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> 1) What determines is a ghost is created from your character?  Is it
>    an unusually violent death?

Nope.  If you're killed, or starve to death or choke, a ghost is always
created.  The seeming randomness occurs later when you (or someone else)
starts another game.  Whenever they go down a level, there's a one in
three chance that the level they end up on has a ghost (assume that someone
died on that level previously).  There are a other modifiers, like no
ghosts are saved on the earlier levels and things like that.

> 
> 2) What determines if a rabid dog from a previous character stays
>    in the game?  Do all abandoned dogs stick around?
> 

Dogs are saved with their ghosts (assuming the deceased had a dog).

				robert
-- 
Robert Viduya
    Office of Computing Services
    Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta GA 30332
    Phone:  (404) 894-4669

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In article <63@gitpyr.UUCP> robert@gitpyr.UUCP (Robert Viduya) writes:
>  If you're killed, or starve to death or choke, a ghost is always
>created.  The seeming randomness occurs later when you (or someone else)
>starts another game.  Whenever they go down a level, there's a one in
>three chance that the level they end up on has a ghost (assume that someone
>died on that level previously).  There are a other modifiers, like no
>ghosts are saved on the earlier levels and things like that.

Wrong.  All ghosts are saved in files of the form /usr/games/bin/tmp/bones*.
I have a macro called 'ghosts' which lists them.  The creator is the player
that was playing the character turned into a ghost.

I have experimented a lot with ghost creation, and I know for sure that most
games to not create a ghost.  It also does not have any correlation (that I
can see) to you hearing the 'Wail of the Banshee' or Carol-Ann either (:-)).
I suspect that it is probabilistic, as is whether you get a level with the
ghost or not.  You can have a ghost on any level starting with 2, though the
earlier ghosts tend to get cleaned out more often.

You can have more than one ghost on a level (I have had up to three).  This
is caused by someone dying on a level that they are sharing with a ghost.

It is good to play a variety of characters, so you will have a variety of
items you can get from ghosts.  The best character is a caveman with a 
wizards elven cloak, a knights armor, and a tourists camera.  (Though beware,
items a ghost has are typically cursed.)

Note that the state of the entire level is saved with a ghost.  If you go down
a level and see unusual monster activity right away, chances are you are on
a ghost level.  The best way to take ghosts out are either the tourists
camera (I had two ghosts blinded once, as I calmly plundered their hordes)
or wands (polymorph is especially good, striking is virtually useless).

					Alien