Vampire (monster class)

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For the monster, see Vampire.
For the starting race in multiple variants, see Vampire (starting race).

The vampire is a monster class that appears in NetHack, and is represented by the uppercase V glyph (V). Vampires are designated internally by the macro S_VAMPIRE.[1]

The monster class contains the following monsters:[2]

Common traits

Vampires are chaotic human undead - they are strong, breathless, capable of flying and regeneration, and possess sleep resistance and poison resistance. All vampires are vulnerable to silver weapons, possess a characteristic life-draining bite, and will follow the hero to other levels if on an adjacent square.

Vampires are shapeshifters and can polymorph at will into vampire bats or fog clouds[3] - vampire lords and Vlad the Impaler can additionally shapeshift into wolves.[4] Vampires often turn into their animal forms when outside of the hero's sight, and shift into fog cloud form to flow under locked or inaccessible doors[5] - vampires will also shift to their other forms while healthy, and shift back to their base form if their HP is low enough.[6] Polymorphing a vampire will cause them to take on one of their other forms rather than become a new monster, unless they became a vampire via polymorphitis.[7] If a vampire is killed in any of their shifted forms, including by stoning, they will resurrect in vampire form.[8] Vlad the Impaler will not shapeshift if he is carrying the Candelabrum of Invocation.[9]

The hero standing on any altar will scare vampires, similar to standing on Elbereth or a scroll of scare monster.[10]

Generation

Non-unique vampires are among the various undead that can generate in graveyards.

In addition to hosting graveyards, the following levels also generate random V on level creation:

Vampires are considered corpseless, with a special case that causes any non-unique vampire to leave a tainted human corpse upon death, and reviving that corpse will resurrect the vampire.[11][12][13] Human characters killed by a member of the vampire class will arise as a vampire instead of a ghost in any bones file that is created.[14]

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.

The mausoleum themed room may have a randomly generated vampire monster sealed and meditating within its central subroom.

As of commit 3c421da7, if a hero that is killed and leaves bones arises as a vampire, that vampire will have the former hero's intrinsics.

As a polymorph form

Heroes polymorphed into the form of any vampire monster are warned of any human or elf monsters on the level.[15] When engraving, they will "scrawl in blood" rather than "write in the dust" when engraving. A hero in vampire form that polymorphs or uses the #monster extended command will turn into a vampire bat (with the option to decline if they have polymorph control).

Strategy

Vampires often make for annoying fights, since their bites can rob you of experience levels unless you have drain resistance, e.g. from an artifact weapon like Excalibur; MC3 is the next best option in the event you lack this resistance. Vlad the Impaler is the worst offender by far, due to his high speed and covetous behavior.

Vampires represent a tempting target for a blessed scroll of genocide - though not as vicious as mind flayers or arch-liches, vampire lords in particular can still be troublesome; if you are early enough in the game, you may consider doing so in order to increase the amount of wraiths generated in graveyards.

The following information pertains to an upcoming version (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.

Black dragon scales and black dragon scale mail provide an additional source of drain resistance.

As pets

Vampires are decently strong as pets, with vampire lords being significantly popular choices - vampires need only two levels to grow up into vampire lords. However, pet vampires will shapeshift as normal unless you are wearing a ring of protection from shape changers - in their other forms, they are weak fighters that cannot wear armor, and will break body armor if they shift into wolves. A tame vampire will not shapeshift back to humanoid form unless killed or forced back to normal by the ring of protection from shapechangers - players planning to keep vampire pets should identify this ring as soon as possible.

Vampires' huamnoid forms are their strongest by far, with good base AC and access to all armor giving them the potential for high survivability. However, their silver weakness and lack of elemental resistances can easily work against them.

The following information pertains to an upcoming version (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.

Vampires can be fed corpses in animal form to provide them with resistances before using the ring to keep them into their base form.

As a polyform

Both available vampire forms are good for players with polymorph control - they can wear armor and wield non-silver weapons, and their regeneration, flight, breathlessness, and lack of hunger are all unambiguous boons. The vampire lord is a strictly better choice in all respects, with slightly more AC and speed. The vampires' silver weakness is just as much a danger to you as it is to other vampires, however, and you will need to avoid engaging certain monsters such as cockatrices in melee.

History

The base vampire first appears in Hack 1.21, which is based on Jay Fenlason's Hack - in Hack 1.21, PDP-11 Hack and Hack 1.0, the vampire uses the V glyph.

The vampire lord and Vlad the Impaler first appear in NetHack 3.0.0, while the vampire mage's deferred data can be found in the source code as early as NetHack 3.3.0.

In NetHack 3.4.3 and previous versions, including some variants based on those versions, vampires are often used in drain for gain strategies and were thus a prevalent choice for abusing the polyself bug, to the point that they are specifically mentioned in the bug's official description. The "drain for gain" strategy was adjusted in NetHack 3.6.0, and the polyself bug was fixed.

