Cockatrice spoiler

"Behold the cockatrice, whose diminutive stature belies its hidden might. The cockatrice can petrify any ordinary being it contacts--save those wise adventurers who eat a dead lizard or blob of acid when they feel themselves slowly turning to stone."

This spoiler lists the ways a cockatrice can kill you, and what you can do about it. (Except where otherwise stated, "cockatrice" refers to both cockatrices and chickatrices, the baby form of cockatrices.)

Contents

• I. Ways to be petrified by a cockatrice corpse
• II. Ways to be petrified by a live cockatrice
• III. Other cockatrice-related ways to be petrified
• IV. Stoning Resistance
• V. Miscellaneous cockatrice information
  • Delayed deaths
• VI. Other ways to die
• VII. Monsters able to wield cockatrice corpses
• VIII. Acknowledgements

I. Ways to be petrified by a cockatrice corpse:

(All methods are instantly fatal and assume you are not stoning-resistant, unless noted)

Wearing an amulet of life saving will save you if you are petrified.

• Always be wary of monsters picking up cockatrice corpses. For monsters that can wield cockatrice corpses, see section VII.

• Gaining the 'food appraisal' intrinsic warns you before eating dangerous food, including food that will petrify you. ('This smells like it could be something very dangerous!') It is gained by reading a blessed scroll of food detection, or casting 'detect food' at skilled or expert in divination spells. It lasts for one warning.
• Keep food (especially cockatrice corpses) out of slot 'y': this will help avoid accidentally eating something you shouldn't.

Without wearing gloves:

(3) Pick it up

• If you are polymorphed into a creature without hands than can pick up objects, you will also be stoned.

(4) Put it into or take it out of a container
(5) Try to throw or fire it
(6) Wield it
(7) Snag it (with a bullwhip or grappling hook)
(8) Steal it (e.g., polymorphed into a nymph)
(9) Sacrifice it (yes, even if it's on the altar)
(10) Tin it

• To prevent these, wear gloves (obviously). Creatures without hands cannot perform these actions, except 5 and 9.

Without wearing gloves, and while blind:

(11) Step (or teleport) onto the square containing it
(12) Cease levitating over it
(13) Look ':' at the square containing it
(14) Get expelled from an engulfing monster on a square containing it

• Again, wearing gloves will prevent these deaths.
• If you're wearing the Eyes of the Overworld, the astral vision effect overrides blindness.

Without wearing a helmet:

(15) Throw it upwards

• So don't do that.

Without wearing boots:

(16) Kick it

• Or that.

Wearing gloves and wielding the corpse:

(17) Go down stairs while burdened or worse
(18) Go down stairs while fumbling (boots or gloves)
(19) Go down stairs while punished

• It's not a good idea to go downstairs wielding the corpse. If you're flying, however, you won't fall and won't get petrified.

(20) Fall down a pit, hole or trapdoor
(21) Fall into a chasm (pit) created by a drum of earthquake
(22) Fall into a pit created by stepping on a land mine

• If you're flying or levitating, you can pass over these without falling in (except in Sokoban).
• Flying won't stop you triggering the land mine, but it will prevent you falling into the pit.
• Jumping down a hole or trapdoor while flying *will* stone you.

(23) Fall onto a sink while levitating
(24) Lose your gloves to disintegration by a scroll of destroy armor
(25) Lose your gloves to overenchantment (or underenchantment) by a scroll of enchant armor

• If the enchantment on the gloves is +4 or higher, reading a non-cursed scroll of enchant armor may destroy them.
  If the enchantment is -4 or lower, reading a cursed scroll may do the same.

(26) Lose your gloves to the monster spell Destroy Armor

• Magic resistance protects you from magical attacks.

(27) Take off your gloves
(28) Taking off your gloves to dip them in a potion of polymorph

• Another unwise move.

(29) Have your gloves taken off by an incubus or succubus

• You have a Charisma-in-20 chance of stopping a foocubus from removing an item of armour. Canceling them stops their seduction attacks altogether.
• Nymphs and monkeys can't steal your gloves if you're holding a weapon - they'll try to take your weapon first.

