# Ghost

&nbsp; ghost 

Difficulty

12

Attacks

Touch 1d1

&nbsp; ghost 

Difficulty

12

Attacks

Touch 1d1

Base level

10

Base experience

238

Speed

3

Base AC

−5

Base MR

50

Alignment

−5 (chaotic)

Frequency (by normal means)

0 (Not randomly generated)

Genocidable

No

Weight

1450

Nutritional value

0

Size

Medium

Resistances

Cold, Disintegration, Sleep, Poison, Stoning

Resistances conveyed

None

A ghost:

 can fly.

 can phase through walls.

 does not breathe.

 has a head, a couple of arms, and a torso.

 does not have a solid form.

 does not eat. (*)
 is not a valid polymorphable form.
 is undead.

 is normally generated hostile.

 can follow you to other levels.

 has infravision.

 never leaves a corpse.

Reference

monst.c#line2515

A ghost, &nbsp;, is a type of monster in that appears in NetHack. It is one of two members of the ghost monster class, along with the shade.
Ghosts are undead, incorporeal humanoid beings that are capable of flight and phasing through walls, and will follow you to other levels if nearby. A ghost resists cold, sleep, poison, stoning, and disintegration; as undead, they also have drain resistance and death resistance.
A ghost's default glyph makes them difficult to see and locate properly, e.g. via telepathy - some players use the SYMBOLS option to give ghosts and shades a different appearance, such as X or 8.

Contents

1 Generation

1.1 Bones
1.2 Ghost names

2 Strategy

2.1 Turning

3 History
4 Origin
5 Messages
6 Variants

6.1 SLASH'EM
6.2 dNetHack
6.3 xNetHack
6.4 SpliceHack
6.5 EvilHack
6.6 SlashTHEM

7 Encyclopedia entry
8 References

Generation
Ghosts are not randomly generated, but appear in graveyards, including the Valley of the Dead's three large graveyards and the graveyard in Orcus Town. A ghost is also generated at level creation on the Rogue level, in Asmodeus' Lair, and in Baalzebub's Lair. 
In addition, a ghost will occasionally generate when you step into a haunted temple, and quaffing a milky potion may also cause a ghost to appear. Both instances will cause you to be paralyzed by fear for 3 turns, which is not blocked by free action.
Ghosts are not a valid target for genocide cannot go extinct, and naturally do not leave a corpse when killed. They are also not a valid form for polymorph.

The following information pertains to an upcoming version (3.7.0). If this version is now released, please verify that it is still accurate, then update the page to incorporate this information.

One of the themed rooms contains the ghost of an adventurer, which may be generated atop a fake bones pile of one or more items.
Bones
Main article: Bones
Ghosts often appear in bones levels, which are copies of levels where previous players died. Most standard causes of death for a player character will leave a ghost behind - see the article on bones files for more information and exceptions.
Player ghosts in bones files are generated asleep on top of their original inventories, and has the same name and experience level of that character; their pet(s) may be nearby, and depending on the circumstances may also be hostile. Any objects that were carried in the deceased player's main inventory have a 4⁄5 chance of becoming cursed, even if they were originally blessed. Other objects on the level and the contents of containers in the player's inventory maintain their beatitude.

Ghost names
Ghosts in bones files are named after the dead adventurer they represent. The ghost generated on the Rogue level is named Michael Toy, Kenneth Arnold, or Glenn Wichman. Ghosts created on other special levels have a 1⁄7 chance of being given the name of your character, or else of another character from the score list. Otherwise, they are given a random name from the following list:[1][2]

Adri
Andries
Andreas
Bert
David
Dirk
Emile
Frans
Fred
Greg
Hether

Jay
John
Jon
Karnov
Kay
Kenny
Kevin
Maud
Michiel
Mike
Peter

Robert
Ron
Tom
Wilmar
Nick Danger
Phoenix
Jiro
Mizue
Stephan
Lance Braccus
Shadowhawk

Strategy
Ghosts are very slow and do very little damage, but they possess a very low AC, and will likely evade most attacks unless you have a decently enchanted weapon. Their MR score of 50 also makes using certain kinds of magic against them somewhat difficult. If you meet one in the early game and cannot reliably dispatch them via regular attacks, using ray-type wands and spells can do the job - if all else fails, kicking the ghost will eventually bring them down.
In most scenarios involving a bones pile, the player ghost can usually be led away with little trouble, especially if you plan to use certain wands such as a wand of fire to destroy the ghost. Be sure not to forget about their original killer or their pets, or you may well become a ghost yourself.

