Smell

There are many situations where your character might smell something.

Shapeshifting monsters

If a monster shapeshifts into something you can no longer detect, you might smell its new form. You can smell monsters only if you are not polymorphed into any blob, eye, sphere, jelly, vortex, light, elemental (including invisible stalkers), fungus or pudding. This may give one of the following messages:

Message	Monster
You notice a bovine smell.	Rothe or minotaur
You smell body odor.	Caveman, barbarian or neanderthal
You detect an odor reminiscent of an animal's den.	Any werecreature or owlbear
You smell steam.	Steam vortex
Something stinks.	Green slime
You smell mushrooms.	Violet fungus or shrieker
You notice a dog smell.	Any canine other than a werecreature
You smell a dragon!	Any dragon, including baby dragons
Something smells moldy.	Any fungus other than a violet fungus or shrieker
You detect an odor reminiscent of a stable.	Pony
You detect a strong odor reminiscent of a stable.	Horse or warhorse
You smell rotting flesh.	Any zombie
You smell fish.	Any sea monster other than a jellyfish
A foul stench makes you feel a little nauseated.	Any orc. This does not actually cause nausea.
You notice an attractive smell.	Any orc, if you are also currently an orc.
That monster seems to give off no smell.	Any other monster, if you used the #wizsmell command in wizard mode.

Other messages involving smell

The following other messages are associated with a sense of smell. These appear even if you are in a form that cannot smell monsters.

Food appraisal

The <food> smells like it could be tainted!

The <food> smells like it could be something very dangerous!

You tried to eat something that would turn you to stone or slime.

The <food> smells like it could be rotten!

The <food> smells like it might be poisonous!

The apple smells like it might have been poisoned.

You tried to eat a cursed apple without sleep resistance.

The <food> smells unhealthy.

You tried to eat something non-vegetarian as a Monk, having kept to the conduct so far.

The <food> smells rather acidic.

The <food> smells disgusting to you right now.

You are polymorphed into a rust monster and tried to eat a rustproof item.

The <food> smells foul and unfamiliar to you.

You tried to eat something non-vegan having kept to the conduct so far.

The <food> smells unfamiliar to you.

You tried to eat something non-vegetarian having kept to the conduct so far.

Food detection

Your <nose> tingles and you smell food.

You read a non-cursed scroll of food detection or cast detect food, and detected food.

Your <nose> <starts/continues> to tingle and you smell food.

You read a blessed scroll of food detection or cast skilled detect food, detected food and gained food appraisal if you did not already have it.

Your <nose> tingles and you smell something.

You read a cursed scroll of food detection, or any scroll while confused, and detected potions.

You smell food nearby.

You read a non-cursed scroll of food detection or cast detect food, and detected food only on your square.

You smell something nearby.

You read a cursed scroll of food detection, or any scroll while confused, and detected potions only on your square.

Level smells

The odor of burnt flesh and decay pervades the air.

You entered the Valley of the Dead from outside Gehennom.

It is hot here. You smell smoke...

You entered Gehennom at somewhere other than the Valley, most likely by leaving Vlad's tower.

You smell marsh gas!

There is a swamp on the level.

Stone to flesh

You smell the odor of meat.

You cast stone to flesh, turning an object into a comestible (instead of a monster), and you are a monk, vegetarian or polymorphed into a non-carnivore.

You smell a delicious smell.

You cast stone to flesh, turning an object into a comestible, and you are not monk, vegetarian or polymorphed into a non-carnivore.

Magic trap

You smell charred flesh.

One of the effects of a magic trap. No effect.

You smell hamburgers.

As above, but you are hallucinating.

Burning

You smell smoke.

Some items or a door burned up out of your sight.

You smell a whiff of smoke.

A bolt of fire burned some items out of your sight.

You smell paper burning.

A fire trap burned up an object nearby, but out of your sight. This appears even if the destroyed object is a glob of green slime.

You smell burning <paper/straw>.

You hit a paper golem or straw golem with a fire attack while blind, destroying it instantly.

Potions

You smell a peculiar odor...

You were affected by a thrown potion. This does not appear if you are unbreathing.

Ulch! That potion smells terrible!

You were affected by vapors from a cursed potion of restore ability or potion of gain ability. This does not appear if you are unbreathing.

You smell acrid fumes.

A djinni was released from a smoky potion, and you are blind.

Miscellaneous

You smell rotten <fruit>.

You dropped a ring of poison resistance into a sink.

You smell stale honey.

Kicking a tree would have released killer bees, but none could be created.

It smells like <monster type>.

You opened a tin and smell the contents. Beware: if you are hallucinating, and the tin does not contain chickatrice or cockatrice meat, you will smell a random monster type instead.

Overall, there is a smell of fried onions.

You sacrificed while hallucinating, and your prayer timeout was lowered to zero. This also raises your natural luck to zero if it was negative.

You smell rotten eggs.

You read a scroll of stinking cloud, but did not choose a valid target for the cloud.

References

This page may need to be updated for the current version of NetHack.

It may contain text specific to NetHack 3.6.1. Information on this page may be out of date.

Editors: After reviewing this page and making necessary edits, please change the {{nethack-361}} tag to the current version's tag or {{noversion}} as appropriate.