁄3 chance) or a dagger (2⁄3 chance).
Strategy
A dwarf is generally much slower than an unburdened hero at a base speed of 6, but they still have the potential to be decently well-equipped. For early heroes that are lawful, dwarven or gnomish, this can make dwarves difficult to kill using pets, especially when they are peaceful—there are no direct consequences for using pets to kill peaceful monsters such as dwarves, but the pet may be killed in the attempt. Conversely, angering and killing them directly puts you more directly at risk: on top of the risks of that dwarf being sufficiently-armored or carrying a strong enchanted weapon, attacking a peaceful monster will anger every other peaceful monster that witnesses it (particularly if it occurs in Minetown), which incurs alignment record penalties and alignment abuse that an early hero often cannot afford.
Hostile dwarves are a serious danger for very early or under-prepared heroes that opt to traverse an unfriendly Mines, and can be a major deciding factor that diverts players towards Sokoban instead: a dwarf can have around 10 points of AC from a worn mithril-coat, iron helm and iron shoes, and can inflict up to 20 points of damage with a successful swing of a wielded mattock, all of which is possible before the enchantments of their weapons and armor are factored in. As of August 2026, dwarves are ranked at #2 on the nethack.alt.org list of top death causes, and have even occupied the top spot in previous months.
Even so, it may sometimes be worth all of this risk in order for a hero to obtain a digging tool and some solid early weapons and armor, including the prized dwarvish mithril-coat. When on the lookout for dwarves to relieve of their armor, pay particular attention to which weapons they use: dwarves using a dwarvish short sword, axe, mattock, or dwarvish spear tend to have better armor on average.
History
The dwarf first appears in NetHack 3.0.0. From this version to NetHack 3.0.3, the dwarf uses the h glyph—in NetHack 3.0.4, which introduces color, they are given the h glyph, and are given their current glyph color in NetHack 3.0.7.
In versions up to NetHack 3.6.7, including variants based on those versions, dwarves are not a valid polymorph form, and dwarves of both genders grow up into male dwarf lords. NetHack 5.0.0 makes changes to monster growth via commit 0c3b9642 so that dwarves and several other gendered monsters do not change gender while growing up and their resulting form has a matching title—in the same version, dwarves are made into a valid form for polymorph via commit cb5e93e9. NetHack 5.0.0 also adds peaceful dwarves to Bustling Town via commit 3877e142.
Variants
Some NetHack variants grant dwarves and other dwarven monsters (including a dwarven hero) AC bonuses for wearing racial equipment, and may additionally generate them with a potion of booze. NetHack variants created prior to NetHack 5.0.0 may not have dwarves as valid polymorph forms, and may also make their own adjustments so that dwarven women do not change gender when growing up and are given a properly-named form.
SLASH'EM
In SLASH'EM, dwarves are not valid polymorph forms, and dwarves of both genders grow up into dwarf lords as they do in NetHack 3.4.3 and previous contemporary versions. Dwarves have two weapon attacks that each have half the die size of their weapon attack in NetHack—due to how damage calculations work, this generally increases their damage output in practice.
If the hero is a gnome or a dwarf, then most peaceful dwarves in the Gnomish Mines are replaced with hostile dwarf zombies during level creation with the exception of bones levels[18]—this further ensures that such heroes will have to deal with hostile monsters like heroes of other races.[19]
UnNetHack
In UnNetHack, dwarves are not valid polymorph forms, and dwarves of both genders grow up into dwarf lords as they do in NetHack 3.4.3 and previous contemporary versions. Dwarves gain +1 bonuses to AC for each piece of worn dwarven armor.
Several dwarves appear in some manner within the Ruins of Moria branch:
- 2-8 dwarf corpses are scattered across the second floor during level creation.
- The two orc-filled barracks on the fifth floor each contain six dwarf prisoners.
- The "intact" variant of the sixth floor map, Doors of Durin, has four dwarf statues within The Chamber of Mazarbul.
