Butterfly

Version 0.16: This article may not be up to date for the latest stable release of Crawl.

butterfly b
HP	1
HD	1
XP	0
Speed	25
AC	0
EV	25
Will	10
Resistances	rDrown
Vulnerabilities	Poison
Habitat	Land
Intelligence	Insect
Uses	Uses nothing
Holiness	Natural
Size	Tiny
Type	butterfly, butterfly
Flags	Confused Flying No experience gain

A large, brightly coloured butterfly with beautifully patterned wings, fluttering incongruously through the darkness of the cave. “Happiness is a butterfly, which when pursued, is always just beyond your grasp, but which, if you will sit down quietly, may alight upon you.” -Nathaniel Hawthorne

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

Useful Info

Butterflies are harmless flying monsters that are fragile but difficult to hit. They most often appear when using the Summon Butterflies spell or sometimes after reading a scroll of random uselessness as friendly creatures, but "hostile" butterflies can be encountered throughout the Dungeon, as well as in the Shoals. They offer no XP or corpse upon death.

Tips & Tricks

• Polymorphing a butterfly can turn it into something worth XP, but so little that it's probably not worth the effort.
• Killing a butterfly clears the line of sight, if you don't want them obstructing your ranged attacks in the area. Of course, if there's a hostile in the area, this is sometimes a reason to keep them around.
• If you absolutely need one dead fast, Magic Dart or a wand of magic darts will overcome its EV without fail.
• Some gods accept butterfly kills for the purposes of raising piety. While Okawaru sees no glory in swatting bugs, Kikubaaqudgha is more than happy to see them die.

History

They used to leave corpses and even skeletons, which could be raised as undead. This created amusing zombies that were incredibly fast but lacked any means of attack.