Turning
Ghosts are affected by the turn undead spell and extended command like other undead. However, if you successfully revive the corpse of a dead player character while their ghost is on or next to its square, the ghost will be pulled into the corpse on the item pile, leaving behind a confused monster. This also works if the corpse is not of a standard playable race, provided the target was killed while polymorphed into that form (e.g., wearing an amulet of unchanging). If the ghost is tame, then the resulting monster will be tame, and is otherwise generated peaceful or hostile as normal based on your alignment and race.

History
The ghost has been present in the game since hack121, a variant of Jay Fenlason's Hack; in hack121, ghosts used the apostrophe glyph ', while in PDP-11 Hack they were somehow coded to use a tab-key character.

Origin

Wikipedia has an article about:
Ghost

A ghost is the soul or spirit of a dead person or animal that is believed to be able to appear to the living. Descriptions of ghosts vary widely, from an invisible presence to translucent or barely visible wispy shapes to realistic, lifelike forms. The belief in the existence of an afterlife, as well as manifestations of the spirits of the dead, is widespread, dating back to animism or ancestor worship in pre-literate cultures. Certain religious practices—funeral rites, exorcisms, and some practices of spiritualism and ritual magic—are specifically designed to rest the spirits of the dead.
Ghosts are generally described as solitary, human-like essences, though stories of ghostly armies and the ghosts of animals other than humans have also been recounted. They are believed to haunt particular locations, objects, or people they were associated with in life, either to communicate with the living or to seek vengeance for past wrongs.

Messages

<name>'s ghost is suddenly drawn into its former body!
A wand or spell of turn undead revived the corpse of a dead player character by reuniting the ghost with its former body.
Variants
In variants that include the Convict role, 1-3 ghosts are generated at level creation for each of the upper filler levels in the Convict quest. In variants that include the Pirate role, several appear on the Pirate quest upon the creation of certain levels: three on the home level, one in each upper filler level, four in the locate level, and three in each lower filler level.

SLASH'EM
In SLASH'EM, the Lawful Quest has two spots within the Boulder Path section where a ghost can be generated on level creation, with a 3⁄5 chance for each square. Another ghost appears in the prisons of Grund's Stronghold.

dNetHack
In dNetHack, ghosts use . as a glyph, making them slightly more visible normally and easier to spot via telepathy.
Ghosts may appear in the audience of a throne room ruled by a vampire lord.

xNetHack
In xNetHack, ghosts are now part of the ​W wraith monster class. Their base level is reduced to 4, their speed is increased to 5, their AC is increased to 5, and their magic resistance score is increased to 80. 1⁄3 of ghosts will generate invisible. Similar to shades, ghosts can only be hit by magic, blessed weapons, artifact weapons, or objects made of silver or bone; unlike shades, ghosts are not silver-haters.
Hostile ghosts will turn invisible every so often and try to frighten the player by reappearing next to them. When this happens, the player is paralyzed for three turns. This is not prevented by free action, but fails if the player is able to see invisible or otherwise sense the invisible ghost.

SpliceHack
In SpliceHack, ghosts can grow up into spectres.

EvilHack
In EvilHack, ghosts behave as they do in xNetHack, though their glyph is not changed.

SlashTHEM
In SlashTHEM, in addition to SLASH'EM details, ghosts now use 8 as their glyph.

Encyclopedia entry

And now the souls of the dead who had gone below came swarming up from Erebus -- fresh brides, unmarried youths, old men with life's long suffering behind them, tender young girls still nursing this first anguish in their hearts, and a great throng of warriors killed in battle, their spear-wounds gaping yet and all their armor stained with blood.  From this multitude of souls, as they fluttered to and fro by the trench, there came a moaning that was horrible to hear. Panic drained the blood from my cheeks.

[ The Odyssey, (chapter Lambda), by Homer ] 

References

↑ rndghostname in do_name.c

↑ src/do_name.c in NetHack 3.6.7, line 1603

</name>