Star vampire (Hack'EM)
V star vampire 
| |
|---|---|
| Difficulty | 28 |
| Attacks |
Tentacles 2d6 physical, Tentacles 2d6 drain life, Tentacles 2d6 physical, Tentacles 2d6 drain life, Tentacles 2d6 physical, Tentacles 2d6 drain life |
| Base level | 18 |
| Base experience | 750 |
| Speed | 18 |
| Base AC | -5 |
| Base MR | 60 |
| Alignment | -5 (chaotic) |
| Frequency (by normal means) | 1 (Very rare) |
| Genocidable | Yes |
| Weight | 1450 |
| Nutritional value | 400 |
| Size | Large |
| Resistances | sleep, poison, cold, psychic |
| Resistances conveyed | None |
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A star vampire:
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- For the monster in other variants, see star vampire.
A star vampire, V, is a type of monster that appears in the Lethe patch, SLASH'EM and SlashTHEM. The star vampire is a form of vampire that is extra-terrestrial rather than undead like the vampires of NetHack—they are still strong and unbreathing humanoids that share similar traits such as flight and enhanced regeneration, and as vampires they also have a diet of blood and a weakness to silver. Star vampires can be seen via infravision, can follow a hero to other levels if they are adjacent, and are capable of flanking in combat. Tame star vampires may turn traitor.
A star vampire has six tentacle attacks, which alternate between dealing physical damage and life draining. Star vampires possess sleep resistance, poison resistance, cold resistance, and psychic resistance, and have a vulnerability to silver and fire.
A star vampire is poisonous to consume, which primarily comes up if they are digested by another monster.
Generation
Randomly-generated star vampires are always created hostile, and are always generated as permanently invisible.
Star vampires can appear among the random V that are part of the second quest monster class for Undead Slayers and make up 6⁄175 of the monsters randomly generated on the Undead Slayer quest.
Star vampires can appear among the eight random vampires generated in the Chaotic Quest at level creation.
Despite not being undead, the star vampire is one of the vampires that can be generated by the summon undead spell, and can also be generated by invoking The Hand of Vecna.
Star vampires do not leave a corpse upon death.
Strategy
Star vampires are very fast at 18 base speed, with an excellent base AC of -5 and the ability to deal significant amounts of damage, and they are always generated invisible. Fortunately for most heroes, they are also generally not encountered until much later in the dungeon, and do not possess death resistance or drain resistance since they are not undead, giving them more weaknesses to exploit—a hero will usually have a source of drain resistance or at least MC3 by the time they run into one, and in a worst-case scenario they can use Elbereth to drive a star vampire off.
Star vampires are best fought alone, both to lower the amount of damage potentially taken from their attacks and to avoid losing track of other vital messages in the fray of combat (e.g. from nearby monsters that can petrify the hero). A hero battling one can also take advantage of their weakness to silver weapons and their vulnerability to fire as well. On the note of messages, though the star vampire's tentacle attacks produce the same message as those of a mind flayer or master mind flayer, they do not pose a danger to the hero's intelligence and also cannot be blocked by a ring of free action.
As a polyform
For a hero with polymorph control, the star vampire is an excellent form for polymorph because of the same qualities that make it a fearsome opponent: a high base level, flight, speed, regeneration, flying, unbreathing, powerful attacks, and the ability to wear most non-torso armor.
As their size prevents them from wearing suits of armor or cloaks, a hero looking to become a star vampire should take appropriate precautions and obtain magic resistance and other necessary properties from a slotless source such as a quest artifact, among other options. Additionally, as a vampire they cannot eat food normally and must instead obtain nutrition by draining blood from corpses or else quaffing potions of blood or vampire blood.
Origin
The star vampire is based on a monster that originates from the horror short story "The Shambler from the Stars" by American writer Robert Bloch, which is first published in the September 1935 issue of Weird Tales. Though not a creation of H. P. Lovecraft, the tale is written as part of the Cthulhu Mythos, and Lovecraft would later write "The Haunter of the Dark" as a sequel later that year and dedicate it to Bloch. The original short story was later included in 1945 as part of Bloch's first published book, The Opener of the Way, and he eventually wrote his own sequel "The Shadow from the Steeple" in 1950.
In the story, a nameless narrator seeking forbidden knowledge comes across an occult volume known as De Vermis Mysteriis, said to have been written by a Belgian sorcerer named Ludvig Prinn, who was burned at the stake during the witchcraft trials. Finding it to be written entirely in Latin, and not being able to speak the language, the narrator writes a New England mystic whom he established contact with during his search, and the mystic agrees to aid him in translating the book. While perusing the tome at the mystic's home in Providence, RI, the mystic inadvertently stumbles across a spell or invocation on a chapter dealing with familiars: he believes to be a summoning towards one of the invisible "star-sent servants" spoken of in the frightful stories surrounding Ludvig Prinn, and the narrator makes no attempt to stop the mystic from reading the inscription out loud.
This act is what summons the story's titular monster: the room immediately turns dreadfully cold, and an unearthly wind rushes in through the window, followed by a hideous laughter that heralds the arrival of an invisible vampiric monstrosity—the star vampire suddenly lifts the mystic into the air and begins feeding off of his blood until he is nothing more than a wrinkled, flabby corpse. As the creature continues to feed, it slowly becomes more and more visible until its monstrous form is fully revealed, causing the narrator to go mad; after the creature retreats back into the nameless cosmic gulfs it had come from, the book mysteriously vanishes, and the narrator sets the mystic's house on fire and wanders out into the streets. The story ends with the narrator struggling to move on from his ordeal, subconsciously fearing that the "shambler from the stars" will one day return for him.
The star vampire seen in variants of NetHack is obviously modeled after this monster, including its permanent invisibility, though it does not lose this invisibility upon feeding (presumably due to the difficulty involved in coding such a feature).
Encyclopedia entry
A creature from beyond the stars. Invisible, it floats along until it finds something to feed upon and then draws its life energy and blood into itself. It is said that they become briefly visible just after they have eaten and that this is such a terrible sight it can drive a mortal insane.
