The Demogorgon FAQ

By Kate Nepveu
Version 1.11; created May 10, 2001; last updated April 10, 2002 for 3.4.0.

What's Demogorgon?

A very scary demon prince (purple &), widely considered to be the most scary.

Ask the game (/), and it will tell you,

"Demogorgon, the prince of demons, wallows in filth and can spread a quickly fatal illness to his victims while rending them. He is a mighty spellcaster, and he can drain the life of mortals with a touch of his tail."

Why's he scary?

Let's count the reasons.

As that description suggests, he does four things every turn he attacks: a spell attack, a sting attack that can drain levels from you, and two--count 'em, two--sickness attacks. The sickness attacks are the worst part; by the time you meet Demogorgon you should be equipped to deal with the first two (with magic resistance and magic cancellation, respectively. If you don't know what those are, consult drgn-341.html and armr-341.html.).
How bad are the sickness attacks? In 3.3.1, they were very bad: if Demogorgon got in one round, you didn't cure it, and then he got in another (two each round, for four total), you only had one more turn to live (technically, the end of the current turn, in which you might not have a chance to move, and then the next turn).

In 3.4.0, if the first disease attack is successful, then the second turns into a stun attack, which makes him slightly less scary.
He's fast. (He can also fly and see invisible, and is fire, poison, and level-drain resistant, though these aren't as scary.)
He will teleport to the up stairs to heal up, and then teleport back to you. He will also follow you if he's next to you when you change levels (by stairs or level teleport). This, of course, is typical behavior for big baddies, but still...
He has a base armor class of -8 and an effective magic resistance of 100%. Oh, and his base MONSTR, which approximates how tough an opponent he is, is 57; for comparison, Orcus is 36, Archons are 26, and the endgame Riders, including Pestilence, are 34.

Demogorgon, in vanilla NetHack, is neither randomly generated nor guaranteed: he has to be summoned. (He has his own lair in SLASH'EM.) There are, fortunately, limitations on who can summon him. (Warning: fractions ahead!)

Most chaotic demons have a chance of summoning another chaotic demon each move. (It's safe to play with balrogs, succubi, and incubi for as long as you like, in this regard, anyway.) Note that a demon that's already been created (such as by visiting its lair) can't be summoned.
- Orcus has a 1/260 chance of summoning Demogorgon. Orcus can also summon Juiblex or Yeenoghu (approximately 1/52 chance).
- Juiblex and Yeenoghu have a 1/650 chance of directly summoning Demogorgon or Orcus. They also have about a 1/260 chance of summoning the other.
- Mariliths, vrocks, hezrous, bone devils, nalfeshnees, pit fiends, and water demons cannot directly summon Demogorgon. However, they have a 1/260 chance of summoning Juiblex or Yeenoghu.
Obviously, the longer you hang around any of these guys, the higher your chances of seeing Demogorgon.
Spellcasting monsters of high enough level can cast "summon nasties." In Gehennom only, there is a 1/200 chance that this tries to gate in a demon prince instead. However, either lawful (Geryon, Dispater, Baalzebub, or Asmodeus) or chaotic demon princes (Orcus, Demogorgon) may be summoned by this method. In 3.4.0, you will receive the message "A monster appears from nowhere!" or similar, to let you know that a spell's in action.
Of the named demons, Orcus and Dispater (as well as Demogorgon itself) are spellcasters. In addition, the Wizard of Yendor (of course), master liches, arch-liches, titans, etc., are usually high enough experience level (monster level 16) to cast "summon nasties," but even golden naga or nalfeshnees could cast it (and have) if experienced enough.

Also, after you kill the Wizard of Yendor, sometimes he won't deign to reappear, but will just send some friends. This effect is treated the same way as the "summon nasties" spell, except that there will be no message in 3.4.0.

The real question: How can I survive him?

Be very fast.

It won't matter if you can kill Demogorgon if you die of your illness anyway, so you must be fast enough to keep ahead of your illness. Preferably, this means being very fast: wear speed boots, quaff a potion of speed, or cast "haste self." Demogorgon's speed is roughly equivalent to "fast" (being zapped with a wand of speed monster); he gets five moves every four turns. What's more, he can cast "haste self," bringing him to five moves every three turns. You must also be unburdened, since being burdened slows you down. Drop those bags!

Be able to cure sickness.

