Draft:Necromancer

Omega 0.90.4

n Necromancer
Form	Ordinary creature
Attacks	1 physical attack, raw 0–9; 3 defenses
Special abilities	Twelve spell choices; court variants
Base level	5
HP	50
Hit	12
Defense	13
Action interval	5 ticks; lower is faster
Kill experience	205, when death is in sight
Generation	Ordinary and special encounters
Carried items	Scroll of spells; 0–3 extra random items
Immunities	Fire, cold, electricity
Remains	Dead necromancer; 50% on normal death
Remains use	Inedible; no alchemy
Traits Initially hostile Retreats while moving
Reference	minit.h in Omega 0.90.4, line 175

A necromancer is a hostile spellcaster that retreats and uses a broad random repertoire, including item destruction. Its ordinary ability does not raise corpses or summon an undead entourage.

Generation

Necromancers belong to ordinary random-monster pools and the dedicated population branch of the Archmage's Castle at difficulty five. Each ordinary necromancer carries a neutral +0 scroll of spells and zero through three random possessions. Its own spellcasting is independent of that scroll.

Fixed necromancers also occupy the Circle and Archmage's court. Court occupants start peaceful, and Circle membership normally pacifies those placed in the Circle. Their initial special action can trigger a coordinated storm of spells if provoked: it angers the whole level and immediately invokes each occupant's spell routine, then replaces the court-retaliation actions with ordinary spellcasting.

Spell repertoire

The ordinary level-5 necromancer has the first twelve choices in random monster spellcasting. In addition to the shaman's elemental and status spells, it can fire a 0–49 raw fire-damage bolt or destroy one object from a random carried slot. Its recovery adds 0–24 HP without an original-HP cap, its poison adds five counts, and its sleep adds 2–5 counts to a player who can fall asleep.

It cannot select the higher-level dispel, disruption, level-drain or disintegration spells from that routine. All its random casts require hostility and line of sight and allow the general magic-resistance check first. This can even prevent its recovery choice.

Combat and remains

The necromancer normally retreats, but can make one physical attack when adjacent, with raw damage 0–9 and three defensive actions. It is immune to fire, cold and electricity, but not ordinary physical damage, poison or sleep. It has no ordinary food or valuable-gift pacification response.

Normal death drops its possessions and has a 50% chance of leaving a corpse. The dead necromancer is inedible and has no alchemical transformation. Its scroll is an ordinary carried item, not a corpse product.

Strategy

Use physical attacks or another applicable method rather than fire, cold or electricity. Avoid giving it a long series of spell attempts while chasing: even a character protected against elemental damage can lose a valuable carried object. Break line of sight to stop its usual casts, and consider disabling it before closing. Its three defenses make an ordinary melee exchange slower than its single attack suggests.

Do not provoke a peaceful court necromancer for its scroll unless prepared for the whole court's response. The value of one scroll rarely describes the risk of facing the surrounding high-level casters together.