Vampires' shapeshifting abilities are introduced in NetHack 3.6.0; this makes them somewhat better pets in previous versions and some variants, as they will not shapeshift out of any armor you give them. There are two related bugs to this, both fixed in NetHack 3.6.1:

  • Genociding vampires and/or vampire lords causes currently shapeshifted ones to become unkillable, as they cannot return to vampire form properly. This is fixed via commit 757e6f9c.
  • Shapeshifters such as chameleons and other monsters that polymorph into vampires will remain stuck in that form - e.g., shapeshifters will not take on new forms, a monster polymorphed into a vampire will not shift to bat or fog forms, and so on. This is fixed via commit 885de116 and commit 45ba0add.

Messages

For the purpose of these messages, a vampire regards the hero as "kindred" if they are in the form of a vampire, and considers them a "night child" if they are in the form of a wolf, winter wolf or winter wolf cub.

The following five messages occur if you chat to a tame vampire in its humanoid form:

Good evening to you Master!
You are kindred, and it is night.
Good day to you Master. Why do we not rest?
You are kindred, and it is day.
<Child of the night,> I can stand this craving no longer!
It is midnight, with the prefixed message occurring if you are in wolf form.
<Child of the night,> I beg you, help me satisfy this growing craving!
As above during the night, but it is not midnight.
<Child of the night,> I find myself growing a little weary.
As above, but it is day.

These messages occur if you chat to a peaceful vampire:

Good feeding <brother/sister>!
You are kindred, and it is night.
How nice to hear you, child of the night!
You are a night child, and it is night.
I only drink... potions.
You are neither kindred nor a night child, or it is day time.

These messages occur when chatting to a hostile vampire:

This is my hunting ground that you dare to prowl!
You are kindred.
<Young> Fool! Your silver sheen does not frighten me!
You are polymorphed into a silver dragon; "Young" is appended if you are polymorphed into a baby silver dragon.

For chatting to hostile vampires in other forms, one of the two following sets of messages is randomly chosen, with the first set depending on your body parts:

I vant to suck your life force!
You are polymorphed into a sphere or vortex.
I vant to suck your juices!
You are polymorphed into a jelly or fungus.
I vant to suck your blood!
You are in a form that is not any of the above.[16]

Otherwise, their response is one of the following:

I vill come after a <man/woman> without regret!
You are a human. [17]
I vill come after a <race> without regret!
You are polymorphed or naturally non-human.

Variants

Many variants add the vampire as a playable race and enable the deferred vampire mage, often alongside other vampires.

SLASH'EM

Main article: Vampire (starting race in SLASH'EM)

SLASH'EM adds four new vampires added to the monster class:

The vampire mage is implemented from the deferred monster in NetHack, while the fire and star vampires are Lovecraftian aliens rather than undead, though they share many vampiric traits. Count Dracula, meanwhile, is the Undead Slayer quest nemesis and another monster based on the 1897 Bram Stoker novel Dracula.

Vampires are also a starting race - this means that Doppelgangers cannot polymorph into vampires, though they can still polymorph into any other valid monster within the vampire monster class.

Common traits

Most vampires hits monsters as enchanted weapons: base vampires hit as +2, Count Dracula hits as +4, and all other V hit as +3. Base vampires also require a +2 weapon to be hit, while every other vampire except Count Dracula requires a +3 weapon. Tamed vampires are now traitorous and have a change to turn on you, making them possibly perilous choices for pets while at lower levels.

The wooden stake is a dagger-type weapon that does +1d6 damage to any vampire, on top of an additional +2 damage and a 1⁄10 chance of instakilling them if the wielder is an Undead Slayer, has Expert skill in dagger, or is using The Stake of Van Helsing.

Generation

The vampire is the second quest monster class for Undead Slayers, and makes up 6⁄175 of the monsters that are randomly generated on the Undead Slayer quest. Three random vampires are also generated on the goal level of the quest branch at level creation.

Eight random vampires will be generated on the Chaotic Quest at level creation.

The summon undead spell has a 1⁄10 chance of generating a vampire.

Undead vampires are always generated with opera cloaks and either a potion of blood or a potion of vampire blood.[18] This can provide a valuable method of farming them, especially if they are randomized into the cloak of magic resistance - the tradeoff is the vampires in question being harder to dispatch depending on the cloak, particularly vampire mages. Elemental spells are good substitutes for the usual magic missile in such scenarios, especially the acid stream spell.