Without wearing gloves and wielding the corpse, while stoning-resistant:

(30) Change to a non-stoning-resistant form

• Polymorph control or unchanging can prevent this.
• Note that reaching zero HP while polymorphed will change you to your normal form if you don't have unchanging, and kill you if you do.

II. Ways to be petrified by a live cockatrice:

(31) Attack (strike, touch or claw) it with bare, ungloved hands
(32) Attack it with ungloved hands, wielding a potion
(33) Kick it without wearing boots (as a monster attack or as a command)
(34) Bite or sting it (monster attack)
(35) Headbutt it without wearing a helmet (monster attack)
(36) Hug it without gloves and a cloak (monster attack)
(37) Suck its brain with tentacles (as mind flayer or master mind flayer)
(38) Swallow it whole (as trapper, lurker above, or purple worm)

• If you have no weapon or gloves, or are polymorphed into a form which has an unusual attack (33 to 38), cockatrices should not be directly attacked: attack them with ranged weapons or spells.
• If you suck a cockatrice's brain, you turn to stone. If your life is saved, you still suffer the delayed death stoning effects.
• Minotaurs are the only headbutters capable of wearing helmets (and even then, only cloth and leather hats).
• Salamanders are the only huggers capable of wearing both gloves and a cloak.

(39) Without gloves, attempt to saddle it
(40) Without gloves, attempt to untrap it from a pit

• More rather strange things to do with a cockatrice...

(41) Hear its hissing (delayed death)

• A cockatrice will hiss on one-third of successful touch attacks. A cockatrice's hissing normally has a 10% chance of beginning the stiffening process. If it's a new moon, and you aren't carrying a lizard corpse in your main inventory, the chance is 100%. You'll be told when you start or restore the game if it is new moon.
• Cancelling a cockatrice prevents it from hissing.
• Magic cancellation from armor does NOT prevent the hissing turning you to stone.

(42) Get reduced to zero HP by its attacks

• This turns you into a statue. The petrification occurs after you die.

III. Other cockatrice-related ways to be petrified:

(43) Eat a tin of cockatrice meat (see 2)
(44) Eat a cockatrice egg (delayed death - see also 2)
(45) Get hit by a thrown cockatrice egg
(46) Without a helmet, throw a cockatrice egg in the air
(47) Without gloves, smash a potion of polymorph over a monster, turning it into a cockatrice

You become stoning-resistant by polymorphing into:

• acid blob or gelatinous cube
• chickatrice or cockatrice
• gargoyle or winged gargoyle
• spotted or ochre jelly
• baby yellow dragon or yellow dragon
• air, earth, fire or water elemental
• green mold
• black naga hatchling or black naga
• wraith
• xorn
• skeleton
• stone golem
• lizard
• any of vyP

Note: getting petrified as a golem turns you into a stone golem, unless they've been extincted.

Of the above forms, only gargoyles (not winged gargoyles), wraiths and skeletons can wear all types of armor.

Other stoning-resistant creatures:

• ghosts and shades
• djinn, sandestins
• Medusa
• Juiblex
• Death, Famine and Pestilence
• all Quest Nemeses

V. Miscellaneous cockatrice information:

• When you begin turning to stone, the message is "You are slowing down."
• You'll have at least one turn to prevent the stiffening. If you're burdened, however, this may not translate to having at least one *move* (especially if you're being hit repeatedly by a cockatrice corpse).
• When the stiffening starts, you lose intrinsic speed.
• The stiffening can be stopped by:
  • eating lizard meat (even if tinned, assuming you can open the tin in time...)
  • eating an acidic corpse or tin of an acidic monster (the tin won't be acidic, but will still cure you)
  • quaffing a potion of acid (note that eating an acidic corpse or quaffing acid will deal up to 15 HP damage)
  • casting stone-to-flesh on yourself (this will turn stone items in your inventory to meat)
  • praying for divine help (whenever you can safely do so)
  • polymorphing into your own race (i.e. your natural form)
  • polymorphing into a stoning-resistant monster (see section IV)
• Note that being attacked will stop you from opening even blessed tins.
• If your life is saved from some other problem, you will still be turning to stone.