The only way to get sickness resistance as an intrinsic is to polymorph into a ghoul or any F. However, since this will give you terrible hit points and you can only wear limited (if any) armor, it's not a good idea. Sorry.

Guaranteed means of curing sickness:

Non-cursed potions of extra or full healing, or blessed potions of healing.
Holy water, if non-chaotic and not polymorphed into an undead monster or a demon.
The spell "cure sickness" at 0% failure rate (not the spells of healing or extra healing, even though they have the same name as the potions...).
#invoking the Staff of Aesculapius, the Healer Quest Artifact; however, like any other artifact, you can only invoke it every so often (very roughly, every few hundred turns). Save it for an emergency.
If not in Gehennom, and if it's safe to pray (see the praying spoiler for details), prayer. (Of course, one will only rarely see Demogorgon outside of Gehennom--a bones level where someone had summoned Juiblex by human sacrifice, say.) This suggests that one goal might be to leave Gehennom as quickly as possible...

Non-guaranteed means:

The spell "cure sickness" at anything other than 0% failure rate (duh).
A non-cursed, and preferably blessed, unicorn horn. If sickness is your only trouble, a blessed horn has a 77.3% chance of fixing it; an uncursed horn will fix it 64.6% of the time.
Eucalyptus leaves. Not recommended, since like any food, there's a chance they're rotten and eating them will knock you out, which would be Bad.

Be able to attack.

So you can take care of your sickness; then what? Well, don't bother with polymorph, sleep, taming, or confusion: none of these will work, period, because he has an effective magic resistance of 100%. He's also immune to death rays.

If Demogorgon is right next to you and you need to buy yourself a moment--to heal up, put on that amulet of life saving, level-teleport/use the stairs to get the heck out of there, whatever--here are some options (if he's not right next to you, see "escape" below):

Teleport away him or yourself (yes, he'll teleport to you; I only said a moment);
Wield a potion of paralysis and hit him with it, but only if you are wearing a ring of free action;
Use conflict (not guaranteed);
Engrave Elbereth, which Demogorgon will respect (or drop a scroll of scare monster). More on exploiting that below.

In terms of magic, Demogorgon will resist everything you throw at him. When an attack spell is resisted, it only does half damage; if you are casting the spell at a high enough level, though, it'll probably still be effective eventually. Note that magic missile and cone of cold are the only useful attack spells against Demogorgon. Try to bounce magic missiles if you can (off a wall, or off yourself if you have reflection) for multiple hits. If you are skilled or expert in attack spells, cone of cold is a particularly good idea: it does double damage against fire-resistant monsters, and thus will still do normal damage against Demogorgon when his resistance is factored in.

It is possible to simply beat Demogorgon to death, if you have enough means of curing sickness (or if he can't make you sick--see Elbereth, below)--people have done it with Magicbane, even. As with other demons, silver does extra damage against Demogorgon, making #twoweaponing with a silver saber (or silver dagger) a popular choice. Grayswandir, Frost Brand, and Demonbane are your best options among artifact weapons (note that Demogorgon is fire resistant); also consider Vorpal Blade for the possibility of an instant kill. The Tsurugi of Muramasa will not bisect Demogorgon; he's too large. Instead, on turns that you would have bisected a smaller monster, "You slice deeply into Demogorgon!", doubling your damage. See art2-341.html's table of damage, including average damage against major demons, for more information.

If you don't have faith in your ability to pound him to death, the most popular method of getting rid of Demogorgon is probably stoning:

Acquire a cockatrice or chickatrice corpse (wish for one, kill one around you) and wield it--watch out for pits!
Prepare ahead of time by polymorphing yourself in a female cockatrice, laying a bunch of eggs, and keeping them in a container until they stack when you take them out; this indicates that they will no longer hatch. Then, lob at Demogorgon (or anything else you need to stone) as necessary. (Note you have a 10% chance of changing sex when polymorphing into a monster, assuming that the monster has two sexes.)
Use conflict. Cockatrices (and black dragons, see below) are among the monsters that can be brought in by "summon nasties," thus potentially making Demogorgon the source of his own demise.
If you've managed to drive Demogorgon to the next level (hit him enough times and he will escape upstairs to heal), you could produce cockatrice eggs as above--he won't come back to the level while you're doing this. However, if you've managed to drive him upstairs, you may be close enough to killing him that you could just get out those last potions of healing and go pound on him some more. (Bring him back downstairs with you first; see below.)
A more direct but less wise option is to polymorph yourself in a cockatrice; Demogorgon doesn't wear armor, so his sting attack will petrify himself. The author has done this, and gained some small notoriety for succeeding, but she was lucky. Cockatrices can't wear armor, and are therefore vulnerable to Demogorgon's initial spell attack, and they have very poor hit points. It's possible that Demogorgon's initial spell attack would reduce your polymorphed self's hit points to zero, returning you to your normal form, naked and vulnerable... So, unfortunately, while it was immensely satisfying to see "Demogorgon stings! Demogorgon turns to stone!", I can't really recommend it.

