Light (monster class)
The light is a monster class that appears in NetHack, and is represented by the lowercase y glyph (y). Lights are designated internally by the macro S_LIGHT.[1]
The class contains the following monsters:[2]
Contents
Common traits
All lights will explode in your direction if you are adjacent, permanently destroying the light; this causes a status affliction and creates noise that can wake nearby monsters, but does no damage. As lights cannot see invisible, if you are invisible or displaced, they may explode at an empty square with no effect on you.
Generation
Reading a scroll of light while confused has a 1⁄5 chance of summoning a light monster if they are not genocided.
The following information pertains to an upcoming version (NetHack 3.7.0). If this version is now released, please verify that the information below is still accurate, then update the page to incorporate it.
Reading the scroll while confused now instead summons multiple tame cancelled lights. An uncursed scroll will summon 3–4 yellow lights; a blessed scroll will summon 5–6 yellow lights; and a cursed scroll will summon 3–4 black lights. Nothing will be summoned if the appropriate type of light is genocided.Body parts
Lights have a special hard-coded set of body parts, with "hand" replaced with "ray", "handed" replaced with "rayed", and all other body parts replaced with "beam".[3]
Variants
Many variants add new monsters to the light monster class. Some implement the biodiversity patch, which introduces the will o' wisp. Its exact traits vary with the variant in question; in the original patch, they can explode and render you confused for several turns.
dNetHack
In dNetHack, coure eladrin take on the form of a mote of light, y, in order to flee and recover health; Queen Mab uses the form of a "coterie of motes", y, for similar purposes.
Additionally, a tiny being of light, y, appears as one of the many insight merchants.
SpliceHack
SpliceHack and its rewrite both add the will o' wisp, but implement it differently from the biodiversity patch.
SlashTHEM
SlashTHEM incorporates the will o' wisp, with most of the same traits as in the biodiversity patch.