Bones files and statues:

When you are petrified, you become a statue. If a bones file is created on death, it will contain your statue, the statue containing all your inventory. Your inventory suffers the usual chance of becoming cursed. No ghost will be created.

Fun with rubber chickens:

As you would have guessed, cockatrice corpses are potent weapons. Hitting a monster with it will stone it, unless it is stoning resistant or immediately eats lizard meat or something acidic.

If you stone a monster while it has engulfed you, you "jump through an opening in the new statue" of the monster.

Corpse generation:

Chickatrices leave corpses 25% of the time, cockatrices 50% of the time. They're subject to the same rotting as most corpses. You won't be able to wish for a corpse if they've been genocided.

Cockatrice eggs:

Cockatrice eggs can be used to stone monsters (see 45). If you wield one, you'll (better) hit your target. If you throw it, you may miss. You should only wield one at a time - if you hit, all the eggs you wield will break. If you laid the egg yourself, there is a -1 penalty to luck for breaking it.

You can lay cockatrice eggs by polymorphing into a female (adult) cockatrice and using the #sit command. Cockatrice eggs may also be randomly generated on any level that cockatrices can be. Chickatrices will hatch from cockatrice eggs, if they haven't been genocided. Cockatrice eggs can still be wished for, even after genociding or extincting cockatrices/chickatrices. They will still stone, but they won't hatch.

Cockatrice generation:

Chickatrices are 'very rare' monsters, with difficulty 7. They have a 1/2 chance of being generated in small (2 to 4) groups. Cockatrices are 'common' monsters, with difficulty 8.

Cockatrices (but not chickatrices) may be summoned as part of the Summon Nasties monster spell. They may be summoned even if 120 have already be generated (i.e. they are considered to be 'extinct'.)

Cockatrice nests may be generated in rooms on dungeon level 17 or lower. The room will be filled with sleeping cockatrices (not chickatrices). The nests do not respect extinction.

Genociding class 'c' wipes out all chickatrices, cockatrices, and pyrolisks. This will prevent them being generated by any means.

VI. Other ways to die:

• Choke on a cockatrice egg (Eggs have 80 nutrition)
• Get reduced to zero HP by:
  • While wearing a helmet, throwing a cockatrice corpse in the air
  • Throwing a tin, figurine or statue in the air
  • While wearing boots, kicking a cockatrice corpse against the wall
  • Kicking a tin, figurine or statue against the wall
  • Eating a rotten corpse (cadaver)

While in a stoning-resistant form and wearing an amulet of unchanging:

• Getting hit by a monster wielding the corpse (1 HP damage per hit)
• Throwing the corpse in the air

While in a stoning-resistant, breathing form:

• Choke on a cockatrice corpse or tin of cockatrice meat

While in a stoning-resistant form other than a green mold:

• Get food poisoning from a tainted corpse

VII. Monsters able to wield cockatrice corpses:

• all hkoCGHKOT, except:
  • kobold shamans, orc shamans, gnomish wizards, minotaurs, Cyclops, Lord Surtur
• all @ except:
  • nurses, Oracle, Wizard of Yendor, monks, Grand Master, Thoth Amon, Master Kaen, Master Assassin, Ashikaga Takauji, Dark One, abbots
• Aleaxes, Angels, Archons, salamanders, skeletons, iron golems
• water demons, horned devils, mariliths, bone devils, pit fiends, balrogs, djinn, sandestins

VIII. Acknowledgements:

Contributions and corrections from Jon Champion, Dayv!, Andreas Dorn, Wes Irby, Jorge, Lars Kecke, Arien Malec, nyra, Dylan O'Donnell, Quietust, Rast, Haakon Studebaker and others on r.g.r.n.

References:

Dylan O'Donnell's spoilers
Trevor Powell's insta-death spoiler
Ray Chason's Incubus and Succubus spoiler
Hojita Discordia's Extinctionist FAQ