# Talk:Vortex
fire vortex put out my magic lamp...— Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.19.155.125 (talk • contribs) 

Yes, but not permanently. HIBT?--Ray Chason 16:35, 1 January 2008 (UTC)
Contents

1 a lack of patience spoils testing of a great idea
2 Fire Vortex Pet
3 Vortex reincarnation
4 Death rays
5 shock/cold/fire damages to your inventory

a lack of patience spoils testing of a great idea
given the multitude of non-air elemental vortices on the plane of air, with the right resistance, being engulfed and allowing the steam vortex to transport you harmlessly across the level would seem a brilliant idea. i got bored after about a hundred turns, though, since the damn thing didn't move at all. should i have been more patient? --194.116.198.179 11:49, 14 September 2011 (UTC)
Engulfers don't move unless you are generating conflict. And when conflicted they move randomly, so you'd have no way to edge it towards the portal. It is, however, useful to jump inside a harmless engulfer to give yourself a chance to heal after fighting some of the air elementals. -- Qazmlpok 14:37, 14 September 2011 (UTC)
You can make also a tame engulfer swallow you under conflict, then remove the ring and toot a magic whistle. --Tjr 15:11, 14 September 2011 (UTC)
Fire Vortex Pet
I polymorphed my pet into a fire vortex, why do corpses still taste bad, they are cooked!

Vortex reincarnation
I noticed something odd with steam vortices. My character was standing on one side of a door in Vlad's tower, with a vampire on the other side. The vampire turned into a vortex and flowed under the door, promptly died, and returned to its room as a vampire lord. It died as a vortex a few more times before eventually turning up on one of the squares next to my character. There are quite a few vampires and vampire lords generated in the tower, so I got quite a few more opportunities to see the same thing.
From what I can tell of enexto(), the vampire lord would have been more likely to appear next to me than behind the door, so I don't know why they didn't come out more quickly.
It is quite funny to see, anyway. Hoanwan (talk) 20:32, 15 November 2016 (UTC)

Death rays
In mondata.h, all vortices are classified as "nonliving", which should make them immune to death rays. Might be useful information for players who try to escape from an early-game vortex by zapping it with a wand of death. --Bluescreenofdeath (talk) 06:21, 2 May 2017 (UTC)

shock/cold/fire damages to your inventory
Thanks to several messages written in a webchat by aosdict (TNNT 2018 - hardfought.org), I have learnt that since v. 3.6.1 when a monster with an engulfing attack expel you, it has to wait between 0 and 2 turns before being able to engulf you again. During this time its engulfing attack will be replaced by a (weaker) "touch" attack that deals the same kind of elemental damage as before, but with the difference that "touch" attacks could also affect your inventory.
So in the worst case scenario, for up to 2 turns after having been engulfed and expelled by a energy/ice/fire/steam vortex, items in your inventory can be subjected to shock/cold/fire/fire damages respectively.
This means that a energy vortex could destroy wand and rings, an ice vortex potions, etc...
Source (thanks to aosdict): https://github.com/nethack/nethack/commit/bc8e6137192865e18687f0e2e580d0881e2197ab
HalNovek (talk) 14:15, 15 November 2018 (UTC)

Yes. Since this is a rule which applies to all engulfers, I'm not sure what the best way of describing it is on the wiki. Probably, we should update the Engulfer page to note the general case of the rule, and update each individual engulfer's page to make note of the fact that they can touch/claw you now. --Phol ende wodan (talk) 14:25, 15 November 2018 (UTC)