Butterfly

Version 0.30: This article may not be up to date for the latest stable release of Crawl.

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

butterfly b
HP	1-2
HD	1
XP	0
Speed	25
AC	0
EV	20
Will	0
Resistances	None
Vulnerabilities	Poison
Habitat	Land
Intelligence	Brainless
Uses	Uses nothing
Holiness	Natural
Size	Tiny
Type	butterfly, butterfly
Flags	Flying Confused No experience gain Harmless

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

Useful Info

Butterflies are harmless flying monsters that are fragile but difficult to hit. They most often appear when using a scroll of butterflies, but "hostile" butterflies can be encountered throughout the Dungeon and the Lair. Butterflies wander around aimlessly, as if they were confused. They offer no XP upon death.

Tips & Tricks

• A scroll of butterflies can be used to block line of fire and distract melee attackers.
• Polymorphing a butterfly can turn it into something worth XP, but so little that it's probably not worth the wand charges.
• Killing a hostile 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 any EV-ignoring will kill it without fail.

History

• Prior to 0.25, the spell Summon Butterflies existed.
• Prior to 0.19, reading a scroll of random uselessness could summon butterflies.
• Prior to 0.15, evil gods accepted butterfly kills for the purposes of raising piety.

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.