Skeletal sommelier

Skeletal sommelier
Monster ID	714
Locations	The Haunted Wine Cellar
Hit Points	162
Attack	168
Defense	142
No-Hit	178
Initiative	65
Meat	80-120
Phylum	undead
Elements	spooky
Resistance	None
Monster Parts	arm, head, leg, torso
Drops dusty bottle of Marsala, dusty bottle of Merlot, dusty bottle of Muscat, dusty bottle of Pinot Noir, dusty bottle of Port, dusty bottle of Zinfandel, sommelier's towel, tarnished tastevin
Bounty	disintegrating cork
Accordion	ghost accordion
Manuel Entry
refreshedit data

 You're fighting a skeletal sommelier

These are the reanimated skeletal remains of one of Lord Spookyraven's wine stewards. Historians disagree on why he had so many wine stewards, and theorize that perhaps they were simply additional mistresses disguised as wine stewards.

At this point, though, any academic curiosity you might have is overshadowed by your desire not to get hit over the head with a wine bottle. You spring into action.

Hit Message(s):

He cuts you open with a broken wine bottle, then pours wine into the wound. The blood flows like wine, and the wine flows like blood, and both of those things hurt. A lot. Argh! Argh! Ouch! Ouch! Argh! Argh!

He throws a wine bottle at you. The red, red wine goes to your head, literally. Eek! Ooh! Ooh! Ow! Ouch! Oof!

Critical Hit Message:

He stabs a corkscrew into your eye, carefully pops out the eyeball, and offers it to you to sniff. Ugh! Argh! Argh! Eek! Ugh!

Miss Message(s):

He lunges at you with a broken wine bottle, but you point out that it's not a suitable vintage for hand-to-hand combat and he gets embarrassed.

He throws a wine bottle at you, but you duck out of the way, shouting "Would you like some cheese with your wine, that you just missed me with?"

Fumble Message:

He attempts to stab you with a corkscrew, but you object to all this screwing around. (FUMBLE!)

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After Combat

You gain 80-120 Meat (average: 100, stdev: 8.56)*

You acquire an item: dusty bottle of Marsala (15% chance)*

You acquire an item: dusty bottle of Merlot (15% chance)*

You acquire an item: dusty bottle of Muscat (15% chance)*

You acquire an item: dusty bottle of Pinot Noir (15% chance)*

You acquire an item: dusty bottle of Port (15% chance)*

You acquire an item: dusty bottle of Zinfandel (15% chance)*

You acquire an item: sommelier's towel (5% chance)*

You acquire an item: tarnished tastevin (5% chance)*

• If you are on the appropriate bounty hunt:

You acquire a bounty item: disintegrating cork

(X of 20 found)

You gain 42 <substat>.

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Occurs at The Haunted Wine Cellar.

Notes

• Only one dusty bottle can drop. The mechanic seems to be a 15% rate for a dusty bottle to drop, and a 1d6 for which bottle drops.
• Despite the running joke in the Kingdom of various lines of text forcibly refusing to end in a preposition (to the point of immediately rephrasing them), one of the miss messages does just that (namely, "Would you like some cheese with your wine, that you just missed me with?"). Though of course since this is a sentence shouted by a character in combat, perhaps it can be excused.
• If you are an Accordion Thief and haven't stolen an accordion from this monster today, this text is added to the introduction:

  Inside the skeleton's rib cage, you see what appears to be a set of ghostly lungs. Since this doesn't make any sense, you take a closer look, and realize that there's an accordion in there!

• If you then cast Steal Accordion:

  You pat the skeleton on the back, knocking the ghostly accordion through his sternum and into your sack. Deft!

  You acquire an item: ghost accordion

History

• Prior to the Pastamancer Revamp on November 14, 2013, it could drop wine-soaked bone chips when fought as a Pastamancer, with a 5% drop chance.
• With the Spookyraven Manor revamp on May 14, 2014, this monster received some changes:

  Occurs at The Haunted Wine Cellar instead of the Wine Racks.

  Did not drop sommelier's towel or tarnished tastevin before the revamp.

  Does not drop any of the dusty bottles of wine anymore (was 20% drop chance).

  - On May 28, the dusty bottles began dropping again, at a lower rate.

References

• The miss message about cheese refers to the classic insult, "Would you like some cheese to go with that *whine*?"
• One of the hit messages refers to the song "Red Red Wine".
• The miss message about a suitable vintage for hand-to-hand combat is a reference to Monty Python's "Australian Table Wines" sketch. The part about him becoming embarrassed might be a further reference to another Monty Python sketch, "Are You Embarrassed Easily?"
• The hit message about blood flowing like wine is a reference to a scene in Charles Dickens's A Tale of Two Cities, wherein wine is spilled across the street.