Sky beast

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

sky beast Y
HP	18-37
HD	5
XP	130
Speed	10
AC	3
EV	13
Will	20
Attack1	5 (hit: electricity)
Resistances	rElec+++
Vulnerabilities	None
Habitat	Land
Intelligence	Animal
Uses	Uses nothing
Holiness	Natural
Size	Large
Type	sky beast, sky beast
Flags	Flying No skeleton

A strange aerial creature formed of clouds and tortured flesh that sparkles with electricity and, every so often, slips entirely from view. “Her own mother lived the latter years of her life in the horrible suspicion that electricity was dripping invisibly all over the house.” -James Thurber, _My Life and Hard Times_. 1934.

Useful Info

Sky beasts are unusual flying creatures that appear in the Dungeon, usually around D:6. They deal additional electric damage in melee, and occasionally turn invisible.

Sky beasts can turn invisible as an innate ability, taking no time in the process. Every turn, it has a 1/8 chance to switch between being invisible and visible. When doing this, it creates rain clouds around it. Rain clouds, in turn, create puddles of water for a short time.

Tips & Tricks

• Try not to fight a sky beast when it is invisible (unless you have see invisible). An enemy you can't see is much harder to hit. If a sky beast turns invisible and isn't adjacent to you, consider retreating - it'll flicker back into view eventually. You do not want to retreat when it is in melee range due to attacks of opportunity.
  • It's easy to guess a sky beast's location. As melee enemies, they'll rarely do anything more than move towards you or attack.

History

• Prior to 0.21, sky beasts had mutagenic meat.
• Prior to 0.12, sky beasts would flee once heavily injured. Coupled with their tendency to turn invisible, this made finishing them off very annoying.