Cognitogaunt

Version 0.34: This article is up to date for the latest stable release of Dungeon Crawl Stone Soup.

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

cognitogaunt n
HP	51-104
HD	14
XP	963
Speed	10
AC	6
EV	16
Will	80
Attack¹	28 (claw: confuse)
Attack²	22 (touch: pain)
Resistances	rC+ rPois+++ rDrown rMiasma rN+++ rTorm
Vulnerabilities	Holy
Habitat	Land
Intelligence	Human
Uses	Open doors
Holiness	Undead
Size	Small
Type	cognitogaunt, cognitogaunt
Flags	Evil Unbreathing No zombie See invisible Speaks

A wizened, headless corpse, animated not by conventional necromancy but by the mournful malice of dead stars. Its psychic eyes, floating disjointedly from its body's movements, relentlessly burrow through its victims' minds.

Useful Info

Cognitogaunts are psychic starborne ghouls found in the Crypt and the Abyss, mostly threatening for mages and undrinking characters both. They have an extremely high cast rate for Brain Bite, spending 38% of their actions dealing irresistable half-smites of damage and draining your mp heavily. In melee, their branded melee attacks both confuse and check rN- their pain-branded touch can deal up to 28 AC-ignoring damage to those without any negative energy resistance.

Spells

Tile	Name	Damage	Range	Flags
	Brain Bite	4-8*	LOS	Magical flag

Tips & Tricks

While they've got much less rapid capacity to drain magic compared to ghost moths, they're frequent enough that one can expect to randomly lose some MP fighting through the Crypt, leaving one with little magic to cast e.g. Dispel Undead. Ally spells and long-range high-level Conjurations can kill them fast enough to still preserve some mp.
Frailer characters or characters with high AC and low EV intending to melee them can wear at least one source of rN to avoid their additional AC-ignoring pain damage.

History

Cognitogaunts were added in 0.34.