Chaos butterfly

Obsolete: This article refers to an aspect of the game which has been removed. It is retained for historical reference only.

chaos butterfly b
HP	33-66
HD	9
XP	841
Speed	25
AC	0
EV	25
Will	36
Attack1	25 (bite: chaos)
Resistances	rWind
Vulnerabilities	Poison, Silver
Habitat	Land
Intelligence	Insect
Uses	Uses nothing
Holiness	Natural
Size	Tiny
Type	butterfly, chaos butterfly
Flags	Batty Flying No skeleton No poly Silence immune

A particularly large, garishly coloured butterfly, seemingly shimmering amidst the torrential storm clouds that follow it wherever it goes.

For a list of all arthropods, see list of arthropods.

Useful Info

Chaos butterflies are chaotic insects which are significantly more dangerous than the common Dungeon butterflies found elsewhere. Wherever they go, they generate rain clouds and (more importantly) twisters which create a Tornado aura around them. They can be found in the Abyss.

Tips & Tricks

• Fighting one is rather like fighting an extremely dangerous bat; use the same sort of strategy you've developed early in the dungeon.
• Staying airborne will keep you above the shallow and deep water that will be generated by their rain clouds.
• Their storm will eradicate other enemies just as readily as it trounces you. Consider it a freebie.
• Melee-focused characters that try to charge them will eventually find themselves deposited next to the source of the storm, or they can simply walk out by continually trying to walk away. With high enough AC, this isn't too painful a process, but flimsier characters should try to kill the butterfly from a distance if possible.
• While chaos butterflies are difficult to hit even without the twisters constantly blowing you around, they're fairly fragile. Unavoidable attacks like Fireball help, though the various cloud spells can be tricky to land if there are twisters around (as their effects will blow the clouds around).
  • They're vulnerable to poison, so if you really don't have anything better, a few shots of Olgreb's Toxic Radiance will start killing them slowly.
  • Unfortunately, chaos butterflies are immune to Airstrike, one of the best counters for zippy flying monsters.

Trivia

Chaos butterflies are a reference to the Butterfly effect, a popular summarization of chaos theory which states that a small change in the world (such as the flapping of a butterfly's wings) could eventually result in drastic events down the line (such as a raging storm). The Butterfly effect is sped up dramatically in Crawl for obvious reasons.

History

Chaos butterflies were briefly added in 0.12, but they were disabled soon after due to flooding issues.