Dwarves created outside of the Gnomish Mines have a 6⁄7 chance of being generated with a potion of booze.
dNetHack
In dNetHack, notdNetHack and notnotdNetHack, dwarves are valid polymorph forms and have basic prowess in martial combat along with a full base attack bonus of +1 to-hit per monster level. Dwarven women will grow up into dwarf clerics, which are distinct monsters from dwarf lords rather than simple female counterparts.
Dwarves that are randomly generated outside of the Gnomish Mines are always generated with a potion of booze.
Dwarves may appear among the court of a throne room ruled by a gnome king, gnome queen, dwarf king or dwarf queen: each monster in the court of a gnome king or queen has a 1⁄5 chance of being a dwarf, while each monster in the court of a dwarf king or queen has a 2⁄5 chance of being a dwarf.
EvilHack
In EvilHack, the "basic" dwarf is known as a mountain dwarf, making them distinct from the dwarf monster used for the corpses of undead gnomes and dead gnomish heroes while allowing them to be valid polymorph forms. The dwarf monster is also used for racial monsters such as player monsters and shopkeepers. A mountain dwarf will grow up into a dwarf noble of the appropriate gender.
Mountain dwarves gain +1 bonus AC for each piece of worn dwarven armor.
Hack'EM
In Hack'EM, the basic dwarf is also known as a mountain dwarf, and a mountain dwarf will grow up into a dwarf noble of the appropriate gender as in EvilHack. Similarly, mountain dwarves gain +1 bonus AC for each piece of worn dwarven armor.
Mountain dwarves generated outside of the Gnomish Mines have a 6⁄7 chance of being generated with a potion of booze, as in UnNetHack.
Encyclopedia entry
Dwarfs have faces like men (ugly men, with wrinkled, leathery skins), but are generally either flat-footed, duck-footed, or have feet pointing backwards. They are of the earth, earthy, living in the darkest of caverns and venturing forth only with the cloaks by which they can make themselves invisible, and others disguised as toads. Miners often come across them, and sometimes establish reasonably close relations with them.... The miners of Cornwall were always delighted to hear a bucca busily mining away, for all dwarfs have an infallible nose for precious metals.
Among other things, dwarfs are rightly valued for their skill as blacksmiths and jewellers: they made Odin his famous spear Gungnir, and Thor his hammer; for Freya they designed a magnificent necklace, and for Frey a golden boar. And in their spare time they are excellent bakers. Ironically, despite their odd feet, they are particularly fond of dancing. They can also see into the future, and consequently are excellent meteorologists. They can be free with presents to people they like, and a dwarvish gift is likely to turn to gold in the hand. But on the whole they are a snappish lot.
References
- ↑ src/makemon.c in NetHack 5.0.0, line 2136-L2151
- ↑ dat/minefill.lua in NetHack 5.0.0, line 40-L41
- ↑ dat/minetn-2.lua in NetHack 5.0.0, line 170-L172
- ↑ dat/minetn-3.lua in NetHack 5.0.0, line 139-L141
- ↑ dat/minetn-4.lua in NetHack 5.0.0, line 120-L123
- ↑ dat/minetn-7.lua in NetHack 5.0.0, line 185-L188
- ↑ dat/minetn-5.lua in NetHack 5.0.0, line 93-L95
- ↑ dat/minetn-6.lua in NetHack 5.0.0, line 86-L90
- ↑ dat/minend-1.lua in NetHack 5.0.0, line 116-L118
- ↑ dat/minend-2.lua in NetHack 5.0.0, line 156-L158
- ↑ src/sp_lev.c in NetHack 5.0.0, line 1959-1961
- ↑ src/mon.c in NetHack 5.0.0, line 424-L427: Converting monster index of undead to corpses of their living counterparts
- ↑ src/mon.c in NetHack 5.0.0, line 630
- ↑ src/mon.c in NetHack 5.0.0, line 638
- ↑ src/mon.c in NetHack 5.0.0, line 645-L649: Undead corpses and their ages are handled with other "special" death drops
- ↑ src/mon.c in NetHack 5.0.0, line 405-L406
- ↑ src/makemon.c in NetHack 5.0.0, line 380-L400
- ↑ sp_lev.c in SLASH'EM 0.0.7E7F2, line 868
- ↑ sp_lev.c in SLASH'EM 0.0.7E7F2, line 854