Vampire diets

Main article: Potion of blood

Player vampires and players polymorphed into vampires cannot eat solid food and have to rely on fresh blood as a food source. SLASH'EM adds the potion of blood and potion of vampire blood as nutritional replacements for vampires: Player vampires receive potions of vampire blood in place of the food other monsters would start with, and can use the draw blood technique to create one by draining one of their levels; undead vampires in the dungeon may generate with either potion. Non-player vampires of any kind will drink non-cursed vampire blood to restore 2-10 HP, and gain nothing from drinking cursed potions. Player vampires gain 20 nutrition from an uncursed potion of blood and 30 from a blessed one; an uncursed potion of vampire blood grants 800 nutrition points (400 if diluted), and a blessed potion additionally increases your HP and max HP by the same amount as a level gain.

A non-vampire player that attempts to drink a potion of blood will be given 10d8 (more) turns of nausea - a non-vampire drinking vampire blood will instead polymorph into a vampire and suffer a −3 alignment penalty if neutral, while lawfuls and Monks take a −15 alignment penalty and anger their god. The polymorph is "semi-permanent" and will last until your HP is reduced to 0.

All vampires may derive nutrition from combat using their bite attack, and can drain blood from corpses: after existing for a few turns, a corpse's blood will "coagulate", rendering it useless as a nutrition source for draining. While blood consumed in this manner provides a very small nutritional value, drained corpses are still eligible for sacrifice, reducing the need to weigh staying full versus sacrificing. As vampire heroes are human undead, the usual penalties apply for draining other humans, as well as dogs and cats.

UnNetHack

Main article: Vampire (starting race in UnNetHack)

As with SLASH'EM, UnNetHack also adds the vampire as a starting race, and randomly generated vampires are also often generated with opera cloaks. The same conditions for player and polyself vampires apply as in SLASH'EM, as do the conditions for vampires generating with potions of blood.

A non-vampire drinking vampire blood will polymorph into a vampiric monster depending on the potion's beatitude - blessed potions will polymorph them into a vampire lord; an uncursed potion will turn them into a vampire, as in SLASH'EM; and a cursed potion will morph them into a vampire bat. The same penalties for non-chaotic characters apply.

dNetHack

Main article: Vampire (starting race in dNetHack)

dNetHack adds some new monsters to the monster class:

Vampires are also a starting race in dNetHack, with similar restrictions on their ability to obtain nutrition as SLASH'EM and UnNetHack, though they can gain intrinsics from potions of blood. Pet vampires will drain corpses and quaff blood for nutrition the same way a vampire hero does, with similar conditions (i.e. corpses must be less than 3 turns of age and have blood).

Vampires appear among the undead that make up 1⁄7 of randomly-generated monsters on the Anachrononaut quest: 3⁄4 of those undead monsters will be from the vampire monster class.

EvilHack

EvilHack adds some new monsters to the monster class:

SlashTHEM

In addition to SLASH'EM details, SlashTHEM adds the following vampires:

None of the new vampires that can be tamed are capable of treachery.

References

  1. ↑ include/monsym.h in NetHack 3.6.7, line 62
  2. ↑ src/monst.c in NetHack 3.6.7, line 1843
  3. ↑ src/mon.c in NetHack 3.6.7, line 3385
  4. ↑ src/mon.c in NetHack 3.6.7, line 3379
  5. ↑ src/mon.c in NetHack 3.6.7, line 3340
  6. ↑ src/mon.c in NetHack 3.6.7, line 3327
  7. ↑ src/mon.c in NetHack 3.6.7, line 3849
  8. ↑ src/mon.c in NetHack 3.6.7, line 2190: if (!vamp_stone(mdef)) is used to exclude shifted vampires from instant death by stoning
  9. ↑ src/mon.c in NetHack 3.6.7, line 3375: If he does not have the Candelabrum, Vlad falls through to the vampire lord case
  10. ↑ src/monmove.c in NetHack 3.6.7, line 154
  11. ↑ src/mon.c in NetHack 3.6.7, line 147: Converting monster index of undead to corpses of their living counterparts
  12. ↑ src/mon.c in NetHack 3.6.7, line 171: undead_to_corpse case for vampire monsters
  13. ↑ src/mon.c in NetHack 3.6.7, line 351: Undead corpses and their ages are handled with other "special" death drops
  14. ↑ src/end.c in NetHack 3.6.7, line 517
  15. ↑ src/end.c in NetHack 3.6.7, line 517
  16. ↑ This quote comes from the 1994 film Ed Wood, but is commonly mis-attributed to Bela Lugosi's titular character in the 1931 Dracula.
  17. ↑ This "famous vampire quote" appears to be an oblique allusion to the 1994 film Interview with the Vampire: The Vampire Chronicles, as determined by this RGRN discussion regarding Vlad.
  18. ↑ makemon.c in SLASH'EM 0.0.7E7F2, line 1148: A comment just below reads "Star and fire vampires don't get this stuff"
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