👉 A runeword is a word engraved on the floor that scares monsters away from you or keeps them from taking the items on its square.
GnollHack has three runewords:
- Elbereth scares most hostile monsters and keeps them from attacking you. It works outside Gehennom and the Endgame.
- Gilthoniel keeps monsters from picking up the items on its square outside Gehennom.
- Morgoth does the same inside Gehennom.
📝 How to Engrave
Use Engrave (Shift+e), then press - to write with your fingers or the inventory letter of the tool you want to use, such as a wand or a weapon. Fingers write in the dust, or in blood if you are a demon or vampire. Type the word exactly as it is spelled, for example Elbereth, and press Enter.
If you engrave Elbereth often, set Quick Engrave Text to Elbereth and Quick Engrave Style to "Always finger" in the game options. Engrave quick (Alt+Shift+e) then writes it without any prompts.
Engraving Speed
| Engraving Speed | Extra Turns Required | Engraving Methods / Tools |
|---|---|---|
| Fast | 1 extra turn per 10 characters: none for Elbereth and Morgoth, 1 for Gilthoniel
|
Writing in dust (fingers), writing in blood, using a magic marker, a wand of fire, a wand of lightning, or carving with an uncursed athame. |
| Slow | 1 extra turn per character (e.g., 8 turns for "Elbereth") | Carving with standard weapons, rings, or Gems and Stones. |
⚠️ Warning: Carving "Elbereth" slowly takes 9 turns in all, the action turn plus 8 extra turns. Hostile monsters nearby get those turns to attack you while you cannot act.
🧹 Erosion and Smudging
How easily fighting, walking or monsters smudge an engraving depends on how it was written:
| Permanence | Engraving Methods / Tools | Smudging Mechanics |
|---|---|---|
| Soft (Dust / Blood) | Writing in dust (fingers), or writing in blood (when using fingers in demon or vampire form). | Each physical action erodes the number of characters listed in the next table. When you write, each character also has a 4% (1 in 25) chance to come out scrambled. |
| Hard (Carved / Ink) | Standard weapons, rings, Gems and Stones, an athame, or a magic marker. | A physical action has only a small chance, around 5% to 10%, to erode a character, and never more than one. |
| Burned | A wand of fire or wand of lightning. | Physical actions and monster movement never smudge it, unless it is burned into ice. |
Erosion by Actions
These actions erode a soft engraving on their square by the number of characters shown. The engraving is gone once every character has been erased.
| Action / Event | Base Characters Eroded (For Soft Engravings) |
|---|---|
| Melee attacking a monster | 3 characters |
| Digging downwards | 3 characters |
| Kicking | 2 characters |
| Throwing items or shooting ranged weapons | 2 characters |
| Whipping with a bullwhip | 1 to 2 characters |
| Thrusting or attacking with a polearm | 2 characters |
| Struggling out of webs or traps | 1 to 3 characters |
| Walking, jumping, or sliding over the square | 1 to 5 characters |
| Monster stepping onto the square | 1 character |
Your actions and monsters walking over the square never smudge Gilthoniel or Morgoth, however they were written.
🔮 Elbereth
While you stand on an Elbereth engraving, most hostile monsters will not attack you in melee. A monster that tries to step onto your square or attack you is frightened and flees for a random number of turns. The engraving does nothing while you are not standing on it.
The engraving must be the word and nothing else, with every letter intact. Case does not matter, so "elbereth" works as well as "Elbereth".
Elbereth does not stop missiles or spells. A monster that is fleeing from your Elbereth cannot use its ranged attacks while it is next to you, and is much less likely to use them from farther away.
Elbereth does not work in Gehennom or anywhere in the Endgame, which means the Elemental Planes and the Astral Plane.
Monsters That Ignore Elbereth
- Unique monsters, including the major bosses, the unique demons and the Wizard of Yendor
- Lawful minions and Angels
- The Riders: Death, Famine and Pestilence
- Shopkeepers, inside or outside their shop and even when polymorphed
- Vault guards, even when polymorphed
- Aligned priests inside their own temple, smiths inside their own smithy, and NPCs inside their own rooms
- Blind monsters
- Peaceful monsters
- Humans and elves, the
@monsters - Minotaurs, Baphomet and Yacc
The Hypocrite Penalty
Attacking a monster while you stand on Elbereth gets you the message "You feel like a hypocrite." You lose 5 points of alignment record, or 1 to 5 points if your record is 5 or lower, and the engraving fades at once ("The engraving beneath you fades."). It fades even if it was burned into the floor with a wand.
The penalty applies only when the monster you attack is one that Elbereth scares, or a peaceful one. Attacking an immune monster, such as a Minotaur or a unique boss, from the square does not trigger it. Every kind of attack counts:
- Melee attacks with a weapon or bare hands.
- Throwing items or firing arrows and bolts from a launcher. A hit always counts; a miss counts 33% of the time.
- Zapping offensive wands or casting spells at the monster.
- Kicking the monster, or hurting it with an explosion or another area effect.
Conduct and Achievement
Engraving Elbereth even once breaks the Elberethless conduct. Staying Elberethless for the whole game is recorded at the end of the game and adds 10 points to the base conduct score on ascension. Your first Elbereth of a game also unlocks the Engrave Elbereth achievement and is noted in the live log.
✨ Gilthoniel
Outside Gehennom, hostile monsters and pets cannot pick up items or eat food on a square engraved with Gilthoniel. Shopkeepers, vault guards and the Wizard of Yendor ignore it and loot the square freely.
When an Armory is generated, a chest or large box in it gets Gilthoniel written underneath, or Morgoth if the armory is in Gehennom.
😈 Morgoth
Morgoth works like Gilthoniel, but only inside Gehennom. Hostile monsters and pets cannot pick up items or eat food on its square, while shopkeepers, vault guards and the Wizard of Yendor can.
🎨 Visual Effects
In the graphical versions of GnollHack (Android, iOS, macOS, Linux and the modern Windows version), a runeword that works in the current branch pulses with a magical shine on the map. Outside Gehennom, Elbereth and Gilthoniel pulse and Morgoth does not. Inside Gehennom, only Morgoth pulses.
The glow checks only the branch and the exact spelling, so it can mislead in two cases: an Elbereth in the Endgame pulses although it does not work there, and "elbereth" written in lowercase works without pulsing.