# Sphere

e flaming sphere 

Difficulty

8

Attacks

Explode 4d6 fire

e flaming sphere 

Difficulty

8

Attacks

Explode 4d6 fire

Base level

6

Base experience

91

Speed

13

Base AC

4

Base MR

0

Alignment

0 (neutral)

Frequency (by normal means)

2 (Quite rare)

Genocidable

Yes

Weight

10

Nutritional value

10

Size

Small

Resistances

fire

Resistances conveyed

None

A flaming sphere:

 can fly.

 does not breathe.

 has no limbs.
 has no head.
 is mindless.

 does not eat. (*)
 is neither male nor female.
 is normally generated hostile.

 can be seen through infravision.

 never leaves a corpse.

 gives out light.

Reference

monst.c#line318

e freezing sphere 

Difficulty

8

Attacks

Explode 4d6 cold

e freezing sphere 

Difficulty

8

Attacks

Explode 4d6 cold

Base level

6

Base experience

91

Speed

13

Base AC

4

Base MR

0

Alignment

0 (neutral)

Frequency (by normal means)

2 (Quite rare)

Genocidable

Yes

Weight

10

Nutritional value

10

Size

Small

Resistances

cold

Resistances conveyed

None

A freezing sphere:

 can fly.

 does not breathe.

 has no limbs.
 has no head.
 is mindless.

 does not eat. (*)
 is neither male nor female.
 is normally generated hostile.

 can be seen through infravision.
 does not appear in Gehennom.

 never leaves a corpse.

Reference

monst.c#line310

e shocking sphere 

Difficulty

8

Attacks

Explode 4d6 shock

e shocking sphere 

Difficulty

8

Attacks

Explode 4d6 shock

Base level

6

Base experience

91

Speed

13

Base AC

4

Base MR

0

Alignment

0 (neutral)

Frequency (by normal means)

2 (Quite rare)

Genocidable

Yes

Weight

10

Nutritional value

10

Size

Small

Resistances

shock

Resistances conveyed

None

A shocking sphere:

 can fly.

 does not breathe.

 has no limbs.
 has no head.
 is mindless.

 does not eat. (*)
 is neither male nor female.
 is normally generated hostile.

 can be seen through infravision.

 never leaves a corpse.

 gives out light.

Reference

monst.c#line325

Spheres, e, are a class of monster in NetHack. This class is made up of monsters that act like "living mines", with the ability to self-destruct and cause damage.
Monsters in this class:

e&nbsp;flaming sphere
e&nbsp;freezing sphere
e&nbsp;shocking sphere
e&nbsp;gas spore
e&nbsp;Floating eyes are represented by the same character as spheres, but their behavior is significantly different. Floating eyes do not self-destruct.
y&nbsp;Black lights and y&nbsp;yellow lights are not spheres, but they self-destruct in a similar manner.

Contents

1 Characteristics
2 Body parts
3 History
4 SLASH'EM
5 Encyclopedia entry
6 References

Characteristics
Dextrous players can sometimes dodge the explosions partially or completely, while players with the correct resistance might not be harmed by the blast.
Flaming, freezing, and shocking spheres will actively seek you out and explode when next to you.  If you manage to kill them before they can do this, they will not explode and items in your inventory are not damaged.  The explosion does not affect other nearby creatures.  
Gas spores (e) are different in that they will never attack you and explode only if killed. However, gas spores explosions cover 3-by-3 square, thus even if a character survives the blast, other monsters might be killed.

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

Spheres now create actual explosions with their attacks. These affect a 3×3 area around their target, and can hit other monsters. Notably, they can now also destroy carried and dropped items within the blast. Previous to this commit, resistances would not protect inventory items with one exception: a ring of shock resistance would protect itself, but nothing else. (From observation, this increased the likelihood of players genociding at least shocking spheres, likely mainly due to the item damage threat.) Now, resistances from worn or wielded items have a 99% chance of protecting your inventory, and thanks to this commit wearing non-metallic gloves will protect worn rings. If you polymorph into a sphere and explode, the explosion will not affect your own inventory.
Body parts
Sphere also refers to the grouping of body parts for the forms of bulbous entities. It affects the messages referring to the appropriate body parts as follows:[1]

Bodypart[2]
Description

Arm
Appendage

Eye
Optic nerve (cornea for floating eyes)

Face
Body

Finger
Tentacle

Fingertip
Tentacle tip

Foot
Lower appendage

Hand
Tentacle

Handed
Tentacled

Head
Body

Leg
Lower tentacle

Light Headed
Rotational

Neck
Equator

Spine
Body

Toe
Lower tentacle tip

Hair
Cilia

Blood
Life force

Lung
Retina

Nose
Olfactory nerve

Stomach
Interior

From these descriptions, spheres are almost perfectly round (references to geometric properties of spheres) but have long tentacles as "limbs", small cilia as hair and rather than internal organs, they refer to retina and nerves alone. Strange creatures indeed.

History
NetHack 3.4.3 was subject to bug C343-138 which allowed some spheres to pick up objects, but prevented others from doing so.

SLASH'EM
In SLASH'EM, tame flame and freezing spheres can be summoned by spells of flame sphere and freeze sphere respectively.  A monster attacked by one of your spheres is treated as if you had attacked it directly: peaceful monsters are angered, XP is awarded to you for a kill, etc. They are, of course, useless if the opposing monsters resist fire or cold. Too much use can also cause swift extinction of the species.

Encyclopedia entry

The attack by those who want to die -- this is the attack against which you cannot prepare a perfect defense.
&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;--Human aphorism

[ The Dosadi Experiment, by Frank Herbert ] 

References

↑ polyself.c in NetHack 3.4.3, line 1177

↑ hack.h in NetHack 3.4.3, line 226

This page may need to be updated for the current version of NetHack.
It may contain text specific to NetHack 3.6.0. Information on this page may be out of date.
Editors: After reviewing this page and making necessary edits, please change the {{nethack-360}} tag to the current version's tag or {{noversion}} as appropriate.