Cannibalism

In NetHack, cannibalism is the act of a hero or monster eating another monster of their own race.

Description

A hero that eats a corpse, tin or egg of the same species as them–including their current form if they are polymorphed–will gain the aggravate monster intrinsic and lose 2–5 points of luck. This includes eating brains using the mind flayer or master mind flayer's intelligence drain attack. Contracting lycanthropy will further extend the cannibalism restriction to monsters that the hero or a werecreature of the same type can summon, even if they are currently in normal form, but does not to lycanthropes of that same type.

A hero that is an orc or a Caveperson is exempt from penalties altogether. A hero that polymorphs into a monster with a digestion attack does not incur cannibalism penalties when using that attack.

Pets

Tame monsters have somewhat similar restrictions around which corpses they will choose to eat:

• Humanoid pets will generally avoid cannibalism unless they are starving.
• Elven pets will not commit cannibalism even if they are starving.
• Undead pets that are capable of eating will not avoid cannibalism, nor will orcs, kobolds, and ogres.

Pets that do commit cannibalism suffer no ill effects, even if they would normally avoid it.

Strategy

Cannibalism is generally a bad idea: while the aggravate monster intrinsic can be dealt with, the Luck penalty will take significant time to recover from, and eating corpses from your own race is avoidable enough that it is mostly not worth considering. Dwarves and gnomes can readily identify members of their race via glyph and/or monster name, as can elves; human characters will have some slight difficulty due to sharing a glyph (@) with elves. Anything represented by an @ that isn't obviously an elf is human—this includes werecreatures and doppelgangers, but not Medusa (who should not be eaten regardless, lest you turn to stone). The Keystone Kops (represented by a K) are also humans, and are the only non-undead human monsters that use a different glyph.

Early in the game, committing cannibalism by eating a tainted corpse can be a death sentence: the corpse will inflict you with fatal food poisoning, and the luck penalty will prevent you from successfully praying to cure it. This is most common for dwarves and gnomes, who encounter zombies of their own race quite early. Similarly, eating early lycanthrope corpses as a human will leave you with lycanthropy that cannot immediately be cured by praying.

Heroes that are human and not Cavepeople should only use blessed tins of nurse meat to fully restore their HP in emergencies, where being a live cannibal is preferable and easier to recover from than dying with a "clean" conscience.

Messages

You cannibal! You will regret this!

You committed cannibalism.

You have a bad feeling deep inside.

Prepended to the above if you are polymorphed.

Ulch - that meat was tainted, you cannibal!

You committed cannibalism while eating a rotted corpse.

Variants

SLASH'EM

In SLASH'EM, heroes that are orcs, vampires, lycanthropes, or Cavepeople are exempt from normal cannibalism penalties. Cavepeople gain a +1 alignment bonus for eating tins and corpses of the same races as them if they are lawful (or a -1 penalty if they are chaotic), while orcish, vampiric and lycanthropic heroes in their base forms gain a +1 alignment bonus for cannibalism if they are chaotic (or a -1 penalty if they are lawful).

Pets in SLASH'EM will only refuse to eat the corpses of monsters represented by the same letter as themselves unless they are starving, but will feed on other corpses that are edible for them regardless of if they are the same race or not. This can lead to some amusing results, e.g. a tamed human monster gladly eating a Keystone Kop corpse.

Of the new monsters added in SLASH'EM, drow are a race of elves, while the extremely rare duergar is a race of dwarf, and gibberlings and grimlocks are races of humans. Oddly, none of the additions to the gnome monster class that are explicitly not gnolls are considered to be gnomes themselves: this means that gnomish heroes can eat the corpses and tins of gnome thieves, deep gnomes, gnome warriors, and even Ruggo the Gnome King without penalty (though tamed gnomes will not do so, as explained above).

Messages

You honour the dead.

You ate a monster of your race as a Caveperson.

You feel evil and fiendish!

You ate a monster of your race as a vampire, lycanthrope, or orc.

dNetHack

In dNetHack, notdNetHack and notnotdNetHack, a hero of a non-cannibalistic race or role that has a high alignment record will have a wisdom-based chance of being warned if they are about to eat a corpse or tin of the same race as them.

Messages

You feel a deep sense of kinship to the <corpse/tin>! Eat anyway?

This prompt may appear if you are non-cannibalistic and about to eat the corpse or tin of a monster of your race.