Orb of fire

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orb of fire *
HP	150
HD	30
XP	11437
Speed	15
AC	20
EV	20
Will	Immune
Resistances	damnation, rElec, rC+, rPois+, rN+, rTorm, rRot, rConstr
Vulnerabilities	Silver
Habitat	land
Intelligence	Normal
Uses	Uses nothing
Holiness	Non-living
Size	Little
Type	orb of fire, orb of fire
Flags	Spellcaster Flying See invisible Insubstantial Glows

A globe of raw primordial fire, capable of impressive pyrotechnics, and of twisting the very flesh of creatures who come into its ken. "There's not the smallest orb which thou behold'st But in his motion like an angel sings, Still quiring to the young-eyed cherubins." -William Shakespeare, _The Merchant of Venice_, V, i. 1597.

Useful Info

Orbs of fire are fast, powerful, extremely durable horrors with access to brutal Fire Magic and the ability to inflict bad mutations. These end-game game-ending monsters have traumatized many adventurers who died just before reaching the Orb of Zot. They can occasionally be found in the Realm of Zot, and are almost always found in the Orb chamber of Zot:5.

Spells: Bolt of Fire (3d40), Fireball (3d43), Polymorph Other

Tips & Tricks

• Silence has no effect on them.
• Having rF+++ provides 80% fire damage reduction, making it much easier to survive their brutal Fire Magic. Wearing an amulet of resist mutation will prevent them from mutating you too heavily.
• Battling one while hasted will significantly reduce the amount of time it has to roast or mutate you. Characters without proper defenses will definitely want to kill them as quickly as possible.
• All orb of fire resistances are total except for cold, which is only partial. Ice Storm is an excellent method for taking out orbs of fire; it can strike multiple enemies at once, never misses, and the majority of the spell's damage will still get through. Fire Storm can also deal decent damage to them due to the unresistable damage portion, but it's less effective. Unresistable Conjurations such as Orb of Destruction, Iron Shot, or Lehudib's Crystal Spear are also good options: they're significantly easier to gain access to and can be fired safely at point-blank range, but they may take longer to get the job done if you miss a shot or two.
• Don't fight more than one at a time. This is a major reason to avoid spending any significant periods of time in the open areas adjacent to the Orb chamber on Zot:5. Unless you manage to catch them at the edge of your LOS, they tend to swarm you despite their lack of a melee attack, making it difficult or impossible to use most area-of-effect spells (e.g. the Storm spells).
• Melee fighters should use heavy antimagic-branded weapons to severely limit the orb's ability to do anything. This won't guarantee enemy spell failure, but it will still stop the majority of them. Freezing and vorpal weapons can also be effective against them, but provide no defensive benefits. While distortion weapons will do a good amount of extra damage, they also may blink or teleport the orb away from you, which depending on your current situation can be quite dangerous.
• Orbs of fire are chaotic, so ranged weapon fighters can use silver ammunition to deal tremendous damage to them.
• The "glowing" colors the orb cycles through indicate merely that it has cast a spell; it bears no relation to the type of spell cast or about to be cast:

The orb of fire glows yellow.

The orb of fire glows bright magenta.
The orb of fire glows deep purple.
The orb of fire glows red.

The orb of fire emits a lurid red light.

History

In very ancient, pre-Stone Soup versions of Crawl, these monsters were instead called "Swords", as can be seen in this ancient changelog, in a reference to the Chronicles of an Age of Darkness by Hugh Cook. This explains the rather nonsensical (from a thematic standpoint) inclusion of Polymorph Other in their spell set, since they were originally very different monsters.