Otiax
Otiax, the Key to the Gate is a spirit that appears in dNetHack, notdNetHack and notnotdNetHack.
Ritual, seal and taboo
Otiax's seal must be drawn on a square containing a door, which must be closed prior to the hero chatting towards the seal—a successful ritual that binds Otiax to the hero will cause the door to open.
To remain bound to Otiax, the hero must not lock a door by any means or destroy closed doors that are not locked. Non-exhaustive examples of actions that will unbind Otiax include using a lock pick or skeleton key, zapping a wand of locking or casting the wizard lock spell at a doorway, kicking down a closed and unlocked door, digging through one with an axe or pick-axe, and razing through them with a wand of digging or the dig spell.
Mark
A hero with Otiax bound is surrounded by a thin mist, from which tendrils form to perform attacks on monsters when engaging in melee combat. These mist tendrils can be seen from a distance, and will remain formed for 5 turns after making a tendril attack.
Benefits
Otiax does not grant any properties or skills while bound.
Otiax's active powers are as follows:
- Open: The hero performs different actions depending on what is present in an adjacent square that they select.
- If the selected square has a solid surface, then a door will be created if necessary and subsequently opened.
- If the ability targets an adjacent monster, the hero performs a touch attack against them if they have the spirit Chupoclops bound or are wearing gloves that can phase through armor, and a claw attack otherwise—both require successful to-hit rolls. The ability is also treated as a cast spell that rolls against the monster's MR score.
- If the monster is unsolid, skeletal (including actual skeletons), or lacks innards of any kind (i.e mummies), then the ability will have no effect.
- If the monster has undifferentiated innards, the ability deals 1d5 spirit dice of damage.
- Otherwise, a monster that has differentiated innards takes 5(1d5) spirit dice of damage with a 1⁄10 chance (10%) of those innards being "released", causing an instant death.
Otiax's passive powers are as follows:
- Tendrils: The hero gains extra attacks by using the thin mist surrounding them, which form into tendrils—the amount of attacks performed is chosen from the lower between the roll of a d5 and the hero's spirit dice size. Each tendril attack deals 1d5 damage and has a 1⁄10 chance (10%) of stealing an item from the target.
- Fingers of Mist: The hero gains have automatic searching.
- Concealing Mist: The hero automatically dodges 1⁄5 (20%) of melee attacks directed at them.
- Mist Key: The hero can use the #force extended command to unlock doors and lockable containers.
- Key to the Gate: A Binder that is performing the invocation must have Otiax bound.
As a monster
| v Otiax (No tile) | |
|---|---|
| Difficulty | 40 |
| Attacks | |
| Base level | 36 |
| Base experience | 1792 |
| Speed | 12 |
| Base AC | 0 |
| Base MR | 0 |
| Alignment | 0 (neutral) |
| Frequency (by normal means) | 0 (Not randomly generated) |
| Genocidable | No |
| Weight | 0 |
| Nutritional value | 0 |
| Size | huge |
| Resistances | sleep resistance, poison resistance, stoning resistance
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Otiax:
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In notdNetHack and notnotdNetHack, Otiax, v, also appears as a monster that can be summoned by an Illithanachronounbinder. It is an unsolid, amorphous and mindless vortex-like being that is unbreathing and thus amphibious. Otiax can follow the hero to other levels if it is adjacent, and like many summoned spirits it cannot be made tame.
Otiax has a touch attack that deals physical damage as well as a migo-like, cold-inducing gaze attack. It possesses sleep resistance, poison resistance and stoning resistance.
Generation
Otiax is first generated when summoned from its seal by an Illithanachronounbinder. It is always created hostile, and is not a valid polymorph form or genocide target.
Otiax does not leave a corpse upon death.
Strategy
Below this point, there are major spoilers for the Illithanachronounbinder role. They can be accessed by selecting the "Role spoiler" tab.
If Otiax is killed after being summoned, it can be encountered again in the Void, a branch accessed by opening the high altar of Ilsensine the Fallen as an Illithanachronounbinder using the invoke effect of The Elder Cerebral Fluid. Otiax is placed randomly along with many other spirits of the near void on the second floor of the branch, and is generated with the "whispers" template, which makes it nonliving.
Messages
- Thick fingers of mist reach under the door.
- You attempted to bind Otiax, and are not blind.
- BANG!! Something hits the door from the other side!
- The door opens, a bank of fog pours out to curl around you.
- You successfully bound Otiax to yourself, opening the door on the seal's square. The latter message is not printed if you are blind.
- The mist fingers curl around your blade.
- You successfully bound Otiax to the Pen of the Void, and you are not blind.
- They fade away without incident.
- You failed to bind Otiax due to a lack of open slots for spirits of the Near Void, and you are not blind.
- You instinctively look around for a door to open.
- You performed the binding ritual incorrectly.
Encyclopedia entry
Rhian stood within a circle of protection made from powdered diamonds. The hairs on her goose-bump speckled skin stood on end, the energy of wards and bufferings making her clenched teeth hum. Seed magic, beyond the arcane ability of almost all sorcerers and wizards. She could survive dragons, giants, waves of entropy, or even the stress of warping space-time.
Yet she was afraid, as were all of the conjurers in their own diamond circles that surrounded a larger circle which circumscribed her own along with a red-black blood-painted circle of binding. She could see it on their faces, even those demented alienists who were in truth prisoners barred from leaving the School's grounds. They seemed to be confounded that anyone might claim rulership over the Far Realms, yet rather than disdain their faces showed a newly minted fear of the plane they'd given themselves over to.
[...]
Two binders of Otiax shifted uncomfortably, throwing glances at the locked iron doors that led out of this vast summoning chamber. The Key to the Gate, a vestige believed to have some connection to the Far Realm, would perhaps provide some revelations of its own to this event. It seemed dangerous and Thaakir had proclaimed their presence the very epitome of mages' obsession with knowledge leading to their downfall. But it had been Rhian who had calmed him. She sensed, in a way that no one else could, that the vestiges would not let her come to harm. Their need for her, palpable across realities, ensured their lack of betrayal.
She felt breath on her shoulder, and could feel a presence behind her though unseen. A dream of a locked gate seemed to become real but only for her. She knew that if she turned, she would see the seal of Otiax upon the golden bars.