If you really want to polymorph into something, consider using #monster as a black dragon to disintegrate Demogorgon. I think this would be pretty satisfying, too. :-)

Other methods exploit Demogorgon's desire, like other monsters, to teleport onto the up stairs. If you can stand on the up stairs--by teleporting within the level, driving him upstairs to heal, or just being a step faster--he will have nowhere to teleport on that level, and thus will stay next to you. If you drive him to the next level up, you will of course have to go upstairs and then back down when he's next to you. There is a chance that you will not end up on the up stairs if this happens. Either try to lure him away and then beat him back to the stairs, or see the first suggestion:

Engrave Elbereth or drop a scroll of scare monster; if he's still on the level, use only a non-cursed athame or a wand of fire, lightning, or digging; anything else will take too long or not last long enough. If you have to go upstairs to get Demogorgon, drop something on the stairs before you do. That way, if Demogorgon is initially on the stairs when you come back down, he may move off more quickly (there are some oddities about teleporting monsters); at the very least, all the Elbereth-respecting critters around the stairs will stay out of your way. (See the Elbereth FAQ for further information.)
Once you're on the up stairs with Elbereth inscribed, you can pound on Demogorgon freely while he can only cast spells at you from the next square. Note that this means he cannot make you sick!
If you can't safely engrave Elbereth (writing in the dust is NOT safe), one creative solution is to make a fort with a non-cursed scroll of earth. Read it while on the up stairs and you'll be surrounded by boulders; Demogorgon won't be able to touch you. You can then take him out at your leisure with ranged attacks.
A less-desirable alternative would be to create a living fort, by whistling in your pets if you have them, reading a scroll of create monster while confused (surrounding yourself with acid blobs) or, much more risky, a cursed scroll (surrounding yourself with non-acid blobs...). It will be harder for you to attack Demogorgon this way (especially since you'd kill your protective fort, which might be your pets!), but it's an option if you need to rest, regain spell points, etc.
If you're casting cone of cold against Demogorgon, and if you have a scroll of genocide to burn, a creative variant on the fort is a fort of blue jellies, via reverse genocide. This way you won't kill your protective wall. However, this is a bit risky since you might not get enough jellies to surround you--the scroll sends in four to six.

Finally, if all else fails and you manage to get a step away from Demogorgon, escape! (See the start of this section for ways of getting a step away.) Once you're on a different level, you can prepare and then come back and face Demogorgon on your own terms. It is not advisable to leave him behind you.

If you don't have the Amulet of Yendor, level-teleport by
- reading a cursed scroll of teleportation (or a non-cursed scroll while confused, but you might not have time for that); or,
- #invoking the Orb of Fate or the Eye of the Aethiopica;
Quaff a cursed potion of gain level (this doesn't work if you're in Fort Ludios or at the top of Sokoban, the Quest, or Vlad's Tower--but it does work if you're carrying the Amulet); or
Zap a wand of digging downward, if the floor's diggable.

If you can pick the place you confront Demogorgon, you might consider deliberately placing yourself near a hole, trapdoor, or level-teleport trap (if you don't have the Amulet or magic resistance), though beware that he might use the same means of escape to get away from you.

Be creative.

Much of the above can be combined to good effect. Probably the key thing is making enough time to take stock of your equipment and come up with a plan. The moral of the story: always have a means of engraving Elbereth and a means of curing sickness on hand.

Good luck!

Credits

J. Ali Harlow supplied the Monster Manual;
Eva R. Myers wrote a (nearly concurrent) SLASH'EM spoiler on Demogorgon that supplied paralysis and disintegration;
Jason Short, Dylan O'Donnell, James Killmond, Brave Ulysses, David Goldfarb, Pat Rankin, and Shaman all supplied valuable additions, corrections, and clarifications;
And of course, rec.games.roguelike.nethack supplied the inspiration, the nitpicking, and the feedback.

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